There is a quiet movement in Silicon Valley of people getting back in touch with the earth. Full Circle Farm http://fullcirclesunnyvale.org/ is one of the most ambitious movements. A community-based eleven acre organic located at Peterson Middle School in Sunnyvale, CA, it is the largest of its kind in the nation. Started in the summer of 2007, the founders had quite a vision of improving the health and well-being of the students and local community by offering up fresh, tasty organic produce as an alternative to the fast-food diet of today. Integrating into the school’s curriculum, Full Circle Farm is not only teaching students healthy eating habits, but the business of growing, tending, managing and selling the produce.

A team of Stanford scientists headed up by Christopher Gardner is furthering the study of how Full Circle Farm will positively impact the diets of the students and the local community, and help raise awareness for programs such as this to help unite communities in the effort to turn the tide of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

The long term effects of locally grown organic farming will have major benefits in terms of reducing our carbon footprint as we will rely less on foreign grown produce, thereby reducing transportation, a major source of CO2 pollutants.

As the movement continues to gain acceptance, Full Circle Farm has the possibility to be the role model for building healthy communities on the global stage. It will take work and commitment to make this happen. But after all, before Silicon Valley, this was the “Valley of Hearts Delights” http://tinyurl.com/lrtav3. We have a reputation to live up to.

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Ok, a second full month has come and gone. Often, I’ve found that pushing something past the second period (week, month, etc.) is often a good sign of successfully establishing it as a habit. It’s easy to try something for a week when everything’s new and fresh and exciting, but keeping it going is harder. So I see this as a hopeful sign – this is still fun.

So where does the Realignment Project stand in its second month?

• 15 substantive posts, 3.75 a week
  • Clearly, the pace has improved a bit, with some weeks ticking along at three posts a week, and others at four or five. My ultimate goal is to move towards seven posts a week, so that there’s always something new each day to keep people coming back to visit The Realignment Project.
  • To that end, the arrival of my co-editor and contributor Daraka Larimore-Hall has made a big difference in increasing the volume and pace of content while simultaneously reducing pressure on us individually. I would also like individually to move towards a steady group of three or four people contributing regularly, so that each of us can concentrating on writing one really good piece as opposed to three ok pieces per week – qualilty over quantity being the watchword of this blog.

• 773 hits, including 211 in the last week (the second-highest week so far)
  • the increasing growth rate, largely driven by improving use of social network sites to spread the word about new posts, is very heartening. We’ve more than doubled in the last month – let’s see if we can keep this up.
  • To that end, I did want to thank people who came across this blog and passed it on via the little share buttons at the bottom of each post – it’s always interesting to see incoming links come in from people’s Twitter accounts and the like who I’ve never heard of before.

• 17 comments (not including pingbacks)
  • getting better, slowly, many thanks to Marko for being the most frequent commenter.
  • however, it would still be nice to get more of a conversation going on the blog, so feel free to comment.

The next step in the process of building up the Realignment Project is to establish institutional links with other groups, blogs, institutions, etc. so that The Realignment Project can first build up more of a steady readership (less reliant on individual posts causing a spike in views), and so that we can make progress towards the ultimate goal of making this a real conversation about big ideas, about the political future, about political realignment in our lifetimes. We’re currently working on a couple projects, and will keep you updated.

So, the last month’s posts, arranged by topic:

Politics/Political Ideology:

• In Defense of Partisanship, Part 1
  
• FDR’s Second Bill of Rights
• The “S” Word and Strange American Career

Social Welfare State/Taxes:

• “In Proportion To Their Respective Abilities” – Making the Payroll Tax Progressive
  
• Social Security 2.0
• “The Front Line of Defense” – Unemployment Insurance Reform
• After Health Care – How Policy Makes Politics

Economic Policy/Regulation:

• Minimum Wage as Class Politics
• The Apollo Initiative as Democratic Planning
• The People’s Bank
• Salus Populi and the Market – Automatic Regulation

Jobs/Housing/Other:

• Reason Not the Need – Housing Policy and Jobs
• Resurrecting Henry George – the Case for National Housing Assistance
• Green Transit and Hybrids: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
• Beyond EEP vs. Broader, Bolder: The Problem With Education “Reform”

And if you’re a newcomer to The Realignment Project, here’s our first month’s roundup to help you catch up.

Enjoy!

