Hawaii's potential flooding reflects how climate change impacts disadvantaged most

View of Makaha Valley on the Waianae Coast from Makaha Valley Towers

The Waianae Coast offers some of the most authentic of the
culture in Hawaii, as well as some of its most beautiful scenery and pristine beaches.  It was once the haven of Hawaii's royalty.  But in modern times it now is home for many of the poor of the islands, who face the impact of climate change most, just as in other areas of the world.

How Leelah's likely suicide muddies the waters of sexual identity

Sexuality confusion

Religion and ethics profess at their core the need to embrace the good in life and in others. However, faith groups, in rejecting science, also dismiss the essence of what scientists view as creation and what makes everyone unique. The scientific view of human behaviors and how they develop includes those with sexual differences, like Leelah Acorn, a transgender teen, who apparently committed suicide rather than face a world in which stereotypes were used to condemn her.

Friends of the Earth slams cruise lines for polluting waters

[caption id="attachment_20710" align="alignleft" width="300"] Carnival Cruise Line[/caption]

Editor:---"As the industry leader, Carnival Corp. has to step up its environmental game throughout all of its different lines," said Keever. "How can Carnival Corp. justify having more than half of its fleet continue to use outdated technology that pollutes our oceans and threatens our marine ecosystem health, sea life and all of us?"

This indictment of Carnival Corp. by Friends of the Earth comes on the heels of the incidents where passengers have faced bad conditions on board cruise ships that have had mechanical and safety issues that have caused considerable distress on a number of Carnival voyages.

In March of this year CNN pointed out three Carnival ships that had problems , with toilets backing up, lack of power and other inconveniences.

According to Friends of the Earth, Cruise ships dumped more than 1 billion gallons of sewage in the ocean last year.  Much of it is raw or poorly treated, leading the organization to call for stronger rules to protect the ocean waters, sea life and people.   The following is the narrative from the organization's website:

Friends of the Earth's 2013 Cruise Ship Report Card says some of the 16 cruise lines graded are getting greener, but more than 40 percent of the 162 ships still rely on 30-year-old waste treatment technology, leaving treated sewage with levels of fecal matter, bacteria, heavy metals and other contaminants harmful to aquatic life and people. By law, wastewater dumped within three nautical miles of shore must be treated, but beyond that ships are allowed to dump raw sewage directly into the ocean.

The Environmental Protection Agency says an average cruise ship with 3,000 passengers and crew produces about 21,000 gallons of sewage a day -- enough to fill 10 backyard swimming pools in a week. That adds up to more than 1 billion gallons a year for the industry -- a conservative estimate, since some new ships carry as many as 8,000 passengers and crew and the report card doesn't include the entire worldwide fleet. In addition, each ship generates and dumps about eight times that much "graywater" from sinks, showers and baths, which can contain many of the same pollutants as sewage and significantly affects water quality.

Sewage pollution can cause gastrointestinal diseases, diarrhea, hepatitis and other illnesses in people exposed through contaminated seafood or water. Fish, shellfish, coral reefs, and other aquatic life can suffocate due to surplus nitrogen and phosphorous from ship sewage.

"It's time for cruise ships to stop using our oceans as a toilet," said Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels program director for Friends of the Earth, whose report card is meant both to draw attention to the environmental impact of the booming cruise industry and to help cruise-goers choose the most environmentally responsible cruises. (A downloadable version of the Cruise Ship Report Card is available here.)

"This is an industry worth billions of dollars that could install the most advanced sewage treatment technology available for the cost of a single can of Coke per passenger," said Keever. "We're encouraged that some cruise lines are taking incremental steps to improve their performance, but the entire industry must stop hiding behind weak regulations and take action to make sure the oceans their ships travel remain as clear as the photos in cruise brochures. But we also need the EPA to adopt tougher treatment standards to protect our oceans and coasts from the waste of these floating cities."

Cruise ships are also responsible for significant amounts of air pollution from the dirty fuel they burn. Even at the dock, cruise ships often run dirty diesel engines to provide electrical power to passengers and crew. According to the EPA, each day an average cruise ship is at sea it emits more sulfur dioxide than 13 million cars and more soot than 1 million cars. Starting in 2015, cleaner fuel standards in the U.S. and Canada will reduce the amount of sulfur emitted by each ship about 97 percent and the amount of soot by 85 percent, in addition to the interim cleaner fuel standards already in place in North America.

Friends of the Earth's report card grades cruise lines on three criteria: sewage treatment technology; whether ships can plug into shore-based power and if they use cleaner fuel than required by U.S. and international law; and compliance with Alaska's water quality regulations to protect the state's coast.

Disney Cruise Line, based in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., was ranked as the most environmentally responsible line, earning an A for sewage treatment and an overall grade of A, the only line to score that highly and the first A ever issued to a cruise line. Keever said all four Disney ships have advanced sewage treatment systems and three are equipped to plug in to shore-based power.

At the other end of the scale, Carnival Cruise Lines of Doral, Fla. -- which has the world's largest fleet of 24 cruise ships but only two with advanced sewage treatment technology – received an F for sewage treatment and an overall grade of C-minus. Carnival Lines' parent company, Carnival Corp. & PLC of Miami and London, also operates six other lines graded by the report card. Although the Carnival-owned Seabourn and Cunard lines both received an A for sewage treatment and Holland America and Princess received a B and B-minus respectively, two other Carnival lines – P&O and Costa – received extremely low grades for sewage treatment and overall grades of F.

