CAlifornia Women's Agenda
CAlifornia Women's Agenda
Environmental Report - CAll To Action 2005
By Jene L. McCovey, Humboldt County CAWA Environmental Co-chair and Mary Rose
Kaczorowski (Redwood Mary), CAWA Environmental Co-Chair and Co- director of
Women’s Global Green Action Network
See Previous Reports: 1996
Beijing +5, 2000
The Elements˜ Earth, Air, Water and Fire
Our ancestors had deep respect for the earth and the elements. Somehow we have shifted away from this balance with the cycles and rhythms of Mother Earth. As we rapidly degrade our earth, women are called to return the Earth back to balance. With women‚s intuition, fierce compassion and networking skills, women can shift our global community away from short-sighted exploitation. We can turn the tide toward practical, responsible and sensible solutions that bring us back to a way of living that respects and values Mother Earth‚s amazing life support systems, restoring the damage we have done to her and ourselves.
EARTH
Earth-- that which we walk upon as we swirl within this universe. Walk with purpose in a good way as you start the New Year. Here is an issue that needs your direct attention by January 9th, 2006.The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to apply massive amounts of herbicides to public lands in 17 Western states. The BLM claims these pesticides need to be applied to forests, rangelands and aquatic areas in order to reduce the risk of fire and slow the spread of invasive weeds. Under the proposal 932,000 acres would undergo chemical application in 17 western states, including National Monuments and National Conservation areas. An integral part of this proposal involves aerial spraying of toxic herbicides, which increases negative impacts on non-targeted vegetation, wildlife, and people-- including recreationists, tourists, and native peoples. The pesticides that would be used include persistent and mobile chemicals, including known developmental and reproductive toxins.
Are the Redwoods saved?
Headwaters Forest was the last large unprotected ancient redwood ecosystem left in the U.S. when Texas corporate raider Charles Hurwitz took over Pacific Lumber Company, raiding the company's pension plan, selling off its assets, and doubling the logging in the forest so he could pay back his junk bonds debt. What followed was over a decade of lawsuits, court injunctions, protests, tree-sits, arrests, and unprecedented violence in the forest against nonviolent activists bent on saving what little remains of the continent‚s once great old-growth forests.The Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO Since November) is now logging some of the last old-growth trees along 249 acres in the Nanning Creek watershed in Humboldt County The Nanning Creek watershed flows into the Eel River, an important salmon-bearing river and is already listed as „impaired‰ by sediment/siltation under the Clean Water Act. This logging puts other sensitive and threatened species at risk. As part of its habitat conservation plan crafted during the 1999 „Headwaters Forest Deal‰ negotiations, PALCO and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated that the southern population of murrelets would decline for several decades. The Eureka Times Standard reports that researchers at Humboldt State University are finding that murrelets in Redwood National and State Parks are not faring as well as previously thought.
In recent lawsuit appeals to the Ninth Circuit District U.S. Court, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed PALCO to log hundreds of acres of murrelet habitat was unjustified, given the alarming trend toward extinction of the Murrelet on the last vestiges of it‚s Northern Coastal California habitat. The case was dismissed even though the evidence presented in PALCO‚s Timber Harvest Plan 097 HUM was criticized for failing to use Best Available Science.
To find out more about the Nanning Creek logging issues and protests, see:
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pages/page-249
Take Action:
Write Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to stop the California Board of Forestry from caving into Pacific Lumber Company‚s manipulation of Timber Harvest Plan Data. Tell our Governor that the best way to bring back critical habitat, fisheries and working forests would be a combination of set-asides of critical biological habitat, conservation easements and restoration strategies. Purchase of critical habitat in working forests for local employment based on sustaining forests and species should be the highest priority.
To write to the Governor, send letters to
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
To call: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Please also write your California State Representative.
AIR
The air we breathe is common to all. We Californians believe that we have a shared responsibility to our communities and the world to reduce our emissions that cause global warming and pollute our skies. The same cannot be said about automakers. The auto business is opposed to our California Clean Air bill AB 1493, which protects our families by reducing car and truck emissions by 30 percent.
Under AB 1493, authored by state Representative Fran Pavley, the California Air Resources Board sets regulations for car manufactures to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles that emit fewer greenhouse gases and requires California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop carbon dioxide emissions standards for automobiles as of model year 2009. Urge car and truck manufactures to do their fair share and to cooperate with the people of California. Ask them to drop their lawsuit challenging the laws that protect us. Please be pro-active and join the 80% of Californians who supported the limiting of vehicle emissions.
Take Action: Sign and on-line letter to the CEO's of Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda to innovate, not litigate.
http://environmentcalifornia.org/action/clean-air/current
FIRE
The fire of the sun sustains us all. It signals the rebirth of spring's growing cycle. Our sun supplies 99% of the direct energy used to heat our Earth and all the buildings we have constructed. Indirect forms of solar energy include wind, hydro-power from the flow of water and biomass (energy stored in trees and other plants). Passive energy storage systems such as well insulated houses with insulated windows that face the sun saves hundreds of dollars when multiplied across a community.
