A Highly Necessary Enviro Climate Show

Yes, it is a rather strongly worded title for this week's Enviro Show but given we've been trying to get highly respected climate scientist Professor Raymond Bradley of UMass Amherst on the show for some time now we thought we'd get into some....amplification? As we've been saying on the show since COVID daze began, the pandemic is actually  just another aspect of the Climate Crisis 'cuz both disasters have been brought about by the human propensity to trash Nature, OK? We are the Crisis, but we could also be the answer to the Crisis. Of course, we'll also bring you along to endure this week's Fool-on-the-Hill and to witness His Malignancy The Mad King and his enablers latest insults to life on Earth, but first it's time for.........Revenge of the Critters! Another snap happy tourist in Yellowstone Park gets too close to the Buffalo. This one comes complete with a video of a previous Buffalo Tourist Toss. They are not harmless Disney robots people! 

This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is Arizona Congressional District Five House Rep. Andy Biggs who apparently is big on foolishness. Awhile back he would not support any of the COVID 19 assistance measures because it would either raise the debt, legitimize same-sex families, or give people an incentive not to go to work. Recently, at a time when Arizona's COVID numbers are spiking and hospitals are near out of ICUs, Biggs stated  “As our economy is restored, it is imperative that President Trump is not undermined in his mission to return our economy to greatness. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx continue to contradict many of President Trump’s stated goals and actions for returning to normalcy as we know more about the COVID-19 outbreak. This is causing panic that compromises our economic recovery. We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak while still protecting lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population. It’s time for the COVID-19 task force to be disbanded so that President Trump’s message is not mitigated or distorted.”.  O  wait, did we mention when masks were being required by local governments, Biggs said it was the mark of a tyrannical government?

 It was reported recently His Malignancy The Mad King's Environmental Plundering....er "Protection" Agency and some enablers in Congress are expected to propose a new rule detailing how burning biomass from forests can be considered carbon neutral in the United States. The report states: "..industry leaders believe they have science on their side, making a case that wood pellet production is barely putting a dent in the carbon-storage capacity of forests in the South." Really? [Insert hysterical laughter here]  We don't think so! Also, Inside Climate News reports: "new plants are being proposed in South Carolina, Arkansas and other southern states to produce wood pellets for export to Europe. The industry for this type of biomass energy has exploded, driven largely by European climate policies and subsidies that reward burning wood, even as an increasing number of scientists call out what they see as a dangerous carbon accounting loophole that threatens the 2050 goals of the Paris climate agreement." And this from our friends at Grist, "After three and a half years and 100 environmental rollbacks either completed or in progress this is no surprise: President Trump has spent more time defending Confederate monuments than voicing concern over COVID’s taking of 16,000 Black lives that would still be here if African-Americans weren’t dying at more than double the rate of white Americans."  The man is a monster and so are his enablers. HERE is more proof, as if you needed it. 

In The Enviro Show Echo Chamber our friends at Grist tell their readers about a new study scientists will soon unveil to help prevent future pandemics. Not sure why they didn't just ask us or the Center for Biological Diversity 'cuz we've been talking about the very same solutions for months now. Kidding!  We need all the science possible to protect threatened species and their habitats and put an end to wildlife trafficking. 

Of course our guest knows "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid" and we'll get into that presently but here's a quote from Scientific American that touches on something Prof. Bradley is very familiar with: "Facebook appears to be weakening a firewall it has built to fact-check such climate denialism. The company recently overruled a fact-check from a group of climate scientists, in a move that concerns researchers about a potentially new precedent by the platform that permits inaccurate claims to be promoted if they’re labeled as opinions. At the same time, Facebook has placed restrictions on one of the country’s most visible climate scientists, Katharine Hayhoe, of Texas Tech University and a lead author of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. She has been blocked from promoting videos related to climate research, a move that has limited her efforts to refute false claims."

 After our conversation with Prof. Bradley it's on to the Bus Stop Billboard:

July—August 9, 2020  NOFA Summer Conference.
Just sit back and relax in your home while we bring you the rich and dynamic education program of the NOFA Summer Conference right to your home. We’re bringing the classic and innovative content of the conference to you via video/webinar sessions so you can continue to deepen your knowledge on topics such as Vegetable Production, Hemp/CBD, Chickens, Grazing Plans, Soil Carbon, Wild E dibles, Worms and more.If you haven’t been to the NOFA Summer Conference in years because of the distance, now’s your chance to attend. If you love the conference but can’t make the schedule work for your summer schedule, now’s your time. If you wish you could have the program in hand to experience on demand, whenever you choose, now is your chance too. What’s in store for the new virtual Summer Conference program? More INFO, REGISTER. 


