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"To paraphrase the Christian Bible (Matthew 16): For what is a man profited if he shall make beaucoup bucks
while transforming the planet into a cesspool."  — G.E. Nordell
"Global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It's our reality.”
— eco-journalist Bill McKibben, in 2018
The word 'scientist' was coined in 1834, and the word 'ecology' in 1866.
                             
       "We are the only species able to change the natural world, so we must be stewards of the world."
       "If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all."
       "Treat the earth kindly, my friends, and it will give you comfort, security, and all [that] a man may need. If you plant a flake of gold in the earth, will anything come of it? But plant a seed and it will repay you many times over."
       "Science has proven the existence of global warming. So our position is like the moment in the old tales when you smell the dragon. The only question is which way to run – run or die! |
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envirofinder search engine
U.S. Forest Circus {satirical website}
Clean Beaches Coalition [est. 1998]
Basel Action Network - against 'Toxic Trade'
W.W.F. Intl. Conference on Climate Change [Nov-Dec 2005] in Montreal, PQ Canada
'The Bush Record on the Environment' at N.R.D.C.
"An Evangelical Declaration On The Care of Creation"
EarthJustice: because the earth needs a good lawyer [est. 1971]
The Grantham Prize: Honoring Exceptional Environmental Journalism
EarthShare, based in Bethesda, MD
Friends of The Earth USA [est. 1969] offices in DC & CA
Friends of The Earth Intl. [est. 1971] is based in The Netherlands
Center for Biological Diversity [est. 1989] is based in Tucson, Arizona
Blacksmith Institute anti-pollution solutions [est. 1999] based in New York City
African American Environmentalist Association [est. 1985] of Washington, DC
Environmental Defense Fund [est. 1967] based in New York City & Washington, DC
State of California Climate Change Portal
CELDF: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund [est. 1995] based in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania
SkyTruth {based in West Virginia}
Sierra Club - Rio Grande Chapter [] based in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Southwest Research and Information Center environmental protection group [est. 1971] is based in Albuquerque, NM
The U.S. Census Bureau no longer provides a real-time population clock (2010).
display of today's U.S. population estimate
display of today's world population estimate
Selected Books on the Subject of the Earth's Biosphere
Selected Movies on the Subject of the Earth's Biosphere
WMail Essay #28 [October 2002] "Waste Not, Want Not"
WMail Essay #60 [June 2006] "Climate & Politics"
WMail Essay #66 [December 2006] "Cooling The Planet"
Working Minds Essay #104 [May 2013] "No Water For You"
Working Minds Essay #108 [July 2015] "Civilization Is Imploding"
Natural Farming Dept.
“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.” ~~ Fran Lebowitz
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds [est. 1998] in Mansfield, Missouri
Seeds of Change [est. 1989] 100% certified organic seeds, based in Southern California
  Farmer Seed & Nursery {div of Plantron, Inc.} in Minnesota :: negative business reputation
Organic Farming Works website [est. 2008] based in Minnesota
Organic Farming Works - Resources Page
NEON: The Northeast Organic Network [est. 2001] based at Cornell University
Center for Rural Affairs [est. 1973] based in Lyons, Nebraska
F.F.A.: Future Farmers of America [est. 1928] based in Indianapolis, Indiana
F.F.A. New Century Farmer Conference [July 2013] in Des Moines, Iowa
Intermountain Farmers Assn. [est. 1923] owns 24 stores in Utah, CO, NV, Idaho & NM
New Mexico Organic Farming Conference [Feb 2014 = #?] in Albuquerque, NM
Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping [est. 1873]
National Honey Board [est. 2008] based in Firestone, Colorado
Friends of The Earth USA / Bee Bold Project
                             
Richard 'Bug Man' Fagerlund moved from Veguita to Las Cruces, NM circa 2014   
'Ask The Bugman' website/blog
Richard Fagerlund Store at Amazon
article on how he quit drinking for good [Albuquerque Journal 13 March 2023]
                             
American Tractors & Farm Equipment Page
at Spirit of America Bookstore
Working Minds / Movies About Health / Farming & Food Safety Dept.
Working Minds / Books About Health / Farming & Food Safety Dept.
                                         
Penton Media, Inc. [est. 1892] publishes a multitude of trade magazines, including these five (which are geared toward real farmers only).
Western Farm Press {AZ, CA}  •  
Southwest Farm Press {KS, NM, OK, TX}  •  
Delta Farm Press {AR, LA, MS, MO}
Southeast Farm Press {AL to WV}  •  
Western Farmer-Stockman {CO, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY}
National Farmers Magazine print is available with membership, digital issues available online |
Farm Journal Magazine [est. 1877] |
U.K.-based Organic Farming Magazine |
Modern Farmer Magazine international farming news |
Successful Farming Magazine subscribe directly |
Farm & Ranch Living Magazine [est. 1978] |
                                         
Genetically-Modified Organisms {G.M.O. food products} are the opposite of natural farming practices
The The Monsanto Company, Inc [est. 1901] is the biggest purveyor of G.M.O. foods and other G.M.O. products, so Monsanto is the focus of the anti-G.M.O. movement.
The first requirement is for American food packaging to display G.M.O. ingredients, followed by federal laws to regulate testing and environmental protection.
March Against Monsanto [May & October 2016] in over 400 cities in over 50 countries
                                         
National Farmers Union [est. 1902] based in Washington, DC
official website •
Wikipedia
Oregon Farmers Union [est. 1906]
Utah Farmers Union [] based in Lehi, Utah
                                       
                   
                                         
American Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1919] based in Washington, DC
official website •
Wikipedia
Idaho Farm Bureau Federation [] based in Pocatello, Idaho
Kansas Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1919] based in Manhattan, Kansas
North Dakota Farm Bureau [est. 1941] based in Fargo, North Dakota
Oregon Farm Bureau [est. 1919] based in Salem, Oregon
South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1917] based in Huron, South Dakots
Texas Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1933] based in Waco, Texas
Utah Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1916] based in Sandy, Utah
Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation [est. 1920] based in Laramie, Wyoming
Oil Pipelines & Hydraulic Fracturing Dept.
Working Minds / Worry About / Hydraulic Fracturing Page
was split off in Spring 2014
Working Minds / Worry About / Pipeline Disasters Page
was split off in Spring 2015
Dakota Access Pipeline Dept.
       
       
       
