Tag Archives: environment

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We’re forever curious–are you?

09/30/2010 Nativegrl77

Union of Concerned Scientists - Scientists are curious for life.

Do you remember what early fascinations captured you as a child? Whether it’s inspired by the stars in the sky or a field of flowers, curiosity about the world is the beginning of knowledge—and science.

Scientific curiosity is the key to solving our world’s most crucial environmental, health, and security problems—such as global warming. Yet, those who have a vested interested in denying global warming are trying to kill the public’s curiosity, and thus squelch the truth. And we can’t let that happen.

Support our work to spread the truth—and spread the curiosity.
Become a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists by making a donation today.

Support the Union of Concerned Scientists in our efforts to bring sound science to the public and spread the curiosity and the truth about global warming. Click here to become a member today.

Your donation allows us to be an independent voice for the policy changes and science-based solutions that are so desperately needed to preserve our world—and all of its amazing curiosities.

Forever curious,

Kevin Knobloch
President

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world.

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Not much time left …

09/30/2010 Nativegrl77

Time is running out! Become a member before midnight tonight to help us reach our goal.

You are the difference between victory and defeat. Everything we do here at RAN depends on the support of our members – people like you – and with so much at stake right now, we need your help more than ever.

That’s why we’ve set a goal of 250 new members by midnight tonight – and the deadline is just hours away. We need just 8 people from your city to reach that goal, but time is running out. Will you be one of them?

To RAN, victory is convincing six major banks to limit their funding of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. It’s General Mills stepping forward with a commitment to stop buying unsustainable palm oil that contributes to rainforest destruction. It’s RAN activists, local communities, and you coming together to protect vulnerable rainforests and ecosystems.

None of it, not a single step forward, happens without the support of our members.
Please, click here to make your membership gift.

And defeat? Well, we all know what that looks like. It’s slash and burn logging in Sumatra. It’s polluted waterways and sick communities in Appalachia. It’s an end to a way of life for native villages in rainforests around the world, the loss of irreplaceable ecosystems and biodiversity, and unstoppable climate change.

Without our members, RAN can’t fight back. We need your voice, your activism – and, to be perfectly honest, we need your donations. Members of RAN get campaigners to the troubled frontlines of deforestation, and into corporate boardrooms to turn long-time offenders into responsible rainforest stewards.

That’s the difference you’ll make as a member, the difference between victory and defeat. And the easiest part about it? Being a member costs less than a dime a day. Join us today – we need you.

If you’re already a member of RAN, I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH. We couldn’t do it without you. Truly.

		For the earth,
		Rebecca Tarbotton Executive Director Rainforest Action Network

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Change.org Weekly …Save the Serengeti; Deporting Vietnam Vets; Musicians Boycotting Tobacco

09/28/2010 Nativegrl77

September 20 – September 27

TOP ACTIONS THIS WEEK

Stop the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”

by Center for Reproductive Rights

Sign the Petition »

Help Stop Corporate Polluters

by Alliance for Climate Protection

Sign the Petition »

Constitutional Amendment to end Corporate Personhood

by Joshua Ezekiel

Sign the Petition »

THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG

Save the Serengeti

Plus: Deporting Vietnam Vets • Musicians Boycotting Tobacco • North Carolina’s “Legal Rape” • Children Building Stadiums • “Bumfights” Star Redeemed

There’s a place in the world where global issues like climate change, poverty, threatened indigenous cultures and mass species extinction converge. It’s one of the most recognizable wild places on earth, and it’s in danger of becoming roadkill.

That place is the Serengeti, a World Heritage Site and home to the largest land migration of wildlife in the world.

The people of Tanzania have protected the Serengeti for the role it plays in their culture since the birth of their country. Now their government plans to sever it with a 31-mile, two-lane highway.

For those of us who are used to the six-lane highways stretching thousands of miles across the U.S., one little road might not seem like a big deal. However, this project has been mapped out right across the migration path of over a million wildebeest and other animals.

Wildebeest numbers will plummet if they can’t reach the Mara River in Kenya, impacting the food chain from the top down. Lions and other predators would face a food shortage. Without wildebeest grazing to maintain the grasslands, leading biologists warn that grass fires could destroy the region and turn it into a source of carbon emissions.

Despite the potential for ecological disaster, there has been scant media attention about the planned road. One of the few bright spots is the group Save the Serengeti, which is using Change.org to mobilize thousands of people within Tanzania and across the world to stop the road’s construction.

Join the call for the world community to help Tanzania find a better transportation solution than to build a road directly through one of the world’s natural treasures. Because we won’t have a second chance.