Not a very shocking development but India’s environment minister said his country would not accept legally binding caps on greenhouse gases. That the announcement came during a joint press conference with Secretary of State Clinton shows the importance of India to a comprehensive international agreement on reducing carbon emissions.

China, rightly so, is the largest concern when it comes to the an international climate change agreement, but India is a close second. The rising Indian middle class is growing quickly and their tastes are shifting towards eating more meat and driving more cars. Tata Motors, the producer of the world’s cheapest car, already has a huge back order of over 100,000.

The United States has sought a closer relationship with India in the past few years including the controversial civilian nuclear deal. While the original intent of the new relationship may have been to hedge China’s rise or help US businesses enter into a growing market, the United States needs to use any influence it has with India to create a robust international climate change agreement.

The Queensland Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek is, according to the ABC, “going for a different approach”, and thinking “long-term solutions” rather than “quick fixes”.

If his LNP party wins the next state election, he plans to put Queensland’s tattered credit rating and bloated budget in order. Langbroek’s proposals include the establishment of an economic advisory council and the restoration of the state’s fuel subsidy.

Sorry? I thought there was mention of a credible plan to restore the AAA credit rating? Yet this proposal include reinstating a costly policy that has only recently been removed from the budget. I am interested to see where he plans to make the proposed savings.

And as for long-term solutions, in order to make businesses more efficient – and more energy-efficient – in the long-run, is allowing the state (and subsequently tax-payers) to absorb 10 cents/litre of fuel the best way forward? Despite the relative demand inelasticity of petrol, requiring users to bear the full cost is more likely to result in reductions in consumption – however slight – but probably less likely to get the LNP back in government.

Without more details, it would seem the LNP is offering Queenslanders not only less green but more red before getting back to black.

DOMINICAN TODAY

Santo Domingo.- The Environment Ministry (Semarena) aims to study Enriquillo Lake’s crocodiles to determine their current population and the possibilities of surviving the almost total loss of their habitat, which experts blame on the deforestation and encroaching desertification.

Protected Areas vice minister Eleuterio Martinez the lake’s rising waters buried the croc’s reproduction areas along its shoreline. He said the recent floods have left the crocodiles with only the nesting areas in Cabrito island’s beaches, where 30 hatchings were recently found.

The official noted that when the eggs hatch the mothers ferry their young on their backs to the fresh water springs at the shore, but because of the longer crossing, many fall off and die. “We’re monitoring that species. This Thursday technicians will render a detailed report on the situation and what’s happening there.”

He said crocodiles need special surroundings and sand to nest, and Cabrito island, whose area has been reduced by half, is the only place left to reproduce.

During Enriquillo’s normal volume, of around 40 meters below sea level, the islets La Playita and Arenita are also used by the females to lay eggs, but the recent rise has placed them underwater.

“The lake has grown enormously, because from 205 square kilometers it now has almost 400 square kilometers,” he said, adding that the numbers of the crocodiles, on the endangered species list, isn’t known.

VIETNAMNET

VietNamNet Bridge – Two men were arrested Thursday for transporting a dead endangered tiger from a central province to Hanoi, according to police in the capital. 

Hoang Van Su, 36, and taxi driver Nguyen Trung Phong, 32, were found driving with a 60-kilogram frozen tiger and 11 kilograms of tiger bones in the trunk of Phong’s cab.

Dr. Pham Trong Anh, a tiger expert from the Hanoi-based Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, said the tiger was a baby of about 4-5 months old. He said the bones belonged to at least two different tigers.

Police said Su had hired Phong to carry the tiger and bones from the central province of Thanh Hoa to a buyer in Hanoi. The frozen tiger’s cause of death has yet to be made available.

One kilogram of fresh tiger meat costs more than VND20 million (US$1,123) a kilogram while bone sells for around VND15 million ($842), according to a report from the Vietnam News Agency.

An official from the Environmental Police Department, who wished to remain anonymous, said the case showed the possibility of larger-scale illegal tiger trafficking in the country.

Police said they were following up on the case. Tigers are on Vietnam’s endangered species list and it is illegal to hunt the large cats in the country.

In Vietnam, tigers are only found along the Truong Son Mountain Range in the central region. Experts estimate the country has less than 200 tigers left, as scores have been wiped out to make traditional medicine.

Locals in poverty-stricken Truong Son areas often resort to tiger hunting as the animals’ skin, teeth, meat and bones fetch high prices in major cities.

