Eco-friendly? Environmentalism

[Soldier4Christ]

More churches preaching 'environmental gospel'

In a growing number of churches, salvation means saving the Earth.

A movement called Interfaith Power and Light offers ministers sermon tips on how to convert churchgoers into environmental activists. One program encourages people to switch to energy
efficient light bulbs on each night they light a holiday candle for Advent or Hanukkah.

Virginia's chapter has focused on developing a three-hour training program for congregations that asks members to calculate their carbon footprints and pledge a 10 percent reduction.

A movement called "Cool Congregations" is afoot in Tennessee, where members of different congregations meet to discuss the connection between faith and environment and then spread the green gospel to their houses of worship.

The program is based on the science presented in Al Gore's an Inconvenient Truth. It contains many statements tying faith to the need to become "green". Such statements as, “To keep the faith, we must keep the earth” can be seen throughout this program. Most definitely the teaching of another gospel.

[Soldier4Christ]

Fluorescent vs. incandescent?
Environmentalists can't decide 
New concerns over mercury hazards
split green activists on switch to CFLs

Al Gore says switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents can help save the planet from global warming.

California, Canada and the European Union are so persuaded he's right, the three governments are in the process of banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs, following the trailblazing paths of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on board, urging American citizens to do their part for the environment and switch to the twisty little CFL bulbs that last longer and use less electricity.

But opposition is building among other environmentalists who say the threat of mercury contamination as a result of hundreds of millions of broken CFLS, each containing about 5 milligrams of the highly toxic substance, outweighs any benefits from a switch from Thomas Edison's trusty old invention.

One new voice weighing in against the tide is Andrew Michrowski of the Canadian-based Planetary Association for Clean Energy: "I feel it's very important to warn people these 'green' bulbs contain mercury, which will end up in landfills throughout the country if we make the switch to them. In addition to filling our landfills with mercury, if the bulbs break you will be exposed to the mercury they contain."

He says consumers shouldn't buy them – even though they are now showing up in stores all over America.

Even the EPA, which is cheerleading the mania for the switch to CFLs, offers bone-chilling warnings about the dangers of mercury – if you search for them.

"Exposure to mercury, a toxic metal, can affect our brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver," says the agency.

When a CFL breaks, the EPA cautions consumers to open a window and leave the room immediately for at least 15 minutes because of the mercury threat. The agency suggests removing all materials by scooping fragments and powder using cardboard or stiff paper. Sticky tape is suggested as a way to get smaller particles. The EPA says vacuum cleaners and bare hands should never be used in such cleanups.

After final cleanup with a damp paper towel, the agency warns consumers to place all materials in a plastic bag.

"Seal and dispose of properly," says the EPA. "Wash hands."

But disposing of properly might be a tough thing to do, because CFLs never should be thrown in the trash like their old-fashioned incandescent predecessors. They need to be turned into recycling centers, which are few and far between.

When laws banning incandescent bulbs take effect, so do the mandatory fines on consumers and businesses that dispose of the new CFLs improperly.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health also offers cautions about mercury.

"Exposures to very small amounts of these compounds [mercury] can result in devastating neurological damage and death," says NIH. "For fetuses, infants and children, the primary health effects of mercury are on neurological development. Even low levels of mercury exposure, such as result from a mother's consumption of methyl mercury in dietary sources, can adversely affect the brain and nervous system. Impacts on memory, attention, language and other skills have been found in children exposed to moderate levels in the womb." A problem that is thought by some to cause ADD and ADHD among a few.

However, critics are concerned that the EPA and environmentalists are minimizing the dangers of mercury contamination from CFLs. Mercury, an essential component of CFLs, is a neurotoxin that the EPA classifies as a hazardous household material.

The craze to get consumers to buy CFLs, instead of the old incandescents, precedes any serious plans for disposal or recycling of the broken or unbroken fluorescents.

A major debate has erupted among architects about the pros and cons of CFLs, with many "now calling for lower mercury in lighting systems," says Michael Driedger, a Vancouver-based architect specializing in green technologies.

