YES! Magazine GIVEAWAY

Times are tough - money is hard to come by - and winter is roaring it’s head. How about something for nothing? SCREAM to be GREEN doesn’t do giveaways very often, but I think this is a great one. We’re giving away a one year subscription to YES! Magazine. Just look at the covers above and see their commitment to the environment and sustainability! Sustainability, climate change (with Bill McKibben no less), locavores, oil, water battles, etc. Cozy up in a warm blanket with this gem of a magazine. Did I mention that YES! is printed on 100% post consumer waste recycled paper? It is.

From their FAQ:

What is YES! magazine all about?
We focus on a different topic each quarter, each one on opportunities for social change toward a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world. Recent issues have focused on redefining the “good life,” great urban places, preserving and reclaiming water resources, rethinking elderhood, finding alternatives to oil dependence.

Here is an example of some of the great material available in Yes! Magazine.

“Christmas With No Presents?”
by Colin Beavan, No Impact Man
“No Impact Man,” Colin Beavan, suspected the holidays would be just as merry without all the stuff — and he was right! Beavan and his small family have committed to living a no-net-environmental-impact lifestyle in the middle of New York City, and blogs about the adventure at NoImpactMan.com. Here he shares his very merry Christmas story — minus the stuff.

Related stories in the Sustainable Happiness issue:

* “Be Happy Anyway”
by Sarah van Gelder and Doug Pibel
The economic boom didn’t bring us (or the planet) happiness. So maybe there’s an upside to the downturn.

* “10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy”
by Jen Angel
In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.

* “Happiness Test”
by Stephen Post and Mike McCullough
Researchers say thankful people tend to be happy people. YES! offers this test to find out your gratitude score.

The rules are simple. Leave a comment by 11:59PM CST, December 12, 2008 and one random lucky winner will be picked to receive a one year subscription to Yes! Magazine. If you read Yes! Magazine, we’d love to hear from you, too - enter the contest and let us know what you think.

Also - I encourage you all to follow Yes! Magazine on Twitter, too. You can follow me, too - I’d love the company.

Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste

After the earlier “Greening of China” we happen to be watching 60 Minutes on CBS.  Tonight they had a story on following the toxic trail of e-waste.  It’s amazing and appalling all at the same time.  The conditions that poor Chinese farmers are put through for $8/day.  The children are filled with lead in their bloodstream.  The soil and water is too contaminated to drink.  People are inhaling carcinogenic toxins on a regular basis.  All for $8.


I would like to note that many major US computer manufacturers will take back their e-waste and are committed to ethically and properly dispose of their e-waste in the US. Please do your homework when recycling your e-waste. Check the Basel Action Network for more information on responsible e-waste recycling.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Here’s a great 10min piece on e-waste recycling in poor communities across the world.

Greening of Industrial China

Fears of global warming and climate change often carry the argument that populous nations are being industrialized.  China is in the middle of the industrial revolution.  The more wealth the country brings in, the more the people start driving and acting more like traditional westerners.  At least in the midst of this industrial revolution, some corporations are taking measures to mitigate their environmental footprint.

Al Gore’s Challenge To America Remixed

Remixed with Stephen Stills tune “For What Its Worth”  Visit WeCanSolveIt.org for more…

Alberta Tar Sands Reminds Of US Coal Mining Destruction

The Alberta Tar Sands reminds me very much of MTR - Mountaintop Removal Mining.  The illustrious Boreal Forest is being clear cut and turned into a disgusting strip mine.  Waterways and the general water table is being contaminated.  CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates.  The entire ecosystem of this once pristine landscape is being extinguished all in the name of oil  - and greed.  As they state in the pod, the Boreal Forest is becoming a dumping ground of the United States.  US independence from foreign oil runs right through the province of Alberta.

According to DeSmogBlog, “At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them. Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.” 

Watch the pod.  What do you think?  Is this energy indepence?  At what cost?