VietNamNet/Thanh Nien 

ACHMAD FAISAL – JAKARTA POST

The condition of the Brantas River in East Java is under serious threat of drying up, officials warn, with 54 of its 111 watershed areas damaged or destroyed, mostly due to deforestation.

East Java Governor Soekarwo recently called on all concerned parties, including state-owned water operator Jasa Tirta and state-owned forestry company Perhutani, to reforest the damaged areas, protect the current water sources and create new ones.

He also proposed that both state enterprises set aside their dividends to purchase 100 hectares of highlands in Sumber Brantas village, Bumiaji district, Batu municipality, for reforestation.

“We’re ready to help pay for the lease of a plane to spread acacia seedlings over the area to accelerate the reforestation drive,” Soekarwo said.

He added the provincial administration was committed to protecting the water sources of the Brantas River, which is heavily depended on by people living in the 14 regencies and municipalities through which the river flows.

Data from the East Java Environmental Agency shows much of the river’s watersheds are in critical condition; 925 hectares of these affected areas are located in forests, and 1,899 hectares are outside forests.

The damaged areas, as a result of illegal logging, have caused half the number of water sources feeding into the river to dry up.

Of the remaining water sources, only a few still flow, but at depths of only 20 centimeters, from the usual 1.2 meters.

Soekarwo said the extent of deforested areas had severely silted up the Sutami reservoir in Karangkates, and would affect irrigation and clean water supplies.

“We can’t dredge the reservoir before reforesting the areas,” he said.

Several agencies, the governor went on, had taken steps to deal with the threat. The East Java Public Works Office has repaired the irrigation networks and pumps, while the provincial administration is educating farmers on water management for more efficient farming.

The agriculture office has set aside Rp 650 million (US$62,500) to provide 25 kilograms of rice seedlings per hectare to each farmer facing the threat of crop failure.

An estimated 60 percent of East Java’s population live in areas that form part of the Brantas River basin. The river flows from Batu city, through Malang city, then the regencies of Malang, Blitar, Tulungagung and Trenggalek, Kediri city, Sidoarjo and Gresik regencies, before finally reaching the sea in Surabaya.

The municipal tap water operator in Surabaya gets 95 percent of its raw water supply from the Brantas River.

Ecological Research and Wetland Conservation Agency (Ecoton) director Prigi Arisandi warns the disappearing water sources in the upstream areas of the Brantas River are not just caused by rampant logging, but also large-scale exploitation by bottled water companies in several upstream areas, such as Batu, Trawas in Mojokerto, and Pandaan in Pasuruan.

“The government has no issued any regulations for this industry,” he said.

“As a result, what they pay to government is not commensurate with what they take from nature.

“They only pay Rp 10,000 for 6,000 liters of water, a cut of which is still demanded by village and district officials.”

Prigi agreed with Soekarwo’s proposal that the private sector should set aside part of its profits, or corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, to purchase land in upstream areas that could be conserved and reforested

First of its Kind Onion Juice-Methane-Fuel Cell Project Underway:

Gills Onions has come up with a clever way to dispose of its daily 300,000-pound load of onion waste – turn it into methane, and use the gas to power fuel cells that can cover the plant’s baseload electrical needs.

That’s the gist of the $9.5 million project unveiled Friday at the Oxnard, Calif.-based onion processing plant.

The savings of $400,000 a year from deferred waste hauling, plus about $700,000 a year in deferred electricity costs – not to mention a $2.7 million self-generation incentive check from Southern California Gas Co. – should pay back the investment in less than five years, said Steve Gill, co-owner of the business.

This type of wonderful ‘thinking out of the box’ project is why I am so frustrated with the supposed ‘headway’ in pulling away from coal when it really means continuing to grow coal plants.

There should be no reason why smaller plants, maybe even community power plants made with waste or renewable energy can’t be done.

If we continue to think only in terms of ‘easy’ or ‘cheap today’ but ‘dirty’ solutions that damage our environment and the health of our sick, our young and our elderly, we will never get out of this mess we have created for ourselves. We need to get away from continuing to expand dirty coal and in the process prevent funds from moving into a more smart and/or renewable ways to create the electrical power needed.

I think that if all states, the governments, and countries did what SC (SCsaysNO) is doing, the companies that want to provide the power would have to think out of the box or they wouldn’t expand and others would take their place and build the more renewable/waste product plants that were safer, if they were foolish enough not to do what was needed.

