(what-ch-ya talkin about here willis?) Seriously, what the fuck is she (and Paul Ryan) talking about now? I fall asleep for three hours… 12 hours ago
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On the (Kevin Pollack ) Chat Show today is Stephen merchant, the co-host of “The Ricky Gervais Show” and co-writer / co-director of “The… 19 hours ago
This week, PCCC co-founders Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor were in Montana. They personally informed Brian Schweitzer that thousands of people want him to run for U.S. Senate, and kicked off an on-the-ground effort to recruit others to the draft effort. The Missoula Independent’s Alex Sarkariassen wrote this great article covering this growing movement to D […]
With the resignation of the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a series of audits of conservative organizations, the agency is under intense public scrutiny. But this furor ignores little-noticed numbers released last month — they show that the IRS’s audits of wealthy taxpayers revealed massive tax-dodging by the richest Americans. In … […]
With the retirement of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Montanans have a chance to elect a real progressive — former. Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has spearheaded a “Draft Schweitzer” movement that held its first house party in Billings, Montana yesterday. The event was held at the home of Hans and Deborah Abbey, … [more […]
Stymied for most of the day, the Phillies came alive vs. Aroldis Chapman, as Erik Kratz and Freddy Galvis hit back-to-back homers for a 3-2, walk-off win over the Reds on Sunday at Citizens Bank Park.
ST. LOUIS – Today, the St. Louis Rams and Competitor Group, Inc. (CGI) announced an event for football fans to combine their love of running with their passion for the blue and gold at the 2013 Ram...
Winning the PLAY 60 Challenge was a great accomplishment for the students and staff of Ladue Middle School. Being named one of three Character Fitness Model Schools was another noteworthy success. ...
With a year to settle in and setup shop, Rams coach Jeff Fisher’s annual charity softball game will be bigger and better this year when it makes its return to GCS Ballpark on Sunday, June 9. The n...
A REPORT FROM WORLDS A running update throughout the World Championships where 10 Flyers are currently in competition UPDATED: MAY 16 The playoff portion of the tournament is underway. Below is a look at the schedule of play, some results an...
It’s time to attempt to eviscerate a long-standing misnomer about the Flyers. There is a belief out there that the Flyers are horrible at recognizing defensive talent in the draft. It’s easy to make that argument when looking at past drafts ...
With the eyes of the hockey world focused on the Stanley Cup Playoffs and even the World Championships in Sweden and Finland, another very important and historical tournament is set to begin. And it's one that Flyers fans might want to keep an...
A new era of Maryland baseball is upon us. The Terps joined forces with 522 Productions to produce a short film to showcase the new attitude. 522 spent three days on the field, in the weight room and behind the scenes with the goal of capturing key elements of the team's daily preparation for success. In conjunction with the release, the team will utili […]
As the regular season comes to a close this Saturday, this week's Maryland Men's Lacrosse Blog is taking care of some housekeeping with some odds and ends, including Senior Day, the upcoming NCAA Tournament, Terps in professional lacrosse, information on Maryland Men's Lacrosse Summer Camps, Tournaments and Clinics, and more. Let's take a […]
Last week, we played the in the ACC Championships in Cary, NC. We left a day before our first round. It was nice to go to North Carolina last week, because it was cold and rainy in College Park and much warmer in Cary. After we arrived at the Tennis Center in Cary, we practiced for a couple of hours and then went to the hotel. As usual, we had team dinner […]
A new era of Maryland baseball is upon us. The Terps joined forces with 522 Productions to produce a short film to showcase the new attitude. 522 spent three days on the field, in the weight room and behind the scenes with the goal of capturing key elements of the team's daily preparation for success. In conjunction with the release, the team will utili […]
As the regular season comes to a close this Saturday, this week's Maryland Men's Lacrosse Blog is taking care of some housekeeping with some odds and ends, including Senior Day, the upcoming NCAA Tournament, Terps in professional lacrosse, information on Maryland Men's Lacrosse Summer Camps, Tournaments and Clinics, and more. Let's take a […]
Last week, we played the in the ACC Championships in Cary, NC. We left a day before our first round. It was nice to go to North Carolina last week, because it was cold and rainy in College Park and much warmer in Cary. After we arrived at the Tennis Center in Cary, we practiced for a couple of hours and then went to the hotel. As usual, we had team dinner […]
ASPCA Happy Tail: Clever Canine
When Kelley first met Amber at the ASPCA, she was struck by the dog’s tentative curiosity. Now the two are fast friends. Meet the happy family and see photos of Amber lounging confidently in her new home.
Animal Fighting Measure Clears House Vote
Great news! Late Wednesday night, the House Agriculture Committee approved an amendment to the Farm Bill that would make attending an organized animal fight a federal offense. Find out where the bill goes next.
Shelter Animals Now Colorado’s Official State Pet
You know we love shelter pets. And Colorado does, too! This week, Colorado’s Governor named shelter dogs and cats as the state’s official pets. Tell us what you think your state pet should be.
Victory! TN Defeats Ag-Gag
Huge news out of Tennessee this week: Governor Haslam vetoed a dangerous ag-gag bill, a major victory for animal welfare and consumer safety. See how you can help stop similar legislation in your state.
ASPCA Pet of the Week: Gracie
Little lap dog Gracie is a perfect first dog, though she’d also enjoy living with another small pup. She’s easy to care for and easy to fall for—and she’d love to meet you today at the ASPCA in NYC.
NBC’s ‘Today Show’ Reveals Video Evidence of Cruel Wild Horse and Burro Roundups
Please Ask Secretary Jewell to Reform the BLM Program
NBC’s Today Show recently aired a segment titled “Wild But Not Free,” exposing the failure of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to effectively and humanely manage America’s wild horse and burro populations. In the coverage, music legend Carole King speaks out on behalf of wild horses, as does a former BLM employee who managed wild horses for 30 years. A rancher who uses public lands is also interviewed and questions the value of horses stockpiled in BLM holding pens, saying “Let ‘em go to slaughterhouses.”
Footage provided by IDA’s coalition partner, the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and other coalition members, captures the brutality of helicopter roundups conducted by the BLM. During these “gathers,” horses are stampeded and chased until they’re too exhausted to run, resulting in many horrific injuries and deaths. Family bands are heartlessly torn apart, never to see each other again.
These involved the agonizing fate of a female monkey who, apart from her multiple invasive brain surgeries in a Parkinson’s study, suffered further extreme distress due to painful complications from a piece of plastic acrylic left in her head for two years. Another monkey was subjected to multiple invasive brain surgeries and was deliberately deprived of food so that he would perform tasks while locked in a restraint chair. He lost 25 percent of his body weight. In another horrific incident, experimenters placed live newborn mice inside a freezer meant for dead animals.
UCSF’s animal abuse must not go ignored and they must be held accountable.
Join IDA in Working to Ban Gas Chambers Nationwide
Last Friday, Governor Rick Perry made history in Texas by signing SB 360, a law prohibiting the use of gas chambers to kill animal companions abandoned in shelters throughout the state. We thank our many supporters in Texas who responded to our alerts and made calls on behalf of animals in shelters as well as the dedicated support of other groups and individuals who worked together to make this critical victory possible for them.
IDA teamed up with animal advocates like you, other animal protection groups, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to convince Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to veto the state’s proposed “ag gag” bill. Ag Gag bills seek to criminalize individuals who document animal abuse in slaughterhouses and on factory farms. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are our constitutional rights as Americans. Without the evidence that undercover video provides, the worst abuses committed by the factory farming industry would go unseen and unpunished. Ag Gag bills are a clear attempt by animal agriculture interests to suppress exposure of severe animal abuse. If the animal agriculture industry is not responsible for any wrongdoings and has nothing to hide, it should not be concerned about undercover investigations. Thank you for speaking up and making a positive difference for animals!
With news that carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere have reached a dangerously unprecedented high of 400 parts per million, we’re stepping up our efforts to rein in coal mining in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana. Last month, we—along with partner groups—sent 135,000 petition signatures to new Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, calling on her to impose a moratorium on new coal leasing in the region. Many of these petitions came from you, our supporters and members, so thank you! The Powder River Basin is the largest coal-producing region in the U.S.; its strip mines fuel more than 200 power plants and increasingly coal giants, Peabody and Arch, are looking to export the region’s coal to Asia. The call for a moratorium echoed a letter sent by Guardians and 20 other national, regional, and local groups calling on Secretary Jewell to bring new leadership to the Interior Department by meaningfully combating climate change and keeping the coal in the ground.
Trappers, several hunting groups, the livestock industry, and now, 12 States’ Attorneys General (Arizona, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah)have intervened in WildEarth Guardians’ legal fight to restrict or prohibit trapping in the range of the highly-endangered Mexican wolf in New Mexico. Already these cruel, dangerous traps have harmed over a dozen Mexican gray wolves. Guardians filed an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court in December 2012 after we lost a lower court decision, and that’s when 12 Attorneys General stepped in on the wrong side—in support of trapping that kills and harms Mexican wolves.
Coal Mine Pollution Gets Pass from EPA, Draws Congressional Fire
Despite real threats to clean air and our climate, the Environmental Protection Agency rejected a petition that would have regulated air pollution from coal mines under the Clean Air Act. The petition, filed in 2010 by WildEarth Guardians and our partners, called on the EPA to limit methane and other dangerous pollution from mines. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. A 2011 inventory revealed coal mines release the equivalent of nearly 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, as much as eight coal-fired power plants. Much of this methane is released from underground coal mines, which vent millions of cubic feet daily, a common practice in Colorado and other western states. The rejection drew rebuke from Congressional leaders, who called on the EPA to reconsider its decision given its clear conflict with President Obama’s call for his Administration to combat climate change.
Wildlife agencies from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are denying climate change and the loss of deep, high country snows will adversely affect the wolverine and are fighting to deny the species protection under the Endangered Species Act. Not surprisingly it’s the same three states that currently permit hunting and trapping of wolves with alacrity. The recent comments against protecting the charismatic wolverine came at the same time that WildEarth Guardians joined a coalition led by the Western Environmental Law Center in submitting overwhelming evidence that called for strong protections—including robust recovery plans—for wolverines under the Act. Currently wolverines number less than 300 individuals in the lower 48.
Guardians’ work to protect the great predators of the oceans is bearing fruit. Two species of sharks that Guardians petitioned for Endangered Species Act listing, the scalloped hammerhead and the great hammerhead, are moving closer to protection under the Act. The trade of shark fins, which are highly coveted for shark fin soup, threatens these “wolves of the sea”. Four populations of scalloped hammerhead have been proposed for listing, and will hopefully gain a safer home and a better chance of survival. The great hammerhead, which is closely related, is being reviewed for listing as a result of petitions from Guardians and Natural Resources Defense Council. We are thrilled to see these majestic creatures swim closer to the protection they need.
photo credits: (left side from top) coal meme:USGS. Mexican wolf: Jim Schultz. Methane venting in Colorado: WildEarth Guardians. Wolverine: USFWS. Scalloped Hammerhead Shark: Wikimedia Commons. Activist spotlight Maria Arefieva at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center with Keyni: Maria Arefieva. Stream team: Jess Alford. Santa Fe office staff: Joni Bilderback. Guardians Gala 2012: Fern Seiden. LoveAnimals.org logo: LoveAnimals.org.
Five years ago this week, polar bears were protected under the Endangered Species Act. It was an epic victory following years of tenacious work by the Center for Biological Diversity. But our new analysis finds that polar bears continue to face a difficult future as global warming worsens, sea ice disappears, and the government apparatus meant to protect these magnificent bears shows itself largely indifferent to their fate.
Our new report On Thin Ice sets out five crucial steps needed to ensure polar bears have a future. These include upgrading the bears’ status from “threatened” to “endangered,” aggressively cutting greenhouse pollution, reducing short-lived pollutants like methane and black carbon, and protecting Arctic habitat from oil and gas drilling. Scientists predict that, without help, more than two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could be gone by 2050, including all polar bears in Alaska.
On Wednesday we launched a new lawsuit to get more protections for these great bears of the North.
Wolf Decision Would Halt National Recovery — Take Action
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is on the verge of stopping wolf recovery in its tracks. Any day now the agency is expected to strip Endangered Species Act protection from nearly all wolves in the lower 48 states — so we need your help to make sure this dangerous prospect doesn’t become a reality.
Wolves now occupy just 5 percent of their historic habitat in the continental United States. The Service’s plan to strip them of federal protection would mean these intelligent, highly social animals will never be allowed to return to many of their ancestral homelands, including places like the southern Rockies and the Northeast.
Last week the Center joined five other national environmental groups in calling on Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to reject the wolf-delisting proposal. Now we need you to add your voice to this call.
Take action today to call on President Obama to save wolves. You can count on us to keep you updated as this dangerous proposal moves forward.
