Quote of the Day -- Independence Day Edition

"Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance." 

--President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt 

With thanks to the Sierra Club for the reminder.

Happy Fourth, everyone.

The Next Important Documentary We Need to See

Get ye to the Tivoli

Missourians--You do realize they want to put the Keystone XL pipeline across our state, right?

And what the KXL it is and what it involves:



Is this what you want for our state and our state's future?

It's a pipeline.  It will inevitably, inevitably leak.

Surely not.

Links:  Say No to Keystone XL - BiologicalDiversity.org‎

Against Keystone XL Pipeline‎

Against Keystone Pipeline - Over 100 Million Visitors

Stop Keystone Pipeline - SierraClub.org

Clean, renewable, sustainable energy, winning locally

As the Sierra Club points out

Known for being the hometown of President Harry S. Truman, the city of Independence is now leading the shift to cleaner energy in Missouri - eliminating coal power by 2016 and tripling its clean energy goals.


As Independence, Missouri's own Examiner newspaper covered the story:

Council solidifies renewable energy goals

With a resolution Monday, City Council threw its support behind a future of increased renewable electric energy in Independence.

The resolution, introduced by Council Member Scott Roberson, identifies the Council’s goals regarding renewable energy and provides direction to the city manager for policies and programs related to that.

“This gives a whole new direction to energy in Independence,” Roberson said during the end-of-meeting comments. “Leon Daggett at Power & Light, the city manager, all of us have working really well together on this.

“I think this will bring all sorts of new possibilities.”

The resolution states the Council’s goal to have 10 percent of IPL’s energy supplied by sources that are not carbon-based (coal and natural gas) by the year 2018, which would conform to a state standard for investor-based utilities; as well as to increase that goal to 15 percent by 2021.

It also notes the city’s recent conversion of its streetlamps to LED lights, as well as future plans to remodel an office building for IPL’s administrative offices.

The resolution directs City Manager Robert Heacock to:

• Assure the new IPL offices are designed to minimize energy use and incorporate renewable energy.

• Develop a feasibility study for options such as solar, wind and geothermal energy at city-owned facilities.

• Develop a study to evaluate incentives and sustainable programs regarding renewable energy that can be provided to customers.

• Provide a status report by November on those projects.

• Do a rate study for residential, commercial and industrial customers, including provisions for renewable energy programs, and report back to the Council by May 2015.

Other directions include shutting down the coal-fired Missouri City Power Plant and phasing out coal at the Blue Valley Power Plant by January 2016 – both plans that have been in the works – and producing a report by next July outlining options and costs for disposing the Missouri City plant.

It's enough to give a person hope.

That California drought

Two pairs of pictures, both of California, from different vantage points, showing the severity of the drought taking place just now in that state.  I think these two give terrific indications of exactly what's taking place.

Fascinating.

Scary but fascinating.

Below, two photos of Folsom Lake, just North of Sacramento. 

This is how serious the situation is.

Fol

Missouri 16th worst for air pollution

The National Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org) and Physicians for Social Responsiblity (www.psr.org) came out today with their rankings for the nation, by state, telling of the "most toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants" ranks Missouri in the top 20 at number 16. Yeehaw, eh? The report is titled “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States.” Additionally, "Nearly half of all toxic air pollution reported from industrial sources nationwide comes from coal- and oil-fired power plants, the largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in 28 states and the District of Columbia" and Missouri is one of those 28. Ohio, for what it's worth, is ranked worst at number 1 while neighboring Illinois is at 17 and Iowa holds the 20 spot. Interestingly, California, who has done so much with legislation and requirements, wisely, is ranked low at number 42. See? Government can work. Then, simultaneously today, with this report comes word that the Sierra Club is likely to get $50 million from Michael Bloomberg's foundation to help them fight new coal-fired power plants so we get into clean, renewable energy, instead. Good on you and thanks, Mr. Bloomberg! We'll get to that "green economy" yet. Links: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/07/the-most-toxic-air-pollution-from-coal-and-oil-fired-power-plants-can-be-found-in-ohio-pennsylvania-and-florida-according.html; http://www.npr.org/2011/07/21/138568843/mayor-bloomberg-donates-50-million-to-sierra-club

Two big compromises

It seems the 2 big compromises this week--that of the Copenhagen Summit on global warming (or climate change or pollution or whatever you want to call it) and health care reform, here in the US, have a great deal in common.

Both of them have people for them. Both have people against them. Both have people, somewhere in the middle who say this is the best we could get and that they are improvements and that we need to wrap our arms around them and move on.

God, I hope they're right.

On the Copenhagen summit on climate change, it seems we made progress, this time, as the US was for some good, solid action. This in stark contrast to the Kyoto Protocol that the George W. Bush administration kept us out of. At least we made that better transition. We're in on this one. We don't have to be embarassed this time and we've had input on this.

As to who knows what's in this thing right now, who can say? Frankly, following the mess this week that has been the negotiations on health care in the Senate has been demanding enough.

First, as I noted here, the White House threw out the single-payer option we needed so desperately.

Then, they threw away the "public option" so the insurance companies could stay happy and we wouldn't give them any real competition.

That stunk.

But the fact is, now people are coming out on all sides, some saying we should throw it away; others that we should keep it and that it does do some good.

It's disappointing and the Democrats caved but apparently, according to what the Congressional Budget Office says, it will help us, as a nation, to have smaller budget deficits.

I just wish it had done a lot more for the average Joe on the streets--the "you and me" of the world. I wish the Democrats had been more for us instead of for the insurance companies.

But so it goes.

Let's hope it's all progress.

In both cases, this is what compromise looks like.

We need more of that here in the States.

Links to related stories:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-pope/yes-it-is-the-end-of-the_b_397683.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/they-didnt-seal-the-deal_b_397765.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/cope-en-blame-em-today-fi_b_398006.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/health-bill-limits-aborti_b_398084.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-paul-g-kirk-jr/a-rebuttal-to-howard-dean_b_398218.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/that-gollum-like-feeling_b_398034.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/arianna-on-ed-it-is-absur_b_393480.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/taibi-kuttner-debate-heal_n_397757.html