But Mountain Top Removal and building more clean coal plants is not the answer. Clean Coal is an oxy moron:

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

Chart showing Coal plants in the US, the states they are in as the data shows at Gapminder.org. We need to see where our state fits in the picture and see if we can stop progressing the move to more coal powered plants. We need to not allow more to be built. And we certainly don’t need Virginia to move further into the right side of this graph. We need to be doing what we can to move to the left on this graph.

Children At Risk PDF — must read.

I came across this at The Bardic Blog and I decided that it needed to be shared with as many people as possible. Please, stop for 10 minutes and read this wonderful commencement address, it might just change your life.

The Unforgettable Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.  The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is
happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day:
climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the
world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David
James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and
the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized
themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.. And today tens of millions
of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present  we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross  domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on  healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the  future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the  other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people  and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich,  it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally
you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our
fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90
percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each
human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe formed  of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who
is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are
conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past. Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be
ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened,
not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How
the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible.
www.paulhawken.com

Yes, you heard me. This is the real-life effect of all your CO2 hysteria. Sure – you may lower the temperature with 0.01 degrees C by 2050. Nevermind the fact that we may be in a small ice-age already. But the side-effect of trying to force the world to consume less coal and oil is this : Developed countries will at best stay developed. The poor and underdeveloped countries will stay poor and underdeveloped. So – before you condemn millions of people to early deaths that could have been prevented by access to cheap electricity, maybe you should stop and think about whether it’s worth it.

Man-made global warming is a luxury issue, promoted by rich fascists like Al Gore, and supported by naive environmentalists who do not care to find out the result of their policies. You ignorant lot think you can save moder nature – but you won’t. You promote ideas that will hurt and kill the poorest and weakest, and in the end risk the total annihilation of societies, and with that – nature. If you want to contribute to nature : fine. BUY FREAKING RAIN-FOREST! There’s your best bet at reducing carbon dioxide levels, even though it’s pointless. I get so tired of the slave mentalitiy of these “oh please forgive me we have sinned against nature and must preserve our natural environment”. Reality check – nature, in the 21st century, consist of a lot of concrete-covered areas called cities. The only difference between these and the “naturality” of the forests is that cities are better for living in.

It’s all about preferences. If you prefer leave-clad wooden things before concrete square things, than go ahead and purchase some woods. Heck, move into the woods if you want to. But know that the second you come off trying to tell others what they “MUST” do, then you deserve nothing less than a 2ooo-year old redwood tree falling straight on your more sensitive parts. I HATE the Eco-maffia.

Apollo 14: Science instruments (circled left) and the lunar module descent stage (circled right) are connected by a footprint trail

A US spacecraft has captured images of Apollo landing sites on the Moon, revealing hardware and a trail of footprints left on the lunar surface.

The release of the images coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the Moon.

The descent stages from the lunar modules which carried astronauts to and from the Moon can clearly be seen.

The image of the Apollo 14 landing site shows scientific instruments and an astronaut footpath in the lunar dust.

It is the first time hardware left on the Moon by the Apollo missions has been seen from lunar orbit.

The pictures were taken by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft, which launched on 18 June.

The Apollo 11 mission touched down on the Moon on 20 July 1969

The spacecraft is carrying three cameras on board: one low-resolution wide-angle camera and two high-resolution narrow-angle cameras mounted side-by-side.

These are known collectively as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument.

“The LROC team anxiously awaited each image,” said the instrument’s principal investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University.

“We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill – and to see how well the cameras had come into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus.”

Astronaut trail

The camera instrument was able to capture five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

Long shadows from a low sun angle make the locations of the lunar modules’ descent stages particularly evident.

A long shadow is cast by the Apollo 11 descent stage

The image of the Apollo 14 landing site had a particularly desirable lighting condition that revealed additional details.

The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, a set of scientific instruments placed by the astronauts at the landing site, is discernable, as are the faint trails between the module and instrument package left by the astronauts’ footprints.

The LRO satellite reached lunar orbit on 23 June and captured the Apollo sites between 11 and 15 July.

Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo missions, these first images were taken before the spacecraft had reached its final mapping orbit.

“Not only do these images reveal the great accomplishments of Apollo, they also show us that lunar exploration continues,” said LRO project scientist Richard Vondrak of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, US.

“They demonstrate how LRO will be used to identify the best destinations for the next journeys to the Moon.”