By using less commercial energy that is obtained from nuclear power or from the Earth‚s non-renewable mineral resources produced by burning of fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, we may be able to prevent the climate from reaching irreversible damage. Direct solar energy can also be captured by active solar energy systems as in roof- mounted solar panels.
When coupled with consumer conservation strategies, harnessing renewable sources of free energy like the sun and wind gives hope for solving California's demand for energy and cuts our reliance on existing polluting power plants and nuclear power that produces huge amounts of highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Affordable solar panels, low maintenance wind mills and building energy efficient apartments and homes equipped with Energy Star appliances can relieve the stress of over taxed electrical grids. Not one solution will fit every region; it will take a mix of actions applied en masse to make a difference. Every action and every step makes a difference.
The earth‚s core is like the sun heating water and rocks beneath the earth‚s crust. Utilizing the geothermal energy of the earth‚s core has been the core strategy of the proposed electric power field development at Medicine Lake geothermal site. Geothermal „mining‰ activities unearth heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. Hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids are used to fracture the geothermal reservoir. Accessing this geothermal energy raises questions of irreparable environmental and cultural damage. The technological safety factors and long-term effects to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen (dormant volcanoes) remains unknown. Despite these risks, corporate speculation overrides the public trust issues that the government is bound by law to protect. Thermal exploitation requires displacement of an ancient breathing vent of the earth's magma core.
We recommend that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management buy back leases it issued more than 15 years ago to stop two companies from building geothermal power plants on this dormant volcano. We recommend that the Medicine Lake Highlands be left intact so that this sacred land can continue to be a source of inspiration and renewal to Native Americans and many others who enjoy the remote and geologically unique area.
Read about the issues at:
http://www.treatycouncil.org/section_21181214.htm
http://web.redding.com/newsarchive/19990429_05.shtml
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/12medicinelake16spring2004status.html 12medicinelake16spring2004status.html
Take Action:
Contact the California Energy Commissioners with the following requests:
? Stop funding geothermal activities at the Medicine Lake Highlands
? Cancel the two conditional awards of nearly $50 million for Fourmile Hill and Telephone Flat
? Implement Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) guidelines that favor projects benefiting minority and low-income population and include language which would exclude funding those projects which have documented Environmental Justice impacts. This would make the Medicine Lake Highlands ineligible for funding.
Commissioner John Geesman
Phone: 916-654-4001
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-31
Sacramento, CA 95814
Commissioner James Boyd
Phone: 916-654-3787
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-34
Sacramento, CA 95814
Link to contact information on CEC Commissioners
http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/commissioners/index.html
WATER
Water is the essence of life˜the life blood of Mother Earth. Clean, free water is not only a necessity but a right. California's rivers, streams and creeks provide drinking water, support our economy, and support ecosystems for plants and animals. Over-allocation, pollution and greed have driven the water wars of California's modern era. For more than a century, federal, state and local governments dammed, dredged, diked and diverted California's waterways to promote growth and prosperity in the arid West. As competition for water intensified, public pressure to protect habitat for endangered species and wildlife led to federal and state mandates.
Real equity is still lacking when it comes to the quality and quantity of water needed for our anadromous fish, the Pacific wild Salmon (chinook, coho, pinks, sockeye, chum, steelhead etc.) who instinctually come home to natal streams to spawn and propagate their species. Diverting more and more water for irrigating crops means managing the fishery resources for extinction.
Who‚s to blame? Industry, agriculture, timber, mining, commercial fishing, land development? It matters little to the fish, whose livelihood necessitates clean water.
To bring the salmon home will mean respecting the importance of our watersheds-- this is everyone's job. If we in California want to have clean water far into the distant future, we will have to start working together.
To keep posted on the issues, see:
http://www.eelriver.org/
http://WWW.FROG.ORG
http://www.klamathrestoration.org
Take Action:
Hand-written letters are the most effective way to help our leaders know that Californians care about our water, and our wildlife. What you can do to help:
Write or call your elected officials on the local, state and federal levels. Let them know that you want to see the salmon return home.
Many factors can be blamed for the salmon‚s decline, including the diversion of water to wasteful water usage practices by corporate agri-business‚s from rivers that support salmon. Ask your representatives to take action to address the dams throughout the state that stand between salmon and their spawning grounds.
