A March 7, New York times editorial by David Helvarg suggests environmental change will define much of the politics of the 21^st century. While other reporters were covering the impeachment trial and sexual misadventures of the President, Helvarg was interviewing scientists near the South Pole. According to the chief scientist, Bill Frasier, of the National Science Foundation, who has been studying the Antarctic climate since 1974, this region of the world has seen a temperature jump of 5 degrees in 50 years, and a ten-degree average warming during its winter months. Sections of the ice shelf, as large as Delaware, are breaking off.

Scientists are now discussing the possibility that the adjacent Western Antarctic Ice Sheet could experience a sudden meltdown, raising global sea levels by more than 15 feet over the next century (instead of one to three feet, as currently predicted). The implications: inundation of waterfront property; regional shifts in agriculture; increases in extreme weather events; decline of krill and the species dependent upon them; the extinction of many plant species. What's causing the global warming? Increased output of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases.

 (Being aware of the stupidity and denial capacities of most members of the U. S. Congress, I would predict that instead of "environmental change defining the politics of the next century," that such members would be wading in water to work at the Capitol while scheming to see what kind of accusations of sexual peccadillos they can hang on some of their compatriots. Editorial comment!) ª

 Item: The Federal government is now telling folks in Eastern Colorado that toxic waste is good for them. EPA has decided to spread some black sludge mixed with plutonium waste as fertilizer on a 55,000 acre wheat farm. Reminiscent of the deadly fallout from bomb testing in Utah in the 50's where the government denied danger or culpability, EPA claims that the radiation emitted from the sludge is about the same as what could be expected from background radiation. But the toxic material being mixed with the sludge has 10,000 times as much radiation as would come from background according to a prior $5 million study. With the history of the feds lying in issues like these who would trust them now?

- From High Country News, June 21, 1999 ª

American Electric Power again stirs up a hornet's nest. After being denied access across the George Washington National Forest (GWNF) in Virginia, American Electric Power rerouted their proposed 756,00 volt power line south across Wythe and Bland counties in Virginia to steer clear of the GWNF. But the folks in those counties apparently don't want it, either. The Board of Supervisors of Wythe County have unanimously gone on record in opposed it, and committed $30,000 to fight it. A year earlier at a meeting of 300 to 400 people from Bland County to voice opposition to the power line, that board of supervisors decided to seek counsel to defend against having the line go through their territory. The two counties have pooled resources in carrying on this fight.

- Excerpted from the New River free Press, July 15 - Sept 15, 1999 ª

USDA and DOI release draft of unified federal watershed policy. The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior released a draft of a Unified Federal Policy for Ensuring a Watershed Approach to Federal Land and Resource and Management. The two primary goals of the Policy are to use a watershed approach to prevent and reduce water pollution resulting from federal land and resource management activities and to accomplish this in a unified and cost effective manner. The working draft is available to the public on the home page of the Bureau of Land Management http://www.blm.gov/nhp/whatwedo/cwap/ and the Forest Service home page http://www.fs.fed.us/clean/unified/ A copy can also be obtained by calling the Forest Service at 406/329-3388.

. . . Later this summer the Administration plans to publish this proposal in the Federal Register for public comment and to hold public meetings in Sacramento, Portland, Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Washington, DC. This is an important opportunity for forest activists to ensure that protecting water quality and watershed restoration will be priorities in the new policy. For further information contact Ami Grace with the Clean Water Network at 202/289-2421, cleanwaternt@igc.org

- Don Garvin sent this in from "Landscope, News and Views from American Lands" - June 29, 1999 _

PRESS RELEASE July 22, 1999

Contact: Paula Clendenin (304)343-2993

 Mountain State Artists Take Art to the Billboards. CHARLESTON, WV-- Consider it an outdoor art exhibition in large format - very large format. Six West Virginia artists are expressing their reactions to mountaintop removal strip mining on six billboards to be installed in the Charleston area on July 25.

This is the first phase of a billboard exhibition project organized by artist Paula Clendenin, and novelist and gubernatorial candidate Denise Giardina. The project is funded by private donations raised at an event last January.

Designs include a humorous piece by David Riffle and Molly Erlandson, a pair of photographs by Ken Sherman, Clendinin's symbolic mountains, less peaks, and filmmaker Gates' hypothetical landscape derived from aerial strip mine photographs.

"I am very excited about the art we have for this project," project coordinator Clendenin said. "It should definitely raise public awareness of the destructiveness of mountaintop removal, and help counter the slick, high finance, media campaign of the coal industry. But, this project is also fun. It is art."

Story from the Web. The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

Submitted by Rick Landenberger

 P. 12. "The results reveal that mountain bike opinion leaders are overwhelmingly biocentric in their thinking, believing that nature has intrinsic value exclusive of what it does for humans, that humans do not have moral license to infringe on this right, and that many environmental problems are rooted in our societal tendency to dominate, control, and exploit nature. There was widespread support for the idea that there are indeed limits to growth and that a more sustainable form of society is needed. Mountain bikers generally see themselves as environmental activists with much of their lives organized around environmental issues.

 "... It generally appears that mountain bikers are generally within the mainstream of American environmental thought in that they actively support a biocentric view of nature and oppose the morality of human infringement on these intrinsic rights, yet are unsure about what form of activism should be utilized to bring about necessary social change. This finding does much to dispel the conventional wisdom that views mountain bikers as anti-environmental, with views more in tune with the philosophies of the off-road vehicle and wise-use contingents. While they are clearly interested in advancing their access agenda, this interest is clearly not grounded in the philosophies of the wise-use movement. While access issues could be a political wedge, it is more likely that mountain bikers will see the environmental agenda as consistent with the protection of their overwhelming interest in the protection of mountain biking opportunities. Given the vast numbers of riders and the growth of the sport, mountain bikers and environmentalists increasingly become powerful political allies."