In the wake of the BP oil disaster, the U.S. Minerals Management Service--the agency that signed off on the Macondo well's ludicrous disaster plan--was disbanded. Bidding MMS adieu, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is auctioning off MMS paraphernalia, including MMS safety whistles, oil drop paperweights, and embossed lunch bags.

"These kitschy souvenirs exhibit a blithe cluelessness that helps explain the agency's mindset," noted PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "For example, what was the focus of the 2009 Safety Week at MMS? Well, if you guessed diet conscious snacks, you would be correct."

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the breakup of the disgraced MMS into smaller units, the largest bearing the onerous title of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement. There is apparently some disagreement within the new agency as to how it should properly be referred. Initially new director Michael Bromwich suggested BOE, a directive that was countermanded days later by an urgent email insisting on the full acronym, BOEMRE. There is as of yet no official pronunciation guidance, but the new agency is inevitably already known as "Bummer."

"The view out the window for most of the two hours was either the sheen of oil, looking for the next sheen of oil, or seeing the tritest of the clean-up of vessels, skimmers, shrimp boats that have been retrofitted with booms to lay out in the open water. [...] and we've seen where they have lost the battle."

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Above - Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune (left) and banner holders look back at President Obama's helicopter flies nearby during the press conference.

George Kohl, Senior Director of the Communications Workers of America, speaks at today's Beyond Oil rally.

All photos above by Javier Sierra. All photos below by Heather Moyer.

It's not officially Flag Day (that was June 14th), but on the National Mall in Washington, DC, today is a sort of an unofficial flag day.

We've got our Beyond Oil action up and flowing in the wind on the Mall - 10,000 flags that spell out "Freedom from Oil," that volunteers worked late in the night on Tuesday to stake into the ground.

These 10,000 flags represent the more than 50,000 people who took action on our Beyond Oil website asking President Obama to move our country beyond oil.

Glen Besa of the Sierra Club in Virginia took a great video of the flag planting last night, so take a look. (Sorry, the humidity got to our flipcam)

And if you want to see more of Glen's photos (all of the photos in this entry were taken by Glen), click here to see his online photo album.

The "Freedom from Oil" flag event continues today with a 11am ET press conference and all-day tabling to inform people about our country's oil addiction and asking them to join us in calling for a plan to get off oil.

We hope to have video of today's press conference later on.

We all know smokers who live into their eighties, and health nuts who drop dead in their forties, but these examples are not taken seriously in discussion of health issues. Most people understand and accept anomalies in fields like health care and economics, and we need to do the same with climate issues.

Needless to say, I try lots of green products. Since we are still in the second inning of America going green, new products are just now entering the marketplace in slightly increasing numbers. I do my quarterly big box runs to examine just how close we are getting to green alternatives of everyday products. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have had the opportunity to test drive many new products and quite frankly the results are mixed.

I worry about this because when curious but non-green citizens are ready to try a green product, it had better live up to its billing. Otherwise, those folks won’t try going green again for many years, if ever.

While admittedly lots of the things I try are personal care products, here is an overview of what has worked well — and what hasn’t.

I tried Organic makeup, the Foundation product is just super, easy to apply, feels nice, right consistency. Other Organic makeup products, however, fell short. Especially the pressed powder packaging. While environmentally friendly, the paper containers virtually ripped apart after only two weeks, thus rendering the products useless. Cost is about on par with an average brand like L’oreal but longevity of the product and packaging did not match up.

A landmark study by 12 leading ecologists, hydrologists, and engineers concludes that the damage done by mountaintop removal mining (MTR) goes far beyond the already-horrendous practice of blasting off entire mountaintops and burying nearby streams under the rubble, referred to by mining companies as "overburden."

Photo by Vivian Stockman, courtesy of Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

Proponents of MTR argue that the method is safer, faster, and cheaper than underground mining, and that the ecological impacts are localized and short-lived. Faster and cheaper it may be, but strip-mining, like deep mining, remains a dangerous profession, and the ecological impacts of MTR appear to be anything but localized and short-lived.

Photo by Mary Anne Hitt

Published in the January 8, 2010, issue of Science, the study found that MTR not only kills off aquatic life in the immediate vicinity of the "valley fills," but poisons the ecosystem well downstream, altering biological communities, reducing biodiversity, and causing a host of human health problems due to both waterborne and airborne contaminants. Below, contaminated water emanating from a valley fill in Wise County, Virginia.

Photo by Tom Valtin

The study, "Mountaintop Mining Consequences," represents "the first attempt to collect and assess the best available science on the potential ecological and human health impacts of mountaintop removal"

[All quotes and graphics that follow are taken from the article Mountains of Controversy by Tim Lucas, of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.]

"The current regulatory framework treats mountaintop removal as if it was a local disturbance and ignores any impacts on downstream or downwind ecosystems," says Emily Bernhardt, an assistant professor of biogeochemistry at the Nicholas School, who co-authored the study.

Bernhardt joined eight other Duke faculty members in a 2-year, $1.5 million project to map the extent of mountaintop removal mining in southern West Virginia, and assess its impacts on ecological and human health. Below, Bernhardt (at center) collects water samples with Duke chemist Helen Hsu-Kim and professor of earth and ocean sciences Avner Vengosh.

