Oil-threatened estuary is key to life in the gulf

Shrimp, crab, oysters, gators, birds, snakes, people – all have ties to Louisiana’s Barataria Bay.

The Bald Cypress Swamp of Barataria Preserve, which is more biologically diverse than the Everglades and serves as a nursery and breeding ground for the gulf’s shrimp, crab, oyster and fish. (Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times / June 11, 2010)

By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

June 11, 2010
Reporting from Barataria Preserve, La.

The sickening images of pelicans struggling in oil along Louisiana’s barrier islands only hint at what’s at stake if the slick forces its way into the state’s 3 ½ million acres of estuaries and marshes.

These bays and bayous are thrumming with life — they are far more biologically diverse than the Everglades — and serve as nursery and breeding ground for the gulf’s world famous shrimp, crab, oyster and fish. The wetlands system that fringes the coast is often called “Liquid Louisiana.”

Nearly everything that lives in the gulf is in some way connected to Barataria Bay, which is part of a coastal water system that regularly flushes with tides that mix salt water and fresh water. Pirates used the region’s uncounted cul-de-sacs as hideouts and bases from which to launch forays into the gulf and Caribbean. Today, commercial fishermen motor south from their docks in Lafitte and Barataria.

The prospect of oil penetrating that connection threatens a unique system of floating freshwater marsh already brought to its knees by hurricanes, thousands of canals cut for oil industry traffic, and the dikes, levees and channels that have altered the natural flow of the Mississippi River.

Oil first reached islands at the mouth of the bay May 20, and this week streamers of rust-colored mousse pushed past Grand Isle well into the inland waterway.

“It’s all tidal. We are connected to the gulf and therefore affected by storms in the gulf and, potentially, oil,” said David Muth, chief of planning and resource stewardship at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. Barataria Preserve is part of the park.

“This tragedy has already happened,” Muth said. He poured over colorful map containing hundreds of yellow points, each representing nesting colonies in the region, all in the path of the incoming oil. For example, a survey of site No. 83 revealed 400 pairs of brown pelicans, 8,500 pairs of royal terns, 30,000 pairs of sandwich terns and 200 pairs black skimmers.

“This is a soap opera and we’re just in Act 1 right now,” Muth said. “It’s going to go on and on and on.”

Earlier this week Muth toured Barataria Bay, checking on nesting birds and looking for signs of oil. He launched from Twin Canals into a bright green carpet of floating dots known as duckweed.

A solidly built New Orleans native, Muth steered the boat down broad avenues of water the color of weak ice tea, the result of naturally occurring tannins. Trailing his hand, he pointed out an oily residue on the surface. It was not crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon well, but vegetable oil that is the byproduct of the near-constant breakdown of organic compounds in the marsh.

These reedy redoubts are where the gulf’s marine life comes to be born and mature. “Much of the life in the Gulf of Mexico depends directly or indirectly on what comes out of the estuaries,” Muth said.

The value to the nation’s fisheries is well known.

If the region’s “natural capital” were treated as an economic asset, the present value of the Mississippi Delta would be between $330 billion and $1.3 trillion, according to a 2006 report by the Seattle-based group Earth Economics.

Muth, his green and brown National Parks Service cap set low on his forehead against a blistering sun, guided the boat past a small alligator, with part of its eyes and nostrils peeking above the water’s surface. At 4 feet long, the gator was likely 4 years old, Muth said. Three moorhen chicks waddled across the duckweed, effectively walking on water to their waiting mother.

The birds were standing on mats, known locally as “flotant.” All the vegetation in this floating estuarine freshwater marsh rest on top of the water’s surface, moving up and down with tides. The mat is so thick in some places that shrubs and trees grow on them.

The mats float above a bay floor that has beneath it 30,000 feet of deltaic sediment, the result of millions of years of deposits by the Mississippi River.

Muth paused, listening to a mournful lowing he couldn’t quite make out. Eventually he guessed the sound was the muted cry of a pig frog being swallowed slowly by an aquatic snake.

“What I love about this place is that it’s a system that is incredibly alive and diverse,” he said. “When I go to the beautiful places — to Yellowstone or to the Rocky Mountains or to the Everglades — what I’m really struck by is how lifeless it is. There aren’t that many creatures around at any given time. I’m used to being in a place where there are birds and frogs and turtles and snakes. This is an incredible place.”