Big thanks to the Center’s dedicated supporters in Florida, who can claim partial credit for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers‘ decision last week to deny a permit to a destructive dredging project in the Tampa Bay area that would have needlessly harmed 4 acres of wetlands and 29 acres of important seagrass habitat.
The Center and allies had generated 40,000 signatures opposed to the damaging SunWest development, and the Corps’ denial of the permit — which it said would be “contrary to the public interest” for a host of environmental, economic and safety reasons — will spare seagrass beds that provide nurseries for fish, shellfish and crustaceans and a bayou that supports endangered manatees and other unique Florida species.
“Thanks to the hard, honest work of dedicated scientists and government employees, Fillman’s Bayou will remain the prized gem of Pasco County, and dolphins and manatees will continue to thrive in its waters,” said the Center’s St. Petersburg-based attorney Jacki Lopez.
NRA Ignorant of Basic Facts About Lead Ammo’s Effects on Condors
In response to an unusual request from the National Rifle Association — for information on how lead ammunition poisons endangered California condors — I sent a letter Tuesday to gun group head honcho Wayne LaPierre. Although the NRA has lobbied aggressively for years to stop efforts to get toxic lead out of hunting ammunition, its letter to the Center betrayed zero knowledge of the actual effects of said lead on said wildlife.
The NRA’s letter seemed to reveal ignorance of the recent lead deaths, the source and mechanisms of lead poisoning of condors, the magnitude of the lead-poisoning threat, the status of reintroduced condor populations, and causes of mortality for reintroduced condors — all of which information is publicly available and published on the websites of agencies and organizations affiliated with the federal California Condor Recovery Program.
Instead of spending millions of dollars to game the political system, maybe it’s time for the NRA to invest in some scientific expertise on lead poisoning.
By the way, we’ll be facing off with the NRA in court in Washington, D.C., next week as part of our work to get the lead out of hunting ammo.
Looking for the very latest evidence that the Endangered Species Act works? Look no further than Logan County, Ark., wherein dwells a tiny snail called the Magazine Mountain shagreen. And yes, that’s its real name.
The snail, found only on the high rocky slopes of the eponymous mountain, was protected under the Act in 1989 because of threats from proposed military training activities and recreational development for a state park. Lifesaving steps were then taken to protect the mountain snail’s habitat and monitor its health. On Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the shagreen has recovered and is being removed from the endangered species list — the first invertebrate ever declared recovered under the Act. Earlier this year, the agency proposed to declare California’s island night lizard recovered.
Climate Study Predicts Staggering Habitat Loss by 2080
As carbon dioxide levels in the world’s atmosphere swiftly approach 400 parts per million, a new study in Nature Climate Change says that by 2080, global warming will make more than half of existing habitat for 6 out of 10 plants uninhabitable and do the same for about a third of animal species. But there’s still hope: Immediate, strong action to reduce emissions could cut these losses by 60 percent, the study says.
The 400 parts-per-million mark, which carbon levels will likely hit and surpass in the coming weeks, is a crystal-clear sign that greenhouse gas pollution from human sources continues on a steep upward trajectory. “Alarm bells are going off all around the world that our climate is moving in a very dangerous direction,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center. “Ignoring these signs isn’t just irresponsible, it’s immoral.”
More than 50 cities have now joined the Center’s Clean Air Cities campaign, urging President Obama and the EPA to address the climate crisis through the Clean Air Act’s science-based programs.
Celebrate Endangered Species Day — Share Our Free E-cards
Tomorrow is Endangered Species Day — and a special one, too, since it’s falling on a landmark year for the world’s strongest law to protect biodiversity. The Endangered Species Act richly deserves to be toasted on its 40th birthday: Over the past four decades, the Act has repeatedly demonstrated its effectiveness. It’s prevented extinction for 99 percent of the species under its care, and an estimated 227 species would likely have gone extinct without it; the Act is a wild success.
But that doesn’t mean it’s forever safe. Like the species it protects, it has to be shored up. Ever since the Act’s passage in 1973, industry-influenced politics have threatened its implementation and attempted to weaken its substance through a death of a thousand cuts. We continue to defend and strengthen this vital law, and Endangered Species Day is the perfect time to recharge our (solar) batteries for the fight.
To help you help us in that mission, we’ve made a batch of free Endangered Species Day e-cards for you to send everyone you know. Plus, we have a brand-new Wild Success website to help you celebrate and take action in honor of the Act’s 40th anniversary.
In response to a Center petition, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that Townsend’s big-eared bats — insect-eating and highly sensitive creatures — may warrant protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act. Whether the bat is actually protected is now up to the state’s Fish and Game Commission, expected to decide in June.
Townsend’s big-eared bats like to munch on moths and roost in caves, and have recently declined steeply. Although California hasn’t yet encountered white-nose syndrome — a disease moving westward across the country that’s killed nearly 7 million bats — the epidemic certainly poses a threat, along with habitat destruction and roost-site disturbance.
“These and other bats provide a valuable service for California farmers by eating millions of insects that would otherwise attack crops,” said our Endangered Species Director Noah Greenwald. “They need our care if they’re going to survive and keep providing this service.”
Between 30 billion and 1 trillion cicadas — well rested after a 17-year stint of underground sap-sucking — are poised to burrow to the surface and take over the East Coast this summer. They’ll be hungry, hormonal and looking for love, singing at earsplitting decibel levels to bring down a date.
According to conservative estimates, they’ll also outnumber the regional human population (50 million from North Carolina to Connecticut) by about 600 to 1. There are several “broods” of North American cicadas, but the current wave — “Brood II” — is a very, very big one. “There will be some places where it’s wall-to-wall cicadas,” said one entomologist — meaning a bugfest of Biblical proportions.
Track the emergence of Brood II with WNYC’s cicada tracker. Then visit our webpage where you can watch a BBC video on cicadas’ odd lifecycles and learn about recipes for these winged “shrimp of the land” from the University of Maryland’s cicadamaniacs (tip: The females are meatier).
Deal Will Safeguard Habitat for Loggerhead Sea Turtles — Take ActionEndangered loggerhead sea turtles just won an important new federal commitment to protect some of their most important habitat, thanks to a settlement between the Center for Biological Diversity, our allies and the U.S. government. Under the new agreement the feds must propose specific protections for the ancient animals’ feeding, breeding and migratory areas by July — in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In March, the government proposed to protect 739 miles of loggerheads’ nesting beach habitat. The new agreement says final protections for all areas must be in place by July 2014.
Critical habitat designation for loggerheads is essential to their recovery and won’t limit public access to beaches; it requires that activities in protected habitat be reviewed for federal approval to ensure they won’t hurt the turtles’ chance at survival.
“Protecting sea turtle nesting habitat will not only help sea turtles — but everyone who enjoys clean and healthy beaches,” says Jacki Lopez, the Center’s Florida-based attorney.
Read more in the Los Angeles Times. Then take action to urge the feds to finalize habitat protections, and check out our interactive map of the areas proposed.
Center Op-ed: Don’t Pull the Plug on Wolf RecoveryAny day now, we expect the Obama administration to propose a rule that will prematurely strip Endangered Species Act protection for wolves across most of the lower 48 states. When that happens, we’ll be calling on you to fight this bad decision. As Noah Greenwald, the Center’s endangered species program director, says in a new op-ed in The Huffington Post, wolves today wander in just 5 percent of their historic habitat in the continental United States.
“If it’s enacted, this rule will put a tragic end to one of the most important wildlife recovery stories in America‘s history,” Noah writes. “It’s simply far too early to declare victory.”
Around the country, there are vast tracts of land that scientists have determined have the space and prey to support healthy wolf populations. We can’t let the Obama administration walk away from wolf recovery with the job left unfinished.
Stay tuned to hear how you can help when the new rule is announced, and read more in Noah’s Huffington Post op-ed.
After Fracking Win, Oil and Gas Lease Sales Called Off in Calif.Just weeks after the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club won a major victory against fracking in California, the Bureau of Land Management has postponed all oil and gas lease sales in the Golden State for the rest of the fiscal year. The court ruling last month found that the Obama administration violated the law by leasing California’s public land for oil development without considering the risks of fracking.
The BLM originally cited only sequester-related budget cuts as the reason for postponing oil and gas leases in California for this year — but lease sales continue in other states, and the agency ultimately acknowledged that the Center’s lawsuit win influenced their cancellation decision.
“Whether the BLM admits it or not, the agency knows it can’t lawfully hold additional lease sales in California without a full environmental review of the serious risks fracking poses to our air, water and wildlife,” says the Center’s Brendan Cummings. “The BLM’s decision to cancel planned lease sales in California for 2013 is a welcome sign that the agency finally recognizes that its rubber-stamp approach to oil leasing is no longer viable.”
New Northern Rockies Office Will Protect Grizzlies, Wolves, Other Area SpeciesWe’re excited to announce the opening of a new Center for Biological Diversity Northern Rockies office, to be headed by scientist and veteran conservation advocate Louisa Willcox. Based in Montana, Louisa and the Northern Rockies office will allow the Center to expand its advocacy for endangered species — including grizzlies, wolves, lynx, bison, grayling, sage grouse and fishers — and their habitats in the region.
The Center has successfully achieved protection for a variety of species and habitats in the northern Rockies. Earlier this year we secured proposed Endangered Species Act protection for American wolverines through a historic agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Under this same agreement, the agency will decide whether to protect Montana grayling in the Big Hole River next year.
“I’m thrilled that the Center is expanding its capacity in the region,” says Louisa. “With vast stretches of mountains and prairie and pristine waters, the northern Rockies still harbor many species that have disappeared elsewhere in the lower 48 states.”
Feds Weaken Proposed Protection for Lesser Prairie ChickensThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just revised its proposed listing rule for lesser prairie chickens to include a special “4(d)” loophole in the Endangered Species Act that would allow destruction of the birds’ habitat, in particular through farming, to continue unimpeded. The prairie chicken, a kind of western grouse famous for its unique, elaborate, and comical mating displays, has been on the waiting list for protection since 1998 and was proposed for protection under the Center’s 757 species agreement.
Ominously, federal reliance on the 4(d) loophole appears to be increasing: The same rule was used to weaken protection for polar bears and has been proposed for wolverines as well. Lesser prairie chickens’ range (in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) has been reduced by more than 90 percent, and their population has declined by about 85 percent since the 1800s due to habitat loss and degradation from forces like grazing, agriculture, and oil and gas extraction.
“Lesser prairie chickens are amazing birds — funny and beautiful. We should do everything we can to protect them and their prairie home for our children and grandchildren to see,” says the Center’s Jay Lininger.
Raising Voices Against Mountaintop Mining — Take Action As part of End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, D.C., Appalachian residents this week brought toxic water from their homes to the headquarters of the EPA and members of Congress.
Urging federal action to protect water quality from coal mining in Appalachia, citizens — with the support of the Center and other groups like Alliance for Appalachia — are calling on the EPA to develop a rule that would create strong water-quality standards. We’re also urging Congress to put a moratorium on mountaintop-removal coal-mining permits until the impacts of pollution from the radical form of mining have been addressed.
Numerous studies have linked mountaintop removal with human illnesses and with deformities in downstream wildlife.
Take action today by contacting your representatives — demand federal action to protect people and endangered species in Appalachia from mountaintop removal.
On May 17, Celebrate Endangered Species Day, 40 Years of ESA SuccessAll year the Center for Biological Diversity is teaming up with the Endangered Species Coalition to mark the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act — and we’re doing something special this month to celebrate Endangered Species Day on May 17. We need your help to make it happen.
Some of our nation’s most iconic species, including bald eagles, grizzly bears and crocodiles, were all heading for extinction before being rescued by the Endangered Species Act. It has a remarkable track record: About 99 percent of the more than 1,400 species protected by the Act have been saved from extinction, and hundreds are on the road to recovery.
Biodiversity Briefing: Protecting Our PredatorsOften misunderstood and maligned, predators like grizzly bears and wolves have been pushed out of their native habitats as people (and their buildings and livestock) have moved in. On top of that, many have been hunted, trapped and killed to near extinction. And as the human population grows and climate change worsens, so do threats to these ecologically important wildlife.
This is the topic of our latest Biodiversity Briefing phone call with Leadership Circle and Legacy Society members, in which Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling discussed our work defending key predators like grizzly bears, gray wolves, jaguars, polar bears, Pacific fishers, Puget Sound orcas and more as we ramp up our predator-protection work. To build on scores of past predator victories — from securing 120 million acres of “critical habitat” for polar bears to winning Puget Sound orcas protections — we’ve hired two new expert conservation organizers to expand our efforts to defend wolves along the West Coast, safeguard grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains and help protect other predators across the country.
Wild & Weird: If Sharks Made Their Own JawsEver watch the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week marathon or the film Jaws and decide to cancel your beach vacation? A new infographic titled “Shark Attack” will help put that fear into perspective. Using stark and staggeringly simple units of measurement, the infographic demonstrates that, while roughly 12 people are killed by sharks every year, a total of 11,417 sharks are killed by people every hour. That’s more than 100 million sharks killed each year.
If sharks were ever to produce their own creature feature, it would most certainly star a bloodthirsty human trolling the oceans to slice off shark fins.
Check out this sobering shark attack infographic and learn about attempts to ban shark-fin trading in Texas from CBS News.
Tonight’s policy briefing is a little bit different than previous weeks — and I think you’ll really like it.
You’ll get a chance to hear from each of OFA‘s issue campaign managers on where we stand, and look at the path forward.
Emmy Ruiz will update you on where our fight for comprehensive immigration reform is at as the Senate begins to consider the bill.
Tomorrow, we’ll be delivering our petition to Congress demanding action to reduce gun violence (with more than 1.4 million signatures on it!) — and Kelly Byrne will fill you in tonight on where we go from there.
And since we’ve just launched our campaign to change the conversation and make real progress to combat climate change, Jack Shapiro will explain what our goals are and how we’re going to get it done.
RSVP here and join us at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight:
Do Fracking and National Parks Mix? Balancing Energy Needs on Public Lands
Last month, NPCA released its new report, National Parks and Hydraulic Fracturing: Balancing Energy Needs, Nature, and America’s National Heritage, which examines the impact of existing, proposed, and potential oil and gas development on America’s national parks and offers recommendations to ensure that future drilling safeguards public health and the environment. With five in-depth case studies, the report connects the dots on how oil and gas fracking on lands adjacent to national parks can impact wildlife and resources inside the parks themselves.
Pacific bluefin tuna have been overfished for decades, with little or no management, and the species has declined to dangerously low levels. Scientists estimate that the population of this majestic fish has dropped by 96.4 percent since fishing started, leaving the population at just 3.6 percent of its original levels. There is hope, however, if the regional fisheries management organizations responsible for Pacific bluefin fisheries take immediate action to reverse the steep population decline. Read Pew’s recommendations for the management of Pacific bluefin tuna »
New Animal Protection Initiative Launches in New York!
Great news! This week New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the creation of the Animal Protection Initiative, a new program that will use civil and criminal remedies to target allegations of animal cruelty and unscrupulous sales of animals in New York.
If we’re going to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and the destruction it’ll bring to our wildlife and climate, we must make our opposition impossible to ignore. So the Center for Biological Diversity is launching a month of action against Keystone, and we need your help. Protests can come in almost any form, big or small, as long as they’re visible. Put a sign up in your car windshield or on your lawn; gather your friends and stage a protest in your hometown; host a teach-in at a local park or do a polar bear protest on your college campus.
We’re making it easy for you — check out our new Web page, NoKeystone.org, where you’ll find printable protest signs and polar bear masks, an easy-to-print factsheet and copies of our anti-Keystone pledge for you and your friends to sign. Anyone can take part in the month of action – sign up now to get involved.
We’re also taking this protest to Facebook. For the month of May, we’re asking our activists to switch their profile photo to our “No Keystone” icon. Thanks for standing with us.
Please join the ASPCA, the New York State Animal Protection Federation, the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society and fellow animal lovers on Monday, May 6, in Albany for New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day! This is an exciting opportunity to let your state lawmakers know, in person, that you support animal protection and oppose laws that would allow animals to be hurt and exploited.
During Lobby Day, you and other animal advocates will be the voices for animals in your state.
New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day provides animal advocates with a structured, comfortable setting in which to meet their elected officials. We’ll organize and help prepare you for these meetings with insider tips and an overview of pending or upcoming legislation that directly impacts animals.
Legislative topics will likely include:
Cracking down on puppy mills
Dog control officer training
Strengthening cruelty penalties
Stopping dog breed-specific insurance policy discrimination
This event is critical to our lobbying efforts and to preventing animal cruelty. It’s also a great networking activity, and is invigorating, inspiring and very personally rewarding. Don’t miss out! RSVP today.
New York Voices for Animals
Lobby Day 2013
Date: Monday, May 6, 2013
Time: 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Place: Legislative Office Building
(in the Well)
198 State Street
Albany, NY 12210
Earlier this month, one of Defenders’ Florida staff members had the unique opportunity to witness an endangered Florida panther released back into the wild.Learn more about her awe-inspiring experience »
Experience the Arctic Circle on American soil at Kobuk Valley National Park—one of the most remote places in the park system. With no roads or facilities of any kind within the park, traveling here requires special planning and advanced backcountry experience—but the rewards are literally huge. See vast, pristine, awe-inspiring landscapes without another soul in sight, not counting the thousands of caribou!
Stock up on cilantro, limes, and jalapeño peppers because we’ve got a variety of mouthwatering vegan Mexican recipes for the perfect Cinco de Mayo celebration! CHECK OUT OUR RECIPES.
ASPCA Pet of the Week: Spike
Spike loves all people, other dogs and a good play session with his people. He’s a staff favorite who’s been with us for a very long time and really needs a family of his own. Find out why you should adopt Spike today!
Fracking Win: Court Says Feds Ignored Environment in Oil Leases
A landmark victory against destructive fracking in the Golden State: This week, responding to a suit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and partners, a federal court ruled that the Bureau of Land Management failed to fully consider the environmental risks of fracking when it issued oil leases for 2,500 acres of public land in Monterey County, Calif.
“This important decision recognizes that fracking poses new, unique risks to California’s air, water and wildlife that government agencies can’t ignore,” said the Center’s Brendan Cummings, who argued the case. “This is a watershed moment — the first court opinion to find a federal lease sale invalid for failing to address the monumental dangers of fracking.”
Fracking has already been used in hundreds, perhaps thousands of California oil and gas wells. It has been tied to pollution in other states and releases huge quantities of methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas. This decision means that, at the very least, no drilling or fracking on the Monterey County leases will be allowed without a thorough study of environmental risks.
Baltimore just became the 54th community to join the Center for Biological Diversity’s Clean Air Cities campaign. On Monday its city council approved a resolution asking President Obama and the EPA to make full use of the Clean Air Act to cut carbon pollution and combat climate change.
“The bad news is that Baltimore will be hit hard by climate change. We face sea-level rise, epic heat waves and a never-ending threat of extreme weather events,” said Councilmember Mary Pat Clarke, who introduced the resolution. “The good news is that we have the Clean Air Act, and if it’s employed swiftly and ambitiously, we can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas pollution and some of the worst impacts of climate change.”
Speak Out For World Week For Animals In Laboratories, Beginning April 20
Please join IDA during World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL), April 20 – 28, to speak out against the use of animals in testing and research.
One of IDA’s priorities is to expose costly, wasteful and inhumane experiments. We released our third annual “Top Ten” most outrageous experiments on animals list, this year giving “Outragie Awards” to some of the most cruel and absurd experiments. We highlight these ten experiments which alone have cost taxpayers over $4.6 million to study such things as “child abuse” in rats, sexuality in hamsters and cochlear implants in cats.
Our focus in 2013 includes opposing the continued use of animals for personal product testing in the U.S. While the European Union has implemented a ban on the sale of cosmetic products tested on animals in 2013, many U.S. companies that were formerly cruelty-free are now investing in animal tests so they can market their products overseas to countries where animal testing is required.
Please commit to act for animals in laboratories during the week of WWAIL. Here are just a few options:
Organize an event in your area, such as a demonstration at a university conducting animal experiments or an educational table. Email IDA to tell us if you will be planning an event, need flyers, or just need more info.
Distribute our new product testing brochure, “Consumer Beware!”, at stores selling personal care products.
Stay tuned to this eNews next week to learn about other ways you can help.
On Sunday, April 21st — what we’re calling “Earth Night” — 350.org will premiere a film about our work and our growing movement. It features the big tour we did across the country last fall, and so the film is also called “Do the Math.” The trailer for the movie was just released a few minutes ago — check it out:
On the night of April 21st, people will gather in hundreds of living rooms and libraries across the country for the premiere of the movie. Meeting in person is the lifeblood of our movement, and we hope that gathering to watch this snazzy film can be an opportunity to connect with new people and grow the movement locally.
I’ve already had a chance to preview the movie; it is an inspiring, beautiful, and fast-paced story that shows the power of the growing climate movement. It clocks in at 42-minutes — and it packs a lot in: from the cross-country tour we did last year, to the latest dispatches from leaders in the fight to stop Keystone XL, to the campaign to divest from fossil fuels.
.Be a Voice for New York’s AnimalsPlease join the ASPCA, the New York State Animal Protection Federation, the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society and fellow animal lovers on Monday, May 6, in Albany for New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day! This is an exciting opportunity to let your state lawmakers know, in person, that you support animal protection and oppose laws that would allow animals to be hurt and exploited.During Lobby Day, you and other animal advocates will be the voices for animals in your state.
New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day provides animal advocates with a structured, comfortable setting in which to meet their elected officials. We’ll organize and help prepare you for these meetings with insider tips and an overview of pending or upcoming legislation that directly impacts animals.
Legislative topics will likely include:
Cracking down on puppy mills
Dog control officer training
Strengthening cruelty penalties
Stopping dog breed-specific insurance policy discrimination
This event is critical to our lobbying efforts and to preventing animal cruelty. It’s also a great networking activity, and is invigorating, inspiring and very personally rewarding. Don’t miss out! RSVP today.
New York Voices for Animals
Lobby Day 2013
Date: Monday, May 6, 2013
Time: 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Place: Legislative Office Building
(in the Well)
198 State Street
Albany, NY 12210
Legislative updates – Sometimes no news is good news, and most of the bills we’ve been following did not advance any farther. The one exception is SB 397 in Montana, which (thankfully) went down in a blaze of glory last night on a committee vote of 17-4. Earlier in the week, 26 opponents attended a House committee hearing, many of them from different hunting organizations that support fair-chase ethics and do not want to see predators carelessly slaughtered. Further opposition came from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks representatives who said that managers already have the tools they need to keep predator and prey species in check. In fact, the only people who supported the bill were spokesmen for Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, a known anti-wolf group that has long espoused getting rid of predators by any means necessary in order to artificially boost elk and deer populations. But most Montanans know that a healthy, balanced ecosystem relies on sustainable numbers of both predator and prey. And while human hunters play a role in keeping game species in check, they are no substitute for having wolves, cougars and bears on the landscape as well.
FEATURED PARK: Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, MinnesotaThe mighty Mississippi is one of the largest and most fabled rivers in the country and home to seven national parks—but only the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area was specifically created to share the history and science of the river itself. This urban oasis has a bit of everything, from canoeing and bird-watching opportunities to military relics and historic buildings.
Those who love Abyssinians should look no further than Riley, a fun-loving and smart little lady who wants to be your only kitty. If you’re an experienced cat lover in an adults-only home, come meet Riley today in NYC.
The mighty Mississippi is one of the largest and most fabled rivers in the country and home to seven national parks—but only the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area was specifically created to share the history and science of the river itself. This urban oasis has a bit of everything, from canoeing and bird-watching opportunities to military relics and historic buildings.
As if we needed any more evidence of the kind of havoc that Keystone XL could deliver, a pipeline carrying tar-sands oil ruptured on Friday in a small Arkansas town, spilling 400,000 gallons of crude in a subdivision and forcing people to evacuate 22 homes.
It’s a nasty truth about oil pipelines: Systems fail — and people and wildlife pay the price. If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, it will transport as many as 35 million gallons of oil a day through a 1,700-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas, cutting across waterways and wildlife habitat for more than 20 imperiled species, including white whooping cranes and the massive, prehistoric pallid sturgeon.
The U.S. State Department says Keystone XL could spill as many as 100 times during the course of its life. We just can’t take that risk. The Center for Biological Diversity is joining with people across the United States and beyond in opposing Keystone.
Renowned Climatologist Retires From NASA to Fight Global Warming
After almost 50 years as a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Dr. James Hansen — easily the U.S. government’s most visible scientific figure on climate change — retires this week. Besides being a leading voice urging action on climate change, Hansen, 72, has been arrested or cited at climate protests six times.
Hansen says he intends to be more active in lawsuits against the government over its failure to limit greenhouse gas emissions; he also plans to advocate against the development of dirty tar-sands oil in Canada.
“Dr. Hansen has been an extraordinary, singular force in the scientific and governmental community for swift, ambitious action against climate change,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute Director Kassie Siegel. “We’ll be excited to see him making an impact as a private citizen.”
Update: Charges Filed in Three-State Dog Fighting Raid
Last week we told you about our role in a multi-state dog fighting raid in Texas, Missouri and Kansas. Now we’re able to update you on the nearly 100 dogs we transported to a temporary shelter and the dog fighters who harmed these animal victims. Get the latest news about this unfolding case. Read more…Visit The Sustainable Action Network.
Bills Seek to Halt Calif. Fracking to Protect Water, Air and Climate
Three California assembly members — Richard Bloom, Holly Mitchell and Adrin Nazarian — are introducing a trio of bills to halt hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state while the threats it poses to the environment and public health are studied. Using huge volumes of water mixed with sand and dangerous chemicals to blast open rock formations and extract oil and gas, fracking — so far unregulated and unmonitored by the state — has already been deployed widely: More than 600 wells were fracked in California in 2011 alone.
The move to halt fracking, supported by the Center for Biological Diversity and numerous other groups, reflects growing public concern about fracking’s threats to people, wildlife and the climate. All three bills seek to limit destruction as oil companies gear up to frack the Monterey Shale, a geological formation that holds an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil and lies beneath some of the state’s most important farmland and wildlife habitat.
“We applaud these legislators for their leadership in protecting California from a dangerous fracking boom,” said the Center’s Brian Nowicki. “State regulators have shrugged off fracking’s dangers, so it’s up to lawmakers to stop oil companies from polluting our air, contaminating our water and undermining our fight against climate change.”
EXCLUSIVE: State Dept. Hid Contractor’s Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company
Late on a Friday afternoon in early March, the State Department released a 2,000-page draft report downplaying the environmental risks of the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would ferry oil from Canada’s tar sands to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. But when it released the report, State hid an important fact from the public: Experts who helped draft the report had previously worked for TransCanada, the company looking to build the Keystone pipeline, and other energy companies poised to benefit from Keystone’s construction. State released documents in conjunction with the Keystone reportin which these experts’ work histories were redacted so that anyone reading the documents wouldn’t know who’d previously hired them. Yet unredacted versions of these documents obtained by Mother Jones confirm that three experts working for an outside contractor had done consulting work for TransCanada and other oil companies with a stake in the Keystone’s approval. Visit The Sustainable Action Network.
Be a Voice for New York’s AnimalsPlease join the ASPCA, the New York State Animal Protection Federation, the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society and fellow animal lovers on Monday, May 6, in Albany for New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day! This is an exciting opportunity to let your state lawmakers know, in person, that you support animal protection and oppose laws that would allow animals to be hurt and exploited.
During Lobby Day, you and other animal advocates will be the voices for animals in your state.
New York Voices for Animals Lobby Day provides animal advocates with a structured, comfortable setting in which to meet their elected officials. We’ll organize and help prepare you for these meetings with insider tips and an overview of pending or upcoming legislation that directly impacts animals.
Legislative topics will likely include:
Cracking down on puppy mills
Dog control officer training
Strengthening cruelty penalties
Stopping dog breed-specific insurance policy discrimination
This event is critical to our lobbying efforts and to preventing animal cruelty. It’s also a great networking activity, and is invigorating, inspiring and very personally rewarding. Don’t miss out! RSVP today.
New York Voices for Animals
Lobby Day 2013
Date: Monday, May 6, 2013
Time: 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Place: Legislative Office Building
(in the Well)
198 State Street
Albany, NY 12210
Great news: The EPA recently proposed significant, long-awaited pollution reductions for a coal plant that has been dirtying the air at the Grand Canyon and at least ten other pristine public lands for decades. The bad news: It could take a decade or more to see pollution reduced. Please commend the EPA for working to clean the air at the Grand Canyon, but urge them to require cleanup measures in the next five years so we can soon breathe easier.
ASPCA Pet of the Week: Buffy
Buffy is a sweet, sensitive little puppy with lots of energy. If you’re ready to dedicate time to socializing and training this chocolate-colored sweetheart, adopt Buffy today in NYC!
Sunset Daily
5:26 PM on March 31, 2013 Permalink Tags: American Museum of Natural History, Douglas Brinkley, Museum, NBC Nightly News, North American Cordillera, Rice University, Theodore Roosevelt, United States ( 500 )
Theodore Roosevelt articulated a vision of America that emphasized natural places as elements that define a nation’s character and that are foundational to the individual’s rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For citizens today, those notions may be controversial, if not completely remote from contemporary ideas of America. Experts in science, conservation, humanities, and democratic principles will illuminate the 21st century imperatives that can contribute to reconstructing and expanding an American identity forged in an intimate relationship to its natural history.
Host and Moderator
Tom Brokaw, an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.
Lisa Graumlich, Dean of the University of Washington’s College of the Environment.
A scientist known internationally for research on climate and ecosystems – and who has a track record of getting wide-ranging groups of experts to focus on environmental issues.
Michael Novacek, Senior Vice President and Provost of Science at the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Novacek was instrumental in establishing the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, Institute for Comparative Genomics, and new research program in astrophysics.
Rick Ridgeway, is Patagonia’s Vice President of Environmental Initiatives where he implements the second two of the company’s three-part mission statement to make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
Find out more about the topics the panel will discuss:
For our climate, it’s a monumental step forward. Retiring half of the plant will prevent more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released every year—that’s equal to taking more than one million passenger vehicles off the road.
Under the latest plan, haze and smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions will be curbed by 50%. What’s more, the plan will eliminate half the plant’s toxic coal ash waste, and free up 4 billion gallons of freshwater.
The plan confirms the cost of burning coal is becoming too great to bear, and it also confirms that Guardians’ advocacy to power past coal is working. With steadfast legal and public pressure, we’re exposing the true cost of dirty energy and making the progress we need to safeguard our health, protect our climate, and pave the way for clean, renewable energy.
That’s why we’re both celebrating and making a commitment to you that before 2020, we will shutter the remaining half of the San Juan Generating Station.
Already, we’re laying the groundwork for success, upping the pressure by challenging the federal government’s illegal approval of the San Juan coal mine, which fuels the San Juan Generating Station.
Let’s cherish this victory and together look forward to building the momentum we need to power past coal for good in the Four Corners region and beyond. Thank you so much for your activism and support.
Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) will retire half of their coal-fired San Juan Generating Station—a huge leap towards paving the path for renewable energy.
The majority of the fish caught in the United States comes from the Bering Sea. Home to whales, seals, polar bears and underwater canyons teeming with life, the Bering Sea is one of our most productive ecosystems. Just like our national parks, we must protect ecosystems like the Bering Sea whose underwater canyons are larger than the Grand Canyon itself.
Fish depend on essential habitat for their survival. You have scientific evidence that fishing gear has destroyed the coral and sponge habitats in the Bering Sea Canyons. If destructive fishing practices continue in the Bering Sea Canyons we will lose more of the fragile and long-lived coral species that provide critical habitat in this vital ecosystem.
Besides providing deep-sea refuges and nursery areas for fish and marine life in the Bering Sea, Zhemchug and Pribilof Canyons are rare ocean features that fuel the Bering Sea food web through nutrient upwelling, seeding the Green Belt. Submarine canyons like these are found in only 4 percent of the world’s oceans – and these are the largest anywhere. They are the “Grand Canyons” of the sea.
Protection of these unique canyons will play a critical role in sustaining our fisheries and will provide a buffer against the scientific uncertainty that is inherent in fishery science, and insure us against costly mistakes. Marine reserves are a powerful tool for ecosystem-based management and the conservation of ocean wildlife – they have consistently proven to increase the abundance, size, and diversity of fish.
We are not the first to ask you to conserve and protect these invaluable canyons. We urge you to act swiftly now to begin a process to identify measures to protect Zhemchug and Pribilof Canyons – a national treasure that belongs to all of us.
A humpback whale breaching the ocean surface
Polar bears, fur seals, sea lions, walruses, whales and millions of sea birds make their home in the Bering Sea, and beneath the surface abundant life thrives in the Bering Sea Canyons– larger than the Grand Canyon itself. The importance of this place reaches far beyond its borders as the majority of the fish caught in the United States come from the Bering Sea.
But this spectacular ecosystem is under attack and showing signs of collapse.
Large industrial fishing ships have already mined more than 150 billion pounds of fish from the Bering Sea — bulldozing over delicate deep sea corals and unique species of sponges in the process. The effect on the ecosystem has been devastating.
It’s not too late to protect Alaska’s Bering Sea. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is tasked with managing this national resource. We need protection for oceans worldwide, and we can start with protecting the health of the Bering Sea.
Greenpeace is leading a worldwide effort to set aside 40% of our oceans as marine reserves. A global network of ocean parks-like Yellowstones of the sea- will allow marine life to flourish and help restore the diversity that once characterized our waters.
Today, less than one percent of the world’s oceans are set aside as marine reserves. If we don’t do more to protect and manage our oceans they aren’t going to survive. Nowhere is that more important than the Bering Sea and its amazing canyons.
Tell the NPFMC to protect the Bering Sea Canyons. We can’t afford to lose them.
Thank you for joining us in our campaign to save the Bering Sea Canyons. By signing our petition and telling your friends, we can reach thousands of people. Those voices combined will tell the North Pacific Fishing Management Council loud and clear that we’re here to protect one of the wildest regions in the ocean.
We preserve some of the most special places on earth to ensure their vitality, wonder, and resilience for future generations. Just as we have protected special places on land, like Yellowstone, Yosemite or Denali national parks, we need to preserve some of the most special places in the sea. The seafood industry is overfishing one of our last remaining wild places, and pollution, habitat destruction and climate change threaten to turn this rich, dynamic ecosystem into a lifeless desert.
The Bering Sea, spanning more than 770,000 square miles between western Alaska and Russia’s Siberia Coast, is important because it provides fish and jobs, subsistence foods for native peoples, and even the oxygen that we breathe through the health of its ecosystems. All of this bounty is fueled by nutrient-rich upwelling along the Green Belt and up from the depths of the largest underwater canyons in the world – it’s as irreplaceable as any of our national parks.
In 2007, and again last summer, we brought together government and independent researchers survey the slopes of Zhemchug and Pribilof canyons. With small submarines equipped with hi-definition video cameras, we dove into these “Grand Canyons” and brought back proof of their vitality. We saw vibrant coral and sponge communities, juvenile fish nestled into sponge holds, Giant Pacific octopuses sidled up to sea fan corals, and huge nurseries for slow-to-hatch skates. Sadly, there were also scarred swaths of seafloor with nothing more than broken coral remnants where fishing gear had destroyed all signs of life.
Now, we are closer than ever to protecting the canyons. In June, government scientists will present the latest science on the canyons and their vulnerability to fishing. Once again, the Council will judge whether or not something should be done to stop the fishing that is systematically destroying this beautiful and important place. The fishing industry will be there too, no doubt urging more trawling through the canyons, choosing quick profit over this wonder of the sea. Your voice matters because these canyons belong to all of us.
Thanks to you, our voice for the Bering Sea Canyons is getting louder. But we still need your help. Please share our petition with your friends urging them to help our cause. Together we can protect this essential part of the Bering Sea so the whole ocean system may continue to thrive.
Dunes, lagoons, tidal flats, and coastal prairie… Padre Island’s 70 miles of protected shoreline offer a surprising diversity of terrain. For bird lovers, early spring is one of the best times to plan a trip: The park’s location on the Central Flyway makes it an ideal stop for watching the winged migration overhead.
Calif. Bill Would Ban Lead Hunting Ammo — Take Action
A new bill in California would remove toxic lead from hunting ammunition and provide important protections for people and wildlife. Assemblyman Anthony Rendon’s bill to require nonlead ammo for all hunting in California, A.B. 711, was made public this week; a hearing is expected next month. The Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working for a decade to get lead out of hunting ammunition, is supporting the bill. If you live in California, we need you to speak out for it.
Lead that’s left in the wild takes a deadly toll on wildlife, poisoning and killing bald eagles, endangered California condors, swans, loons and millions of other birds yearly. It also poses significant health risks to people eating wild game. A new national poll commissioned by the Center finds that 57 percent of Americans support requiring a switch to nontoxic hunting bullets.
Hunters in much of central and Southern California have been hunting with copper and other lead-free ammunition since 2008, when state regulations required use of nonlead hunting ammo in California condor range. Rendon’s bill extends the protection from lead poisoning toall wildlife in the state and safeguards human health.
The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Tuesday on whether the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline gets built. We can’t let that happen. The 1,700-mile pipeline would, every day, carry up to 35 million gallons of oil strip-mined from Canada’s tar sands — some of the dirtiest, most climate-hostile fuels on the planet. The pipeline would also cut through rivers, streams, and wildlife habitat for at least 20 imperiled species, including whooping cranes and pallid sturgeon.
If we’re going to stop this destructive behemoth in its tracks, we need to show massive opposition. This week that means joining the Center for Biological Diversity to contact your senators and tell them to reject Keystone XL, a project that leading climate scientist Dr. James Hansen says will be game “over” for our ability to avoid a climate catastrophe — a project even the State Department admits could spill 100 times over the course of its lifetime.
Bills Seek to Halt Calif. Fracking to Protect Water, Air and Climate
Three California assembly members — Richard Bloom, Holly Mitchell and Adrin Nazarian — are introducing a trio of bills to halt hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state while the threats it poses to the environment and public health are studied. Using huge volumes of water mixed with sand and dangerous chemicals to blast open rock formations and extract oil and gas, fracking — so far unregulated and unmonitored by the state — has already been deployed widely: More than 600 wells were fracked in California in 2011 alone.
The move to halt fracking, supported by the Center for Biological Diversity and numerous other groups, reflects growing public concern about fracking’s threats to people, wildlife and the climate. All three bills seek to limit destruction as oil companies gear up to frack the Monterey Shale, a geological formation that holds an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil and lies beneath some of the state’s most important farmland and wildlife habitat.
“We applaud these legislators for their leadership in protecting California from a dangerous fracking boom,” said the Center’s Brian Nowicki. “State regulators have shrugged off fracking’s dangers, so it’s up to lawmakers to stop oil companies from polluting our air, contaminating our water and undermining our fight against climate change.”
EXCLUSIVE: State Dept. Hid Contractor’s Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company
Late on a Friday afternoon in early March, the State Department released a 2,000-page draft report downplaying the environmental risks of the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would ferry oil from Canada’s tar sands to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. But when it released the report, State hid an important fact from the public: Experts who helped draft the report had previously worked for TransCanada, the company looking to build the Keystone pipeline, and other energy companies poised to benefit from Keystone’s construction. State released documents in conjunction with the Keystone reportin which these experts’ work histories were redacted so that anyone reading the documents wouldn’t know who’d previously hired them. Yet unredacted versions of these documents obtained by Mother Jones confirm that three experts working for an outside contractor had done consulting work for TransCanada and other oil companies with a stake in the Keystone’s approval.
50 Cities to Obama: Use Clean Air Act Against Climate Chaos
It’s the biggest milestone yet in the Center for Biological Diversity’s ambitious Clean Air Cities campaign. Fifty cities across the nation have passed resolutions urging the federal government to use the Clean Air Act ambitiously — and quickly – to halt otherwise irreversible climate catastrophe, from city-swallowing sea-level rise to polar bear-killing sea-ice melt to coral reef-obliterating ocean acidification. Cities that have heeded the Center’s call to action include Los Angeles; Nashville; Washington, D.C. — and now our 49th and 50th municipalities, San Leandro, Calif., and Newton, Mass.
Joining our cause is especially urgent: The Obama administration is reportedly considering putting off or weakening a key Clean Air Act rule aimed at cutting greenhouse gas pollution from new power plants. Congress is also once again taking aim at the Clean Air Act’s authority to reduce carbon pollution through an amendment inserted into the latest budget debate.
So a big thanks to all our Clean Air Advocates and participating cities — but if your hometownisn’t on our Clean Air Cities list, please use our Clean Air Cities Take-action Toolbox to get it there now, before it’s too late.
The People’s Budget eliminates the deficit in 10 years, puts Americans back to work and restores our economic competitiveness. The People’s Budget recognizes that in order to compete, our nation needs every American to be productive, and in order to be productive we need to raise our skills to meet modern needs.
Our Budget Eliminates the Deficit and Raises a $31 Billion Surplus In Ten Years
Our budget protects Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and responsibly eliminates the deficit by targeting its main drivers: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars overseas, and the causes and effects of the recent recession.
Our Budget Puts America Back to Work & Restores America’s Competitiveness • Trains teachers and restores schools; rebuilds roads and bridges and ensures that users help pay for them
• Invests in job creation, clean energy and broadband infrastructure, housing and R&D programs
Our Budget Creates a Fairer Tax System
• Ends the recently passed upper-income tax cuts and lets Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012
• Extends tax credits for the middle class, families, and students
• Creates new tax brackets that range from 45% starting at $1 million to 49% for $1 billion or more
• Implements a progressive estate tax
• Eliminates corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies; closes loopholes for multinational corporations
• Enacts a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange
Our Budget Protects Health • Enacts a health care public option and negotiates prescription payments with pharmaceutical companies
• Prevents any cuts to Medicare physician payments for a decade
Our Budget Safeguards Social Security for the Next 75 Years
• Eliminates the individual Social Security payroll cap to make sure upper income earners pay their fair share
• Increases benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side
Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home • Responsibly ends our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to leave America more secure both home and abroad
• Cuts defense spending by reducing conventional forces, procurement, and costly R&D programs
Our Budget’s Bottom Line • Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
• Spending cuts of $1.7 trillion
• Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
• Public investment $1.7 trillion
“The most comprehensive alternative to the budgets passed by the House Republicans and recommended by the Simpson-Bowles Commission“
“Does two things far better than the antigovernment budget passed by the House: it takes care of older Americans and others who need help; and much more than the House plan, or the Simpson-Bowles plan, it invests a lot our tax money to get America back in the future business”
“Mr Ryan’s plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programmes for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus’s plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people.”
“…something that’s gotten far too little attention in this debate. The most fiscally responsible plan seems to be neither the Republicans’ nor the president’s. It’s the Congressional Progressive Caucus plan…”
“National budget policy should adequately fund up-front job creation, invest in long-term economic growth, reform the tax code, and put the debt on a sustainable path while protecting the economic security of low-income Americans and growing the middle class. The proposal by the Congressional Progressive caucus achieves all of these goals.”
“instead of gutting programs for the poor like Medicaid and Medicare, food stamps, and the new healthcare law, the People’s Budget focuses on cuts in defense. It also doesn’t scrap new financial regulations designed to at least partly stave off another massive financial collapse like the one that put us in this mess in the first place.”
What part of animal rehoming officer dont they get??
How is it the first implemented program of the animal rehoming officer to kill 5 out of 7 dogs on the kill list? The AWL uses that temperament test to help rehabilitate dogs now, 20 years ago they used these temperament tests just to kill dogs. Blacktown pound can NOT ignore rehabilitation and just kill. Nearly 2 years of no kill rate for dogs blown away by the one person who was meant to save them, do we want to stand by and watch while blacktown pound turns into another RSPCA type killing field??
NO!!!!
The earth is warming and we need to act fast to stop the devastating trend. The average temperature in the U.S. has increased by about 1.5 degrees Farenheit since 1895, with more than 80% of the increase occurring since 1980 [1]. The extraction and burning of fossil fuels are clearly and directly associated with greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change. While claiming to be responsible stewards of the environment, the University of California system continues to invest in fossil fuels through the General Endowment Pool. All investments in fossil fuels contribute to fundamentally unsustainable practices, both in terms of climate change and toxic pollution, which threaten the social and environmental wellbeing of all societies.
Leadership in sustainability requires that an institution enact policies beyond what other similar institutions have put in place. In the past, by divesting from Sudan, South Africa, and tobacco, the University of California endorsed the view that in holding investments in an industry, the institution is partially accountable for the impacts of the decisions and actions of said industry. We urge the Regents of the University of California to take the same stance with climate change and act as leaders by divesting from fossil fuels.
The University of California currently has investments in the fossil fuels industry, including coal mining and burning, petroleum extraction, and natural gas extraction. The Associated Students of California call upon the Regents of the University of California, in its commitment to leadership in sustainability, to divest from fossil fuels by taking the following actions regarding the General Endowment Pool (GEP):
Instruct asset managers to stop any new investment in fossil fuel companies; andTake appropriate steps to ensure that, within 5 years, none of its directly held or commingled assets include holdings in fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds as found on the Carbon Tracker list; andRelease quarterly updates, both detailing progress made towards full divestment and providing information on the holdings of the endowment pool and of index funds within the GEP.
The University of California has affirmed its commitment to “responsible stewardship of resources and to demonstrating leadership in sustainable business practices,” and to having a “net zero impact on the Earth’s climate“[1]. We urge the Regents to abide by this statement and divest from fossil fuels.
And on May 14, 2013, we–the students, and faculty and staff, of the University of California–are going to the Regents to ask them to divest. With the presence of every UC, the multitude of signatures on our petition, and the kind of support and media this movement has gotten so far, they won’t be able to ignore us!
We are making quite a bit of headway, with nearly 6000 signatures! You may be interested to know that this movement, as well as the general climate activist movement, is gaining a lot of momentum. Just this past week, the divestment campaign and Keystone XL pipeline opposition were featured on NPR’s On Point show with Tom Ashbrook. There was a panel of three activists: Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition’s Executive Director; Dorian Williams, a Keystone XL protester; and myself, Emily Williams. You can listen here: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/03/11/environmentalism
Keep your eyes out for more updates coming soon!
Update #2
Posted by Emily Williams (Cause Leader) on Mar 13
Wow! We met our original goal of 5000 people signing the petition! The movement is growing and going strong, and starting to spread like wildfire. Our students are organized and mobilized, our faculty is beginning to reach out to each campus to form a faculty-UC-wide coalition, staff is jumping on board; we have a HUGE teach-in planned for April 22, were featured on NPR’s On Point show on 3/11/13, and have a Regents meeting to look forward to in May!
So what about a new goal of 10,000?! Let’s show the Regents how much support there is for them to divest. After all, their mission statement calls upon the UC’s to provide “long-term societal benefits.” And in the long run, fossil fuels aren’t a part of that equation.
Update #1
Posted by Emily Williams (Cause Leader) on Mar 1
Thank you all for signing the petition! Thanks to your help, when we go to the Regents this March, we will be able to show them the immense support behind this movement. Much has happened since the petition took off. Three UC’s—UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego—passed resolutions through their student senates urging the Regents to divest from fossil fuels. As I write this, the other UC’s are working on their own resolutions, to be presented to the student senates in the near future. Thanks to these resolutions, when we go to the Regents, we will have the student voice of the UCs supporting us.
We are also starting to work with the faculty on our campuses, and thus far, there are 53 faculty members who have signed on to sponsor a resolution through the faculty senate at UCSB. As the movement continues to grow, we hope to get all faculty and staff from each of the campuses on board.
Yet what is really exciting and inspirational about this movement is that this past weekend, February 22-24, there was a national fossil fuel divestment convergence held at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, called Power Up! (http://studentsdivest.org/). This was the first-ever fossil fuel divestment convergence, and California sent about 15 representatives to it! The convergence was truly a weekend of learning and inspiration; we heard from those frontline communities whose water has been poisoned from fracking and mountain-top-removal-related toxins, as well as from the First Nations in Canada (the indigenous peoples) whose land was taken away from them so that the government could develop tar sands. But we came away from that weekend with not only inspiring stories, but also with a national network and movement.
The movement is going stronger than ever, and it is partly thanks to you for signing on and helping spread the word. So if you have the time, please invite your friends, families, and colleagues to sign this petition and help us persuade the Regents to divest!
WildEarth Guardians commissioned an expert report that found the federal government, led by the U.S. Department of Interior, grossly underestimated the air quality impacts of massive new coal mining plans, putting public health at great risk.
The Powder River Basin of northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana is already the largest coal-producing region in the nation. The region fuels more than 200 coal-fired power plants in the U.S., and coal is increasingly being exported to Asia.
Interior’s latest plan calls for rubberstamping expansions of Arch Coal’s Black Thunder coal mine and Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle mines.
Sign our petition and let the Interior hear that you want clean air made a priority.
In total, more than 4.7 billion tons of new coal strip mining is on the table, which if burned threatens to release 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions of more than 2,000 coal-fired power plants.
This climate catastrophe is bad enough, but getting the coal out of the ground threatens to fill the skies of the West with more smog, toxic orange clouds, and dangerous particulate matter.
Dunes, lagoons, tidal flats, and coastal prairie… Padre Island’s 70 miles of protected shoreline offer a surprising diversity of terrain. For bird lovers, early spring is one of the best times to plan a trip: The park’s location on the Central Flyway makes it an ideal stop for watching the winged migration overhead.
Every year more than 2 million live, wild turtles are snatched from the United States and exported to Asia, destined for slaughter for the food and medicinal markets. Thanks in part to a 2011 Center for Biological Diversity petition, the international community has taken notice and acted.
Last week parties to the Convention on Trade in International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to regulate and monitor international trade in Blanding’s turtles, spotted turtles and diamondback terrapins. In 2012 the Center petitioned to protect the Blanding’s and spotted turtles, along with 51 other imperiled reptiles and amphibians, under the Endangered Species Act.
“Turtle traders are depleting U.S. populations at a frightening rate. It’s got to stop soon or we’re going to lose these incredible animals from the wild,” says the Center’s Collette Adkins Giese. “Commercial trade only compounds the problems native turtles already face from habitat destruction, water pollution and being hit and killed by cars.”
The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Tuesday on whether the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline gets built. We can’t let that happen. The 1,700-mile pipeline would, every day, carry up to 35 million gallons of oil strip-mined from Canada’s tar sands — some of the dirtiest, most climate-hostile fuels on the planet. The pipeline would also cut through rivers, streams, and wildlife habitat for at least 20 imperiled species, including whooping cranes and pallid sturgeon.
If we’re going to stop this destructive behemoth in its tracks, we need to show massive opposition. This week that means joining the Center for Biological Diversity to contact your senators and tell them to reject Keystone XL, a project that leading climate scientist Dr. James Hansen says will be game “over” for our ability to avoid a climate catastrophe — a project even the State Department admits could spill 100 times over the course of its lifetime.
Tulane University in New Orleans informed the Physicians Committee that it has replaced the use of live pigs with the TraumaMan simulator to teach physicians in Advanced Trauma Life Support courses. But the university says it might use pigs in the future. E-mail Tulane >
Tar Sands Pipeline Gets Whitewashed.Despite President Obama’s recent tough talk on confronting climate change, his State Department has just issued a review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that ignores its disastrous impacts on our climate. Producing tar sands oil generates three times as much global warming pollution as the production of conventional crude. This climate-wrecking pipeline would also drive more destruction of the boreal forest and endanger communities along its route with toxic spills. Urge President Obama to deliver on his promise to address climate change and reject this flawed review.
Earlier this month, a U.S. proposal, supported by Russia, to ban the international trade in polar bear parts was voted down at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. More than 100,000 BioGems Defenders had sent messages urging an upgrade in the international protection of polar bears. Despite widespread citizen support, the proposal failed to win a two-thirds majority, with strong opposition coming from Canada, which allows the killing of hundreds of polar bears each year. While the loss is a setback for polar bears — scientists predict that more than half of them could be gone by 2050 — the fight is far from over. NRDC will continue pursuing other means for ending the global trade in polar bear parts and protecting America’s polar bears. (See In the News below). Learn more.
In this week’s Happy Tail, Manhattan resident Colette Lageoles shares the story of how adopting a five-year-old kitty from the ASPCA helped bring joy to both the human and animal members of her family:
Dunes, lagoons, tidal flats, and coastal prairie… Padre Island’s 70 miles of protected shoreline offer a surprising diversity of terrain. For bird lovers, early spring is one of the best times to plan a trip: The park’s location on the Central Flyway makes it an ideal stop for watching the winged migration overhead.
Polar bears will keep their hard-won federal protections. On Friday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed efforts by the state of Alaska, polar bear trophy hunters and others to strip polar bears of their Endangered Species Act protection. It upheld the government’s 2008 decision — responding to a Center for Biological Diversity petition and litigation — to protect the Arctic bears as threatened throughout their range.
The appeals court ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear due to the melting of Arctic sea ice was well supported in every regard. The court also noted the listing decision was, if anything, underprotective of polar bears, rather than overprotective as the state of Alaska had claimed. Global warming is robbing polar bears of the sea ice they need to survive. Left unchecked, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears, including all in Alaska, could be gone by 2050.
”If we’re going to save polar bears, the Obama administration needs to move swiftly to cut greenhouse pollution,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center’s Climate Law Institute.
Also in breaking news today, the international community lost an opportunity to ban the trade in polar bear parts — especially rugs — when Canada successfully opposed a U.S.-backed ban under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to keep the animals from being commercially hunted. Check next week’s edition for more details.
The Obama administration has released an ”environmental impact statement” on the Keystone XL project — moving this dirty, disastrous oil pipeline one step closer to approval. Keystone XL would cross the heart of the Midwest and deliver oil from Canada’s tar sands all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where much of it would be exported to other countries. Along the way the pipeline would cut through rivers, streams and prime wildlife habitat — including habitat for at least 20 rare and vanishing species, including whooping cranes and pallid sturgeon.
The planned pipeline would ship, every day, up to 35 million gallons of the dirtiest oil on the planet to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Keystone XL will move us closer to climate catastrophe, threaten our land and water with spills and encourage further strip mining — bringing destruction of a boreal forest the size of Florida.
Read more in GlobalPost, then take action to tell the administration to reject Keystone XL.
Gray wolves are struggling to recover in the Pacific Northwest, California, southern Rocky Mountains and Northeast — but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is drafting a proposal to delist them in these states.
To “delist” means to remove the protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This would be a death sentence for wolves.
More than 1,200 wolves in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes region have been massacred since they lost ESA protection in 2011, when the species was removed from the list by political fiat instead of science.
Wolves across these states are slaughtered by bowhunters, gunned down by “recreational” hunters, tortured by trappers in steel-jaw foothold traps and snares, and subjected to brutal “management” methods, including aerial gunning. The same fate awaits wolves in other regions who are barely hanging on. Delisting would subject them to the same massacre we’re seeing in the Rocky Mountain states and the Great Lakes states where they’ve already lost protection.
Click here to tell USFWS to keep gray wolves protected under the ESA. Tell them delisting is premature, because wolf populations have not yet recovered, and because the prejudices and misconceptions that led to their near elimination across the continent are still present.
Stop Cruelty at UCSF.The University of California-San Francisco has a long history of abusing animals imprisoned in laboratories. Urge the National Institutes of Health to STOP funding the university’s cruel experiments on animals. TAKE ACTION!
A PETA investigation found that ducks spend weeks in bleak metal cages not much bigger than their own bodies before Hot’s Kitchen sells their diseased livers. LEARN MORE.
How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election!
By now, I’m sure you know just how serious the situation is for our national parks due to the sequester cuts which will go into effect later today. I know you are as concerned as we are about this. Below is an NPCA press release with more information. Please help us do everything we can in the days ahead to protect our national parks from these damaging cuts.
ASPCA Pet of the Week: Spike Spike hasn’t met you yet, but he already loves you—we promise. Rescued by our Humane Law Enforcement in 2011, he’s got a uniquely hoarse bark that makes him all the more lovable. Please come give this wonderful guy a chance.
Sustainable Sundays: Keystone XL Moves Closer to Approval — Take Action, Cruelty to Ducks EXPOSED, Sequester Cuts Threaten National Parks, Polar Bear Victory: Court Upholds Protection, Confirms Global Warming Threat, Tell U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service To Protect Wolves, Stop Cruelty at UCSF., How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election and meet Spike, the ASPCA Pet of the Week!
The President has now “Moved The Goal Posts…” as the brand new talking point…but forget about it anyway……that makes no sense to move goal posts. No one ever moves the goal posts and its only been done one time in the history of the NFL….i think it has but anyway, I also think u dumb asses mean the lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brownmetaphor….
After all at first in 2008, we had to deal with ONLY just a few of those bad Apples…before kicking the can down the road…over the fiscal cliff…to the sequester….after now, they MOVED THE GODDAM GOAL POSTS….
BTW, that was the dems analogy or metaphor they used last summer, but again, it was the real one with lucy moving the ball when Charlie Brown tried to kick it…besides, who moves the goal posts anyway? That makes zero sense in the real world….tools…
Great news for the Arctic, polar bears and other creatures of the Far North: Shell Oil has announced it won’t drill in Alaska’s Beaufort or Chukchi seas this summer. Wednesday’s announcement follows a series of mishaps for Shell in the Arctic, including one of its drilling rigs running aground earlier this year.
The Center for Biological Diversity and allies have been pushing for years to stop drilling in the Arctic ocean, home to polar bears and other imperiled creatures that would be devastated by an oil spill. More than a million people sent messages to President Obama last year urging him not to allow Arctic drilling. Shell began exploratory drilling operations last summer but was beset by a series of mishaps.
“Although Shell calls this simply a ‘pause’ in its plans for Arctic drilling, we think it ought to be a permanent stop,” said Rebecca Noblin, the Center’s Alaska director. “Drilling in the Arctic can never be made safe for polar bears, whales and ice seals or the fragile ecosystems where they live. President Obama ought to use the opportunity to rethink his support for Arctic drilling and take if off the table forever.”
Coincidentally, Wednesday was also International Polar Bear Day. What a great way to celebrate.
As oil companies gear up for a hydraulic fracturing boom in California, state regulators have proposed industry-friendly fracking regulations that would do little to protect the state’s air, water and wildlife from pollution. The Center for Biological Diversity, in comments submitted this week, is pressing officials to recognize that the draft fracking rules fail to protect the public and fall far short of legal requirements.
In a boisterous public meeting in Los Angeles earlier this month, the Center’s Kassie Siegel told California officials that their proposal would not allow for a real assessment of the impacts of fracking, or for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. The state’s proposal to exempt fracking with diesel from the state’s Underground Injection Control Program would also violate the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The federal government has already criticized California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources for not doing enough to protect state water from oil industry pollution.
The Center also pointed out other fatal flaws in the draft regulations and urged state officials to replace the extraordinarily weak regulatory proposal with a simple prohibition on fracking.
A new national poll commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity found that a majority of Americans – 60 percent – believe the world’s growing human population is driving wildlife species toward extinction; 57 percent say human population is making climate change worse. A majority of Americans (54 percent) also say stabilizing the human population will protect the environment.
The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling last weekend, also found that 60 percent believe our society has a “moral responsibility” to address wildlife extinctions in the face of a growing population. That’s important vindication for the work the Center’s been doing for years highlighting the connection between population growth and wildlife declines and other environmental problems.
“It’s now more clear than ever that Americans are concerned about the toll that human population growth is having on wildlife and the planet,” said Jerry Karnas, population campaign director at the Center. “Population is clearly a driving factor in so many of our environmental issues today, whether it’s sprawling development crowding out Florida panthers and sea turtles, loss of wild habitat for San Joaquin kit foxes in California or the climate crisis pushing polar bears and ice seals toward extinction. It’s heartening to see that most Americans understand these connections and don’t want to see them ignored.”
Yesterday Time Magazine declared that Keystone had become the Stonewall and the Selma of the climate movement — and today we got a reminder of just how tough those fights were, and how tough this one will be.
On a Friday afternoon, with Secretary of State John Kerry half a world away and D.C. focused on the budget fight, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement for the pipeline. Like the last such report, it found that approving a 800,000 barrel-a-day fuse to one of the planet’s biggest carbon bombs was “unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the tar sands or the climate.
That, in a word, is nonsense — some of our most important climate scientists in the U.S. have written the State Department to explain exactly how dangerous Keystone is. Just yesterday Europe’s top climate diplomat pointed out that it would send a truly terrible signal to the rest of the world.
President Obama will be making a decision in a few short months. I won’t lie: today’s report makes the odds look even tougher — and the power of the fossil fuel lobby hasn’t waned one bit.
But I’m reminded that the last time the State Department issued an environmental impact statement about the pipeline, we were just beginning this fight. That day in 2011, 50 people were arrested at the White House during the very first wave of protests against the pipeline.
This time around we’re tens of thousands of people stronger, and once again, I think we are just beginning to fight.
In these next months we need to send a signal to the White House that we’re not standing down. There are two things I think we should begin working on immediately.
First — since it’s clear that the polite but firm warnings of our top climate scientists aren’t being heard –anytime that the President or Secretary of State Kerry appears in public, it’s crucial that we let them know that we won’t accept this pipeline or the damage it will do to our climate. We need a team of rapid responders coast-to-coast who can turn around with 24 hours notice and raise a ruckus at these events when we find out about them.
I should also say that with our global network, both President Obama and Secretary Kerry can expect to hear from folks when they head abroad as well.
Second, we need to raise the heat this spring and summer. Significantly. To get a jump on the season, 350.org and our allies will be hosting a massive day of action and training at venues across the country in May. It will be the first muster for the grassroots army we hope will fan out across the nation this summer, and a unified statement of our intention to fight this pipeline.
Even as we stick it to the pipeline, we’re going on offense as well, with a student-led divestment campaign that grows by the day (and increasingly moves off campus to city governments and faith communities too), and a Global Power Shift gathering this June in Turkey to gather young leaders across the globe.
I don’t know how this will all go down — only that it won’t go down easily. After watching Arctic sea ice practically disappear last summer, and Superstorm Sandy hit New York, I can also tell you that this is a key moment for our planet, and your role in it will be remembered for a long, long time — as will the President’s.
Here’s how Time put it yesterday: “There are many climate problems a President can’t solve, but Keystone XL isn’t one of them. It’s a choice between Big Oil and a more sustainable planet.” As with those historic moments at Stonewall or Selma, “The right answer isn’t always somewhere in the middle.”
Thanks for all you’ve done, and thanks for all you’ll do.
One year ago today, Trayvon Martin — an unarmed 17-year-old boy on his way home from 7-11 — was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. The murder trial is scheduled to begin this June. A separate hearing may be held in April to determine whether Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law gives Zimmerman immunity.
