LarsonsWorld -- just another persons /dev/null

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management is planning to lease 400 acres of taxpayer-owned land to a dirty coal company for a dirt cheap price -- ripping off taxpayers and fueling climate change just to give the coal industry a big handout.

Colorado residents are already seeing the impacts of climate change locally, with devastating wildfires and record droughts inflicting a heavy toll. The last thing we should be doing is accelerating climate change by basically giving away our publicly owned dirty coal.

In advance of Wednesday's lease sale, let's make sure the Bureau of Land Management knows that Coloradans are strongly opposed to this deeply misguided policy.

Tell Interior Secretary Ken Salazar: Stop expanding coal mining in Colorado and subsidizing climate change.

The Obama administration has proposed new standards that would for the first time ever limit the industrial carbon pollution from power plants that contributes to global warming.
The EPA’s new clean air safeguards will help improve the quality of our air and protect our children’s health, while also helping to spark new innovations in clean energy technologies.
But before the EPA can finalize these new standards, they are accepting comments from the general public.
Will you take a minute to express your strong support for these historic new clean air standards?

Take action here.

Remember, this is really not about saving planet earth but keeping the climate unchanged for us. The earth will be here for a very long time to come. It ain't going nowhere. But, if the climate changes to much, we, the human race, are doomed.

Be sure to check out a developing collection of what I feel are great Earth Day cartoons.

Does Using Paper Take CO2 Out of the Environment? -- Mother Jones

There's a pretty good case to be made that using paper is good for the environment. Trees take in carbon dioxide, breaking it down in photosynthesis to produce energy and releasing oxygen as a waste product. The trees hold on to this carbon, even after they are cut down and made into paper. So long as the tree and products made from the tree haven’t decomposed or been burned (at which point the carbon joins with two oxygen, becoming carbon dioxide again) the carbon stays trapped inside it, serving as a carbon sink.

So let's get this straight: Trees sequester carbon dioxide, and paper is made from trees. So shouldn't you use as much paper as possible to stop climate change?

Find out here

Science education group decides it's time to tackle climate change -- Ars Technica

The National Center for Science Education has been defending the teaching of evolution since before Edwards vs. Aguillard, the 1987 Supreme Court decision that declared the teaching of creationism an unconstitutional promotion of religion. Although its primary focus is on supporting teachers and students by helping them handle public controversies caused by science education, the organization played a critical role in the Dover case, which blocked the teaching of creationism's descendent, intelligent design.

Read on ...

History of water availability in the Rockies shows trouble ahead -- Ars Technica

Communities in the Rocky Mountain region of North America rely on snowmelt to provide water for drinking, sanitation, irrigation, and industry. Snow, which falls in the mountains during the winter, acts like a massive frozen water tower, providing a steady supply of water throughout the drier summer months. Water usage in many cities is growing rapidly, and some are already encountering the limits of water availability. The threat of climate change looms large -- warming temperatures would push the snowline to higher elevations, decreasing the capacity of that frozen water tower.

Two recent papers shed some light on the long-term history of water availability in the region to provide insights into the current situation, as well as a future outlook.

Read on ...