THIS JUST IN FROM CHESAPEAKE CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK (CCAN)

Join us Saturday, April 14, 2007 at Susan Campbell Park at Annapolis City Dock for a national day of climate action when we'll ask Congress to:

Step it Up!
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050.
Wear blue to show unity and signify the sea level rise that will lap at Annapolis's doorsteps as global warm intensifies. Bring signs and props (snorkel gear, life vest, inner tube).

There'll be music to entertain you, recycled art by Chesapeake Childrens' Museum to inspire you and literature from environmental groups to show you how you can reduce your carbon footprint!

WHEN: Saturday, April 14, 2007 from 11 am to 1 pm
WHERE: Susan Campbell Park @ Annapolis City Dock

At 12:30, we'll walk up the streets of Annapolis to Lawyer's Mall for a keynote address by polar explorer Lonnie Dupree, author of "Greenland: Where Ice Begins". That's where we'll take the photo to send to Congress asking them to Step It Up!, to be streamed with the now 1227 other Step It Up rallies across the country.

SPONSORED BY: CCAN, Cool Cities, Audubon Naturalist Society and Students for Sustainable Society
and St. John's Students for a Sustainable Future.

See www.StepItUp2007.org for more information or contact Cherie Leyton at clyelton@comcast.net.

NEWS ROUNDUP: DDT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED and more good stuff

News Roundup
DDT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED
CP has had occasion to meet with and read about State Senator Andrew Harris, an articulate, intelligent, yet woefully conservative lawmaker who also happens to be an anesthesiologist. And he’s in the news again for arguing against a bill introduced by Sen. Brian E. Frosh, D-Montgomery, to set aside each May 27 as Rachel Carson Day in Maryland. The pioneering author of the influential book “Silent Spring” spent most of her life in Maryland and was born on May 27, a spring day, CP should add. Many credit the US Fish and Wildlife Service employee’s book for ushering in the modern environmental movement with its warnings about pesticides and DDT in particular.

According to The Capital, Harris said the banning of DDT had negative consequences and “is a valuable public health tool against malaria, and without it, millions of people have died worldwide.” Uhh yeah…but with it things were pretty bad too Senator. Not only that, while we banned it here for good reason, it is used elsewhere for bad reasons, and we may still end up eating food from those places where it is used. If CP recalls correctly, banning DDT has also helped bring about a resurgence in the once severely threatened populations of Osprey and Bald Eagles.

Harris said, "It's convenient for us in the United States, that does not have a problem with malaria ... to preach to the rest of the world.” CP would like to ask this Senator, who has a bust of Jesus Christ in his Senate office, whether or not he thinks it’s right for the US and the Catholic Church to preach to the rest of the world when it comes to uhh, let’ see, abortion? Family planning? Global warming???

His Earth is Flat view is about as weird as Sen. Janet Greenip (R-Anne Arundel) and Sen. Nancy Jacobs (R-Cecil) who declined to vote when Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George's) introduced John C. Mather, co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics to receive a resolution from the Senate. Mather won the prize for his work at Greenbelt’s Goddard Space Center in in providing the first tangible evidence to prove that the big bang started the universe. CP does not have a problems being a descendant of apes, but having those who are lesser primates sit in the Maryland Senate is something else.

New Head at Chesapeake Bay Program
New Chesapeake Bay Program Director Jeffrey L. Lape has a big, big job ahead to drive the lumbering, bureaucratic and often maligned Chesapeake Bay Program. CP served as the assistant to the former Director for 2.5 years in the 1990's and used to believe it was a worthy and productive organization with a valuable mission. CP now believes it may not even have a valuable mission. Lape has to play bureaucrat, scientist, manager, interpreter, politician and cheerleader to this massive aggregation of agencies, committees, sub committees, workgroups and Neptune knows what else!

According to The Capital, Lape says he passes a stream in his yard in Montgomery County and hasn't been shy about investigating problems in his stream and reporting potential polluters to authorities.

"I feel like the job comes home with us," he said.

