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<font size="+1"><i>March 28, 2018</i></font><br>
<br>
[Overlooked News]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pipeline-protesters-boston-protest-not-guilty-climate-change-karenna-gore-mary-ann-driscoll-a8276851.html">Anti-pipeline
campaigners found not guilty by judge because 'protest against
climate change crisis' was legal 'necessity'</a></b><br>
'We're part of the the movement that is standing up and saying we
won't let this go by on our watch'<br>
Andrew Buncombe <br>
More than a dozen protesters who clambered into holes dug for a high
pressure gas pipeline said they had been found not responsible by a
judge after hearing them argue their actions to try and stop climate
change were a legal "necessity".<br>
Karenna Gore, the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, was
among more than 198 people who were arrested because of their 2015
actions protesting the pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a
suburb of Boston. Thirteen people were to go on trial this week,
though prosecutors downgraded their original criminal charges to one
of civil infraction.<br>
On Tuesday, Judge Mary Ann Driscoll of West Roxbury District Court,
found all 13 defendants not responsible, the equivalent of not
guilty in a criminal case. She did so after each of the defendants
addressed the judge and explained why they were driven to try and
halt the pipeline's construction.<br>
Speaking outside the court afterwards, Ms Gore, 44, Director of the
Centre for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York,
said the court's decision was historic. "What happened today was
really important," she said.<br>
"The [activists] were found not responsible by reason of necessity.
The irony is that we are making ourselves responsible. We're part of
the the movement that is standing up and saying we won't let this go
by on our watch. We won't act like nothing's wrong."<br>
Marla Marcum of the Climate Change Disobedience Centre, which
supported the activists, said that each of the 13 had addressed the
judge about why they had been part of the protests against the
pipeline, which was constructed by Houston-based company Spectra
Energy.<br>
"At the end, she said they were all not responsible by reason of
legal necessity," she said. She said the group had an audio
recording of the hearing which it intended to post online.<br>
Neither Ms Driscoll or the court clerk was available for comment.
However, one member of the court's staff who asked not to be named,
told The Independent the judge had found them not responsible. The
person denied, however, that the judge had made the ruling on the
grounds of legal necessity.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pipeline-protesters-boston-protest-not-guilty-climate-change-karenna-gore-mary-ann-driscoll-a8276851.html">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pipeline-protesters-boston-protest-not-guilty-climate-change-karenna-gore-mary-ann-driscoll-a8276851.html</a>
<br>
</font>[Also]<font size="-1"><br>
</font><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/west-roxbury-lateral-pipeline-boston-criminal-trial-downgraded">West
Roxbury Lateral Pipeline in Boston Criminal Trial Downgraded</a></b><br>
Wondering whatever happened to that trial scheduled against those
who blocked the pipeline?<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/west-roxbury-lateral-pipeline-boston-criminal-trial-downgraded">https://patch.com/massachusetts/westroxbury/west-roxbury-lateral-pipeline-boston-criminal-trial-downgraded</a></font><br>
[videos]<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHR1mdTj6_0">Mothers Out
Front in West Roxbury</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHR1mdTj6_0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHR1mdTj6_0</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[video, Yale presents the question - Sea Level Rise]<br>
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7S_YmMnQc">Sea Level
Rise: Some Reason for Hope?</a></b><br>
<b>YaleClimateConnections</b> Published on Mar 25, 2018<br>
Scientists analyze global sea level rise. Most uncertain of all:
How, when humans reduce carbon emissions.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7S_YmMnQc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN7S_YmMnQc</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Runaway Ice]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/global-warming-arctic-sea-ice-data-icebergs-ocean-shipping-oil-gas-drilling-grand-banks-newfoundland">Runaway
Arctic Ice Menaces Oil Rigs and Shipping as the Planet Warms</a></b><br>
BY BOB BERWYN - INSIDECLIMATE NEWS<br>
That ice can pose serious risks to ships and offshore oil and gas
rigs. Last year, strong storms sent a swarm of icebergs surging into
the oil and gas drilling field at the Grand Banks off Newfoundland,
marking <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmP8U9tJ6w">the fourth
extreme iceberg season in a row</a>, according to <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=IIPHome">International
Ice Patrol</a> Commander Gabrielle McGrath...<br>