Monday August 10, 7pm.  Brattleboro Biomass Zoom Webinar hosted by Community Action Works. Register HERE.  Dirty energy pollutes our air and water, impacts our health, and contributes to climate change. Over the past 30 years, Community Action Works has helped communities all over the northeast retire dirty power plants responsibly, halt dangerous new fracked gas pipelines and win clean, local, renewable energy solutions. 
Monday

Tuesday, August 11, 11:30am – 2:00pm. (The meeting starts promptly at noon.) MA Elders Climate Action Zoom meeting. Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89313211335 This month we have the privilege of hosting Frances Moore Lappé, author Diet for a Small Planet, which gained world-wide attention 50 years ago. Since then she has written nearly 20 books. 


Wednesday August 12, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm. Extinction of Deer Ticks in North America. A virtual woirkshop with Dr. Stephen Rich, Professor of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Director the Laboratory of Medical Zoology. Dr. Stephen Rich will discuss a recent publication in Nature(June 2020) from the Laboratory of Medical Zoology that provides insight to the evolutionary and ecological origin of the primary Lyme disease vectors in North America.
Register at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7268068031726182913

Wednesday,August 19, 6-8 pm. 350MA Berkshires  Node  Zoom  Meeting . All are welcome! Use the password 350ma.    Zoom link 


On August 20th, join a virtual lobby meeting with your senator’s office to speak out against extinction. Speaking out by telling staffers how much you value plants, fish, and wildlife and the laws that protect them is one of the most valuable actions you can take as an activist. When senators hear that constituents like you are taking the time to show up to a meeting to speak, they listen closely. Register HERE.   

Wednesday, August 26, 7:30-8:30 pm "Adaptive Silviculture: Examining Climate Change Forest Management Strategies" Anoither  CounterAct Climate Change program  via Zoom. 

Register here.






That's all for now everyone. Please remember to listen to your Mother!

The Public Lands Logging Epidemic Enviro Show Part II

Greetings Earthlings. We're going to continue the conversation about our public lands being used as timber plantations by government and industry. It's another kind of epidemic but with many of the same players up to their necks in cause and effect. Silvia Solaun and and Kay of New Jersey Forest Watch/Friends of Sparta Mountain return to the show with our friend Chris Matera of Mass Forest Watch. [UPDATE: Stop logging of state lands! To contact the Gov. of MA go HERE and to contact the Gov. of NJ go HERE]. As always, we will bring you along to meet this week's Fool-on-the-Hill and then head on down to Black Lives Matter Plaza to look beyond the barricades where His Malignancy The Mad King and his fascist enablers are hiding. Of course, we'll also remind everyone who seems to have forgotten that 'It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" but first it's time for........ Revenge of the Critters! Mayflies shutdown a nuclear power plant?

This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is Rep. Mike Kelly (Repugnican-Pa.) not just  for his comment that being a white guy makes him a person of color (actually white is the absence of color) but for claiming: "Attempts by Democrats and the media to divide and define us by race are harmful to our nation’s strength. We need to elevate our level of discussion, and I believe most Americans agree.” He went on to defend The Mad King who doesn't even try to "elevate our level of discussion" and whose enablers are out there running over protestors in their cars, showing up at rallies fully armed and threatening people on social media.

On to His Malignancy The Mad King who has been obsessed lately with trashing "our level of discussion", in fact his recent 4th of July addresses sound like they came straight out of Adolf Hitler's playbook. Most liberal commentators lately seem unwilling to make that connection, perhaps in fear for their careers, but like the man said long ago: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". Another four years of this monster and those fearful ones won't have careers anyway, they'll be lucky to have a life at all. Moving on, His Malignancy's Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette has been talking about the bright future of coal. Of course, The Mad King's Department of Energy and the coal industry cheered from the orchestrating pit, but that old burn technology's going nowhere unless those dreaded years mentioned above come to pass. And this: The Mad King nas nominated William Perry Pendley to serve as Director of the Bureau of Land Management. Pendley has long advocated for the privitization of public lands and is a fierce skeptic of global climate change, the hole in the ozone layer and the existence of acid rain?

