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 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. 

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Whale hearts hold clues to making pacemakers and lizard skins are showing how to cut friction in electrical appliances as companies mimic nature to develop high-tech goods, a U.N.-backed report said on Wednesday.

Among other advances that could save hundreds of millions of dollars, the wings of desert beetles could improve water collection and the drought-resistant African "resurrection plant" indicates ways to store vaccines without refrigeration.

READ MORE
Site provided by www.reuters.com

Base philosophy,

If you imagine for a moment that the earth and everything on it was on a laboratory slide and that through a microscope you were conducting a study in the same way a biologist or other scientist might view microscopic organisms. Your objective was to understand the Symbiotic relationships of the organisms that you could see going about their complex interactions and life cycles.

It would become rapidly clear to you that the relationship between the dominant organisms (Humankind) and everything else was PARASITIC in nature, in other words :

A type of symbiosis where two (or more) organisms from different species live in close proximity to one another, in which one member depends on another for its nutrients, protection, and/or other life functions.

The dependent member (HUMANKIND, the parasite) benefits from the relationship while the other one (EARTH, the host) is harmed by it.

You would determine that at a finite point in time, the HOST would not be in a position to satisfy the needs of the PARASITE and the PARASITE would become extinct. We know this to be true, we extinguish tens of thousands of species every year, through soil erosion, deforestisation, global warming, pollution of Air, Sea, Earth and water.

We have to move to a more sympathetic Symbiotic relationship with our host organism.

A type of symbiosis where two (or more) organisms from different species live in close proximity to one another and rely on one another for nutrients, protection, or other life functions. Both (or all) of the organisms involved benefit from the relationship.

There are many, many ways to achieve this future state, BUT THE COMMON KEY IS THAT WE HAVE TO CHANGE OUR THINKING. WHAT WE THINK, DETERMINES OUR ACTIONS, OUR ACTIONS DETERMINE THE OUTCOME.

With our current actions the outcome is inevitable - EXTINCTION

Join the 11THHOURACTION movement and CHANGE YOUR THINKING

The ability to create bee "super queens" that can shrug off disease has arisen from the discovery of how royal jelly works.

A study of royal jelly, the creamy, thick secretion used to feed honey bee larvae and groom queens, has been discovered to have a powerful effect on genes and scientists now know how to mimic its effects, which will be give them an invaluable new technology to help make resistant bee strains.

READ MORE
Site provided by www.telegraph.co.uk

Henry David Thoreau, 1879

The protection of nature has deep cultural roots. Shamanism recognizes the sacred value of forests, lakes, rivers and mountains. Taoism, Shintoism and Buddhism revere special natural sites for spiritual purposes. Hinduism and Buddhism share a spiritual appreciation for animals. Buddhism places a high value on saving the lives of animals. In the modern era, biological conservation became the central concern of several western philosophical movements. A romantic-transcendental tradition followed from the works of literary figures like Wordsworth, Emerson and Thoreau. They believed that Nature has inherent meaning and value, seeing it as a temple where humanity communicates with universal spirit.

John Muir, 1910

John Muir established a preservationist ethic, seeking to protect the beauty of Nature, on which depend both human spirituality and the other species co-evolving there. His great achievement was the American national park movement. He founded Yosemite and Yellowstone, a wonderful precedent for future government-sponsored conservation.

Gifford Pinchot formulated a utilitarian ethic of resource conservation, based on complementary conservation and development. His approach has been expanded by the modern environmental movement, by assigning quantifiable values to nature’s services. Aldo Leopold is considered to be the father of wildlife management in the USA. Leopold’s approach is described as evolutionary ecology. It emphasizes dynamic conservation:

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise [1].

Professor Lovelock in his garden, with a statue of Gaia

James Lovelock invented an Electron Capture Detector that identified how persistent CFC gases depleted the stratospheric ozone layer. His studies of the global sulphur cycle provided evidence for biological control of the Earth's climate. They led to a major scientific hypothesis, termed Gaia after the Greek goddess of the Earth. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that the living and nonliving parts of the earth constitute a complex interacting system, a single ‘giant organism’. Within it, all living things have a regulatory effect on the biosphere; one that promotes the overall evolution of life.

