Voters to decide on California global warming law

This is so wrong.

The Associated Press: Voters to decide on California global warming law

(AP) – 6-23-10

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An initiative that seeks to suspend California's landmark global warming law until unemployment drops will appear on the November election ballot.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified the initiative on Tuesday. It's the sixth proposition to qualify for the ballot.

The California Jobs Initiative seeks to delay the state's global warming law until the unemployment rate falls from its current rate of 12.4 percent to 5.5 percent or lower and stays there for a year.

The 2006 law seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California and impose new requirements on utilities, manufacturers and other businesses.

Oil companies funded the drive to put the initiative on the ballot. It is backed by business groups who say the law could cost jobs and lead to higher energy prices.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved."

Best Confession of the Month (so far)

Living Well, Living Green: Leilani Munter, Race Car Eco-ista:

cross-posted from Savings.com blog

"..Leilani Munter encapsulates the ecoista’s dilemma: It’s all well and good to want to live sustainably, until you work in an industry that doesn’t share your views.

What are you supposed to do, quit your job?

Leilani takes this concept to an extreme most of us can’t even imagine. That’s because she is--if you haven’t already guessed from the photos--a race car driver. Not just any race car driver, mind you, Leilani has serious on-track cred. She’s the fourth woman in history to race in the Indy Pro Series. She set the record for the highest finish for a female driver in the history of the Texas Motor Speedway when she finished fourth in 2006. Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 10 female racecar drivers in the world.

The girl really can’t drive 55. More like 200. But all that speed takes a serious environmental toll--and Leilani knows it. When I asked her what her eco-sin was she answered, “That’s easy: My race car.”

But Leilani also sees her profession as an opportunity to inspire positive change in the 100 million fans that make racing the number-one spectator sport in America. “If I was just another vegetarian, tree hugging, biology graduate asking people to give up meat and stop using plastic bags, I don’t know how many people would be listening to me,” Leilani told us. “But because I drive a race car, I have an ability to reach a new audience of people that most environmentalists are probably not talking to.”

In addition to talking the talk with 100 million people, Leilani walks it: The longtime vegetarian and self-proclaimed “Carbon-Free Girl” adopts an acre of rainforest for every race she runs. She regularly races in alternative fuel vehicles, like the Ford hydrogen fuel cell car she drove in last year’s VS Viking Rally in Norway. And she’s the first Ambassador of the National Wildlife Federation."

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Koch Industries top funder of Climate denial

Koch Industries top funder of Climate denial and Obstruction : Indybay (4/2/10)

"A new Greenpeace report uncovers the multimillion dollar funding and intense lobbying against climate science and climate action by Koch Industries, that eclipses the traditional funding for climate deniers from ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies."

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Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps - TIME

Melting ice caps will wreck my home... and you're worried about how much it's going to cost YOU?

Rev. Paul R. Bear

Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps - TIME:

"...Reports about the melting ice caps are distressing, but for the most part climate change remains abstract. The poor polar bear has been trotted out as the tangible face of global warming so often that we're beginning to see 'polar bear fatigue.' How about bringing the effects of Arctic melt close to home, as in what it will cost? A new study does just that, and the results are alarming, not just for Arctic dwellers but for all of us. According to lead author Eban Goodstein, Ph.D., over the next 40 years Arctic ice melt will take an economic toll of between $2.4 trillion and $24 trillion. Unless we change course — and fast."

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Polar Bears Are the Least of Our Arctic Worries - Newsweek.com

Polar Bears Are the Least of Our Arctic Worries - Newsweek.com

Uh, excuse me? Rumors of my extinction should not be discussed in my presence. You wreck my habitat and then you want to discuss "how to divvy up the globe's truly last frontier," while I'm still alive and kicking? Not bloody likely, mate.

Sigh.

"...Scientists have declared that both of the world's ice caps are in perilous states; the Arctic is more vulnerable than the Antarctic because of added climate volatility at the top of the planet. The intuitive victims are the polar bear, and further down the line, the world's grandchildren. Those, certainly, are the victims who have received the most attention.

But in his new book, After the Ice, Alun Anderson makes the insightful case that consequences cast too far into the future ignore geopolitical factors of today. Water where ice once stood changes global trade routes and national-security calculations, especially between countries like the U.S and Russia, whose icy relationship used to be separated by the expanse of the great Pacific. Just this summer, for example, the sea above Russia opened to international commercial shipping as the ice melted."

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Yes, so much for you all to figure out. Oh goody, we can run a boat through the Artic!! But who owns the shipping lanes?

Better get some more lawyers involved. You'll be hearing from mine.

Rev. Paul R. Bear, Blogger-in-Chief
www.CarbonConfession.org

Ekklesia:> Theology & the "Green Apocalypse"

Theology and the ‘green apocalypse’

By Juan Michel

23 Dec 2009

Ekklesia

 

"...The message that God loves the world and every creature on earth "has been the heart-beat of the ecumenical movement facing climate change", said Tveit, recalling the long history of WCC concern with ecological matters.  In an ecumenical perspective, the concern for creation has always been linked to the concern for justice and peace. "It is not a matter of saying this is a planet for some of us", said Tveit, "this is a planet for all of us".

This point was also stressed by Jesse Mugambi, from the University of Nairobi and a member of the WCC working group on climate change. "The world is a world in which we are all relatives, but somewhere along the line we decided […] to treat each other as strangers", he said.

Mugambi explained that in Africa climate change is already causing both severe droughts on the one hand, and flooding on the other.. With the help of maps he showed that those parts of the continent rich in water and cultivable land are also the areas of greatest conflict. Such a conflict "has nothing to do with ethnicity, it has to do with resources."

For Mugambi, the role of Christian faith and religion in general – through its leaders, theologians and ethicists – is that of "bringing us back to the norms" that can contribute to address a challenge like climate change.

"We are not talking about 'helping' African countries", Mugambi said. "It is not a matter of 'help', but of survival for all of us."

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