Although the pictures provide a reminder of past lunar exploration, LRO’s primary focus is on paving the way for the future.

Data returned by the mission will help Nasa identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the Moon’s radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies.

Hvide Klint_Copyright © 2009 Seung Kye Lee Photography

- Hvide Klint, Møn, southern Denmark just before sunrise.

I`m home from a wonderful week on the Møn island, south-eastern Denmark.

This image was shot just before sunrise at Hvide Klint, southern Møn. The cliffs are white chalk flint and are very old (more info will come soon). We also visited Møns Klint amongst many other fantastic places, a more famous piece of coastline that also turns white in direct sunlight due to the white chalk flint. The view on top of the cliffs were amazing at 128 m. (420 ft.) looking down on the white chalk cliff walls and endless southern horizon. The light was not favorable so we did not shoot at Møns Klint…but beautiful it was.

Actually, I don`t know why I chose to drive to this place in the middle of the night from our rented house on the other side of the island instead of Møns Klint that I suspect was closer…often I get more fascinated by less obvious locations. Anyway, I did not regret. Just before the sun rose above the horizon the chalk flint got this soft glow that I had planned to capture. After sunrise the tripod and yours truly cast long, distinct shadows in the direction I wanted to shoot. Shooting here in spring or autumn would probably be much better at sunrise, not having the sun in my back. I packed up my gear and just enjoyed the moments and drove back to sleep a couple of hours more.

More images will be posted as soon as I get the time to process them! Visit my website for better viewing of this image.

Seung Kye

Why must I always be forced to decide between the love I have for my own species and the respect  I have for all living things?

In case people don’t know, the Military had been under fire for using test pigs in armor testing where they put some pigs in armor and others not in armor or less armor and then put them on a vehicle and blow them up. This is supposed to mimic the effect of a “road side” bombing like those in Iraq that have killed many of our soldiers. There is also an article about a learning method for keeping someone alive; it involves brutally shooting a pig in the face, or body, repeatedly and then having a surgeon learn to keep them alive. “Working with live tissue!”

Source 1 | Source 2

WASHINGTON — Military researchers have dressed live pigs in body armor and strapped them into Humvee simulators that were then blown up with explosives to study the link between roadside bomb blasts and brain injury.

For an 11-month period that ended in December, researchers subjected pigs and rats to about 200 blasts, according to Pentagon documents and interviews. The explosions have ranged in intensity, wounding some of the pigs and killing others. Roadside bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, this is not the only thing they are used for. They are also used for surgery.

The idea is to work with live tissue. You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature. My pig? They shot him twice in the face with a 9-millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire. I kept him alive for 15 hours. That was my pig.

I don’t know. Okay. On one hand I understand that it’s important to protect our troops and to try to develop the best methods to protect them. On the other hand, at what cost? What kind of despicable cruelty is this? Compounded by the fact that we have alternative means.

In the case of shooting pigs, an alternative would be;

One of the available alternatives is the Trauma Man System, a simulator of the human body used for surgical training that includes the simulated tissue structures and bodily fluids (for more information, see www.simulab.com/TraumaSurgery.htm). In 2001, the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma approved the use of Trauma Man for Advanced Trauma Life Support courses. Also available is “The Ultimate Hurt” manikin that comes with a wide range of trauma wound modules to add realism to training exercises. Additional alternatives include clinical experience by training in emergency rooms in metropolitan areas, the use of human cadavers and ballistic gelatin (used to simulate living soft tissue in order to measure bullet impact), and videotapes prepared under actual combat conditions.

I’m distraught at the idea that at this current time we would still be doing something so barbaric to animals. Then again, looking at the condition of mass food production, I suppose I shouldn’t be when it comes to the case of farm animals and people’s overall lack of concern. We treat our food like crap, when in my opinion, it deserves respect. Native Americans had it right in this idea. Call me a “hippy”, but at the end of the day creatures feel the same pain we do and I would never wish even the smallest amounts of pain on another creature. So the idea of shooting a pig over and over again? Or blowing them up?

So while I may be torn, what I do know is that there are other ways and the Military needs to invest in them. The inhumane treatment is not acceptable and yes, I love my soldiers and their lives matter to me, but there are alternative means and cruelty should not be allowed and the blatant disrespect towards our planet and the other living things on it? Unacceptable.

