Green Party of TN 518 Moore Avenue Nashville, TN 37203

NASA's James Hansen Slams Obama for Failure to Lead on Climate
POSTED: May 10, 4:31 PM ET | By Julian Brookes

President Obama can't catch a break: Just when he gets right with the gays, the greens come after him. In today's New York Times NASA's leading climate scientist James Hansen takes the president to task for not doing jack on climate change. "President Obama speaks of a 'planet in peril,'" Hansen fumes, "but he does not provide the leadership needed to change the world’s course."

Hansen says he was "troubled" by a comment the president made during a recent interview with Rolling Stone. Obama, when asked whether he agreed with Hansen that if the U.S. approves the Keystone Pipeline and burns dirty Canadian tar sands, it's "game over" for the climate, said – no, adding that Canada would exploit its reserves "regardless of what we do." He went on:

The reason that Keystone got so much attention is not because that particular pipeline is a make-or-break issue for climate change, but because those who have looked at the science of climate change are scared and concerned about a general lack of sufficient movement to deal with the problem.

Actually, no, says Hansen; this is a make-or-break issue for climate change.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

Nashville May Day Events Event Flyer.
Please print, share, and tell everyone you know! (pdf)
http://nashvillemayday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Nashville-May-Day-...

http://occupynashville.org/2012/04/22/nashville-may-day-events-calendar/

Green Party candidates and activists prepare for ‘Occupy May Day’ General Strike
From the Green Party of the United States:
WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party members will participate in the May 1 General Strike organized by the Occupy Movement and the May 1 Coalition and will join thousands of union members, students, immigrants, and others across the US in the first national strike in the nation’s history, with simultaneous strikes in other countries.

Rallies, marches, and picket lines are planned for over 115 cities to assert the rights of working people and democracy, in the face of growing power of financial elites over government and the lives of the “99 percent” and the threat this represents to the future of the US.

“The Occupy Movement is nonpartisan and is not affiliated with any political party, including the Green Party. But the presence of Greens in Occupy protests, including the May Day strike, is a reminder that the demands of the Occupy Movement will be represented on the ballot on Election Day. They won’t be represented by the Wall Street candidates — Republicans and Democrats — but by Green candidates, who accept no money from corporate PACs,” said Ursula Rozum, peace activist and organizer in Syracuse, NY, and Green Party candidate for Congress in New York’s 24th Congressional district (http://www.ursulaforcongress.com).

The website http://www.walkscore.com/ has completed two studies, one on the walkability of cities and the other on public transport. The 2,500 largest cities in the United States have an average Walk Score of 43 of 100 (based on the ability to leave your car behind and navigate the city). Most walk-able city in the USA? Hoboken, NJ with a score of 92.

The 33 largest cities in Tennessee have an average Walk Score of 30. The most walkable cities in Tennessee are Knoxville (score of 40), Cookeville, and Memphis. The least walkable cities are Brentwood (13 of 100), Spring Hill, and La Vergne.
Link: http://www.walkscore.com/TN/

Compare TN cities to other cities in the USA.
Link: http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/cities/?&pop_min=10000&pop_max=1000000...

How the First Earth Day Came About
By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
". . . on April 22, 1970, Earth Day was held, one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy. . . " -American Heritage Magazine, October 1993
What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

'Green' colleges that go beyond basics
Full USA Today article: http://goo.gl/X93aP
Princeton Review's green colleges list: http://goo.gl/dsq0H
Honor Roll: http://www.princetonreview.com/green-honor-roll.aspx

We salute the following 16 colleges that received a Green Rating of 99 (the highest score) in our rating tallies this year (in alphabetical order):

American University (Washington, DC)
American University is taking a series of practical steps to make sure that its students are green-equipped all the way from the classroom to Congress. A signatory of both ACUPCC and the Talloires Declaration, and a STARS charter participant, the university has established a Green Teaching Certification Program to reward professors for incorporating sustainability content into the curriculum and has a climate plan that targets neutrality by 2020. Two fulltime and 14 part-time sustainability staff oversee efforts to integrate sustainability across all campus activities, including the implementation of zero waste, sustainable purchasing, and green building policies.

Activist: New climate poll shows ‘reality will trump big dollar denial efforts'
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Article: http://goo.gl/1JVp1

Following the publication of a George Mason University poll on Wednesday that shows 69 percent of Americans believe the weather is getting worse due to climate change, author and environmental activist Bill McKibbon hailed the findings as proof that “reality will trump big dollar denial efforts” by the pollution-causing industries.

The report, “Extreme Weather, Climate & Preparedness in the American Mind,” (http://goo.gl/uW6Ve) shows a growing number of Americans have been impacted by severe weather as the number of unusual events has grown in recent years. A full 69 percent of poll respondents said climate change was a driving factor behind the increased instances of tornadoes, hail, flooding, wildfires and droughts.

That’s a dramatic improvement over just 42 percent of Americans who told Angus-Reid pollsters in 2010 (http://goo.gl/NaHDT) that they believe climate change is real and driven by emissions from human industry.

Governor’s 2012 Environmental Stewardship Awards Deadline Is April 30
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 http://goo.gl/C1boU

The Department of Environment and Conservation announced the deadline for the Governor’s 2012 Environmental Stewardship Awards is around the corner on April 30, 2012. These awards recognize Tennesseans who go above and beyond to protect the state’s diverse environment and cover 10 categories: Building Green; Clean Air; Energy and Renewable Resources; Environmental Education and Outreach (business category); Environmental Education and Outreach (school category); Land Use; Materials Management; Natural Heritage; Sustainable Performance and Lifetime Achievement.

Eat less meat to prevent climate disaster, study warns
by Suzanne Goldenberg
Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/13/less-meat-prevent-clim...

Fertilisers used in growing feed crops for cattle produce the most potent of the greenhouse gases causing climate change

Meat eaters in developed countries will have to eat a lot less meat, cutting consumption by 50%, to avoid the worst consequences of future climate change, new research warns.

The fertilisers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the warming that causes climate change.

A study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that drastic changes in food production and at the dinner table are needed by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.

It's arguably the most difficult challenge in dealing with climate change: how to reduce emissions from food production while still producing enough to feed a global population projected to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century.

The findings, by Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, say the developed world will have to cut fertiliser use by 50% and persuade consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat.

Gary Dorrien: The Undeserving and the Common Good
from The Blog by Gary Dorrien

Americans have long debated two fundamentally different visions of what kind of country the U.S. should be. The first is the vision of a society that provides unrestricted liberty to acquire wealth. The second is the vision of a realized democracy in which rights over society's major institutions are established. In the first view, the right to property is lifted above the right to self-government, and the good society minimizes the equalizing role of government. In the second view, self-government is considered superior to property, and the good society places democratic checks on social, political and economic power.

Both of these visions are ideal types, deeply rooted in U.S. American history. Both have limited and conditioned each other in the U.S. experience. But in every generation one of them gains predominance over the other, shaping the terms of debate and possibility.