Photo by Megan Morr

One example of ecosystem damage the study uncovered was a 2009 fish kill in Dunkard Creek, in the Monongahela Mountains, that extended more than 30 miles downstream of the MTR site. West Virginia state biologists determined it was caused by toxins released by a species of algae normally found only in salt or brackish water. The algae were able to live in a freshwater stream due to significant amounts of mining salts from the MTR operation upstream.

"There's a saying: 'Dilution is the solution to pollution,'" says Bernhardt. "But the more mines we build, especially in the same watershed or on the same headwaters, the less dilution we have."

The Science study cites studies showing that chronic exposure to pollution in mining-contaminated air and water is associated with learning disabilities and lower birth weights in children, and kidney disease, breast cancers, and lung disease in adults. Compare map of mine sites in southern West Virginia, above, with chart showing cancer rates by county, below.

"There are a whole suite of contaminants that are elevated in the water and air," Bernhardt says. "It could be that none of them are over the legal limit, but individually or collectively these contaminants are generating significant chemical stress for organisms living in, or drinking, contaminated water or breathing contaminated air."

Learn more about mountaintop removal mining and take action to help stop it.

With the passing of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, many are recalling his courageous and eloquent speeches over the years--opposing the Vietnam war, recanting his segregationist past, warning of the march to war in Iraq. Byrd is also remembered as a masterful deliverer of political pork to his constituents, and a solid supporter of his state's powerful coal industry.

As Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said this morning. "He never stopped growing as a public official, and was a man who learned from his mistakes." That quality enabled him, last December 3, to deliver the blunt, hard truth to his state's largest industry in an opinion piece titled "Coal Must Embrace the Future." As recounted in Jeff Biggers "Close to Home" in the current issue of Sierra,

Byrd declared it was time for "an open and honest dialogue about coal's future." Jobs were going away, he said—not because of the EPA, but because of mechanization and declining energy demand. As for mountaintop removal, Byrd said, "most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop-removal mining on the health of our citizens." Big Coal's greatest threats, Byrd said, "do not come from possible constraints on mountaintop- removal mining or other environmental regulations, but rather from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves, and the declining demand for coal as more power plants begin shifting to biomass and natural gas as a way to reduce emissions."

"Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry," Byrd concluded. "West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose."

The piece is well worth reading in full; you can find it here.

It's kind of embarassing to be writing about Sarah Palin's tweets--Call it the "ick factor." On the other hand, you can't really ignore a major political figure recommending to her legions of followers an article by Hoover Institution fellow Thomas Sowell that compares President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler because he got BP to put $20 billion in an escrow account to pay damages from its oil spill. Obama did that--not Hitler, in case you're confused. What Hitler did was get his followers to pass the Enabling Act, which gave him dictatorial powers. See, they're practically the same! Sowell concludes that that puts the United States on "the slippery slope to tyranny." You kind of expect that sort of thing from Hoover fellows--but politicans with millions of followers? I'd say that puts us on the slippery slope to something, but I don't think it's tyranny.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we've talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires...We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.

You could be forgiven for being confused. Take a slurp of coffee and try to follow along:

1. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) apologizes to BP that President Obama extracted a $20 billion escrow fund for damages to the Gulf Coast, calling it a "shakedown."

2. Faced with outrage from nearly everyone--including the leadership of the GOP--Barton retracts his apology: "“I apologize for using the term ‘shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP.”

3.The right-wing American Spectator publishes an article entitled "Joe Barton Was Right" (and they weren't talking about his un-apology).

4. Barton tweets his followers "Joe Barton was right," directing them to the American Spectator story.

5. Barton untweets his unapology for his apology.

I apologize if you find this hard to follow.

Another day in South Africa, another exciting soccer game or two, with the U.S. brilliantly scoring in the last few minutes against Algeria to send them into the round of 16. Earlier my family and I got to visit lions and cheetahs at a nearby park.

South Africa 2010 World Cup has been a resounding success two weeks in, with record crowds, brand new stadiums, a shared sense of excitement (or as they say, AYOBA -- party) for a country with a tortured history of hate and discrimination with some parallels to our own country.

Visiting Constitution Hill and the old prisons -- closed in the 1980s -- serve as stark reminders of those times when those with darker skins could be thrown and tortured in prisons for simply not carrying a pass allowing them to move into the city.

But driving from one city to another - or from one soccer stadium to another - it doesn't take an energy expert to realize this growing country is entirely dependent upon the coal it mines and burns to produce electricity in dozens of old-style coal burning plants.

There are dozens of them, with huge piles of coal in wait, and huge piles of coal ash on the other end. Even in Kruger National Park - a giant national park where tourists and locals drive the roads in search of an elusive leapord or to gaze at lions, giraffes and zebras -- one can see coal plants in the distance.

Recently, as coal mines get scarcer and energy prices increase, the government - which controls electricity -- had to raise prices some 30 percent, even as miners threaten to strike due to low salaries and no health benefits.

But the alternatives here are years away. With some 80% of its electricity from coal, and the rest mainly from hydropower, natural gas, solar, wind and other alternatives seem a dream.

