Over the next few days, we have an opportunity to help set the direction of US policy on international family planning for years to come. We need your help to pass a permanent repeal of the Global Gag Rule - a policy that undermined family planning programs throughout the developing world.
President Obama overturned the odious policy early in his term, but because of the politically charged nature of the gag rule, the risk remains that a future President could reinstate it just as easily.
By December 18th, Congress has vowed to approve parts of the FY 2010 budget, including the sections outlining rules for funding international family planning. The Senate version of the spending bill contains an amendment offered by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) permanently barring a future President from unilaterally imposing the Global Gag Rule.
We need your help to convince Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to support the inclusion of this language in the final spending bill. A permanent repeal of the Global Gag Rule would have an enormous impact on the lives and health of millions around the world.
I encourage you to again exercise your leadership and support the inclusion of the Lautenberg Amendment barring a future imposition of the Global Gag Rule in the FY 2010 appropriations bill. As you know, the Global Gag Rule is a harmful policy that undermines reproductive health and family planning programs throughout the developing world.
Please take a moment and send an email to Speaker Pelosi letting her know how vitally important it is to pass this legislation and protect access to family planning.
Luis Medellin and his three little sisters—aged 5, 9 and 12-live in the middle of an orange grove in Lindsay, CA-a small farming town in the Central Valley. During the growing season, Luis and his sisters are awakened several times a week by the sickly smell of nighttime pesticide spraying. What follows is worse: searing headaches, nausea, vomiting.
The Medellin family's story is not unique. From apple orchards in Washington to potato fields in Florida, drifting poisonous pesticides plague the people who live nearby-posing a particular risk to the young children of the nation's farm workers, many of whom live in industry housing at the field's edge.
The threat to children is real and these risks must be fully evaluated. In the meantime, EPA must adopt immediate protective buffers. Without these protective buffers, children face the risk of drift exposure to such dangerous pesticides as chlorpyrifos. The short term effects of exposure to this nerve toxin have been likened to a chemically-induced flu.
The short term effects of exposure to chlorpyrifos have been likened to a chemically induced flu: chest tightness, blurred vision, headaches, coughing and wheezing, weakness, nausea and vomiting, coma, seizures, and even death.
That's why it is important to petition the government to set safety standards protecting children who grow up near farms from the harmful effects of pesticide drift-the toxic spray or vapor that travels from treated fields. You can ask officials to immediately adopt no-spray buffer zones around homes, schools, parks and daycare centers for the most dangerous and drift-prone pesticides.
In the past, the EPA has not made this issue a priority-ignoring a law Congress passed that requires the agency to protect children from all exposures to pesticide, including pesticide drift. The agency is already three years overdue in setting safety standards that protect kids from drift.
So this morning I had an e-mail from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and it was about needing to stop tiger farming.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as tiger farming. I'm so naive sometimes, all I can do is shake my head and read on.
Wild tiger numbers have dwindled in recent years to perilously low numbers - there are now less than 4,000 remaining.
Already under threat from habitat and prey loss, wild tigers now face a serious threat to their existence from tiger farming.
In the late 1990's, wealthy businessmen began farming tigers and making tiger bone available for trade. Tiger farming stimulates the market demand for tiger parts. However, not every tiger trader has a farm - many of them illegally hunt wild tigers, and then sell their parts on a thriving black market.
Tiger farms will NOT save the species. Wildlife farms make the problem worse, according to a recent joint study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Vietnam's Forest Protection Department. The study found that commercial wildlife farms actually deplete wild populations and contribute to illegal wildlife trade.
The logic behind such a move is that since tigers breed well in captivity, farming them is an economical solution to satisfying demand whilst alleviating pressure on the wild tiger.
The market the tiger farmers want to exploit is not the traditional medicine market, rather it is the luxury high-end market for tiger bone wine. There is already an issue involving illegally selling tiger bone wine based on some sort of breach in the 1993 Chinese ban to do so.
Just last weekend, a group of thieves killed an endangered tiger in an Indonesian zoo and stole most of its body, zoo officials said, a theft police suspect was motivated by the animal's valuable fur and bones. All the thieves left in the caged area were the animals intestines. This is what is done to tigers when they are easily accessible.
"The very existence of these farms, and the persistent lobbying of the business community is a distraction that deflates and undermines real tiger conservation efforts. We're being asked to believe that those who have already dabbled in illegal trade have a real interest in limiting their market and that the enforcement authorities, which have failed to stop them so far, will be able to regulate a legal trade to prevent the laundering of poached tiger parts." [The Ecologist, July 30, 2009]
In addition, you're demanding far too much from the mama tiger when you keep her confined purely to breed. A successful tigress in the wild may raise a litter of up to four cubs to adulthood every two and half to three years. At a tiger farm in Thailand, a tigress can have at least one litter a year.
