Free Republic

The plan articulates that environmentally literate students, upon graduation, will demonstrate proficiency in each of the following areas: * Understand the physical and biological world and our interdependent relationship with it * Understand and apply systems thinking concepts and tools * Understand one’s relationship to the local, regional, national and global community * Investigate options for, plan and create a sustainable future * Understand and achieve personal and civic responsibility Oregon’s Environmental Literacy Plan will be submitted to the Oregon legislature and considered for full adoption by the State Board of Education later this year. To implement the plan, Oregon...

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 28 -- Reviews of the coastal plain and two other study areas within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for possible federal wilderness designation will begin now that initial public comments have been gathered for updating ANWR’s 1988 comprehensive conservation plan, the US Fish and Wildlife Service said on Sept. 27. The three areas comprise almost all of ANWR’s acreage that is not already wilderness, according to FWS’s Region 7 office in Anchorage. The coastal plain is believed to have substantial petroleum resources but is presently off-limits for leasing, development, or any other oil and gas activity. FWS...

Environmental activist Wendy Van Asselt was at the World Resources Institute in 2003 when officials from the Wilderness Society made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. They wanted her to lead a huge project to remove 26 million acres of federal land in the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) from oil and gas production, grazing, timber harvesting, mining for strategic minerals, off-road recreation, and providing rural jobs.

U.S. Education Secretary Vows to Make American Children 'Good Environmental Citizens' "Today, I promise you that under my leadership, the Department of Education will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Thursday, September 23, 2010 By Nicholas Ballasy Education Secretary Arne Duncan looks on as President Barack Obama talks to students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (CNSNews.com) - U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan vowed on Tuesday that his department would work to make American children into...

Several Cabinet officials gathered today to restart the federal government's effort to stop environmental discrimination. The interagency working group on environmental justice, which had not met for a decade, came together at the White House on Wednesday morning to discuss ways to insure that low-income and minority communities don't unfairly bear the brunt of environmental pollution.

BOISE, Idaho — Forty environmental groups told Northwest lawmakers they want a "full project assessment" of oil equipment transports through Idaho and Montana to tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Exxon Mobil has proposed more than 200 oversized shipments weighing up to 300 tons starting this winter from the inland port city of Lewiston along a narrow mountain highway on their way to the Kearl Oil Sands.

The Largest Selection of Liberal-baiting Merchandise on the Net! ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Print Email AmSpecBlog "My tax dollars are being used to crush me" By Chris Horner on 9.7.10 @ 2:15PM No, the Gulf Coast does not have a monopoly on green policies being used to steal your freedom and bankrupt you -- to coin a phrase -- but is only (for now) the latest example. Watch this. As gut-wrenching as this is it is actually a very common tale, or at least the elements are present in every hare-brained consequence I have encountered in two decades of the vague, sweeping...

Backlash over China curb on metal exports China's draconian export curbs on rare earth minerals needed by the rest of the world for frontier technologies is escalating into a serious diplomatic and trade clash with the United States and other leading powers. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Japan's foreign minister Katsuya Okada issued what amounted to a formal protest at top-level meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend, saying the sudden cut-off was "affecting the global production chain". It is the latest sign of rising pressure after angry complaints by companies outside China that rely on this...

The prospect of even a small exploration drilling program near the site of one of the worst U.S. natural disasters in modern memory has environmentalists blowing their tops. As Ascot Resources announced they have begun exploration drilling on the Mt. Margaret property , a former Duval Corp. property located in the St. Helens Mining District of Skamania County in Washington State, Oregon-based environmentalists say even Ascot's small drilling program has no business disturbing the Mount St. Helens National Monument.

Environmental Militant Killed by Police After Discovery Channel SiegeSuspect James Lee Rails in Manifesto Against 'Filthy Human Babies' Associated Press 6:46 PM EDT, September 1, 2010 **SNIP** A lengthy posting which could be seen Wednesday on a website registered to Lee expressed anger against the Discovery Channel and said it promoted overpopulation. He said it and its affiliates should stop "encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants." Instead, he said, the network should air "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility." "NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis," he wrote. He also railed against "programs promoting War"...

