Thanks for the info about the Chernobyl game, the interest in the Moshav, the info re geothermal and tidal prospects. I was just reading last night in In Good Tilth (a magazine a friend of mine used to edit, which is by/for/about organic farmers and their innovations). First they were talking about how global warming will devastate / has already started to devastate, agriculture, and in particular, agriculture performed without bowing to the pressures from the petrochemical industries--yeah those pesticides and herbicides are often made with leftovers from oil refining, how disgusting is that? Some examples, 70 degree days in March followed by 40 degree days means crops start to grow as though it were May, then get too cold and die or get weakened to the point that they become susceptible to crop diseases; for example there couldn't be organic raw almonds this year in California because some pasteurization-like process was ordered because of mass fungal infection of crops because of temperature fluctuations. Second they were talking about developing new biofuels from agricultural leftovers, such as becoming able to make ethanol out of crops other than corn, and making biodiesel out of new materials, and even their finding some way to use leftover blueberry juice for something....anything getting diverted from the landfill is generally a good thing....
Beyond how obvious it is that there are tons of other materials for building habitats (most sustainably cobb and strawbale). It's flat out dishonest to imply innocence on the part of Big Lumber. Oh and given that I spent years supporting tree sits and road blockades to help protect ancient forest ecosystems I darn well verify that ecosystems are ruthlessly destroyed. There is no comparing loss of 1000 or 500 year old intact ecosystems with monocrops--replacing areas where everything is removed where there used to be maybe a dozen or two dozen different types of trees of different ages and heights and providing habitat for multiple dozens of bird, mammal, and insect species, with gee-look-how-great-we-are-we-replanted single crop trees, all the same age and height and species, inadequately preventing erosion and most emphatically not providing multispecies habitat. This is Oregon, there have been fatal mudslides from clearcutting erosion. There have been successful lawsuits as well as nonviolent direct actions for protection of endangered species decimated by clearcutting. Everyone has had the experience of noting where lovely woods become revolting ugly bald patches. We're talking lands in the public trust, as well as private acreage. BLM. Forest Service. Army Corps of Engineers areas. Clearcuts, nothing left. Oh and let's not forget that some of the worst atrocities in terms of attempts to destroy intact ancient ecosystem have involved verified ARSON BY LOGGING INTERESTS, most famously the area we were able to save after a couple years of unprecedented direct action plus lawsuits, at Warner Creek. But even if everything ever logged by any individual or company were done sustainably, the rendering of such precious ecosystems into products for sale has done great damage in terms of polluting of air and of water. Chlorine and dioxin runoff from bleaching for paper. One of the reasons we're not supposed to swim in or drink from or eat fish from the Willamette--another reason to not eat fish, especially if pregnant is the poisonous mercury levels, but I'm not sure what industry that comes from), etc. Plus anyone who's driven I-5 past those obnoxious-smelling towers near Albany knows what I'm talking about....
So what's the connection back to Obama?
(a) He plans to invest in SAFE renewable energy (it was McCain falsely lauding nuclear as 'safe').
(b) He is savvy about Environmental Racism, i.e., gee guess where things like toxic waste dumps and incinerators are disproportionally placed, in areas of poor disenfranchised people of color. There's a great class on this topic at U of O btw, as well as one at U Michigan, check out its textbook by Bunyan Bryant as a starting point, he's a great prof.
(c) I'm personally praying he gives Gore some kind of position in the Interior so the person who most made the public aware of the TRUTH of global warming and who intimately knows White House politics can be in a position to directly help shape administrative policy and law.
