Free Republic

[...] the law of unintended consequences, and in the context of the environmental movement, it means that when you go green, green isn't always what you get. [A] major effect of Carson's indictment of pesticide use was a widespread ban on DDT, which amounted to a reprieve for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and led to a higher continued death rate from the disease than otherwise would have occurred. [...] "It's a cliche to say that everything is connected to everything else," says Eric Orts, a legal studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and director of the university's new global...

Humorous comment on Green attitudes in industry, relating to "sustainabilty" movement.

Cold War-era nuclear fears have eased in recent decades, replaced by anxieties over global warming. Lately, in some circles, nuclear power has gained a new reputation as a pollution-free cure-all for a world starved for clean energy. But the nuclear industry hasn't cleaned up its act, according to Helen Caldicott, who spearheaded the nuclear disarmament movement in the 1980s. (Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling nominated Caldicott for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.) Caldicott, a pediatrician by training, has devoted 35 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the health hazards of nuclear power. Not only is atomic...

The man emulated Star Trek's Mr Spock - the Enterprise's science officer who supposedly had green Vulcan blood. In this case, the unusual colour of the 42-year-old's blood was down to the migraine medication he was taking. The man's leg surgery went ahead successfully and his blood returned to normal once he had eased off the drug. Dark green The patient had been taking large doses of sumatriptan - 200 milligrams a day. This had caused a rare condition called sulfhaemoglobinaemia, where sulphur is incorporated into the oxygen-carrying compound haemoglobin in red blood cells. Describing the case in the Lancet,...

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger has staked his administration upon two signature issues: his international leadership to reduce greenhouse gases and his promise to construct new highways, dams, levees, aqueducts and other public works. In April "the green governor" toured the globe to tout his greenhouse-gas bill (AB 32) that requires a 25 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by 2020, making it the most restrictive emissions law in the country. More recently, the governor toured California to tout his public-works renaissance that requires $40 billion in taxpayer-financed bonds, making it the biggest borrowing binge in the country. Individually, these two media events,...

Leaving aside for a moment the deforestation and other land cover changes that continue to accompany an ever-growing human population, the last two decades of the twentieth century were a good time to be a plant on planet Earth. In many parts of the global garden, the climate grew warmer, wetter, and sunnier, and despite a few El Niño-related setbacks, plants flourished for the most part. Numerous small-scale studies over the past twenty years suggested that patches of the garden were getting greener, but that trying to paint a global picture would be a monumental project. A team of eight...

Beginning this Memorial Day weekend, members of the auto industry are rolling out a comprehensive campaign to convince Americans to oppose proposed increases in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, and to pressure their elected officials to vote down such proposals. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) has launched a website (www.drivecongress.com) that encourages citizens to compose messages of protest against “unrealistic fuel economy increases” to be hand-delivered to elected officials. AAM represents BMW, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen. The website allows users to insert statements provided by the AAM, such as “I value fuel...

[excerpt]In New Milford’s elementary and middle schools, kids get grass stains devoid of any chemical residue. "We don’t apply pesticides to our fields," the schools’ facilities manager John Calhoun said Thursday. "The grass grows really well on its own." If, as expected, the state House of Representatives follows the lead of the Senate, New Milford’s lawn care practices — creating green lawns in every sense of the word — will become standard operating procedure in the state. On Wednesday, the Senate voted unanimously to ban the use of lawn-care pesticides and herbicides on the lawns surrounding day-care centers, primary schools,...

NEW YORK, New York, May 16, 2007 (ENS) - Former President Bill Clinton today announced the creation of a $5 billion global effort to fight global warming by retrofitting existing buildings with more energy efficient products, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. A project of the Clinton Climate Initiative, the program brings together four of the world's largest energy service companies, five of the world's largest banks, and 15 of the world's largest cities to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings. President Clinton announced the Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit now underway...

Send in the assmonkeys Behold the latest environmentalist fad: going childless Jonathan Kay, National Post Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Last Tuesday, I wrote a column for this space entitled "At a restaurant near you, the war between Daters and Breeders." It was one of those airy, self-indulgent pieces of cultural commentary that otherwise self-important op-ed pundits publish every few months to "show their human side." (See: I eat in restaurants with my kids --just like you!) My basic point was that restaurant diners shouldn't go hard on parents whose kids emit the odd yelp at dinner time. I...

