conservation

The North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Foundation began running radio ads last week informing the public that the legislature is ignoring its mandate to create jobs while scrapping policies that protect water and air quality. The ad highlights that numerous pieces of legislation threaten jobs created by tourism which are dependent on clean water and air.  They also launched a web site, www.thataintrightnc.org, which offers details about the impact of legislation and lists bills that have little to do with jobs but everything to do with eliminating environmental protections.

The standard, stereotypical depiction of a modern-day environmentalist conjures images of a liberal upbringing; the offspring of 1960's flower children steeped in anti-establishment revolutionary thought.

While this fiction might bring comfort to those who refuse to accept responsibility for mankind's irresponsible stewardship of our natural resources, it is a fiction, nonetheless.

North Carolina's oldest independent state-level citizen conservation group has changed its name to better reflect its current work on behalf of our state's environment. The citizen group known since 1968 as the Conservation Council of North Carolina is now the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV).

If you are concerned about the effects of the new legislative make-up on the state budget and frontline issues, the NC Justice Center and the United Way are sponsoring forums across the state during the rest of the month. Description of purpose below; all forums scheduled can be found here.

An Overview of the North Carolina State Budget,
Economic Forecast, and Issues Affecting Your Community

"Agriculture is not just about putting things in the ground and then harvesting them...it is increasingly about the social and environmental variables that will in large part determine the future capacity of agriculture to provide for eight or nine billion people in a manner that is sustainable" - Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UNEP

This Earth Day, I thought it important to consider an often unsung hero of the environmental movement that remains our best line of defense in securing the ultimate goal of environmentalism - our sustainable existence. That unsung hero is the local family farmer, and must be an integral part of the solution to the tsunami of interrelated epidemics on the global horizon from the world food crisis to the world energy crisis and every imported fruit and vegetable driven home from a Supercenter in a plastic shopping bag in between.

Today's News & Observer printed an op-ed authored by representatives of the John Locke Foundation, NC PIRG and NC WARN. Their common foe? Duke Energy.

This atrocious news came across my desk a few minutes ago and I'd like to pass it on. It used to be that "conservative" meant being good stewards of the bounty our land had, its beauty and promise, to be able to hand down to our childen and grandchildren. By ample demonstration, the term has been co-opted by a few self-servatives whose greed and lack of concern over the consequences of their actions have soured the taste of the very word in the mouths of a growing majority.

Vastly different House and Senate versions of the reauthorization of the federal farm bill. The big issue is funding for conservation programs. Senate, yes. House, no. Via Medill:

WASHINGTON – The chairmen of the Senate and the House Agriculture Committees unveiled drastically different plans for funding farm conservation programs last week, setting the stage for a debate that may last well into September with billions of subsidy dollars for farmers at stake.

Today the Utilities Commissions announced its decision to allow Duke Energy only one of the two coal fired plants at Cliffside.

All the news all month long, from the Oscars, from Texas, from e v e r y w h e r e,
was not supporting the application by Duke Energy.

Apparently one of the Commissioners was opposed to both of the plants. Since Duke Energy had already stated that they would not build just one, this provides some wrinkles in the rush to add more coal fired plants.

Thanks to the growth in public concern for global warming and for the effects of CO2 emissions from coal fired plants.