For more news and action from the world of change this week, see the summaries from your favorite causes below:

Deporting Vietnam Vets in IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Valente Valenzuela has lived in the U.S. legally since childhood and received a Bronze Star for bravery in the Vietnam War. His brother, Manuel, also served honorably. Now, under zero tolerance immigration law, the decorated veterans face deportation for crimes from years ago, crimes that most likely resulted from war-related post traumatic stress disorder. Not only will 62-year-old Valente be sent back to a country he left over half a century ago, he’ll lose all veterans benefits and the ability to continue attending PTSD counseling. America cannot so callously turn its back on immigrant veterans who sacrificed for the red, white, and blue. Read more »

Musicians Boycotting Tobacco in HEALTH

The main sponsor of Indonesia’s largest music event, the Java Rockin’land Festival, is one of the country’s leading tobacco companies. The pressure is on for the headlining acts, including The Smashing Pumpkins and Wolfmother, to follow in the footsteps of Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson and refuse to continue their Indonesian tours unless tobacco sponsorship ends. But will they? Read more »

North Carolina’s “Legal Rape” in WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Welcome to North Carolina, where rape is legal! If you consensually begin having sex in the great state of North Carolina, want to stop, and your partner forcibly restrains you to continue having intercourse, even causing injury, well, too bad. Women’s Rights blogger Alex DiBranco reports that due to a 1979 state Supreme Court decision, a woman gives up all control of her body upon penetration and cannot withdraw consent. Recently, a young woman found this out the hard way when her rape case was dropped. Read more »

Children Building Stadiums in END HUMAN TRAFFICKING

In India, child labor is not uncommon. But even in India, child advocates were horrified to learn construction managers have been bribing poor parents to bring their children to dangerous work sites to build stadiums for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. The result? Children as young as three have been seen working in dangerous piles of rubble on a construction project that has already killed at least 45 people, including a two-year-old girl. It’s time to tell the Commonwealth Games Federation that child labor is not sporting. Read more »

“Bumfights” Star Redeemed in END HOMELESSNESS

One of the men featured in the infamous “Bumfights” videos of the early 2000s is clean and sober and filled with regret. Rufus Hannah, a 50-something homeless man, published a memoir this month. He says he can’t forget the day in 2001 that a 17-year-old cameraman paid him in alcohol to beat his friend until the man had a broken ankle and was carried off in an ambulance. How could he? He has “Bum Fight” tattooed across his knuckles. His redemption story is not just uplifting, writes End Homelessness blogger Josie Raymond. At a time when violence against the homeless is increasing, it’s also vital. Read more »

Have a great week. And remember: voter registration deadlines occur in many states at the end of the week – so make sure you’re registered today.

– The Change.org Team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Support Science

09/27/2010 Nativegrl77

Can curiosity save the world?

We believe that curiosity can save the world—but we can’t do it without your help. Support our work to spread the truth—and spread the curiosity—by becoming a member of UCS today.

Climatologist Cameron Wake knows it. So does ecologist David Inouye. In fact, 98 percent of all scientists agree that global warming is a human-caused problem with potentially devastating consequences.

So how is it that so many people are still in the dark? Well, in short, they’ve been misinformed, and sometimes deliberately, by people who would rather protect their own short-term interests than our grandchildren and our environment.

That’s why it’s more important now than ever before that the voices of scientists are heard. Can you make a donation now to help us spread the truth about global warming?

Curiosity is what first inspired scientists like David and Cameron to explore the world around them, and it’s that curiosity that is the key to solving some of our most pressing environmental, health, and security problems.

Yet, by sowing doubt about the reliability of science, global warming deniers seek to kill the very curiosity that could save us and our environment. And we can’t let that happen. Support the Union of Concerned Scientists in our efforts to bring sound science to the public and spread the curiosity and the truth about global warming. Become a member of UCS by making a donation today.

Whether studying bees and wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains or glacial cores in the Himalayans, it’s clear that the world is warming like never before. But by working together to champion truth, curiosity, and science, we can protect our world and all of its precious curiosities.

Sincerely,

Kevin Knobloch
President

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Can Saving bees save the World?

09/24/2010 Nativegrl77

Can curiosity save the world?

Ecologist David Inouye and the Union of Concerned Scientists believe that curiosity can save the world—but we can’t do it without your help. Please support our work to spread the truth—and spread the curiosity—by becoming a member of UCS today.

When a caterpillar grows up, it becomes a beautiful butterfly. When curious kid David Inouye grew up, he became an ecologist. It’s the kind of metamorphosis our world could use more of.

Now, David channels all of his curiosity into the study of bees, butterflies, and wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains. For the past 40 years, David has returned to the same piece of land, tracking its changes. And over time, David has found substantial and disturbing evidence that the world is warming like never before. That kind of curiosity deserves our support.

Yet, it seems like no one’s listening. Corporations that deny global warming for the sake of their own financial interests are taking over the airways, and convincing the public that nothing is wrong. They are killing the curiosity, and thus, squelching the truth.

We need your help to make David’s voice heard. Can you make a donation now to help us spread the truth about global warming?

It’s hard to believe that, with all of the progress science has made possible, people still doubt its truthfulness. But they do. According to a recent study, the wildflower meadows David loves so much will likely be entirely displaced by sagebrush in just 50 years if current rates of warming continue unchecked.

Please support the Union of Concerned Scientists in our efforts to bring sound science to the public and spread the curiosity and the truth about global warming. Your donation allows us to be an independent voice for policy change and to continue developing science-based solutions to crucial environmental, health, and security issues.

Together we can help save the bees and wildflowers and protect all of this planet’s wondrous curiosities.

Sincerely,

Kevin Knobloch
President