Month: July 2011

Tim DeChristopher has been sentenced to 24 months in prison, with a 10,000 dollar fine.

Time to re-read Thoreau. The idea of civil disobedience is not that one magically escapes punishment, due to ‘good intentions”.  Thoreau went to prison, and famously asked Emerson why he, too, was not there.
Courts and Judges will do what they do, and breaking the law has consequences. But the purpose here is to shine a light, through the depth of one’s own commitment, on ignorance, injustice, or on violations of a laws higher
than our own.

Associated Press:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A sentencing hearing turned into a rally supporting an environmental activist who has become an antihero after disrupting a government auction of oil and gas leases near two national parks in Utah.

Protesters gathered around the courthouse and dozens were arrested Tuesday as Tim DeChristopher launched into a lengthy address urging others fight climate change by taking similar steps of civil disobedience.

But U.S. District Judge Dee Benson said there was no excuse for the 29-year-old former wilderness guide’s blatant disrespect for the rule of law.

Benson sentenced DeChristopher to two years in prison on Tuesday, making him the first person to be prosecuted for failing to make good on bids at a lease auction of Utah public lands. He ran up bids on 13 parcels totaling more than 22,000 acres near Arches and Canyonlands national parks in 2008.

“You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine,” DeChristopher said. “I’ll continue to confront the system that threatens our future.”

Continue reading ““This is what hope looks like from now on. This is what patriotism looks like. This is what love looks like..””

Professor John Abraham, best known for a crushing online humiliation of His Serene Highness,  Christopher Monckton, has become a bit of a radio star, due to his Minnesota Nice demeanor, coupled with absolutely clear and simple explication of key climate science points.  We can all learn a lesson listening to John tear into right wing talk’s
beloved myths, and making them like it…

It’s official.  I’ve been waiting for the money guys behind the phony “grassroots” anti-wind “windbagger” movement to show themselves, and finally, they have. As Gomer Pyle said, “Serprize, serprize, serprize.”

NJ Spotlight:

A conservative group that spearheaded efforts to lobby the Christie administration to pull out of a regional initiative to curb greenhouse gas emissions is now trying to undercut New Jersey’s efforts to develop offshore wind farms.

Americans for Prosperity retained the Beacon Hill Institute to do a cost-benefit analysis of the state’s plans to develop up to 1,100 megawatts of wind capacity off the coast of southern New Jersey. The study concluded that “the rush to offshore wind power will produce net economic costs, raise electricity prices, and dampen economic activity.”

Sourcewatch:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a group fronting special interests started by oil billionaire David Kochand Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries).

Continue reading “Out in the Open: Koch Brothers Make it Official. We Hate Wind.”

Some of you may have seen ClimateCrocks previous report on this idea.  You can view that video below.
Above, Scott Brusaw presents his idea at a TED conference.

Deseret News:

SAGLE, Idaho — A northern Idaho company that aims to transform U.S. highways into a vast, energy-producing network is getting $750,000 from the federal government for the next phase of its project: a solar parking lot.

Solar Roadways of Sagle announced Wednesday it won a Small Business Innovation Research grant for the project from the Federal Highway Administration.

With the money, company founders Scott and Julie Brusaw aim to create a prototype parking lot for testing, but their real dream is for a road system built of 12-foot-by-12-foot solar panels rather than traditional asphalt.

Continue reading “Is THIS the most Important Invention of the Decade? Solar Roadways Move Forward”

Feeding people. Nourishing Neighborhoods. Creating Community.
Revitalizing inner cities. Mitigating “food deserts”. Making our connection to the planet conscious.

Interest and activity in this is huge in Detroit, Milwaukee, and the Midwest. Below, a taste of urban gardens,
California style

Continue reading “Inner City Agriculture”

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Wendell Barry

Below: 30 Year Old Food Forest

Continue reading “2000 Year Old Food Forest”

Keith Olbermann and Joe Romm have gone there. Did NewsCorp have something to do with the East Anglia Climate Hack?

Keith Olbermann:

The Murdoch Phone-Hacking Scandal may have just metastasized. The so-called “Climate-Gate” controversy — in which e-mails about global warming were stolen from researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia in November, 2009 — now turns out to bear the stamp of Neil Wallis, one of the key figures in Murdoch’s hacking of the phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications of thousands of people.

Continue reading “Romm and Olbermann – Did NewsCorp Hack Climate Scientists?”

Look for a sea change in the way climate denial is handled (everywhere but Fox News…)

Those of us who care about such things have for years been pointing out that, we don’t present “both sides” of the flat earth debate, we don’t put people on TV (usually) who claim to have a perpetual motion machine or a reverse engineered flying saucer in their garage, and we don’t give a whole lot of attention to the people who say HIV does not cause AIDS — yet we’ve seen gross distortion in the amount of air time given to climate skeptics, way out of proportion to their (vanishingly small and getting smaller) representation in the scientific community.

Now, the BBC is getting the message. Can the American media be far behind? (ok, don’t answer that, but at least it’s a ray of hope)

Continue reading “BBC told – Too much Time for Flat Earthers”