The boat continued south across the expanse of Lake Salvador and its green spits of land, stranded islands of what was once connected land. The region has been ripped apart by storms and the constant cutting of canals for oil and gas operations; there are some 10,000 miles of canals in south Louisiana. Today there are a few threads of land to hold together. Boaters equipped with GPS programs are surprised by false alarms warning they are about to run into land where there is only open water. The programmers can’t keep up with the land loss.

The shoreline in the Barataria Preserve retreats 30 feet every year.

This thin tissue of remnant land eventually gave in to Barataria Bay, where a dozen shrimp boats were laying down booms, which trailed like a tangerine-colored tail.

The crews were busy trying to protect an island where marshy edges already had a black coating of oil. In the open water, strands of rusty orange mousse floated: oil that has been treated with dispersants. Muth observed a colony of nesting Forster’s terns.

“The sickening, helpless feeling around all this is the birds have to go on making a living with patches of oil moving through the system,” he said. “We just don’t know how many times can these birds take even a light oiling.”

Like most wetlands scientists, Muth cannot say for sure what the impact of oil will bring to this delta.

“Oil is a wild card,” he said. “This is an extremely adaptive place. When you throw in a completely unnatural event, like this mass of oil, we just don’t know.”

julie.cart@latimes.com

from our friends at the latimes.com

Gulf oil spill figures may be double earlier estimates

Richard Simon, Betina Boxall and Margot Roosevelt

June 11, 2010

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles

Government scientists said Thursday that as many as 40,000 barrels of oil have been flowing daily from the blown-out BP well, doubling earlier estimates and greatly expanding the scope of what is already the largest spill in U.S. history.

The new figures could mean 42 million to 84 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on the night of April 20 — with the lowest estimate nearly four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

The flow estimates were released by Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, and do not count any increases that may have occurred since the cutting of the well’s riser pipe, a step that was expected to boost the flow.

Teams using a variety of technologies are trying to calculate how much the riser cut has increased the well release, but they will not have that information for several days. “It’s a challenging scientific issue,” McNutt said.

The revised numbers are the latest in a series of estimates that have steadily grown as scientists analyze live video feeds. The earliest figure, 1,000 barrels per day, was supplanted by 5,000 barrels. A government-appointed scientific team then pegged the flow at 12,000 to 19,000 barrels.

That same group has now concluded that “given the limited data available and the small amount of time to process that data, the best estimate for the average flow rate for the leakage … is between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day, but could be as low as 20,000 barrels per day or as high as 40,000 barrels per day,” McNutt said in a release.

In a sign of the difficulty of gauging the flow, one team believes that the upper range could be as high as 50,000 barrels. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil.

BP has said it will be unable to plug the well before August, when relief wells will be completed. But a containment cap installed on the well last week is capturing about 15,000 barrels, or 630,000 gallons, a day and pumping it to a ship at the surface. Officials predict that by next week they will be able to collect or burn off nearly double that amount.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the administration’s point man for the spill, sent a letter Thursday to Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP’s board chairman, summoning “any appropriate officials from BP” to meet Wednesday with President Obama and other senior officials.

“The BP Deepwater Horizon spill has had a profound impact on Americans living in the gulf region and time is of the essence in resolving these issues,” Allen wrote.

Family members of victims of the rig explosion met Thursday with Obama at the White House. They wore blue ribbons, each with 11 stars — one for each of the workers killed.

Peggy Kemp, whose son Roy died in the explosion, said Obama assured them that the families “will not be forgotten.” Donald Clark’s widow, Sheila, said Obama also said that “everything he can do he will do.”

The updated flow figures come as Congress approved legislation to lift a limit on how much can be paid out from a dwindling emergency oil spill response fund. The bill now goes to Obama, who is expected to sign the measure. Current law caps the payout at $100 million per incident. The fund now contains $1.6 billion.

Although BP will ultimately be held responsible for full damages, lawmakers said lifting the cap would prevent delayed responses to the spill by federal agencies, including the Coast Guard and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The laws … have not been adequate for a crisis of this magnitude,” Obama told reporters after a meeting Thursday with congressional leaders. “The Oil Pollution Act was passed at a time when people didn’t envision drilling four miles under the sea for oil.”

Obama said the law would be updated “to make sure that the people of the gulf — the fishermen, the hotel owners, families who are dependent for their livelihoods in the gulf — that they are all made whole, and that we are in a much better position to respond to any such crisis in the future.”