(d) When he changes how health care is available in this country, he plans to remove exclusions for "pre-existing conditions". So, for example, the vast increases in asthma in the past decade-- much of which is directly caused be vast decreases in air quality-- much of which is directly caused by evil corporations cognizant that they are creating the pollution, but trying to buy their way out of responsibility for it (much like how Big Tobacco paid lobbyists to lie and manipulate and bury studies proving how deadly it is--check out the satire thereof 'Thank You for Smoking' with Aaron Eckhart) --much of which (see Environmental Racism, above) is disproportionately affecting young Black kids and other kids of color in urban areas. No longer would an unscrupulous moneyhungry insurance company be able to decline covering those kids for their environmentally-derived illness. Oh and yeah given that I was a medical social worker for 7 years and had to help folks adjust to fatal cancer diagnoses (and help them hook up with class action lawsuits about such diagnoses) that they got from their jobs such as mesothelioma from working with asbestos or black lung from mining, yeah, I darn well do know what I'm talking about.
I think what we have here in this 'debate' is really about epistemology-- about what you consider valid sources of knowledge from which to derive your own opinion. To me it's a given that there's a huge difference between someone pontificating about what someone in their family may have boasted in self-defense and what they read on a Wiki that anyone could post to, without verification; and someone talking about what they concretely witnessed in their own professional life for multiple years.
But believe what you will; THANK G-D (as each individual chooses to define for her/his-self what they think of as divinity, if anything/anyone) that "the American people have spoken" and we have a real shot at saving at least parts of the planet and at least parts of the population poisoned by the environment through corporate-government complicity.
By government complicity I not only refer to the notorious Republican deregulations, and lobbyists, and corporate kickbacks--but also to the incontrovertible fact that THE U.S. MILITARY IS THE WORLD'S LARGEST POLLUTER. This was something I hadn't known until I was taking Bryant's class during the 1st Gulf War under the 1st Bush (deja vu all over again now eh?) and studying, and making a coursepack for future U of Michigan classes about, the Environmental Effects of the Gulf War. Particularly the DELIBERATE SETTING AFIRE OF OIL WELLS.
So, again, how does this relate back to Obama?
(a) He will pull us out of the Vietnam-like debacle in Iraq a whole lot quicker and cleaner than McCain would've. And given Biden's own son just deployed there, our VP will have personal investment in protecting the soldiers during that process.
(b) He does not have the ties to Big Oil development that Palin does, pushing for destroying the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the name of oil dependence.
(c) He will urge CONSERVATION like Carter. (I remember when it was the national standard to keep a thermostat no higher than 68 in winter and no cooler than 72 in summer......)
(Yes I know Carter was pro-nuclear-energy but that was from ignorance, the major catastrophes hadn't manifested yet. And he was a humanitarian and a pacifist and promoted middle-east peace, still does.)
Now for Tanis's savvy point--*****Sees red at all homophobes***** I have friends who are in gay marriages, lesbian marriages, multi-person marriages, and even marriages in which one party has gone through gender reassignment. I pray for them that the California measure makes it to the Supreme Court and is thrown out as unconstitutional. All people should be honored for loving whomever they love. Given that Obama specifically said the words "gay and straight" in his acceptance speech (though not going so far in a debate as to support gay marriage) I think he will work towards at least strengthening anti-hate-crime legislation and towards things such as equal rights to visit partners in hospitals. More sad still is I think it was Arkansas? That just eliminated the rights of unmarried couples (emphasizing gay and lesbian, but of course hets will be affected by this, too) to adopt kids or raise foster kids. Two of my best friends in high school were sisters whose mom was in a lesbian relationship, I grew up knowing of alternate parenting households and I also grew up knowing many many kids who were beaten by or raped by het married parents. Who someone loves is not what makes them a fit parent. Obama had a Kenyan dad and a white mom, whose next husband was Indonesian. He knows multiracial families can work. And he knows that multiracial marriages were illegal in the Jim Crow South of the US until extremely recently. I can't imagine he's not going to at some level realize how equivalent the BS is between the current anti-gay-marriage malevolence and that families like his used to face (complete with murder attempts).
speaking of which just this morning my boyfriend saw online there was a plot foiled of 2 self-described white supremacist young men intending to murder Obama.
