Category: Environment

Environment, Preservation/Conservation

In Celebration of John Muir: Travels in the Bay Area

Today, April 21st 2010, is John Muir’s 172 birthday. In honor of the patron saint of American environmentalism, and since I’m lucky enough to live in the area that John Muir called home for the last half of his life, I present a wonderful way to celebrate Muir! Read on below this photo of Muir reveling in the great outdoors:

John Muir in 1907

The San Francisco Bay Area is replete with Muir-related sites, and if I was going to go visit them all in a day, I’d do it in this order, with these fantastic activities and restaurants mixed in:

Start at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez. If you’re a public-transit-bound person, this is the most accessible of the Muir sites, just a short bus ride from the Walnut Creek BART station. Muir’s family home and orchard sits at the foot of Mt. Wanda, named for Muir’s oldest daughter. The site is especially fun to visit in late summer, despite the heat, because the fruit from the very productive fruit trees in Muir’s historic orchard is available to anyone who pays the small fee to enter the park. Bring a bag and you can feast for days on one of the National Park Service’s tastiest landscape features. The apricots and figs, from trees Muir himself planted, are especially delicious, based on a visit last July. Continue reading “In Celebration of John Muir: Travels in the Bay Area”

Environment, Politics, Society

Save Coal Miners: Just Say No to Coal Power.

President Obama says we need more than prayers to protect coal miners, we need action. He’s right. Unfortunately, he’s also wrong.

Specifically, he’s wrong about clean coal. This amazingly durable boondoggle has been a buzzword for “free money” to interest groups and “jobs” to unions and workers in the coal states. States where presidential elections have been won or lost the past two decades; Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Montana (the latter two were closer than you might think in the last election). The one thing clean coal definitely isn’t, however, is good for coal miners.

A lot has changed since 1908, but coal mining remains one of America's most dangerous jobs.
West Virginia Coal Miners in 1908.

Coal mining is one of the most dangerous, dirty, unhealthy jobs on the planet. Thousands of people die around the world every year in coal mining accidents. Admittedly, most of those deaths are in China, which has 19th century worker protection. Continue reading “Save Coal Miners: Just Say No to Coal Power.”

Environment

Obama Tries to Bribe Senators with Offshore Oil

Most of the Eastern Seaboard, a chunk of the Gulf of Mexico, and the north coast of Alaska are now open for drilling, thanks to a new plan put out by Administration officials Tuesday.

The plan, which will open millions of new acres of the continental shelf to oil exploration, but set aside sensitive Bristol Bay in Alaska as off limits, predictably and understandably drew criticism from both sides today.

Drilling for oil off the coast of the U.S. is a losing proposition. It doesn’t make sense in the short term. And it certainly doesn’t make sense in the long term as part of any strategy to reduce climate change.

The administration effectively abandoned bipartisanship in the passage of healthcare reform (lets not pretend about this folks, not a single Republican voted for the bill). Somehow they manage to hold out hope that waving juicy oil profits in front of climate deniers and footdraggers will get some Republicans and Democrats in the tank for the oil industry (see this helpful list) to vote with the president on climate change legislation. That’s not the hope or change that most Americans voted for. Continue reading “Obama Tries to Bribe Senators with Offshore Oil”

Environment, Politics

$86 Million More Against the Climate

Once again, future generations’ ability to endure on the planet has been compromised by our current chronic inability to live within our means. The Montana State Land Board voted last week to accept $86 million from Arch Coal Inc. for rights to dig nearly a billion tons of coal from beneath state land in southern Montana. Each of the 3 yes voters, including Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer, cited the state’s budget woes as the main reason to take the money.

Both Arch Coal and Schweitzer say it will be at least 7 years before mining begins in the area. (Pshah, that’s such a long time from now, what have we got to worry about!?!) Continue reading “$86 Million More Against the Climate”