A few homes sport new solar panels, but that is still for the small fraction of the population that is well to do, such as in US-style subdivisions that sprout up about Pretoria and Johannesburg in the city center.

Natural gas is imported mainly from Mozambique and is used in some homes for cooking and heating but not for electricity.

There are permits recently granted by the governmental agency in charge for shale gas to companies like Royal Dutch Shell and US-based Falcon Oil to explore along the Eastern Cape and southern coast. Such exploration - while it might eventually lead to some alternative to coal -- is not without its own perils, and local environmental groups like groundWork are already complaining the government is to quick to grant permits to multi-international corporations without the requisite environmental studies and proper regulation. South Africans would do well to look at recent events in the US and our own problems with oil and gas drilling along our shores and for shale gas on our land.

The climate, however, is perfect according to some for solar and wind, with its high cliffs and mountains, brilliant sun and savannah-landscape. If any nation in Africa might have a chance to chart a new path -- slowly, with planning -- away from coal-burning and toward alternatives, it might just be South Africa. But it will take a citizenry fed up with high energy prices, high pollution and a lack of jobs in the energy sector to push the government to chart a new course.

Given the highly controversial World Bank loans to South Africa to build a behometh of a coal plant in Limpopo Province in the North of the country --loans the Obama Administration ultimately failed to block -- that new course is still a long way off however.

Coming up: a view from the East Coast -- Durban..

Talk about your judicial activism! This morning U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. As reported in the Los Angeles Times,

Feldman called the Horizon spill "an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster." However, he continued: "What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all gulf deep-water drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm."

This "blanket moratorium, with no parameters," he wrote, "seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger."

Problem is that when the CEOs of the five largest oil companies were hauled before the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee on June 15, it was revealed that all of them relied on "cookie cutter" versions of BP's emergency-response plan--including its assessment of the probable effects of a spill in the Gulf of Mexico on walruses. As Ed Markey (D-Mass.) quipped, 'The only technology you seem to be relying on is the Xerox machine." The Obama administration has announced it will appeal Feldman's ruling; the Sierra Club is joining the appeal.

Meanwhile, here's what the sorry scene looked like from a NASA satellite as of Saturday:

Earlier, we noted that “renewable energy” was up there with Snoop Dogg, Marisa Tomei, and Farrah Fawcett in Americans’ minds, according to Yahoo’s “Trending Now” search topics. If you prefer data that’s a bit more scientific, a recent CBS News/New York Times poll finds that nine in 10 Americans think that U.S. energy policy needs fundamental changes or to be completely rebuilt; two out of three support President Obama’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling; and 59 percent consider it “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that the U.S. will develop an alternative to oil as a major source of energy within the next 25 years. Still, the Green Revolution may not be upon us quite yet: 51 percent of Americans would oppose an increase in the gasoline tax in order to promote research in renewable energy sources.

This announcement comes more than a year after a March 2009 U.S. District Court decision ruled these permits illegal.

The nationwide permits, created in 1982, gave a blanket authorization to mountaintop removal coal mines to dump their mining waste in streams and waterways. The District Court ruled that this overly generalized permitting process could not guarantee compliance with the Clean Water Act and that mining companies must apply for individual permits in order to be able to fill streams with mining waste.

• July 8 in Fort Worth, Texas
• July 13 in Denver, Colo.
• July 22 in Canonsburg, Pa.
• August 12 in Binghamton, N.Y.

On "Meet the Press" yesterday, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) suggested that the big problem in the Gulf of Mexico is the temporary moratorium the Obama administration has placed on offshore drilling there:

Best YouTube comment: "None of the companies has a disaster plan any different from BP's that calls for phoning a dead guy." William K. Reilly isn't very impressed either. He's chair of the bipartisan commission appointed by Obama to study the BP disaster (as well as head of the EPA under the first President Bush). Today, however, the New York Times quoted him saying that the panel is unlikely to lift the moratorium until it issues its report next year. “I would be very wary of encouraging more deepwater development until I was confident that the response plans were more realistic,” Reilly said. “They are not realistic at this time.”

Where are all these deepwater sites? Today the World Resources Institute released this map of the oil patch otherwise known as the Gulf of Mexico:

For a larger version click here.

What inspired you to start writing music about the environment?

What are your thoughts on the BP oil disaster?

My main thought is, the sooner we get off fossil fuel the better. Politically what’s happened over the last ten years was basically a giveaway to all the energy companies. It was a free-for-all. I hate to see this happen, but I hope this is a wake-up call for everyone. Like what the president said, there’s no better time to get off fossil fuels. It’s not sustainable and we can’t continue to fight wars for cheap oil.

I went to the premiere of Gasland and it's the same thing -- we are at ground zero for that (hydraulic fracturing) right now. It’s in my home county and all the counties around us. It’s like the Wild West; there are no regulations. I went to the showing in Pittsburgh and a few of my friends from high school showed up. When they show up, to me that’s a success, because it’s all about educating people.

What do you do in your daily routine that's green?