"Many people, especially in the lighting industry, are waiting for the lighting industry to develop mercury-free light emitting diode (LED) lighting as a safe substitute for CFLs," he says.

[Soldier4Christ]

For those that are in areas that already have laws banning the standard incandescent light bulbs the LED light bulbs can be obtained through the internet. The initial cost of these bulbs is significantly higher than the CFL's but the savings and safety of them in the long run is beneficial. These bulbs can be found as low as $19.00 each. The more they become in demand the lower the price of them will become.

[Soldier4Christ]

Report: Divorce also hurts the environment

WASHINGTON - Divorce can be bad for the environment. In countries around the world divorce rates have been rising, and each time a family dissolves the result is two new households.

"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University whose analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More households means more use of land, water and energy, three critical resources, Liu explained in a telephone interview.

Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing, he explained. A household uses the same amount of heat or air conditioning whether there are two or four people living there. A refrigerator used the same power whether there is one person home or several. Two people living apart run two dishwashers, instead of just one.

Liu, who researches the relationship of ecology with social sciences, said people seem surprised by his findings at first, and then consider it simple. "A lot of things become simple after the research is done," he said.

Some extra energy or water use may not sound like a big deal, but it adds up.

The United States, for example, had 16.5 million households headed by a divorced person in 2005 and just over 60 million households headed by a married person.

Per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity compared with a married household, as multiple people can be watching the same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and or eating under the same lights.

That means some $6.9 billion in extra utility costs per year, Liu calculated, plus an added $3.6 billion for water, in addition to other costs such as land use.

And it isn't just the United States.

Liu looked at 11 other countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002.

In the 11, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water in these countries.

"People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered," Liu said.

Liu stressed that he isn't condemning divorce: "Some people really need to get divorces." But, he added, "one way to be more environmentally friendly is to live with other people and that will reduce the impact."

Don't get smug, though, married folks - savings also apply to people living together and Shaker communities or even hippie communes would have been even more efficient.

So, what prompts someone to figure out the environmental impact of divorce?

Liu was studying the ecology of areas with declining population and noticed that even where the total number of people was less, the number of households was increasing. He wondered why.

There turned out to be several reasons: divorce, demographic shifts such as people remaining single longer and the demise of multigenerational households.

"I was surprised because the divorce rate actually has been up and down for many years in some of the countries ... but we found the proportion of divorced households has increased rapidly across the globe," he said.

So he set out to measure the difference, such as in terms of energy and water, land use and construction materials and is now reporting the results for divorce.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

[Soldier4Christ]

Hanukkah candles
killing our planet?
Environmentalists encouraging Jews
around world to light at least 1 less

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."

Cofounder Tom Wegner, who heads the public relations firm Update Marketing Media, spread the campaign via mass e-mails and through social interaction Web sites like Facebook and Hook.co.il. He said no money had been invested in the campaign, but it had already raised awareness around the world and made people realize that they have to consider the environment this Hanukka.

Wegner said he did not consider the campaign anti-religious. The unlit candle could be the shamash, which is not required for the mitzva, he said. But he said he would encourage people who do not keep mitzvot not to light a hanukkia at all for environmental and educational reasons.

"We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming," Wegner said.

"There are many people who just light candles for the tradition and for their children," he said. "To tell a child on the eighth day that we are not lighting the last candle as a sacrifice for the environment is an act that is not only educational but also will prevent the release of a huge amount of carbon dioxide that would hurt the environment."

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes.

"The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul."

United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway.

"They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said.

Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away.

"People in the green movement who have an agenda have unfortunately made it anti-religious," Lau said. "This makes religious people think incorrectly that anything environmentalist is against them. The damage ends up being a thousand times the benefit. Tikkun olam [fixing the world] must be done by adding more light and not by adding more darkness."

[Soldier4Christ]

Suit targets Arctic drilling

Several prominent environmental groups are suing the federal government to block oil and natural-gas development in a polar-bear habitat.

