Environmentalism has become mainstream. Time to acknowledge and act like it.
But here’s the thing that Grunwald and wannabe Very Serious People need to remember: The vast majority of environmentalists are just like them — hard-working Americans who want a livable planet for their families.
Smells like indentured servitude:
The recession has been no friend to entry-level positions, where hundreds of applicants vie for unpaid internships at which they are expected to be on call with iPhone in hand, tweeting for and representing their company at all hours.
“We need to hire a 22-22-22,” one new-media manager was overheard saying recently, meaning a 22-year-old willing to work 22-hour days for $22,000 a year.
The Anschutz Exploration Corporation has been drilling exploratory wells for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, immediately east of Glacier National Park, for over two years.
Now a subsidiary of the company, Xanterra Parks and Resorts, is bidding on a contract to operate all concessions in Glacier National Park for 16 years.
That Anschutz could gain another foothold in Glacier has rattled environmentalists and concerned tribal groups and citizens, who already worry that the drilling next door could permanently alter the landscape. Glacier is home to three of the nation’s largest watersheds and to endangered species, including grizzly bears.
via A Snapshot of Drilling on a Park’s Margins – NYTimes.com.
As NPR reports:
Prehistoric humans didn’t have toothbrushes. They didn’t have floss or toothpaste, and they certainly didn’t have Listerine. Yet somehow, their mouths were a lot healthier than ours are today.
“Hunter-gatherers had really good teeth,” says Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. “[But] as soon as you get to farming populations, you see this massive change. Huge amounts of gum disease. And cavities start cropping up.”
And thousands of years later, we’re still waging, and often losing, our war against oral disease.
Our changing diets are largely to blame.
via The REAL Source of Cavities and Gum Disease | Global Research.
“We estimate that there are a total of around 13 million species (known and unknown) in the world,” says Thomas Lewinsohn, a renowned professor of ecology at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo state.
“Out of these, roughly 1.75 million species, including micro-organisms, plants, insects, bacteria and animals, have been described,” he told AFP in an interview.
And it would take 2000 years to describe them all.
We need our own gardens so we can be victorious against agri-business.
Today, people are gardening for all sorts of victories: saving money, sharing with others, teaching themselves or their kids a skill, fighting hunger, promoting physical well-being, helping the environment. Gardening is the perfect cause and the perfect solution to many personal and larger-scale issues. Gardening is victory!
Seems a bit like C. Keil’s Global Organization of Democracies.
Founded in May 2004, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) is the united voice and world advocate of democratic local self-government. UCLG is the largest local government organization in the world. Representing over half the world’s population, the members of UCLG are present in 136 UN Member States. Over 1000 cities are direct members of UCLG, as well as 112 national associations which represent all the cities and local governments in a single country.
The main objective of the UCLG Committee on City Diplomacy, Peace Building and Human Rights is to promote the role of local governments in social cohesion, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.
So why are the diabetes and obesity and hypertension numbers still spiraling out of control? It’s not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers. What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.
via The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food – NYTimes.com.
Now, as the federal government decides how to allocate new spectrum that is becoming available, it has to make a decision. Should additional spectrum go to the big wireless carriers, should it expand the potential of unlicensed networks, or should there be a mix?
We think the highest priority should be setting aside spectrum that can be used to create low-cost tools that allow our communities to build their own networks. We do not need a more powerful AT&T or Verizon. Our ability to build networks has been limited by policies that restrict local authority to invest in networks and the monopoly power of incumbent operators. We have been hamstrung by federal policymakers that believe Internet access is best expanded by giving all the resources to a few massive companies controlled by Wall Street.
via Christopher Mitchell: We Need Spectrum for Our Communities | Mag-Net.
The USofA is too tightly connected. More states would help:
Competitive federalism has many advantages. Citizens can move to communities that better reflect their preferences for public goods, they can vote with their feet, thereby penalizing poorly performing governments, and they can serve as a salutary example for others by trying out new ideas in governing.
Truth and Traditions 