We live in an area where public transportation, walking, and biking are easy to do. I have a Subaru, which isn’t very efficient, but more fuel efficient than SUVs. We buy organic. We belong to the East End Food Co-op. We’ve planted our own garden -- basics like tomatoes, peppers. I’m just putting in some raised beds. I’ve been a vegetarian for the past year. I’m desperately trying to get off of fossil fuels and thinking of ways around it. My ideal is to get off the grid completely.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mike Ellis is a boat captain who's been rescuing the endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles near Deepwater Horizon. He's got some pretty horrifying news to share: BP is burning turtles caught in the oil spill and turning away rescue workers who want to save them.

Backyard gardening is something I'm yearning to get into. How great would it be to grow your own food? I stumbled upon these two helpful videos full of gardening tips:






The Sierra Club's Owen Bailey put together a video on the worthwhile task of saving energy and money via the water heater:



If you join the Green Cuisine group on Climate Crossroads, you'll get periodic sustainable cooking tips, like this:





Even pugs get the message. See?



Do you have a video of green tips? Email it to us at community.manager@sierraclub.org and we'll post it.

Read Part IV: Public transit.
Read Part III: Telecommute.
Read Part II: Bike and walk.
Read Part I: Eat smarter.

A quick review of this past week's happenings in the blog world

-- Roger Ebert has a thoughtful piece on the frustrating political implications of the spill.

I can’t imagine the president doing a flyover of a mountaintop removal site, or holding a press conference about it. And I’ve certainly never seen a mountain blown up on national television—not even once, much less every morning on the Today show. Yet I would venture to say that mountaintop removal (MTR) is as devastating as the oil spill in the Gulf.

BP wasn’t punching holes in the earth’s crust just for the thrill of doing something hard. They were drilling there because we asked them to. They were drilling there because we have this voracious appetite for all things petroleum. An appetite that doesn’t seem to be waning. The next time you’re filling up that ridiculously inefficient internal combustion vehicle, take a few minutes to look at all the oil you are consuming. It’s not just the gasoline. There are also the plastics, the synthetic rubber of your tires, the lubricants and all the electricity that was used to manufacture all this crap. Even the act of pumping the gas uses electricity probably generated using petroleum. Think about that real hard the next time you shoot off your mouth about the people at BP or in the government. Think about that real hard the next time you lament the poor birds and fish in the Gulf.

According to Food & Wine, foraging is indeed the next locavore fixation. In fact, some people like professional forager Kerry Clasby even make a decent living out of foraging and selling their goods to top chefs across the country.

There are many good reasons for pursuing energy efficiency, but--except where transportation is involved--getting off oil is not one of them. Most people who don't have solar panels on their roofs are pretty vague about where their energy comes from, and many assume that it comes from burning oil. Wrong! As the cool graphic below (courtesy of the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy) shows, only a tiny amount of petroleum goes to electrical generation. Most goes to transportation, so if you want to get off oil you've got to do something about cars and trucks.

Of course, if your aim is to do something about global warming, it would be preferable is your electric car didn't run on juice derived from burning coal. At present, however, you have to look very closely to see the tiny amount of coal-fired power going to cars. But we can worry about that problem after we get beyond oil.

(For a larger version click here.)

"The president also renewed his call for bolder action to create a clean energy future. We share the President's commitment, and recognize the steps we take as a nation must balance America's environmental, economic, and energy goals."

You can watch the hearing live at that link above - as of 10am ET, it was underway.

UPDATE: Two quotes of note from this morning's hearing thus far. First up, the big one - Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the government making them create a $20 billion liability fund to pay for the impact of the disaster on Gulf residents.

Yes, you read that right. Barton pretty much said, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" Or as a Twitterer Delrayser paraphrased, "We're sorry we got all that seawater in your oil, Mr. Hayward." Here's video of that apology:

First unveiled at the Gulf Aid benefit concert in New Orleans on May 16, a scathingly current version of the Mardi Gras classic “It Ain’t My Fault” has just been released for sale on iTunes. Performed by the Gulf Aid All-Stars (the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mos Def, Lenny Kravitz, and Trombone Shorty, along with actor Tim Robbins), all proceeds go to the Gulf Relief Foundation, which supports organizations focused on wetlands issues and fishing families affected by the continuing spill. Don’t miss the backstory on what led to the song’s (re)creation and an all-night jam session reported by New Orleans’ Times Picayune.

What was your reaction to the president's address from the Oval Office? Read the Sierra Club's response right here. Here's a snippet:

We have been asking the President to stop the gusher, make sure BP is held fully accountable for this disaster and its aftermath, provide justice for the people of Gulf and ultimately provide a plan for an oil-free economy for America. This evening the President touched on all these issues--now we need to see the details of exactly what government, business and individuals can and must do to be part of the solution.

BP has failed miserably at stopping the flow of oil and the government has, to this point, not done enough to force them to prepare for or respond to this disaster. We are pleased to see the President finally exerting the appropriate amount of authority over those responsible for this tragedy.

I couldn't see this real-time in China, so I've just now read the speech and watched an online replay. I have deliberately not yet read or listened to any on-line commentary. Thus my untutored reaction from the other side of the world is: Sigh.

