Who's irked by Earth Day?

Big tech brands Yahoo, AOL and other lil ones put together Earth Day pages for the weekend. Big media have been greener than normal this spring. And what about big government? Oh look, some members of Congress went out of their way to throw up an Earth Day website too. Yet the blue and green pages for the  House Committee on Resources, whose job is to protect our fish, forests, and energy resources say:

Good news doesn't sell as well as bad news, and the "sky is falling" sensationalism of environmental activists lead people to falsely believe that our environment is getting worse when it's actually getting better…Scare tactics and sensational rhetoric have enabled the top 30 organizations to generate billions in annual revenue, according to public documents. But how much of this money is spent on real, hands-on, "muddy boots" conservation work for the environment? Almost none. 

Don't be surprised that your taxes paid for this nonsense; after all, Rep. Richard "least green" Pombo heads the committee. The Tax and Business Law Commentary blog uncovers the b/s by proving that environmental groups' budgets in fact largely do fund conservation efforts--82% in the Nature Conservancy's case:

The Committee's website is nothing more than propaganda. Worse, it's false. Worse yet, it directly slanders organizations that have long demonstrated their devotion to conservation and environmental preservation.

At least (Raw Story via Env. Econ. blog)

Comments

[amada service]

Im impressed how the society and other teams pushed and pursued the whole program.

[William Maderas]

Ecological Society of America Presents Workshop on Building “Green” Communities, San Jose Convention Center, August 4th

Panel to Write Guidelines for Assisting Local Governments in
Developing Sustainable, ‘Green’ Communities

San Jose, Calif., July 9, 2007 — The Ecological Society of America (www.esa.org) is presenting a workshop on building green communities during its national meeting on August 4, 2007 at the San Jose Convention Center, from 8:30 am-5 pm.

“Restoring Internal Control in Agroecosystems and Building a Foundation for Sustainable Communities” is the topic of the workshop that will be presented by a 15 member panel. Moderated by Dr. Gar House, the goal of this workshop is to compose a set of written guidelines which assist local governments in developing sustainable, ‘green’ communities.

“Agriculture is fundamental to human existence, yet current methods are unsustainable. Restoration of internal ecosystem control to agriculture provides a framework for mitigation of global resource depletion. Pathways for restoring internal control to agriculture systems is a common ground for educators, researchers, farmers, citizens, and legislators,” says Dr. House.

The justification and vision for the workshop is to write guidelines for organizing and developing sustainable communities. In sustainable agriculture there is an enormous gap between what is known and what is practiced. His workshop will explore methods of raising ‘sustainable’ consciousness at the community level.

The workshop examines agroecosystems from five view points of view: design and construction of agroecosystem prototypes; extending the definition of agroecosystems to include tended ‘wild’ areas; retrofitting suburbs for local food production; public health restoration via physical re-design; and educating the community in land stewardship and sustainable concepts.

The workshop’s primary task is to identify pathways to address the issues faced by these five key areas and integrate them into a set of guidelines to develop sustainable communities. The workshop addresses these questions:
• What are sustainable communities and why are they important?
• How can agricultural activities be returned to the core of the community?
• How is a sustainable community constructed and become operational?
• How do we encourage school districts to teach land stewardship literacy?
• How do you turn a suburban lot into a mini-food producing farm?
• How do communities overcome decadent attitudes and concepts?
For more information on agroecosystems visit: www.agroecosystems.org.

Media contact: William Madaras, Madaras Communicatons at 408-390-3160 or [email protected]