advancing environmental

What do you think? Mrs. Dedieu

Obama abandons tougher ozone standard

Rule had been target of major lobbying effort

September 03, 2011|By John M. Broder, New York Times

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is abandoning its plan to immediately tighten air quality rules nationwide to reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals after an intense lobbying campaign by industry, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, officials said yesterday.

The White House announcement that it was overruling the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to adopt a stricter standard for ground-level ozone came just hours after another dismal jobs reports and in the midst of an intensifying political debate over the impact of federal regulations on job creation. President Obama is planning a major address next week on new measures to stimulate employment, while Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have harshly criticized the administration’s environmental and health regulations, which they claim are forcing layoffs and the export of jobs.

The EPA, following the recommendation of its scientific advisers, had proposed lowering the so-called ozone standard from that set by the Bush administration to a new stricter standard that would have thrown hundreds of American counties out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. It would have required a major effort by state and local officials, as well as new emissions controls by industries and across the country.

The administration will follow a more lenient Bush administration standard set in 2008 until a scheduled reconsideration of acceptable pollution limits in 2013. Environmental advocates vowed yesterday to challenge that standard in court, saying it is too weak to adequately protect public health.

In a statement, the president reiterated his commitment to environmental concerns, but said, “At the same time, I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator Jackson withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time.’’

In a letter to Lisa P. Jackson, the EPA administrator, the head of the White House office of regulatory affairs, Cass Sunstein, said that the president was rejecting her proposal to tighten the standard.

“He has made it clear he does not support finalizing the rule at this time,’’ Sunstein said.

Sunstein said that changing the rule now would create uncertainty for business and local government. He also said there was no compelling reason to rewrite the ozone standard in advance of the scheduled reconsideration in 2013, a key demand of business interests.

Check this recent article on animal migration due to climate change. The animals always know first!

Mrs. Dedieu

Plants And Animals Moving As Climate Changes, Study Finds

First Posted: 8/18/11 07:21 PM ET Updated: 8/18/11 07:29 PM ET

React

Inspiring
Enlightening
Infuriating
Scary
Helpful
Amazing
Innovative
Adorable

Follow

Climate Change , Global Warming Research , Climate Change Plant Migration , Climate Change Research , Climate Change Study , Global Warming Study , Plants Move Upward Climate Change , Green News

share this story

238

114

31

Get Green Alerts

Sign Up

Submit this story

digg reddit stumble

A new study suggests that plants and animals are moving as the climate changes.

Red Orbit reports on research published in the journal Science, showing that as temperatures rise, plants and animals are moving away from the equator and to higher elevations. As the Associated Press writes, they are "fleeing global warming."

2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year on record, according to government climate experts. According to the Associated Press, National Climatic Data Center's David Easterling noted that since 2000, we have experienced nine of the 10 warmest years on record.

In response to a changing climate, the study finds that species are moving away from the equator at an average rate of more than 15 feet per day, or about a mile per year.

The article also asserts that the plants moving the most are in the areas with the highest levels of warming.

In a phone interview with the Associated Press, Chris D. Thomas, a conservation biologist who lead the work, said, "It's not a matter that might happen in the lifetime of our children and our grandchildren. If you look in your garden you can see the effects of climate change already."

The findings are based on the largest analysis to date of the shifting ranges of species in certain areas of the world, according to the Washington Post.

"The more warming there’s been in an area, the more you would expect a species to move, and the more they have moved,” Thomas, told the Post. "This more or less puts to bed the issue of whether these shifts are related to climate change."

The Meatrix - Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?

You can thank Crystal Davis for passing this link along to me. The videos are very funny, but at the same time touch upon a topic about which I am becoming more and more passionate--factory farming and its negative impact on health and our country's general social and economic security. Definitely check out the videos but then be sure to explore the rest of the website, especially the "Meatrix Interactive 360"

The Meatrix

Some discussion points to consider: Do YOU know where your food is coming from? Are the conditions in which the animals you eat of importance to you? Do you worry about whether or not your food is (1) safe, or (2) healthy. Do you think the issues surrounding "factory farming" are legitimate or exaggerated?

The Local Harvest is in Full Swing

In addition to the Salem Farmer's Market being up and running every Thursday from 3pm to 7pm (just a mile walk from our house), our own garden has begun to produce harvest worthy items.

Okay, admittedly, our tomato plants are looking pretty pathetic. We started them very early and they became tall and leggy as they waited in our not quite south facing window for the evening temperatures to climb up to above 50º F. When we were finally able to get them in the ground... they were flopping over and generally looking sickly. Then the wild rabbits found them, and though tomato plants are supposedly toxic to eat, the rabbits appear to be immune. So, we may have to replant some new tomatoes.