There is one bit of the speech the significance of which is being overlooked. It comes in the part on clean energy policy, which many commenters dismissed as palaver. "Cheap platitudes," sniffed Josh Green. Clive Crook dismissed it as "lame, formulaic, [and] campaign-style." "Little better than inaction," concluded Ben Adler. "Basically," said Jon Chait, "he's saying he just wants some kind of bill." Drum snarks, "This gives pabulum a bad name. ... He didn't say a single word about what he himself wanted."

But that's not quite right. Obama didn't mention a cap on carbon, but he did mention a few specific things, and what he chose to mention has significance.

We're guessing that you all are just like us here at the Sierra Club - you feel frustrated and helpless looking at all these terrible BP oil disaster photos.

The 5th Annual National Dump the Pump Day on Thursday, June 17, will give people the chance to make a statement in support of public transit and its ability to help our country reduce its reliance on oil...(T)he National Dump the Pump Day is a public awareness day that highlights the benefits of public transportation.

Public transportation is part of the solution for our country attaining energy independence as U.S. public transit ridership saves 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually. By using public transportation on June 17, people will be able to show their support for public transportation and also for our nation's goal of energy independence.

In addition, riding public transportation can help people save money. The most recent APTA Transit Savings Report showed that on the average, an individual can save can more than $9,000 a year by taking public transportation instead of driving a car.

More than 100 public transportation systems are participating in National Dump the Pump Day activities this year.

The Sierra Club ran this ad in the New York Times in 1989 after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. "Who should pay for this mess? Exxon. And not just for the short term cleanup. And not just through advertisements and PR." Sound familiar? Note that at this point, the BP oil disaster is now estimated to be dumping an Exxon Valdez sized amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every 5 to 13 days.

For more oil-spill deja vu see here.

There's a whole new class of small, highway capable electric cars preparing to enter the American auto market. These "City Cars", exemplified by the Mitsubishi iMiEV and Mercedes' Smart car, are designed for commuters who are in need of good, inexpensive vehicles that do the job of transporting to and from work while using a minimal amount of energy.

Norway's Think (sometimes written as "Th!nk") is making a strong push for the American market with their recent announcement that they are building a manufacturing plant in Elkhart, IN near Enerdel, the battery manufacturer they have chosen to supply the 24 kWh packs that will power the cars.

Eight Plug in America members were recently asked to come to the Orange County offices of Think to test drive the latest version of this highly efficient EV. Linda Nicholes, past president of Plug In America, has written a great blog on the test drive, so I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that the Think impressed me with its overall performance and handling. It's very similar to the iMiEV in most all respects, and if both are priced appropriately, i.e., a few thousand lower than the Nissan Leaf, they'll sell very well.



Think isn't ready to announce a price yet, but they should by the end of the year. As we get into the era of expensive oil, city cars will gain an ever larger share of the market. Easy to drive, easy to park, and they use minimal energy to get the job done. Total cost of operation will be very low relative to even the smallest of gas burners.

(Like what you read? Visit my blog EVs & Energy.)

(Read more at Sierra Club Green Home.)

When offered a chance to chat with Kathy Ireland, we thought, "why would Sierra Club Green Home want to talk to a Sports Illustrated cover girl?" To our surprise, Ms. Ireland has quietly become a clothing and furniture designer and built a $1.4 billion a year business. And that sustainability is a core value of her vast enterprise.

Those of you over 40 surely have seen Ireland's willowy, shapely physique on at least one of the three covers -- including the bestselling 25th anniversary edition -- of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She appeared in the SI cheesecake magazine for 13 consecutive years, which must be some kind of record. Ireland began modeling while attending high school in Santa Barbara, and says it was "good money for not a lot of work."

She prefers to be thought of as a designer and businesswoman first, an author second (she has written three bestselling children's books and two self-help books, most recently Real Solutions for Busy Moms: Your Guide to Success and Sanity) with acting and modeling a distant third. Ireland is also a wife since 1988 and mother of three. In 2004, Inc. Magazine named her one of the top five celebrity entrepreneurs, mentioned in the same breath with Paul Newman, Magic Johnson, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and Francis Ford Coppola. She believes in giving back, and has numerous philanthropic credentials including pro bono work for March of Dimes, PTA, Feed the Children and City of Hope.

Ireland does not just lend her name to products for a fee. She is a real designer and is intimately involved with products that bear her name, from raw materials through distribution. Her first big success was a line of socks (yes, socks) for K-Mart which ended up selling over 100 million pairs. That led to a series of other apparel and furniture lines, all of which are closely supervised by Ireland and must be produced using sustainable materials and processes.

Ireland's customers are basically the moms of America. She encourages them to think sustainably. Her furniture products are recyclable, and she uses only faux furs and skins to respect the animal kingdom. One of her furniture lines is made from sustainably harvested woods from Africa. A genuine outdoorsy type, Ireland was a long-time Sierra Club member and used to go on club hikes with her parents as a teenager.

Ireland faced obstacles on her way to mogul-dom. "Rejection is a gift, it gives you perseverance," she says. "Modeling was good training that way because rejection is part of the job." Not surprisingly, she had more than one instance of not being taken seriously as a designer or businesswoman because of the stereotype associated with modeling.

