The debate over the aerial killing of wildlife in Alaska rages on with Ashley Judd and Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live last night.
Judd discusses why she so vehemently opposes aerial hunting (and later name-drops Van Jones and the Green Collar Economy) while Schlickeisen responds to Palin’s labeling of Defenders of Wildlife as a “fringe group.”
It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.
The regulations will not go into effect until Obama has had a chance to review their legality. Hopefully, this will undo some of the damage Bush attempted to leave our country with, such as his permitting coal companies to dump waste near rivers and oil companies to drill without reviewing the endangered species act.
The regulatory czar, as the position is generally called, is responsible for every regulatory agency in the country, such as the EPA, and will oversee all administration rules.
Sunstein is best known for his balanced views between government regulations and cost-benefit analysis and for his theory of behavioral economics and he is widely considered to be a great choice for the office. However, a new controversy is arising over his views on animal rights and animal welfare.
Faced with skyrocketing inflation, a tanking economy, and incredible political instability, the government of Zimbabwe is turning to elephant meat in a desperate attempt to feed hungry soldiers.
A senior officer in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces told ZimOnline that Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority struck a deal resulting in the slaughter of elephants to feed soldiers at army barracks across the country. The officer, who remained anonymous, said there were six elephant carcasses delivered to military barracks last week and that the delivery was a welcome relief.
The ZDF has been instrumental in keeping embattled President Robert Mugabe in power, despite his having lost in a general election to the main opposition party of Morgan Tsvangirai in April of 2008. But the economic turmoil in Zimbabwe is putting considerable strain on a government that had little money to effectively govern in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »
Though President Bush remains in office for only two more weeks, he has left a final trail of devastation to cement his legacy in place. From gutting the endangered species act to allowing toxic waste to flow freely, Bush is pushing 11th hour executive orders at a potentially record setting pace.
His list of last minute domestic atrocities is not limited to the environment, but many of his most egregious final offenses are those that spoil sensitive habitat and natural resources. This list is merely a sample of Bush’s midnight regulations, along with what is being done to stop him. Here are George Bush’s top five most disgraceful efforts to ruin our environment once more.
5) Actual pine woods to be replaced with a suburb named “Pine Woods”. Plum Creek Timber, the nation’s largest private landowner, has crafted a back door deal with the Bush administration to allow them to pave over logging roads and develop the previously inaccessible land. Local forest agencies are furious about the back door deal, which is being finalized this week. It might not be too late to stop it, so call 1-800-832-1355 and tell Forest Service director (and former timber industry lobbyist) to stop opening up our forests for development.
The sheep were dressed in blue T-shirts and hats reading “Solidarity” and most had their legs broken. The sheep that were still alive were vomiting blood and had syringes sticking out of their necks, clearly from being drugged.
The rally was being held by a variety of political parties who were joining together in opposition of the current government. While over 100 protesters involved in the rally were arrested, police were late to arrive at the scene of the sheep dumping and no one was apprehended.
If you’re one of the millions of California voters who helped pass Proposition 2 on November 4, chances are pretty good that your Thanksgiving meal will include some sort of free-range, hormone-free dead bird—or, if you fall into the veg camp, maybe a more benign Tofurky or Field Roast. But for illegal poachers like Peter Ciraula of Gilroy, California, odds are good that the celebratory meal will include breast of snow goose, leg of endangered sandhill crane, or perhaps a pot-pie of protected swan.
“[Ciraula] said he was going to eat some of them,” said Department of Fish and Game warden Patrick Foy, ”But when we asked him why he had so many, he never really never offered up a very valid explanation.”
To believe, or not to believe? That is the question of many on the far left and the fringes of the environmental movement. We cannot simply hope that Obama follows through with his promises, we must act to guarantee that he does.
Nothing represents this dichotomy more than the mixed feelings I have about the election of Barack Obama.
I walk a fine line between radical and liberal—between wanting to smash a failed system and fix a broken one. I consider myself an anarchist, yet I proudly voted. And I voted for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, yet I fought back tears of joy as I witnessed Obama give his acceptance speech in person in Grant Park.
Obama has great potential to be the most liberal, open-minded president of the last century. Dare I say, he could be a catalyst for change.
What does this mean for those of us who view species extinction and global climate catastrophe as more than just back-burner issues? This represents an opportunity that the environmental movement has never seen, and we would be foolish to pass it up. So here are four steps to help ensure that Obama keeps his many bold promises to us.
Across the country, cities are passing new laws to allow backyard chickens.
Cities across the country have shown new leniency in the urban chicken arena. Ann Arbor, Michigan, South Portland, Maine and Fort Collins Colorado, have all voted in the past year to allow backyard chickens. They join the growing number of U.S. cities to make legal the raising of poultry in the backyard.
“It’s no longer something kinky or interesting,” said Jac Smit, president of the Urban Agriculture Network. “The ‘chicken underground’ has really spread so widely and has so much support.”
Though some worry that backyard chickens might carry and transmit avian flu, advocates of urban chicken farming claim that farming poultry on a small scale presents less of a risk of disease than large-scale production.
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