Category: RT Newswire

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 16, 2008
2:32 PM

CONTACT: American Rivers
Amy Kober, 206-213-0330 x23
 
American Rivers Proposes Agenda to Overhaul Nation’s Flood Response
More Help for Today’s Victims, Prevent Tomorrow’s Victims
 
WASHINGTON – July 16 – As the Midwest continues to recover from June’s devastating floods, American Rivers, the nation’s leading river conservation organization, today released a national agenda for responding to the floods in a manner that both helps today’s victims and prevents tomorrow’s.

“This is the second “500-year flood” in less than two decades and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change means more severe and more frequent storms, including more record-breaking floods,” said Rebecca Wodder, President of American Rivers.  “Clearly business as usual won’t work for the communities struggling to recover from this year’s floods — and the communities at risk in the coming years.” 

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Published on Monday, July 14, 2008 by Agence France Presse
Bush to Lift Offshore Oil Drilling Ban

WASHINGTON – US President George W. Bush will announce Monday he is lifting an executive ban on oil drilling on the US outer continental shelf and urge lawmakers to follow suit, the White House said.

“The president will announce that he has decided to lift the executive ban on oil exploration in America’s outer continental shelf and he will again call on Congress to lift its legislative ban,” said spokeswoman Dana Perino.
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I always knew this was coming…bet others of us did too.

ASW
http://www.leftinthewest.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1953

Logging Industry Misleads on Climate and Forest Fire
Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 10:57:29 AM MDT

By Chad Hanson, Ph.D.

Recent editorials by timber industry
spokespersons are a wildly misleading attempt to
promote increased logging of western U.S. forests
under the guise of reducing wildland fires and
mitigating climate change. The timber industry
fails to mention, however, that logging is one of
the major contributors to greenhouse gas
emissions (Schlesinger, “Biogeochemistry: an
analysis of global change”, Academic Press,
1997). A recent scientific study found that
completely protecting our national forests from
all commercial logging would significantly
increase carbon sequestration and reduce
greenhouse gases (forests “breath in” CO2 and
incorporate the carbon into new growth), while
increasing logging on our public lands would have
the opposite effect (Depro et al. 2008, Forest
Ecology and Management, Vol. 255).

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Now i don’t spend too much time wrangling about in the 2-party system-but
this is an AWESOME READ! And i know some of these people & was involved w/
some of this history while it was happening (as is the case w/ many of U).
And i like the way eco & social-justice issues are linked here…

See U in Denver next month?

ASW

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Western Democrats, Western Environment
From:    “Lance Olsen” <lance@wildrockies.org>
Date:    Sun, July 13, 2008 7:13 am
To:      “cmcr-outreach” <cmcr-outreach@vortex.wildrockies.org>
————————————————————————–

In the West, and particularly in the Rocky
Mountain West,  environmentalists face the worst
possible politics. The 20th Century’s radical
Republicans don’t care because they don’t expect
the environmental vote, and the 20th Century’s
radically mainstream Democrats take the
environmental vote for granted.

The end result is that Democrats can get away
with damaging spaces and species if they are only
just a very little less damaging than the
Republicans. Year after year, decade after
decade, the Democrats can end up a dangerous to
wild spaces and species as any Republican, but
they do it too slowly for most people to notice.

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