A First-hand look at the [alleged] damaging effects of [your cell phone charger] on Rocky Mountain National Park | EcoSalon

I was hiking in the Rockies earlier this month and saw for myself large swaths of dead, rust-colored Lodgepole pine trees throughout the forest (see gallery below). Witnessing the actual damage done by human folly is heart wrenching in a way that is difficult to verbalize. For me, there’s a huge sense of loss and missed opportunity and a knot of pure anger in my stomach at the shortsightedness and power of denial in us humans.
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Enter drought and successive years of warm weather. The population of beetles explodes, the trees are weakened and unable to secrete the resin that kills the beetles, and the trees die – to the tune of millions upon millions of trees. According to this National Parks Conservation Association Survival Guide, Forestry officials estimate that all mature Lodgepole pine forests in Colorado will be dead by 2013.

Best of EarthFirst’s Bizarre Green News | EarthFirst.com

PETA President Wills Her Body to Become BBQ & Leather Goods

PETA did it again. Stomach-turning publicity stunts are nothing new to the animal rights organization, but the latest one will make you lose your lunch (fair warning). PETA President Ingrid Newkirk has willed her body to the group along with a gross list of instructions on what they should do with each body part after she’s dead. Read More

Climate Change, Carbon Trading, and Thievery – Crooks Give “Carbon Capital” New Meaning | Triple Pundit

What do you think the bigger-picture ramifications of fraud in carbon trading could be?

Sen. Mike Johanns: Flimsy evidence supporting cap-and-trade

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's August 23 op-ed about cap-and-trade offered incomplete and largely speculative analysis to justify the costs to American farmers and ranchers. His rhetoric falls in line with the Administration's pattern of nice sounding ideas unsupported by facts. Unfortunately, the costs of cap-and-trade are real, while so far the benefits for farmers and ranchers are theoretical. Nebraska producers are realists. And realists sift through rhetoric to focus on facts.

Protesters Scale Climate Exchange In London - News - eWeekEurope.co.uk

Meanwhile, environmentalists and business leaders have lined up to criticise carbon trading, in fora such as Carbon Trade Watch. Scientist James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis sees the planet as a living organism, has called cap and trade a "scam", former minister Michael Meacher has warned it will be distorted by business pressures, BP's former chief executive Lord Browne has criticised it, and Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of the EDF Energy UK compared it to the disastrous market in sub-prime mortgages whose failure kicked off the recession.