(more…)

Current TV Look At World Without Water

Lake Meade, Nevada, USA

China

Mother Nature to Man: “I’m Melting!”

The arctic is starting to feel like the Wicked Witch of the West, “I’m melting!”  A 19-square mile chunk of ice broke free from from the Arctic ice shelf in northern Canada in early August.  To put that in perspective, Manhattan, NY is roughly the same size. 

[From the Chicago Tribune] Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario, told The Associated Press that the 4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

“The Markham Ice Shelf was a big surprise because it suddenly disappeared. We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Muller.

The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend on them are on the brink of extinction, said Warwick Vincent, director of Laval University’s Centre for Northern Studies and a researcher in the program ArcticNet.

“The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like plants would. Now that it’s disappeared, we’re looking at ecosystems on the verge of distinction,’ said Muller.

So when is mankind as a whole going to start to care?  It has yet to really effect the average person on a daily basis - but look at the drought maps - look at the temps - things are going to have to change - how screwed are my grandkids?  I hate to even think about it.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Climate Change ala 1958 - Unchained Goddess

North Pole Is Now An Island: Massive Ice Melt

Well, it happened.  Chalk one up for the scientists.  The North Pole is now an island.  There were warnings that this might happen - years before originally ever thought.  You could sail a boat in open water all around the North Pole.  The Northeast and Northwestern passages are open.  What was once merely a pipe dream is now a reality.  You could sail from England to China through Canadian waters directly through the newly melted channels.  For the first time in the history of mankind, the North Pole could be circumnavigated.  Now tell me that global warming and the climate crisis is bullshit.  There is no way that man has not had a hand in this.  This is not the product of underground lava and hot springs.  The magnitude is too large.

An article from The Independent UK reads:
Four weeks ago, tourists had to be evacuated from Baffin Island’s Auyuittuq National Park because of flooding from thawing glaciers. Auyuittuq means “land that never melts”.

The article goes on to talk about how 9 - yes - 9 polar bears were seen stranded on floating ice - trying to swim 400 miles to land, yet Sarah Palin thinks that Global Warming science is unreliable and is suing the government about the polar bear being endangered.

Get this - they originally thought that global warming would catch up to us and this melting would not be seen until 2070 - over 60 years from now.  All of this is quite amazing to me - the rapid rate of decline in the polar ice cap.  Various water issues are going to come to the forefront in the near future.  Maybe the average joe will start to think about someone other than themselves and how the planet is not here for them to abuse.  I really feel that many people unknowingly abuse the planet.  They’ve never been taught otherwise.  It’s frustrating, but I guess that is one of the reasons I have this blog - to start talking about it.  Sure, I generally talk to those who are “in the know,” but I have to hope that others - who aren’t crazy green zealots like myself read this on occasion, too.

Here is a video from earlier this summer:

Source: The Independent UK

Cheney Wanted Cuts In Climate Change Testimony

The story out of Washington tonight is that Cheney and the White House wanted certain climate change testimony cut.  Why?  Because they felt that Jason Burnett’s, head of the CDC, testimony would force them to further regulate greenhouse gases (GHG).  The White House said that certain deletions in testimony were made because of the science - flaws in the science.  In reality - this administration has so many friggin hands in their pockets from the different lobbies that they will do everything in their power to deny any proof of climate change.    I wonder what McBush thinks of all of this…

From the Chicago Tribune:

Burnett, until last month a senior adviser on climate change at the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote that Cheney’s office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC’s original draft testimony removed.

The White House, at the urging of Cheney’s office, “requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change,” Burnett wrote.

Burnett also described in greater detail than previously reported the White House’s refusal in December to accept a draft EPA finding concluding that carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, is endangering human health. 

After he sent the e-mail with the draft finding attached, he said he received a telephone call from the White House asking that he “send a follow-up note saying that the e-mail had been sent in error.”

“I explained that I could not do that because it was not true,” Burnett wrote.

Source: Chicago Tribune