Hmm. Well, that’s great that he has reported potential polluters, but CP is in complete agreement that the job does indeed come home with Lape if he drives to and from Annapolis and Montgomery County each day. That’s the problem! Millions of people in our watershed moving around in cars way too much and consuming and polluting way too much. If you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the solution. Good luck to you Mr. Lape. And CP hopes that in addition to the hours you'll spend sitting in traffic, that you'll also enjoy sitting in meetings…lots and lots of them…and wading through reports, lots and lots of them. CP often asked why the 20 million dollars per year for the Bay Program would not have been better spent if it just shut down and bought forests, wetlands and farms. Needless to say, that was swallowed by the porcine bureaucrats like a poison truffle.


Ferry? Monorail? And still no Commuter bus from Kent Island and Annapolis to Baltimore?
CP has posted about the proposal bubbling up in Annapolis to create a Bay ferry system. CP readers know that while CP is interested in the idea, CP would much rather see a solid bus system first. And after penning the term “ferry tale” to describe this idea, CP is pleased to see that in today’s front page of the Capital it has picked up, er borrowed its term. Read on…
“First came the ferry tales. Now, solutions to Bay Bridge traffic are looking a lot more like Disney World. Grasping at perhaps one of the last straws possible to relieve congestion on the bridge, Del. Michael D. Smigiel, R-Cecil, is proposing that the Maryland Department of Transportation examine the feasibility of creating a monorail to run from Annapolis to Kent Island.”

Please God, make it stop!!!! Every so often somebody comes around with some brilliant and visionary scheme to study or develop some type of waay cool futuristic transit system without actually knowing a darn thing about transportation, except that you turn the key and drive, and suddenly there’s a whole lot of interest in yet a new and revolutionary idea. Well, first off, CP will say again, can we please get some cheap and easily developed buses first? Let’s get real with a real bus transit system and then start talking about the next big thing. But we can’t even get a commuter bus from Kent Island to Annapolis and Baltimore!!! Puuuhlllleeeeze!!
By the way, monorails are not exactly new or revolutionary. CP has been on the system in Seattle which some have been trying to expand for years with limited success, and of course at Disney World and Disney Land, and of the new system in Indianapolis (CP was just there too!) and Las Vegas, which is privately funded by…guess who?
Okay, perhaps we should study a monorail, but maybe, just maybe we should stop sprawling all over the place which makes all these transit expansions so necessary. But a monorail???

Some Republican Senators Still Cool to Global Warming-And What is a Ton of Gas?

At the Senate Committee on Education, Health & Environmental Affairs Committee hearing on the Global Warming Solutions Act, CP had an interesting conversation with the paid-spinner/lobbyist for the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, an organization that has consistently had its head in the sand when it comes to environmental protection. Here we are faced with the greatest global crisis in history and along comes little Maryland to take this one small step, and by the way, it won't even be until 2012 when its full force comes into effect, and we find the pro-business folks whining yet again about how business is unfairly going to suffer. It's sort of like Southern plantation owners complaining that paying slaves would hurt their profit line. Okay, that's a bit "out-there" but for the entire industrial era, business has gained because of government policies and subsidies and the ability to wantonly pass costs directly on to the "environment" which is to say the public domain of air, water and even land. Then it becomes the public that has to pay to clean it up and suffer the consequences and everyone whines about it costing more, whereas all we are doing is paying real costs for the first time!

Although the exchange with the lawyer-lobbyist was pleasant and respectful, Eastern Shore Republican Richard Colburn and Baltimore/Harford Republican Andrew Harris peppered the panel of expert scientists with leading and skeptical questions. Hey guys-get with the program. Global warming is here. It's real. It's a threat. Quit beating around the bush. Colburn,a profoundly conservative veteran Senator who never seems to "get" any issue unless it completely fits his red-blooded litmus test, asked one scientist why he described Hurricane Isabel as a "wakeup call." "We've had hurricanes before, haven't we?" asked the man who represents low-lying and severely threatened Eastern Shore counties.

Harris, a conservative yet vastly more articulate and brighter light than the lumbering, knuckle-dragging Colburn, never the less, started picking apart data that he thought indicated global warming is a naturally occuring event, only slightly accelerated by human activity. He then spent about ten minutes going back and forth about whether expected sea level rise was just a matter of inches. Good grief!

