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~

Chemicals Changing the Sex of Fish in Potomac River.

More than 80% of the male bass fish in Washington's major river are now exhibiting female traits such as egg production because of a "toxic stew" of pollutants, scientists and campaigners reported yesterday. Intersex fish probably result from drugs, such as the contraceptive pill, and other chemicals being flushed into the water and have been found right across the US.

Green Man: Oh, great. We already know about mercury being common in fish but now they're packed full of hormones!! Our girls are going to be maturing at five years old pretty soon and our boys will have no testicles. At least that seems like a possible conclusion from ingesting a soup of mixed random chemicals. Other chemicals found in our water? Antibiotics: Ever wonder why antibiotics don't work as well lately? Because they're found in many of the substances we ingest like inorganic milk, which can cause us to build up an immunity to them.

Nearly 40% of all U.S. antibiotics are injected into livestock as artificial growth enhancers. Next, heavy duty psychiatric medications: I'm not sure what effects they'd have in the water table but I do know from having to take them that they can cause diabetes and hypertension. Ahhh, nothing like a fresh glass of diabetes for our growing kids, eh?!! Other shit in the water? Nicotine, pain pills and even veterinarian medications!!! And we wonder why cancer rates are on the rise? The other area of concern is with our farms because high amounts of fertilizers and pesticides are showing up in run-off water.

I did a recent post on my Buddhist Blog about saving Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha) from environmental degradation. One of the problems is that a pillar that dates back to 200 BCE is being warn down by pollution from a row of new concrete and steel plants. Now, if it that pollution can erode a stone pill--what do you think it's doing to the much more vulnerable human body? Global warming/climate change is just the tip of the iceberg if you'll excuse the pun of the overall environmental problem.

The next big problem is going to be a global water crisis. Rising temperatures are evaporating clean drinking water and the rest is often too polluted to safely use. Water will be the new conflict commodity in this new century replacing oil if we don't promote better water policies world wide, which includes tackling the overall warming trend. But we have to crack down on these factories dumping shit into our water systems and educate people to dispose of their medications in an environmentally sound manner. Visit, "Dispose My Meds" website to find locations that will take your unused pills and learn other information.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mutant fishes from the t.v. animated comedy, "The Simpsons".

~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---

2010 Environmental Performance Index Released.

Green Man: Happy Imbolc!! I am posting this in honor of early shoots of Spring:

Environmental experts at Yale and Columbia universities released their biannual Environmental Performance Index at the World Economic Forum. The index ranks 163 nations according to their performance on 25 indicators that fall into ten policy categories, which are as follow: environmental burden of disease, air pollution (effects on humans), air pollution (effects on ecosystem), water (effects on humans), water (effects on ecosystem), biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland came in first: Iceland snatched the top spot with its performance on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. According to the Iceland Review, the decision ultimately came down to the fact that nearly all the country's energy comes from renewable resources, such as this geothermal plant:

Green Man: In earning my minor degree in Geography at university I took a class on natural energy and did a research paper on Iceland's use of geothermal energy. It may evoke white winter weather but it is one of the "greenest" countries in the world. In the winter the geothermal energy is so abundant that it actually warms up the asphalt roads near these plants, which helps keep them clear of ice. A quarter of Iceland's energy comes from geothermal and it meets the heating and hot water demands of 87% of Icelanders. However, Iceland's green energy doesn't stop there--75.4% of their energy comes from hydroelectric sources and only 0.1% from fossil fuels. It is one of the youngest places on Earth and also one of the most pristine natural environments in the world. So, it's easy to see why this small but technologically advanced country tops the list. Next, is meticulously clean and beautiful Switzerland:They have done much to invest in and build up environmental infrastructure as well as strong and aggressive policies to increase their green energy use and reliance. It is a mountainous country, which gives them a very clean and clear water source and the recreational options in those mountains and hills offer a great quality of life for the Swiss. As of 2007, Switzerland's overall electric production comes primarily from hydropower at 96.5%. In addition, the European alpine country have laid out an aggressive framework for rapidly increasing and investing in green energy:

In a surprising move, Switzerland has adopted one of the world's most aggressive systems of Advanced Renewable Tariffs. The Swiss, famed for conservative traditions, stodgy bankers and trains that run on time, have joined a growing list of countries using feed-in tariffs to promote the rapid development of renewable energy. Not content to start with a timid program incrementally raising the bar year by year, the Swiss federal government this spring launched a full-system of feed-in tariffs differentiated by technology, size and application. There are tariffs, or payments per kilowatt-hour (kWh), for solar photovoltaics, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass.

Green Man: The final one that I'll mention in this post is the only non-European country in the top three--Costa Rica. It is one of the most bio-diverse environments in the world. Costa Rica has invested aggressively in its environmental tourism, which demands protection of their rain forests:

Costa Rica is looking to capitalize on its forests in ways other than eco-tourism. In 2005, Costa Rica joined a coalition of tropical developing countries that proposed a "rainforest conservation for emissions" deal at the December United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal. The plan, which was accepted by the UN, called for wealthy nations to compensate poor nations for rainforest conservation. Costa Rica already had a similar program in place which protected rainforest by selling allowances to emit greenhouses gases. In 1999, the program generated some $20 million.

Green Man: That's a very smart and understandable way to leverage their assets (nature) to gain business from it while protecting it at the same time. They have become leaders in the eco-tourism business and is part of the reason why my wife and I will be going there for our 10th wedding anniversary in April of this year. We're excited to explore the dense, green, old growth, primal cloud forests and rain forests especially.

It isn't any wonder then why Costa Rica is so proud of its environment and why so many flock to experience it from all over the world. If you go, please do your best to stay with reputable eco-lodges who are actually devoted to protecting the environment rather than cashing in on the "eco-tourism" label. Please leave it the way you found it so that humans can experience this special place for generations to come. It is a jewel in an environmentally devastated world and serves as an example of how to preserve nature while still keeping a vibrant economy.