On the other side of the spectrum, our spinach, arugula, and swiss chard plants are growing so fast that we almost can't keep up with them. I'm dining every evening on tasty salad mixes with slices of our radishes mixed in. Our herb garden is now three years old, and we've got an over abundance of sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, chives, garlic, tarragon, lavender, and rosemary. Our dinners-no matter what we're eating-are always seasoned with fresh picked herbs and life has gotten quite delicious.

I can't wait for the peas, beans, zucchini, carrots, beets, cucumbers, (hopefully) tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, acorn squash, buttercup squash, lakota squash, and sugar pumpkins to produce :)

In addition to what we've got growing in the garden, our red and black raspberry plants are about to bloom, our strawberries have finished flowering and are setting tiny green fruits, our lonely blueberry bush survived the winter, and the two peach trees we put in the ground at the beginning of April survived and have leafed out. They won't fruit for a few years, but when they do... OMG, there is nothing finer that a ripe peach plucked right off the tree.

Why are we homesteading at the Karch house? To sum it up, we care about our physical and mental health and we care about our environment. Home grown food is a known quantity. We know where it's coming from, how it's being grown, and what chemicals are or aren't being used on it. And we know how much fossil fuels are being used to grow it, water it, fertilize it, package and process it, transport it, and keep it cool until it gets to our plate. We could buy a share at a local CSA like Green Meadow Farm or Appleton Farm, but I and my husband feel that it's important for our children to see food growing and be involved in the process of getting it from seed to the dinner plate.

Disappointing News from Washington...

Gas prices are on the rise. That's not news to any of us. Have you changed your behavior at all in response to it? Are you carpooling? Are you trying to cut down on unnecessary trips to the store? Are you opting to drive the more fuel efficient car rather than the SUV? Or are you just kind of sitting and watching events play out around you? Different people have different reactions when fuel prices rise, as they seem to do every year. They invariably come back down but always settle at a new, slightly higher low rate.

In our house, we purchased an old fashioned "reel" push mower--they type that uses no gas at all. I love it; it's no more difficult to use than our gas powered push mower (which is not self propelled as some models are). We're also expanding our vegetable garden so that we can have access to fresh locally grown (and therefore fossil fuel free) vegetables. Our response is to try and opt out of the yearly cycle of fluctuating (and every increasing) fuel prices. Slowly but surely we'd like to wean our family off of fossil fuels as much as we can. We have both short term and long term goals for going green.

But how is our President responding to the rising gas prices? Is he vowing to invest more money into research and development of clean and green energy such as solar, wind, hydro, or geo? No.

Here's a clip from a Washington Post article, and the link for anyone interested in reading the full article. I could rant for pages, but I will leave you to form your own opinions of the situation. I hope that you will post comments and share your thoughts and engage in a discussion of the politics involved in the environmental challenge that is our country's consumption/dependence upon fossil fuels.

_______________

"WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, under pressure from Republicans and the public to bring down gasoline prices, announced new measures on Saturday to expand domestic oil production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

High fuel prices have dented Obama's ratings in opinion polls and threaten to dampen the economic recovery that is critical to his re-election in 2012."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42706911/ns/politics/

_____________

Green Grub

Check out this video that tells you 5 ways to be more sustainable (and delicious) in your kitchen!

Ecofriendly Eating

Green Cleaning Tips

I've already posted about the cleaning super powers of simple baking soda and regular white vinegar. Now I'd like to add a third cleaner to the list: diet coke.

Here's my experience with it this weekend. When the Karch family grills outside, we like to use our cast iron pans and skillets, but when we pulled our largest pan out this morning (we planned to have an outdoor barbecue lunch) we discovered that it had rusted badly. No idea how since we don't wash them after using them and the one in question was well seasoned. In any case, the thing was coated in rust. Yuck! It looked like a lost cause (wish I'd taken a before picture so I had visual proof to back up this story).

Then I remembered a friend back in college telling me that he'd once stripped clean a rusted bike chain by soaking it in diet coke for an hour. 'Yeah, right," I'd though to myself at the time. But here I was staring at this once beautiful and much loved cast iron pan and I thought to myself, 'It certainly couldn't hurt the situation.'

My husband ran out to Walgreens and picked up a 1 liter bottle of diet coke and a steel wool brillo pad. He got the big chunks of rust off the pan with the brillo first and then poured half of the bottle of diet coke into the pan. We let the coke sit for two minute and then started rubbing the pan with the brillo. Five minutes later you couldn't even tell that the pan had been rusty. It was sparkling clean! I'm not kidding.

I wondered if diet coke would work on the rust around the drain on our ancietnt bathtub. I went inside, stoppered up the tub and poured a quarter of the diet coke that we had left in the bottle into the tub where it settled around the drain. Again, I let it sit for two minutes and then (gently) scraped at it with the steel wool brillo. To my amazement (and repulsion) our drain looks 1000 times better.

I had to share this trick with the rest of you. And for the record, I don't think I'm ever going to drink diet coke again.