 

 

Racial diversity in the media a one-way street

Professor Henry Gates on the left

[caption id="attachment_17997" align="alignleft" width="800"] Professor Henry Gates, left, founder of The Root[/caption]

Carol Forsloff — The Root headlines that CNN's new hires are all white. But in the world of journalism, while African Americans seek opportunities within the mainstream media, asking for inclusion in such high-profile outlets as CNN, African American media appears to retain an all-black reporting staff, making diversity in the media a one-way street, as The Root itself hires predominantly, if not exclusively, African Americans.

Not long ago this reporter noted The Root had restated an article I had  written about whether integration had helped or hurt African American children. The article was based on an extensive interview with an African American woman in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The restated article had minor commentary on the content of the article, but the bulk of The Root's offering was predominantly a rewrite of the original. This is often done in the media, especially when the article in question is on a citizen journal site, like Digital Journal.

The original article, however, was written by this professional journalist, who at the time was supervising interns in journalism and who had previously been an instructor in the journalism department at the university in Natchitoches. Since The Root had favored the article sufficiently to include its thesis in another article by an African American reporter, it seemed reasonable that the quality of the writing and ideas from this reporter might be of interest to The Root. So I wrote to the management of The Root and asked about the possibility of writing articles for it, mentioning at the same time the original article I had written on integration and African American youth.

I received no answer, despite several inquiries. In reviewing both The Root and The Grio, both African American publications, in neither have I seen Caucasian writers included as ordinary staff writers.

So has integration brought more inclusion across racial lines? In many areas, the problem of separation remains, but whereas white groups that reject people of color are publicly chastised, it is common for African American groups not to include whites, whether that is in the media or the local beauty contest.

Racial diversity within an organization may be the goal for the African American journalist, as The Root maintains; however, that one-way street is evidence that the foundation of integration remains unstable. So while the conversation at the Supreme Court is on voting rights, and African Americans seek to maintain racial diversity, perhaps the "street divisions" when it comes to race, within the African American community,  need to be revisited as well.

Failure to act responsibily part of present weather emergencies

[caption id="attachment_6561" align="alignleft" width="401"] Storm of the century[/caption]

Editor — While many people around the world are focusing on the great storm beginning to hit the Northeastern part of the United States, the really big news is that the major news networks have not done enough to highlight the root causes. In a world where every fact must have an opposite, it seems, as opinion often rules the news, what is that major news?

Vanessa Kritzer, who is Online Campaigns Manager for the League of Conservation Voters, spells out her frustration in a recent press release, underlining the importance of looking at the root causes of our weather conditions. It is that focus that might make the real difference, she explains as she declares:

From record-breaking heat waves and massive wildfires to historic droughts and Superstorm Sandy, we’ve seen with our own eyes the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events this past year.

Yet in reporting on these disastrous events, the nightly news programs at the major broadcast networks have largely ignored what is fueling this extreme weather – climate change.

As the effects of climate change cause hardship for families across America, we need better coverage if we want people to connect the dots and demand real action to curb global warming and pollution.

In fact, that's why the organization is circulating a petition for viewers to demand that mainstream media take responsibility and let people know what is happening in the environment at the heart of these disastrous weather events. They are asking that other networks emulate PBS Newshour in its coverage of climate change.

CNN.com today is relating the sequence of details of the present storm, accenting the specific conditions, and letting people know that the same region hit by Hurricane Sandy is getting hit again.  But why is that true and what is the evidence this may continue?

SFGate writes it frankly by observing what many scientists are saying about the future. "Within the lifetimes of today's children, scientists say, the climate could reach a state unknown in civilization."  This phrase alone tells us that there are dangers ahead that will only increase. It also is a reminder of the need to act regarding CO2 emissions. This information comes from the leading scientists, not the off-the-block ones tied to political interests, as is observed in scientific publications and those journals who are focusing on the science as opposed to the miscellaneous political debates.

We should be reminded that in 2006 it was widely noted that then President George W. Bush was denying human-induced climate change. The infusion of politics in the science that many maintain is critical to understand so that people can act responsibility meant delays in that action.

The chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Sir John Lawton, the chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in 2005 called climate change deniers in the US "loonies", observing how global warming "is to blame for the increasingly strong hurricanes being spawned in the Atlantic."

In other words, by calling the science opinion, and therefore debatable, has made the situation worse. That's the biggest headline today: how the world failed to act and that the Northeastern part of the United States, and other places, will surely feel the impact of that failure, according to the scientists, who years ago warned of the crisis.

 

 

 

Why the South stays "Red"

If you live in the south or travel much through it you will notice most motels carry one televlsion for much of its news, a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence but meaningful all the same.

At a Super 8 outside of Dallas the question was asked why the channel is on Fox News.  The desk clerk said at one time it was on CNN, but people claimed the channel too liberal.

"Had anyone complained about Fox?" he was asked.  The clerk said no one had because it was the channel that is fair and balanced.

But many shows are hosted by politicians, was the counter.  "Well they are better than the media."he replied.

Most of the South is politically red which may account for these observations and why they will likely remain.

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