National Geographic

Via press release from Budweiser:

Budweiser is asking adult men across America to help save one million gallons of water by not shaving in the days and weeks leading up to World Environment Day (June 5). As part of Budweiser's ongoing commitment to water conservation, the Grow One. Save a Million. program allows consumers to get involved and save roughly 5 gallons of water for each shave they skip. Consumers 21 years of age and older can visit Budweiser's Facebook page to make a pledge and share the program with Facebook friends. Participants can commit to a range of options, from a few days to multiple weeks. Ladies can get involved by recruiting male friends or family members. The page also features a daily tracker of the gallons saved to date.

"Are you kidding me, Earth Day in the schools? We've got to save the Earth? I mean, that's like a tick trying to save a whole heard of cattle. I mean, ticks go along for the ride, they don't manage the cattle, they don't tell them where to go. And that's our arrogance in thinking that we can do something to save the planet and control where the planet goes. You know, we're just along for the ride and we're insignificant peons on this thing." - Dominionist David Barton, who says that environmentalism is "anti-Biblical."

Homocons and wingnuts are amusing themselves today by tweeting all the ways they're going to hurt the environment in observance of pinko communist Earth Day.

Because energy efficient lightbulbs are proof that we're being crushed beneath the heels of the oppressive collective. Or something.

(Source)

Al Gore notes on his blog:

“The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that Arctic sea ice probably reached its maximum extent for the year on March 7, which was 5.65 million square miles.

“The maximum extent was 1.2 million square kilometers (463,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average of 15.86 million square kilometers (6.12 million square miles), and equal (within 0.1 percent) to 2006 for the lowest maximum extent in the satellite record,” the center, which is part of the University of Colorado-Boulder, reported Wednesday.”

Yup, it's all a scam.

According to the authors of a first of its kind study on bird mortality, the American housecat is a "non-native, invasive species" responsible for the deaths of 500 million North American birds annually.

Nearly 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators, and cats were responsible for 47 percent of those deaths, according to the researchers, from the Smithsonian Institution and Towson University in Maryland. Death rates were particularly high in neighborhoods with large cat populations. Predation was so serious in some areas that the catbirds could not replace their numbers for the next generation, according to the researchers, who affixed tiny radio transmitters to the birds to follow them. It is the first scientific study to calculate what fraction of bird deaths during the vulnerable fledgling stage can be attributed to cats. “Cats are way up there in terms of threats to birds — they are a formidable force in driving out native species,” said Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of the authors of the study.

Dr. Marra says cats "are like gypsy moths and kudzu — they cause major ecological disruption." My own disruptor is often reduced to quivering impotent rage by the pigeons that taunt her daily from our fire escape. "One of these days, you miserable flying rats. One of these days."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is now chaired and dominated by Republicans funded by the oil industry Koch Brothers, is working to abolish EPA rules designed to reduce climate change. (More billions for the Kochs!) Despite daylong expert scientific testimony, GOP committee members repeatedly denounced the evidence and declared that Democrats want to destroy the nation's energy supply. That prompted Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to deliver one of the best responses you'll like hear in something as normally dry-as-dust as an energy meeting.

Yeah, I had to look up Schrödinger's Cat too. Shortly after Markey's speech, the bill was advanced to the full House by a voice vote.

New York state Assemblyman Micah Kellner has introduced a bill that would impose a 25 cent tax on every plastic bag issued by New York City retailers. Every year the city sends 5.2 billion plastic bags to the landfill.

"I want to make it a faux pas to be seen on the street with a plastic bag," said Kellner, a Manhattan Democrat. "While we may use plastic bags for a couple of minutes to bring home our groceries, they stay in the environment for thousands of years." Kellner is sponsoring a bill, introduced late last month, that would impose a 25-cent tax on every plastic bag used to carry groceries or other store merchandise in New York City. The same bill would incentivize the use of reusable shopping bags -- made of canvas or thicker, sometimes recycled plastic -- by allowing grocers to give them to consumers if they leave a quarter as a deposit. After a year, the unclaimed quarters would be swept to City Hall's coffers. A tax break would be offered to cover "a majority" of the cost of reusable bags, which cost over $1 on the low end, more if you want hemp or recycled cotton.

Unsurprisingly, plastic bag manufacturers are opposed to Kellner's bill, with one industry spokesman saying, "By that math, he's taxing a family $3.75 every time they go to the grocery store -- money they could use to buy milk for their children." Kellner, the state's only openly bisexual legislator, can often be found outside of Upper East Side stores where he hands out reusable bags with his name on them. "I'm the Justin Bieber of tote bags," he says.

Newly elected Tea Party-backed Montana GOP state Rep. Joe Read has introduced a bill declaring that global warming is not only natural, it benefits the economy of his state. From Montana House Bill 429:

The legislature finds that to ensure economic development in Montana and the appropriate management of Montana’s natural resources it is necessary to adopt a public policy regarding global warming.

(2) The legislature finds:
(a) global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana;
(b) reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment; and
(c) global warming is a natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it.

In an interview with Think Progress, Read says he didn't consult any scientists before authoring his bill. Because global warming is a giant financial scam run by the federal government.