With more than 15,000 products including furniture, clothing, linens, candles and more, Ireland's company is one of the few highly-profitable sustainable companies in America (it is rumored that Ireland personally hauls in over $10 million a year). Plus, she has scandal-free record as wife, mother, philanthropist and corporate do-gooder.

Not bad for a cover girl, eh?

One reason the BP oil disaster makes us sick is the flood of heartbreaking images of dead or dying wildlife and despoiled wetlands coupled with an infuriating sense of helplessness. BP's “handling” the crisis, so there's nothing we can do -- right?

Wrong.

Oil has infiltrated our daily lives to an astonishing degree, but that doesn't mean we can't significantly reduce our use of it. Americans burn nearly 20 million barrels of oil every single day, most of it for personal transportation.

Even for the most committed environmentalist, to go completely oil-free overnight would be next to impossible. But taking the first step toward an oil-free future -- by simply reducing our current daily consumption -- is actually incredibly easy. It's also one of the most significant things you can do to wrest control of our energy future back from the Big Oil companies, which have enjoyed cozy political relationships and big government subsidies for far too long.

Each day this week, we'll highlight a different strategy for getting oil out our lives.

1. We Are What We Eat

If the oil disaster makes you angry and you eat a lot of meat, one powerful solution is sitting right on your plate. The U.S. meat industry is a major consumer of petroleum. In fact, raising one cow in a factory farm requires about 35 gallons of oil -- just under a barrel (according to The Omnivore's Dilemma, p. 84). Processed foods and corn syrup also heavily depend on petroleum.

* Cutting meat out of your diet for just one day each week is equivalent to driving 1,000 miles less per year.

* When you do buy meat, consider the source. Grass-fed, sustainably raised livestock are a breath of fresh air compared to the filthy, industrialized feedlots that have taken over the U.S. Click here for a directory of responsibly raised meat.

* Location matters. The label “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean “oil free.” Organic apples from Chile, for instance, use as much oil as non organic domestic apples because of the required transportation. Look for produce that’s grown as close to home as possible first, then consider whether it's organic or not.

* Farmers rule! The easiest way to get healthy and low-oil-use foods is to take you reusable bags to a local farmers' market. Most of the market vendors are local, seasonal, and sustainable.

Have you got other ideas for how we can get the oil out of our diets? Share them in the comments.

• Rex Tillerson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ExxonMobil
• John Watson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chevron Corporation
• James Mulva, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ConocoPhillips
• Lamar McKay, President and Chairman, BP America, Inc.
• Marvin Odum, President, Shell Oil Company

If BP hadn't screwed up its Macondo well (and when is Gabriel Garcia Márquez going to complain about the name?), all those hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil would be flowing to refineries on the Gulf Coast. And after that? Charles Komanoff, author of Ending the Age of Oil, searched the datasets from the Energy Information Administration to come up with the chart below. The data is from 2000 but today's usage is believed to be very similar. Matthew Yglesias posted the chart today by way of making fun of an op-ed by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in the Wall Street Journal in which he pooh-poohs wind power:

"Stop pretending wind power has anything to do with reducing America's dependence on oil. Windmills generate electricity-not transportation fuel."

Yglesias and others helpfully point out that there are such things as electric cars, and that Alexander himself calls for electrifying half of our transportation fleet. That would save a lot of oil!

The new estimate is 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day. That range, still preliminary, is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

These new calculations came as the public wrangling between BP and the White House was reaching new heights, with President Obama asking for a meeting with BP executives next week and his Congressional allies intensifying their pressure on the oil giant to withhold dividend payments to shareholders until it makes clear it can and will pay all its obligations from the spill.

Homer, Alaska’s Climate Adaptation Progress Despite Uncertainties (pdf)
Learn how Homer identified climate impacts, set adaptation actions and priorities, and took advantage of initiatives that addressed both climate mitigation and adaptation

Keene, New Hampshire Leading on Climate Preparedness (pdf)
Learn how Keene assessed its risks and vulnerabilities, formed a preparedness team, and developed strategies and actions.

Is your community prepared for climate impacts? Learn more about climate adaptation and ICLEI's Climate Resilient Communities Program.

A quick review of this past week's happenings in the blog world

As is the case with these things, it was the pictures of the oily birds -- the one that looked like some gurgling monster; the one that lay on its back like a human, dying -- that yielded the most authentic reactions to the oil spill I've yet seen. Showing the photos to three friends, I watched the anger over the oil spill subside in their faces, the frustration drift from their voices as they scrolled down the page, lingering on each new frame. Unprompted, all three eventually said the same thing: "It makes me feel helpless."

What needs to be happening in the Gulf is a large-scale exposure assessment of the individuals involved in the hazardous material clean-up efforts. Exposure assessments identify the chemical, biological, and physical agents present in a work environment and evaluate the extent to which workers in that environment are exposed to those agents.

-- ProPublica's blog has been an excellent source of muckraking. Read about the non-response from government officials and BP related to data on sick clean-up workers.

-- For all you food connoisseurs out there, BP's spill has shut down the country's oldest oyster-shucking company.