Write:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633
Environmental Report CAll To Action 2005
This report is by Jene L. McCovey, Humboldt County CAWA Environmental Co-chair and Mary Rose Kaczorowski (Redwood Mary), CAWA Environmental Co-Chair and Co- director of Women‚s Global Green Action Network
The Elements˜ Earth, Air, Water and Fire
Our ancestors had deep respect for the earth and the elements. Somehow we have shifted away from this balance with the cycles and rhythms of Mother Earth. As we rapidly degrade our earth, women are called to return the Earth back to balance. With women‚s intuition, fierce compassion and networking skills, women can shift our global community away from short-sighted exploitation. We can turn the tide toward practical, responsible and sensible solutions that bring us back to a way of living that respects and values Mother Earth‚s amazing life support systems, restoring the damage we have done to her and ourselves.
EARTH
Earth-- that which we walk upon as we swirl within this universe. Walk with purpose in a good way as you start the New Year. Here is an issue that needs your direct attention by January 9th, 2006.The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to apply massive amounts of herbicides to public lands in 17 Western states. The BLM claims these pesticides need to be applied to forests, rangelands and aquatic areas in order to reduce the risk of fire and slow the spread of invasive weeds. Under the proposal 932,000 acres would undergo chemical application in 17 western states, including National Monuments and National Conservation areas. An integral part of this proposal involves aerial spraying of toxic herbicides, which increases negative impacts on non-targeted vegetation, wildlife, and people-- including recreationists, tourists, and native peoples. The pesticides that would be used include persistent and mobile chemicals, including known developmental and reproductive toxins.
Public comments will be accepted until January 9, 2006. Sign the petition at the link below to support managing vegetation on our public lands with traditional methods that do not require widespread application of toxic chemicals.
How to Take Action:
Petition and more information on this issue is available here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/blm.htm
To provide written comments contact
Brian Amme, Project Manager,
BLM, P.O. Box 12000
Reno, NV 89520-0006
Comments may also be faxed to 775-861-6712, or emailed to vegeis@nv.blm.gov
We encourage you to email this message to interested friends and colleagues.
Are the Redwoods saved?
Headwaters Forest was the last large unprotected ancient redwood ecosystem left in the U.S. when Texas corporate raider Charles Hurwitz took over Pacific Lumber Company, raiding the company‚s pension plan, selling off its assets, and doubling the logging in the forest so he could pay back his junk bonds debt. What followed was over a decade of lawsuits, court injunctions, protests, tree-sits, arrests, and unprecedented violence in the forest against nonviolent activists bent on saving what little remains of the continent‚s once great old-growth forests.The Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO Since November) is now logging some of the last old-growth trees along 249 acres in the Nanning Creek watershed in Humboldt County The Nanning Creek watershed flows into the Eel River, an important salmon-bearing river and is already listed as „impaired‰ by sediment/siltation under the Clean Water Act. This logging puts other sensitive and threatened species at risk. As part of its habitat conservation plan crafted during the 1999 „Headwaters Forest Deal‰ negotiations, PALCO and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated that the southern population of murrelets would decline for several decades. The Eureka Times Standard reports that researchers at Humboldt State University are finding that murrelets in Redwood National and State Parks are not faring as well as previously thought.
In recent lawsuit appeals to the Ninth Circuit District U.S. Court, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed PALCO to log hundreds of acres of murrelet habitat was unjustified, given the alarming trend toward extinction of the Murrelet on the last vestiges of it‚s Northern Coastal California habitat. The case was dismissed even though the evidence presented in PALCO‚s Timber Harvest Plan 097 HUM was criticized for failing to use Best Available Science.
To find out more about the Nanning Creek logging issues and protests, see:
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pages/page-249
Take Action:
Write Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to stop the California Board of Forestry from caving into Pacific Lumber Company‚s manipulation of Timber Harvest Plan Data. Tell our Governor that the best way to bring back critical habitat, fisheries and working forests would be a combination of set-asides of critical biological habitat, conservation easements and restoration strategies. Purchase of critical habitat in working forests for local employment based on sustaining forests and species should be the highest priority.
To write to the Governor, send letters to
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
To call: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Please also write your California State Representative.
AIR
The air we breathe is common to all. We Californians believe that we have a shared responsibility to our communities and the world to reduce our emissions that cause global warming and pollute our skies. The same cannot be said about automakers. The auto business is opposed to our California Clean Air bill AB 1493, which protects our families by reducing car and truck emissions by 30 percent.
Under AB 1493, authored by state Representative Fran Pavley, the California Air Resources Board sets regulations for car manufactures to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles that emit fewer greenhouse gases and requires California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop carbon dioxide emissions standards for automobiles as of model year 2009. Urge car and truck manufactures to do their fair share and to cooperate with the people of California. Ask them to drop their lawsuit challenging the laws that protect us. Please be pro-active and join the 80% of Californians who supported the limiting of vehicle emissions.