Increased ice mobility is a sign that the Arctic climate system is
likely to change in big increments in the next few decades, said
University of Manitoba ice ... The sea ice pack is becoming
mechanically weaker...<br>
The drifting sea ice was also studded with thousands of icebergs,
most of them from Greenland's accelerating glaciers. Those rivers of
ice have speeded up sharply in recent years, and the icebergs that
break off of them into the ocean drift southward, where they get
caught up in the drifting sea ice. The past two decades have seen
the highest number of icebergs in the northwest Atlantic since at
least 1900.<br>
The pattern could persist for at least several decades, but the
long-term future for icebergs is less certain, because some glaciers
will retreat so far inland that they won't be able to discharge
icebergs into the ocean anymore. Instead, the glaciers will
terminate on land and release the melting ice as water..<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/global-warming-arctic-sea-ice-data-icebergs-ocean-shipping-oil-gas-drilling-grand-banks-newfoundland">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032018/global-warming-arctic-sea-ice-data-icebergs-ocean-shipping-oil-gas-drilling-grand-banks-newfoundland</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[More going to the courts]<br>
<b><a
href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/">Oyez,
Oyez, the Environmental Courts are Now in Session (Part 1)</a></b><br>
The days of constructive political debate and compromise in the
legislative and executive branches of government are gone, leaving
the courts as the primary venues in which the causes and
consequences of global climate change are being debated, and stable
solutions sought.<br>
The growing number of climate cases being filed in both federal and
state courts is paralleled by the increasing number of legal
theories being relied upon to bring them. Today's actions go much
beyond traditional legal challenges, i.e., how an agency went about
crafting or rescinding an environmental regulation or whether an
emission exceeded the legal limit...<br>
- - - - see full text at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/">http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/</a><br>
Following Trump's logic in the case of opioids: if a drug dealer
should receive the death penalty for selling to addicts on the
street, what should the punishment be for selling coal to India and
China in the market?<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/">http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-26/oyez-oyez-the-environmental-courts-are-now-in-session-part-1/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Faith - audio and text]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/pastor-mobilizes-black-churches-to-act-on-climate/">Pastor
mobilizes black churches to act on climate<br>
</a></b>His own church is teaching children how to care for
creation.<br>
Reverend Doctor Ambrose F. Carroll says that African American
churches are not often associated with environmentalism. But he
wants to change that.<br>
So he founded Green the Church, a campaign to motivate environmental
action at black churches.<br>
Carroll: "We are people of the African diaspora. We're people who
are ex-slaves, people who are migrant farmers, people who have spent
eons with our hands in the ground, and even though we don't talk the
language of environmentalism, it's really very close to who we are."<br>
'... Even though we don't talk the language of environmentalism,
it's really very close to who we are.'<br>
At Green the Church trainings, workshops, and conventions, faith
leaders teach pastors and other church representatives the religious
importance of protecting the earth. And, they provide strategies for
engaging churches in renewable energy, food security, and
environmental justice.<br>
Carroll says that action takes many different forms. For example,
his church in Berkeley, California has switched to LED lighting and
launched a program to teach children to care for God's creation. He
says the campaign inspires action, and shows that, in fact …<br>
Carroll: "The African American church is engaged."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/pastor-mobilizes-black-churches-to-act-on-climate/">https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/pastor-mobilizes-black-churches-to-act-on-climate/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Coal Baron candidacy]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://climatecrocks.com/2018/03/27/coal-country-con-man-running-for-senate/">Coal
Country Con Man Running for Senate </a></b><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/conservatism-honesty-crime-gop.html?smid=tw-share">Paul
Krugman:</a> In 2010 an explosion at a coal mine operated by
Massey Energy killed 29 men. In 2015 Don Blankenship, the company's
former C.E.O., was sent to prison for conspiring to violate mine
safety standards. In 2018, Blankenship appears to have a real chance
at becoming the Republican candidate for senator from West Virginia.<br>