The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess described what he called Deep Ecology[3]. Naess believed that ecological science composed of facts and logic alone could not answer ethical questions about how humanity should live. That would require ecological wisdom—something based on deep experience, questioning and commitment. He called it ecosophy: an evolving, consistent philosophy of being, thinking and acting in the world that embodies ecological wisdom and harmony. Ecosophy holds that no single species of living being has more metaphysical right to live and unfold than any other.

Edward Wilson, eminent American biologist

We have entered the Century of the Environment, in which the immediate future is usefully conceived as a bottleneck. Science and technology, combined with a lack of self-understanding and a Paleolithic obstinacy, brought us to where we are today. Now science and technology, combined with foresight and moral courage, must see us through the bottleneck and out…

The essence of environmentalism is something central and vastly important. Its essence has been defined by science in the following way. Earth, unlike other solar planets, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on its living shell to create the special conditions on which life is sustainable. The soil, water and atmosphere of its surface have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their present condition by the activity of the biosphere, a stupendously complex layer of living creatures whose activities are locked together in precise but tenuous global cycles of energy and transformed organic matter. The biosphere creates our special world anew every day, every minute, and holds it in a unique shimmering physical disequilibrium. On that disequilibrium, the human species is in thrall. When we alter the biosphere in any direction, we move the environment away from the delicate dance of biology. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we degrade the greatest heritage this planet has to offer and thereby threaten our own existence.

Humanity did not descend as angelic beings into this world. Nor are we aliens who colonized Earth. We evolved here, one among many species, across millions of years, and exist as one organic miracle linked to others. The natural environment we treat with such unnecessary ignorance and recklessness was our cradle and nursery, our school, and remains our one and only home. To its special conditions we are intimately adapted in every one of the bodily fibres and biochemical transactions that gives us life. [4].

1. Aldo Leopold [1949] A Sand County Almanac 
2. James Lovelock [2000] Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth 
3. Arne Næss, [1973] The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement
4. Edward Wilson [2002] The Future of Life

Taken from: http://www.ecobuddhism.org/solutions.php?id=11 

The city of Los Angeles, the second largest in the U.S., has pledged to get one fifth of its energy from renewable sources by 2010. A step towards in that direction is the construction of a wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains about 100 miles north of the city. The $425 million, 120 megawatt facility will have 80 turbines and a new high-voltage transmission line, and will help double the portion of electricity from wind that the city gets. It was supposed to come online in 2004, but various delays and problems kept it from being built until now. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also announced plans for another wind farm on an adjacent site. Together, the projects would generate enough electricity for nearly 130,000 homes.

READ MORE 

G.E.M. Technologies has a breakthrough energy that can change our world.

When we scale up our tests, we will be achieving much greater temperature differences and undeniable over unity. Our next scheduled test will be with three different volumes which will achieve the following temperatures and over unity.

Test 1: A total of 270 ml of ingredients (approximately 1 cup + 1 tbsp). This test will achieve 58.62 degrees Celsius or 137.52 degrees Fahrenheit. Our only deduction will be for the combustion of hydrogen at 0.312 degrees Celsius.

Test 2: A total of 540 ml of ingredients (approximately 2 cups + 2 tbsp). This test will achieve 117.24 degrees Celsius or 243.04 degrees Fahrenheit. Our only deduction will be for the combustion of hydrogen at 0.624 degrees Celsius.

The graphic tests above prove two things:

1. The first proof was the heat energy which was an outstanding 1400% and 1500% beyond that which we put into it.

2. The second proof was that this sustained for an entire week, seven days, with nothing else added.

So, the question is what do these MICRO TESTS prove to make an investor want to take a chance on us?

We know that 1-2 degrees Celsius is not going to save the world, even if that represents 2000% over unity. What we did prove is that there is electron excitation which produced the heat and sustained that for seven days. We used no electricity, we input nothing else into the flask, around the flask, or near the flask, we simply mixed ingredients. A MIRACLE IN A FLASK, the electrons were excited. Ask yourself why?

As we go up in volume, we will reach even greater electron excitation levels and heat levels. It is at this point that we will capture the world's attention.

We need a top notch team to finish our research, implement mechanical engineering, and build prototypes. Our testing will prove many things and will prove that we can eliminate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, we can clean up all our polluted rivers, lakes, and streams, and we can provide a level of health never before seen on this planet.

"One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheel work of the universe.The very forces that motivate the planets in their orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery."