Happy Earth Day, 2014

--The Earth Day Show (Paresh Nath, UAE)

The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows

"Ah, what can I do?", say a powerless few

With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye

Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you

--My Country 'tis of Thy People You're Dying,

Buffy Sainte-Marie

_____________________

Today is Earth Day, one of those quaint relics from a recent past when we gave lip-service to actually being good stewards to our planet and its inhabitants. 

Welcome to Earth Day 2014-style in Florida, where a greedy oil firm began fracking this year in the sensitive Florida Everglades under the radar, without a permit. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said the fracking began sometime between 30 Dec 2013 and 1 Jan 2014. 

The Dan A. Hughes Company of Texas was fined $25,000 for this outrage, a slap on the wrist. Who and what does Florida prioritize -- the health and welfare of its citizens, wildlife and invaluable tourists, or a carpetbagger oil profiteer? Ask our Governor Rick Scott (R) -- who profited nicely from his work as Chief Executive of the felonious Columbia/HCA corporation -- and you can guess the answer (Though Scott was not implicated in the scandal and no charges were raised against him personally, Columbia/HCA admitted to fourteen felonies the year after Scott's resignation as CEO. The company agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million, which was the largest fraud settlement in US history.)

Progress Florida, a non-profit citizens advocacy group, sent out this petition (below) today:

Quoting from the Tampa Bay Times story (Oil company drilling in sanctuary fined $25,000 for violation that could be fracking), they wrote, "Gov. Scott’s DEP is so in bed with polluters that their consent order about the Hughes Co. violation fails to even mention fracking, citing 'a confidential trade secret.'"

Anyone may sign the petition. If we cannot even be bothered to do that, we deserve what we get.

Earth Day 2013: The Pale Blue Dot

(National Archives, Records of the Environmental Protection Agency)

“Abandoned automobiles and other debris clutter an acid water and oil filled five acre pond. It was cleaned up under EPA supervision to prevent possible contamination of Great Salt Lake and a wildlife refuge nearby.” 

--Bruce McAllister, near Ogden, Utah, April 1974

Now there is one outstandingly important fact
regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is
that no instruction book came with it 
--Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth,
Buckminster Fuller
___________________

Earth Day 2013 passed quietly yesterday, the media focused on the human-on-human destruction more to the tastes of an anthropocentric society. (For more 1970's environmental atrocities, see Smithsonian Best and Worst of 1970's.) Almost 70% of Americans though preserving and restoring the environment was an important goal when the day was commemorated in 1971; today, less than 40% think so.

Meanwhile, the brutalization of our planet continues apace. In our neck of the woods, consumption of the once-popular Apalachicola Bay oyster is down, some reports suggesting by as much as 60%. An unknown amount of the oil dispersant Corexit -- banned in Europe -- was dumped into the Gulf to make the slicks "disappear" in 2010, but in fact increasing the toxicity of the spill by a coefficient of 50 (in keeping with SNL character Fernando's dictum, "It is better to look good than to feel good.") Many people who care about their health, and who have the liberty to make a choice, have declined swimming in or eating from these waters.

The Gulf Coast doesn't have too much in the way of natural resources, but seafood was one of them until BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill cruelly arrived just in time for that year's Earth Day. On the three-year anniversary of the event, our Florida Attorney General Filed Suit Against BP Over the 2010 Spill for lost revenue in the state. 

The Environmental Protection Agency Reports: More Than Half Nation's Rivers in Poor Shape, unable to support healthy populations of aquatic insects and other creatures. 

If you can do something to help your piece of the planet stay healthy, please do it; likewise, if you can refrain from harming it, then do that.

Happy Earth Day, 2013.