Blankenship is one of four Republicans with criminal convictions
running for office this year, several of whom may well win their
party's nominations. And there is a much broader list of Republican
politicians facing credible accusations of huge ethical lapses who
nonetheless emerged victorious in G.O.P. primaries, ranging from Roy
Moore to, well, Donald Trump.<br>
...Some Republican politicians have openly admitted that this makes
the party's congressional wing unwilling to hold Trump accountable
for even the most spectacular malfeasance, up to and including
possible collusion with a hostile foreign power.<br>
- - - - - <br>
[harsh headline - Wonkette]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://wonkette.com/626416/jailbird-coal-ceo-don-blankenship-running-for-senate-because-dead-miners-cant-vote#AsBGvMI8drMCwQVI.99">Jailbird
Coal CEO Don Blankenship Running For Senate Because Dead Miners
Can't Vote</a></b><br>
...Of course, Blankenship won't have an easy path to the Senate, not
merely because there's a nationwide conspiracy to keep him down, but
also because there are other Republican candidates in the primary,
US Rep. Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick
Morrisey. Blankenship may have to explain to West Virginians why
he's preferred to live in Las Vegas instead of West Virginia since
getting out of prison, though he's kept a home in coal country and
will undoubtedly go back for as long as it takes to run...<br>
Despite his lonely years being Coal's Best Friend, Blankenship will
still have to overcome the fact that lots of West Virginians know
exactly who he is and what happened at the Upper Big Branch Mine, so
he may need a boost of some sort to make him stand out and win
rightwing votes...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wonkette.com/626416/jailbird-coal-ceo-don-blankenship-running-for-senate-because-dead-miners-cant-vote#AsBGvMI8drMCwQVI.99">https://wonkette.com/626416/jailbird-coal-ceo-don-blankenship-running-for-senate-because-dead-miners-cant-vote#AsBGvMI8drMCwQVI.99</a><br>
---<br>
[Politico]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/26/west-virginia-senate-don-blankenship-2018-217703">Can
the Most Hated Man in West Virginia Win?</a></b><br>
Don Blankenship went to prison after the deaths of 29 of his miners.
For some Republicans, that's the beginning of a successful Senate
campaign.<br>
By KEVIN ROBILLARD<br>
March 26, 2018 <br>
...Admittedly, this part of the state was not his power base when he
was the bottom-line-driven CEO of Massey Energy, one of the state's
largest mining companies. ("I used to come up here to sell coal," he
told me later in an interview. "Before Obama.") But the almost
nonexistent turnout seemed about right for a man who just three
years ago had a statewide approval rating of 10 percent, lower even
than Congress, the standard for disdain. In 2015, when he was
sentenced to a year in prison on a misdemeanor charge of conspiring
to violate mine safety standards in the 2010 explosion that killed
29 men at the Upper Big Branch mine, three-fifths of people surveyed
thought the judge should have put him away for longer.<br>
Initially, Blankenship had told prison officials that upon his
release he planned to move to Nevada, where his girlfriend lives.
Instead, on January 23 he signed the papers to challenge Manchin. A
67-page manifesto he had written in prison decrying his political
persecution by the Obama Justice Department effectively became his
political platform. The idea that a former inmate who many view as
an unrepentant murderer would dare to run for Senate seemed
laughable at first, even to members of his own party.<br>
- - - - - <br>
Anti-establishment to his core, Blankenship doesn't feel a hint of
regret that national figures from his own party are already lining
up against him. "I was against McConnell long before he was against
me," Blankenship says of the Kentucky Republican, whom he once
considered an ally in the battles against the Obama administration's
climate change efforts. But in 2014, Blankenship wrote an essay on
his website bashing McConnell and noting the senator's wife,
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, sat on the board of a Michael
Bloomberg-backed group that funded the Sierra Club. "Electing
McConnell is better than sending a Democrat that will always support
Obama to D.C., but McConnell is not a coal guy," Blankenship wrote
at the time.<br>
Many Republicans in D.C. and West Virginia didn't think
Blankenship's run was serious at first. He had already been paying
for television ads promoting his theory of the Upper Big Branch
explosion and alleging a Justice Department coverup, and it appeared
his entrance into the race was simply an attempt to get cheaper ad
rates.<br>
But McConnell and the rest of the GOP establishment may soon have to
confront the possibility of Blankenship picking up the GOP
nomination. A Jenkins-commissioned poll released earlier this month
showed Blankenship with 27 percent of the vote, just behind the
incumbent congressman at 29 percent. Morrisey was in third with just
19 percent. Some Jenkins supporters, and some national Republicans
who think the congressman is the party's best chance to beat
Manchin, think Blankenship's presence in the race will only eat away
at Morrisey's vote share, as the two candidates will split the
anti-establishment vote...<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/26/west-virginia-senate-don-blankenship-2018-217703">https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/26/west-virginia-senate-don-blankenship-2018-217703</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
[Bug counts are down]<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/">Insect
Decimation Upstages Global Warming</a></b><br>
by ROBERT HUNZIKER<br>
An alarming loss of insects will likely take down humanity before
global warming hits maximum velocity...<br>
Several naturalists and environmental writers believe the massive
loss of insects has everything to do with three generations of
industrialized farming and the vast tide of poisons pouring over the
landscape year-after-year, especially since the end of WWII. Ours is
the first-ever pesticide-based agricultural society. Dreadfully,
it's an experiment that is going dead wrong… all of a sudden!<br>
- - - - -<br>
Scientists have been noticing the problem for some time now, but
widespread public knowledge is simply not there. Jurgen Deckert,
insect custodian at the Berlin Natural History Museum is worried
that "there's a risk we will only really take notice once it is too
late." (Source: Christian Schwagerl, What's Causing the Sharp
Decline in Insects, and Why It Matters, YaleEnvironment360, July 6,
2012)<br>
The Senckenberg Entomological Institute/Frankfurt recorded a 40%
decline in butterfly and Burnet moth species over a period of
decades.<br>
A Stanford University global index developed by Rodlfo Dirzo showed
a 45% decline for invertebrates over four decades. Of 3,623
terrestrial invertebrate species on the International Union for
Conservation of Nature Red List, 42% are classified as threatened
with extinction.<br>
The Zoological Society of London in 2012 published a major survey
concluding that many insect populations are in severe decline. And
in both the U.S. and Europe researchers have recorded 40% declines
in bee populations because of colony collapse disorder and sharp
losses of monarch butterflies.<br>
- - - - - -<br>
"Of particular concern is the widespread use of pesticides and their
impact on non-target species. Many conservationists view a special
class of pesticides called neonicotinoids - used over many years in
Europe until a partial ban in 2013 - as the prime suspect for insect
losses… "There are many indications that what we see is the result
of a widespread poisoning of our landscape," says Leif Miller,
director general of the German chapter of Bird Life International,"
Ibid.<br>
Widespread poisoning of ecosystems is the norm in modern day
society. "Ours is a poisoned planet, … This explosion in chemical
use and release has all happened so rapidly that most people are
blissfully unaware of its true magnitude and extent, or of the
dangers it now poses to us all as well as to future generations for
centuries to come." (Source: Julian Cribb, Surviving the 21st
Century, Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2017, page 104)<br>
<br>
"Most people are blissfully unaware" may be a blessing in disguise
as the angst, dread, and uneasiness that knowledge of this
horrendous crisis brings is the root cause of severe bouts of
sleeplessness along with difficult spells of deep depression.<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/27/insect-decimation-upstages-global-warming/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238">This
Day in Climate History - March 28, 2001 </a> - from D.R.
Tucker</b></font><br>
March 28, 2001: President George W. Bush says his administration
will not honor the Kyoto Protocol. CAMPBELL BROWN reporting:<br>
<blockquote>BROWN: An embarrassing decision for Bush's EPA
administrator, who sources say, was essentially left out of the
loop. And only weeks earlier, based on Bush's campaign pledge, was
telling U.S. allies Bush supported limits on carbon dioxide
emissions. And yet Whitman is now taking the heat for the
president on this and other controversial decisions. Today on
Capitol Hill defending the EPA's move to postpone setting new
standards for cancer-causing arsenic in drinking water, while
promising the environment remains an administration priority.<br>
<br>
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN (U.S. EPA Administrator): This is an
administration that's going to surprise everybody with how much
we're, how much progress we're going to make.<br>
<br>
BROWN: The outcry over the president's decision on global warming
is not just coming from Democrats but also U.S. allies, and the
president is expected to hear more complaints tomorrow when he
meets with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.<br>
</blockquote>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238">http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=238</a></font><br>
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