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    Good News July 2021

    Summer is here!  Here are some great links & information about what is going on in the world of environmental activism :  Good News!

    The first wolf pack in 80 years – 6 wolf pups are now living in CO with their parents. Colorado voters approved a ballot in 2020 to reintroduce Wolves to CO.


    Celebrate the cancellation of the Byhalia Connection pipeline, which would have carried crude oil over an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million people. Intense community opposition stopped it.  Democracy Now Article 


    Biden saves the Alaska's Tongass Forest . He will stop Trump's selling off the forest. This red and yellow cedar, Western hemlock, and Sitka spruce forest is over 800 years old. It provides homes for bears, eagles, and fish. And it is one of the world's biggest storehouses of carbon, reducing climate change.
    Also, the Tongass Coalition has asked Biden to protect all large trees and mature forests on federal lands.  NYT Article by Coral Davenport on 6-11-21


    Trees cool the Earth by providing shade, lowering air temperature by 10 degrees, bringing up water thru evaporation, storing water, preventing flooding by absorbing floodwater, storing carbon, reducing climate change, reducing the electricity demand, blocking wind, providing food for wildlife, and filtering and cleaning the air.  NYT Article  “Trees Save Lives”


    Wind, Solar, and Battery Storage are cheaper and healthier than oil, coal, and gas.  Electric cars are fun and save a lot of money.  Electricity costs about 1/3 of what gas costs per mile.  So you save about $1000 per year on gas for 15,000 miles per year, plus you save $4600 on maintenance over the life of the car, say $500 per year over 10 years. So you save about $1000 + $500 =$1500 per year- AND you have cleaner air and water and better health as long as we shut down oil, natural gas , and coal and switch to wind, solar , and battery storage.
    Also, you save $2.7 trillion and get 2 million jobs by building more wind, solar, and battery storage. This information is from a Ken Regelson talk on 4-28-21.


    Tony Seba shows that rooftop solar and battery is going to cost less than transmission of electricity from a power plant!  So every house and business will save money by installing rooftop solar and batteries.  Youtube - “Batteries and Solar Win”
    He also shows how electric cars and trucks last 5 times longer and have 1/10th to 1/100th of the maintenance costs and cost 1/10th to operate. So soon electric cars will cost $12,500 and go 200 miles.
    The only barrier is regulatory, which matches with Greenpeace's interview with EXXON's lobbyists, who say EXXON will stop the green infrastructure bills and stop the taxes that would pay for the infrastructure bill.  The EXXON lobbyist talks every week with Joe Manchin's staff and is lobbying with other senators susceptible to pressure which include Senators Manchin, Sinemas, Testers, and Coons.  The EXXON CEO is talking to Coons, a friend of Biden. Later they talk to those up for reelection:  Hassan, Kelly, Rubio, Kennedy, Daines.  Exxon got such large tax cuts under Trump, along with permits to drill all over, and relaxed regulations, etc., that it can spend billions to bribe congress to stop the Green New Deal, green infrastructure, rooftop solar, and battery storage. 
    Democracy Now - Exxon Blocks Climate Action
    Rolling Stone - Exxon Lobbyist Anti Climate Actions

    Rooftop Solar is more resilient and better than more transmission lines controlled by greedy utility companies.   Utility companies want to build transmission lines and get 10.5% profit.  Environmental groups want rooftop solar and battery storage- cheaper, more resilient; not subject to fires,  price manipulation, and monopoly control; smaller, more local.  7-11-21 NYT  "More Power Lines or Rooftop Solar Panels: The Fight Over Energy’s Future"

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/business/energy-environment/biden-climate-transmission-lines.html?searchResultPosition=1

     

    Voting Rights-For the People Act, HR 1, passed the House, but is stuck in the Senate, It protects the right to vote and ends gerrymandering.  Ask your senators to support it.  Also, end the filibuster and support DC statehood.  Please ask them to support the Green New Deal and the Civilian Climate Corps.  Go to Join Democracy Movement  and click on your state and to find out groups working to protect the Vote, such as the league of Women Voters and CommonCause.


    Fight Climate Change by Joining an activist group- find meaning, power, and connection by protesting and acting.
    Take action today by supporting or joining one of these groups: Extinction Rebellion; Fridays for Future USA; Sunrise Movement, and 350.org


    Sanders wants to pass major budget reconciliation bill to help our country.  We need to fix the child care system, pre-K, college debt, physical infrastructure, climate change, the health care crisis, the USA's highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, housing crisis, half the people living paycheck to paycheck, do something to help the working class.
    NY Times - The Ascension of Bernie Sanders


    “Tax the Rich! Also the Very Affluent! But mainly the Rich!” -- Raise money for retrofitting buildings to make them energy efficient, to replace lead pipes, and build new infrastructure. This would only charge more taxes if someone makes more than $400,000 per year and more estate tax only if their estate is more than $11 million - Rolling Stone July 2021

     

     

    Fall In Love with Nature to Save It

    article  similar to Rachel Carson's Sense of Wonder and Cousteau's first love the ocean to protect it, this article says go and support the groups that help indigenous groups protect their land.   To be married to the places and interconnections with them and their denizens.  to be family with them.

    Humanity Must 'Heal  Our Broken Relationship With Nature' to Prevent Future Pandemics

    Humanity Must 'Heal Our Broken Relationship With Nature' to Prevent Future Pandemics

    "We must curb the high risk trade and consumption of wildlife, halt deforestation and land conversion, as well as manage food production sustainably."

     

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/17/top-global-experts-say-humanity-must-heal-our-broken-relationship-nature-prevent

    "If we do not do things differently, we are finished," she said. "We can't go on very much longer like this."-Jane Goodall

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/17/coronavirus-warning-broken-relationship-nature

    Great Group Helps  Africans Plant Trees

    Great Group Helps Africans Plant Trees

    Trees for the Future gives trees to lower income people in Africa to plant .  They also give wheel barrows and shovels.  They give other seeds and seedlings.  The local people get food and income from the crops; the trees store carbon; the land comes back; and many other species of plants and animals return to flourish.   https://trees.org

    deforestation

    Deforestation Stops the "Biotic Pump" that Suck Moist Air in from Oceans

    "Clearing Forests May Transform Local and Global Climate" "The 'biotic pump' theory argues that natural forests act as a “pump” that draws moisture inland. condensation, rather than temperature differential, is a primary driver of weather...." "Here's a snapshot of the concept: The concentration of trees in wooded areas means a high rate of transpiration. This moist air cools as it ascends and the water vapor condenses, producing a partial vacuum. This creates an air pressure gradient, whereby the forest canopy sucks in moist air from the ocean. According to Gorshkov and Makarieva, forests don't merely grow in wet areas, they create and perpetuate the conditions in which they grow. Without forest cover—specifically mature, natural forest to ensure sufficient biomass and resilience—moisture is no longer pulled in, the physicists say. Rain becomes erratic and ultimately stalls."