Global Warming News Blog @newzblogz.com

HELENA, Mont. (AP) Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park no longer need Endangered Species Act protection, the federal government said Thursday.

The area had an estimated 136 to 312 grizzlies when the species was listed as threatened in 1975, but has more than 500 of the bears today, the government said.

"The grizzly is a large predator that requires a great deal of space, and conserving such animals is a challenge in today's world," Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said in announcing the decision. "I believe all Americans should be proud that, as a nation, we had the will and the ability to protect and restore this symbol of the wild."

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It is time to request our traffic officers to be present at traffic lights, write tickets and stop the light-running in our city and county. I know we're in a budget crisis, but this light-running is so wrong. It must be stopped. The county will not proceed with cameras, so this is the only way to fix this problem.

Every day at Ninth and Airport; Brent and Davis; and Langley and Ninth Avenue intersections this exists. More motorists will be in accidents. We have officers who can do this job. Rotate them. Have one see the violator, radio ahead to another officer and write tickets. Folks, the word will get out that our area will not tolerate traffic-light violations. We won't be a joke to the public.

Recently, I was driving newcomers from out of town in my car. The usual six-car stream of violators came through their "red" traffic light we were sitting at. The new homebuyers wondered where our law was. They noticed this all over the area at city and county locations. Please take our area back from violators. Much obliged.

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WHAT ? Bill McKibben discusses his new book "Deep Economy"

WHEN ? 7:30 p.m. Monday

WHERE ? First United Methodist Church

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San Francisco took another step toward becoming the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags Thursday, after a legislative committee indicated it was likely to endorse the measure.

The three-member committee of the city Board of Supervisors was forced to postpone voting on the environmentally friendly legislation after two members amended it to apply to pharmacies with five or more retail stores in addition to grocery stores.

But the two supervisors who approved the amendments said they would vote on Tuesday to send it on to the full board, where eight of the 11 members have signed on as co-sponsors of the bag ban.

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If lawmakers solve global warming, testified Al Gore, they can say to future generations, “This was our Thermopylae. We defended civilization’s gate.”

Sen. John Warner of Virginia was moved to promise that “we’re not going to fight in the shade.”

Need a clue? In the movie “300,” the Persian bad guy threatens to darken the skies with arrows, to which the Greeks reply: “Then we shall fight in the shade.”

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Al Gore showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday proclaiming his devotion to the concept of bipartisanship, calling on Republicans to join ranks with him and the Democrats in his great crusade to save the world from being barbecued by the warming of the globe that he insists is threatening our very survival.

In a rather bizarre display of the spirit of bipartisanship, he then

promptly refused to appear until after the Republicans made their

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To the Editor:Outraged by the Northwest Herald’s disclosure of the nepotism in many county townships? Me, too. Let’s do something about it.While we’re two years away from being able to “throw the bums out” by not re-electing township officials whose hiring practices reek of nepotism and trustees who do nothing to stop the practice, come April 10 we can let them know we want change and we want that change to begin now.On Tuesday, April 10, the Annual Town Meeting wil...

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* Township?s spark outrage

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As electricity started becoming scarce in 2000, Meyer Corp. began receiving continuing unexpected big business blackouts.

"It was the most incredible thing. We were getting interrupted three times a week, with PG&E telling us at 10 a.m. that power would be shut down in two hours," said Stanley Cheng, chairman and CEO of Meyer, the world's second largest cookware manufacturer. "It was very, very painful for us and it went on for months. And this was a year before the blackouts that hit the rest of the public."

At a Wednesday press conference, Cheng introduced his company's response to California's suddenly delicate energy grid - solar power. The CEO revealed Meyer's new solar energy system - 2,790 solar panels built on the roof of the cookware giant's Fairfield distribution warehouse. The panels will make that facility practically self-sustainable.

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HELENA, MONT. Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park no longer need Endangered Species Act protection, the federal government said Thursday.

The area had an estimated 136 to 312 grizzlies when the species was listed as threatened in 1975, but has more than 500 today, the government said.

"The grizzly is a large predator that requires a great deal of space, and conserving such animals is a challenge in today's world," Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said. "I believe all Americans should be proud that, as a nation, we had the will and the ability to protect and restore this symbol of the wild."

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To Tallahassee parents of teenagers running wild on St. George Island this week: Do you really know how your kids are behaving?

Bleeding of tax dollars, eh? FAMU was named the No. 1 college for black students. Name a state agency that is the best in the nation at what it does.

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Twelve students from first to fifth grade from Topa Topa Elementary School in Ojai are featured in a three-minute documentary film sharing their thoughts on what kind of world they envision for the future.

The film, "I See a World," can be viewed online and is part of the project "Through Their Eyes" by New Line Cinema.

The project is a series of short films that aim to present different perspectives of how children from 6 to 11 envision the future. The series was inspired by "The Last Mimzy," a movie about two children who discover a box of toys from the future. It opens today in local theaters.

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Middle East Series: Challenging Empire: U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Speaker: Phyllis Bennis, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C. (www.ips-dc.org) and the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam. She is a writer, analyst and activist on Middle East and UN issues, a co-chair of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation, and works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition.

For more information: 303-444-6981 or www.rmpjc.org

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Clinton’s firing of U.S. attorneys was much different than Bush’s

It was disappointing to read, in the March 16 editorial, that The Daily Sentinels’ editorial staff has taken up the “When Clinton was president” slogan to justify the latest White House scandal.

In 1993, President Clinton did use the spoils system to fire U.S. attorneys, as many former presidents have. However, this occurred at the beginning of the Clinton presidency not at the midterm and, most importantly, he did not fire U.S. attorneys for investigating Democrats.

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WASHINGTON - Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer refereed a blistering verbal assault on Al Gore by the leading Republican skeptic on global warming Wednesday as the former vice president returned to Capitol Hill to call for immediate congressional action to save the planet.

Gore, whose documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" recently won an Academy Award, had a heated exchange with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who tried to paint the Tennessee Democrat as an overzealous hypocrite when Gore ducked a question about whether he would sign a pledge to have his household cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The testy exchange came in an otherwise laudatory hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Boxer heads.

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Gore, who 20 years ago held the first hearings in Congress on global warming, testified before House panels today that it's not too late to deal with climate change. He has emerged as perhaps the leading spokesman on the issue because of his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Later today, the former vice president will testify before a Senate committee that includes Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gore is among the Democratic favorites for the presidency, but has said he's not running.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday to plead with lawmakers to fight global warming with moral courage while revealing nothing about whether he'll join the 2008 presidential race. The former vice president is a Democratic favorite for the presidential nomination even though he says he's not running. Fresh off a triumphant Hollywood appearance in which his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he...

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Re: Larry Smilgius? ?Don?t be soft-hearted? letter.

It is appropriate that the Riviera Golf Estate association?s ?ruling authority? should enforce the rules established for the ?health, safety and benefit of the majority.?

But, how does Paul Smith?s hobby of making dominoes infringe on anyone?s health, safety or benefit?

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? With concern growing about global warming, researchers said Wednesday they have developed a new system to track carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Being able to determine where and when this major greenhouse gas increases or decreases should help in projecting future climate change and evaluating efforts to reduce releases of carbon. "This is a pretty exciting opportunity," said Richard Spinrad, head of research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It produces an unbiased, objective statement of carbon observations, he said, but doesn't favor any particular policy or economic model.

Tracking carbon dioxide release and absorption will improve understanding of its impact, he said, noting that one-third of the economy is weather and climate sensitive ranging from agriculture to transportation to insurance and real estate.

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I just rented the DVD "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. A compelling view of our future. A must see for Floridians along the coastal areas. Rent it and watch with the family and become part of the solution to global warming.

Rita Nulanz

Fort Pierce

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The Daily Camera receives dozens of letters per day. In the spirit of openness, we will publish all of the appropriate letters we receive on the Letters to the Editor Blog. Letters are posted in their raw form and have not been edited.

Submit your letters at openforum@dailycamera.com.

Climate scientists only seeking money

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Members are assisting with the organization of a local version of Step It Up 2007, a national movement to pressure politicians to take more initiative on global warming and sustainable practices.

In San Anselmo, the April 14 event at Memorial Park will likely include Pacific Gas & Electric Co. officials discussing energy conservation and feature solar power experts and information about electric cars.

Members will review the plastic bag issue April 16.

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In a tiny African village, elders meet to discuss where their families and livestock might best relocate to live near a source of water. The riverbed that served their community for generations is now parched and cracked, and there is no money for tools to search for well water. Brows crease with concern, because word has come that their neighbors miles away also face water scarcity following rainfall shortages for three consecutive years.

At the same time, here in Atlanta, experts gather at City Hall for a roundtable on the area's pending water crisis. The news that "Florida seeks control over Lake Lanier, Chattahoochee and Flint rivers," isn't putting anyone's mind at ease; and experts are warning that Atlanta will run out of water by 2015 unless drastic conservation methods start right away.

As bad as it seems, the good news is that we have time to turn the tide. We can adopt conservation measures here to keep our taps running. Our counterparts in hundreds of African, Asian and Latin American villages won't be so lucky ?- many of them don't have a working well or tap within miles. Without a concerted effort from those of us in richer nations, things will only get worse for men, women and children who live in arid nations becoming drier each year due to global warming.

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I’ve spent much of my life hoping against hope that just once, for even an instant, I would be taken seriously, and two weeks ago the long-awaited and much-prayed-for event finally occurred. After fleeing various spittings, deleting my e-mail account and immigrating to Asia for a week, I realized that with this new and unexpected development came a new position of responsibility, a role where people would take what I said and really do something with it. With that, and the shockingly conve...

Ah, Sager. Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, bees are polli- I have no idea why we’re doing Sager this early. Do you realize that the majority of people on this campus are going to have hairless leg frostbite within 120 hours?

I’m so pro-global-warming right now that I’m writing this column in the flickering glow of a dirty coal fire that I lit on top of a fallen wind turbine. For any other party requiring skimpy clothing, this would be deadlier than a double dose of Trimspa, but because it’s Sager it will be fairly irrelevant. The many signs around campus asking for liquor donations guarantee that there will be a great deal of participation and excitement and a high turnout at the party among the student body and the borough police officers. Get ready to get your name in The Phoenix!

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Global warming is a threat second only to all-out nuclear war and America has to act now, a famed environmentalist and geneticist told a Madison audience Tuesday night.

To not take action against climate change would be un-American for a country that put a man on the moon, said David Suzuki, 70, who has hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s natural science series "The Nature of Things" since 1979.

Suzuki spoke to crowd of about 500 in the Union Theater as the last speaker in the 2006-07 UW-Madison Distinguished Lecture Series and got a standing ovation when he finished.

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Stanley's obsession with film transcends time - from Cary Grant to Jim Carrey, and Casablanca to Cars.

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SEMINOLE - Osceola senior Taylor Stanley, a movie fanatic, typically teases teammates with a line from one of her favorite Jim Carrey flicks: "If I'm not back in five minutes - wait longer." Stanley's obsession with film transcends time - from Cary Grant to Jim Carrey, and Casablanca to Cars.

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HOBART (Reuters) - The impact of global warming on the vast Southern Ocean around Antarctica is starting to pose a threat to ocean currents that distribute heat around the world, Australian scientists say, citing new deep-water data.

Melting ice-sheets and glaciers in Antarctica are releasing fresh water, interfering with the formation of dense "bottom water," which sinks 4-5 kilometers to the ocean floor and helps drive the world's ocean circulation system.

A slowdown in the system known as "overturning circulation" would affect the way the ocean, which absorbs 85 percent of atmospheric heat, carries heat around the globe.

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Animal rights activists were calling for the death of cute, fuzzy polar bear cub Knut, above. Huh? We had to read it twice, too, but that's what they were saying. It appears the cub and its twin, born in a German zoo, were rejected by their mother. As a result, the twin died, and zookeepers began taking care of Knut to help him avoid a similar fate. But animal rights activists thought that cute Knut would be better off dead than raised by humans. "He'll rely on humans forever and th...

Global warming cured with pill

Find, but don't touch, goose eggs

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At a gas station 175 miles north of Tampa, there's something motorists won't find anywhere else in the state.

A retail pump dispensing ethanol.

The lone outlet says a lot about Florida's aspirations for alternative fuel and the promises surrounding ethanol. For all the hype about how good ethanol can be, it has problems that must be overcome before it can be sold for mainstream use.

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Don?t cry any crocodile tears for Crocodylus acutus.

The pointy-snouted reptile, which was on the brink of extinction only three decades ago, is rebounding across the southern tip of Florida and the north end of the Florida Keys.

The American crocodile?s comeback culminated Tuesday with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?s announcement that its status would be lowered from endangered to threatened. The number of crocodiles is estimated to be as high as 2,000, up from a paltry 200 to 300 in 1975.

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Pollution, global warming, and new development, are just some of the

reasons why a research group says the future is bleak for several big

rivers across the world. And one of those in potential danger is the Rio

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Land developers may choose to call Tarpon Springs "eccentric" because of its tough tree ordinance, but the city's determination to protect its tree canopy is laudable.

Last summer the Tarpon Springs City Commission approved some new rules to protect trees. Commissioners were concerned that as Tarpon Springs became more densely developed, its thinning tree canopy might disappear. A community that valued its historical ambience had to value the tree canopy, too, some officials contended, so they created new rules requiring permits before trees could be cut down and specifying in great detail how trees must be protected during building construction.

Now, the new rules have accomplished just what was intended. The city has found what it contends was the illegal destruction of trees and has levied stiff fines to punish the alleged lawbreakers and send a message to other developers.

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SACRAMENTO (AP) - Governor Schwarzenegger will lead a three-day trade mission to Canada at the end of May.

Schwarzenegger has led similar missions to China, Japan, Israel and Mexico.

On the Canadian trip, he will visit Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Schwarzenegger wants to promote California trade and tourism. He also plans to meet with Canadian officials to discuss global warming and the effects of climate change.

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Pestilence! Starvation! Famine! Floods! Water shortages! The sky is falling, and I think it hit a bunch of scientists on the head and severely damaged their brains.

It must have also hit a bunch of newspaper editors in the head and made them forget that there is another side to this story, and perhaps it should be published along with the warnings of dire consequences that will occur if we don?t immediately destroy our economy for the greater good.

Scientific consensus is not scientific fact. There was once consensus that the world was flat and the sun revolved around the earth, which was the center of the universe. In the ?70s there was consensus that an ice age was coming, which will eventually be true.

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So bad that the chief executive of one of the nation's largest oil companies is on a 50-city tour trying to communicate what the industry is doing to expand oil production, respond to consumer frustration over energy costs, and deliver a message about bills being drafted in Madison and Washington, D.C.

John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil USA, on Tuesday used an appearance in Milwaukee, 29th on the 50-city tour, to praise efforts under way in Congress to enact a law restricting emissions of gases linked to global warming and criticize a state plan to tax oil company profits.

A favorability survey conducted last year by the Edelman public relations firm ranked the oil industry dead last, 20th of 20 industries surveyed.

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ASPEN — Most fishing trips this time of year begin with a quick visit to the streamflow data page on the Web site provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. Unfortunately, most fishing trips this time of year end soon after that Web visit.

A case in point is our Saturday adventure of fishing the Gunnison River above the Forks, which necessarily entails crossing the North Fork of the Gunnison River and then climbing the angler’s trail along the Gunnison.

But a week of warm weather blanketing the wrinkled folds of land that wrap around Ragged Mountain and the Raggeds Wilderness caused the snow to melt and the streams to rise.

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Reality is a funny thing, especially when one doesn't want to admit to himself some "inconvenient truth." No, this isn't about global "warming," which is another con, though it has the same roots.

For more years than I care to count, the farmers have been receiving corporate welfare payments, better known by its newspeak label as "farm subsidies." Their defenders could no doubt come up with enough "reasons" to fill a book, but it still wouldn't make it right.

By signing up for this scheme, the farmer not only admits that he's incompetent (despite the "reasoning" that "everybody does it"), but allows some bureaucrat to poke his nose in the farmer's business and worse, to start telling him what to do.

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To the Editor:Re: Kurt Begalka’s March 7 column in the Sun City Herald on Commonwealth Edison.Begalka had a very good column about ComEd rates, but he failed to say what to do about them. Last year, the Illinois House passed a bill to keep the rate freeze, but the Senate failed to pass the bill. This year, there is support to pass the bill, but Sen-ate President Emil Jones will not bring the bill up for a vote.He states, “We did it once, we don’t need to do it again.”Ever...

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* Make Jones act

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CAPITOL HILL Former Vice President Al Gore brings his push for government action on global warming to Capitol Hill todayHis appearance comes less than a month after his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Academy Award.Gore has called the need for government action on climate issues "the overriding world challenge of our time."His appearance comes a day after executives of some of the country's largest electric utilities discussed the possibility of mandatory carbon emission limits to a...

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WASHINGTON - The fight against global warming is getting an extra push from lobbyists and lawmakers in a series of efforts aimed at spurring Congress to take decisive steps to reverse the negative trend of climate change.

On Wednesday, former Vice President Al Gore, perhaps the most prominent advocate for climate change and author of the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," is to testify before two congressional environmental committees. He has promised to bring a mailbag of the nearly 300,000 postcards he has received since Christmas to help convince Congress the country is ready for federal action to curb the effects of global warming.

The star power of Gore's testimony may give the Senate and House the momentum necessary for lawmakers to meet self-imposed deadlines to bring an emissions-reduction bill to a vote. Several senators have pledged to push for action in this session of Congress, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has promised to have legislation on the floor by July 4.

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WASHINGTON - President Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, a public affirmation on Tuesday. But based on his track record, that's no assurance of job security.

"He's got support with me. I support the attorney general," Bush said at a hastily arranged news conference. He vowed to fight efforts to force top aides to testify about the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors, though he'll let them talk to Congress informally.

To the untrained ear, that should have put to rest concern that Gonzales' days in the Cabinet are numbered. But someone who's worked for this president as long as the man Bush calls "Fredo" would know there are no guarantees, not even when the boss says he likes you.

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WASHINGTON – President Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Al Gonzales, a public affirmation on Tuesday. But based on his track record, that's no assurance of job security.

"He's got support with me. I support the attorney general," Mr. Bush said at a hastily arranged news conference. He vowed to fight efforts to force top aides to testify about the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors, though he'll let them talk to Congress informally.

To the untrained ear, that should have put to rest concern that Mr. Gonzales' days in the Cabinet are numbered. But someone who's worked for this president as long as the man Mr. Bush calls "Fredo" would know there are no guarantees, not even when the boss says he likes you.

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The drive to dislodge the Bush administration and Congress from their lethargic response to climate change is not likely to turn on the ice worm. A photogenic symbol of global warming was needed.

''Ice worms on glaciers have really gone down, but nobody cares about ice worms: The polar bear is a great charismatic species to which everyone is attracted, said George Divoky, the Seattle-based Arctic researcher who has gained renown by precise observation of the globe's shifting climate.

