National Science Teachers Association Bribed by Big Oil

Dammit. I have already given up on politicians, but for some reason I was holding out faith that our nation's teachers would be a bastion of honesty and integrity, leading our children to a brighter and greener future through education. Now we see that the big oil companies like ExxonMobile, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute have infiltrated our schools and our children's' minds with their propaganda through huge donations to the NSTA (6 million +), even going so far as to producing energy curriculum that downplays environmental crises and emphasizing oil's importance. The NSTA even turned down a donation of 50,000 copies of An Inconvenient Truth, citing that it would violate their policy on endorsements. I guess you just have to pay them more to violate their policies and sell their scruples. Disgusting and appalling. As usual, there's a coverup with websites being taken down, Lori David describes the whole sordid tale at The Huffington Post.
If you're a self-respecting science teacher, you'll either oust your executive director, Dr. Gerry Wheeler(dealer), or disavow yourself with this crooked professional organization and start teaching some unbiased science.

via Hugg, The Huffington Post

Kofi Annan Declares a "Frightening Lack of Leadership" in Global Warming

BBC has an on-line article and video discussing Global Warming at a UN climate summit in Nairobi. The video talks about how global warming is affecting 3rd world countries like Nairobi but they don't seem to have the actual speech at this time that was aired on BBC America. The article discusses Kofi Annan's speech during the climate summit. This, in conjunction with the recent report by Sir Nicholas Stern on the economic effects of climate change, make two major announcements we have in the global community regarding the global warming emergency:

1. A United Nations climate summit, composed of world leaders and bringing together humanity's best scientific data, has declared once again that the world is heading rapidly towards a state of dire emergency that we may not be able to stop unless major world powers work together in a global cooperation. The Secretary-General of the U.N., Kofi Annan, has criticised the global community (read: U.S. government in particular) for a "frightening lack of leadership" on the matter.
2. Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank, now a lead economist for the British government, issued "The Stern Review", a report compiled for the British government on the economic affects of global warming and what our action or inaction will likely lead to. Basically, if we act now, the cost will only be 1% of the global gross domestic product (GDP) as opposed to a cost of 5% per year losses of the GDP if we do nothing and are reactive to the increasing climate crises as they arise.

What do these two things mean? They mean that all of the scientific community has researched and confirmed that global warming and climate change exists and is a threat to human civilization as we know it. In addition, the majority of the world political community including the United Nations has also accepted global warming as fact, recognized the imminent danger and called the global community into action to begin change now. We also now see that economic models based on the projections of the effects of climate change show that the world economy will be severely stressed and show large financial losses with a continuing decline if action is not taken now. We have scientific data, we have the support of the global political and economic community, now we need the support of the U.S. government and it's people. This is a call to arms that we need to hear. We need to step up and begin recognizing the true necessity of action on global warming and begin to initiate policy and controls that will make a difference now. We need to ignore corporate demands and resistance to policy change and do what is right for our country, our people, the earth and it's people.

California's Voters Make Dissapointing Decisions for the Environment

Well, looking at the results from the elections yesterday, it seems that we've done well to oust Republicans from control of the House and probably the Senate. Hopefully this well incite some change in direction for our country.
We have, however, failed to initiate one of the most important steps that we could have made towards solutions and change for global warming. By defeating Proposition 87, California voters have made the statement that the potential for small changes in their gas prices is more important than saving the planet from certain environmental catastrophe. California voters have chosen larger, less efficient cars, they have chosen to bless the oil companies with larger profits, they have chosen polluting coal-fired power plants over clean options such as wind and solar. The majority of California voters have chosen selfishness over the greater good. How utterly depressing. Despite thousands of our troops already dying in Iraq for a war partially motivated by our oil consumption, we Californians have spoken: Give let the oil companies have more money! We will consume the product that you take from our grounds and waters for free and fill your coffers no matter what the cost to the planet and society, as long as that cost isn't directly from our wallets. Like it or not, that is what we have stated by our votes or lack of voting.
My only hope is that with more education, effort, and time, the people of our country will choose to make a few personal sacrifices in the name of what is right and what is good for humanity. Hopefully it won't take another eye-opening environmental castastrophe like Katrina, another tsunami or the like to convince people. At the rate we're going though, unless we start passing legislation like Prop 87, we will be too late to reverse what we have done and see an environmental and economic upheaval the likes of which the world has never seen.
I encourage everyone to educate themselves using unbiased, scientific data on the state of our climate crisis, do not allow yourselves to be emotionally swayed by corporate fear tactics and make solid, logical decisions for our future.