Homeboy

 --substitute any Administration here

She's a bad drunk
She's a good time girl
She has an illegitimate child
So she'll be sticking 'round town for a while
She is America 
--American Miracle, Rust Belt Music
____________________

While the people charged with interviewing our President-to-be think the woes of the Middle East, Asia and and abortion rights are the main issues of concern for Americans, this blip appears in the State section of USA Today:

The Cleveland city council reported it could take 22 years and $4.5 billion to clear all 8,500 vacated houses that need to be razed in the city. The price tag includes the cost of keeping the properties free from vandalism (The Plain Dealer).

Ohio, like so many states, suffers from a form of MPD; Dennis Kucinich would never be elected by the conservative Western farm belt, who sees its problems as differing from those of the city-dwellers.  Winning elections should be about representing and governing the entire electorate, and not just those most likely to vote for you or to vote at all.  Instead, we all know the pull of the vested interests.

Being from Cleveland, the 22-year estimate seems rosy; the house in the slums are not getting any newer, and the maintenance is not getting better.  Why does neither party espouse a Federal reclamation project to destroy these homes while salvaging recycled items of value?  Copper, bricks and aged hard wood do not grow on trees.

The United States transfers $300 billion from the public coffers to the various civilian contractors providing security alone in shit holes around the world.  Why not spend our hard-earned, newly-minted tax dollars on our own U.S rust belt shit holes?  Cleveland's plight is that of every Rust Belt city in America, an everyday slog not called "hope".

Ten steps above the existence of most rust belt denizens is the life led by most graduates of Ohio's nearby Bowling Green State University, but even their latest alumnae newsletter (Fall '12) sounded the alarm of another ecosystem in it's death throes:

Walking toward the shores of Lake Erie during the summer, it is easy to imagine visiting a sparkling tropical ocean. The turquoise water glimmers in the sun as gentle waves lap at the white beach. A capricious breeze carries the animated sounds of birds chirping among the reeds and grasses.

Upon closer approach, however, it becomes clear that all may not be as sublime as first envisioned. Lake Erie water should be a deep, dark blue — the turquoise hue is actually the result of toxic blue-green algae blooms. The white beach is the effect of invasive zebra mussel shells that litter Lake Erie shores. The aggressive flowering rush and other invaders are overtaking native reeds and grasses, home to hundreds of bird species.

Lake Erie is the 12th largest lake in the world and the most biologically productive of the five Great Lakes, which contain 20 percent of the planet’s surface freshwater and supply drinking water to more than 35 million people. ...

"Sublime" ... not a word Ranger often associates with much of Ohio, but his state is not alone in its quagmire.

Does Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama have a plan for Ohio, beyond offering its residents fallow, puerile hope or the insulting kick in the teeth that is the conservative's "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" claptrap?

No, we did not think so.

Sobering Earth Day

If we are forced, at every hour,
to watch or listen to horrible events,
this constant stream of ghastly impressions
will deprive even the most delicate
among us of all respect for humanity
--Marcus Tullius Cicero

You live like this, sheltered,
in a delicate world,
and you believe you are living
--Anais Nin
________________

Just on time for Earth Day, an massive oil rig suffered a blowout and sank in the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday night, probably leaking 8,000 barrels of crude oil a day with 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel on board (Burning Oil Rig Sinks, Setting Stage for Big Explosion.)

The focus is on the 11 men probably killed (115 were evacuated), but few are speaking of the environmental impact (As Oil Rig Sinks, Hope Fades.) Oily water is less sexy than dead people. However, since President Obama just gave the go-ahead to drill off of our Florida coast (something even President Bush refused), this aspect deserves far more attention than it is getting.

Sadly, the ramifications are usually only known by the science geeks or serious adventurists, whose hobbies will be impacted. Another accident at sea came earlier this month, when a Chinese-registered coal-carrying ship ran aground on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, destroying perhaps 10 miles of that World Heritage site, just before precautions to prevent such an eventuality were to have been put into place (Australia Rushes to Contain Barrier Reef Spill.) The wages of not taking precautions.

Sobering news for Earth Day 2010.

[Cross-posted at Big Brass Blog.]