Toxic Tar Sands Could be "Game Over" for Earth.

Even as a child, I felt a calling to Mother Nature. It all started with a book by illustrator, and children's author, Bill Peet. He was known for being able to convey deep topics to children while maintaining a creative and imaginative story to keep the kid's attention. I was an advanced reader with a serious-mind, so I often eschewed the usual fare of children's books that seemed to convey nothing but silly, fluffy rhymes about nonsensical story lines. Eventually, I found Bill Peet's book, "The Wump World" in a dusty corner of the library where I'd hide out during recess to avoid being bullied.



In this book lived these creatures called, wumps. They are a simple but noble community of beings whose planet was taken over by rampantly consuming and polluting humanoids known as the "Pollutians." After they trash the planet and use up all the natural resources they jet-off into space to find another planet to exploit. But, not all is lost when the wumps emerge from hiding and discover one small plant survived. It stirred me deeply and I mourned the actions of the Pollutians but it also stirred a passion for protecting nature that would develop in adulthood into a full-blown activism for Mother Earth. Yet, the Pollutians of planet Earth are still amongst us and about to rape the Earth so ruthlessly that such actions could be the breaking point for our environment.



The Pollutians of Earth are pushing to install a scarring, oil sludge pipeline (known as "Keystone XL") from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. It would cut across the heart of the American prairies that grow food for America and the world. But, this shit isn't just any oil--"It's not just regular oil, but highly corrosive and particularly carbon intensive. The process of extracting the oil from the sands is more energy intensive than drilling for crude. It entails destruction of Canada's Boreal forest, which serve as a carbon sink, making this particular resource extraction a global warming double whammy."



If these tar sands are tapped, the federal government’s premier climate scientist James Hansen says it would be “essentially game over for the climate.” "It would cross under 11 major rivers between Canada and southern Nebraska, according to TransCanada officials, and also would pass beneath several hundred smaller streams draining into major rivers. TransCanada has a dismal record of pipeline spills. Its Keystone 1 pipeline, which began operating in June 2010, transports tar sands crude from Canada to Illinois refineries and Oklahoma tank farms. TransCanada reported an astonishing 12 leaks the first year" [...] Beyond polluting major rivers and countless streams, toxic crude oil leaks could poison a major aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer lies underneath parts of eight states, and most of the residents in those states depend on it for their drinking and irrigation water.



So, I am putting out the call to the grove that our Mother Nature needs us. She shelters, feeds and entertains us with the patience that only a mother can display. However, she can't help us if we continue to poison her mystical source of life. We have dishonored our mother by abusing her with pollution. We have exploited her gifts for our own greedy desires, which has often left Mother Nature powerless to protect our fragile animal cousins. But, all is not lost--she has given birth to a vast and diverse family of children; luckily, some of them have not strayed from her heart very far and are standing up to push back against the forces of destruction.



If you want to help protect our benevolent Mother then please join me in donating to stop the Canada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Two organizations on the front lines that I'd suggest are: "Greenpeace Canada" (click here to visit their page). Then, visit "Tar Sands Action" (click here for their site) to sign a petition to stop this rape of our dear Mother. Whether you are in the United States, or Canada, I ask one last thing from you; please, email or call your political leaders and beg them to stop this risk to not only our climate but our health (and that of our children). President Obama's administration is leaning toward going ahead with the American side of the pipeline, so we have to act now.

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Burn Charcoal to Help Reverse Climate Change?

Burning something organic is usually seen to be dirty--not, porn "dirty" but pollution dirty. However, science is finding that a form of charcoal might actually help reduce greenhouse gases:

As much as 12 percent of the world's human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That's more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published August 10 in the journal Nature Communications. "Biochar offers one of the few ways we can create power while decreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And it improves food production in the world's poorest regions by increasing soil fertility. It's an amazing tool."

Biochar is made by decomposing biomass like plants, wood and other organic materials at high temperature in a process called slow pyrolysis. Normally, biomass breaks down and releases its carbon into the atmosphere within a decade or two. But biochar is more stable and can hold onto its carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years, keeping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide out of the air longer. Other biochar benefits include: improving soils by increasing their ability to retain water and nutrients; decreasing nitrous oxide and methane emissions from the soil into which it is tilled; and, during the slow pyrolysis process, producing some bio-based gas and oil that can offset emissions from fossil fuels.

Green man: It's going to take a patchwork of ideas and revolutionary science to tackle the vast scale of the problem. There is no "magic elixir" to change this trend and threat to not just our environment but our very lives. It's simply a reality that not every place gets enough sun for solar energy, not enough wind for wind energy and hydrogen is still expensive and volatile. Another idea that I like is using algae to power our cars. The problem isn't the ability to solve this problem but rather the lack of political willpower to see the dire need for these technologies. No where is this more evident than in the United States where a large chunk of the problem stems from with emissions. We Americans unfortunately know a lot about war and coming up with a multi-tiered plan is essential and something of a strong suit for us. We need to convince other Americans that this climate issue is a major national security issue--it's a war and thus demands an immediate and diverse battle plan. And it needs to be set into motion, frankly, immediately.

The irony of using biochar is that the environmental benefits of it have long been known to ancient man but modern man's arrogance took over and the assumption was that nearly everything the ancients knew was to no longer beneficial. "Amazonian Indians mixed a combination of charcoal and organic matter into the soil to improve soil fertility, a fact that got the scientists interested in studying biochar's modern potential." The renaissance brought about many wonderful benefits to civilization; not the least of which being science itself!! The very science that is now rediscovering the benefits of charcoal. Rediscoveries like this always make me sober in one respect because of all the genocide modern man is committing by cutting down the rain forests. How many cures for various cancers could be destroyed? Or cures for HIV/AIDS?

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Last Decade Was Warmest on Record

Deke Arndt, chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at the National Climatic Data Center, noted that the 1980s was the warmest decade up to that point, but each year in the 1990s was warmer than the '80s average. That makes the '90s the warmest decade, he said. But each year in the 2000s has been warmer than the '90s average, so the first 10 years of the 2000s is now the warmest decade on record.

Green Man: The trend is clear and the problem obvious but as usual in America we don't fix problems until the it's too late. The problem is that with nature you can't just ignore it for decades and then be able to turn it around to a healthy balance in one day or one election cycle. I don't even know why protecting the environment is a political issue at all -- It's a human issue that all political sides should be able to support.

Who can be against protecting the air we breath?!! Because without it, ironically, there would be no humans to deny the importance of protecting the air we breath!! Being against protecting the very environment that keeps you alive is like being against the medical field that keeps us alive. It scares me that this is a subject that's even being debated!! Our Earth is in a crisis and humans have come to naively believe that they've mastered nature to the point where they think we don't have to worry about its balance. Oh, foolish, little, man!!

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Climategate Investigation VINDICATES Scientists.

LONDON — An independent report into the leak of hundreds of e-mails from one of the world's leading climate research centers on Wednesday largely vindicated the scientists involved, saying they acted honestly and that their research was reliable.
Green Man: In summing up the politics of this issue I couldn't improve upon the comments of commenter "Pimentoloaf" on The Huffington Post" article.

Most of the comments that argue against action to mitigate climate change are for economic reasons. Let's entertain that thought for a second. Consider the dramatic decline of America's steel industry, the huge reduction of our manufacturing workforce, and the designers, engineers and technicians that have been furloughed in the automotive and aeronautic segments. These people can be put back to work. A typical wind turbine has 8,000 parts and is made of 250 tons of steel.

Somebody has to make that steel, fabricate those parts, assemble them, deliver the assembled turbine to a wind farm, erect the turbine and manage the wind farm. Those are American jobs! And they are jobs in sectors hardest hit by the global economy - the sectors that need jobs the most. What kills me is that the people arguing against green technology are people who could benefit most, directly or indirectly, from a technology shift of this sort. Arguing against a movement toward green tech is either a stunning lack of vision, or a political hatred so unreasonable that it has clouded all sense of good judgement and reason.

Green Man: And the same goes for solar, wave turbine energy, biomass (including some cool research and advances into algae energy) and countless other green energy technologies. My wife works for a solar company here in Colorado, which was recently granted billions of dollars from the Obama administration to increase viability, employment and continued advancements in the technology. The company is Abound Solar. Abound Solar produces next-generation, thin–film photovoltaic modules intended to deliver the lowest levelized cost of electricity. Our proprietary manufacturing process produces solar modules that help customers achieve grid parity today and replace traditional forms of electricity generation.

We need to increase our investments in these kinds of companies to take our economy back and clean our planet. So we don't have to rely upon the delusions of religious fanatics who think someone is going to come and save us just in time before our world burns up. These anti-climate change folks often tend to be conservative politically, yet one of their favorite points to bring up is our grandkids--usually when discussing money issues. Sorry guys but you're kids won't inherit your gobs of money if they can't breath or if it's so hot no one can leave the house, let alone work.

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Saving the Amazon may be the Most Cost-Effective Way to Cut Green House Gases.

An hour outside Manaus, the Amazon's biggest city, the blackened remains of a virgin forest smolder. Chain saws whine. And Jonas Mendes tosses logs, one after another, into his kiln. "I know it's wrong to cut down the trees," said Mendes, 48, sweat streaming down his neck and torso. "But I have no other way to make a living." If the Obama administration succeeds in its pledge to curb climate change, billions could flow from the U.S. to help forest dwellers such as Mendes change their ways. Governors of the Brazilian Amazon's nine states are pushing the U.S. and other industrial nations to invest in projects under rules known as REDD -- or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation -- that are being designed through the auspices of the United Nations.

Under pending legislation to cap greenhouse gases, the U.S. government would auction emission allowances, funneling as much as $3 billion from the annual proceeds into rain forest protection. U.S. companies facing carbon controls could meet part of their obligations by investing as much as $13 billion a year by 2020 to preserve forests. The reason? Slash-and-burn deforestation accounts for about 15% of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions. Despite activists' efforts, forests have been disappearing at the rate of about 34 million acres a year for the last two decades. Globally, Indonesia and Brazil are the third- and fourth-largest emitters respectively of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S., because of their breakneck pace of forest destruction.

Saving the Amazon, Earth's largest tropical jungle, can be a cheaper and faster way to avoid greenhouse gas emissions than replacing coal-fired power plants with renewable energy or switching to electric cars -- although all such measures are considered necessary by climate experts.

Green Man: I first heard about this idea when the government of Guyana announced that some European countries are buying emission allowances to protect the forests there, which are some of the last virgin stands in the world. Some people in the United States though don't see the upside to this idea--they think we're just redistributing wealthy to poorer countries with nothing in exchange. That is a myopic way of looking at the situation though because if we just continue to allow the free market to go unfettered without pollution controls then there will be no world for these companies to live in, work, in and enjoy their money upon. In the rich countries we don't see the consequences of our everyday actions so much as the places who are getting hit first with environmental degradation. We don't see on a daily basis the island nations whose rural livelihood is being directly threatened but yet they did nothing to bring such trouble upon themselves. Yet in the cruel twisting of fate they have to pay for our mess first.

What's in it for the wealthier countries? A clean environment where our children and grandchildren can thrive. I never understood how the American Conservatives are so against protecting the environment when it has direct repercussions for their families. I say this because, ironically, they are very much in support of strong families and protecting their posterity!!

The Amazon along with all the other big forests around the world are our lungs as well as our liver and kidneys, filtering out the toxic gases and it should be starkly clear that any organism can't survive without its physiological systems intact. Well, the Earth is just as alive as any other being on Earth. It's constantly moving, growing, changing and just like all organisms it can get sick. The Earth has "physiological systems" at work in the air, water, earth and fire. It all has to be balanced or the perfect conditions for ALL life to thrive within will die. This should have been plainly made clear in school for most people when discussing the basic "food chain" concept. If one of the animals in the food chain goes extinct (say a predator) then it throws the balance of nature completely off and you get over-population of species, which in turn depletes the grasses and on and one the domino effect goes. How would it be any different for the plant life growing on Earth?

We need to stop looking at the environment as optional and realize that NOTHING, literally NOTHING else is possible in this life without it. I don't care how big your house is, how much money you have or how healthy you are right now because if we don't clean up our environment and get the cycles back in order then we'll all be dead. I'm not being hyperbolic on this--It's a really crisis. There won't be another chance to make up for missing the boat on this one. It's not like we can always revisit the issue like other issues before governments such as health care programs and such. We have one shot, one opportunity and it would be a shame if we humans were the ones to fuck it all up. It would be shame because it would be our own damn fault. We'd be nothing better than a stupid parasite who killed off its host and thus it as well.

And isn't it better to be safe than sorry? If for some reason ALL the scientists in the world are wrong and Earth will be just fine then at least we protected the last natural places on the planet. Open air museums for our children and grandchildren to visit. And if nothing else we will have created a whole new economy for the world in green energy, which will also free us from foreign oil imported from countries who don't like us anyway!! It's win-win situation either way if you ask me!! I really encourage you to read the rest of the article because it goes into so many great points that I don't have space or time to extrapolate upon them here. Click here for the full article.

---The Green Man has Spoken---

Global Warming, Climate Change and The 2010 East Coast Snow Storm.

Some of the "geniuses" on the right are saying that the two day storm on the east coast this week proves that global warming isn't real. Just because the east coast gets hit with a 100 year storm doesn't mean that the rest of the time there isn't global warming. The exception of a huge snow storm doesn't disprove the over-all trend or rule. Mild temperatures in the winter mean more evaporation and thus more water in the air. So when it does snow they are monster storms. Global warming LEADS to climate change but they are not necessarily the same thing. Steven Colbert and Bill Nye, "the Science Guy" go after this latest right-wing example of sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to science:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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And now for a more intellectual explain from Rachel Maddow and Bill Nye, "The Science Guy.":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

---End of Transmission---

Methane in Permafrost Escaping at Dangerous Levels from Global Warming.

Scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point. Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, leading some scientists to describe melting permafrost as a ticking time bomb that could overwhelm efforts to tackle climate change. They fear the warming caused by increased methane emissions will itself release yet more methane and lock the region into a destructive cycle that forces temperatures to rise faster than predicted.

Green Man: It seems as though the permafrost is like Pandora's box, which is a mythological jar belonging to Pandora (she was the child of the Greek Gods/Goddesses). When she opened her jar it unleashed a process of total destruction -- sickness, disease, suffering and many hardships upon the world. The permafrost is indeed a Pandora's box, which while covered in layers of ice is harmless but when unlocked by rising temperatures, it triggers a mass release of toxic gases.

It's tragically ironic that we are so worried about a chemical weapon of mass destruction being set-off by a terrorists group when in all probability such a disaster seems more likely to occur from global warming. And we aren't doing much to prepare for that threat. Mother Earth is pissed off, and rightly so. She is unleashing her last defenses to fight back against the human species, which is using her beyond what she can provide. Thus, we have become parasites upon her and such a relationship is untenable and puts all species at risk.

~The Green Man has Spoken~