With all you have read thus far, don't you agree that farming tigers has far greater risks than not?
The United States, historically a leader on global tiger conservation, has proposed a new international effort to end tiger farming that it hopes to present at the next CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) conference.
I thought asphalt was the ground material with the most give other than dirt, but scientists overseas have been working on cement with some "green" properties; carbon absorber properties to be exact.
Novacem, a fresh new startup company has actually concocted a cement that eats up carbon as it hardens! Novacem's revolutionary technology is based on magnesium silicates rather than limestone (calcium carbonate) as is used in traditional Portland cement.
The company has raised 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) to fund its work, underscoring the growing interest in eco-friendly construction ventures.
Novacem, a spin-out from Imperial College London, is one of a number of young companies tapping new technologies to reduce the cement industry's notoriously large carbon footprint.
Stuart Evans, Chairman of Novacem, said: "We are delighted to welcome our new shareholders. They will help us position the company as a dominant provider of carbon negative cement to the construction industry. We are assembling a world-class team and these funds will help us grow the team, complete an initial pilot plant before the end of 2009 and accelerate development and commercialisation."
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, the most important environmental and energy legislation in our nation's history.
The bill that emerged from the House has the fundamental structure we need to significantly reduce carbon pollution while growing the economy. It puts strong cap on emissions and reorients our energy market to make low-carbon power the goal. It ensures that utility rates will stay affordable and a competitive playing field for U.S. companies.
The sharply debated bill's fate is unclear in the Senate, and Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to ratchet up pressure on the 100-seat chamber.
"My call to every senator, as well as to every American, is this," he said. "We cannot be afraid of the future. And we must not be prisoners of the past. Don't believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth."
Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, issued the following statement in response to a significant new direction in ocean management announced by President Barack Obama today.
"Today the President took a major step forward to protect the nation's ocean resources and environment. It is now widely recognized that the health of the oceans is in decline from a variety of uses and abuses. We have long had the need for a more comprehensive way to manage our ocean resources that takes into account the marine system as a whole, rather than focusing simply on its individual parts. With today's announcement, we finally have the political leadership to make this long-sought goal a reality.
"Six years ago, the Pew Oceans Commission recommended a national ocean policy as critical to maintaining and sustaining America's marine environment. Today, the President has seized the opportunity not just to change the way we manage marine resources, but to transform our society's perspective about the sea from one of simple exploitation to that of careful, science-based stewardship of this critically important economic and environmental resource."
Among its cardinal recommendations, the Pew Oceans Commission called for establishing an enforceable national policy to protect, maintain and restore the health of marine ecosystems. This will not only support economically and culturally valuable fisheries, but also provide countless recreational opportunities for the public and protect critically important ecological services, such as air and water purification.
The Pew Environment Group is the conservation arm of The Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-governmental organization that applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improving public policy, informing the public and stimulating civic life.
Virgin. Turn On. Fuel. Unplug. These are some of the bold environmental statements headlining the T-shirts from A Lot To Say, a new lifestyle brand that celebrates and encourages a strong, collective voice not only to be heard in the written word, but across your chest. "Virgin" here might sound like a statement for sexual purity but instead it's followed up with the fact: Virgin plastic is what most shampoo and conditioner bottles are made from and they add to over 35% of waste in landfills. Not sexy.
With bi-coastal sisters, Alison Stanich Power in New York and Jennifer Stanich-Banmiller in San Francisco as co-CEOs of A Lot To Say, inspiration is never at a loss. "We wanted to do something that would not only inspire us, but would engage others to get involved and stay involved," commented Jennifer from her headquarters in Danville, CA. "We also felt strongly about trying something new, as I'm in communications and marketing and Alison has been the Executive Creative Director for major global advertising agencies for years. We decided to share what we know, hopefully inspiring people to make a difference." The result is A Lot To Say, makers of organic messaging T-shirts, the new media on seriously light-hearted global and environmental communication as well as messaging that speaks to inspiration, politics and civil liberties.
In addition to the statement making attention grabbing headlines by A Lot To Say, the company has sought out manufacturing techniques that are true to their message. The t-shirts fabrics, while soft to the touch, are created from recycled bottles and made in the USA. Power and Banmiller sought out a non-water and non-toxic printing process that is hypoallergenic while being good to the universe. Coloring and printing garments can usually consume up to 250 times its own weight in water. The pollution it causes is re-distributed to the environment and is hazardous and unnecessary. A Lot To Say is utilizing AirDye(R) that uses no water at the point of coloration, requires up to 70% less energy and produces no hazardous by-products. These shirts are the ultimate in sustainability.
A Lot To Say shirts for men and women start from $36 and come in styles such as crew tees, tanks and hoodies. A Lot To Say shirts will be available at select retailers soon, but are available online now at www.alottosay.com.
Just how porous is cement? 
