Michael Jackson's album Off the Wall came out 21 days after my 17th birthday, and at the time thanks to ABBA, I really did think I was a Dancing Queen. (lol) My 8-track of Off the Wall was played and danced to over and over and over again. That album and Michael Jackson have made an ever lasting impression on me. Music, art, and film always have the greatest impact on you when you are open to receiving the message.

Michael Jackson's Earth Song which came out in 1995 was his first single that overtly dealt with the environment and animal welfare. I was not completely surprised when I read this past week how Earth Song was a top five hit in most European countries, and in the UK, it remains Jackson's best-selling single. Sadly, Earth Song was not even released as a single in the United States. I wonder why? Maybe the reason was the US was not open to receiving this message at the time.

Earth Song was accompanied by a lavish music video which had an environmental theme, showing images of animal cruelty, deforestation, pollution and war. Jackson and the world's people unite in a spiritual chant Earth Song which summons a force that heals the world. Using special effects, time is reversed so that life returns, war ends and the forests regrow.

The video was filmed in four geographic regions. The first location was the Amazon Rainforest, where a large part was destroyed a week after the video's completion. Natives of the region appeared in the video and were not actors. The second scene was a war zone in Croatia, with residents of the area. The third location was Tanzania, which incorporated scenes of illegal poaching and hunting into the video. No animals were harmed in the making of the Earth Song, as the footage came from documentary archives. However, a poacher killed an elephant within a mile of the shot. The final location was in Warwick, New York, where a safe forest fire was simulated in a corn field.

Michael said this about Earth Song:

"I remember writing Earth Song when I was in Austria, in a hotel. And I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering of the plight of the Planet Earth. And for me, this is Earth's Song, because I think nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the Earth. And with the ecological unbalance going on, and a lot of the problems in the environment, I think earth feels the pain, and she has wounds, and it's about some of the joys of the planet as well. But this is my chance to pretty much let people hear the voice of the planet. And this is "Earth Song." And that's what inspired it."

I was happy I came across so many eco-bloggers like Treehugger, Ecorazzie and many others blogging about this song since Michael Jackson's transition last week. I hope this music video gets shown all over the world and especially here in the United States.  Here's wishing that we are now more open to receiving this message and the wonderful gift of music and video from a true genius.

You can view Michael Jackson's Earth Song video HERE.

The Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 PASSED!

The Committee of the Whole approved the Committee Report on B18-150, the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 without question or discussion.
We still have a second and final vote in two weeks; however, since it was unanimous, it's going through. Please thank all council members involved for passing this bill.
www.TrashFreeAnacostia.com

What does the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 do? 

* Place a 5-cent fee, paid by consumer, on all disposable recyclable plastic and paper carryout bags from Retail Food Establishment license holders (including grocery stores, food vendors, convenience stores, drug stores, restaurants) and Class A & B liquor licensees.
* Ban non-recyclable plastic carryout bags.
* Require that if a plastic carryout bag is offered, that it must be recyclable and clearly labeled as such.
* The retail establishment will get 1 cent of fee returned tax exempt to the retailer.
* Retailers who choose to offer a carryout bag credit program will retain an additional cent, for a total of 2 cents per bag.
* The remaining fee per bag will be deposited into a new Anacostia River Cleanup & Protection Fund.

Talking Points

The legislation puts a new focus on reducing the amount of trash that enters the Anacostia River and creates a new fund dedicated to the cleanup and restoration of the Anacostia River. The legislation represents a unique attempt – as best we can tell, the first of its kind in the nation – to work with business and environmental leaders to develop a shared strategy to reduce the amount of trash in the Anacostia River. In addition, this initiative creates a partnership with Maryland to create a shared stewardship for the health of the entire Anacostia watershed.

Regarding Trash in the Anacostia River

• 20,000 tons of trash enters the Anacostia River each year.
• According to a recent report by the DC Dept. of the Environment, plastic bags, bottles, cans, snack wrappers and Styrofoam make up 85% of the trash in the Anacostia River.
• In the river’s tributaries, such as Watts Branch, nearly 50% of the trash is plastic bags.
• According to the report, placing a small fee on “free” bags could eliminate up to 47% of the trash in the tributaries and 21% from the river’s main stem.
• DC WASA removes 477 tons of trash from the Anacostia River each year; Anacostia Watershed Society volunteers have pulled another 536 tons of trash out of the River.

The Cost of Taking No Action

• EPA is establishing a new Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of allowable trash in the Anacostia River and violations are likely to occur with each rainfall event, potentially costing the District millions of dollars annually.
• Each “free” bag that becomes litter already costs District residents:
  • District agencies already spend millions on trash rather than people.
  • DC WASA spends millions on Anacostia River trash removal, passed on to District rate payers in their monthly water bill.
• Continued pollution of the Anacostia River is dangerous and creates a potential risk to wildlife and marine life.

How the Initiative Works

• The legislation will place a small 5-cent fee on all single-use plastic and paper carryout bags from Retail Food Establishment license holders (which includes grocery stores, food vendors, convenience stores, drug stores, and others) and Class A and B liquor stores.
• The legislation requires that these plastic and paper carryout bags be recyclable.