       
Mountaintop Removal Mining Dept.
U.S. Dept. of The Interior / Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement
Sierra Club 'Dirty Coal' pages
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy [est. 1967]
Natural Resources Defense Council [est. 1970] Mountaintop Removal Mining Dept.
Appalachian Mountain Advocates [est. 2002] based in Lewisburg, WV
Coal River Mountain Watch [est. 2002] based in Naoma, WV
'i Love Mountains' coalition website [est. 2006] based in Boone, NC
Alliance for Appalachia [est. 2008]
Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards [est. 2009] based in Big Stone Gap, Virginia
Water Dept.
nifty tools to measure garden hose output
Freeflo: A Global Water Network [est. 2008]
Waterwise home & office water distillation systems
Affordable Water Co. [est. 1956] in Dayton, Ohio
Water Quality Assn. based in Illinois
water.org
Oceana Foundation: Protecting The World's Oceans [est. 2001]
Save Our Groundwater [est. 2001] based in New Hampshire
Sweetwater Alliance [est. 2002] based in Duluth, Minnesota
Amigos Bravos - Friends of the Wild Rivers - Because Water Matters [est. 1988] based in Taos, NM
Clean Water Network [est. 1992] is based in Washington, DC
Florida Clean Water Network [est. 1994] in Navarre, Florida
Selected Books on The Water Crisis
  filtered water bottles info at The Water Page U.K. website
  | Brita™ Bottle Water Filtration System
single 24-ounce bottle with filter (blue or violet) for $8.50 twin-pack 24-ounce bottles (two color choices) for $14.99 3-pack 20-ounce bottles & 6 filters (2 blue, 1 green) for $22.42 two replacement filters for $6.88 |
  | Rubbermaid™ Filtration Personal Water Bottle
single 20-ounce bottle with filter (black, green or purple) for $9.99 single 20-ounce bottle with filter (blue) for $9.99 two replacement filters for $9.99 |
  | Bobble Bottles™ Reusable Water Bottle
single 18.5-ounce bottle with filter (six color choices) for $9.47 to $14.90 replacement filter (10 color choices) for $6.53 to $11.84 |
see also the Working Minds / Worry About / Oil & Gas Pipeline Disasters Page
June 2024 Western U.S. Wildfires                      Monday June 17th, 2024: The South Fork Fire began north and west of tourist destination Ruidoso, New Mexico; same day, the smaller Salt Fire started on the Mescalero Apache Reservation south of Ruidoso. The tribe’s president declared a state of emergency; NM Gov. Grisham declared a state of emergency in the area. The Village of Ruidoso ordered mandatory evacuations • South Fork Fire entry at Wikipedia • Salt Fire entry at Wikipedia |
June 2024 Teton Pass Highway Closure in Wyoming |
June 2024 Bridge Closure in Charleston, South Carolina |
March 2024 Bridge Collapse in Baltimore               event entry at Wikipedia • annotated VIDEO of the crash and collapse [01:23-01:29]        UPDATE April 2024: The F.B.I. opened a criminal probe into the recent collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge; the investigation will cover, in part, whether the ship’s crew knew that their vessel had 'serious system problems' before leaving port.        UPDATE April 2024: Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced that the city hired two law firms to 'hold the wrongdoers responsible'. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting its own investigation into the cause of the incident, reportedly focusing on the ship’s electrical issues.        UPDATE May 7th, 2024: The body of construction worker José Mynor López - the last of six victims - was recovered from vehicles that were submerged in the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge; authorities believe that only six lives were lost in the incident.        UPDATE May 13th: Authorities set off explosives on a key portion of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge; the charges helped demolish a portion of the bridge wreckage resting on the MV Dali container ship - a move meant to help free the vessel after nearly seven weeks, so that it can finally be moved. During the planned detonation, a chunk of the collapsed structure appeared to fall away from the ship and into the water, though a portion of wreckage remained on top of the vessel. Meanwhile, the last ships blocked by the collapse of the bridge have left the port of Baltimore.          UPDATE June 20th: Authorities towed the container ship MV Dali away from the bridge crash site.          UPDATE June 25th: Cargo ship MV Dali was released in Baltimore and moved to Virginia.        UPDATE Sept 17th: The Justice Department is seeking more than $100 million from two corporations that owned and operated the container ship that destroyed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March; according to the lawsuit, the companies' cost-cutting and negligence in the ship's maintenance led to the 'entirely avoidable' disaster. Federal prosecutors say that the financial penalty would cover the costs of the government response to the fatal bridge collapse and for the monthslong effort to clear the wreckage of about 50,000 tons of steel, concrete, and asphalt. The city of Baltimore has filed its own claim against the two companies, and families of three of the victims have said they intend to sue as well.        UPDATE Oct: The companies that own & operated the shipping vessel that earlier this year struck and collapsed the Key Bridge in Baltimore settled with the D.O.J. for $102 million for cleanup. |
February 2023 Norfolk Southern Derailment Disaster in Ohio, USA               BACKSTORY: In October 2022, Norfolk Southern directed a train to keep moving with an overheated wheel that caused it to derail miles later. ProPublica reported in February that the railroad's policy allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems. The policy applies specifically to the company’s Wayside Detector Help Desk, which monitors data from the track-side 'hotbox' sensors. Workers on the desk can tell crews to disregard an alert when "information is available confirming it is safe to proceed" and to continue no faster than 30 miles per hour to the next track-side sensor, which is often miles away. The company’s rulebook did not specify what such information might be.
       Monday February 6th, 2023: Crews performed a controlled release of chemicals from derailed tank cars, but evacuated residents are still being urged to stay away and to wait for the fire to die down. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said the controlled release of vinyl chloride, a flammable gas used to produce vehicle interiors and PVC piping, was necessary to prevent a possible explosion that could have resulted in the "deadly disbursement of shrapnel and toxic fumes". The controlled burn-off of the chemicals also resulted in the potential exposure to toxic fumes for people living nearby. The Ohio National Guard was deployed to the area to go door to door to urge people to leave, and Gov. DeWine said that he believed that all stragglers had left.
       UPDATE April 2024: Rail company Norfolk Southern agreed to pay $600 million to settle all lawsuits from its 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio; the derailment – which spilled more than a million pounds of hazardous chemicals into the soil, water, and air – displaced hundreds of residents and businesses; testing shows that the town is now safe, but some residents still complain of health problems.
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September 2022 Hurricane Ian       
