NRDC Blog

My dear friend Susan forwarded me an invitation to visit the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) Action Fund blog. The blog features "guest bloggers"-- currently, environmental litigator Mitchell Bernard is the man behind the posts. Good stuff! Here's an excerpt from his latest post on "Biostitutes":

A scientist friend of mine taught me a new word: biostitute. A biostitute is a cross between a biologist and a prostitute. Biostitutes are all over the place, and they're dangerous to the environment and human health.

Check it out at http://blog.nrdcactionfund.org/. I'm adding it to the holy blogroll.

they're doing it again.

More potential bad news from DC that will no doubt have impact on the Southern Appalachian region, particularly with regard to coal mining and other sorts of "energy exploration" -- the energy bill passed by the House last month contained a few new provisions tacked on by California Rep. Richard Pombo (R) that would allow energy companies to get around NEPA (1969 National Environmental Policy Act) requirements "in a number of situations." Why? Gotta speed things up, gotta lessen dependence on foreign oil, ya know?

Keep an eye on this one as it goes to the Senate, where it will hopefully die yet again (this is the fifth time that GOP leadership has tried to get Congressional approval for this bloated p.o.s.). However, persistence certainly paid off in the case of the repeal of the Roadless Rule . . .

Grist Magazine has the full article up on their website.

More on the fate of the "Roadless Rule"

Heritage Forests Campaign has more information on Bush's "No Tree Left Behind" Act at http://www.ourforests.org.

Tennessee has, um, i mean HAD, 85,000 acress of roadless land in its national forests. This, of course, is only a fraction of Alaska's 14,779,000, Idaho's 9,322,000, Montana's 6,397,000 . . . you get the picture.

Nevertheless, this promises to have a big impact on the Southern Appalachians, according to the Heritage Forests Campaign:

The national forests of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesee and Virginia are already criss-crossed by more than 12,000 miles of roads and contain 728,487 acres of roadless areas. If the Roadless Area Conservation Rule is reversed by the Bush administration, 553,000 acres or 76 percent of those areas would be placed into management designations that allow road building and/or logging currently not allowed by the rule.

$%#^&@*!!!!

from yahoo news:

"New Rule Opens National Forest to Roads"

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, in one of its biggest decisions on environmental issues, moved Thursday to open up nearly a third of all remote national forest lands to road building, logging and other commercial ventures.

The 58.5 million acres involved, mainly in Alaska and in western states, had been put off limits to development by former President Clinton, eight days before he left office in January 2001.

Glow-in-the-dark pearl necklace?

If you enjoy sucking down the salty goodness of oysters, you may want to make sure they weren't harvested in St. Louis Bay, Mississippi-- unless you're the sort of individual who also enjoys sucking down toxic cocktails composed of dioxin, arsenic, and chromium.

Personally, I prefer beer and oysters that weren't harvested downstream from a DuPont plant. But maybe you're a Taco Bell kind of guy. I don't know.