Take Action: Sign and on-line letter to the CEO's of Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda to innovate, not litigate.
http://environmentcalifornia.org/action/clean-air/current
FIRE
The fire of the sun sustains us all. It signals the rebirth of spring's growing cycle. Our sun supplies 99% of the direct energy used to heat our Earth and all the buildings we have constructed. Indirect forms of solar energy include wind, hydro-power from the flow of water and biomass (energy stored in trees and other plants). Passive energy storage systems such as well insulated houses with insulated windows that face the sun saves hundreds of dollars when multiplied across a community.
By using less commercial energy that is obtained from nuclear power or from the Earth‚s non-renewable mineral resources produced by burning of fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, we may be able to prevent the climate from reaching irreversible damage. Direct solar energy can also be captured by active solar energy systems as in roof- mounted solar panels.
When coupled with consumer conservation strategies, harnessing renewable sources of free energy like the sun and wind gives hope for solving California's demand for energy and cuts our reliance on existing polluting power plants and nuclear power that produces huge amounts of highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Affordable solar panels, low maintenance wind mills and building energy efficient apartments and homes equipped with Energy Star appliances can relieve the stress of over taxed electrical grids. Not one solution will fit every region; it will take a mix of actions applied en masse to make a difference. Every action and every step makes a difference.
The earth‚s core is like the sun heating water and rocks beneath the earth‚s crust. Utilizing the geothermal energy of the earth‚s core has been the core strategy of the proposed electric power field development at Medicine Lake geothermal site. Geothermal „mining‰ activities unearth heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. Hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids are used to fracture the geothermal reservoir. Accessing this geothermal energy raises questions of irreparable environmental and cultural damage. The technological safety factors and long-term effects to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen (dormant volcanoes) remains unknown. Despite these risks, corporate speculation overrides the public trust issues that the government is bound by law to protect. Thermal exploitation requires displacement of an ancient breathing vent of the earth's magma core.
We recommend that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management buy back leases it issued more than 15 years ago to stop two companies from building geothermal power plants on this dormant volcano. We recommend that the Medicine Lake Highlands be left intact so that this sacred land can continue to be a source of inspiration and renewal to Native Americans and many others who enjoy the remote and geologically unique area.
Read about the issues at:
http://www.treatycouncil.org/section_21181214.htm
http://web.redding.com/newsarchive/19990429_05.shtml
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/12medicinelake16spring2004status.html 12medicinelake16spring2004status.html
Take Action:
Contact the California Energy Commissioners with the following requests:
? Stop funding geothermal activities at the Medicine Lake Highlands
? Cancel the two conditional awards of nearly $50 million for Fourmile Hill and Telephone Flat
? Implement Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) guidelines that favor projects benefiting minority and low-income population and include language which would exclude funding those projects which have documented Environmental Justice impacts. This would make the Medicine Lake Highlands ineligible for funding.
Commissioner John Geesman
Phone: 916-654-4001
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-31
Sacramento, CA 95814
Commissioner James Boyd
Phone: 916-654-3787
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-34
Sacramento, CA 95814
Link to contact information on CEC Commissioners
http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/commissioners/index.html
WATER
Water is the essence of life˜the life blood of Mother Earth. Clean, free water is not only a necessity but a right. California's rivers, streams and creeks provide drinking water, support our economy, and support ecosystems for plants and animals. Over-allocation, pollution and greed have driven the water wars of California's modern era. For more than a century, federal, state and local governments dammed, dredged, diked and diverted California's waterways to promote growth and prosperity in the arid West. As competition for water intensified, public pressure to protect habitat for endangered species and wildlife led to federal and state mandates.
Real equity is still lacking when it comes to the quality and quantity of water needed for our anadromous fish, the Pacific wild Salmon (chinook, coho, pinks, sockeye, chum, steelhead etc.) who instinctually come home to natal streams to spawn and propagate their species. Diverting more and more water for irrigating crops means managing the fishery resources for extinction.
Who‚s to blame? Industry, agriculture, timber, mining, commercial fishing, land development? It matters little to the fish, whose livelihood necessitates clean water.
To bring the salmon home will mean respecting the importance of our watersheds-- this is everyone's job. If we in California want to have clean water far into the distant future, we will have to start working together.
To keep posted on the issues, see:
http://www.eelriver.org/
http://WWW.FROG.ORG
http://www.klamathrestoration.org
Take Action:
Hand-written letters are the most effective way to help our leaders know that Californians care about our water, and our wildlife. What you can do to help:
Write or call your elected officials on the local, state and federal levels. Let them know that you want to see the salmon return home.
Many factors can be blamed for the salmon‚s decline, including the diversion of water to wasteful water usage practices by corporate agri-business‚s from rivers that support salmon. Ask your representatives to take action to address the dams throughout the state that stand between salmon and their spawning grounds.