Stuart Jordan, a distinguished astrophysicist, pointedly picked apart each and every objection made by Harris and Colburn. However, as is often the case when a bunch of busy people take all day to come to Annapolis to address a few Senators for a few minutes, neither Harris or Colburn paid any attention, and thumbed through papers and glanced at their laptops as Jordan and others explained the science.

Republican Janet Greenip asked a reasonable question about the definition and meaning of a ton of gases. Senator Paul Pinksy, the firebrand Democrat who introduced the bill to his fellow committee members, suggested that one of the scientists soon to speak would answer her question. When her questions was addressed and answered by the next panel, Greenip was out of the room. Colburn was busy having his second soda delivered to him by an aide. No doubt, he would be making some more gas over that one. And what exactly is a ton of gas? Come to listen to some of these people and you will get a good idea.

Below is the testimony provided by Capital Punishment, who could not stick around after the 1 pm hearing actually started at 1:45 and was still dragging on by late afternoon.


Good afternoon. My name is Paul Foer. I am a Maryland native and a resident of Annapolis since 1981. Please pass this bill. We may look back one day and see this as the single most important piece of legislation considered in the General Assembly in this century. Is this hyperbole? Not if the predictions of the drastic and dramatic upheavals which are possible due to global warming are anywhere near accurate. This is not about a tweaking of the tax code, a piece of special interest legislation or some kind of bond issue or regulatory matter. If the predictions are anywhere near accurate, then this bill does not go anywhere near what we really need to do. But it is an important step.

Our collective future as state and global citizens will not be secured through market forces or technical solutions, but through nothing less than serious planning and overwhelming changes in how we live, organize and manage our societies. I suspect this is why so many have been so ruthlessly vocal in their denial of and opposition to what is now widely known to be a fact. Our coastal state, intersected by our lovely Bay is seriously threatened. Allstate Insurance, now known as perhaps the most misnamed company in the insurance business, has run its actuarial numbers and sees a more flood-prone and stormy future, perhaps before most of us have thought about it. Maybe we will all be in good hands with Allstate running our state government.

Maryland is a small state, but a highly developed, densely populated, wealthy state with a highly educated populace. We are looked to as a leader in environmental protection. We can send a strong message by acting now.

Global warming is a real threat here and now. This bill should not be the final say in the matter. We must redirect vast financial, technical and managerial resources to combat and prepare for the worst. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have accelerated the destruction of our planet’s fragile, living systems. We have gotten rich and comfortable at the expense of the planet. We have borrowed against the future by depleting our natural resource asset base. We have passed on the byproducts and waste directly into the environment by fouling our air, land and water.

We must act now. Future generations will judge us by our resolve to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Please vote for this legislation and please make this your top priority as a lawmaker and a citizen. Thank you.

Two Big Environmental Victories This Year?

THE NEXT BIG THING!!

How would you like to win two climate bills this year? Now that the Clean Cars bill is about to become law.......

THE GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTIONS ACT and the EMERGENCY CONFERENCE CALL...
The Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) is what we have been waiting for -- a comprehensive state initiative to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. In short, the Act will commit us to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a 16% total reduction from todays emissions across all sectors! That is HUGE. So far we have been chipping away at power plants, cars and light bulbs; well this Solution Act will include everything and will put us on track to keep our emissions below what climate scientists consider to be acceptable emissions levels. We need to pass this bill in 2007, we need to capitalize on all the hard work we put into the Clean Cars Act, WE NEED YOU.

Join Chesapeake CLimate Action Network--CCAN, and special guest Del. Kumar Barve, Sen. Paul Pinsky, Mike Tidwell and climate activists for an emergency conference call this Thursday (7:00pm) or Saturday(noon). This conference call is designed so we can quickly get all of you up to speed on the nuisances of the the Solution Act and how we can get you active in this new fight to save the climate! Help Maryland make history in the fight against global warming -- be part of The Solution! We have 6 more weeks of session so let's make the best of the little time we have!