The environmentalists say that when the congressionally approved sale of nearly 20 million acres of public land in Chukchi Sea proceeds Wednesday, the court should void any drilling or development to ensure federal laws are respected.

"The Bush administration is rushing ahead to give oil companies as much of the Chukchi Sea as it can, but they are not disclosing the full impact of oil development on the people and wildlife that depend on the Chukchi," said Eric Jorgensen, an attorney for EarthJustice.

But Interior Department officials say they intend to move forward with the sales Wednesday, and have already done a thorough review of whether species will be adversely affected.

"They have to go 25 miles out to sea before they can do any exploration or development," said one Interior Department official, who requested anonymity because of the pending litigation.

"There are lots of steps along the way like the Marine Mammal Protection Act that we must comply with, and that is much more stringent than the Endangered Species Act when it comes to protection of species," the official said.

The groups, several of which want the polar bear listed as an endangered species, say in the lawsuit filed Thursday that not enough studies have been done on how the energy development and possible oil spills will affect the habitat of the polar bears and protected marine life.

The National Audubon Society says it's home to one-tenth of the world's population of polar bears.

Betsy Loyless, senior vice president of the National Audubon Society, says the habitat of walruses and the endangered bowhead whales are also at risk. Interior Department officials are still studying whether polar bears will be named as an endangered species, due in part to global warming. (Yet polar bear populations are the largest they been in many, many years and are still on the increase.)

"It's regrettable that we now must turn to the courts to protect the polar bear from our own Interior Department," said Miss Loyless, who called the lease sale "about as shameless as this administration has been on the environment."

The suit was filed Thursday against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in the U.S. District Court of Alaska by the Center for Biological Diversity, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society as well as Alaskan tribal governments.

Rep. Don Young, Alaska Republican and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the lawsuit impedes his state's ability to develop energy and "could have a chilling and long-standing effect on all resource development in the United States."

"This would be a severe threat to our domestic energy production efforts and national energy security," Mr. Young said.

[Soldier4Christ]

Lights out, America?

The lights may soon go out in Washington, DC -- and it could happen where you live, too.
 
“Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities, say, it could become something even worse: scarce,” reported the Washington Post this week. Maryland, for example, may face rolling blackouts as early as 2011 or 2012 on summer days.
 
The core of the problem is that the region’s ability to meet its ever-increasing demand for electricity is being short-circuited by environmental activists who are doing every thing they can to make it as difficult as possible to generate and transmit power.
 
“Environmental groups say the region should try harder to save energy before it goes out looking for more,” the Post reported. “The cheapest power plant out there is the one you never have to build,” one activist told the Post.
 
The euphemism the environmentalists use for this strategy is “conservation.” But “rationing” is perhaps the most honest descriptor.

The environmentalists’ new tactic in their war against us meeting our basic energy needs focuses on coal-burning power plants, which are at the top of the list of carbon dioxide emitters. “Increasing electricity almost inevitably leads to more global warming emissions,” an activist told the Post.
 
And the activists have used global warming fears to great effect.
 
“Stymied in their plans to build coal-burning power plants, American utilities are turning to natural gas to meet expected growth in demand, risking a new upward spiral in the price of that fuel,” the New York Times reported this week.
 
Since environmentalist-fomented opposition to coal plants is rising around the country -- including a new policy by major banks Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley to discourage coal-plant construction -- utility executives say they have little choice even though the boom in natural gas demand will send electricity prices even higher, according to the Times.
 
Once again, “environmental groups argue that utilities should focus on cutting demand for power, rather than building new capacity,” the Times reported.
 
One possible way out of the global warming-angle of this mess, is to capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions of power plants. Although this column recently reported about the difficulty and expense of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the Bush Administration has nevertheless been participating in a project called FutureGen, a futuristic, zero-emission power plant. The federal government was slated to pay for 75 percent of FutureGen’s costs.
 
