BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I was just a teen when Earth Day was started. I remember going out with a few friends from school and cleaning up a park. I was excited about doing something to really help. I didn't know it was a drop in the bucket. Today I am replaced all my light bulbs as they burn out with energy efficient ones, I am probably renting solar panels for my roof soon. I recycle. I love gardening and plant and keep my yard beautiful by getting compost from the NYC Composting Project as well as the stuff I 'make' myself. But am I doing enough? Probably not. Learn more about Earth Day and what you can do: EARTH DAY FROM THE E.P.A. EARTH DAY NETWORK NYC WASTELESS

By Ehud Zion Waldoks Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) and ministry director-general Yossi Inbar attended an urgent UN summit on climate change in New York on Tuesday to present Israel's commitment to reduce carbon emissions. United Nations Secretary... United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, left, is joined by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, center and actor Hugh Jackman, right, for Climate Week NYC opening ceremony in New York on Monday. Erdan joined 100 other officials at the summit, including US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao. While it was too early to present a serious recommendation for how Israel planned to reduce its emissions, Erdan was expected to reiterate the country's commitment to the process and discuss the steps that have been taken so far, the ministry's acting director of international relations, Ayelet Rosen, told The Jerusalem Post. Erdan was to address the emergency summit called by UN Secretar...

Gotta love those Global Warming deniers. Safe behind their keyboards. Since so far, this summer has been cool they're saying, "SEE - no Global WARMING! It's COOL out!" Get a clue. The fact that the predictable weather patterns are varying should tell you something. But most of them aren't gardeners like me, out tending flowers and growing a few veggies to serve to my family (tomatoes and my herbs are doing well so far this year, thanks!). No they'd rather bloviate from their computers and central air conditioned condos. Duh. And don't ask to debate them. Those bullies will just cut you off and scream louder. HOAX! I wonder if there's Global Warming in Hell? GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS ARE ON THIN ICE by Joel Connelly Chilling news on hot topics takes different forms, witness two e-mails that arrived cheek-by-jowl one afternoon last week. Sea ice in the Arctic thinned dramatically between the 2004 and 2008 winters, with thin seasonal ice supplanting thic...

President Barack Obama pushed urgently Thursday for passage of legislation to confront global warming, billing it as a job-creating machine rather than the costly "job killer" Republicans denounced. He telephoned wavering Democrats on the eve of what could be a historic House vote. Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama said Washington must not miss the opportunity to work on cleaning the air, creating new "green" energy jobs and moving the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The White House appeared concerned that momentum for the bill was slipping, though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that when it came time for a House showdown, "I'd bet on the president." Democratic leaders scurried to line up enough votes to get the bill passed. They enlisted former Vice President Al Gore, the country's most prominent voice on the urgency of addressing climate change, to make phone call...

It's getting tiring hearing the Global Warming deniers. Very tiring. All they have to do is engage their brains and step outside. However, I find most of these particular deniers so far off one end of the scale that they are unwilling & unable to listen. Nor will they admit being wrong or change their minds. ( I suspect some of these people work for power supplying companies, too) T hese 'it's a hoax'ers won't debate you or be rational in discussing it. While they have a right to their opinion, I have the right to not be treated in a rude or dismissive way. They can't even agree to disagree with you. And that - says it all about them. These same wingnuts turn on anyone who doesn't think or believe the way they do into "crazies, loons" or "chicken littles." When I was a teenager we had four seasons. Nowadays we really have TWO. Spring and Fall have become compressed and weather changes are becoming a body-slam from hot to col...

First - I believe Global Warming is real. WHY? Because I love to garden. And that puts me in direct contact with plants, growth cycles, the soil - and I can see FOR MYSELF what is happening because of changes in the weather. Second, I have talked a lot on this blog that I am obese. I recently learned that I have to have major surgery at the end of May for the removal of PCOS related growths that I have had for a number of years which have caused my belly to distend and make me appear fatter than I am. So there ARE reasons other than being a food addict for being fat. Third, all this fat-hatred , the 'better dead than fat' attitude of society and the centerfold syndrome that most males suffer from disgusts me. What ever happened to seeing a person as a PERSON? Not a body, or parts, or pictures, or words on a screen - a HUMAN BEING. To me, seeing someone as an object makes the beholder THE PROBLEM - not the person being judged and criticized. OBESITY, CAUSE OF GLOBAL W...

Buried in President Bush’s mostly empty speech on climate change April 16 was a signal that the White House is likely to continue to stonewall on compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling on greenhouse gas regulation and clear requirements of the nation’s environmental laws. With this above-the-law posture he is adopting a position urged on him by the global warming disinformation campaign and its political allies. Most of the media coverage of the President’s “Rose Garden speech” on climate change April 16 focused on his stated goal of allowing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise for another 17 years before leveling off, his failure to lay out any new real policy initiatives even to accomplish that much, and unfavorable reactions to the speech (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). It’s not clear what, if much of anything, will follow from this piece of political theater. But note what the President said about the laws and the courts, and consider how these...

WE'RE ALL DOOMED! I always knew that SH*T would be the finish of all of us. Mammoth dung, prehistoric goo may speed warming By Dmitry Solovyov Russia - Sergei Zimov bends down, picks up a handful of treacly mud and holds it up to his nose. It smells like a cow pat, but he knows better. "It smells like mammoth dung," he says. This is more than just another symptom of global warming. For millennia, layers of animal waste and other organic matter left behind by the creatures that used to roam the Arctic tundra have been sealed inside the frozen permafrost. Now climate change is thawing the permafrost and lifting this prehistoric ooze from suspended animation. But Zimov, a scientist who for almost 30 years has studied climate change in Russia's Arctic, believes that as this organic matter becomes exposed to the air it will accelerate global warming faster than even some of the most pessimistic forecasts. "This will lead to a type of global warming which will be impos...

AS REAL AS IT GETS Wherever I turn my eyes, around on Earth or to the Heavens, I see You in the field of stars I see You in the yield of the land In every breath and sound, a blade of grass, a simple flower An echo of Your Holy Name. - Abraham Ibn Ezra As a gardener, I see the effects of weather and other factors on the environment. My Nana taught me about gardening - mostly through simply doing. Gardening is always, at best, an experiment. When I moved into the home I am in now almost 4 years ago it was a disaster. Every year another project, another set of construction people in the house for a couple months. Little by painful little, the home is being restored to some of its 1930s beauty. The electrical has been updated and brought up to code, a kitchen has been remodeled, my kids' rooms are completely remodeled, my bedroom just needs some repair in one corner but that remodel is mostly done. The backyard was a jungle. The first weekend in the home I hired a gardener an...