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Your back yard

The super-wonks over at John Podesta's Center for American Progress have a nifty map on their site -- you can click on your state and find out statistics on environmental, health, and safety issues.  For instance, did you know that 1,160 people die every year due to power plant pollution in Texas?  Me neither!  Go check it out.

Paper beating scissors

For those who despair about the environment, who wonder, say, whether the world will ever take sufficient action to counter climate change, I give you ... the 2004 Boston Red Sox.

Down 3-0 against their arch-nemeses, the New York Yankees, the Sox rallied tonight to win the seven-game series, becoming the first team in the history of Major League Baseball to overcome such a deficit.

To a lifelong Red Sox fan -- someone conditioned from birth to always dream but never achieve -- someone, um, like myself, coated in the scar tissue of the devastating losses of the past -- a victory like tonight's can't help but give one rose-colored glasses. (At least for a night.) Who says we can't tackle climate change? Maybe the solar revolution is upon us. This is the dawning of the age of Green-arius. I'm only partially joking.

As Tyler Kepner wrote in his piece posted on the New York Times website immediately after the Sox win:

It was actually happening. The nerd was kissing the homecoming queen. Paper was beating scissors; scissors were beating rock. Charlie Brown was kicking the football. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees for the American League pennant.

I heart Corby Kummer

The Atlantic Monthly is my favorite magazine -- every month a thick, satisfying helping of high-minded policy-wonk goodness.  I read it cover to cover, which is the equivalent of a longish novella every month.

Anyhoo, one of many reasons to subscribe -- or at least to subscribe to the website -- is the writing of Corby Kummer.

Nader haters

Speaking of former Nader allies jumping ship, a group of the advocates, actors, writers, and politicos who endorsed Ralph in 2000 will be unveiling an initiative on Friday called The Unity Campaign, which will urge Nader supporters to pull their heads out of their asses and "vote strategically, vote Kerry."  The group -- including enviros Wendell Berry, Ben Cohen, Paul Hawken, and Randy Hayes, well as other lefty luminaries like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Barbara Ehrenreich -- plans to run a series of ads in swing states where the Nader contingent could make a difference.  (Some personal Nader bile below the drop.)

“The good, the bad, and the rusty”

Ever wonder what happened to the vibrant environmental protest movements that helped bring down the communist governments of Eastern Europe (and did you even know that green NGOs were critical to the fall of the Iron Curtain)?

For the history lesson, read Jane Dawson's book Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine by Duke University Press.  

For tracking today's environmental movements and green journalism in Central and Eastern Europe, check out the Regional Environment Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Szentendre, Hungary, just outside Budapest.  The REC is the real node for green civil society in the region and their websites are terrific entry points for figuring out the what's what and who's who.  Their regional offices in each country mean they have their collective finger on the pulse and their practical training workshops of all types mean they are doers and not armchair types.  

Sign up for their new-look Green Horizon for aesthetically pleasing, bit-size updates and stories like "The Good, the Bad, and the Rusty," which I so gladly borrowed for the title of this posting.

VP mutiny

Even Winona LaDuke, Nader's running mate in 1996 and 2000, is ditching Ralph this year and endorsing Kerry.  This from her opinion piece in Indian Country Today:

John Kerry provides promise for Native America and for America. His policy proposals involve vision -- like alternative energy, more accessible health care, and finding all those children who have been "left behind" by the Bush administration. ... He opposes converting Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste dump. He noted in the first debate that America cannot demand that other countries dispose of their nukes while we are busy engineering new ones. ... And while Kerry may be a diamond in the rough on issues like genetic modification, tribal budgets and building a more inclusive democracy, he has potential. And this is far more than what we can say for his opponent. By Nov. 2, 2004, John Kerry will have earned my vote.

Feather Report

Birds in decline across North America Last week we heard that amphibians — the alleged environmental “canaries in the coal mine” — are dying off in record numbers. But what […]

Plan B tries again

Plan B, the emergency contraceptive rejected for over-the-counter sales by the FDA in May, has reapplied after limiting sales to those 16 years of age and older.

Concern about sales of the contraceptive to young teens was the FDA's putative reason for rejecting Plan B, despite the overwhelming support for the medicine from FDA's scientific panel. Many observers believe that the FDA's director bowed to pressure from the anti-abortion movement and its allies in the Bush administration.

But Plan B is likely to slash the number of abortions. As the PI article reports:

James Trussell, director of Princeton University's Office of Population Research . . . has concluded that easy access to emergency contraception could cut by half the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions among U.S. women, ages 15 to 44.

Whistle while you work

We've all seen the trickle of stories over the last few years about environmental officials in the Bush administration either quitting in protest or formally applying for whistle-blower status (we've also read about the Bush admin's unprecedented efforts to reduce protections for whistle-blowers).

However, the latest edition of the Sierra Club's "RAW" email really brings the point home.  It offers a list of whistle-blowers, their agencies and complaints.  It's pretty stunning.

For the defense: Connaughton

Following up on yesterday's live chat with LCV's Deb Callahan, today The Washington Post is hosting a live chat with James L. Connaughton, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman.  He will, presumably, be defending the Bush environmental record.  Stop by and ask him a question.

UPDATE: It's over and it was, predictably, thoroughly unsatisfying. It sounded like it could have been written by a robot that trolled through Bush administration website pages and extracted boilerplate. Maybe it was.