But just last week, the Department of Energy announced that it was pulling out of FutureGen, after costs skyrocketed from $800 million to $1.8 billion. Undersecretary of Energy C.H. “Bud” Albright told FutureGen officials that the agency wasn’t interested in “building Disneyland in some swamp in Illinois.”
 
With FutureGen off the drawing board, at least for the time being, there are no significant CCS projects ongoing in the U.S. -- meaning that carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants won’t be captured in the foreseeable future.
 
Without a plan for CCS, environmental zealots will then be able to continue their anti-energy jihad against an essentially defenseless coal-based electricity producers and their consumers.
 
Of course, coal-based electricity producers and consumers aren’t really defenseless. They could (gasp!) challenge the dubious notion that manmade carbon dioxide emissions drive global climate -- click to view a video on this subject -- rather than just accepting politically correct myths that have been rammed down their throats without, so far, meaningful opportunity for debate.
 
It’s an idea that’s worth considering, especially given the apparent lack of understanding of the climate issue, even among those who aspire to be president.
 
In response to a question on global warming during the last Republican presidential debate before the Super Tuesday primaries, for example, Sen. John McCain declared that, “I applaud [efforts] to try to eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change. Now, suppose that [I am] wrong, and there's no such thing as climate change. And we adopt these green technologies…  Then all we’ve done is give our kids a cleaner world.”
 
But if we rush to blindly adopt greenhouse gas emission controls, we could disrupt energy markets and cause much economic harm. And in real life, a poorer world tends to be a dirtier world. Moreover, since carbon dioxide is a colorless and odorless gas that naturally makes up a very small part of our atmosphere and since manmade carbon dioxide is an exceedingly small part of total global carbon dioxide emissions, it’s hard to see how reducing emissions will make the world “cleaner.”
 
Sen. McCain continued, “But suppose we do nothing…and we don't eliminate this $400 billion dependence we have on foreign oil. Some of that money goes to terrorist organizations and also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Then what kind of a world have we given our children?”
 
Earth to Sen. McCain: U.S. coal-fired electricity doesn’t put a penny in the pockets of Middle East oil producers or terrorists. In fact, inexpensive coal-fired electricity could one day power vehicles so as to drastically cut down on gasoline use and the need for the oil imports that concern him.
 
If we don’t have serious debate on these issues, the combination of unscrupulous anti-growth environmentalists and uninformed grandstanding politicians will certainly lead to lights out for America.

[Soldier4Christ]

New light bulbs
can poison you
Despite congressional mandate for CFLs by 2012,
U.S. EPA says they shouldn't be used everywhere

Despite a congressional mandate banning the sale of common incandescent light bulbs by 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is warning that their compact fluorescent replacements are not safe to use everywhere.

The EPA says breakage of the energy-saving, mercury-containing CFLs can cause health hazards, especially for children and pregnant women, suggesting use of the bulbs over carpeted areas should be avoided. If bulbs break over carpeted areas, the cleanup may require cutting out pieces of the carpet to avoid toxic exposures.

Mercury is needed for the lamps to produce light, and there are currently no known substitutes. Small amounts of the toxic substance is vaporized when they break, which can happen if people screw them in holding the glass instead of the base or just drop them.

Mercury is a naturally occurring metal that accumulates in the body and can harm the nervous system of a fetus or young child if ingested in sufficient quantity.

For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken – and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted – levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times.

In a new Maine study, mercury vapor released by the bulbs exceeded even those higher levels.

The study recommended that when a compact fluorescent breaks, consumers should get children and pets out of the room and ventilate it. It warned vacuums should never be used to clean up a broken compact fluorescent lamps. Instead, it recommends using stiff paper and tape to pick up pieces.

Some states require broken compact fluorescent light bulbs to be disposed of as household hazardous waste. Others ban disposal of bulbs in trash.

Talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the mandated new bulbs on his program today, saying, "It is so, frankly, ridiculous and absurd that it insults my intelligence, and it worries me when so many people are so mind-numbed that they go along with these charades and make themselves feel like they're actually doing something to improve their lives. ...