Regulators on Friday shut down a big community bank based in Chicago that has been known for its social activism but racked by financial troubles in recent months. It was the 114th U.S. bank to fail this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over ShoreBank, with $2.16 billion in assets and $1.54 billion in deposits. Urban Partnership Bank, a new institution comprised of several big Wall Street banks and a private foundation, agreed to assume ShoreBank's deposits and nearly all its assets... In an unusual move, the FDIC allowed some of ShoreBank's executives to continue running the restructured bank......

Thanks to the oil spill, BP (BP) is No. 1 on most green groups’ bad guys list. Most have also tried to tie the oil giant to the right, using Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and his apology to BP last week as only the most obvious link. But that only tells part of the story. Critics may have called BP’s use of the slogan “Beyond Petroleum” corporate “greenwashing,” but for years BP walked the walk by supporting groups like the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and donating millions to environmental groups. And they never seemed to have a problem

I was walking back to the office one day, not long after The Atlas Society moved to Washington, when a young woman accosted me on a street corner. “Got a minute for the environment?” she asked, thrusting a leaflet in my direction. Welcome to Washington, I thought. In New York, where I used to live, people passing bills on the street were usually selling one of two things: men’s suits or sex. But Washington is a political town. Here we sell causes. I didn’t stop. I didn’t have a minute for her, or for much of anything except getting back...

A fudgelike goo coating Louisiana’s marshes. A thick oil slick stretching across the Gulf of Mexico. A plume of oil miles below the ocean surface. A tragic loss of life. Reverberating economic consequences. Throw in a poll that shows that 53 percent of Americans rate President Barack Obama “poor” or “very poor” in his handling of the Gulf oil spill, and it’s no wonder the President yesterday broke his 308-day self-imposed press conference moratorium in hopes of conveying some semblance of leadership amid an environmental, economic and human catastrophe that has spiraled out of his control.

Political content in this weekend’s new movies at the theater: A Nightmare On Elm Street//Furry Vengeance [leftist greenie alert]//Harry Brown [conservative Dirty Harry alert]//Please Give [leftist anti-consumerism alert]//The Human Centipede [icky horror movie alert] plus some old dvds: Face/Off//The Forgotten//Fast Times at Ridgemont High//Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her//Saved! [anti-Fundamentalist Christian alert]

Tyler James Johnson, a Caltech graduate student who fled the U.S. after authorities identified him as an alleged conspirator in a case involving arson attacks at several San Gabriel Valley car dealerships six years ago, has died. He was 30. According to an obituary posted on the website of the Michigan-based Staffan-Mitchell Funeral Home, Johnson was “killed from a fall due to an avalanche” on Dec. 26 during a solo expedition in the Corsican mountains of France. Johnson became a fugitive after being named as a co-conspirator in the August 2003 firebombing of eight sport-utility vehicles at a West Covina...

Will clear-cutting forests increase global warming? That's a contentious issue as California, which is seeking to slash its carbon footprint, wrestles over rules to manage the state's private forests. The Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group, this week filed lawsuits against the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in seven California counties to halt logging plans for 5,000 acres across the Sierra Nevada and Cascade regions. The group contends that the agency approved the projects without properly analyzing carbon emissions and climate consequences under the California Environmental Quality Act. "Clear-cutting is an abysmal practice that should have...

Billionaire gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman gave away just $125,000 of her charitable foundation's $46 million in assets in its first year of operation — and tax records show the bulk of the money went to a surprising place. The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands — a Caribbean tax haven that's been the subject of political controversy. ... But it's the $100,000 to...

Reporting from El Centro, Calif. - Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that...

Now that the Senate has returned from its August recess, its members have many issues with which to contend. Although health care reform has received much of the attention in recent weeks, another bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) or more widely known as Waxman-Markey or “cap & trade,” is equally deserving of scrutiny. This is because most major economic impact studies demonstrate that the “cap & trade” scheme proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill will create massive consumer costs with undefined environmental benefits. In June, the Waxman-Markey bill narrowly passed the U.S. House 219-212...