While nothing can make up for the events of February 26, 2012, many people have responded to the tragedy with compassion, courage and strength. Here are some of the most inspiring things that have happened over the last year.
1. 192 colleagues of Trayvon Martin’s mother donated 1,362 hours of their vacation time so she could grieve.
“Sybrina Fulton, who has worked at the Miami-Dade County housing authority for 23 years, collected $40,825 worth of donated vacation time, county records show… the Miami-Dade County Commission passed a resolution sponsored by Bruno Barreiro, Barbara Jordan and Jose “Pepe” Diaz to allow county employees to donate vacation time to Fulton…Records show 192 county employees gave Fulton some of their hours” [Miami Herald, 5/12/2012]
2. Sanford, Florida has a new police chief who has pledged to finally address “long-standing racial tensions between the police department and the African-American community.”
The police chief who decided not to charge George Zimmerman was fired. [ABC7, 2/18/2013]
3. Dozens of major companies ended their support for ALEC, the right-wing group who championed “Stand Your Ground” laws.
The companies that ended their support for the American Legislative Exchange Council include “Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Procter & Gamble, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, Dell Computers, Best Buy, General Motors and Walgreens.” ALEC was also forced to end it’s “Public Safety and Election Task Force,” which advocated for “Stand Your Ground” laws around the country. At least 39 lawmakers have also ended their association with ALEC.[ThinkProgress, 4/17/2012; ThinkProgress, 8/7/2012; ThinkProgress, 5/18/2012]
4. Thousands of people peacefully gathered in Sanford, Florida to demand justice for Trayvon Martin.
5. A United States Congressman went on the floor of the House of Representatives in a hoodie to show solidarity with Trayvon.
Illionis Rep. Bobby Rush said, “Racial profiling has to stop Mr. Speaker. Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.” After delivering a rousing speech, he was escorted from the floor for violating decorum. [NBC News, 3/28/2012]
6. Legislation to repeal “Stand Your Ground” laws was introduced in four states.
The law was cited by the police as the reason Zimmerman was not arrested for weeks after Martin was killed. [Yahoo, 1/26/2013]
7. Students at Howard University produced this video to highlight the racial profiling of young black men.
“All young black men are not suspicious. We don’t deserve to be harassed, murdered, prosecuted or denied the protections of the justice system all because America believes that we are suspicious… Some of us have already and will eventually change the world. All are not suspicious.”
8. President Obama spoke out about Trayvon Martin in the Rose Garden.
“My main message is to the parents: If I had a son he’d look like Trayvon. I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves.” [3/23/2012]
By now, I’m sure you know just how serious the situation is for our national parks due to the sequester cuts which will go into effect later today. I know you are as concerned as we are about this. Below is an NPCA press release with more information. Please help us do everything we can in the days ahead to protect our national parks from these damaging cuts.
Battle of the Climate Process
We have been on the front lines of the fight against global warming — and on front pages, too — for years now with some of the country’s most innovative legal, policy and grassroots campaigns to save the globe from irreversible climate catastrophe. Last year we started our Clean Air Cities campaign, which urges cities to sign formal resolutions calling on the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas pollution; we’ve already signed on 40 cities, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Miami and Nashville. We’ll grow that number substantially in 2013.
Our Climate Law Institute will continue with our other pioneering climate work, including to save the Arctic from oil drilling, to stop dirty fuel-extraction methods like oil and tar sands development and fracking, to improve fuel economy, to protect warming-threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and more. So stay tuned to find out what new tricks we have up our sleeves; we’re not giving it all away yet.
This is what I wrote on her blog just now…with alex…wagner: Lets see now….I agree that healthcare needs to be slashed but why did we do that obama care if we were gonna chop it 6 months later….and, Is it farm or agriculture…i assume the latter has too many digits but i have no issues cutting the tobacco people, etc….i like this proposal..i am posting it….but i hope this is NOT a negotiation…i dont care about social security….i am way into the tax term…and wait a sec…how does 50 bill on infrastructure equal a cut but dont get me wrong now…i am totally for that one….i want more money spent that way….
Sometimes the sports world doesn’t just reflect the real world. It mocks our world with a vicious veracity. Recently, we learned that Florida Atlantic University had sold the naming rights to its football field. This isn’t unusual at all, but the company the school chose amongst many suitors certainly was. The stadium will be known as GEO Group Stadium.
For those who have never heard about—or protested—GEO Group, it is a highly profitable private prison corporation. Governments across the world, from South Africa to the United Kingdom to Australia, pay the GEO Group to take over their jails and run them as privatized, for-profit enterprises.
In the United States, where the prison population has more than doubled since 1992 and is now the highest in the world, this is known as a growth industry. In many communities, where people of color are victimized by callously punitive laws (promoted by the lobbying arms of for-profit prisons), it’s known as the New Jim Crow. The GEO group is the second largest for-profit prison company in the United States, behind only the Correctional Corporation of America.
Florida Atlantic University President Mary Jane Saunder gushed over the GEO Group payment of $6 million over the next 12 years for stadium naming rights. She called the GEO Group a “wonderful company” and said the university was “very proud to partner” with it. “This gift is a true representation of the GEO Group’s incredible generosity to FAU and the community it serves,” she said. Given how cash-strapped most universities are, and given how university presidents have increasingly become glorified fundraisers, her joy is unsurprising.
But fortunately, her acceptance of this money is sparking anger and protest on campus and beyond.
“It’s startling to see a stadium will be named after [the GEO Group],” Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leaders, told The New York Times. “ It’s like calling something Blackwater Stadium. This is a company whose record is marred by human rights abuses, by lawsuits, by unnecessary deaths of people in their custody and a whole series of incidents that really draw into question their ability to successfully manage a prison facility.”
Getting the naming rights is part and parcel of an effort by GEO Group CEO (and Florida Atlantic alum) George Zoley to rebrand the corporation as beneficent, as it undergoes a high-profile effort to take over a significant section of Florida’s prison system, the third largest in the United States. The company needs this makeover after being dogged with protests and lawsuits throughout the state on charges that it, as the Palm Beach Post reported, pads its “profits by cutting worker wages, skimping on inmate health care and ignoring safety and sanitation.”
Undeterred, the GEO Group is looking longingly at Florida’s more than three million undocumented workers, fourth highest in the nation. The future of private prisons may lie in warehousing many of these immigrants. It’s a potential windfall worth billions of dollars to a company that already counts its earning with nine zeroes. And it already has been cashing in on this bonanza, running the Broward Transitional Center for immigrants jailed minor nonviolent offenses or for not having their papers in order.
Its record at Broward has been scandalous, according to the Sun Sentinel, which reported on an undercover investigation by immigrants that revealed “incidents of substandard or callous medical care, including a woman taken for ovarian surgery and returned the same day, still bleeding, to her cell, and a man who urinated blood for days but wasn’t taken to see a doctor.”
In Mississippi, the GEO Group also was embroiled in scandal for the way it ran the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi. The Justice Department found that prison personnel engaged in “systemic, egregious and dangerous practices,” including participating in gang fights. Guards and even the warden were allegedy engaging in sex with inmates, the report said, saying such practices were “among the worst that we’ve seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.” A federal judge also called the prison “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions.”
Six million dollars is a small price to pay for the kind of public relations that would whisk these scandals under the sand. The GEO Group aims to be as Florida as a roseate spoonbill and a glass of orange juice—or make that an orange jumpsuit.
Students understand this reality and aren’t going to just let it happen without putting up a fight. “The fact that they are locking up people of color and immigrants like my parents is shameful,” says Noor Fawzy, a twenty-two-year-old member of the student government whose parents are Palestinian immigrants. “We don’t want our university to be associated with an entity that is being investigated for human rights abuses.” Other students who have had relatives locked away in GEO facilities, only to emerge with horror stories of mistreatment, are also speaking out.
It’s long been said that for too many people of color in the state of Florida, your future is confined to either playing football or ending up in the penitentiary. Universities like Florida Atlantic are supposed to represent an alternative to that kind of dystopic state of affairs. Florida Atlantic may go down in history as the school that dropped all pretense and brought the gridiron and the prison together.
Dave Zirin is the host of Sirius XM Radio’s popular weekly show, “Edge of Sports Radio.” His newest book is “Game Over: How Politics Has Turned the Sports World Upside Down” (The New Press).
The United States is rapidly approaching March 1, the date on which the automatic spending cuts put in place by the summer 2011 debt ceiling deal will begin taking effect. There is little indication that Congress will avert the cuts as it did in January, as Republican leaders have thus far been unwilling to negotiate with President Obama and Senate Democrats.
Congress is currently on recess until next Monday, leaving just five legislative days until the automatic cuts — known as sequestration — will take effect. Here’s a breakdown of why the sequester was created and what it will mean for programs facing cuts and the nation’s overall economic recovery:
Why the sequester was created. The sequester was a result of the GOP’s wrangling over the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011, when Republican leaders — who had previously passed clean debt increases 19 times under President Bush — demanded spending cuts as the price for averting a costly default. On the brink of default, Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which enacted immediate spending cuts and created a supercommittee tasked with striking a “grand bargain” to reduce the deficit. Republicans walked away from the committee after refusing to consider tax increases on the wealthy, setting sequestration into motion. The sequester, which cuts from both domestic and defense spending, was designed to be painful enough that both sides would negotiate to avert it.
How to avoid it. The sequester was originally supposed to take effect on January 1, but it was avoided as part of the overall “fiscal cliff” deal that maintained most of the Bush-era tax cuts and enacted spending reductions to offset the first round of automatic cuts. In the past, Republicans offered plans to offset the sequester by cutting more spending, even though deficit reduction efforts have been heavily skewed toward spending cuts to domestic programs already. Democrats have offered multiple proposals that would bring more balance to efforts to reduce the deficit. A plan from the Congressional Progressive Caucus would replace the sequester largely with new revenue, evening the balance of spending cuts and revenue increases in overall deficit reduction efforts. Senate Democrats proposed a plan that reduced the deficit by $110 billion, enough to offset the sequester until next January. Half of the reduction comes from cuts, the other half from tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans, however, have again refused to negotiate over new revenues, even from tax reform that would close corporate loopholes.
What it will mean. Because its cuts are across-the-board, the sequester will affect most domestic programs. Jobless workers will lose access to unemployment benefits, while safety net programs for women and children and early childhood education programs will face deep cuts. The sequester willcut funding for law enforcement and border security, food safety, airline travel security, Head Start, disaster relief, and health research. Defense programs will also see reductions. These cuts will have broad ramifications for the country’s recovering economy, pushing it down the austere path Europe has followed into second recessions. Independent reports predict that sequestration would reduce economic growth by 0.6 percent over the year while also leading to the loss of 700,000 jobs. The debt limit fight that created the sequester alreadypummeled the recovery, and allowing these spending cuts to take effect would cause even bigger problems. Travis Waldron
Well water taken near mountaintop
removal mining site.
For many people living near mountaintop removal coal mining sites in Appalachia, the water they are forced to use for bathing, cooking, and even drinking is cloudy, brown, and toxic.
Years of mountaintop removal coal mining have buried 2,000 miles of local streams with waste from Big Coal‘s destruction – many of the streams that are left are devoid of life. Well water in the area isn’t safe either, and it’s making people sick. People living nearby are at higher risk of cancer and birth defects.
During President Obama’s first term, the EPA issued some guidelines that encourage coal companies to do more to protect the water in Appalachia. But these guidelines are non-binding – mining companies and some Appalachian state agencies are doing all they can to fight them.
Half-measures like these are unacceptable when the health of entire communities is on the line.
Congress passed the Clean Water Act over forty years ago so that no one would be forced to drink polluted water. Enforcing the Clean Water Act is something that the Obama administration can do right away, without waiting for Congress, to bring relief to Americans living near mountaintop removal mining.
Holding coal companies accountable for this dangerous pollution is one of many actions President Obama must take during his second term to secure a clean energy legacy for our children.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a 75-year-old soybean farmer’s appeal against biotech giant Monsanto, in a case that could permanently reshape the genetically modified (GM) crop industry. Victor “Hugh” Bowman has been battling the corporation since 2007, when Monsanto sued him for violating their patent protection by purchasing second-generation GM seeds from a grain elevator. An appeals court ruled in favor of Monsanto, and despite the Obama administration’s urging to let the decision stand, the nine justices will hear Bowman make his case today.
Monsanto is notorious among farmers for the company’s aggressive investigations and pursuit of farmers they believe have infringed on Monsanto’s patents. In the past 13 years, Monsanto has sued 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses, almost always settling out of court (the few farmers that can afford to go to trial are always defeated). These farmers were usually sued for saving second-generation seeds for the next harvest — a basic farming practice rendered illegal because seeds generated by GM crops contain Monsanto’s patented genes.
