Ent Army

don't make it so an animal died for nothing!

Hi everyone, this is Ernest. So I have an idea for a new project that we could do. The other day I was picking up litter in the wetlands with my cousin, and it made me think about how if everyone on earth went outside for one hour and picked up all the litter they could, then the world would be so much cleaner. So we need to get everyone to do this.

I was thinking that we should probably all start in our own communities, and get a town litter clean up day. Then we can try to spread it everywhere. So, if you think this is a good idea, then try to get some people in your town to have a litter cleanup group. Then maybe it can get in the paper, and evolve into a litter day for everyone. Then we can spread it to the next community.

A great resource is Plastic: The Scavenger Hunt, a website made by MonkeyLover, which makes litter cleanup into a scavenger hunt across the world. 

So, if you like this idea, then comment and we can all communicate about how we can do this. If you have a better way, something to add, or another idea of how to do this, please comment! We can all work together to clean up the earth!

Yours always, 

Ernest Treeheart 

Here is the link to a page with informaiton about volunteer workdays in Pennsylvania with the Nature Conservancy: 

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/pennsylvania/volunteer/pennsylvania-volunteer-workdays.xml?src=e.vols

Here is an important message from Greenpeace about a petition to stop fracking on public lands: 

"The national parks system has been called America's best idea. If that's true, then fracking on the doorstep of those parks might possibly be its worst.

But that's exactly what the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that controls public lands around national parks has proposed. It wants new regulations so weak they would allow oil and gas companies to frack right next to national park land. And that could be disastrous.

Fracking uses huge volumes of water mixed with dangerous chemicals to blast open rock formations and extract oil and gas. It also pollutes groundwater, causes air pollution, and endangers the surrounding environment and communities.

We have just 96 hours left in the public comment period to get the BLM to withdraw its weak regulations and put in place a ban on fracking on public land instead.

Join us in telling the Bureau of Land Management: this land is our land, not the oil and gas industry’s. Ban fracking on public land.

Our public lands can’t take more fracking. Already, parks like Rocky Mountain National Park that have oil and gas operations nearby are facing environmental damage.

With these new regulations, national parks across the country from Canyonlands to the Grand Tetons would be at risk of becoming obscured by smog and polluted by drilling wastewater. The animal and plant species dependent upon those lands could face habitat loss. And people living nearby could suffer from health effects.

Almost 300 million people visit national parks each year to experience nature – untarnished by development. And now that is in jeopardy, all to satisfy the oil and gas industry’s lust for profit.

The best way to protect these national treasures and our air, water, health and climate from fracking is to simply prohibit this inherently dangerous form of fossil fuel extraction altogether. Banning fracking on our public lands is the perfect place to start.

There are only 96 hours left to tell the federal government to take the only real path to protect us and our national treasures: ban fracking on public lands. Send in your comment now.

Last month President Obama established a Climate Action Plan, declaring, "Someday, our children, and our children’s children, will look at us in the eye and they'll ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem and leave them a cleaner, safer, more stable world?"

Fracking on the doorstep of our national parks is not the path to the cleaner, safer and more stable world the President was talking about for our children. It’s the same path that has led us to where we are right now – giving away coal from public lands, opening up the pristine Arctic for drilling and pushing us closer to the point of no return on climate change.

There’s no place for fracking on the doorstep of our national parks. Take action today and tell the federal government to ban fracking on public lands.

For our parks,

Carolyn Auwaerter

Greenpeace Field Campaign Manager" 

Here is the link if you would like to sign the petition: 

https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=6FF109EAD8047856A350FD36D2755ADC.app366a?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1451&autologin=true

This week i went to an astronomy lecture and watched the meteor shower. but i learned something very surprising that i never heard of before. This is from the international dark-sky assocation:

Once a source of wonder--and one half of the entire planet’s natural environment—the star-filled nights of just a few years ago are vanishing in a yellow haze. Human-produced light pollution not only mars our view of the stars; poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems, affects human circadian rhythms, and wastes energy to the tune of $2.2 billion per year in the U.S. alone.

Light pollution is growing at the rate of 4%- far faster than the population. As developing countries embrace the use of electric light, light pollution promises to get even worse. There is a solution! Quality lighting benefits the entire community and erases effects of light pollution. The light shines only down to the ground not up into the sky- and it's cheaper too.

A video: http/www.youtube.com/watch?listLDD79FC8870945AA5&v=dd82jaztFIo

About the website: http/www.darksky.org/about-ida

I recently received an email from Greenpeace about dangers facing bees in North America, and a petition to help save them. Here is of the email and the petition, which I would really like to encourage everyone to sign:

"Bees are dying by the millions all across America.