"When you're going to allow a bunch of bureaucrats to turn over as much of your freedom as you have, this is what you get. When you buy into hoaxes and silly things that a little examination with your own common sense can tell you is not true – such as incandescent lightbulbs are destroying the planet, causing global warming – if you're going to buy into this tripe, then you deserve what you get. You deserve it. The problem is, we're all going to get it, too, because of people's stupidity. We're not going to have a choice to put compact fluorescents in our houses or not."

Thanks to pressures from environmentalists, sales are skyrocketing for compact fluorescent lamps. More than 290 million compact fluorescents carrying the EPA's "Energy Star" label sold last year, nearly double the number in 2006. Compact fluorescents now make up 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market, and sales are all but guaranteed to grow – especially since a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush bans sales of common incandescent bulbs starting in 2012.

Compact fluorescents can contain from 1 to 30 milligrams of mercury, according to the Mercury Policy Project. The nonprofit cited a New Jersey study that estimated that about two to four tons of the element are released into the environment in the U.S. each year from compact fluorescents.

Soon-to-be released results of tests conducted by the state of Maine confirm earlier states' findings suggesting that under certain conditions mercury vapor released from broken CFLs can pose a health risk. As a precaution, states such as Vermont are now suggesting removal of carpeting where breakage has occurred when there are infants and pregnant women present. Other states such as Massachusetts are likely to recommend that CFLs not be placed in fixtures subject to breakage in areas frequented by sensitive populations.

[Soldier4Christ]

Eco-terror suspected
as luxury homes burn
Earth Liberation Front leaves sign at site
near Seattle: 'Built green? Nope BLACK!'

Police suspect an environmental terrorist group is behind the burning of five luxury homes in a model "Street of Dreams" development northeast of Seattle this morning.

A message signed by ELF, the Earth Liberation Front, was left at the scene, north of Woodinville, according to Snohomish County District Seven Chief Rick Eastman in a report by local KING-TV.

The sign, shown in KING-TV video, read, "Built green? Nope black! McMansions in RCD's (rural cluster developments) r not green. ELF"

Agents with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

The furnished houses, valued at up to $2 million each, were unoccupied, and no injuries were reported. The Street of Dreams is an annual showcase of luxury homes, displaying the latest in high-end design and landscaping.

Firefighters were not allowed near the homes, officials said, for fear of booby traps. Eastman said the blazes, which began at about 4 a.m. local time, were set at six houses. Three have been completely destroyed and two others seriously damaged.

The Seattle Time reported the Woodinville development drew fierce opposition from neighbors who said the land has critical wetlands needed to protect an aquifer used by about 20,000 people. The opponents argued the environment would be overloaded by septic systems and said chinook salmon would be endangered.

ELF is an underground movement launched in the United Kingdom in 1992. The now defunct Earth Liberation Front Press Office said the group uses "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the natural environment."

Members of the group have been blamed for embedding spikes in trees to cause injury to loggers using power saws.

The FBI in 2001 classified ELF as the top domestic terror threat in the U.S.

Today's blazes come as the trial of a 32-year-old woman charged in an ELF fire-bomb attack at the University of Washington in 2001 gets underway. Briana Waters, a violin teacher, is accused of serving as a lookout for arsonists who destroyed the Tacoma campus's Center for Urban Horticulture, which was rebuilt at a cost of $7 million.

ELF activists mistakenly believed researchers at the university were genetically engineering trees.

The Woodinville homes, according to a homebuilder who served as a judge in last summer's Street of Dreams show, used "Built Green" standards such as water-pervious sidewalks, super-insulated walls and windows and products made with recycled materials, the Post-Intelligencer reported. Advertising emphasized the environmentally friendly aspects of the homes, which were smaller than some featured in previous years.

"It's very disappointing to take a situation where we're tying to promote good building practices - Built Green practices - and that it's destroyed. It's extremely disappointing. I don't understand the logic in that," said Doug Barnes, Northwest division president of Centex Homes and immediate past president of the Master Builders Association of King & Snohomish Counties.

