Karen Lee Orr
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- Name: Karen Lee Orr
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SUSPS
Mr. Schneider,
JeffB, the second person to comment on this article, wrote that the Sierra Club doesn't address the issue of U.S. immigration rates and the effect on the environment.
As an explanation for why the Sierra Club doesn't address immigration, I posted excerpts from the Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization website. It was stated that these were excerpts from the SUSPS website and the link to their site was provided.
SUSPS: http://www.susps.org/
According the SUSPS website, the SUSPS vision for environmentalism doen't stop at the U.S borders. It includes educating women worldwide to achieve lower birth rates, lowering consumption levels in industrialized and developing nations, and protecting national parks and the world's remaining wild spaces from exploitation and development.
You can learn more about the Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization at their website: http://www.susps.org/
Regarding Grist's David Roberts' name calling ~
Name calling on blogs is unfortunate. It's unacceptable behavior in any case, particularly when the person doing the name calling is a staff member of the host organization On Carl Pope stepping down from helm of the Sierra Club posted 9 months, 4 weeks ago 24 Responses
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Re: NYT story re sugarcane
Dr. Searchinger ignores many serious issues regarding Brazilian
sugar cane ethanol.Dr. Searchinger fails to acknowledge or factor in the human energy
put forth by 200,000 sugar cane workers who migrate to the Brazilian
plantations to work and live like slaves. Without their sacrifice and
government subsidies, the ethanol industry would not survive.I saw first hand how horrid the living and working conditions
were for the sugar cane "slaves" when I worked in migrant
camps in Florida. Most Jamaican migrants were never paid
and after harvest they were put into cargo planes and flown
back to Jamaica to be forgotten. Many migrant cane cutters
died of heat exhaustion and acute pesticide poisoning,
especially children.Searchinger says governments should quickly turn their
attention to developing biofuels that do not require cropping.Sugar cane is grownby cropping; it is replanted every 2 years.
Stalks of seed cane are hand-cut with machetes, loaded onto
wagons, transported to the fields and dropped horizontally
into furrows.Sugar cane requires more energy and labor than most crops.
Cane is an extremely intense feeder of nitrogen fertilizer as
well as, phosphate that comes from high energy, polluting
strip mine operations. Nitrogen prices have doubled in 3 years.Sugar cane is dependent on massive use of irrigation water,
herbicides and pesticides.In the US, sugar cane is highly subsidized with price supports
and irrigation subsidies. The US government spends $2 billion
dollars a year to pump water into and out of cane fields in the
Everglades of south Florida.Sugar cane farming in Florida has depleted 10 feet of topsoil
in 30 years. Very little topsoil is left to grow crops much longer.Sugar cane farming will also deplete topsoil in Brazil.
Brazilian labor will not sustain brutal conditions for very long.
Just as Europe is boycotting ethanol from prior rainforests,
we should boycott sugar ethanol that comes from Brazil and
the Everglades, the largest subtropical wetland in the world,
an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage SiteThe Everglades was designated as a Wetland of International
Importance in 1987 and we support restoration, not further
destruction.December McSherry
See ~
The Hidden Story of Big Sugar
Other than gold, no single substance has had a bigger hand in shaping the history of the western hemisphere than sugar. These videos explore the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels.
Using dramatic reenactments, they reveal how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, and continues to be at the heart of a present-day epidemic: consumers who are slaves to a sugar based diet and car culture.
The Fanjuls, the Fanjul sugarcane operations in Florida and the Dominican Republic, Bill Clinton and Carl Hiaasen are featured ~
http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache:RQWEm6A6_dsJ:article ...
sites/articles/archive/2007/10/02/the-hidden-story-of-big-sugar.aspx+hidden+
story+of+big+sugar&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PRICE OF SUGAR narrated by Paul Newman
http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/press.shtml
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Karen OrrOn Biofuels not helpful in climate-change fight, new studies say posted 1 year, 9 months ago 28 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
How the West Was Eaten
How the West Was Eaten by Jeffrey St. Clair
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair02102007.htmlWelfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West
http://www.publiclandsranching.org/book.htmOn In case you'd forgotten, industrial meat is a friggin' nightmare posted 1 year, 9 months ago 46 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
Phosphate
Over 50 million acres of good farmland will be used to grow corn to fuel the inefficient American motor vehicle.Draglines will scoop up Florida for the Midwest corn growers.
Corn is a heavy feeder of phosphate. Midwest Corn depends on Florida phosphate. Florida is the largest producer of phosphate rock mined in the United States.
We have witnessed radiation contamination, polluted rivers and destroyed wetlands as well as mercury, sulfuric acid and flouride air pollution in Florida since the early mining years. Expect this to
double.Phosphate production will have to double in Florida to meet the fertilizer requirements of expanded Midwest corn acreage for ethanol production.
Phosphate mining currently disturbs 5,000 - 6,000 acres of land annually in north and central Florida.
Mosaic Phosphate Co., (200,000 acres) sends 75% of
their phosphate to the cornbelt in the Midwest. Mosaic plans to develop two new mines and extend existing mines in south-central Florida to continue meeting the demand for phosphate.Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. (PCS) is draglining over 100,000 acres of wetlands along the Suwannee River near White Springs.
Geologic experts are warning that phosphate deposits will be depleted in Florida within 20 years.
The US will become dependent on costly finite supplies of phosphate from Morocco in competition with China and the rest of the world.
America will become more energy dependent as we exhaust our local natural resources with the Energy Bill.
December McSherryOn Seed-and-chemical giant sees its profit triple posted 1 year, 10 months ago 9 Responses
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Flyin' without my wings again
Sharla June refers to "When You're Dead" as a cheerful environmental ballad.
When You're Dead
http://www.folkalley.com/openmic/song.php?id=3372"When You're Dead" is from Sharla June's "Flyin' without My Wings Again" CD
You can listen to more from the "Flyin' Without My Wings Again" CD and read about Sharla June here ~
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...Sharla June and the Mayhaws here ~
http://www.myspace.com/themayhawsGrant Peeples' "New State of Florida Song" shouldn't be missed
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.view ...All four Florida songs at Grant's MySpace site are terrific.
More from Grant Peeples and the Baker Act here ~
http://www.grantpeeples.com/music.htmlSharla June and Grant are from Tallahassee, down in F-L-A.On 'Church', from Songs of Shiloh, shows some love for the planet posted 1 year, 10 months ago 8 Responses