Bush pulling another fast one...again.

While we were voting on Election Day this year, Bush was trying to seal the fate of terra firma adjacent to some of our most pristine areas straight down the river.

Luckily NRDC is all over it...go to their site to find out more.

Here's an article from Robert Redford on the issue.

Part of the change Americans just voted for in overwhelming numbers was to move away from the failed energy philosophy of "drill, baby, drill" to a more farsighted strategy, emphasized by Barack Obama, based on clean, renewable energy and efficiency. Yet on the very day that we raised our voices for change, the Bush administration dragged us in the opposite direction.

The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.

As its clock runs out, the Bush administration also is trying to open-up drilling all over the Rockies and Alaska, to green-light oil shale leasing, and to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Though sad, it's no surprise, coming as it does from the same crowd that designed a misguided national energy policy in secret meetings with the oil, gas and coal industries.

The BLM didn't just try to slip the audacious Utah lease maneuver past the American people on an historic election day, it actually hid the ball from its sister agency, the National Park Service, and then rejected the Service's request for more time to review the scheme.

Among the 360,000 acres to be auctioned for industrial development is pristine land near Canyonlands National Park, adjacent to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument. This Christmas gift to the dirty fuel industry includes parts of Desolation Canyon, named in 1869 by the explorer John Wesley Powell, which has been proposed for national park status. In fact, the BLM itself described Desolation Canyon nine years ago as "a place where a visitor can experience true solitude -- where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."

Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan. Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River? The thought makes one wince.

The Obama transition team already has signaled its opposition to the leases, and said that once in office the Obama administration will try to reverse them. Let's hope that's possible. Utah's eastern expanse is one of America's few remaining wilderness treasures. It's our land, it's our legacy, but will it still be here for our children and grandchildren? We made our wishes about that known loudly and clearly on election day.

We voted to take control of our own destiny by breaking our addiction to dirty fuels. We voted to re-power America with clean energy from wind, solar and geothermal power. We voted to use of our greatest resource, American ingenuity, to build economic, energy and climate security, and to preserve our natural heritage. Yes we did. And yes we can.

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Robert Redford, an actor, director and environmental activist, is a Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and is the founder of Sundance, in Utah.

THE LARGER P-PATCH -- The Boreal Forest is Earth's Green Crown

Since lots of subject matter lately has involved oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near the arctic circle, that only drives home the unattractive truth about human encroachment into the once seemingly untouchable reaches of the planet.

It seems the human imprint is being stretched across every square mile of terra firma---and it's only a matter of time before all of it's determined as a resource or to be preserved---essentially either gallowed in the mail as a harvesting project, or protected through our efforts. If governments are going to take count of what resources exist out there, then we need to take the extra measures to be part of the process of helping them determine how we preserve what precious gems we still have---especially if the survival and longevity of the planet, animal species, and OUR species (we're known as homo sapiens, FYI) depends on it.

That being said, I thought I’d bring attention to an article on the Boreal Forest, which stretches across Canada and Russia. My understanding of this expanse of northern woodlands is that it produces much of the oxygen we breath. The series Planet Earth televised earlier this year covered the Boreal Forest and its importance to the planet in a very impressionable documentary. See the article below the map.

In the far-north latitudes, just below the treeless tundra of the polar region, a forest of evergreen trees encircles the earth. This is the boreal forest, and it is the biggest terrestrial ecosystem in the world. It is also largely intact, free of roads and industrial development -- especially in Canada, where more than 1.3 billion pristine acres are found. The global boreal forests are larger than even the Amazon rainforest.

Like the Amazon, the boreal forest is of critical importance to all living things. Its trees and peatlands comprise one of the world's largest "carbon reservoirs"; carbon stored in this way is carbon not released into the atmosphere, where it would trap heat and accelerate global warming. Its wetlands filter millions of gallons of water each day. And as a vast and intact forest ecosystem, it still supports a natural food web, complete with large carnivores like bears, wolves and lynx along with thousands of other species of plants, mammals, birds and insects. The boreal forest is also home to hundreds of First Nations communities, many of which rely on fishing, hunting and trapping for their livelihoods.

