By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

It’s The Year of Living Dangerously all over again.

Orangutan (Photo: Tom Theodore/Dreamstime)

On Tuesday, two journalists were arrested in Sumatra while covering a politically sensitive topic – palm oil harvesting and the ensuing decimation of Southeast Asia’s old-growth, carbon-capturing rainforests, and the subsequent release of giant CO2 pockets that lie beneath the forests and their peat swamps.

More disturbing than the reporters’ deportation, though, is how little we consumers seem to realize that, not only are we what we eat, but when it comes to palm oil, we are eating our own lifeblood. We’re ‘eating’ our oxygen, we’re ‘eating’ our fellow species. We’re consuming our own future by driving up carbon emissions much faster than we can offset them. We are the snake eating its own tail.

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From Green Right Now Reports

HD Net’s Dan Rather Reports Tuesday night will feature never-before-seen footage from the island of Madagascar, where an ecological horror show is taking place. Madagascar’s national parks are, according to scientists, being raped by loggers who are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable rosewood trees. The recently obtained video shows loggers hauling the trees out of the forests by hand.

On Madagascar, loggers are illegally chopping down rare and extremely valuable trees. (Photo: HD Net)

Each of these trees is worth thousands of dollars on the international market, but the desperate residents of Madagascar are cutting them down for only a few dollars a day.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Amazingly, there are still places in the Bay Area and Central Valley where keen-eyed observers can witness one of nature’s miracles: wild salmon spawning. The Bay Institute has just published an updated map and calendar of top local viewing spots and information on the best seasons to see salmon in the wild. These free brochures are available at Aquarium of the Bay, where a new poster exhibit highlights the life cycle of these extraordinary fish.

“Bay Area and Central Valley residents are fortunate to live within close driving distance of waterways where they can witness these magnificent but endangered creatures in their natural habitat,” Tina Swanson, executive director of The Bay Institute, said in a statement. “In addition to visiting these areas, we urge individuals to consider how their actions affect our salmon and the rivers they depend on, make smart decisions in their own lives about water and chemical use, and vote in favor of the environment. It will take all of us working together to protect and restore these species and the valuable fishery that, until recently, they supported.”

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

As debates about climate change — does it exist and how serious is it? – rage on, many scientists continue to uncover more and more evidence that atmospheric pollution is having negative effects on Earth, right here and now, climate change or not.

Scientists studying the chemistry of lakes reported in a study published this week that atmospheric nitrogen released from the burning of fossil fuels and the widespread use of fertilizers in agriculture is altering the makeup of even remote bodies of water.

Green Lake 5 in Colorado (Photo: James Elser/ASU)

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.

Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

Florida’s housing bust may be disheartening for developers and damaging to the state’s economy, but it’s a blessing – short-lived, most likely – for one of the world’s most endangered big cats.

The Florida panther once roamed most of southeastern America, from the Carolinas to Louisiana and all over Florida. It was hunted, and then squeezed into an increasingly shrinking range as Florida’s human population boomed. Many other native species in the state have been pushed to the brink of extinction (and a couple are considered extinct).

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Bay City News
SAUSALITO — Three weeks after their return from exploring a vortex of floating plastic garbage 1,000 miles off the Pacific coast, scientists working on Project Kaisei are focused on how to clean up the giant garbage patch. >> Read the full story

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Palm Oil, an ingredient found in most processed food, has been the subject of much environmental debate in recent years over its role in deforestation. It is commonly found in cooking oil and as an ingredient in cosmetics, soaps, detergents, and some plastics. Palm oil also has been considered for use in the production of biodiesel.

There have been many attempts to make palm oil sustainable. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was even established in 2003 to do just that. Unfortunately, six years later, there is still no system that can effectively trace palm oil beyond the processor to the plantation level. Companies that manufacture products using palm oil have little way of knowing where the controversial substance originated — which leaves the question of whether and to what degree palm oil is sustainably farmed up in the air.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Here’s a little cautionary tale about how bigger is not always better, and knowing who to blame doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It’s also about the inter-connectedness of our energy and food systems, and specifically how coal-fired power plants affect your diet.

Say you were camping with friends and caught a really BIG fish. This squirming monster would give you bragging rights for a year. Now say you caught a smaller fish, suitable for pan frying but not Kodak-worthy.

What do you do? If you’re Daniel Boone, you toss the little guy back. But if you’re a post-industrial age sportsman or woman, you will want to consider this: Keep the big hunker and you’ve got more to eat, and disproportionately more mercury contamination.

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From Green Right Now Reports

At least three of Idaho’s wolves have been killed as hunting commenced this week under the first authorized sport wolf hunt in the lower 48 states.

But while the hunt has attracted sportspeople, it has repelled others. A Lewiston-area man who killed the first wolf on opening day told the local media that he has received numerous calls of protest.

Robert Millage, a real estate agent, says he’s been called a “wolf murderer, a fat redneck and other names” in some 50 phone calls and hundreds of e-mails, according to the Lewiston Tribune. (To see a picture of the young wolf Millage killed view the story on Lewiston’s KLEW-TV.)

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

They started out as pets, perhaps living in little boys’ bedrooms, being shown off to friends and wrapping around arms. But then the Burmese pythons grew, and grew, and grew (about 7 feet in a year), and they weren’t so cute or easy to deal with any more.

So, trying to do the right thing, their owners gently released them into the wild, near the large, shallow “river of grass” that flows through much of south Florida, known as the Everglades.

Problem solved.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Columbus, Ohio, is celebrating the opening of the Grange Insurance Audubon Center at Scioto Audubon Metro Park, a brownfield redevelopment site that is a major bird migration stopover point. The $14.5 million center is the first of its kind to be built so close to surrounding urban spaces, according to Ohio officials.

“This new park and nature center are a treasure for our community and are a vital component in making Columbus’ urban spaces a great place to live, work or visit,” John O’Meara, executive director of Metro Parks, said in a statement.

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