-- And last but not least, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has abandoned his own climate bill for good. But this might say more about Democrats' strategy to pass legislation than Sen. Graham's wavering commitment to climate change.

It's further evidence that the "lone Republican" strategy doesn't work. Time and again, Democrats have ended up in a room with a single Republican who seemed willing to cut a deal. It was Olympia Snowe on health care, Bob Corker on financial regulation and Lindsey Graham on climate change. In every case, the final bill looked a lot like what that Republican helped negotiate. And in every single case, the Republican realized that he or she couldn't get more support from their party and so they eventually bolted the effort.

How dare BP spill all that oil into the Gulf of Mexico before we can burn it in our cars? Google's Public Data Explorer (it's well worth exploring) provides a sobering interactive gadget that allows you to compare U.S. per capita energy use with most any other country on the planet. BP wasn't drilling that oil to export to Togo, you know.

BP's attempt to cap its undersea gusher may have made matters worse, President Obama says he'd fire CEO Tony Haywood if he could, and BP may be headed for bankruptcy.

There's a lot about BP not to like. But they do produce really cool graphics! The company just released its annual Statistical Review of World Energy, with no end of eye-opening statistics about the world's production and consumption of petroleum products. This graphic shows which countries are sitting on how much oil; check out an interactive version here:

Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope debated energy Monday on CNBC with a Big Oil apologist. "We are dependent on these fossil fuels that were great technologies in the early 20th century, but they are not great technologies today," he says. Carl Pope makes some great points about the carbon tax and dirty energy. Bottom line: dirty energy kills people and ruins habitat. Clean energy doesn't. This is a great clip if you can tolerate Larry Kudlow's voice.

First, there is a very important vote in the Senate scheduled for Thursday - on Senator Lisa Murkowski's (R - Oil) disapproval resolution that would block Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act.

This move is a total sham - the Supreme Court ordered EPA to regulate carbon dioxide after EPA ruled it as harmful to humans. EPA Administration Lisa Jackson is speaking out in opposition to Murkowski's resolution as well.

Looks like Senator Murkowski just wants to protect Big Oil and Big Coal from cleaning themselves up. Have you asked your Senator to vote against this resolution yet?

In coal news, Duke Energy is taking a long hard look at buying coal from mountaintop removal coal mining operations....really? Ah, because they're estimating how much it would cost to stop buying MTR coal, I see. In any case, here's another interesting fact from that article:

North Carolina is one of the nation's top users of mountaintop coal. About half the electricity used in this state comes from coal-burning power plants, and about half the coal for those plants comes from mountaintop blasting.

You can do better than that, North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Massey Energy (owner of the mine that blew up and killed 29 coal miners in early April) is now blaming the Mine Safety and Health Administration for making them install a ventilation system that's unsafe. And it just happens to be the same system that was in place at the mine that exploded.

And while some dirty tar sands company executives are saying this Gulf of Mexico BP oil disaster means we should switch to the much safer tar sands oil for our needs, we're saying No Way.

If you're in Houston this Thursday night, then check out the Houston Sierra Club Chapter's Air Quality forum, where they'll talk about plans for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. That pipeline would bring Canada's dirty tar sands (see the photo) into the U.S., and you can send in your comment right now opposing that plan.

We just released a major report on tar sands with several other organizations, too. Go read "Tar Sands Invasion" and educate yourself on why this dirty energy source is not a wise choice for the U.S. Here is a good column on this issue, too.

Finally, today Yale University and George Mason University co-released a poll on public opinion about global warming. The results?

Since January, public belief that global warming is happening rose four points, to 61 percent, while belief that it is caused mostly by human activities rose three points, to 50 percent. The number of Americans who worry about global warming rose three points, to 53 percent. And the number of Americans who said that the issue is personally important to them rose five points, to 63 percent.

The polling also includes numbers on specific policy points to stop global warming. Check it out.

Let's take a quick break from the BP calamity to point to something fun.

Our panel of judges has picked from 330 entries the finalists for the bike-ku contest here on Climate Crossroads! These three entries have been sent to Rep. Earl Blumenauer's office, where the congressman will select the grand-prize winner. The grand prize is a Breezer Uptown 8 bicycle. The other two finalists will get a Kryptonite lock and a Nutcase helmet.

Rep. Blumenauer, an avid bicyclist, is founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus. He is also the author of H.R. 4722, which supports safe walking and bicycling in our communities.

Take a look at the finalists and leave a comment if you want to voice your opinion.

Fenders From Heaven
by Lisa Benham

Needing groceries
Wet backside or carbon spew?
Fenders from heaven

--

rideofsilence
by Dawn Huss

Rhythmic and soothing
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
freewheeling love song

--

One Tweet Ride
by gojaimie

I don't know why i
try to fly, 'cause i sing best
on some handlebars

Gabrielle Burton, Sierra Club member who runs fivesistersproductions.com, sends us these shots from a BP pump station. Thanks, Gabrielle!

Take a closer look at that red warning sticker:

A lot of people are noticing these warning signs and taking pictures. There are more at Think Progress. If you have pictures related to the oil mess, post them at the BP Oil Disaster group's gallery here on Climate Crossroads.

