Soapbox time, sorry. For mom.

For as long as I remember knowing about politics, my mother has voted for some stupid candidate.
I think she actually voted for Andersen.
Today, I was very proud of her. She voted a viable candidate.
She said she was ashamed of herself. She said Nader said to vote conscience -- if you are in a landslide state, vote conscious.
NO. The whole world, I argued, needs to see us vote a landslide!
So -- listen to Nader... on the issues. Don't vote for him -- Bush is his fault.


A Real World Environmental Policy
link

The epidemic of silent environmental violence continues. Whether it is the 65,000 Americans who die every year from air pollution, or the 80,000 estimated annual fatalities from hospital malpractice, or the 100,000 Americans whose demise comes from occupational toxic exposures, or the cruel environmental racism where the poor and their often asthmatic children live in pollution sinks located near toxic hot spots (that are never situated in shrubbered suburbs), preventable, harmful, situations abound.

Now, as the evidence of global warming mounts, it is evident that we threaten the global environment with tremendous economic threats facing humanity, including bankrupting the reinsurance industry, the spread of infectious tropical diseases, massive ecological disruption and increased severe and unpredictable weather, all of which will significantly impact commerce, agriculture, and communities across America. Toxic standards need to be strengthened. Currently toxic standards are designed for adults, not for more vulnerable children. This should be reversed. We need to make environmental protection a priority for our energy, trade, industrial, agricultural, transportation, development, and land use policies. Indeed, protecting the environment must be weaved throughout our governance.

End Mountaintop Removal Mining

Mountain-top removal, as it is aptly named, is a form of surface mining in which explosives are used to remove up to 1,000 feet of mountaintop in order to reach the coal deposits lying within the mountain.
Forests are first clear-cut, destroying ecosystems and displacing or eliminating any resident wildlife. The now-bald top of the mountain is then exploded and excavated. Soil and the remaining rock are pushed out of the way into adjacent valleys or streams, a tactic which earns this vicious practice the additional name of Valley-fill Mining. Over 1, 200 miles of Appalachian headwater streams have been filled in.

The harms of this mercenary practice are both short and long-term. The process destructively rips out forests, carves away soil and rock, and destroys neighboring streams and valleys. The adjacent areas are often endangered by both the solid waste dumps in streams and wetlands, and the liquid slurry waste which is stored in silos. These toxic slurry dams house the run-off from the coal processing, a “blackwater” laden with carcinogens and heavy metals.

Not only harmful to the environment when they are intact, the slurry dams are much more dangerous if they fail; when they fail. In 1972, 125 people were killed, 1,121 injured, and 4,000 left homeless when The Buffalo Creek Dam gave way.

At the behest of the Clinton administration and carried to fruition under the Bush administration, the May 2002 rule change to the 1977 Clean Water Act allowed mining spoils to be included as “fill material,” and sanctioned the burial of hundreds of miles of streams by the coal companies.
In The Good Fight, Ralph Nader said, “Trashing the environment for short-term profit amounts to a radical assault on freedom perpetrated by corporations who have bought our state and federal politicians.” The coal companies assault local people with massive explosions, debris, rain, flooding and fouled water supplies and leave them with flattened land, fewer jobs, and in poverty, while they increase mechanization and shareholder profits.

That’s why, at the request of Ohio Citizen Action, an environmental advocacy group, Mr. Nader was the first presidential candidate to sign a letter stating: "If elected President, I will ban mountain-top removal mining by appropriate executive authority and by signing the Clean Water Protection Act when it reaches my desk." http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/08/14/MountaintopRemoval/

It is tragic and ironic that Ralph Nader is once again at the forefront of protecting the environment, here speaking out against a destructive change to the very water protection act that he helped bring about. Now, as then, Ralph Nader stands with those who would seek to preserve our biological resources for ourselves and future generations.

http://www.ohiocitizen.org/

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

Oppose Offshore Drilling

Offshore Drilling is fool’s black gold

Ralph Nader criticizes Obama and McCain for not standing strong against offshore drilling
15 Sep 2008

As we begin to assess the damage caused by Hurricane Ike, which forced the shutdown of this country’s oil industry and sent adrift two oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, our members of Congress are poised to vote on legislation this week that would undermine a decades-old ban on offshore oil drilling.