Write:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633
Environmental Report CAll To Action 2005
This report is by Jene L. McCovey, Humboldt County CAWA Environmental Co-chair and Mary Rose Kaczorowski (Redwood Mary), CAWA Environmental Co-Chair and Co- director of Women‚s Global Green Action Network
The Elements˜ Earth, Air, Water and Fire
Our ancestors had deep respect for the earth and the elements. Somehow we have shifted away from this balance with the cycles and rhythms of Mother Earth. As we rapidly degrade our earth, women are called to return the Earth back to balance. With women‚s intuition, fierce compassion and networking skills, women can shift our global community away from short-sighted exploitation. We can turn the tide toward practical, responsible and sensible solutions that bring us back to a way of living that respects and values Mother Earth‚s amazing life support systems, restoring the damage we have done to her and ourselves.
EARTH
Earth-- that which we walk upon as we swirl within this universe. Walk with purpose in a good way as you start the New Year. Here is an issue that needs your direct attention by January 9th, 2006.The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to apply massive amounts of herbicides to public lands in 17 Western states. The BLM claims these pesticides need to be applied to forests, rangelands and aquatic areas in order to reduce the risk of fire and slow the spread of invasive weeds. Under the proposal 932,000 acres would undergo chemical application in 17 western states, including National Monuments and National Conservation areas. An integral part of this proposal involves aerial spraying of toxic herbicides, which increases negative impacts on non-targeted vegetation, wildlife, and people-- including recreationists, tourists, and native peoples. The pesticides that would be used include persistent and mobile chemicals, including known developmental and reproductive toxins.
Public comments will be accepted until January 9, 2006. Sign the petition at the link below to support managing vegetation on our public lands with traditional methods that do not require widespread application of toxic chemicals.
How to Take Action:
Petition and more information on this issue is available here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/blm.htm
To provide written comments contact
Brian Amme, Project Manager,
BLM, P.O. Box 12000
Reno, NV 89520-0006
Comments may also be faxed to 775-861-6712, or emailed to vegeis@nv.blm.gov
We encourage you to email this message to interested friends and colleagues.
Are the Redwoods saved?
Headwaters Forest was the last large unprotected ancient redwood ecosystem left in the U.S. when Texas corporate raider Charles Hurwitz took over Pacific Lumber Company, raiding the company‚s pension plan, selling off its assets, and doubling the logging in the forest so he could pay back his junk bonds debt. What followed was over a decade of lawsuits, court injunctions, protests, tree-sits, arrests, and unprecedented violence in the forest against nonviolent activists bent on saving what little remains of the continent‚s once great old-growth forests.The Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO Since November) is now logging some of the last old-growth trees along 249 acres in the Nanning Creek watershed in Humboldt County The Nanning Creek watershed flows into the Eel River, an important salmon-bearing river and is already listed as „impaired‰ by sediment/siltation under the Clean Water Act. This logging puts other sensitive and threatened species at risk. As part of its habitat conservation plan crafted during the 1999 „Headwaters Forest Deal‰ negotiations, PALCO and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated that the southern population of murrelets would decline for several decades. The Eureka Times Standard reports that researchers at Humboldt State University are finding that murrelets in Redwood National and State Parks are not faring as well as previously thought.
In recent lawsuit appeals to the Ninth Circuit District U.S. Court, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed PALCO to log hundreds of acres of murrelet habitat was unjustified, given the alarming trend toward extinction of the Murrelet on the last vestiges of it‚s Northern Coastal California habitat. The case was dismissed even though the evidence presented in PALCO‚s Timber Harvest Plan 097 HUM was criticized for failing to use Best Available Science.
To find out more about the Nanning Creek logging issues and protests, see:
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pages/page-249
Take Action:
Write Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to stop the California Board of Forestry from caving into Pacific Lumber Company‚s manipulation of Timber Harvest Plan Data. Tell our Governor that the best way to bring back critical habitat, fisheries and working forests would be a combination of set-asides of critical biological habitat, conservation easements and restoration strategies. Purchase of critical habitat in working forests for local employment based on sustaining forests and species should be the highest priority.
To write to the Governor, send letters to
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
To call: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Please also write your California State Representative.
AIR
The air we breathe is common to all. We Californians believe that we have a shared responsibility to our communities and the world to reduce our emissions that cause global warming and pollute our skies. The same cannot be said about automakers. The auto business is opposed to our California Clean Air bill AB 1493, which protects our families by reducing car and truck emissions by 30 percent.
Under AB 1493, authored by state Representative Fran Pavley, the California Air Resources Board sets regulations for car manufactures to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles that emit fewer greenhouse gases and requires California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop carbon dioxide emissions standards for automobiles as of model year 2009. Urge car and truck manufactures to do their fair share and to cooperate with the people of California. Ask them to drop their lawsuit challenging the laws that protect us. Please be pro-active and join the 80% of Californians who supported the limiting of vehicle emissions.
Take Action: Sign and on-line letter to the CEO's of Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda to innovate, not litigate.
http://environmentcalifornia.org/action/clean-air/current
FIRE
The fire of the sun sustains us all. It signals the rebirth of spring's growing cycle. Our sun supplies 99% of the direct energy used to heat our Earth and all the buildings we have constructed. Indirect forms of solar energy include wind, hydro-power from the flow of water and biomass (energy stored in trees and other plants). Passive energy storage systems such as well insulated houses with insulated windows that face the sun saves hundreds of dollars when multiplied across a community.
By using less commercial energy that is obtained from nuclear power or from the Earth‚s non-renewable mineral resources produced by burning of fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, we may be able to prevent the climate from reaching irreversible damage. Direct solar energy can also be captured by active solar energy systems as in roof- mounted solar panels.
When coupled with consumer conservation strategies, harnessing renewable sources of free energy like the sun and wind gives hope for solving California's demand for energy and cuts our reliance on existing polluting power plants and nuclear power that produces huge amounts of highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Affordable solar panels, low maintenance wind mills and building energy efficient apartments and homes equipped with Energy Star appliances can relieve the stress of over taxed electrical grids. Not one solution will fit every region; it will take a mix of actions applied en masse to make a difference. Every action and every step makes a difference.
The earth's core is like the sun heating water and rocks beneath the earth‚s crust. Utilizing the geothermal energy of the earth‚s core has been the core strategy of the proposed electric power field development at Medicine Lake geothermal site. Geothermal „mining‰ activities unearth heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. Hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids are used to fracture the geothermal reservoir. Accessing this geothermal energy raises questions of irreparable environmental and cultural damage. The technological safety factors and long-term effects to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen (dormant volcanoes) remains unknown. Despite these risks, corporate speculation overrides the public trust issues that the government is bound by law to protect. Thermal exploitation requires displacement of an ancient breathing vent of the earth's magma core.
We recommend that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management buy back leases it issued more than 15 years ago to stop two companies from building geothermal power plants on this dormant volcano. We recommend that the Medicine Lake Highlands be left intact so that this sacred land can continue to be a source of inspiration and renewal to Native Americans and many others who enjoy the remote and geologically unique area.
Read about the issues at:
http://www.treatycouncil.org/section_21181214.htm
http://web.redding.com/newsarchive/19990429_05.shtml
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/12medicinelake16spring2004status.html 12medicinelake16spring2004status.html
Take Action:
Contact the California Energy Commissioners with the following requests:
? Stop funding geothermal activities at the Medicine Lake Highlands
? Cancel the two conditional awards of nearly $50 million for Fourmile Hill and Telephone Flat
? Implement Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) guidelines that favor projects benefiting minority and low-income population and include language which would exclude funding those projects which have documented Environmental Justice impacts. This would make the Medicine Lake Highlands ineligible for funding.
Commissioner John Geesman
Phone: 916-654-4001
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-31
Sacramento, CA 95814
Commissioner James Boyd
Phone: 916-654-3787
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-34
Sacramento, CA 95814
Link to contact information on CEC Commissioners
http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/commissioners/index.html
WATER
Water is the essence of life˜the life blood of Mother Earth. Clean, free water is not only a necessity but a right. California's rivers, streams and creeks provide drinking water, support our economy, and support ecosystems for plants and animals. Over-allocation, pollution and greed have driven the water wars of California's modern era. For more than a century, federal, state and local governments dammed, dredged, diked and diverted California's waterways to promote growth and prosperity in the arid West. As competition for water intensified, public pressure to protect habitat for endangered species and wildlife led to federal and state mandates.
Real equity is still lacking when it comes to the quality and quantity of water needed for our anadromous fish, the Pacific wild Salmon (chinook, coho, pinks, sockeye, chum, steelhead etc.) who instinctually come home to natal streams to spawn and propagate their species. Diverting more and more water for irrigating crops means managing the fishery resources for extinction.
Who‚s to blame? Industry, agriculture, timber, mining, commercial fishing, land development? It matters little to the fish, whose livelihood necessitates clean water.
To bring the salmon home will mean respecting the importance of our watersheds-- this is everyone's job. If we in California want to have clean water far into the distant future, we will have to start working together.
To keep posted on the issues, see:
http://www.eelriver.org/
http://WWW.FROG.ORG
http://www.klamathrestoration.org
Take Action:
Hand-written letters are the most effective way to help our leaders know that Californians care about our water, and our wildlife. What you can do to help:
Write or call your elected officials on the local, state and federal levels. Let them know that you want to see the salmon return home.
Many factors can be blamed for the salmon‚s decline, including the diversion of water to wasteful water usage practices by corporate agri-business's from rivers that support salmon. Ask your representatives to take action to address the dams throughout the state that stand between salmon and their spawning grounds.
Write:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633
Environmental Report CAll To Action 2005
This report is by Jene L. McCovey, Humboldt County CAWA Environmental Co-chair and Mary Rose Kaczorowski (Redwood Mary), CAWA Environmental Co-Chair and Co- director of Women‚s Global Green Action Network
The Elements˜ Earth, Air, Water and Fire
Our ancestors had deep respect for the earth and the elements. Somehow we have shifted away from this balance with the cycles and rhythms of Mother Earth. As we rapidly degrade our earth, women are called to return the Earth back to balance. With women‚s intuition, fierce compassion and networking skills, women can shift our global community away from short-sighted exploitation. We can turn the tide toward practical, responsible and sensible solutions that bring us back to a way of living that respects and values Mother Earth‚s amazing life support systems, restoring the damage we have done to her and ourselves.
EARTH
Earth-- that which we walk upon as we swirl within this universe. Walk with purpose in a good way as you start the New Year. Here is an issue that needs your direct attention by January 9th, 2006.The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed to apply massive amounts of herbicides to public lands in 17 Western states. The BLM claims these pesticides need to be applied to forests, rangelands and aquatic areas in order to reduce the risk of fire and slow the spread of invasive weeds. Under the proposal 932,000 acres would undergo chemical application in 17 western states, including National Monuments and National Conservation areas. An integral part of this proposal involves aerial spraying of toxic herbicides, which increases negative impacts on non-targeted vegetation, wildlife, and people-- including recreationists, tourists, and native peoples. The pesticides that would be used include persistent and mobile chemicals, including known developmental and reproductive toxins.
Public comments will be accepted until January 9, 2006. Sign the petition at the link below to support managing vegetation on our public lands with traditional methods that do not require widespread application of toxic chemicals.
How to Take Action:
Petition and more information on this issue is available here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/blm.htm
To provide written comments contact
Brian Amme, Project Manager,
BLM, P.O. Box 12000
Reno, NV 89520-0006
Comments may also be faxed to 775-861-6712, or emailed to vegeis@nv.blm.gov
We encourage you to email this message to interested friends and colleagues.
Are the Redwoods saved?
Headwaters Forest was the last large unprotected ancient redwood ecosystem left in the U.S. when Texas corporate raider Charles Hurwitz took over Pacific Lumber Company, raiding the company‚s pension plan, selling off its assets, and doubling the logging in the forest so he could pay back his junk bonds debt. What followed was over a decade of lawsuits, court injunctions, protests, tree-sits, arrests, and unprecedented violence in the forest against nonviolent activists bent on saving what little remains of the continent‚s once great old-growth forests.The Pacific Lumber Company (PALCO Since November) is now logging some of the last old-growth trees along 249 acres in the Nanning Creek watershed in Humboldt County The Nanning Creek watershed flows into the Eel River, an important salmon-bearing river and is already listed as „impaired‰ by sediment/siltation under the Clean Water Act. This logging puts other sensitive and threatened species at risk. As part of its habitat conservation plan crafted during the 1999 „Headwaters Forest Deal‰ negotiations, PALCO and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated that the southern population of murrelets would decline for several decades. The Eureka Times Standard reports that researchers at Humboldt State University are finding that murrelets in Redwood National and State Parks are not faring as well as previously thought.
In recent lawsuit appeals to the Ninth Circuit District U.S. Court, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) claimed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed PALCO to log hundreds of acres of murrelet habitat was unjustified, given the alarming trend toward extinction of the Murrelet on the last vestiges of it‚s Northern Coastal California habitat. The case was dismissed even though the evidence presented in PALCO‚s Timber Harvest Plan 097 HUM was criticized for failing to use Best Available Science.
To find out more about the Nanning Creek logging issues and protests, see:
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pages/page-249
Take Action:
Write Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to stop the California Board of Forestry from caving into Pacific Lumber Company‚s manipulation of Timber Harvest Plan Data. Tell our Governor that the best way to bring back critical habitat, fisheries and working forests would be a combination of set-asides of critical biological habitat, conservation easements and restoration strategies. Purchase of critical habitat in working forests for local employment based on sustaining forests and species should be the highest priority.
To write to the Governor, send letters to
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
To call: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
Please also write your California State Representative.
AIR
The air we breathe is common to all. We Californians believe that we have a shared responsibility to our communities and the world to reduce our emissions that cause global warming and pollute our skies. The same cannot be said about automakers. The auto business is opposed to our California Clean Air bill AB 1493, which protects our families by reducing car and truck emissions by 30 percent.
Under AB 1493, authored by state Representative Fran Pavley, the California Air Resources Board sets regulations for car manufactures to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles that emit fewer greenhouse gases and requires California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop carbon dioxide emissions standards for automobiles as of model year 2009. Urge car and truck manufactures to do their fair share and to cooperate with the people of California. Ask them to drop their lawsuit challenging the laws that protect us. Please be pro-active and join the 80% of Californians who supported the limiting of vehicle emissions.