Speaking of climate change, "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" It's not an emergency like some fire down the street, it's the worst CRISIS ever, OK? And guess what, it's not just taking place in the Arctic like we've reported on the past few shows, it's happening right here in New England. The link we just put up points out:  "One assessment projects that average summer and winter temperatures in Connecticut will increase 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels within the next 60 years. If that happens, the summer climate in Connecticut by the end of the century will be the same as it is in present-day South Carolina. Temperatures in Hartford would exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 28 days a year." This report doesn't even get into the probable increase in extreme weather events associated with such temperature increase or the effects on the biosphere, human infrastructure and health. As an example there's this: "In a study of nearly 700 fresh and saltwater fish species, researchers examined how warming water temperatures lower water oxygen levels, putting embryos and pregnant fish at risk." Go ahead, tell us that's not a crisis!

Finally, we return once again to The Enviro Show Echo Chamber with this piece from the Guardian titled, "Pandemics result from destruction of nature, say UN and WHO". Yes, we keep harping on this critical subject and we will continue to do so as long as our fellow activists, journalists and pundits continue to ignore it. We are the cause of COVID-19 and of other such threats to human health and safety. How can we talk about COVID without mentioning toilet paper! Surely you recall the TP hoarders back in the beginning, yes? As it turns out, unless you're using TP with recycled content you are most likely contributing to deforestation in Canada. Read all about it! (PDF)

After the conversation with our guests we head over to the Bus Stop Billboard:

July 20, 2020—August 9, 2020  NOFA Summer Conference.
Just sit back and relax in your home while we bring you the rich and dynamic education program of the NOFA Summer Conference right to your home. We’re bringing the classic and innovative content of the conference to you via video/webinar sessions so you can continue to deepen your knowledge on topics such as Vegetable Production, Hemp/CBD, Chickens, Grazing Plans, Soil Carbon, Wild E dibles, Worms and more.If you haven’t been to the NOFA Summer Conference in years because of the distance, now’s your chance to attend. If you love the conference but can’t make the schedule work for your summer schedule, now’s your time. If you wish you could have the program in hand to experience on demand, whenever you choose, now is your chance too. What’s in store for the new virtual Summer Conference program? More INFO, REGISTER.


Monday July 27, 7 to 9pm. Climate Action Now Monthly Gathering on Zoom. Register HERE. Also go to:  https://climateactionnowma.org 


Tuesday July 28, 7 to 9pm.  Praise the Dead: The role of dead trees and fire in forest ecosystems, with George Wuerthner. Many of us have heard about the wildfires in the West. Why are they happening? What about Massachusetts? Are we at risk for forest fires here? Why are controlled burns being done on our state lands? Are they beneficial or counterproductive? Are policy changes needed and if so, what should be considered?  George Wuerthner is an ecologist and has published 38 books, including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy, Protecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness Foundation for Conservation and Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of the Earth. Register HERE. 


Wednesday July 29, 6pm.  EDT: “Who Speaks for the Trees?”: How Forests that Store Carbon Can Help Save the Planet. Dr. William Moomaw, PhD. is Emeritus Professor of international environmental policy and founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. Dr. Sam Davis, PhD. of the Dogwood Alliance was a principal researcher for “The Great American Stand,” a report that examines forest management opportunities for combating the climate crisis in the United States. Over the past four decades, forests have moderated climate change by absorbing about one-quarter of the carbon emitted by human activities. Forests are a vital part of the carbon cycle, storing and releasing this element in a dynamic process of growth, decay, disturbance and renewal. At this free program you can learn what forest management strategies are most successful in solving the climate crisis – and why! After registering for this free event, you will receive a reminder email a week and 24 hours before the program. If you are unable to attend, a recording will be made available to registrants.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SbwWofGbSauGMJiGPYBiSw

Thursday July 30, 7pm. What’s the Buzz - The People Plant Pollinator Connection. Do we garden for pollinators effectively?  Dr. Gegear’s talk will fascinate listeners and lead us to a greater understanding about plant and pollinator interactions. This knowledge is the basis for helping threatened bees by reframing how to create better pollinator habitat.  Rob’s Beecology app has informed his research on bumblebees, and we plan to teach participants to use this app later in the summer!  Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88092908307.  OR by phone:  (929) 205-6099   |   Meeting ID: 880 9290 8307


That's all for now everyone. Please remember to listen to your Mother!