The bill would give federal authorities more latitude to dip into the fund, which is fed by an 8-cent per barrel oil tax. Congress is considering raising the tax in the wake of the gulf spill. The action comes a week after the government sent BP a $69-million bill.

BP estimates it has spent more than $1 billion so far responding to the spill, a figure that it likely to rise considerably as more claims are paid out and lawsuits move through the courts.

The oil giant agreed Thursday to speed up payments to people whose livelihoods have been damaged by the spill, which has closed a third of the gulf to fishing and scared away tourists from shoreline resorts.

Federal officials also said Thursday that BP has agreed to provide the public with more information on the status of claims. Almost 42,000 claims have been submitted, and more than 20,000 payments totaling upwards of $53 million have been made, according to BP.

With another delegation of senators preparing to fly to the Gulf Coast, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser pleaded, “Please don’t take flyovers of Plaquemines Parish. It’s an insult to the local people. You can’t see it from the air. You’ve got to go down there and touch it. You’ve got to pull into that marsh and see there is absolutely no life. Everything is dead.”

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of Atlantic Coast senators asked federal officials for the “statistical probabilities” of the spill hitting their coasts and recommendations on how their states should prepare for a “worst-case scenario.”

“If there is any real risk to these communities from a spill that right now remains thousands of miles away, we need to know as soon as possible,” the senators wrote.

richard.simon@latimes.com

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

margot.roosevelt@latimes.com

from our friends at the www.latimes.com

BP Oilpocalypse Creates Underwater Nightmare

from our friends at Good Morning America

Amateur Video Of Gulf Oil Slick – Worse Than BP Admits

Video is from Alabama resident John Wathen as a volunteer pilot flew him over the area where the oil rig sank. Officials have stopped guessing at the amount of oil leaking although some speculate it may be closer to 1 million gallons per day.

Don’t let BP spin this into something trivial.

“It’s not a leak, it’s a volcano spewing oil”

William McDonough and Co. are THE leaders in a much better design for long term health of our Planet. Through working in corporate world they have had a major impact on creating recyclable technology and eco-friendly work places that use bio-and techno feedback loops were waste is either eliminated or significantly reduced, increasing profits and productivity as well.

The Hannover Principles

1.    Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
2.    Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
3.    Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
4.    Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to co-exist.
5.    Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
6.    Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
7.    Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
8.    Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not as an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
9.    Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
10.  The Hannover Principles should be seen as a living document committed to the transformation and growth in the understanding of our interdependence with nature, so that they may adapt as our knowledge of the world evolves.

the video brought to us by our friends at Standford University

Don Blankenship’s – Massey Coal, subject of the book “Coal River”, is the operator of a “cut and fill” mining operation in West Virginia, where the Clean Water Act’s protections for “blue line” seasonal streams are ignored by mountaintop removal — with the debris and toxic waste dumped into valleys, blue line streams, and toxic overflow pouring onto neighboring properties and into common streams and rivers.

It’s bad, bad, bad. Moreover, it’s dangerous. And, it’s unneeded.

Even worse, the miners are going back down into mines despite the lamentable and preventable deaths.

BUT EVEN WORSE THAN THAT, THE ENERGY GENERATED BY THESE COAL MINES COULD, WITH NO MORE SPACE THAN THE COAL MINES THEMSELVES, BE GENERATED BY SOLAR POWER. LEAVING THE COAL IN THE GROUND, FOR THE NEXT GENERATIONS.

Here are the 100 largest coal mines in the USA. The very largest is:

“1 North Antelope Rochelle Mine/Powder River Coal Wyoming 97,578,499 tons high-quality coal per year.”

Here’s the blurb about this coal mine, “NARM”:

“105 km southeast of Gillette, Wyoming, U.S.A…the world’s largest surface-strip operation. The owner of the mine is Peabody…the largest private-sector coal company in the world. Its operations provide coal that is used to generate 10% of the electricity generated in the U.S. and approximately 3% of the electricity generated throughout the world. It exports coal to 15 countries and over 350 power and industrial plants.
“The Powder River Coal Field area has experienced natural coal fires throughout the recent geological history and because of that the lands have been held as sacred by early Native Americans. Coal was re-discovered in Wyoming by the Fremont Expedition of 1843. Commercial mining began with the arrival of the railroad. Since 1988 Wyoming tops the list of the largest coal-producing states in the U.S.
“The North Antelope Rochelle Mine began operation in 1983 and produces the lowest sulfur coal in the United States – 0.2% sulfur at a heat value ranging from 8,600 to 8,800 Btu per pound. The operation employs three draglines along with five overburden truck-and-shovel fleets. During 2007 the company erected a new dragline and completed an in-pit crusher/conveyor at North Antelope Rochelle. The coal is hauled by truck to one of three hoppers at the complex, where it is crushed and ultimately conveyed to 15,000-ton silos for loadout on unit trains.
“The operation employs 1,080 people and annually provides the local economy with $63 million in wages and benefits.
“North Antelope Rochelle’s industry-leading safety and reclamation practices have been recognized with numerous awards over the past four years. ”

“The North Antelope Rochelle Mine is one of America’s largest coal mines, … Remaining coal reserves dedicated to the mine cover nearly 28000 acres…”
www.peabodyenergy.com/Media/factsheets/NARoch.asp

REPLACING COAL BY SOLAR TAKES LESS SPACE AND LESS ENERGY

The Peabody Coal North Antelope Rochelle Mine (“NARM”) is the largest coal producer in the USA.

It produces about 100,000,000 tons of coal per year; each ton of coal has about the same energy as between three and six barrels of oil. Each barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of about 1700 kWh.

Each ton of NARM coal contains no more than 10,000 kWh of equivalent energy, perhaps half that, but let’s use the top number.

Hence, the entire NARM operation produces coal with an energy content of
10,000*100,000,000 kWh per year, or 1,000,000,000,000 kWh per year (10 to the 12th, or 10**12).

HOW MUCH SOLAR POWER TO GENERATE THE SAME AMOUNT OF ENERGY AS NARM

Each acre is about 4000 square meters. Sunlight falling on one acre is 4000 kW. Solar panels would retrieve 800 kW per acre at 20% efficiency. Per day, that’s 4,000 kWh; per year, that acre of solar would produce 4*365 thousand kWh or 1,400,000 kWh.

1,000,000,000,000 kWh total energy (10**12) in the coal divided by 1,400,000 (1.4*10**6) kWh of solar energy per acre yields . . . about 70,000 acres, an area about 100 square miles, or 10 miles by 10 miles (640 acres per square mile).

Sounds like a lot, right? But:

The current NARM mine works is at least 2000 acres; there are roads, rail lines, loading docks, draglines, and about 28,000 acres of mineable open-face coal in seams 100 ft. deep up to 400 ft. beneath the surface, extending for many miles in each direction from the current works, and reserved for future despoilation.

Considering the hundreds of miles of rail lines and roads, giant earthmoving and coal-hauling equipment, the staging area and the land required for the 1080 people who work the mine, the total area used by the NARM is at worst comparable, and perhaps larger, than the equivalent area needed to generate the same amount of energy using solar panels.

Perhaps as much as 80,000 acres!

Take about the same land alloted to mining coal at the biggest coal mine in the USA, and you would produce the same amount of electric — without the trains, dragline, coal ash, coal pollution, coal dust, and coal burning!! And without the needless yearly death and injury toll on miners.

Now if this can be done for the LARGEST and most productive of all coal mines, the one that touts “clean coal”, the rest are probably even worse. SOLAR WOULD REPLACE THIS MINE WITHOUT DESTROYING THE LANDSCAPE, WITHOUT NEED FOR REMEDIATION, AND USING PERHAPS HALF THE SPACE ULTIMATELY REQUIRED TO MINE AND REMEDIATE the seam of coal, which extends for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of miles.

Imagine that, instead of giant scoops digging 400′ down into the ground, tearing up land by the hundreds of acres, creating huge toxic sumps, instead…silent construction of pole-mounted solar panels, under which grass and prairie dogs could flourish…coyotes, wolves, antelopes, deer could roam without fear of bulldozers and toxic coal ash.

Solar panels should rather be installed on rooftops, which are already developed, and don’t entail destroying the wilderness; but surely, even a forest of solar panels would be preferrable to the mess created by Peabody Coal.

Why mine the coal? Use the sunlight on the land, if you must, until all our rooftops are solar.

Similar to the argument that, if we had plug-in cars, the energy used to extract and refine oil would, if used to power EVs, carry the EV as far as the REST of the barrel carries a fossil car. Might as well leave the oil in the ground, for all the good of the farce about spending so much energy mining it just to burn it.

Here’s a picture of the “enlightened” open pit, with some idea of a tin part of the square miles despoiled by this mine:

THE 99 NEXT LARGEST COAL MINES

2 Black Thunder/Thunder Basin Coal Company LLC Surface Wyoming 88,584,704
3 Jacobs Ranch Mine/Jacobs Ranch Coal Company Surface Wyoming 42,145,705
4 Cordero Mine/Cordero Mining Company Surface Wyoming 40,033,283
5 Antelope Coal Mine/Antelope Coal Company Surface Wyoming 35,777,489
6 Caballo Mine/Caballo Coal Company Surface Wyoming 31,205,381
7 Belle Ayr Mine/Foundation Coal West Incorporated Surface Wyoming 28,707,982
8 Buckskin Mine/Triton Coal Company Surface Wyoming 26,076,355
9 Eagle Butte Mine/Foundation Coal West Incorporated Surface Wyoming 20,442,963
10 Rawhide Mine/Caballo Coal Company Surface Wyoming 18,418,546
11 Spring Creek Coal Company/Spring Creek Coal Company Surface Montana 17,947,506
12 Freedom Mine/The Coteau Properties Company Surface North Dakota 14,565,631
13 Rosebud Mine&Crusher/Conveyor/Western Energy Company Surface Montana 13,052,713
14 Coal Creek Mine/Thunder Basin Coal Company LLC Surface Wyoming 11,453,546
15 Enlow Fork Mine/Consol Pennsylvania Coal Company Underground Pennsylvania 11,089,475
16 Bailey Mine/Consol Pennsylvania Coal Company Underground Pennsylvania 9,996,038
17 McElroy Mine/McElroy Coal Company Underground West Virginia 9,636,827
18 Navajo Mine/BHP Navajo Coal Company Surface New Mexico 8,905,813
19 Kayenta Mine/Peabody Western Coal Company Surface Arizona 8,024,973
20 Foidel Creek Mine/Twentymile Coal Company Underground Colorado 8,004,176
21 Falkirk Mine/Falkirk Mining Company Surface North Dakota 7,532,993
22 Cumberland Mine/Cumberland Coal Resources LP Underground Pennsylvania 7,321,030
23 San Juan Mine 1/San Juan Coal Company Underground New Mexico 7,046,199
24 Sufco/Canyon Fuel Company LLC Underground Utah 6,946,075
25 Decker Mine/Decker Coal Company Surface Montana 6,871,671
26 Century Mine/American Energy Corporation Underground Ohio 6,843,898
27 Jewett Mine/Texas Westmoreland Coal Co. Surface Texas 6,453,799
28 Absaloka Mine/Westmoreland Resources Inc. Surface Montana 6,390,699
29 Emerald Mine No 1/Emerald Coal Resources LP Underground Pennsylvania 6,343,350
30 Wyodak Mine/Wyodak Resources Development Co. Surface Wyoming 6,015,890
31 West Elk Mine/Mountain Coal Company, L.L.C. Underground Colorado 5,858,789
32 Powhatan No. 6 Mine/The Ohio Valley Coal Company Underground Ohio 5,797,596
33 Robinson Run No 95/Consolidation Coal Company Underground West Virginia 5,627,306
34 Blacksville No 2/Consolidation Coal Company Underground Pennsylvania 5,584,153
35 Mach #1 Mine/Mach Mining LLC Underground Illinois 5,503,665
36 Galatia Mine/The American Coal Company Underground Illinois 5,263,019
37 Dry Fork Mine/Western Fuels-Wyoming Inc Surface Wyoming 5,261,242
38 Loveridge No 22/Consolidation Coal Company Underground West Virginia 5,192,742
39 Twilight MTR Surface Mine/Progress Coal Surface West Virginia 5,167,254
40 Cardinal/Warrior Coal LLC Underground Kentucky 5,108,496
41 Beckville Strip/Luminant Mining Co. LLC Surface Texas 5,093,709
42 Kemmerer Mine/Chevron Mining Inc Surface Wyoming 4,988,841
43 Colowyo Mine/Colowyo Coal Company L P Surface Colorado 4,914,363
44 Elk Creek Mine/Oxbow Mining, LLC Underground Colorado 4,902,633
45 Dotiki Mine/Webster County Coal LLC Underground Kentucky 4,662,442
46 Oak Hill Strip/Luminant Mining Company LLC Surface Texas 4,655,079
47 Center Mine/BNI Coal Ltd Surface North Dakota 4,505,263
48 Mountaineer II Mine/Mingo Logan Coal Company Underground West Virginia 4,187,338
49 Dugout Canyon Mine/Canyon Fuel Company LLC Underground Utah 4,145,406
50 South Hallsville No 1 Mine/Sabine Mining Company Surface Texas 4,054,916
51 Elk Creek Mine/Hopkins County Coal LLC Underground Kentucky 4,033,847
Subtotal 713,921,308
All Other Mines 457,887,361
U.S. Total 1,171,808,669
- = No data are reported.
Note: · Major mines are mines that produced more than 4 million short tons in 2008. The company is the firm operating the mine.
Source: · Energy Information Administration Form EIA-7A, “Coal Production Report,” and/or U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Form 7000-2, “Quarterly Mine Employment and Coal Production Report.”