For your convenience, there will be two calls to pick from:

Call #1: Thursday night Feb. 22, 7:30 pm. Call-in number: 1-888-537-8139, code 82531915

Call #2: Saturday Feb. 24, noon. Call in number: 1-888-537-8139, code 82531915


Please RSVP to: Claire@chesapeakeclimate.org

Thanks for all the work that you put into passing the Clean Cars Bill, now we just need another 6 weeks of your time to capitalize on the momentum behind global warming and pass the Global Warming Solutions Act.


To find out more about the bill visit www.chesapeakeclimate.org

Smoke gets in your....general assembly's eyes

Supporters of a smoke-free Maryland will gather on Lawyers' Mall in front of the Maryland State House from 7:00 to 8:00 pm, Monday, February 19th. Our presence will encourage the Maryland General Assembly to pass legislation that will insure smoke-free workplaces for bartenders, restaurant staff and entertainers. The Heart Association, Lung Association, PIRG and Smoke Free Maryland are counting on your support. We are working on cleaning up our cars, now let's keep cleaning our air.

It's also Environmental Lobby Day! Meet at Legislative Services about 3:30 pm. Clean Cars, Global Warming and Stormwater remain high on the agenda.

Speaker's Party for the Party

Speaker Mike Busch's recent party in The State Capitol (that's Capitol) pulled together District 30 supporters. Governor Martin O'Malley (I think he's younger than I am...many say he looks and acts "Presidential") addressed the crowd and Delegate Virginia Claggett and Senator John Astle joined in. Busch reminded the crowd that George Washington (he pronounces it "Warshinton") danced in that same room after he resigned his commission as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army (A momentuous and significant event in history-read "Washington Bowed" by former Governor McKeldin). According to Busch, neither Governor S, Governor G or Governor E had attended this party in year's past.

I was most pleased to see freshman Republican Delegate Ron George welcomed, recognized by and warmly applauded by what appeared to be a nearly 99% Democratic and 1% Green audience. As a friend of and former employee of Ron's, I can say with some assuredness that there are already signs that he is going to be a fair-minded and possibly even bi-partisan Delegate, but don't expect him to vote in favor of strengthening abortion rights. We know that he has strong conservative views and a strong Catholic faith, but I don't think this is going to make him anything like extremists Don Dwyer or the man George replaced, the bombastic, divisive and mean-spirited Herb McMillan (and there are negatives too, although I always appreciated his fiscally conservative watchdog role). However, Ron barely won his election and he will likely keep this narrowest of victories in mind as the lone Republican in Mike Busch's district. Ron has even met with local Greens. I doubt that Dwyer's similarly narrow victory will temper his extremist and outrageous views one bit (remember Katy, bolt the door???....).

Although I supported and voted for former Councilwoman Barbara Samorajczyk as I did for the entire team 30 Dems, when we thought she had won the open Delegate's seat at first, I stopped in to see Ron the day after the election and congratulate him for a well-run and hard-fought campaign. I had acted too soon. A few days later I congratulated him for his victory. Barbara, not unlike her nemesis Janet Owens, has seemed to drop out of sight, despite a few unsuccessful attempts on my part to contact her and also thank her for a hard fought campaign.

Barbara was invited but did not attend. Janet is not a District 30 resident.

Head to the Higher Ground

For years, our Baltimore Sun buried articles about global climate change, which prompted this author to take them to task in letters to the editor. The Sun has switched course and on February 3, published “A warmer Md. will be wetter-Threat from climate change takes form of land submersion, severe storm damage” which predicts pretty serious consequences for Chesapeake Bay and the lands around it, which in addition to being subjected to predicted sea-level rise, also appear to be settling lower in to the Earth’s crust.

Meanwhile, we know that Allstate Insurance (as in not-exactly-all-of-the-State) is pulling back coverage for low-lying areas, and local, state and federal officials are hearing the warning signs, and on the local level, Mayor Moyer and County Executive Leopold are taking this seriously. Hallelujah-even Bush mentioned global climate change in his State of the Union speech! The next question is what are you-as in you and me, going to do to change our habits and lessen our emissions? We can begin by eating lower on the food chain, decreasing our energy consumption and by driving less. It will all add up to improved health, for ourselves, our community and our planet.
And in times such as these, it always helps to quote Dylan: “You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changin' ”