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April/May 2022 Wildfires in New Mexico, USA                      April 13th, 2022: One wildfire near Las Vegas, NM has burned over 6,200 acres and is only 10% contained; the McBride wildfire near Ruidoso is over 4,000 acres and 0% contained; the Big Hole wildfire in Valencia County is 900 acres and 0% contained, and has burned 19 structures; the Nogal Canyon wildfire has burned 400 acres and is 0% contained. Over 100 structures have been destroyed so far.        April 20th, 2022: Simona Fire in Jarales burned 165 acres, no structures were threatened.        April 21st, 2022: The Cooks Peak Fire in Mora County is burning everything in its path and is estimated at over 20,000 acres.        May 1st, 2022: A new wildfire started in Bear Trap Canyon in the San Mateo Mountains of the Magdalena Ranger District; named the Bear Trap Fire, already 100 acres.        Sunday May 1st, 2022: Thousands of residents were told to be prepared to evacuate the historic Old West town of Las Vegas, New Mexico (east of Santa Fe), as powerful winds and drought-parched forests fueled an explosive wildfire that has already burned 104,000 acres and remained just 30 percent contained. Fire crews used bulldozers in a rush to carve firebreaks to protect the city of 14,000, as well as ranches, rural homes, and the castle-like campus of the United World College in the nearby village of Montezuma.
       May 3rd, 2022: Two wildfires that combined in New Mexico have prompted the evacuation of thousands of people -- and more than 15,000 homes could be threatened over the next three days if the fires continue to grow, an official said yesterday. Five fires are actively burning throughout six counties in New Mexico, but the largest blaze is the combined Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires, which merged more than a week ago. That fire has burned about 146,000 acres and is just 20% contained. Some 172 homes have been destroyed in Mora County and San Miguel County, and more than 6,000 homes have been evacuated.
       Wednesday May 4th, 2022: President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for parts of New Mexico devastated by wildfires that have been spreading since early April. U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (Dem-NM) announced the move during an evening U.S. Forest Service briefing on efforts to contain the biggest fire, which is burning near the historic Old West town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. That fire, created by the merging of the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires, has burned 160,000 acres and is 20 percent contained. The presidential emergency declaration "will help us do [needed] rebuilding and it will help us with the expenses and the hardship that people are facing right now," the congresswoman said.        May 13th, 2022: The combined Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire in northern New Mexico has burned 260,000 acres. |
New Reports on Climate Change        The report says:        The IPCC report is titled "Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability"        February 3rd, 2022: A new satellites-based study has discovered a number of 'super emitters' around the world, which are enormous methane leaks from fossil fuel operations in places like Russia, Iran, and the United States. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere; cracking down on methane leaks would be a quick, low-cost way to slow global warming.        January 2022: The global level of the potent greenhouse gas methane has reached a record high, growing at twice the rate of the long-term average in what scientists are calling a 'fire alarm moment' for curbing climate change.
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Undersea Volcano Eruption South of Tonga in the South Pacific               Update January 16th: The extent of tsunami damage in Tonga remains unclear as ash obstructs the view from the sky and the submarine cable that connects Tonga to the outside world remains out of commission. The volcano, called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, shot smoke and ash more than 12 miles into the sky and produced a shockwave felt as far away as New Zealand.        The massive volcanic eruption in the South Pacific sent tsunami waves around the world on Saturday, and communi-cation is still cut off from the closest Tonga islands; the event sent ash roughly three times higher than airlines fly and was heard 5,000 miles away in Alaska; experts say that an eruption like this comes about once every thousand years, and there could be more on the way. The eruption and tsunami swept two swimmers to their deaths 6,000 miles away.        Update January 18th: The eruption and tsunami shot a plume of ash that made Tonga completely disappear; the ash cloud, which produced over 400,000 lightning strikes in its area after the eruption, is still almost completely obscuring the island from satellite imagery. The shock of the explosion cut the undersea cables that carry nearly all of the island nation's communications to the rest of the world, and news from its 100,000 residents has been sparse to say the least.        The eruption and resulting tsunami alone would be a massive, front-page humanitarian disaster almost anywhere else in the globe, but the near-complete communications blackout means that we barely know how bad things are in Tonga. Per CNN, officials in New Zealand say that there's "significant damage" off the main island of Tongatapu, but all we've heard from the island is that the situation is "not stable". Tongans abroad, meanwhile, have heard almost nothing from their family members, creating a particularly excruciating situation for anyone with loved ones on the island. Hopefully, if the ash begins to clear some, we'll have more information over the week as the first relief flights or shipments get in, but it's incredibly hard to predict what will be found.        Update Wednesday February 23rd: Tonga is back online after five weeks; because Tonga is so remote, it took a repair ship 10 days just to reach its waters . . . before getting to work fixing nearly 56 miles of fiber-optic cable. Tonga, like many island nations, is particularly vulnerable to outages because it has only one undersea cable providing the entire island with internet. |
September 2021 Amtrak Train Derailment in Montana |
May 2021 Mexico City Commuter Train Derailment |
Working Minds / Worry About / Eco-News for 2019 to 2020 Page was split off in Spring 2021 Working Minds / Worry About / Eco-News for 2016 to 2018 Page Working Minds / Worry About / Eco-News for 2013 to 2015 Page Working Minds / Worry About / Eco-News for 2001 to 2008 Page |
Selected Books on the Subject of the Earth's Biosphere
Selected Movies on the Subject of the Earth's Biosphere
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main Things to Worry About Index Page
'Corporations vs. America' Page
Energy & Global Warming Page
Class War & Economics Pages
Trans-Pacific Partnership Page
U.S. Politics / Elections Page
International Politics Page
Pipeline Disasters Page
Earth's Biosphere {this page}
Internet Freedom Page
Human Rights Page
War & Peace Page
Health Care Page
Education Page
Racism Page
Selected Books on These Subjects
Solutions Index Page
Activism Pages
Alternative Energy Page
Alternative Media Page
Alternative-Fuel Vehicles Page
Environment Page
Labor, Capitalism & the Working Mind
Making A Difference
Progressive Talk Radio
Recycling Page
Solar Energy Page
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