According to leading scientists, they’re being poisoned by a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids (also known as “neonics”;). If we don’t stop using these chemicals soon, the bee population could be done for – and so could all the fruits and vegetables that rely on bees for pollination.

But there’s hope. A bill was just introduced in Congress that would impose a ban on neonics until a scientific review and field studies prove no harm will come to bee populations from their use.

Passing this bill won’t be easy. Big Agriculture and chemical companies like Bayer are already lobbying hard to defeat it. Massive public support is the only chance the bees have. Over 100,000 Greenpeace supporters helped raise the profile of this issue last month. Together we now have a chance to save the bees before it is too late.

Write your congressperson today and urge them to support the Save America’s Pollinators Act and save the bees!

The stories are shocking. Some 50,000 bees dropped dead a few weeks ago in Oregon after being exposed to the deadly pesticides. And last winter alone, 31% of beehives in the United States collapsed. Sobering stuff.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been dragging their feet on this issue for too long. EPA is currently conducting a study on neonics that they don’t expect to finish until sometime in 2018! At this rate, there may not be any bees left by that time.

By allowing toxic chemicals like neonics to weaken and kill bees, we threaten our food and our environment. Every day these chemicals are allowed to be used is one day closer to disaster.

Now’s the time to act. Tell your congressperson to support the Save America’s Pollinators Act today.

The world is stepping up to take action and it’s time for the US to do the same.

Policymakers in Europe pulled three commonly used neonics off the market earlier this year, citing the growing body science showing their harms to pollinators. Just a few weeks ago, the EU added another bee-harming pesticide to their restricted list.

However, the Industrial Agriculture lobby has no intention of backing down and Congress is going to need all the support it can get.

Write your Representative now and tell them to support this critical bill and save the bees.

Without immediate action to save bees, many of our favorite fruits, vegetables, and nuts could vanish from our shelves. Avocados, almonds, apples...the list goes on. A world without bees.

A win for the bees here in the US is possible, but only if we keep the pressure up on Congress to do the right thing.

Thanks,

Mark Floegel

Greenpeace Senior Investigator and Beekeeper

P.S. America’s bees are being poisoned. There’s a bill in Congress that would help save them. Write your representative today and tell them to support the Save America’s Pollinators Act today! Then forward this message to your friend and family"

Here is the link if you would like to sign the petition and contact your representative in congress: https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1436&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=47ikws2ei4.app334a

Hi! So I would like to welcome some of our new members, especially those from WMI! You guys are awesome and I'm so glad you've joined. Also, I would like to encourage everyone to write forum posts. There are questions there for people to talk about, and it would be really great if some of you answered. Also, if you have something to do to help the environment, please email me! I would love to hear about it and put it on the website, and you can do any positive thing that you want for ent army, either on your own or we could all do it together! Also, please send inspirational things for the inspiration page, if you have anything at all. This is all of our's site, and I know that everyone has something to contribute, so I would really love to hear from you! Thanks.

Ernest

Hi! So I received an email from Penn Environment about a petition they are doing to urge Pennsylvania senators to stop funding cuts to national parks. It said that our national parks (like Valley Forge and Yellowstone) are at risk because congress has been cutting funding to the park system for several years.This is very upsetting because this means that maintenance work in the parks is reduced an delayed and people become less educated about nature's beauty. Also, this puts the parks at risk of development. However, congress might impose even more cuts on the parks, which could lead to pollution and development in some of our last remaining natural spaces. Parks could even be partially closed! Penn Environement created a petition to send to Pennsylvania Senators about this. Here is the link to the survey if you would like to sign it. Please do!

https://secure3.convio.net/engage/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=8435&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=q9v2v3hc02.app331b

Hi. I would like to encourage people to comment on things, add things, and participate in discussions on the website! That would be great if we could all communicate and share ideas. Also, you can email us! Thanks!

Ernest

Hi! So my family just came back from a trip to Nova Scotia, and there we were happy to find many eco friendly practices and initives used by the Canadians! Here are some of the great things we observed:

Waste, Recycling, and Compost sorting stations:

All throughtout Nova Scotia, waste sorting stations are used to maximize recycling and compost and minimize waste. Where we stayed, sorting was even required to ensure that everyone helped the environment. Here are some of the sorting stations we saw:

Environmental Activism:

In addition to the waste sorting stations, we also saw the Farley Mowat, a boat formerly belonging to the organization Sea Sheppard, which used it to save whales by interupting illegal whaling. Here is a picture of the boat. For more information on Sea Sheppard, go to

http://www.seashepherd.org.

Thank you Canada for all that you do to help the environment, and maybe we can spread some of your eco friendly practices to other places!