Community Education and Outreach

• The legislation delays implementation for 6 months to a year, requiring the city to conduct an intensive public information campaign and outreach that includes providing reusable carryout bags to residents for free or low-cost, and work with service providers to distribute multiple reusable bags to seniors and low-income households.  

How the Fee Would be Used

• The 5-cent fee will be divided between the business and a newly created Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund.
• Businesses will retain either 1 or 2 cents of the fee, depending whether they offer customers a carryout bag credit program for reusable bags.
• The remaining amount of the fee will be deposited into the Fund to target environmental cleanup, reclamation, and restoration efforts on the Anacostia River, as well as continue a public education campaign and provide free reusable bags to DC residents, in particular the elderly and low income residents.

Where Has This Been Tried Before

• Other cities are moving in this direction. New York, Seattle, and many European nations have already required, or plan to require, a small charge for plastic and paper bags. These initiatives have dramatically cut down on these single-use bags – by as much as 90% in some places.
• In addition, many businesses are already taking similar steps on their own in addition to selling low-cost durable, reusable bags. Discount food stores like ALDI and Save-A-Lot, and even IKEA, charge customers a nominal fee for every bag – greatly reducing the number of plastic and paper bags used and encouraging customers to bring reusable bags.

A website, www.TrashFreeAnacostia.com, has been set up to support the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Initiative and to be a resource for information about the effort to reduce the amount of bags that enter the River.

We live in this world without being fully aware of our connection with mother Nature - Planet Earth. We keep thinking that someone else will take care of pollution while we continue living our lives as consumers. It's the little things we can do every day that count and play the important role in building our awareness of the importance of the preservation of Mother Earth for future generations, not only for us. LITTLE THINGS we can do every day CAN MAKE A BIG CHANGE. Little things like riding a bike instead of driving a car, saving our energy every step of the way, turning off our air conditioners, supporting non-smoking campaigns, using water filters in order to avoid poisonous substances in tab water, buying only those products made of materials we approve of, avoiding cosmetic products with toxic substances, avoiding cell phones and other technological traps of the modern world as much as we can, talking to everyday people about the power of LOVE, unity and action, instead of silently supporting the temples of individualism, egoism and intolerance that surround us... are the things we can do TODAY to start trully caring for and SAVING our PLANET. Things the world has produced have made us slaves. Every day a new chance is born for us to try to remember that we are the ones who contributed to this slavery and we are the only ones who can contribute to the rebirth of freedom and the harmony of life. We are not large, powerful corporations... We are the people of the world. Maybe for a moment it may seem that there's nothing we can do, because we have no power like big global players. But, remember, without our money large corporations can kiss this world goodbye. Who can make a change, then? It's us - really, not them. Do something, do anything to change the world today, tomorrow, every day and you will immediately feel the greatness of mankind.

 We have have over 1000 Environmental based Experiments, labs and lesson plans 

for Teachers/Home Schoolers and their students. Search topics like Global Warming (of course), climate change, air pollution, science, ocean etc..

*The site is fun and easy to use

*You do not have to hassle with any login procedure

*Grade ranges are from K-12

*The site is 110% kid safe 

www.greenplanetsearch.com is also: 

*An environmental search engine with over 3000 sites indexed and adding more green sites daily (we are an actual search engine, this is not another Google custom search)

* Original Environment related News Aricles

*Green Website Awards for sites that deliver great content in a unique qnd captivating way

*Submit your Green Website feature

Below is a screenshot of our home page showing  the ECO LESSON PLAN ENGINE on the top of the page.

Directions for LESSON PLANS, go to www.greenplanetsearch.com on the top of the page it will say ECO SEARCH ENGINE.

On the right of that you will see the black which states "switch to eco lesson plans" Click It, then you will see it change to the ECO LESSON PLANS, type in your search and learn!!! 

The first Flash Search Engine is an Environmental Search Engine!! http://www.greenplanetsearch.com is now live!

 When Mike Haney first presented the idea behind the technology behind

www.greenplanetsearch.com, he was laughed down. Virtually, of course. “Everyone can

dream,: scoffed one, erroneously.

A few people were intrigued. The combination of Haney’s vision of a Flash-driven search

engine, and the plan to create a dazzling environmental education resource, eventually

attracted a loose-knit corps of collaborators, most of whom have never met in person first

among them Andre Roussille, a French computer programmer, and now part owner of the

company.

The upshot from this collaboration, apart from the stunningly beautiful homepage, is the

only people involved in the creation of the search engine, is that the only people involved

in the development devoted environmentalists, who genuinely wish to disseminate good

information to students and educators.

Later, through a similar serendipity, Mr. Haney teamed up with a veteran journalist who

agreed to lend his services to the site, building from scratch a source of environmental

news and policy analysis.

Advertisers will be strictly vetted by the companies shareholders, limited to companies

that are making a meaningful contribution the planet’s health.

The final result, which was launched this week, is the culminating of thousands of

hours of work, and more than a few false starts.

It boasts easily navigable information, experiments, lesson plans, presented in an interactive and graphically enhanced format,

and has an exclusive global climate change resource section for teachers and kids.

If you would like more information about greenplanetsearch.com, or to schedule an

interview with Mike Haney, please call Mike Haney at 305.531.3746   or e-mail info@greenplanetsearch.com. 

Srácok, barátok, haverok, ismer?sök, magyarok és mindenki!

Csapjunk bele mindjárt a közepén, egyszer el kell kezdeni!

Nézzétek meg a filmet, aztán csináljunk valamit.

Mindenki csak azt és annyit amit akar.

Kezdésnek egy szociális kapcsolatokat ápoló kocsmázás is megfelel? :)

Ne hagyjuk az életünket tönkrecseszni (és most csak a lokális szintre gondolok).

Merjetek szabadok és boldogok lenni :D

Na ennyi a szentbeszédb?l, csatlakozzatok, együtt megoldunk mindent.

Going where I list, my own master, total absolute, listening to others, considering well what they say, pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.  I inhale great draughts of space.  The east and west are mine……..….

Beware of the moral ripening of nature.  Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.  Beware civilization.

True color composite satellite map: of Earth's land surface in January, 
illustrating how seasonal snowfall affectings Earth's albedo. 
Snow-covered regions cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into 
space. Changes in the range of snow cover serve to amplify climate 
changes. Courtesy NASA

In late summer 2007, reports of ice melting were coming at a frenetic pace. Experts were 'stunned' when an area of Arctic sea ice almost twice the size of Britain disappeared in a single week. Nearby, the Greenland ice sheet was melting so fast that huge chunks of ice weighing several billion tons were breaking off and sliding into the sea, triggering minor earthquakes.  If we cannot stop this melting of the Greenland ice sheet, sea level will eventually rise 23 feet, inundating many of the world's coastal cities and the rice-growing river deltas of Asia. It will force several hundred million people from their homes, generating an unimaginable flood of rising-sea refugees. Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. We require a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are fast undermining our future, a Plan B. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth's damaged ecosystems. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.

Continuing rapid population growth is weakening governments in scores of countries. The annual addition of 70 million people to world population is concentrated in countries where water tables are falling and wells are going dry, forests are shrinking, soils are eroding, and grasslands are turning into desert. New stresses are emerging such as rising oil prices as the world approaches peak oil and rising food prices as an ever larger share of the U.S. grain harvest is converted into fuel for cars.

At the heart of a genuine climate-stabilizing initiative is a detailed plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020 in order to hold the future temperature rise to a minimum. This initiative has three major components -- raising energy efficiency, developing renewable sources of energy, and expanding the earth's tree cover. Reaching these goals will mean the world can phase out all coal-fired power plants. In setting the carbon reduction goals for Plan B, we do not ask "What do politicians think is politically feasible?" but rather "What do we think is needed to prevent irreversible climate change?" This is not Plan A: business-as-usual. This is Plan B: an all-out response at wartime speed proportionate to the magnitude of the threats facing civilization. We are in a race between tipping points in natural and political systems. Which will come first? Can we mobilize the political will to phase out coal-fired power plants before the melting of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible? Can we halt deforestation in the Amazon basin before it so weakens the forest that it becomes vulnerable to fire and is destroyed? Can we act fast enough to save the Himalayan glaciers that feed the rivers of Asia?

In the Plan B energy economy, wind is the centerpiece. It is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales easily and can be developed quickly. The goal is to develop at wartime speed 3 million megawatts of wind-generating capacity by 2020, enough to meet 40 percent of the world's electricity needs. This would require 1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. 
The combination of plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars and advanced-design wind turbines has set the stage for the evolution of an entirely new automotive fuel economy. We could do our short-distance driving almost entirely with cheap, wind-generated electricity. Solar technologies also provide exciting opportunities for getting us off the carbon treadmill. Sales of solar-electric panels are doubling every two years. Rooftop solar water heaters are spreading fast in Europe and China. Large-scale solar thermal power plants are under construction in California, Florida, Spain, and Algeria.

Time is our scarcest resource. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize. These deadlines are set by nature. Nature is the timekeeper, but we cannot see the clock.  The key to restructuring the world energy economy is to get the market to tell the environmental truth by incorporating into prices the indirect costs of burning fossil fuels, such as climate disruption and air pollution. To do this, we propose adopting a carbon tax that will reflect these indirect costs and offsetting it by lowering income taxes.

Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. We have reached a point in the deteriorating relationship between us and the earth's natural systems where we all have to become political activists. Every day counts. We all have a stake in civilization's survival. We can all make lifestyle changes, but unless we restructure the economy and do it quickly we will almost certainly fail. We need to persuade our elected representatives and national leaders to support the necessary environmental tax restructuring and other changes. 
We all need to educate ourselves on environmental issues. This is decision time. We can stay with business as usual and watch our economy decline and our civilization unravel, or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that mobilizes to save civilization. Our generation will make the decision, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.

Earth Policy Institute has made Plan B 3.0 available for downloading free of charge from its Web site, earthpolicy.org.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm