This is interesting.
If you’re looking for a Kleenex on the Rice University campus in the near future, you’ll be out of luck.
Students at the highly rated university in Houston have convinced campus officials to quit buying Kleenex products in favor of products that include recycled material and exclude material from trees cut from North America’s largest ancient forest – the boreal forest that stretches from Alaska through Canada.
“It was an initiative that students involved in various environmental groups started,” Kyle Saari, a sophomore earth science major at Rice, said today. “We simply showed our purchasing (department) that there are cheaper and environmentally superior products, so it was a no-brainer.”
Huh. Didn’t know a thing about that, but having read the story, I applaud this action. I’ll be showing this story to Tiffany so we can do our part as well.
Well done.
Also for your consideration:
To Rice University’s Earth Science Students and Professors and all others:
From:
algore.com
I’ve been incredibly gratified by the response to An Inconvenient Truth. I’m extremely proud of all the work the team put into the film and it feels like it came at a crucial time. But now comes the hard work. We have to take this message to Washington. And we can’t do it without you.
Yes, the new majority in Congress will be much more receptive on the importance of global warming. That’s the good news. But I know from personal experience that the only thing that will make Washington really take notice and do more than give lip service to the problem of global warming is the prospect of millions of committed citizens taking action. It’s time to join together and make that happen. Can you help?
First, I’m asking folks to hold house parties, in thousands of homes across the nation, to show the film and spread the word. We’re doing the first wave on Saturday, December 16. Can you host a party? Or attend a party that one of your neighbors is hosting?
Second, I’m asking everybody, whether you attend a party or not, to sign a postcard to your representatives, so that I can take a million postcards and messages to Washington in January and present them to the new Congress.
We have to build the political will to do what has to be done. Luckily, in America, political will is a renewable resource.
Thank you,
-Al Gore
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To sign a postcard to your representatives:
algore.com/cards
……………
allianceforclimateprotection.org
from:
WSJ
The U.S. hasn’t enacted mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, a situation many environmentalists attribute to slim public awareness of the consequences of rising temperatures.
The group, which yesterday adopted the name Alliance for Climate Protection, plans to use advertising and grass-roots organizing to try to raise awareness, particularly among labor groups, hunters, evangelicals and conservatives in general.
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to purchase a DVD:
An Inconvenient Truth available at Amazon
…………
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1202-01.htm
Published on Saturday, December 2, 2006 by the McClatchy Newspapers
Shutdown of EPA Libraries Worries Scientists, Advocates
by David Goldstein
WASHINGTON – Concerned about the kinds of pollutants spilling into your local rivers and streams and how they could affect your health?
As the Environmental Protection Agency closes some scientific libraries around the country, EPA scientists and other environmental advocates worry whether that kind of information could become harder to find.
They fear that the agency’s plan to save money by replacing printed resources with digitized versions on the Internet could make information less – not more – accessible.
“Nobody is against modernization, but we don’t see the digitization,” said Francesca Grifo, a botanist and the director of scientific integrity at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group for the environment and other scientific issues. “We just see the libraries closing. We just see that public access has been cut off.”
snip
In a letter Thursday to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, four Democrats in the House of Representatives who probably will play influential roles next year on EPA issues told him to stop “destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately.”
“It now appears that EPA officials are dismantling what is likely one of our country’s most comprehensive and accessible collections of environmental materials,” they wrote.
……………….
http://www.ucsusa.org/
SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY
Scientific abuses from A to Z
Our new online feature The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science exposes dozens of instances in which research findings have been manipulated or suppressed by political appointees. More than 10,000 leading scientists, Nobel laureates, former agency directors, and university officials have called for the restoration of scientific integrity to federal policy making.
Press release | Periodic table of abuses | Outraged scientists
from our programs
Scientific findings on endangered species reversed
Recently obtained documents show that high-ranking political appointees within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have rewritten scientific documents to prevent the protection of several endangered species.
U.S. Northeast faces a hotter future
Global warming may dramatically alter the Northeast’s temperatures, precipitation, droughts, sea level, and seasons, according to a new study by independent experts in collaboration with UCS.
more
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from:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/8/185047/936
Bush trashes EPA files, sells furniture (Action Link)
by seesdifferent
Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 08:48:37 PM CST
In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them “that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency’s receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained.” On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA’s Washington D.C. Headquarters. .2
Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agency’s only specialized research repository on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides. The web purge follows reports that library staffers were ordered to destroy its holdings by throwing collections into recycling bins.
“EPA’s leadership appears to have gone feral, defying all appeals to reason or consultation,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Congress has yet to review, let alone approve, the library closures. “The new Congress convening in January will finally have a chance to decide whether EPA will continue to pillage its library network.”
What a country the GOP proposes to leave to our children.
A personal story:
The NASA library in Greenbelt, Md., was part of John C. Mather’s daily routine for years leading up to the astrophysicist’s sharing of the 2006 Nobel Prize for shedding new light on the big bang theory of creation. He researched existing space hardware and instrumentation there while designing a satellite that collected data for his prize-winning discovery.
So when he learned that federal officials were planning to close the library, Mather was stunned.
“It is completely absurd,” he said. “The library is a national treasure. It is probably the single strongest library for space science and engineering in the universe.”
UPDATE (thanks to LNK):
Action Alert:
Please call EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson at (202) 564-4700 and tell him that scientists and the public should retain access to the information in libraries of The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Urge him to immediately halt the dismantling of the library system until Congress approves the EPA budget and all materials are readily available online.
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About:
USGS
U.S. Geological Survey
New publishing rules restrict scientists
By JOHN HEILPRIN,
Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 13, 7:37 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_scientists&printer=1
snip
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
more
from:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/community/blog/paulburka/2006/12/protest-at-smu-targets-bush-library.php
Burkablog by Senior Executive Editor Paul Burka
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Protest at SMU Targets Bush Library
The likelihood that the George W. Bush presidential library will be located at SMU has not been welcome news for at least one segment of the university community. A letter, dated December 16, from “Faculty, Administrators, & Staff” of the Perkins School of Theology to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, is now circulating not only on the SMU campus but also among a wider academic community, urging the board to “reconsider and to rescind SMU’s pursuit of the presidential library.”
Texas Monthly has obtained a copy of this letter, which, as you might expect, focuses heavily on objections to Bush’s policies: “We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends.”
“[T]hese violations are antithetical to the teaching, scholarship, and ethical thinking that best represents Southern Methodist University.”
from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121800899.html
Global Warming Another Emerging Topic
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; A10
Global warming is a key subject that many educators and scientists say should be, but isn’t, taught in every school. And as with other emerging sciences, there remains a need, they say, for more materials available for teachers to incorporate into their lessons.
snip
Scores of teachers from across the country e-mailed David (Laurie David, the producer of the global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” narrated by former vice president Al Gore) in support of the movie, asking for copies.
snip
David said she has decided not to go through any specific organization but will make the DVD available free to the first 50,000 teachers who request it. If demand exceeds supply, she said, she will try to find private funding to pay for additional copies to distribute.
“Our teachers deserve better than what they are getting,” David said.