Take Action: Sign and on-line letter to the CEO's of Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda to innovate, not litigate.
http://environmentcalifornia.org/action/clean-air/current
FIRE
The fire of the sun sustains us all. It signals the rebirth of spring's growing cycle. Our sun supplies 99% of the direct energy used to heat our Earth and all the buildings we have constructed. Indirect forms of solar energy include wind, hydro-power from the flow of water and biomass (energy stored in trees and other plants). Passive energy storage systems such as well insulated houses with insulated windows that face the sun saves hundreds of dollars when multiplied across a community.
By using less commercial energy that is obtained from nuclear power or from the Earth‚s non-renewable mineral resources produced by burning of fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, we may be able to prevent the climate from reaching irreversible damage. Direct solar energy can also be captured by active solar energy systems as in roof- mounted solar panels.
When coupled with consumer conservation strategies, harnessing renewable sources of free energy like the sun and wind gives hope for solving California's demand for energy and cuts our reliance on existing polluting power plants and nuclear power that produces huge amounts of highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years. Affordable solar panels, low maintenance wind mills and building energy efficient apartments and homes equipped with Energy Star appliances can relieve the stress of over taxed electrical grids. Not one solution will fit every region; it will take a mix of actions applied en masse to make a difference. Every action and every step makes a difference.
The earth‚s core is like the sun heating water and rocks beneath the earth‚s crust. Utilizing the geothermal energy of the earth‚s core has been the core strategy of the proposed electric power field development at Medicine Lake geothermal site. Geothermal „mining‰ activities unearth heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury. Hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids are used to fracture the geothermal reservoir. Accessing this geothermal energy raises questions of irreparable environmental and cultural damage. The technological safety factors and long-term effects to Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen (dormant volcanoes) remains unknown. Despite these risks, corporate speculation overrides the public trust issues that the government is bound by law to protect. Thermal exploitation requires displacement of an ancient breathing vent of the earth's magma core.
We recommend that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management buy back leases it issued more than 15 years ago to stop two companies from building geothermal power plants on this dormant volcano. We recommend that the Medicine Lake Highlands be left intact so that this sacred land can continue to be a source of inspiration and renewal to Native Americans and many others who enjoy the remote and geologically unique area.
Read about the issues at:
http://www.treatycouncil.org/section_21181214.htm
http://web.redding.com/newsarchive/19990429_05.shtml
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/12medicinelake16spring2004status.html 12medicinelake16spring2004status.html
Take Action:
Contact the California Energy Commissioners with the following requests:
? Stop funding geothermal activities at the Medicine Lake Highlands
? Cancel the two conditional awards of nearly $50 million for Fourmile Hill and Telephone Flat
? Implement Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) guidelines that favor projects benefiting minority and low-income population and include language which would exclude funding those projects which have documented Environmental Justice impacts. This would make the Medicine Lake Highlands ineligible for funding.
Commissioner John Geesman
Phone: 916-654-4001
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-31
Sacramento, CA 95814
Commissioner James Boyd
Phone: 916-654-3787
FAX: 916-654-4420
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-34
Sacramento, CA 95814
Link to contact information on CEC Commissioners
http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/commissioners/index.html
WATER
Water is the essence of life˜the life blood of Mother Earth. Clean, free water is not only a necessity but a right. California's rivers, streams and creeks provide drinking water, support our economy, and support ecosystems for plants and animals. Over-allocation, pollution and greed have driven the water wars of California's modern era. For more than a century, federal, state and local governments dammed, dredged, diked and diverted California's waterways to promote growth and prosperity in the arid West. As competition for water intensified, public pressure to protect habitat for endangered species and wildlife led to federal and state mandates.
Real equity is still lacking when it comes to the quality and quantity of water needed for our anadromous fish, the Pacific wild Salmon (chinook, coho, pinks, sockeye, chum, steelhead etc.) who instinctually come home to natal streams to spawn and propagate their species. Diverting more and more water for irrigating crops means managing the fishery resources for extinction.
Who‚s to blame? Industry, agriculture, timber, mining, commercial fishing, land development? It matters little to the fish, whose livelihood necessitates clean water.
To bring the salmon home will mean respecting the importance of our watersheds-- this is everyone's job. If we in California want to have clean water far into the distant future, we will have to start working together.
To keep posted on the issues, see:
http://www.eelriver.org/
http://WWW.FROG.ORG
http://www.klamathrestoration.org
Take Action:
Hand-written letters are the most effective way to help our leaders know that Californians care about our water, and our wildlife. What you can do to help:
Write or call your elected officials on the local, state and federal levels. Let them know that you want to see the salmon return home.
Many factors can be blamed for the salmon‚s decline, including the diversion of water to wasteful water usage practices by corporate agri-business‚s from rivers that support salmon. Ask your representatives to take action to address the dams throughout the state that stand between salmon and their spawning grounds.
Write:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov
Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633
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Last edited on January 23, 2006