US mine production 2008:
1,171,808,669 short tons (1.17 Billion tons)
Source: · Energy Information Administration Form EIA-7A, “Coal Production Report,” and/or U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Form 7000-2, “Quarterly Mine Employment and Coal Production Report.”

Major U.S. Coal Mines

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Richard Box, an artist-in-residence at Bristol University’s physics department, was one of the first people to discover the phenomenon. He describes it below:

A fluorescent tube glows when an electrical voltage is set up across it. The electric field set up inside the tube excites atoms of mercury gas, making them emit ultraviolet light. This invisible light strikes the phosphor coating on the glass tube, making it glow. Because powerlines are typically 400,000 volts, and Earth is at an electrical potential voltage of zero volts, pylons create electric fields between the cables they carry and the ground. Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of powerlines, ˜For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that’s invisible and making it visible, he says. ˜When it worked, I thought: ˜This is amazing.” Photo by Peter Dibdin

For more information and details on the project:

from our friends at DoobyBrain.com

"the earth is a source of life that is to be protected…"

Orville Looking Horse

The New Green Economy

Caroline welcomes Bob Gough, secretary for Inter-Tribal Coup, and lawyer for the Lakota Sioux, indefatigable agent of Red Green Power, the development of Wind Power, allying ancient infinite Power with reverently collaborative new technology on Native American reservations.

Price VS Cost !

from our friends at www.coyotenetworknews.com

brought to us by our friends at KCSM.org

Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brothers Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet.

An inside look at the infamous $27 billion Amazon Chernobyl case, Crude is a real-life, high stakes legal drama involving global politics, the environmental movement, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, multinational corporate power, and the fate of disappearing indigenous cultures. Subverting the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, this award-winning film explores a complex situation from all angles, bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus. Rarely have such conflicts been examined with the depth and power of Joe Berlingers documentary Crude. These real characters and events play out on the screen like a sprawling legal thriller.

- Stephen Holden, The New York Times

www.crudethemovie.com

LOS ANGELES — The 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI was named Green Car of the Year Thursday, the first time a diesel has won the award presented each year at the L.A. Auto Show.

UPDATE, 10 P.M. – To answer some questions from the commenters: the Jetta TDI is a 50-state car. Yes, that includes California. Fuel economy figure provided by Green Car Journal, and your mileage may vary. EPA’s fuel efficiency website has not yet listed 2010 models.

from our friends at wired.com

[wpvideo EJUorn1A]

“We’ve got to somehow stabilize our connection to nature so that in 50 years from now, 500 years, 5,000 years from now there will still be a wild system and respect for what it takes to sustain us.”
Sylvia Earle

Sylvia Earle is a dedicated advocate for the world’s oceans and the creatures that live in them. Her voice speaks with wonder and amazement at the glory of the oceans and with urgency to awaken the public from its ignorance about the role the oceans plays in all of our lives and the importance of maintaining their health.

filmed Feb 2009 by our friends at the TED conference
run time: 18 minutes

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Amory Lovins is cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Here in an interview with Charlie Rose, Lovins gives leveled headed information and statistics about energy ideas and solutions.
July 15, 2008, www.charlierose.com

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In this inspiring talk about recent developments in biomimicry, Janine Benyus provides heartening examples of ways in which nature is already influencing the products and systems we build. A self-proclaimed nature nerd, Benyus is the author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, a book that has galvanized scientists, architects, designers and engineers into exploring new ways in which nature’s successes can inspire humanity.

24 minutes of inspirational ideas!

*Even though this lecture was done ‘way back’ in 2005, all of her ideas are still viable to help us Today !

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ]

Take a minute!