Francis Stokes’s Posts

• Top 10 bizarro environmental moments of 2006

  Each wackier than the last 0

  Posted 2 years, 10 months ago

  2006 had its share of environmental Backwards Day moments -- some came from nature, some from Washington, and some from ordinary Americans who, for the first time since the era of acid rain and Three Mile Island, seemed to awaken into something resembling a national consciousness about our planet. Here's a list of highlights:

  Michael Crichton Wins "Excellence In Journalism" Award. That's right -- Crichton's anti-enviro fantasy thriller State Of Fear won him the highly coveted award for journalistic excellence from ... the Society Of Petroleum Geologists. I only include this because I'm bitter I lost the award… Read More

• Texas bighorn achieve every endangered species' dream: open season

  There are enough to shoot again 2

  Posted 3 years, 1 month ago

  In the 1800s, the Texas Bighorn sheep numbered about 1,500 in the remote, craggy Texas wilderness. But by the 1940s, their numbers had dwindled to around 35 and they were looking to join the ranks of the dodo bird. However, conservation efforts and personal motivation tapes pushed the Bighorn sheep to clamber and hoof their way gradually back up the rocky, precarious cliff to population rebound, and at the windswept peak the Texas Bighorn found the ultimate reward:

• Rats with wings dot com

  A new blog by pigeons gives a bird's eye view of air quality 0

  Posted 3 years, 2 months ago

  A recent article announced a new milestone in the blogging world -- the very first blog by pigeons. A team at University of California Irvine is gathering data on smog particles in the atmosphere using pigeons outfitted with "backpacks and cell phones." (Because they don't already gab enough on apartment windowsills.) The project was inspired by WWII homing pigeons equipped with spy cameras.

  The team devised a feather-weight minipack with an antenna, a cell phone SIM card, global positioning system equipment, and a pollution sensor. The GPS tracks the pigeon's exact location, the sensors pick up airborne… Read More

• A little bit country, a little bit pathetic and lazy 4

  Posted 3 years, 3 months ago

  To animal lovers, the idea of proudly displaying the remains of something you hunted down and killed is a sad aspect of male bravado. Well, consider if the animal was a domestic creature raised in a cage for tourists to photograph. Troy Lee Gentry, of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, has been charged with paying $4,650 to the Minnesota Wildlife Connection to kill a tame bear named "Cubby."

• Eddie Vedder to shame you with his environmental giving 0

  Posted 3 years, 4 months ago

  Pop-superstars-turned-moody-hasbeens-turned-pop-superstars Pearl Jam recently pledged to donate $100,000 to groups that focus on climate change and other environmental concerns, as a way to offset their carbon emissions. Many of the recipients are, not surprisingly, in the Seattle rockers' home state. (Although there's at least one local nonprofit they seem to have missed ... what were they thinking?)

  While the "carbon neutral" concept is trendy right now, Pearl Jam has followed this model for donations before.

  Pearl Jam has aided other green causes in the past, including donating money to preserve a Madagascar rain forest to atone for environmental… Read More

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Francis Stokes’s Recent Comments

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  the fix

  There was a student film I saw at NYU that was a mock-documentary about a guy who was obsessed with killing all the bald eagles. He drove around in his VW bus listening to Neil Sedaka and hunting them. It was actually very funny.

  Of course, not funny funny. More like disturbing funny. Though now it's more like disturbing disturbing.On Won't someone think of the chicks? posted 3 years, 7 months ago 6 Responses