The lead article in today’s Boston Globe’s Ideas section is titled “Sued by the Forest:  Should nature be able to take you to court?”  It tells the story of a New England community–Shapleigh, Maine–that voted in its town meeting,

114-66, to endow all of the town’s natural assets with legal rights: “Natural communities and ecosystems possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist, flourish and naturally evolve within the Town of Shapleigh.” It further decreed that any town resident had “standing” to seek relief for damages caused to nature – permitting, for example, a lawsuit on behalf of a stream.

This concept of government rights or representation for the environment reminded me of something poet Gary Snyder wrote somewhere.  I went to my shelf looking for Turtle Island but didn’t find it, so I’m stuck with just saying that SOMEWHERE in Snyder’s ouevre is this reference.  The ideas is not new.

I loved it when I first read it, and I love this idea now.

Why not?!  Corporations have the rights and privileges of individuals–it’s called “corporate personhood“–and they have used the Civil Rights Act, for example, to override the democratically determined decision to prevent installation of a cell tower in a small town in Massachusetts.

Yup.  Pretty startling.  So how about “environmental personhood”?

My green dream is to have solar panels on our garage roof and a wind turbine in the back field both generating electricity, maybe enough for us to sell some back to the utility on occasion.  But this is the real world and we have just rebuilt the garage and reroofed a shed, are still paying off the kitchen remodel from 2 years ago, and are likely to need at least one new (to us) car in the next year.  So it has stayed a dream and perhaps will only be a dream for the foreseeable future.

Or not.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is offering various and sundry tax credits for a variety of energy efficiency related purchases including this one as described by the Department of Energy:

Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credits
Consumers who install solar energy systems (including solar water heating and solar electric systems), small wind systems, geothermal heat pumps, and residential fuel cell and microturbine systems can receive a 30% tax credit for systems placed in service before December 31, 2016; the previous tax credit cap no longer applies. (italics added)

I’ve been hearing about these tax credits for several months now, but I didn’t have a clear sense of how they worked.  Would I get a break on 30% of the taxes I pay for the system or would it be something better than that?  Would this be easy or so difficult that Turbo Tax wouldn’t be able to cope and I’d have to hire a tax expert?  An article by Dick Pirozzolo in the July/August 2009 issue of Natural Home magazine clarified the issue.  According to Pirozzolo, 30% of the cost of a qualifying improvement, such as solar panels or a wind turbine (or both!) would be taken off your income tax bill.  So if I installed a $30,000 system then $9,000 would come off the top of our tax bill – - if I owed $19,000 in taxes the bill would be reduced by to $10,000.  Now typically we get a tax refund, so the $9,000 would be added to my refund.  Suddenly we’d have enough money for a decent used car.  It’s a “buy a residential renewable energy system and get one used car free” deal!

Will we do it?  I don’t know.  But my husband and I have moved from the dreaming phase to the talking phase and are about to move to the consulting phase as soon as I call the solar/wind energy people for a site visit.  After that we’ll take it a step at a time – there’s no big hurry since we do have until 2016 to get this deal from the government, except I’m pretty sure my Ford Focus with 190,000 miles is not going to last until 2016.  Mostly I’m just a little giddy that it’s even a possibility.  I’ll keep you posted.

Secretary of State Clinton spent the day touring agricultural areas and the ‘Green Building’ to stress the importance of environmental issues for both the US and India. The full transcript of her remarks can be found at state.gov, but here is an excerpt:

Secretary Clinton arrives at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, July 19, 2009 ((AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

…

One of the things that gives me the most optimism in working on this very difficult problem is the extraordinary leadership of President Obama and his administration.  And nowhere is this more evident than at the Department of State, where Secretary Clinton is demonstrating her own brand of smart power all around the world, and is bringing her own singular intelligence and commitment to bear on this issue.  So it gives me great pleasure, indeed, now to introduce the Secretary of State of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
 
SECRETARY CLINTON:  Thank you very much, Todd, and thanks to all of you for making us feel so welcome, once again, here in this historic capital, and particularly in this remarkable building.  As you notice, other than the lights that are up there for the television cameras, there are no lights on.  And there are so many features of this building that really demonstrate the viability of the kind of low-carbon but very attractive and efficient approach to saving energy and doing it in a way that, as we heard, saves water and solid waste, and certainly lowers the carbon footprint.
 
