Friday, April 25, 2014

3 Million Dollar Settlement to Texas Family Besieged by Fracking Ailments

Here The costs of fracking: uses way too much water, unknown chemicals are shot into the ground, results in flammable faucets, methane released to create more climate disruption, health impacts for innocent citizens during extraction, use of tap water, burning as a fuel, creation of geological fractures and earthquakes, lawsuits to settle the damages, oh my god. No more please.

Unbelievable. This has got to stop. It is just not worth it.

Vermont Set to Become 1st State to Require GMO Labeling

Vermont Set to Become 1st State to Require GMO Labeling 

This, good news! Good on Vermont to be the first.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Thoughtful worldview, great art and progress

Here
"...great art had the potential to make a new world through the depth of its vision and the properties of its creation. Today, Shelley would be laughed out of the room. Lazy cynicism has replaced thoughtful conviction as the mark of an educated worldview."

From Sierra Rise: protect the irreplaceable Amazon and halt all plans for oil drilling!

Here

People + cancer = bad. The Amazon has also been called the planet's lungs. (Ok, the ocean and kelp and algae is the other lung). We would not do this to one of our lungs. Help with good deed here, sign & send in 30 seconds. >> For three decades, Texaco / Chevron dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the beautiful Ecuadorian Amazon. Thousands of people are still suffering a plague of deadly cancers and devastating birth defects. << We need to get off oil. This no longer can be allowed.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

More thoughts on Keystone XL

Climate-protecting Obama green-lighting the Keystone XL pipeline would be like a farmer starting a prescribed burn on his field when it's already being consumed by wildfires. 

He said he wants to tell his kids he did all he could to stop climate change. He said he'd deny the Keystone XL if it contributes to climate change - and of course it does. 

There are only a few dozen permanent jobs in this for the U.S. The bulk of the tar sand gunk - that does not spill into U.S. communities on its way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico - is slated for export anyway. No energy security here. It fouls Canadian watersheds and forests, and contributes to climate change.

There is no redeeming reason to allow this project to traverse U.S. soil. Obama and Kerry have got to say no to this finally, now.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Writers: Review of Keystone XL pipeline information shows it's not in the national interest

Here
Via CNN story highlights:
  • Writers: Review of Keystone XL pipeline information shows it's not in the national interest
  • They say tar sands oil spews 17% more greenhouse gas than crude oil refined in the U.S.
  • Writers: Report acknowledges tar sands oil from Keystone could worsen climate change
  • Oil companies will need even more pipelines to reach their goals, they say

Monday, April 14, 2014

What are You Doing? "U.N. Climate Panel: World Has Just 15 Years to Avoid Climate Catastrophe"

U.N. Climate Panel: World Has Just 15 Years to Avoid Climate Catastrophe 

Gone solar? Gone electric car? Support carbon caps and tax, support climate stabilization legislation?

Helping fight the Kochs, the horribly dirty and outdated coal industry? Etc.?

So use your roof - zero down, rooftop solar - http://content.sierraclub.org/solar/sungevity/?zip=90291&ref&e and http://www.solarcity.com/ Need to drive? Great new electric cars - http://www.ev-info.com/en/electric-cars-models.html and http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car.html and http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/ And what else can I do? - http://colbyallerton.blogspot.com/2013/01/earth-is-full-so-what-can-i-do.html help improve your and our our path. Support carbon caps and taxes, support climate stabilization legislation, and support clean energy - https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=13143
Help fight the Kochs http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/we-denounce-the-koch and the horribly dirty and outdated coal industry. https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=12488&s_src=714BSCZZ37 Etc. Etc. Etc.

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.

Antidotes to Violence, a.k.a., Take Charge of Where Your Head's At - here

Tell Congress to Strengthen Gun Control Laws NOW - here

Good News & Brain Food News -
Christians & Muslims Gather, for Peace here
Good News - Top RIO+20 Summit Posts here
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
here