[Soldier4Christ]

I don't understand the logic in that

Since when did environmentalists show any sign of logic.

[Soldier4Christ]

Anti-plastic crusaders
stuck holding the bag
Claim 100,000 animals, 1 million seabirds,
die each year based on 'typo' in 2002 report

A lot of environmentalists are learning how George Bush felt after invading Iraq and finding no weapons of mass destruction.

Scientists are attacking the global campaign to ban plastic shopping bags, saying the activists' claim that the modern conveniences are responsible for the deaths of 100,000 animals and one million seabirds is based on a "typo" in a 2002 report and there is no scientific evidence showing the bags pose a direct threat to marine mammals.

Researchers and marine biologists have told the London Times plastic bags pose, at best, a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

"I've never seen a bird killed by a plastic bag," said Professor Geoff Boxshall, a marine biologist at the London Natural History Museum. "Other forms of plastic in the ocean are much more damaging. Only a very small proportion is caused by bags."

In November, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban large grocery stores from distributing plastic bags. Santa Monica, Calif., and Connecticut are considering similar bans. Last month, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, calling them "one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste."

That move has caused a number of UK scientists to criticize the government for jumping on the "bandwagon" without sound science to back up its decision.

Driving the campaign is the claim, found in a 2002 report commissioned by the Australian government, that 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds are killed by ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic bags. The figure was derived from a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland that found 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, killed by discarded fishing nets.

The authors of the 2002 study misquoted the Canadian study which made no mention of plastic bags.

In 2006, four years after the figure had been adopted by anti-plastic campaigners to prove the bags' danger, the authors altered their report, replacing "plastic bags" with "plastic debris" and admitting in a postscript that the original Canadian study had cited fishing tackle, not plastic debris, as the cause of the animals' deaths.

"The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine," they wrote.

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, agrees.

"It's very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags," he said. "The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.

"It doesn't do the government's case any favors if you've got statements being made that aren't supported by the scientific literature that's out there. With larger mammals it's fishing gear that's the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren't an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren't made."

Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the UK retailer John Lewis, told the Times plastic bags were a small part of the waste problem, despite the attention recently focused on them.

"We don't see reducing the use of plastic bags as our biggest priority," he said. "Of all the waste that goes to landfill, 20 percent is household waste and 0.3 percent is plastic bags."

He added that efforts in Ireland had reduced plastic bag usage, but sales of trashcan liners had increased 400 percent.

[Soldier4Christ]

Wanna help planet? 'Let's all just die!'
Group pushes to improve Earth's ecosystem by ensuring human species does not survive

"May we live long and die out" is the unofficial motto of a new movement that seeks to improve the Earth's ecosystem by ensuring that the human species does not survive.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT, consists of volunteers who have made active life decisions to remain childless for the benefit of the Earth, thereby preventing the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals.

While no one person takes credit for being the founder, Les U. Knight created its name and is the spokesperson for the movement.

"We've already exceeded Earth's carrying capacity for humans by quite a bit," Knight told WND. "We are using up our resources. The best way to stop it is by not breeding. It's really the best way because the people we don't create don't exist, and so there's no impact on them."

VHEMT activists believe a smaller population will benefit the Earth by reducing human and environmental catastrophe.

"There is no problem on the planet that would be more easily solved by adding more people," Knight said. "Everything that we like, including clean air and clean water and wilderness to go and visit, all of those will increase as there become fewer of us."

Knight said the greenest habit humans can have is to prevent creation of another member of the species, reducing humanity's ecological footprint on the Earth.

(Story continues below)

Though VHEMT volunteers have made active decisions to not bring children into the world, Knight said he is not concerned that the movement will literally die out.

"It's an idea, and it's not transferred genetically," he said. "We aren't born knowing we should go extinct; we have to learn it. We don't need to create new humans in order to indoctrinate them from birth. All of us come from breeding couples, and yet we've decided not to breed."

