Category: RT Newswire

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“Western Democrats have found success recasting environmentalism as a 

defense of threatened water supplies, fishing spots and hunting 

grounds. As a result, the party may hold the advantage this fall in 

the region’s key Congressional races. The simultaneous rise of 

Western energy production and the Western Democrat is no coincidence.”

“Republicans created a monster for themselves,” said Rick Ridder, a 

Colorado-based Democratic consultant. “They put public policy in 

direct conflict with their base voters.”

“…industry workers upbraided officials for considering rules that 

could slow gas drilling along the Colorado-New Mexico border. 

Century-old antigovernment emotions are now aimed at state regulators 

– and much of the vitriol comes from working-class Democrats.”

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NYTimes

Drilling for Defeat?

By DAVID SIROTA

Published: May 18, 2008

Nearly two decades ago, Republicans won the West by linking Democrats 

to environmentalists, who supposedly cared more for the spotted owl 

and other favored species than they did for the jobs of loggers or 

miners. But now, as a boom in natural-gas drilling reshapes the 

region, Western Democrats have found success recasting 

environmentalism as a defense of threatened water supplies, fishing 

spots and hunting grounds. As a result, the party may hold the 

advantage this fall in the region’s key Congressional races. The 

simultaneous rise of Western energy production and the Western 

Democrat is no coincidence.

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“… and due to the interactions of nitrogen and 

carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and 

energy to the world’s peoples without harming the 

global environment a tremendous challenge,”….

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        Web address:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515145419.htm

Excessive Reactive Nitrogen in Environment Alarms Environmental Scientists

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2008) – While human-caused 

global climate change has long been a concern for 

environmental scientists and is a well-known 

public policy issue, the problem of excessive 

reactive nitrogen in the environment is 

little-known beyond a growing circle of 

environmental scientists who study how the 

element cycles through the environment and 

negatively alters local and global ecosystems and 

potentially harms human health.

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Published on Friday, May 16, 2008 by The Independent/UK 

An Epidemic of Extinctions: Decimation of Life on Earth

The world’s species are declining at a rate “unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs”, a census of the animal kingdom has revealed. The Living Planet Index out today shows the devastating impact of humanity as biodiversity has plummeted by almost a third in the 35 years to 2005.

The report, produced by WWF, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network, says land species have declined by 25 per cent, marine life by 28 per cent, and freshwater species by 29 per cent.

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i-69, otherwise known as the NAFTA superhighway, is a proposed interstate that would link Canada, the US, and Mexico. The road is being built to facilitate the movement of goods out of Mexico to the markets of the US and Canada. This will only lead to the further destruction of ecosystems and poor indigenous and campesino coummunities in Mexcio. Meanwhile thousands of acres of farmland, forests, and wetlands will be lost to pavement in the US while continuing the ceaseless expansion of car culture.

In the Wee hours of May 18th, fading into the early morning of May 19th, a small group of activists braved the pre-dawn chill (and the threat of arrest and imprisonment!) and slipped into the trees alongside a country road about 25 miles north of Evansville, Indiana. They went in loaded with ropes, tarps, platforms, and guts. By the time the sun had risen full up in the sky, two brave Earth First!ers–Grant Reynolds and Harriet Ray–were gently swaying thirty-five feet above the ground. Below them, banners reading “I-69 and NAFTA: Destroying Communities Here Through Mexico,” “Resist Construction,” and “Defend Farms” announced this act of physical defense to the Monday morning commuters along State Road 68. Continue reading