Offshore drilling is severely damaging to the environment, and dangerously vulnerable to turbulent weather and hurricanes. For 27 years, beginning under an initiative signed by Ronald Reagan, our country has managed to protect sensitive parts of our ocean coastlines from the ravages of offshore drilling — a commendable feat considering the many pristine areas of our public lands and ecosystems that have been violated by extractive activities. After initially indicating his intent to uphold the 1981 ban on offshore drilling, Barack Obama, following the example of his Republican rival John McCain, flipped on the issue. This reversal by Obama and McCain could open the door for one of the last remaining vestiges of our country’s natural beauty to be trampled upon by commercial forces.

The case against offshore drilling has been made time and time again, illustrated by the numerous incidents in which oil rigs have led to ecological destruction and severe contamination of waters. In 2001, for example, an explosion on board the world’s largest oil rig helped sink it to the ocean floor off the coast of Brazil, killing 11 workers and spewing 316,000 gallons of diesel into the Atlantic. These types of spills will no doubt escalate with the increased frequency of violent hurricanes, fueled by global warming.

As for rigs that do manage to stay afloat, the Rainforest Action Network estimates that a single oil rig, in its lifetime, dumps more than 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean, and may drill up to 100 wells, each dumping 25,000 pounds of toxic metals including lead, chromium, and mercury.

Our country’s coastal wetlands, bays, and beaches — and the many creatures that live in them — are not just in danger from potential big spills, but under threat from the business-as-usual streams of pollution flowing from offshore rigs. If the ban on offshore drilling were reversed, the potential for harm would soon increase significantly.

The biggest strike against offshore drilling this election year is that, contrary to what some candidates would have you believe, it will not reduce gas prices anytime soon, or at all.

If we are really serious about bringing down gas prices, we should implement long-overdue increases to fuel-efficiency requirements. The Nader/Gonzalez campaign calls for increasing the average efficiency of our gas guzzlers from about 20 miles per gallon to more than 40 mpg over the next five years. That would save us 5 million barrels of oil a day — barrels that do not have to be produced or imported.

On offshore drilling, McCain and Obama differ in a most peculiar way. Obama acknowledges the futility of drilling to reduce gas prices but supports it anyway out of political expediency, in part as a bargaining chip if needed to get a comprehensive energy deal, and in part to take a populist arrow out of McCain’s quiver. McCain, who also once opposed offshore drilling and acknowledged its futility in reducing gas prices, now chooses to ignore what most analysts say concerning offshore drilling: that because of the time it would take oil companies to secure permits, obtain and set up equipment, and conduct research required to extract oil, we won’t start to receive oil shipments or feel the relief of lower gas prices for 10 years. Nor does McCain mention a widely cited report from the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration that predicts peak production of offshore drilling would not be reached until 2030, and would still produce too little oil to affect world oil prices.

The House Committee on Natural Resources released a telling report in June appropriately titled The Truth About America’s Energy: Big Oil Stockpiles Supplies and Pockets Profits. In it, the committee points out that there has been a sharp increase in the number of drilling permits issued to oil companies starting in the 1990s and concludes that "there is simply no correlation" between the number of drilling permits issued and the price of gas. Moreover, the report shows that of the 91.5 million acres of federal land being leased to oil companies, nearly 68 million acres are not being worked.

Rather than exposing McCain’s categorical falsehoods and misrepresentations about the issue, Obama — who has thus far in his presidential campaign accepted more than $450,000 from executives and other employees of oil and gas companies (McCain has taken $1.6 million) — instead chooses to ride along with the Republicans and the oil companies. By capitulating to the Republicans, as he has on other matters, he surrenders moral authority on struggles concerning the health, safety, and well-being of individuals and the environment. Obama is not only selling out our environment, but displaying political behavior that does not stand its ground.
Defend Wildlife

The Nader campaign endorses The Defenders of Wildlife’s Wildlife Conservation Agenda for the Next Administration. The agenda calls on the next administration to:

* End the political manipulation of science
* Responsibly manage America's federal lands
* Safeguard America's rarest plants and wildlife
* Make America a leader in addressing global warming and its impacts
* Restore America's role as a global leader in wildlife conservation
* Restore our connection to nature through education adn stewardship of our federal lands
* Encourage private landownders, states, and tribes to conserve wildlife and habitat

For more information, visit http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/policy_and_legislation/wildlife_conservation_agenda_for_the_next_administration.php