After Action report: May 13, 2007. New Haven Connecticut. Today, May 13, 2007, members of THE GATHERING OF EAGLES met at the New Haven Green to counter a Mother's Day protest held by a local left-wing group protesting the war on terror and our president. We arrived at about 12 Noon and stayed until the so-called Peace Persons left their area. The GOE had about 8 persons who were notified on short notice to appear, while the left wing group has made it a habit to appear at this location for some time. Their attendance today was about 50 persons....

Betsy Rosenberg is a longtime Bay Area radio journalist who has spent the past few years working to keep her nationally broadcast environmental program on the air. She also has emptied her six-figure retirement fund to do it. Now, if she can't raise enough money by May 18, she may lose her pioneering show on the liberal Air America radio network. ... The network has given Rosenberg an option: pay or no play. ... While Rosenberg finds herself at the confluence of two trends that have received a lot of buzz -- the green movement and progressive radio -- she's...

Green tea can be harmful in large quantities 10:00 05 May 2007 From New Scientist Print Edition. Green tea is good for you, but only if drunk in moderation. While the polyphenols in green tea are credited with preventing heart disease and cancer, it seems they can cause liver and kidney damage if consumed in very large quantities, a review of studies into the toxicity of polyphenols has shown. "People shouldn't be too alarmed by this, but those taking supplements may experience problems," says lead author Chung Yang of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He stresses that up...

Why can May mix pulpit, Parliament? If a Conservative politician had said what she said, the media would have pounced Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Friday, May 04, 2007 "We have a moral obligation to our Lord and Father to ensure we don't destroy the creation that was given to us. Through the power of our Lord and Jesus Christ, we can meet this moral obligation." Who said that, some pro-life zealot railing against abortion? Some Evangelical Christian who fails to recognize the separation of church and state? A Conservative politician with a hidden agenda to enslave us...

Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming. They'll also find the Gaia equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper as it marches toward becoming California's first hotel certified as ``green,'' or benevolent to the environment. Similar features are found 35 miles south at San Francisco's Orchard Garden Hotel, which competes for customers with neighboring luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont. ``I'm not your traditional Birkenstocks...

CAMBRIDGE -- With its cute bunny ears, its whimsical pull-string charger, and its big plastic handle, the lime-green XO laptop doesn't look like a technology that will change education and computing worldwide.One Laptop Per Child unveiled its "$100 laptop."

Fwd 1: From wikipediaThe April 22 Earth Day: Responding to wide spread environmental degradation, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin called for an Environmental Teach- in or Earth Day to be held on *April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated and it is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries. Senator Gaylord Nelson, an environmental activist in the U.S. Senate, took a leading role in organizing the celebration, to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. He modeled it on the highly effective Vietnam War protests of the...

Stephane Dion, meet Kevin Potvin National Post: Editorial Published: Saturday, April 14, 2007 It is hard to know which party has made the bigger blunder in the electoral deal officially announced yesterday between Liberal leader Stephane Dion and Green leader Elizabeth May. Ms. May was elected leader by Green members last year in good faith, and we feel sure not all of them are happy that she has essentially decided to endorse Mr. Dion for prime minister (again), earning for herself an extremely slim chance of unseating Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in Central Nova. The Green Party was...

Green candidate, 9/11 theorist stirs debate By Brian Hutchinson, National Post Published: Friday, April 13, 2007 Kevin Potvin, a federal Green party candidate in Vancouver, has admitted his spirits soared while watching the 9/11 terrorist events unfold on television. "Beautiful!" he describes a little voice inside him saying, when the second twin tower in New York City fell, and thousands died. Then came news that the Pentagon in Washington was hit. More deaths. "I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air," wrote Mr. Potvin in the smudgy pages of the Republic of East Vancouver, a biweekly...

TRIBECA'S GREEN SCREEN Nick Dawson The Tribeca Film Festival today announced that Al Gore will host the fest's opening night gala on April 25, which will also feature seven SOS short films. SOS (Save Our Selves) is the organisation set up by Gore and Kevin Wall (the worldwide executive producer of the Live 8 concerts) to "trigger a mass-scale movement to combat our climate crisis," and which is organizing Live Earth concerts [continue]