Hurricane Joaquin reaches Category Four as it batters Bahamas – BBC News

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34420506

Hurricane Joaquin has brought heavy rains and winds to parts of the Bahamas after it was reclassified up to the second strongest type of storm.

Sustained winds of up to 210 km/h (130mph) were reported in parts of the eastern Bahamas, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

The NHC says Joaquin could affect the US East Coast by Sunday, and said it was now an “extremely dangerous” storm.

Emergency teams said there were no reports of casualties in the Bahamas.

Forecasters in the US and the Bahamas are warning that central islands, many of which are low-lying, could see a storm surge of up to 3.7m (12ft).

“We do not know the impact of 130mph on those areas,” Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie said. “We know it’s a horrific kind of experience.”

One Bahamas resident, Shandira Forbes, said she had been in contact with her mother on the island of Acklins.

…(read more).

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A Sand County Almanac

LeopoldFoundation

Published on Jul 10, 2013

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Election 2016 Is ‘Feeling The Bern’ | On Point

October 1, 2015 at 10:00 AM  Senator Bernie Sanders joins us to make the case for why he should be the next President of the United States. We will “Feel the Bern” with Bernie Sanders.

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Des Moines Youth Summit, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015, at Creative Visions in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP)

Latest news out of the Democratic presidential nomination contest: Bernie Sanders is raising almost as much money now as Hillary Clinton. In the quarter ending yesterday, Sanders raised $26 million to Clinton’s $28 million. Hers is way down. His is way up. She did it with 58 personal fundraising appearances. He did it almost all online. Senator Bernie Sanders, self-described Democratic Socialist from Vermont, just keeps whupping the expectations of the party elite. Says he wants a political revolution. He’s with us. This hour On Point, we talk with Bernie Sanders.

– Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), junior US Senator for the state of Vermont. Candidate for the 2016 Democratic nomination for President. (@BernieSanders)

Howard Fineman, global editorial director for the Huffington Post Media Group. Author of “The Thirteen American Arguments.” (@howardfineman)

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation. (@KatrinaNation)

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‘Climate Justice’ Greens See Red on Climate Change

Mark Hertsgaard

Moral Conflict

10.01.151:00 AM ET
It’s a far cry from eco-terrorism, but the loose collective that calls itself Climate Justice is all too willing to inject civil disobedience into the climate change wars.

“This is a book about waking up,” Wen Stephenson writes on the opening page of his exceptionally well-timed What We’re Fighting For Now Is Each Other. Stephenson’s subject is the self-christened “climate justice” movement that’s trying to halt civilization’s march over the cliff of non-survivable global warming. Judging by events of recent days—especially Shell Oil’s halt to oil drilling in the Arctic, a retreat estimated to cost shareholders some $7 billion—this grassroots movement is only growing in size, sophistication, and economic and political clout. And more protests against the fossil fuel industry, along with demands for a rapid shift to 100 percent clean energy, are planned prior to the United Nations climate summit that begins in Paris on November 30.

Much news coverage simplistically attributed Shell’s Arctic retreat to the current low price of oil, roughly $50 a barrel. No doubt that was a factor, but Shell’s own announcement also referenced “the challenging, unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.” And this “regulatory environment” is a function of politics, politics that have been rapidly changing and in no small part due to pressure from climate activists.

On August 18, the Democratic party’s presidential frontrunner reversed course and endorsed one of the movement’s key demands as Hillary Clinton announced that she opposed Arctic drilling. Clinton’s move in turn obliged president Obama to defend green lighting Shell’s plans, complicating the White House’s efforts to portray Obama as a climate champion during his visit to Alaska. A few days later, still lagging behind Senator Bernie Sanders both in the polls and in grassroots enthusiasm and recognizing that climate change is a major campaign issue for younger voters and the activists crucial to turning out the vote on election day, Clinton made a second attempt to burnish her green credibility by coming out against the Keystone XL pipeline—the same pipeline she said as secretary of State in 2009 she was “inclined” to approve.

…(read more).

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Green Fire trailer

LeopoldFoundation

Published on Apr 19, 2012

The first full-length documentary film ever made about legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold, Green Fire highlights Leopold’s extraordinary career, tracing how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement. Leopold remains relevant today, inspiring projects all over the country that connect people and land.

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Building a Land Ethic Conference: Thursday Toward Common Ground Panel

LeopoldFoundation

Published on Oct 1, 2015

Thursday’s #LeopoldConference program recognized that for Leopold’s vision of a land ethic to be successful, it will need to embrace, and be embraced by diverse constituencies across the U.S. and beyond. Thursday afternoon’s program closed with a panel that focused on inclusion in conservation. The panel included Nicole Jackson (environmental educator and urban naturalist), Leslie Weldon (Chief of the National Forest System), and Cynthia Martinez (Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System). The discussion was moderated by Drew Lanham (Distinguished Alumni Professor and Certified Wildlife Biologist in the School of Agriculture, Forestry, and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University in South Carolina).

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Reclaiming the Commons – Brian Danahue

Winner of the 1999 Antiquities Book Award given by the Society for the Preservation of New England given for a monograph or exhibition catalogue published in 1999

Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 1999 by Choice Magazine

This book is a lively account of a community working to combat suburban sprawl, to protect a large part of the landscape as common land, and to enjoy the land productively in an ecologically sustainable way. Based on the practical experience of one New England town, the book urges suburban environmentalists to go beyond preserving open space to actively engaging people with the places where they live.

Brian Donahue, an environmental historian, in 1980 was a founder of Land’s Sake, a community farm in Weston, Massachusetts. Working with the town’s Conservation Commission, Land’s Sake cultivates a twenty-five-acre organic fruit, flower, and vegetable farm, makes apple cider and maple syrup, maintains a sixty-five-mile trail system, harvests firewood and timber from fifteen hundred acres of town forest, and has kept draft horses and sheep. Donahue recounts the joys and sorrows of farming the suburbs. But beneath the light hearted tales of sheep straying into tennis courts and middle-school students tapping sugar maples in the town cemetery runs an incisive ecological history of New England and a penetrating analysis of how to live responsibly with this difficult but rewarding land. Donahue concludes with a call for all places to protect common land and establish community farms—especially in the suburbs, where most Americans live and where, like it or not, environmentalists may make their most lasting mark on the world.

Brian Donahue is assistant professor of American environmental studies on the Myerhoff Chair at Brandeis University.

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Pessimism in a World of Increasing Abundance (Steven Pinker)

catoinstitutevideo

Published on Jan 5, 2015

http://www.cato.org/events/everything…

Evidence from academic institutions and international organizations shows dramatic improvements in human well-being. These improvements are especially striking in the developing world. Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between reality and public perceptions, including that of many policymakers, scholars in unrelated fields, and intelligent lay persons. To make matters worse, the media emphasizes bad news, while ignoring many positive long-term trends.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg.

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This is plastic. I bleed.

Occupy.com

Published on Oct 1, 2015

This fickle facade on a torn, tired tenement – this wretched contentment bought with dollars and non – sense…

View the full episode: https://youtu.be/4EK8kxpWKB0
@ActOutOnOccupy
facebook.com/ActOutOnOccupy
occupy.com/actout

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Raw: Deadly Flooding in South Carolina

Associated Press

Published on Oct 1, 2015

Heavy rains have flooded and closed streets in South Carolina as the East Coast braces for drenching storms. Officials say one person died after several vehicles were submerged early Thursday. (Oct. 1)

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