I want to join in thanking the minister and all who participated in our discussion.  I thought it was extremely helpful, and I am particularly grateful to the minister for his presentation and recommendation of the three specific ways that the United States and India can work together.  And I told him that we will immediately be following up on that.
 
I want to thank Mr. Haksar from ITC, and all who are associated with ITC, and Chairman Jain of the Indian Green Building Council, along with all of you who care deeply about this issue. 
 
I am also pleased to be accompanied by our new ambassador from the United States to India, Ambassador Tim Roemer.
 
The tour that we have, the information that we were given, certainly underscores the importance of the ITC commitment and the partners who work with ITC.  And then, the conversation that we had with representatives of the Indian government reinforces the commitment that India is making. 
 
We know that there are wonderful monuments throughout India, from the India gates to the Taj Mahal, and so many others.  But today we are at another Indian monument.  The ITC Green Center may not be a regular stop on the tourist map, and no one would confuse it with the Taj Mahal.  But it is a monument in its own right.  It is a monument to the future.  And that is the most important monument…
 

Indian Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, greets Secy Clinton (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

SECRETARY CLINTON: This Green Center not only represents the promise of a green economy, it demonstrates the importance of partnership between India and the United States in the 21st century.

We often talk about our democracy, the oldest continuing democracy and the world’s largest democracy. We want to show that democracies deliver. And that is what both the United States and India are committed to doing.

As we were taking the tour, I saw many posters that illustrated the steps that ITC is taking to do so much in reforesting, and in putting people to work in sustainable ways. And I also saw a picture of two people I know very well, my husband and my daughter, because when Bill and Chelsea were here on that memorable State visit in 2000, he witnessed the signing of the U.S.-India framework agreement on clean energy. And that agreement led the establishment of the Indian Green Building Council, which contributed to the flourishing green building movement across India. In collaboration with India, the United States government and the United States Green Building Council were instrumental in helping to bring this building to fruition. And today the Green Center is one of 11 buildings in India that has earned the elite platinum designation, the highest you can get…

Secy Clinton speaks with officials at the Indian Agricultural Research Inst. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

(AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

SECRETARY CLINTON: How India and the United States can amplify this partnership and work together to devise a comprehensive, strategic approach to climate change and a clean energy future is an important topic of my trip. We discussed it yesterday with business leaders in Mumbai. We discussed it today with leaders from both the Indian government and Indian businesses. And it will, of course, be on my agenda for the meetings that I will have, starting tomorrow.

The times we live in demand nothing less than a total commitment. The statistics are there for everyone to see. And as both of our nations reaffirmed at the Major Economies Forum just recently held in Italy, and moderated by President Obama, we need a successful outcome in Copenhagen later this year.

Now, President Obama, Special Envoy Stern, and I are under no illusion that this will be easy, because the challenge is to create a global framework that recognizes the different needs and responsibilities of developed and developing countries alike. And I not only understand, but I agree with the concern of countries like India. The United States and other countries that have been the biggest historic emitters of greenhouse gases should shoulder the biggest burden for cleaning up the environment and reducing our carbon footprint. And certainly President Obama has put our country on the path to doing that.

And no one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions of more people out of poverty. So, I want to make two points as clearly as I can.

First, the United States does not and will not do anything that would limit India’s economic progress. We believe that economic progress in India is in everyone’s interest, not just India’s. To lift people out of poverty and to give every child born in India a chance to live up to his or her God-given potential is a goal that we share with you. But we also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainably that will lower significantly the carbon footprint of the energy that is produced and consumed to fuel that growth.

And secondly, we in the United States, under the Obama administration, are recognizing our responsibility and taking action. So, therefore, addressing climate change and achieving economic growth, in our view, are compatible goals. And we know, as we look at the forecast of rising sea levels and changing rainfall and melting glaciers that India is a country very vulnerable to climate change. But it is also a country most likely to benefit from clean energy policies that are key to economic sustainability in the 21st century.

So, that is why I am very confident — and even more so after the discussion we just had, led by the minister — that the United States and India can devise a plan that will dramatically change the way we produce, consume, and conserve energy. And, in the process, start an explosion of new investments and millions of jobs. India already has the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, the knowledge base to be a big winner if we feed these opportunities of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Now, certainly the business leaders with whom I have spoken are talking about how the private sector can play a role, along with government. Just consider the potential here. If all new buildings were designed to the same standards as the ITC Green Center is, we could eventually cut global energy use and greenhouse pollution by more than 20 percent, and save money at the same time…

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Secretary Clinton

SECRETARY CLINTON: We need to scale up our efforts. We need to move from the smart design of individual green buildings to the smart design of whole communities to the retrofitting of buildings and communities, which will then lead to cities and countries.
While improving energy efficiency is critical, it is only half the battle. We also need to accelerate efforts to bring clean power to the people of India by expanding the use of renewable energy, particularly for rural electrification, so that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children will have real energy options.