Despite its global significance, Canada's boreal forest is in great danger today. Large industries -- timber, mining, oil, gas, and hydropower companies -- are eyeing it for development, and less than 8 percent of the boreal forest is protected from large-scale industrial development. NRDC is partnering with many other environmental groups and with First Nations to forge lasting agreements that will ensure the survival of Canada's boreal forest -- to stay abreast of our work in the boreal, bookmark this page and check back. And to learn when you can take online action to help protect the boreal, subscribe to Earth Action, NRDC's biweekly email alert.

Related Pages
The Boreal Forest: Links
An Interview with Chief John Miswagon of the Pimicikamak Cree
Through the Trees: The Truth Behind Logging in Canada --> America's Gas Tank: The High Cost of Canada's Oil and Gas Export Strategy -- An October 2002 report from NRDC and the Sierra Club of Canada.

One of my points here, now having highlighted an article by these guys for the 3^rd or 4^th time, is that NRDC is an excellent resource for hot button topics as they arise, and they have the best success rate of any environmental organization—however, I believe their strongest suit is their ability to dial their subscribers like myself into taking action through letters to Congress, Senators, the White House, domestic officials, and foreign government officials.

Wherever there’s something being put on the stake to be torched, these guys are the hawk’s eye to get on top of it right away. I wonder if they’re hiring right now… S

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, by Shell Oil, is upon us.

A letter by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the Senior Attorney of the NRDC, just brought this to my attention. Here’s the content of his letter.

Dear NRDC Member,

As you read this, the Shell oil company may have already begun exploratory drilling off the spectacular coastline of the Arctic Nation Wildlife Refuge.

We simply cannot afford to fail – or we’ll be leaving the Arctic Refuge vulnerable to a catastrophic oil spill that could despoil the shores of our greatest wildlife sanctuary for generations to come.

In fact, it would take just one oil spill on the icebound Beaufort Sea that borders the Arctic Refuge to create a long-term toxic waste site – because the oil industry has no proven method for cleaning up oil in icy water!

Last month, NRDC President Frances Beincke and I wrote to alert you that the Bush Administration had already approved Shell’s dangerous plan for drilling in the Beaufort.

And as I write this, Shell’s icebreakers and drilling equipment are likely on the move.

A worst case spill in the Beaufort Sea sends shivers down the spine of anyone who knows the appalling record of toxic spills by Big Oil in the Arctic.

And make no mistake: an oil spill off the coast of the Arctic Refuge is all but assured. The Bush Administration’s own experts have predicted that drilling in the Beaufort will lead to at least one oil spill.

That spill would likely spread into the migratory routes of the endangered bowhead whale… blanket the shores of the Arctic Refuge where polar bears give birth… and impact hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.

The death toll of oil-soaked and poisoned whales, seals, polar bears and shore birds would be unimaginable.

With your help, we can win this case – because the Administration’s approval of Shell’s drilling is a brazen violation of our country’s environmental laws.

All we need is your backing.

So there, the check’s in the mail. I’m sending $30 to help out. If any of you are interested in helping with this cause or other fights for the environment, you can link to the website of the NRDC at NRDC: The Earth's Best Defense.

I’ve said before, as I’ll say again now: future generations many years from now are going to look back at us as if we were completely nuts for blasting through all these oil reserves. Well, they’re right. Many of us are nuts. Those of us who have no sense or desire for conservation, environmental stewardship, sustainability, or to seek a desire to implement auto technology and get away from our addiction to fossil fuels.

I like to think I exist in a different camp. As one prominent environmentalist recently said: “This is not just a scientific issue, this is a moral issue.”

If the tide was turning in a direction of upholding these ideals I hold so dear—the ones I just stated in the previous paragraph—then this blog wouldn’t exist. …but here I am, and I don’t plan on going away anytime soon. S