Monsanto’s winning streak hinges on a controversial Supreme Court decision from 1981, which ruled on a 5-4 split that living organisms could be patented as private property. As a result of that decision, every new generation of GM seeds — and their self-replicating technology — is considered Monsanto’s property.
Unfortunately, second- and third-generation seeds are very hard to track, which may explain why Monsanto devotes $10 million a year and 75 staffers to investigating farmers for possible patent violations. Seeds are easily carried by birds or blown by the wind into fields of non-GM seeds, exposing farmers who have never bought seeds from Monsanto to lawsuits. Organic and conventional seeds are fast becoming extinct — 93 percent of soybeans, 88 percent of cotton, and 86 percent of corn in the USare grown from Monsanto’s patented seeds. A recent studydiscovered that at least half of the organic seeds in the US are contaminated with some genetically modified material.
Bowman’s appeal gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to determine whether or not Monsanto is using patent enforcement to control their monopoly on a vital resource. As GM seeds become more ubiquitous, farmers who want to avoid Monsanto’s strict patents have few alternatives. As a recently released Center for Food Safety report notes, the concentration of market power among Monsanto and a handful of other companies has led to skyrocketing seed prices and less innovation by smaller firms:
USDA data show that since the introduction of GE seed, the average cost of soybean seed to plant one acre has risen by a dramatic 325 percent, from $13.32 to $56.58. Similar trends exist for corn and cotton seeds: cotton seeds spiked 516 percent from 1995-2011 and corn seed costs rose 259 percent over the same period.
[...] USDA economists have found that seed industry consolidation has reduced research and likely resulted in fewer crop varieties on offer: “Those companies that survived seed industry consolidation appear to be sponsoring less research relative to the size of their individual markets than when more companies were involved… Also, fewer companies developing crops and marketing seeds may translate into fewer varieties offered.”
Furthermore, emerging evidence indicates that Monsanto has hardly perfected the technology. A core argument for GM seeds in the 1990s claimed they would reduce chemical pesticide use because the plants themselves would repel pests and weeds. But studies have confirmed the spread of so-called “superweeds” that have developed a resistance to Monsanto’s gene, leading farmers to deploy even heavier doses of herbicides like Monsanto’s own product, Roundup. Another new report debunked the company’s argument that GM seeds would have higher yields; in fact, two of Monsanto’s most popular genes caused yields to drop.
Despite the mounting evidence against their products, the biotech industry enjoys a cozy relationship with government regulators. In December, the Justice Department abruptlydropped their investigation into anti-competitive practices in the industry without so much as a press release. The stalled Farm Bill also contains generous provisions that would allow these companies to put their products on the market with cursory or no review by the USDA.
Today’s oral argument is a study in these intertwined interests: the Obama administration is presenting their own defense of Monsanto, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was once a Monsanto lawyer (but will not recuse himself from Bowman’s case). Still, the same high court that enabled the current state of American agriculture in 1981 now finds itself in a position to check Monsanto’s power — or help them tighten their hold on the industry. Aviva Shen
Big fan of: His people—playing with them, getting exercise together and snugglefests. Champion also likes to play with other dogs, but he’s still learning how. Give this sweetie a toy and you’ll be friends for life. He can’t get enough!
Not a fan of: People who seem unusual, which can be scary to Champion. That’s why he needs a family who will help him realize that there’s no reason for fear, and that the world is a great place to be a dog.
Special features: Champion is super motivated to learn new stuff, and he’ll do great in obedience classes at the ASPCA. In the right hands, he’ll grow up to be a model pup in no time. He already knows Sit and is learning Down!
Other reasons he’s special: Champion had to have surgery for broken front paws when he was a puppy, and we had to put steel rods in his legs to repair his breaks. Now he’s a little bionic puppy.
Dream home: Champion is an energetic guy—he is still a teen, after all—so he’ll need an experienced adopter who can provide him with lots of playtime, obedience training and exercise. His adopter should be prepared for the challenges (and fun!) of a young dog and be ready to handle it. A teens-and-up household would be perfect.
If you’re interested: Please call our Adoption Center in New York City at (212) 876-7700, ext. 4900.
Dog fighting is a huge problem, and sometimes it can seem that you can’t do much to help as an individual. But there are a few things you can do to stop it now, and we really need your help.
They live chained up or in a tiny cage. They don’t get the veterinary care they need. They die in the ring or are unceremoniously shot for losing. Some are used as “bait” for other dogs. Some have litter after litter. Some starve. Some go without water for days.
Odds are that dog fighting is happening in your state right now. We need your help to stop it. Give dog fighting victims three minutes of your time?
1. Ask your U.S. representative to support the Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act.
The Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 23, would make it a federal offense to knowingly attend an organized animal fight and would impose additional penalties for bringing children to animal fights. Violators would face up to one year in prison for attending a fight, and up to three years in prison for bringing a minor to a fight.
You can help the bill along by contacting your rep. We’ve made it easy at the ASPCA Advocacy Center, and we promise it only takes a few minutes, tops.
2. Download our new anti-dog fighting toolkit for citizen advocates.
If you’re as horrified by dog fighting as we are, and you think you might want to commit more time to stopping dog fighting in the near future, download our new toolkit developed with the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s got everything you need to know to get more involved. (We admit, actually reading it will take more than three minutes, but you get the idea.)
3. Fight Pit Bull prejudice via social media.
Pit Bulls and dogs who look like Pit Bulls get a bad rap because of their reputation as fighting dogs. Fight it by becoming a tireless advocate for them on your social networks. Start by posting the profile of a cute, adoptable Pit Bull-type dog on Facebook (we suggest Pet of the WeekChampion) or sharing a happy tail about a Pit.
Each year, billions of dollars fund animal experiments, much of it U.S.-taxpayer dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The public is led to believe that these experiments are necessary to promote human health and well-being. Indeed, the mission of NIH is to “to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability.”
But under close scrutiny this claim does not hold up. Animal experiments continue year after year, examining the same questions, at huge cost, creating “animal models” for diseases and conditions that are uniquely human, like smoking and alcoholism.
IDA‘s Outragie Awards highlight the Top Ten most stupid, cruel and truly outrageous experiments. You can read IDA’s full list here. Among this year’s awardees are:
The Most Outrageously Superfluous award went to researchers at Yale and the University of California, Los Angeles who gave massive doses of PCP to monkeys, claiming this made them “schizophrenic,” and then gave them a drug already known to treat schizophrenia in humans. The Most Outrageously Depraved award was bestowed upon scientists at Columbia University who used costly genetic engineering to wipe out the sense of smell in mice, and then electro-shocked them and hung them upside-down by their tails with adhesive tape, claiming to study the effect of smell on anxiety.
Even after months of high-profile statements about climate change, the Obama administration finalized a special rule Tuesday that fails to protect polar bears from greenhouse gas pollution under the Endangered Species Act. The new “4(d)” rule dates from the Bush era and excludes activities occurring outside polar bear habitat — notably, carbon emissions causing global warming and sea-ice melt — from being addressed to prevent the bear’s extinction.
Polar bears were the first species protected under the Act, after a Center for Biological Diversity petition, solely because of threats from global warming. They need Arctic sea ice, which reached a record low last summer, to survive. The feds’ special rule comes just days after a new report from 12 leading polar bear scientists urging governments to plan for rapid ecosystem changes that could send key bear populations into abrupt decline. Without help, more than two-thirds of the planet’s polar bears, including all the bears in Alaska, will likely be gone by 2050.
“The Obama administration’s strong climate rhetoric is completely at odds with this weak decision not to protect polar bears from carbon pollution,” said the Center’s Brendan Cummings.
Last Sunday more than 50,000 people rallied in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco to tell President Barack Obama that the time to deal with the climate crisis is now. It was the single-largest demonstration on climate in U.S. history. The Center for Biological Diversity, including Frostpaw the Polar Bear, attended both inspirational rallies. Thanks to all the Center supporters who attended — and to those providing moral support from home.
We need to turn the corner on climate change. That means rejecting the toxic Keystone XL pipeline, saying no to dangerous drilling in our pristine Arctic Ocean and banning fracking on public lands. After the rallies President Obama updated his Facebook status to read: “We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late.” We couldn’t agree more.
Five years ago this week, polar bears were protected under the 
The 
Big thanks to the Center’s dedicated supporters in Florida, who can claim partial credit for the LorrainePaulhus.jpg)
In response to an unusual request from the National Rifle Association — for information on how lead ammunition poisons endangered California condors — I sent a letter Tuesday to gun group head honcho Wayne LaPierre. Although the NRA has lobbied aggressively for years to stop efforts to get toxic lead out of hunting ammunition, its letter to the Center betrayed zero knowledge of the actual effects of said lead on said wildlife.
Looking for the very latest evidence that the Endangered Species Act works? Look no further than Logan County, Ark., wherein dwells a tiny snail called the Magazine Mountain shagreen. And yes, that’s its real name.
As carbon dioxide levels in the world’s atmosphere swiftly approach 400 parts per million, a new study in Nature Climate Change says that by 2080, global warming will make more than half of existing habitat for 6 out of 10 plants uninhabitable and do the same for about a third of animal species. But there’s still hope: Immediate, strong action to reduce emissions could cut these losses by 60 percent, the study says.
Tomorrow is Endangered Species Day — and a special one, too, since it’s falling on a landmark year for the world’s strongest law to protect biodiversity. The Endangered Species Act richly deserves to be toasted on its 40th birthday: Over the past four decades, the Act has repeatedly demonstrated its effectiveness. It’s prevented extinction for 99 percent of the species under its care, and an estimated 227 species would likely have gone extinct without it; the Act is a wild success.
In response to a Center petition, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that Townsend’s big-eared bats — insect-eating and highly sensitive creatures — may warrant protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act. Whether the bat is actually protected is now up to the state’s Fish and Game Commission, expected to decide in June.
Between 30 billion and 1 trillion cicadas — well rested after a 17-year stint of underground sap-sucking — are poised to burrow to the surface and take over the East Coast this summer. They’ll be hungry, hormonal and looking for love, singing at earsplitting decibel levels to bring down a date.
Endangered loggerhead sea turtles just won an important new federal commitment to protect some of their most important habitat, thanks to a settlement between the 
Any day now, we expect the Obama administration to propose a rule that will prematurely strip 
Just weeks after the Center for Biological Diversity and the 
We’re excited to announce the opening of a new Center for Biological Diversity Northern Rockies office, to be headed by scientist and veteran conservation advocate Louisa Willcox. Based in Montana, Louisa and the Northern Rockies office will allow the Center to expand its advocacy for endangered species — including grizzlies, wolves, lynx, bison, grayling, sage grouse and fishers — and their habitats in the region.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just revised its proposed listing rule for lesser prairie chickens to include a special “4(d)” loophole in the Endangered Species Act that would allow destruction of the birds’ habitat, in particular through farming, to continue unimpeded. The prairie chicken, a kind of western grouse famous for its unique, elaborate, and comical mating displays, has been on the waiting list for protection since 1998 and was proposed for protection under the Center’s 757 species agreement.
As part of End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, D.C., Appalachian residents this week brought toxic water from their homes to the headquarters of the EPA and members of Congress.
All year the Center for Biological Diversity is teaming up with the Endangered Species Coalition to mark the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act — and we’re doing something special this month to celebrate Endangered Species Day on May 17. We need your help to make it happen.
Often misunderstood and maligned, predators like grizzly bears and wolves have been pushed out of their native habitats as people (and their buildings and livestock) have moved in. On top of that, many have been hunted, trapped and killed to near extinction. And as the human population grows and climate change worsens, so do threats to these ecologically important wildlife.
Ever watch the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week marathon or the film Jaws and decide to cancel your beach vacation? A new infographic titled “Shark Attack” will help put that fear into perspective. Using stark and staggeringly simple units of measurement, the infographic demonstrates that, while roughly 12 people are killed by sharks every year, a total of 11,417 sharks are killed by people every hour. That’s more than 100 million sharks killed each year.
You’ll get a chance to hear from each of 
After almost 50 years as a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Dr. James Hansen — easily the U.S. government’s most visible scientific figure on climate change — retires this week. Besides being a leading voice urging action on climate change, Hansen, 72, has been arrested or cited at climate protests six times.
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We have been on the front lines of the fight against global warming — and on front pages, too — for years now with some of the country’s most innovative legal, policy and grassroots campaigns to save the globe from irreversible climate catastrophe. Last year we started our Clean Air Cities campaign, which urges cities to sign formal resolutions calling on the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas pollution; we’ve already signed on 40 cities, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Miami and Nashville. We’ll grow that number substantially in 2013.
Even after months of high-profile statements about climate change, the 
