On January 20th the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment that would dismantle the Clean Air Act as a tool for tackling global warming. Urge your senators to oppose the Murkowski amendment, and remind your senators that we depend on the Clean Air Act to protect our health and environment.

The Clean Air Act has effectively regulated some of the most dangerous pollutants for the past 40 years. This amendment would put public health at risk and jeopardize long-overdue action to hold the biggest polluters accountable, reduce America’s oil dependence and jump-start a vibrant clean energy economy.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Clean Air Act is a tool for tackling the pollution that causes global warming, and President Obama has begun acting — with clean car standards and clean-up requirements for power plants and factories — to protect our health and our climate.

A vote for the Murkowski amendment is a step backward for public health, for protecting our planet, and for our children’s future. It would put our communities at risk, undermine the new clean energy economy and overrule sound scientific decisions.

Instead of standing in the way of progress, Congress should move this year to enact the energy and climate legislation the country needs to build a clean energy economy, create jobs and protect the environment.

Please visit NRDC’s Action Fund today, for more information on how you can do your part to prevent this disasterous attempt to weaken the Clean Air Act. Time is running out, and we need to act Now!

Tell your senators to vote NO on Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act!

Note – This Action is for US Residents only! Do not act if you do not have a US Address.

Mitaku ye oyasin (All my relations)… I would like to pass along a very important message, from a sister who walks the Lakota path as I do, concerning our Sacred Earth. Prayers are needed, as well as action from those who know what to do, to help save the land from unnecessary desecration. Please look into your hearts and find the time to send out a message to preserve our lands… Pilama ye for your time in this urgent matter.

“Good Morning,

Carolyn Gray”

EarthWorks takes Action

Rio Tinto and BHP – Billiton have created a subsidiary that is proposing to mine a rich copper vein more than 7,000 feet below sea level east of Superior, Arizona. As a first step, Rio Tinto is currently shopping around a land exchange bill that would end an executive order banning mining from Oak Flat Campground and privitize more that 3,000 acres of public land.

Concerned citizens are worried about the loss of Oak Flat Campground, a very popular recreation area. Birders, climbers, campers, canyoneers, bikers, and hikers enjoy the area throughout the year, all of whom would be greatly harmed if these lands were forever taken from public access. Western Apache people have traditionally used the area for cultural, spiritual, and subsistance. The land exchange would include Apache Leap, a cliff where more than 80 Apache warriors chose to leap to their deaths rather than surrender to the US calvary.

Both the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the White Mountain Apache Tribe has passed unanimous reslutions opposing the mine and land exchange. In addition, the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Association in Superior, AZ has been meeting regularly opposing the land exchange and is circulating a petition.

Why is it that we have such a sneaky and conniving President? One would think that our President would have the greater good of the planet, as well as the people in mind when making important and far reaching decisions. To rape and plunder the Earth is a crime beyond belief, and I feel quite strongly about our wild and natural places enough to declare my outrage in hearing about the Bush administrations latest travesty against nature. I firmly believe we have at our disposal the intelligence and scientific data that can give us a solution to our supposed fuel issues, which will keep nature in balance and free from pollution and destruction.

Phew! Here I am again feeling like I am running against the wind, and I am quite distressed at the lack of intelligence and foresight our President and his administration present in their crimes against nature, and the people they are supposed to take care of. Well I will not turn a blind eye, and I do feel it is all of our responsibility to steward this planet with compassion, wisdom and common sense. We can survive without turning the world upside down, and greed just begets greed, no matter how you look at it. These people who think to reshape this planet and harvest all of her resources will be gone soon enough, and what will be left? I do care what our planet becomes, as well as loving all the beautiful wild places that this Earth has for us to enjoy.

I wanted to share a message from a fellow Earth lover, and I did not want to take away from the original content as written by Robert Redford. Please read the following and add your voice in objection if you feel as so many do about this underhanded tactic…

Dear Teri,

No one voted on Election Day to hand over Utah’s Redrock wilderness to oil companies.

But the Bush Administration cynically chose that very day to advance an outrageous plan that will sell off leases for some 300,000 acres of spectacular Utah canyonlands to oil and gas speculators.

While America was voting for Barack Obama and his vision of a clean energy future, Bush and Cheney’s underlings were conspiring to plunder one of the crown jewels of our natural heritage for their fossil fuel cronies.

Please register your own opposition right now.

The auction of Redrock country will take place on December 19. At stake are world-renowned vistas near Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, as well as near Dinosaur National Monument. The highest bidders will earn the right to turn vast tracts of pristine wilderness into industrial wastelands.

