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Charisma

I walked into the study this morning to find my wife and youngest daughter watching an eagle on a wildlife webcam. They asked me if male eagles sit on eggs. No sooner had I said, "Pfft, I seriously doubt it," than another eagle appeared. The one sitting on the eggs flew off, allowing its partner to take over. Hey, roosters don't sit on eggs! Where would conservation (a major branch of environmentalism) be without charismatic wildlife? Speaking of which, Luna, the killer-whale orphan, was just killed by a boat.

Later, while poking around on the webcam site, I discovered a cool video of a black snake making short work of a nest of baby robins (click on the picture of the robin). I watched the exact same thing happen on my uncle's farm when I was a kid in Indiana. Black rat snakes can get up to six feet long. They are the generalists of the snake world, known to eat just about anything: rodents, amphibians, birds, other snakes, and even eggs. I was glad the webcam owner, obviously a bird lover, allowed nature to take its course. I bet that wasn't easy.

How do Canadians feel about fueling America’s empire?

Something I've wondered about for a while: Canada is our No. 1 source of oil imports. And Canadian tar-sands are often cited by energy optimists as a virtually unlimited source of future oil.

But, um, has anyone asked Canada about this? Or rather, asked Canadians, as opposed to the Canadian government? 'Cause it seems like a pretty raw deal for them. Extracting tar-sands oil is horrifically destructive to the environment and the workers involved. And because of NAFTA, Canada is stuck exporting most of it to us, meaning they're fueling our dreams of empire at the possible expense of their own future energy security. Furthermore, in times of energy scarcity, being a fruitful source of oil immediately contiguous to the world's largest consumer of oil -- and also its most powerful, hyper-militarized country -- might prove to be a little, ahem, awkward.

Anyhoo, Oil Drum has a thread going about all this, playing off this Canadian think-tank report (PDF), which raises all the above concerns. Lots of interesting stuff.

From clubbin’ to clubbing

Hey, I'm not really sure why we stopped blurbing these in Gristmill. Maybe we'll start again. But regardless: A new Grist List is up, sure to amaze and amuse. Check it out.

Makower on the service sector

I was going to try to say something smart about this great Joel Makower post on the environmental footprint of the service sector, but it's obvious now I'm never going to have time, and hell, it's Friday, so I'm just going to poach a chunk and tell you to go read the rest:

Billionaires

In other exciting news: "The number of billionaires surged this year, as did their collective pile of cash, according to Forbes magazine's annual billionaire list."

Wealth gradients

Ever wonder what it is that holds people in poverty? Although never expressed in polite company, there is an undercurrent in many circles that the poor are victims of their genes. There isn't a word for it, like racism or sexism, but the mindset still exists.

Here's the real skinny: poverty, like wealth, is usually inherited. Poverty is primarily the result of competition from other human beings. People like you and me took their jobs. It is also a matter of statistics and energy. A street orphan in Bangladesh has essentially zero chance of becoming CEO of Boeing, no matter how hard he or she tries.

How do you suppose President Bush, a man who rarely reads and can hardly string a grammatically correct sentence together, became president of the most powerful nation on Earth? He was not only accepted into Yale (SAT scores: 566 verbal and 640 math), but managed to graduate as well. He later attended AA, and with the help of a higher power managed to kick the drinking habit he had developed while at Yale. The best analogy I can come up with is a ten-mile race (having been a long distance runner for most of my life, I prefer footrace analogies to football analogies). Dubya started life's race two feet from the finish line and staggered over it. Others started in a huge pack at the starting line. Arrayed before them, somewhere between the starting line and the finish line, were people born to wealthier parents.

The gentleman from Colorado

I was going to blog about this, but I honestly can't add anything to the ThinkProgress post. So I'll just steal it:

Colorado State Rep. Jim Welker (R) blasted an email to his colleagues containing "an essay written by someone else that accused 'welfare-pampered blacks' of waiting for the government to save them from Hurricane Katrina." A excerpt from that essay, written by the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson:

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

Welker forwarded the essay "without comment." Here is his defense:

"Some of my best friends are of different skin color, like Ed Jones," said Welker, referring to Sen. Jones, a Colorado Springs Republican who is black.

According to Jones, "he and Welker are friends, but not best friends."

Wow. Just ... wow.

Greens are fond of thinking that when another Katrina happens -- maybe another hurricane, maybe a flood, maybe a heatwave -- people will finally "wake up" and start cutting back on consumption, lobbying lawmakers to address global warming, etc. This bespeaks a rather naive view of human nature, if you ask me. Seems to me just as likely that you see stuff like the above: An outbreak of tribalism.

I'm not sure what could swing things one way or the other, but one thing that will certainly help is to have a model of a good green life, ready at hand, so people willing to resist tribalism have something easy to fall back on.

The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale: Match 3

First, last week's winner ... d'oh! "Nobody Undoes It Like Sara Lee" with 40% of the vote. And I thought it was going to be "Bring in Da Illinois, Bring in Da Hunk" for sure!

Now, here are this week's nominees:

1. It's Hard Out Here for a Chinook: Fishing ban considered for Klamath chinook along West Coast
2. Fools Russia In: Russia to build oil pipeline within half-mile of world's deepest lake
3. Tray's Anatomy: Hospital menus getting green overhaul
4. Can We Sue Them for Label?: House passes industry-beloved food-labeling bill
5. The Leak Shall Inhibit the Earth: Northern Alaska pipeline leak may rank as one of region's largest

Vote!

Tomasita González, environmental-justice organizer, answers readers’ questions

Tomasita González is pushing to bring clean, running water and electricity to low-income communities of color in the Albuquerque area -- including her own. In answering reader questions, González -- an organizer with the SouthWest Organizing Project and this week's InterActivist -- chats about her favorite bilingual kids' book, New Mexico's status as a "nuclear colony," the rights of a toothpaste tube, and more.

Media Shower: Environmental film

If you watched the Oscars on Sunday night and were paying close attention, you may have noticed that climate change made a small appearance. Missed it? It was right there in the middle of the "issues" montage. If you don't believe me, head on over to Oscar.com and take a look at item number ten. See it? Day After Tomorrow. (For those of you not familiar with the movie, IMDb can help. May I also suggest this and this.)

As I mentioned last week, this year's Academy Awards presented a variety of green tinted films, including Syriana and March of the Penguins, which both won Oscars. But you don't need to depend on Hollywood for great environmental filmmaking. A whole host of green films are being created by independent filmmakers everywhere, and are featured at environmental film festivals around the U.S. Two of the most prominent are taking place this month.