A roundup of possible Cabinet picks for environment-related positions 6

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1. 

   stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:27 pm
   07 Nov 2008

   Finally, we see democracy in action...........
   
   With the election of Barack Obama, a new day is surely dawning for the family of humanity. We have good reasons to be hopeful. The agonizing throes of the severe and colossal storm we have endured in the past several years have produced an unexpected outcome. The air is being cleansed and the dark clouds that had been gathering on the horizon are being blown away.
   Al Gore has reminded all of us that now is the time for intellectual honesty and moral courage as necessary attributes for responding ably to the human-driven global challenges which are looming ominously before humankind. As the horrendous, once in a century storm is being swept away by benevolent winds of change, perhaps we will see that honest and courageous activities of many people will begin to replace cascading, self-interested behavior of a few misguided, greedy people who have been willing to do whatsoever is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially fashionable... come what may for our children.
   Perhaps sufficiently reality-oriented changes in policymaking and action planning, changes that protect biodiversity from mass extinction, prevent more wanton environmental degradation and preserve Earth's body from relentless dissipation as well as the children from endangerment, are in the offing.
   Steven Earl Salmony
   
   AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
   
   http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...
   
   

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2. 

   bigTom Posted 3:03 pm
   08 Nov 2008

   RFK is controversial.RFK is controversial in scientific circles. Apparently he had sided with some anti-vaccinationists in the past. This is considered to be anti- science by much of the science establishment. For this reason he probably shouldn't be considered for a position overseeing a science heavy agency.

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3. 

   Tasermons Partner Posted 1:03 am
   09 Nov 2008

   Maybe, but......what does the EPA haveta do with vaccinations?

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4. 

   AnthonyHenrySmith Posted 3:03 am
   11 Nov 2008

   EPA AdministratorThe job at the EPA calls for someone with a keen sense of both ethics and science. Kennedy is not that person.
   The following letter was written in support of Robert H. Boyle and others who resigned from Riverkeeper rather than support R. F. Kennedy, Jr.'s compromise of the principle that ethics must never be separate from science.
   This letter was first published in the Putnam County News and Recorder, Cold Spring, New York, on August 30, 2000 and they have carried it on their website ever since, for which they have my thanks. (AHS, 2008)
   Letters:
   Supports Former Riverkeeper Board Members' Action
   
   Editor,
   The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers, Inc. supports Robert H. Boyle, former president of the Riverkeeper, Inc. and former Riverkeeper, Inc. board members John Fry, treasurer, Nancy Abraham, Kathryn Belous Boyle, Pat Crow, Theresa Hanczor, Robert Hodes, Ann Tonetti and Alexander Zagoreas in the action they have taken in resigning from Riverkeeper in opposition to the hiring of a convicted environmental felon to serve in the position of staff scientist on the staff of Riverkeeper.
   In issuing this statement of support, The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers wishes to emphasize that ethics cannot be separated from science and that the environmental movement will prosper best in an atmosphere of demonstrated personal responsibility and earned mutual respect.
   We encourage individuals as well as environmental organizations to join us in similar expressions of support for the principled stand taken by Boyle and fellow board members in their defense of the ethical integrity of the environmental movement here in the Hudson River Valley.
   Boyle and 8 of the 22 Riverkeeper board members resigned from Riverkeeper, Inc. in protest of the hiring of William Wegner. For eight years Wegner operated a ring of smugglers who stole bird eggs directly from the nests of protected cockatoo species in Australia. Wegner and his ring then smuggled the eggs by air to the United States. Birds that hatched and survived were then sold for as much as $12,500.00 each. A federal judge accepted Wegner's plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy and tax fraud and sentenced him to five years in prison. The judge also found that Wegner had attempted to obstruct justice by committing perjury at the trial of a co-defendant Wegner paid a $10,000.00 fine.
   Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated that everyone deserves a second chance and notes that he himself had been given a second chance in that he had once been convicted of a drug offense.
   We note, however, that Kennedy's offense was essentially a victimless crime while Wegner's offense was a crime against the environment, the people of Australia, the people of the United States and against the birds. In order to avoid detection during the flight, smugglers flushed newly hatched chicks down the plane's toilet
   Although Wegner has been convicted and served his sentence, nothing he or anyone else can do will correct the damage he has done or make his victims whole again.
   Wegner's prison sentence seems to have done little to improve his ethical sense. The resume Wegner submitted to Riverkeeper accounts for his period of incarceration without referring to the fact of the incarceration itself Wegner describes work he performed and omits the significant information that he performed this work while he was serving time as a prison inmate.
   Kennedy overstepped his position as attorney for Riverkeeper when, in November of 1999, he hired Wegner. Boyle terminated Wegner after learning of the hiring and upon review of Wegner's resume, court records and media accounts. The matter came to a climax at a board meeting on June 20th when Kennedy insisted that Wegner be rehired over Boyle's objection.
   While we hope Riverkeeper continues to work to produce changed human beings who think and act differently in regard to the Hudson River and all that pertains to it, we also recognize the primary mission of Riverkeeper is not the rehabilitation of Wegner or of those like him.
   Sincerely,
   Anthony Henry Smith
   
   Fishkill
   (for The Fishkill Ridge Caretakers)
   
   (Fishkill Ridge Community Heritage, a separate organization, has also supported this letter from their beginning.)
   
   Anthony Henry Smith
   
   (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
   
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5. 

   JMG Posted 5:14 am
   11 Nov 2008

   PicksFor SECRETARY of the new ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND PROTECTION DEPARTMENT (a full cabinet dept. made up of the current Ag/Energy/Interior and EPA), Sibelius would be a good choice.
   The Undersecretary for Energy could be Grumet.
   
   Undersecretary for the Interior -- Jamie Clark.
   
   Undersecretary for Ag, Wes Jackson.
   Blumenauer is a good choice for DOT.
   
   
   
   The 5% Project
   
   
   
   Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

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6. 

   FoodObsessed Posted 1:58 am
   14 Nov 2008

   RE: RFK ControversialBigTom, if you see RFK as anti-science because of his activism to make vaccines safer, let me take a moment to remind you of tobacco and climate change. It took many years for the dangers of cigarettes and fossil fuel emissions to gain mainstream U.S. acceptance as hazards to humans and the climate, respectively. Was it only good science once the establishment was willing to embrace it?
   There are reams of peer-reviewed studies regarding vaccines and incidence of neurological damage and immunological dysfunction, if you look beyond the research that government and industry fund. And read "The Virus and The Vaccine," a book by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacker. It shows how our government has long subverted science on vaccine safety (their book looks specifically at a cancer-causing monkey virus that infected the polio vaccine for many years.)
   
   

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