PETA Teams Up With Glenn Beck to Bash Al Gore
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 5:39 PM.

I know it's easy to get jealous when someone's got an Oscar, a Nobel, and some pretty big job titles on their resume, but really, the Gore bashing has got to end.

The New York Times took a swipe at Al Gore and his new book this week and now Glenn Beck and PETA's Ingrid Newkirk are teaming up. In some ways it is a perfect match between two people who seem to thrive on generating controversy.

Beck chastised Gore for not giving up meat eating altogether (even though he's admitted to cutting back a lot) and told him it was time for soy milk and tofurkey. Then he invited Newkirk on the show to tag team even though Beck admitted that he doesn't agree with a thing PETA says. Although he did give PETA and the NRA a shout out for not catering to special interests (huh?), so I guess Newkirk should feel good about that.

I know that PETA's main task seems to be to get people really pissed off, but I still think it's a shame to see Newkirk sinking so low as to cozy up to Glenn Beck. The truth is though, what they're talking about is actually a tough issue. There's a lot of really good evidence that eating meat -- at least the way we mostly do it in factory farms -- is bad for the planet. If you've ever seen a factory farm (or smelled one) that would probably seem like a no-brainer.

But there's also some good evidence pointing out that growing soy -- at least the way we do it but slashing rainforests and piling on the pesticides -- is actually bad for ecosystems, water, climate and the whole shebang. And some of that soy we area eating (actually in the US 87 percent of it is genetically modified), some of it is being used for biofuel and some of it is being fed to livestock. But mostly all of it is an environmental disaster.

Umbra Fisk from Grist breaks down a lot of the research and writes:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Join Me for the No Impact Week Challenge
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on October 12, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

Next week I'm going to be participating in a little bit of an ecological/social experiment and I'm hoping you'll join me. By now you've likely heard about 'No Impact Man' Colin Beavan. Along with his wife and daughter, Colin and his family embarked on a year-long project to try to minimize their impact on the environment -- this included eating only local food (which meant no eating out and no coffee); only pedaling or walking to their destinations; not buying stuff, including no more clothes shopping or purchasing cleaning products from the store; no producing trash; and for about half of the year, not using electricity in their home (which was a New York City apartment).

Their project was a blog, a book and then a movie. And now, it's a challenge to us. For just one week you can participate in a modified version of Colin and his family's year-long adventure. There are a full set of instructions, here. But I'll run through the basic premise. I'll also be participating myself and blogging about the ups and downs of my week and I'd encourage you to do the same.

The week-long project, which is in partnership with the Huffington Post, starts on Sunday (October 18) and each day throughout the week a new concept is added -- so don't worry, you won’t have an abrupt lifestyle change all at once. Here's the basic plan: Sunday is consumption, Monday is trash, Tuesday is transportation, Wednesday is food, Thursday is energy, Friday is water, and on the weekend you are to spend one day as a day of volunteering in your community and one as an eco-Sabbath -- a time to unplug from everything.

If this sounds a little overwhelming, take a read through this guide -- it details how to do things step by step and helps provide tips and resources. The most important point of all this is not to see how much you can give up or get rid of in a week, but to actually stop and think for a little bit about your footprint on the environment and the resources that you are using. The project isn't really about eco-extremism but about asking people to be conscious of their impact. And for one week that sounds pretty manageable, right? Here's where you can sign up.

I'd love to hear from you if you are taking part. You can email me throughout the challenge at tara@alternet.org and let me know if I can share your thoughts and experiences with our readers.

Wait, We Just Bombed the Moon?
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

So, Obama wins the Nobel Prize for peace, just as we go ahead and bomb the moon. Don't worry it's not alien terrorists we're after, just water. Here's what CNN reported:

NASA said Friday's rocket and satellite strike on the moon was a success, kicking up enough dust for scientists to determine whether or not there is water on the moon.

"We have the data we need to actually address the questions we set out to address," said Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, mission.

... NASA crashed the rocket and a satellite into the moon's surface on Friday morning in a $79 million mission.

I could think of a few things we could do with $79 million -- like help kick off a public trust fund back here on Earth to ensure adequate infrastructure for safe drinking water.

But then again, I'm no rocket scientist. So why the heck are we doing this? The AFP reports:

Finding water on Earth's natural satellite would be a major breakthrough in space exploration and pave the way toward future lunar bases for drinking water or fuel, or even man living on another planet.

"This could be the place that we could go to mine water for a permanent lunar base," said [Peter] Schultz [a professor of geological sciences at Brown University who helped design the mission].

A permanent lunar base? Sounds like a perfect thing to be working on right now, considering we've got that whole health care crisis, global warming fiasco, cratering economy and endless war situation all figured out. Nice work, guys!

Why a New Water Plan May Make Phili One of the Greenest Cities Yet
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on September 29, 2009 at 5:23 PM.

Finally, a city that really wants to work with nature and not against it. The Phili Inquirer reports:

Philadelphia has announced a $1.6 billion plan to transform the city over the next 20 years by embracing its storm water - instead of hustling it down sewers and into rivers as fast as possible.

The proposal, which several experts called the nation's most ambitious, reimagines the city as an oasis of rain gardens, green roofs, thousands of additional trees, porous pavement, and more.

Like most cities, Phili has an issue when it rains too much. Overflow "gushes from 164 pipes directly into the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and Tacony, Pennypack, and Cobbs Creeks. Bacteria levels skyrocket." So, in looking for solutions to having to pay to treat stormwater and to deal with overflows of toxic waste, the city has gone away from the typical route of building new tunnels and massive infrastructure and instead chosen an incredibly ambitious and incredibly green plan that will hopefully be followed through on. They've also projected some added benefits:

The Water Department says the city's greening would result in more jobs, higher property values, better air quality, less energy use, and even fewer deaths - from excess heat.

Here's how it would work:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

After 6-Year Battle, McCloud, CA Defeats Water Bottling Giant Nestle
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on September 15, 2009 at 10:20 AM.

We've been covering this issue for the last several years, and it was welcome news to hear that Nestle Waters North American has decided to scrap their plans entirely to bottle spring water in McCloud, CA, up near Mount Shasta. McCloud Watershed Council, along with help from groups like Food and Water Watch and Corporate Accountability International, have been fighting six years against Nestle's planned pumping, that at one point would have allowed them to take 200 million gallons of water.

Leslie Samuelrich, Deputy Director of Corporate Accountability International explained what happened:

The grassroots campaign to keep water under local control began the night of September 29, 2003. At a town meeting officials slammed the gavel, and Nestlé Waters North America was the proud new owner of the town's water for 50 years...with an option for 50 more. The five member McCloud Community Service District board had been pressured by Nestlé to take stealth action to approve the deal. This gave the town's 1,300 residents but a few days to review and consider the proposal prior to the meeting - hardly enough time to get organized.

But get organized they did. Debra and community members quickly formed McCloud Watershed Council (MWC) a grassroots group, working in concert with California Trout, Trout Unlimited, Concerned McCloud Citizens and other organizations to respond to Nestlé's plans to build a 1,000,000 square foot bottling plant with untold consequences for the local environment (Nestlé initially failed to conduct a requisite environmental review). Collectively, the coalition hunkered down to protect local water resources and the surrounding environment of Siskiyou County for generations to come.

Due to the dedicated organizing of residents, the initial contract was ruled null and void by the Siskiyou County Superior Court. But Nestlé continued to invest millions in public relations, lobbying and legal efforts to overcome this early obstacle to its bottling plans. National media exposure, continued grassroots mobilization, lawsuits, testimony before Congress and comments by the California Attorney General finally pressured Nestlé to honor the wishes of McCloud residents.

This victory is not only one for Northern Californians, but it shows a new trend of small communities taking on, and beating, multinationals when it comes to water. As Food & Water Watch said in a statement:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Has Japan's Dolphin Slaughter Been Prevented?
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on September 1, 2009 at 1:07 PM.

A few weeks ago I wrote a review of the amazing film The Cove, which used a sting operation of experts to infiltrate a secret cove in the town of Taiji, Japan to show the world an incredible horror: In Taiji thousands of dolphins are captured and many of them sold to the lucrative world market that uses captive dolphins for tourism at either aquariums or swim-with-dolphins ventures. Making indentured servants of one of the most amazing wild creatures on our planet is sure crime enough, but it gets worse. The dolphins that are not sold into captivity are slaughtered for their meat, which is sometimes sold falsely as whale meat, since dolphins have often toxic levels of mercury in their bodies.

Former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Oceanic Preservation Society helped bring this tragedy to the public's eye with the film The Cove and various groups including the The Save Japan Dolphins Coalition (which consists of Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservancy of Japan, OceanCare, In Defense of Animals, Campaign Whale, and the Animal Welfare Institute) and TakePart Social Action Network of Participant Media have been involved in outreach and media to bring this to the attention of the Japanese and the rest of the world.

Today, the dolphin slaughter was set to begin in Taiji, but the tides there may have changed. Here's a dispatch from O'Barry who has just returned to Japan for the start of the killing season:

When I got off the bus at the Cove this afternoon, I was accompanied by my son Lincoln O'Barry's film crew, a crew from Associated Press, Der Spiegel (the largest magazine in Germany), and the London Independent.

No dolphins and no dolphin killers. We would not have had a story at all, except for the police who were there, waiting all day for us to appear. Nine policemen came to talk to us...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

River Held Hostage: Disgruntled French Workers Threaten to Dump Toxic Waste in Seine
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on August 26, 2009 at 3:40 PM.

I'm usually in favor of organized labor making headlines. And I've even chuckled at the recent spate of boss-nappings in France. Heck, I've greatly admired the passionate and creative ways in which the French have managed to counteract economic fallout. But this latest news is too much for me. And will be for the fish as well.

The Guardian reports:

Angry lorry drivers at Serta, a struggling transportation company, are threatening to pour more than 8,000 litres of toxic fuel additive into the Seine if their demands for redundancy pay-offs are not met. Acknowledging the "dramatic" effect this could have on the river's fish population, they insist they will not be dissuaded unless their bosses give in. ...

Around 50 workers at the distribution site at La Vaupalière near Rouen are demanding severance packages of 15,000 euros after Serta, which went into administration a year ago, announced job cuts. The transportation company, which has suffered badly in the financial crisis, has already cut around 80 jobs since the start of the year.

Their threat to flood with the harmful substance their on-site drainage system - designed to channel rainwater back into the Seine - is the latest tactic used by workers desperate to draw attention to their plight.

Apparently they might be following the lead of a group of workers nearly decade ago who threatened another river with sulphuric acid and ended up with a handsome settlement.

Leave it to Greenpeace to actually see a silver-lining in all this:

Antoine Faucher, campaign director of Greenpeace France, said the threats, though worrying, were in fact a reflection of growing concern for the environment. "It's significant because today, perhaps unlike previous years, the environment is recognised in itself as a resource," he said. "To take it hostage may be of greater value now than it was before."

Save the Oceans With Your Thong: How to Get Your Social Cause to Match Your Underwear
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on August 26, 2009 at 12:16 PM.

It used to be that people just blazed their cause across their T-shirt or threw a few pins on their backpack. But times are changing, thanks to the new company PACT, which is helping undergarments have their say, too. Yes, now you can put your favorite social cause on your undies. How many people actually get to see that, I guess really depends on the activities of the wearer. And if you like thongs, hopefully your cause is, um, really small. As Greenerdesign reports:

PACT blends social and environmental values throughout its materials, supply chain, packaging and more. The company offers a range of men's and women's underwear styles in three designs. Each design is aligned with a nonprofit organization, with 10 percent of each design's sales -- yes, sales, not profits -- going toward its associated organization. The underwear ranges in price from $22 for a thong to $28 for boxers.

[Designer Yves] Behar made the initial three designs for the underwear, creating images to sync up with the first three nonprofits with whom PACT is working: 826 National, ForestEthics and Oceana. PACT plans to add more nonprofits with new designs from other artists and designers, topping off at about eight, [co-founder Jason] Kibbey said.

The company itself aims to be enviro-friendly, having all the components of their supply chain -- from the cotton growing to the dyeing -- in one place (Turkey!). And there's more:

PACT is now investigating its options for disposing of its underwear when customers are done with it, batting around ideas such as deep cleaning them for use as rags. "We'll break it down and make pillows or some other cool idea," Behar said.

Right, because what could be better than a few throw pillows on your couch made from old undies. I love that green is now chic.
 

Momentum Gathers Against Coke: Tell Them To Reveal the Source of Dasani Water
Posted by Stacey Folsom, Corporate Accountability International on August 6, 2009 at 1:20 PM.

Wednesday seemed to be just another day at the Coca-Cola Facebook fan page. Comments were trickling in on a photo collection of a Panamanian Coke fan's astonishingly large collection of aluminum cans. Jacob Vanblake and Mafiul Ankur had openly professed their love for Coke. Will Maitner had refused to drink Coke with corn syrup, opting instead for Mexican Coke made with cane sugar.
 
But at 3:30, the calm abruptly lifted. Comments deluged the site at a rate of about one every 20 seconds, calling on Coke to put the source of its bottled water on Dasani brand labels. Coke had heard this before - they'd been receiving phone calls, letters, and emails for years from a concerned public - but now these grievances were front and center for the water bottler's 3.5 million online fans; a serious concern given Coke's interest in using "new media" and "web 2.0" to maintain and cultivate the loyalty of an essential customer demographic - youth.  

The corporation went into crisis management mode. Just as it had made sure people didn't know the source of Dasani from reading its label, Coke was now intent on making sure fans didn't know there were grievances with this lack of disclosure; very post-modern. At 5:20 fans were prevented from writing on Coke's Facebook wall and the corporation promptly deleted all comments posted from 4:39 pm on.  

That's when Coke must have thought better about its move to stifle discontent. At 5:41pm people were again free to comment. At 7:03 pm the corporation mustered a reply, "[h]ere are the facts, straight from the source (no pun intended)." The post continued, "most of the water comes form public water sources. That's clearly stated on our Web site."  

This seemed to miss the point that most people weren't looking at a Web site when they purchased bottled water. But before Corporate Accountability International members, and others who had joined the Facebook discussion could respond, a disarming "Random Coke Fact" broke the tension. The factoid (with space-can graphic to boot) offered, "Coca-Cola was the first soft drink in space!"  

But the revelation would not calm the chatter. So Coke pulled out another stop - Coke made sure that such fun facts displaced the flood of comments by setting the administrator's wall to be the landing page. What Coke will try next now has many of its fans and visitors wondering.  

For three years, Corporate Accountability International has asked that Coke label the source of its water. Tens of thousands of people have made phone calls, written letters, or sent emails to the country's third largest bottler demanding Coke label the source of its water. Coke's competitors, Pepsi and Nestlé, have both responded to Corporate Accountability International demands by putting the source on labels. Even Congress has now called on Coke to disclose the source and sites of its bottled water.  

The deadline for Coke and the other water bottlers to report to Congress is this Monday, August 10. Will Coke also announce its intention to put this information on labels? If so, that'd be the smartest tactic it could employ in response to the new Facebook outpouring.  

Take 1 minute to comment on Coke's wall and demand that Coke reveal the sources of Dasani bottled water.  

1) Go to Coke's Facebook page. 
2) Become a "fan" and write a quick message on the wall. You'll see plenty of examples!  
3) Once your message is up, report it here.

Finally, We May Get Funding for a Clean Water Trust Fund
Posted by Mitch Jones, Food & Water Watch on July 28, 2009 at 11:20 AM.

Last week Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced H.R.3203, the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act. We know this as the Clean Water Trust Fund!

Here’s how the Fund would work: The Water Protection and Reinvestment Trust Fund would be established in the U.S. Treasury. Money from the Trust Fund would be distributed to the states for loans and grants to localities that need to make repairs, improvements, or build new infrastructure. At the same time, the bill allocates funding for green infrastructure and prohibits the funds being spent on sprawl.

The Fund would receive a yearly appropriation from four dedicated taxes. Those taxes would be: a 4-cent-per-container wholesale tax on "water-based beverages;" a product disposal fee of 3% of the wholesale price of "flushable" products including toilet paper, soap, detergents, water softeners, and cooking oils; a 0.5% tax on the wholesale price of pharmaceuticals; and a 0.15% corporate income tax on companies whose alternative minimum tax income exceeds $4 million. Taken together these taxes and fees should generate between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for the fund.

To put those figures in perspective, consider that the water infrastructure appropriations passed by the House just last month equals $3.9 billion. That $3.9 billion represents a roughly 157% increase over funding in 2009 but is only one third of what the Trust Fund would provide.

With a $22 billion a year funding gap for water infrastructure, we can’t wait any longer. We need this trust fund now! See our statement from Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.

Maine Community Rebuffs Nestlé Over Water Rights
Posted by Leslie Samuelrich, Corporate Accountability International on July 27, 2009 at 11:37 AM.

After an extended grassroots campaign, Nestlé is finally removing 23 bottled water test wells from a wildlife management area in Shapleigh and Newfield, ME.

Shelly Gobielle and her neighbors first discovered the wells a year and a half ago, three years after Nestlé's under-the-radar installation. Upon realizing that Shapleigh was likely one of the next site for Nestlé's water extraction for its Poland Spring brand bottled water, residents approached town officials with their concerns about what bottling would do to the local ecosystem. Their words fell on deaf ears, as Nestlé had already lobbied for and secured the support of the Shapleigh town officials.   

The only option was for residents to take matters into their own hands, forming the group Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources (POWWR). Members hit the streets and went door to door educating the public and signing enough petitions to call a town meeting, held four months ago.

Residents in both Shapleigh and the neighboring town of Newfield passed ordinances that asserted the right of townspeople to control their own water and to prohibit commercial water extraction, a reality that can at last be assured.  

A heartfelt congratulations are due to Shelly, POWWR members, and the residents of Shapleigh and Newfield who volunteered their time and immense energy to protecting their water resources.  

This is a watershed moment, so to speak, in the effort to restore local control over water. Earlier this month another community group, the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, secured a major court victory against Nestlé after nine years of legal battles and Nestlé appeals. The settlement requires Nestlé to dramatically reduce pumping during summer months at a critical well site in Northern Michigan, and prohibits the corporation from increasing pumping levels in the future.  

Toilet to Tap: Will Tampa Be Next to Use Reclaimed Water for Drinking?
Posted by Jennifer Vettel, Water Matters @ Columbia on July 9, 2009 at 8:32 AM.

The Moment for a Clean Water Trust Fund Is Now
Posted by Mary Grant, Food & Water Watch on June 16, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

Recently in the Huffington Post, Governors Paterson, Schwarzenegger and Rendell called for more public-private partnerships to help improve our crumbling roads, water systems, schools and other public works projects.

Public-private partnership -- What's that? Basically, it's when the public pays a high price for a corporation to do something that local governments should be doing.

For example, if your city needs a new water treatment plant, it could contract with a corporation to design, build and run the plant. Governors Paterson, Schwarzenegger and Rendell want cities and towns to cut more of these deals and make the private partner finance the project.

Sound good? Local governments are struggling because of the economic meltdown, and they need assistance to build important improvement projects and protect public health. These Governors think they've found a simple solution: privatization.

But not so fast. It's not free and easy money. These private players are businesses, and like any business, their ultimate goal is to make money for their owners. They're not going to donate any money. In fact, they're going to charge the public a steep premium for it. In many ways, these public-private partnerships are expensive loans that you will have to pay back through user fees like water bills.

Public operation is a much better deal for taxpayers. It's cheaper and easier. And it doesn't require you to give a private entity control over one of your valuable public resources.

It's true that many government coffers have gone empty in the fallout of the housing bust, but a better solution is a Clean Water Trust Fund, which would help local governments pay for needed water projects and provide safe, clean and affordable water.

Act now and tell Congress that we need a Clean Water Trust Fund.

More information about how privatization can cost you money, see Food & Water Watch's report Money Down the Drain: How Private Control of Water Wastes Public Resources.

Are You Ready for a Global-Water Multimedia Adventure?
Posted by Abigail Brown, Water For The Ages on June 15, 2009 at 9:00 PM.

Already today, I have been able to visit people and places in Yemen, India, Mexico, Niger, and Kenya to learn more about local and global water issues. How, you may ask? Easy, I reply -- The Water Channel.

The Water Channel is a partnership between MetaMeta Communications, UNESCO-IHE, Cap-Net and Nymphaea. It compiles videos from around the world on water topics ranging from Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) to watershed education and outreach.

My favorite videos so far include -

Water is a Gift: An artful, short animation about water produced by the Natural Water Resources Authority in Yemen (complete with English subtitles). This animation juxtaposes drawings and digital video to talk about the significance of groundwater and drip irrigation in Yemen.

Tears (Lagrimas): A short “fictional” film about a young girl wistful for the days when she was able to access water at a local water source. This video has no words, only images, and was shown at fourth World Water Forum in Mexico.

Kenya: What Water Means to Me: One teacher at Karen ‘C’ Primary School in Kenya documents her students’ views on water. These students discuss the role of H20 in their daily lives: water shortages at school, water shortages at home, water-borne illnesses, and possible solutions to these water problems.

If you want to see others, visit the 164 videos (and counting) at The Water Channel website.

Mixed Bag on Coal Mining Decision from Obama Administration
Posted by Bruce Nilles, Sierra Club on June 15, 2009 at 12:12 PM.

This post was co-written by Bruce Nilles and Mary Anne Hitt, director and deputy director, respectively, of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.

The Obama Administration announced steps to end the fast-tracking of certain mountaintop removal coal mine permits and to add tougher enforcement in Appalachia, important steps that -- with additional actions -- could greatly reduce the devastation to communities, waterways and mountains. However, these new policies alone will not necessarily improve conditions in Appalachia unless additional steps are taken and enforcement is stepped up significantly, and hundreds of mountains remain in peril.

That is why the Sierra Club is launching a new website called "What's At Stake," where you can track all the mountaintop removal permits now before the Obama Administration and learn more about the mountains and communities whose fate hangs in the balance.

After a West Virginia court ruled against it recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed revoking the nationwide "one-size-fits-all" permit it had used to authorize the dumping of coal mining waste into hundreds of miles of Appalachian headwater streams. The bad news, though, is that the Obama Administration says it will continue to allow mountaintop removal mining to bury streams under tons of mining waste.