It’s bad enough that Bush officials went behind the backs of the American people with this disastrous scheme. But what’s worse, they didn’t even tell their own National Park Service until after the fact.

In my mind, this theft of our heritage goes beyond the cynical — it’s criminal. What will be left to give to our children and their children if we allow this administration, in a parting shot, to destroy our legacy of public lands for short-term gain?

I hope you’re as angry as I am about this blatant land grab, because we’ve got to stop it — and we have to act fast. The NRDC Action Fund is mobilizing more than one million Americans in an outpouring of protest over the coming days.

Send your own message of opposition immediately. Tell the Bush Administration that you will not allow it to destroy one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

We’ll automatically send copies of your message to your two senators, your representative and to the Obama transition team, which has signaled their opposition to this disastrous attack on our Redrock heritage.

The Bush Administration is racing to complete the auction of our lands before Inauguration Day, which will make sales difficult to reverse.

We must fend off this land grab now — before the oil and gas companies can lay claim to the spoils.

Those spoils include stretches of Desolation Canyon, which has been proposed for national park status. Bush’s own Interior Department describes the canyon as “a place where a visitor can experience true solitude — where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape.”

The very idea of oil and gas operations invading these remote sanctuaries — which have remained untouched for millennia — is deeply upsetting. Once the dirty deed is done, our wilderness can never be restored. That’s why I’m asking you to help us sound the alarm and organize now.

Tell the Bush Administration to cancel the Redrock auction. Remind them that we the people are the rightful owners of this majestic wilderness and that we won’t stand for its destruction.

And thank you for joining with me and the NRDC Action Fund to save these beautiful wildlands for all future generations.

Sincerely,

Robert Redford
NRDC Action Fund

P.S. After you send your own message of protest, I’ll let you know of an easy way to spread the word to your friends and family. With only 10 days to mobilize one million Americans, I’m counting on you to rally everyone you know to speak out and save this precious wilderness from destruction.

Okay, now this is pretty serious. Although I am totally against creating products that are dangerous for our health and the environment, I truly believe we must dispose of the containers we are stuck with using in the proper way. And recycling is so very important! People may think “Oh, it is just one little container… it can’t possible cause too much harm”. Wrong! If everybody says that even once, and follows through without recycling, imagine the millions of non-biodegradable objects filling our landfills, or polluting our paths and highways? Where does it end, and how can we stop those littering all over our beautiful Earth?

HDPE (short for High Density Polyethylene) is a commonly used plastic which can be recycled. “HDPE Scrap” is the collected material which is then sold to be recycled.

Recycling HDPE products, especially post consumer products such as shampoo bottles, detergent bottles, fabric softener bottles, and milk bottles saves tonnes of landfill space every year. It is still lamentably true however, that much of the HDPE products produced in North America will not be turned over for recycling, and will find their way into landfills, exacerbating the environmental problems that the USA, much like many other countries, faces on a day to day basis.

It is not only traditional manufacturers who seek to use scrap HDPE in their products either. Environmentalists, and green companies are also turning to scrap HDPE as a source of raw material.

If you do not already have a recycling program in effect in your community, perhaps you can get together with folks and create a way to gather these plastics, as it appears there is a demanding market and a great need for recycled materials. This is an economic as well as environmentally wise path to a greener, cleaner Earth.

Visit Raw Polymers LTD to learn more about finding a market for our recycled plastics.

Please take a few moments to read this very important message…

The Bush administration wants to sacrifice some of the wildest regions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to produce fuel from two of the most polluting sources: oil shale and tar sands.

This proposed development — spanning an area of more than two million acres of wildlife habitat and outstanding recreation areas across three states — could pollute air and water, jeopardize human health and dramatically worsen global warming.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction and tell the Bush administration to protect these sensitive wildlands for future generations and promote cleaner sources of energy instead.

Oil shale is rock that produces oil when heated to extreme temperatures. Tar sands contain extremely heavy oil mixed with sand and clay. Tar sands development in Canada has displaced wildlife, created toxic waste sites that go on for miles and generated three times the amount of global warming pollution per barrel produced as conventional fuel.

We must act now to shield our own western wildlands from thisnightmare scenario. Oil shale and tar sands development could release dangerous toxic elements such as arsenic, selenium, and boron into the Colorado River watershed — a vital source of drinking water for local communities.

This area is also home to mule deer, elk, mountain lions, black bears, bald eagles and great horned owls and offers exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities.

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction and tell the Bush administration to put the brakes on dirty oil shale and tar sands development in America’s West.

Thank you for helping to save our last western wildlife habitats from destructive development.