Mo interviews Dr. Danaher @ GreenFest, Chicago

The San Francisco Department of the Environment is pleased to announce a new addition to their senior staff. Dr. Kevin Danaher is now the Manager of the Outreach and Communications Program. In this role, he will be responsible for communicating the Department’s diverse messaging to the general public, mobilizing grassroots support for our existing environmental programs, and initiating new public education programs to help make San Francisco the greenest city anywhere.

LISTEN below to 1 minute Planet Check Report with Kevin.
PC_GreenEconomy
Dr. Danaher is a founder and Executive Co-Producer of the Green Festivals, the largest sustainability event in the United States. The San Francisco Green Festival happens every November, bringing together more than 350 green economy exhibits, 150 speakers, and more than 30,000 participants. He was also the co-founder of TransFairUSA (1997), the US fair trade certifying agency, now known as FairTradeUSA.

An accomplished public speaker, Dr. Danaher has spoken at universities and community organizations throughout the United States. He conducts workshops on issues ranging from the dynamics of the global economy to how we can accelerate the transition to the green economy.

Since I’m a devout drinker of coconut water, I just had to share my latest discovery. Harmless Harvest is a new company that believes in the triple bottom line. They source their unique coconuts from small, organic agroforestry farms, then use a cutting-edge, heatless, high-pressure process for food safety and extended shelf life in your fridge. Those other coconut waters that sit on the shelf have been heated which in turn, kills the flavor and nutrients. Coconut water has so many health benefits: potassium, electrolytes, magnesium. It’s excellent for hydration and helps settle your stomach. This is the closest you can get to tasting a fresh coconut from the tree. It’s twice as nutritious, uber flavorful and best of all, it’s organic. Look for them at Whole Foods. Learn more at www.harmlessharvest.com.

As a recent must-read New York Times article detailed (“With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Key Climate Protectors”), climate change is contributing to the death of forests worldwide, threatening the future habitability of the planet.

Forests absorb more than 25% of humanity’s CO2 output. As the New York Times put it, “It is an amount so large that trees are effectively absorbing the emissions from all the world’s cars and trucks.”

Large scale forest death from global warming would be catastrophic. Not only would the trees stop absorbing carbon dioxide, but they would also release huge amounts of CO2 (from decay and burning), which would further increase the warming of the planet, creating a dangerous feedback loop.

Conservation is only part of the solution. We must limit the fossil-fuel burning that is altering the planet’s climate.

The House of Representatives voted this week to gut the Clean Air Act.

It passed the so-called TRAIN Act – the mother of all dirty-air bills. It was mainly a party-line vote.

This legislation would overturn 41 years of the Clean Air Act – as well as a unanimous Supreme Court ruling – to change the process for setting national clean air standards for widespread dangerous pollutants such as smog and soot. This is a change that big polluters have been seeking literally for decades. (As a callow young-ish reporter, I watched a similar attempt fail in the early years of the Ronald Reagan administration.)

The bill would also block plans to clean up deadly pollution from coal-burning power plants. This portion of the bill alone would mean tens of thousands of premature death from dirty air.

We can only hope that this vile polluter wish list ends up in the shredder. As you know, the White House has threatened a veto.

A more pressing concern is that all or part of this legislation could be attached to deficit, spending or other “must-pass” legislation.

As you know, some of the sponsors of this bill erroneously claimed yesterday that Clean Air Watch and other health and environmental groups supported this polluter dream. The bill sponsors have also mischaracterized this legislation as a mere “study” — as if it were benign. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a polluter wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Indeed, this has been a bonanza for polluter lobbyists. I am told quite reliably that many of the members had virtually no idea what they were voting on. They were simply following slogans.

To see some examples of the misrepresentations, note that my friend, John Walke, with NRDC outlines some of the other bogus claims made during the debate:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke/correcting_outright_misreprese.html

Register for the Chicago Climate Action Plan’s Green Hall Meeting

Thursday, December 9, 6:30 – 8 pm
Broadway Armory, 5917 N. Broadway

The Chicago Climate Action Plan team will host a Green Hall Meeting from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, December 9, 2010 at the Broadway Armory.This meeting will be the first in a three-part series to introduce the Chicago Climate Action Plan to residents. The remainig Green Hall Meetings will be at the Garfield Park Conservatory on Thursday, January 13, and the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation will be hosting the third Green Hall on Thursday, February 10. Stay tuned for final details on the remaining Green Halls.

The meetings will provide an opportunity for the community to learn about on-going climate action projects, the accomplishments made thus far and our plans for the future and how residents can help. There will be food, fun and prizes for all.

Space is limited, registration is required. Register by email at chicagoclimateaction@cityofchicago.org or by phone at 312.744.9137.

SurfAid Completes First Phase of Emergency Response
Padang 4pm Thursday 11 November 2010

SurfAid today completed the first phase of their Emergency Response for the Mentawai Islands which has concentrated on assessing the immediate needs of the affected communities and distributing food and non-food assistance. They now move into two new phases of Recovery programs which will last until the end of October 2011.

The 7.7M earthquake, which triggered a tsunami that has been recorded as being up to six metres (20 feet) high in some villages, struck 17 days ago at 9.41pm on Monday night 25 October.

The latest report from the Indonesian Government says that 447 people have been killed, 57 are missing, and 173 are seriously injured. More than 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes and are living in temporary shelters, many on the hills above their villages as they fear another tsunami.

Make a difference and help our neighbors across the globe for we are all one. Namaste.
www.surfaidinternational.org.

(photo by Barren Joey)