VHEMT strives to increase the status of women in society with the stated goal of giving them choices besides motherhood by promoting "universal reproductive freedom." While Knight said the main goal of the movement is to prevent procreation, he claims it does not promote abortion or other methods of terminating life.

"There's no need for that. Contraception prevents abortion, and we'll be dead soon enough," he said. "Whatever it takes to avoid creating a new human is what we advocate."

As for the size of the group, Knight said he can only guess because the movement is not an organization that people can join. However, he provided an estimate of the number of subscribers to the VHEMT philosophy:

"There must be several million people who have arrived at the conclusion that we would be better off without humans."

When Knight formed the movement, he had one objective in mind:

"The ultimate goal is one I will never see," Knight said. "I will never see the day that there are no humans on the planet."

[HisDaughter]

Fools and their folly.

[Soldier4Christ]

Polar bear protection angers Alaskans
Fear decision gives environmentalists new tool for opposing development

Alaska industry and political leaders reacted with disappointment, even vehemence, to the decision Wednesday to protect the polar bear as "threatened," despite assurances from the Bush administration that the listing would mean no new regulation in Alaska.

Industry officials worried that the listing decision would give environmentalists a new tool for opposing development in the Arctic, especially new offshore oil exploration and development. Politicians attacked the science behind the decision as speculative.

"Reinterpreting the Endangered Species Act in this way is an unequivocal victory for extreme environmentalists who want to block all development in our state," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

National conservative groups are already promising to sue over the decision, predicting that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's effort to rule out regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would be overturned in court. One group, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the barriers erected by Kempthorne "have all the strength of tissue paper."

For their part, environmental groups responded more positively to the "threatened species" listing, a goal they have sought for three years. They, too, were talking about lawsuits, predicting Interior would be forced to yield on the logic of regulating emissions.

"This is a huge victory for the polar bears. They're now protected," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, and lead author of the 2005 petition. "The administration's attempts to make an exception for greenhouse gases won't stand up in court. The law says what it says, not what the administration wishes it says. The oil industry is probably smart enough to know that."

Kempthorne, announcing his decision Wednesday, said no new regulation of industry or subsistence hunting in Alaska would be necessary under the Endangered Species Act. He said protections already given to the polar bear under the Marine Mammal Protection Act are "more stringent" than those under the ESA and would continue in place.

In an interview, Kempthorne said his approach "gave predictability to the oil and gas industry."

Interior officials cited only one change: polar bear trophies could no longer be imported from guided sport hunts in Canada.

'PANDORA'S BOX'

Under the ESA, the federal government is required to develop a plan for protecting critical habitat, write a recovery plan for the bears, and consult about bear protection before approving federal permits. All now appear to be sources of potential litigation, especially on the issue of excluding greenhouse gas emissions.

The marine mammal act has governed industry activities in northern Alaska for three decades, and the result has been only "negligible" impacts on polar bears, federal biologists say.

But it's probably oversimplifying to say there will be no different regulation of industry in Alaska as a result of Wednesday's decision, said Scott Schliebe, a polar bear specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska.

"It draws a brighter light of scrutiny to our management activities in Alaska," Schliebe said. "We will take a closer look at the activities, particularly the offshore activities."

Industry is not as worried about government scrutiny as it is about environmental lawsuits and resulting costly delays, said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.

"The activities taking place in polar bear habitat are the ones that will become targets," she said. The administration's effort to keep the marine mammals act as the law affecting oil and gas is "very helpful," she said, but the decision to list at all is disappointing.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, made the point more strongly, calling the decision "grossly premature" because climate change models vary so much. She said the decision "opens a Pandora's Box that the administration will now be unable to close."

LEGAL CHALLENGES

Environmentalists were considering Wednesday how to approach future legal challenges to the law, Siegel said.

She said to expect a challenge of the so-called 4(d) rule declaring the marine mammal act would still govern human-bear interactions, effective immediately. The ESA allows for such flexibility if the threatened species is not harmed as a result. But the marine mammal act has shortcomings, environmentalists say, including that it fails to protect habitat.