India is already demonstrating a commitment to renewable energy in wind energy and in plans for scaling up solar manufacturing and power production and solar lantern programs to bring light to rural villages. And the economy is benefitting, as Indian solar companies such as Tata BP, Titan Energy, and others respond.

There is no question that developed countries like mine must lead on this issue. And for our part, under President Obama, we are not only acknowledging our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, we are taking steps to reverse its ill effects. We passed a stimulus bill through our congress where we are investing now $80 billion in clean energy technology. And we have set ambitious new vehicle fuel economy standards.

At the State Department we have just established a new program that will link some of our West Coast cities with Indian and Chinese cities to help transfer clean energy technology. And we have taken up our own green diplomacy initiative, which means our embassies, the ones we build, all of those that we currently have in operation, are going to have to become greener.

And, above all, the President has committed to passing a law that has already passed through one house of our congress that will deal with significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But it is essential for major developing countries like India to also lead. Because over 80 percent of the growth in future emissions will be from developing countries.

Now, China is, by far, the largest emitter in the world right now, and certainly the largest among developing countries. But India’s own greenhouse gas pollution is projected to grow by about 50 percent between now and 2030. So, climate change would not be solved even if developed countries stopped emitting greenhouse gas emissions today, unless action is taken across the world. So we have to work together. And I was very heartened, and I agree with the minister’s comment that we must achieve an agreement in Copenhagen that is equal to the task.

I will find inspiration from the ITC Green Center, this monument for the future. It uses half as much energy as conventional buildings, and energy savings means that it will pay back its additional up-front costs in only six years.

So, this building is a model of environmental stewardship and economic development, all wrapped up in one. And it is an inspiration. And it will keep us going through the long days and nights of actually hammering out an agreement, one that is fair and understanding, and doesn’t sacrifice economic progress, one that we will be proud of, and one that we will then be able to tell our children in generations to come, “When the crisis was upon us, we took action, and we took it together.”

Thank you all very much…

Junior Minister for Environment & Forests, Jairam Ramesh and Secy Clinton July 19, 2009 (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)

Clinton at ITC Hotel's Green Building in Gurgaon, India

Secretary Clinton looks up at the massive ceiling of the Green Building in Gurgaon July 19th, 2009 (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)

Secretary Clinton and ITC executives at the Green Bldg

UPDATED to add a few more photos I just found:

REUTERS/Adnan Abidi (INDIA ENVIRONMENT POLITICS

REUTERS/Stringer (INDIA POLITICS)

Click on the link below to view the full article:

Making Massachusetts A Greener Place for Students One School at a Time

You can also check out the May 2009 TeenLife Boston Connections Newsletter that this article was featured in.

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament led the world by passing the strongest climate change legislation of any industrialised nation! The message is simple: lead by example, don’t wait to be led.

Watch the BBC News coverage of the historic day

I for one can say I’m proud. In this year of the 10th anniversary of Scottish devolution, the passing of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill is a great success for Scotland and the UK. MSPs from across the political spectrum have tackled the difficult issues before them and have sent a strong signal out ahead of the Copenhagen talks in December.

• at least 80% cuts of all greenhouse gases by 2050;
• a 2020 target of at least 42% reduction in greenhouse gases;
• include the full effects of emissions from international aviation and shipping from the start;
• a strong duty on all public bodies to make a full contribution to tackling climate change; and
• strong energy efficiency measures to tackle fuel poverty and save energy.

It was a dramatic week with the Government changing its mind on the interim target in order to raise the opposition’s amendment on the reduction of greenhouse gases from a 40% cut to a 42% by 2020. That’s the kind of U-turn that they should be congratulated for – and that doesn’t happen often in politics.

The Stop Climate Chaos Scotland coalition, of which the Woodland Trust are members, have done an amazing job. I’ve been very impressed with the coordinated and effective lobbying we’ve carried out and want to send our thanks to all involved at SCCS for a job very well done!