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GENEVA (AP) - The Yangtze River gets more than half of China's industrial waste and sewage. Europe's Danube has lost most of its surrounding wetlands. And the Rio Grande has become so shallow that salt water is seeping in, bringing ocean fish that threaten freshwater species.

Pollution, global warming and rampant development could destroy some of the world's most iconic rivers in the coming decades, threatening to wipe out thousands of fish species and cause severe water shortages, the World Wide Fund for Nature said in a report Tuesday.

Only 21 of the planet's 177 longest rivers run freely from source to sea, with dams and other construction destroying the habitats for migratory fish and other species by altering the water's natural ebb and flow, the WWF said.

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GENEVA The World Wide Fund for Nature is painting a bleak future for some of the world's greatest rivers.The group warns that pollution, global warming and out-of-control development could destroy a number of these iconic waterways, wipe out thousands of fish species and create widespread water shortages.The W-W-F says only 21 of Earth's 177 longest rivers run freely to the sea. The rest are impeded by dams and other construction, which are destroying habitats for migratory fish and other specie...

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Ex-official says changes in reports made to align views with Bush policy

11:25 PM CDT on Monday, March 19, 2007

Associated Press

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Pamplin Media Group, Mar 13, 2007 (4 Reader comments)

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As they court the evangelicals who have become so crucial to their party, Republican presidential candidates are stepping into the middle of a family fight.

Christian conservative activists are more split than ever over whether to keep the movement's focus on abortion, marriage and sexual chastity - or scrap that approach as too narrow.

The founders of the religious right, now in the twilight of their leadership, see even the suggestion of expanding the agenda as a dangerous distraction. In public, and sometimes in personal ways, they are trying to beat back the challenge.

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Pamplin Media Group, Mar 13, 2007, Updated Mar 14, 2007 (1 Reader comment)

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GENEVA -- The Yangtze River gets more than half of China's industrial waste and sewage. Europe's Danube has lost most of its surrounding wetlands. And the Rio Grande has become so shallow that salt water is seeping in, bringing ocean fish that threaten freshwater species.

Pollution, global warming and rampant development could destroy some of the world's most iconic rivers in the coming decades, threatening to wipe out thousands of fish species and cause severe water shortages, the World Wide Fund for Nature said in a report Tuesday.

Only 21 of the planet's 177 longest rivers run freely from source to sea, with dams and other construction destroying the habitats for migratory fish and other species by altering the water's natural ebb and flow, the WWF said.

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Pamplin Media Group, Mar 13, 2007 (2 Reader comments)

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Maj. Paul Ouellette of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (the FWC) chaired the Wednesday-evening workshop. The FWC administers Florida boating laws. He gave a PowerPoint presentation that included reference to state statute 327.60(2), which prohibits local authorities from regulating the anchoring of non-live-aboard vessels in navigation. He added that "in navigation" means any vessel in the water. Marco Island Police Chief Roger Reinke was among many who spoke during the pub...

Hey, that suggests a possible solution to the city's possible Sunshine Law e-mail problems. The city council could pass an ordinance exempting the city from the state Sunshine Law statutes; same principal. Viva home rule!

So it goes.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A former White House official accused of improperly editing reports on global warming defended his editing changes Monday, saying they reflected views in a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences. House Democrats said the 181 changes made in three climate reports reflected a consistent attempt to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change and undercut the broad conclusions that man-made emissions are warming the earth. Philip Cooney, form...

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Sometimes the most dangerous course of action is doing nothing.If we do nothing, then global climate changes already making their mark on our weather, glaciers and air quality will harm our environment in irrevocable and dire ways.Washington is especially vulnerable to climate change because of our dependence on snow pack for summer stream flows and because any rise in sea levels would threaten our many coastal communities.If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, temperatures will rise by...

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