"If the MMPA were adequate to protect the polar bear, we wouldn't be in this situation," she said.

Siegel said she was glad she could move beyond the basic effort of suing the government over science and listing the bear under the ESA. In his statement, Kempthorne said he accepted the science behind the decision as sound.

That job now falls to Reed Hopper, a lawyer with the conservative property-rights firm Pacific Legal Foundation. Hopper said Wednesday he would file a notice to sue over the decision, testing the scientific arguments. He said polar bear numbers have increased in the past few decades and they are already adequately protected under the marine mammals act, as Kempthorne himself argued.

He dismissed Kempthorne's contention that the polar bear could be listed for protection due to melting ice, but in a way that would have no effect on oil and gas activity or distant emission sources.

"In our view, that's just wishful thinking," Hopper said.

[Soldier4Christ]

'Green' website tells
when you should die
Calculator reveals when your share
of Earth's resources fully consumed

The Australian Broadcasting Company has created a "green" website that tells you when you should die, based on your usage of Earth's resources.

The PlanetSlayer site, which the network calls the "first irreverent environmental website," includes "Professor Schpinkee's greenhouse calculator," which tells a user when he or she should die, based on their lifestyle and consumption of resources.

The "calculator" is made like a children's video game, with cartoon characters who look like a detective dog and a pig, and asks, "How big a greenhouse pig are you?"

The user goes through a series of questions about how much one drives, is the vehicle fuel efficient, how many miles the person flew – divided by pleasure travel and business travel as if one would be more Earth-friendly than the other, and others.

Those responses are added to answers to questions about the size of your home, how many people live there, how big the utility bills are and does any of the energy come from a renewable resource, and queries about recycling.

Then you click on a skull-and-crossbones button to find out that you should die at 23.4 years, or 9.3, or 5.2, depending on your answers.

With the click on the skull-and-crossbones button, a pig representing the survey-taker, positioned between a fat pig for energy usage and a lean, "green" pig, explodes.

Other parts of the website promote the Kyoto Protocol international agreement under which greenhouse gases are supposed to be regulated and reduced, and various question-and-answer resources.

Regarding the efficiency of various types of heat, for example, the website tells, "As a rule, gas is better than electric, which is better than open flames. The exception to this scenario is on nights where romance is in the air and a deep shag pile is on the floor."

Generally, "For each hour of heat, you'll produce about 0.7 kg CO2 (gas heater), 2 kg CO2 (2 bar electric radiator), 3.3 kg CO2 (open fire)."

"Gas is more efficient because you just burn it where you are – about a quarter of the heat gets lost up the flue, but the rest heats up the room. Electricity on the other hand is pretty hopeless efficiency-wise – 2/3 of the coal's energy is lost at the power station," the report said. "Open fires vary on a scale from pretty inefficient to hellishly inefficient. And as well as their greenhouse excesses, they produce a heap of other pollutants and the odd irate asthmatic neighbor."

As for mitigating such "excesses" by planting trees, the website advises that to counter the usage of an ordinary family, members would have to plant "a helluva lot" of trees.

"Your average Aussie belts out about 24.5 tons of CO2 each year (that covers everything from housing and transport to your share of government and industry). Your average Aussie native tree can soak up about 270 kg CO2 in that time. And your average Aussie science journalist with a calculator reckons that's about 91 trees you'd need to plant every year," the website advises.

"On a national scale, we'd be talking about planting 1729 million trees … EVERY YEAR."

It also includes links to organizations such as the Climate Action Network Australia, the international IPCC, the Australian Greenhouse Office, the Sustainable Energy Development Authority and others.

WND reported only two weeks earlier that more than 31,000 scientists now have signed a petition rejecting the global warming agenda.

That list includes more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.

But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project.

"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson.

WND submitted a request to Gore's office for comment but did not get a response.

Robinson said the campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded. And reducing energy use "now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries."

The Petition Project's website includes both a list of scientists by name as well as a list of scientists by state.