The 83rd Save Rain Forest Thread

ehBeth, keep the covers close and piled upon yourself. Stay warm and cozy. And the puppies also.

Stradee, great article. Keeps us thinking.

Nuther tree smiled today. That's what we are about.

Groups sue to stop Utah oil and gas drilling
Bush administration plans leases near parks, ancient rock panels


updated 3:35 p.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 17, 2008
WASHINGTON - Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday to block the Bush administration's last-minute sale of oil-and-gas drilling leases in Utah near national parks and ancient rock art panels.

The Bureau of Land Management has scheduled an auction Friday to sell drilling leases covering more than 100,000 acres of wild land in eastern Utah.

Actor Robert Redford, a longtime environmental activist, called the lease sale "morally criminal." Redford, who owns a home in Utah and hosts the annual Sundance Film Festival there, said the leasing issue is emotional for him, since he has spent much of his adult life in southern Utah, on foot and horseback


"These lands do not belong to Bush and Cheney. It's our land " public lands " and the BLM is supposed to be protecting lands on our behalf," Redford said via satellite from Los Angeles during a news conference in Washington.

Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Bush administration was rushing to approve the leases before leaving office next month.

"In their midnight maneuvering, BLM failed to complete the analysis required by federal law for the protection of America's natural and cultural treasures," she said.

A spokeswoman for the BLM declined to comment.

Buccino and other speakers said the land being considered for drilling is some of the most spectacular scenery in the country, including land near Nine Mile Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument and Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

The BLM has dropped more than half the parcels it originally proposed to lease, after the sales were criticized because of their proximity to national parks and ancient rock art panels. The National Park Service was among those that objected to the original plan.

The BLM's final list for the Friday sale includes 132 parcels totaling about 164,000 acres.


A Park Service spokesman said the final list reflects an agreement between the two agencies " both of which are part of the Interior Department.

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., called the lease sale "an early Christmas present to the oil and gas industry from a lame duck administration with one foot already out the door. Once these pristine wilderness lands are destroyed we can never get them back."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28283620/

Hurray! More rain!

Freezing temps, thought we'd be seeing more snow for the foothills. Thanks for all the good thoughts, wildclickers. Mother Nature listens!!

Replenishing the bird feeder with seed every three days! Finches are doing well also, and so are the non migrating hummingbirds. Deer haven't been seen during the past week - might be due to snow and ice on the roadways.

Have a good day all ~


http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674

Stradee, I am glad they filed suit to block the sales.
Hello danon5, sumac, ehBeth, and everybody else.
Clicking.
We received ten more inches of snow today. More on the way.
Have nice days.

Made it back home through snowmageddon. That was not a particularly enjoyable drive. I am definitely transiting the next time they forecast anything like this.

I left for work early enough that I missed the beginning of the storm - then it hit.

<splat>

On the upside, I got some interesting photos to share with some of the Aussie A2K'ers who don't get northern hemisphere winters. Get or get!

Yeah, the Aussie's are having Summer now.

Glad ya made it home, ehBeth. We are having some very unusual weather down here also. Freezing temps at night one day and up in the 60's the next night. Scary weather.

Hi Alex and all, wishing good times for all during the upcoming holidays.

You and your 300 friends have supported 2,923,432.7 square feet!



Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 219,297.0 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 300 friends have supported: (219,297.0)

American Prairie habitat supported: 68,565.7 square feet.
You have supported: (17,698.9)
Your 300 friends have supported: (50,866.9)

Rainforest habitat supported: 2,635,569.9 square feet.
You have supported: (188,751.7)
Your 300 friends have supported: (2,446,818.2)

Alex, we are all shaking our heads and wondering what the hell bush is thinking!
The courts will rule for the enviornment, but the hassle caused by last minute gifts to the oil companies is just ludicrous, imo.

Beth, is it just me or are winter driving conditions more severe this year. Saw some poor guy's truck upside down in a ditch on a road thats generally easy driving even when snowing.

I've decided the best course of action = stay home. Safer and warmer on days even when God wouldn't go outdoors!

Rain, sun peaks ever so often, then more rain. I'm not complaining.

Wishing all WildClickers a safe and warm holiday.

Ok, Stradee, we Inguns have stopped the Rain Dance for you.

Dan, aka, Quiet Hawk, (in Apache) my blood brothers tribe.

I don't know about any of the other tribes looking in on our thread.......

Night all, from Central Standard Time zone.

G'morning all.

California thanks Quiet Hawk and the Apache Nation.



http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674

g'd earthturn, ehBeth

Sending good thoughts to all east coast wildclickers also.

A great thanks to all Wildclickers - and, to everyone who clicks each day or even ever so often. It means a lot.

ehBeth and Stradee - here's wishing you good health, good luck and good night.

Happy Solstice.
Clicked.

You and your 300 friends have supported 2,923,551.2 square feet!



The light is born again.
The light will return!

Resurrection of life
within its eternal circle
will shine and pour down from the sky
over the beauty of the world.



Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 219,348.9 square feet.
You have supported: (0.0)
Your 300 friends have supported: (219,348.9)

American Prairie habitat supported: 68,565.7 square feet.
You have supported: (17,698.9)
Your 300 friends have supported: (50,866.9)

Rainforest habitat supported: 2,635,636.6 square feet.
You have supported: (188,759.1)
Your 300 friends have supported: (2,446,877.5)

Moving on and more trees asmiling as the dozers pass them by....... happy face.

Birds are happy too!







http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674

Good thoughs re solstice, ehBeth,. Cold here and clicked.

Excellent, excellent. See what, and how, Brazil is resisting deforestation.

December 22, 2008
Forest Plan in Brazil Bears the Traces of an Activist’s Vision
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

RIO DE JANEIRO " Twenty years ago, a Brazilian environmental activist and rubber tapper was shot to death at his home in Acre State by ranchers opposed to his efforts to save the Amazon rain forest.

After his death at age 44, Francisco Alves Mendes, better known as Chico, became a martyr for a concept that is only now gaining mainstream support here: that the value of a standing forest could be more than the value of a forest burned and logged in the name of development.

This month, Brazil took what environmentalists hope will be a big step forward in realizing Mr. Mendes’s vision. The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva introduced ambitious targets for reducing deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions in a nation that is one of the world’s top emitters of this heat-trapping gas.

The plan promises to make Brazil a more influential player in global climate-change discussions, helping to push the United States and the European Union to agree to emissions cuts and head off the adverse effects of climate change. It could also encourage more pledges from wealthy countries seeking to essentially pay Brazil to preserve the forest for the good of all humanity.

But some environmentalists question whether the new targets, which would reduce Brazilian deforestation by 72 percent by 2017, are achievable in a country that has shown few signs of adjusting its development model as a major food provider to the world, especially in the midst of a global economic crisis.

To achieve the first phase of planned cuts, Brazil would have to reduce deforestation next year by 20 percent, to less than 4,000 square miles. That would be the lowest amount per year ever recorded in Brazil, said Paulo Adario, the Amazon campaign director for Greenpeace in Brazil.

Brazil’s economy is centered on the export of agricultural products, like soybeans and beef, and commodities like iron ore.

“The Brazilian model is to be the food supplier to the world and a big supplier of ethanol,” Mr. Adario said. “The economy will continue to move in the same basic direction. There is no magic in Brazil.”

Up until now, Brazil’s economic choices have driven much of the deforestation in the Amazon, he said. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the military government encouraged landless families to settle in the region. Road-building, land speculators and ranchers followed, and the forests fell at a quickening pace.

The burning and decomposition of trees produce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Mr. Mendes organized tappers to confront crews and flew abroad to confront lenders paying for roads. His efforts to stop logging in an area planned for a forest reserve led to his death. Since his killing, on Dec. 22, 1988, more than 20 reserves have been created, protecting more than eight million acres.

Mr. Mendes was an early advocate of the idea that people who live in the forest could create livelihoods from sustainable forest resources, rather than the one-time economic benefit of cutting down trees. Carbon financing, the compensation of forest dwellers for pursuing sustainable industries, would provide an added incentive, which is vital given the uncertain markets for natural rubber and other non-timber forest products.

“The notion that we in the north will help pay for that climate service is an important development and represents the mainstreaming of the concept that Chico Mendes and those like him were pioneers in creating,” said Richard H. Moss, the head of climate change programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington.

The killings of Mr. Mendes and of Sister Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old Catholic nun who was gunned down in 2005 for speaking out against logging in the Amazon, ratcheted up international pressure on Brazil to find ways to limit forest clearing without sacrificing development.

“Brazil was always on the defensive when it came to the question of climate change,” said Carlos Minc, Brazil’s environment minister. “And now it has completely changed, passing a bolder plan than India and China.”

Mr. Minc said the plan would help meet a demand of some of the more developed countries, including the United States, which has said it would not agree to firm emissions targets until less-developed countries that produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases do the same.

Deforestation produces more than a fifth of human-generated carbon dioxide by some estimates. Some 75 percent of Brazil’s carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation, Mr. Minc said.

Brazil’s plan would sharply slice those emissions, reducing them by some 4.8 billion tons by 2018. Some environmentalists contend that deals involving compensation for forest protection could weaken climate agreements in many ways. They also say the plan leaves the most difficult targets to the government that will follow Mr. da Silva’s. His term ends in 2010.

Still, it is viewed by some scientists and climate experts as major step forward. “For the first time we have out in the open very clear goals for reduction in deforestation,” said Walter Vergara, the lead climatologist for Latin America at the World Bank.

The global recession could end up being a godsend by lowering demand for agricultural goods.

But it could also slow the flow of technology needed to make industries more efficient and limit pledges from foreign governments like Norway, Sweden and Germany, whose payments would help preserve the forest. So far, those countries have not suggested that they would reduce their contributions, Mr. Minc said.

“The global recession and the climate crisis don’t necessarily have to be adversaries, with one competing for the resources of the other,” Mr. Minc said.

Good news, sue!

Great day, all ~



http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674