While professional photographers are capturing horrifying images from the Gulf (BP's doing more to contain press coverage than its own oil disaster), Web sites that are good with numbers are putting together eye popping graphs that really put BP's conduct into perspective.

Take this graph, for example. Between June 2007 and February 2010, BP received 760 "egregious citations" across its six U.S. refineries. FlowingData.com illustrated that fact to create this bar graph of citations per million barrels processed per day. BP is in green while all other refineries are in grey. Click here to get a closer look.

InformationIsBeautiful.com is another site that I often visit to find graphs on current events. Here's their latest on the BP oil disaster:

BP has engaged in some graph making of its own -- albeit the making of misleading graphs.

[ editor's note: On Earth Day, Oliver Bock, a Sierra Club member, and his sister, left the Bay Area on electric bicycles on a cross-country adventure. Follow Oliver's journey at his blog. We are posting some of his writings here.]

We woke early to grey and threatening skies with weather reports predicting rain. Before 7, we were on wet roads with occasional rain showers but we did manage to dodge most of the bigger raindrops.

Our map pointed out the Gothic House painted by Grant Wood. It was a 15 mile detour so I wasn't too excited about seeing the house until the road we were supposed to take turned out to be closed. The Gods were guiding us again!

We took great photos at the house and pushed on arriving in Fairfield about 11:30 where our host, Stuart Valentine invited us for lunch on the town square. In preparation for our evenings activities, we chased around getting prepared and trying to relax a bit by taking a wonderful swim in the pond at the bottom of Stuart's property.

The Fairfield Art Walk is a monthly event that takes place on the Fairfield square. We arrived in time to participate in the largest one of the year and the theme was 'All Things Italian'. The only thing Italian about us is the shade of our overexposed to the sun skin.

The square was hopping. All the shops were open. Food, art and entertainment opportunities were set up all over the square and there was a sustainability theme as well. We were very busy talking and talking about the bikes, our trip our reasons for doing what we are doing and dealing with folks who wanted to ride the bikes. Rolf was very busy talking to people as well and I think the conversations he had improved both his English skills and his knowledge about the electric bikes.

Fairfield is a very interesting town. Over 35 years ago the Maharishi movement bought an old campus and moved its headquarters here. Since then there has been a slow but steady blending of the "meditators" with the local farming community. Obviously, there are huge differences between the two cultures but over the years acceptance has grown. It was very easy to see at the Art Walk who the Maharishi folks are and who the other folks are. The town has more recently begun to attract people who like the culture here because of the diversity and the commitment to sustainability that is part of the Maharishi culture. Our host, Stuart is a mediator but not a blind follower of the Maharishi culture. His insights and observations about the community make for great stories and we really enjoy hearing about the integration that is happening as Iowa looks for ways to reinvigorate its economy via green jobs like wind turbine manufacturing.



Swinging on the swing bike.



Catherine and I doing a radio interview at the local solar powered radio station.



Talking electrics with Mark Stimson, Fairfield's electric vehicle guru.

The Gulf of Mexico spill has been pretty abstract, despite GusherCam images from the sea floor. Louisiana has many marshes and few beaches, so access to assess the spill’s onshore toll is difficult. That has benefited BP, which has been accused of restricting media coverage and barring contract workers from sharing images of what they’ve witnessed.

Then veteran AP photographer Charlie Riedel’s startling Armageddon-on-Earth photos appeared on Thursday. Blogger Digby found some hope in the anguishing images, referencing Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: “Remember the scene where Alex was forced to watch violence with his eyes propped open? I'd think maybe all those people who gleefully chanted 'drill, baby, drill' as a tribal chant would benefit from a little of that aversion therapy." (For more arresting images, go here. For horror on video, go here and here.)

Meanwhile, in BP’s latest media effort CEO Tony "I’d like my life back" Hayward assures us that "thousands of people" are ready to clean up the mess. BP’s commercial, which began airing Thursday, reportedly cost $50 million. "That kind of money can pack a big punch," writes Steve Pendlebury of AOL News. "But in this case, a $50 million campaign is no match for the emotional impact of a few iconic pictures."

The beleaguered birds have already gotten much-needed attention: On Friday, Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the federal response to the Deepwater Horizon spill, pledged the government would respond to the Sierra Club's complaint that too few rescuers had been deployed to help the oiled animals.

What a gorgeous day! The ocean is filled with the most beautiful rainbows! #yourewelcome #bpcares

They want to fine us $4,300 for every barrel of oil spilled? Umm, we're not spilling barrels, the oil is going directly into the gulf. DUH.

Please do NOT take or clean any oil you find on the beach.that is the property of British Petroleum and we WILL sue you.

Created on May 19 by an anonymous wag, the fake BP Twitter account had nearly 77,000 followers at the end of May. The real BP account, BP_America, had 7,800.

A quick review of this past week's happenings in the blog world

[ editor's note: On Earth Day, Oliver Bock, a Sierra Club member, and his sister, left the Bay Area on electric bicycles on a cross-country adventure. Follow Oliver's journey at his blog. We are posting some of his writings here.]

After an early start and farewell to the Kansas Bocks, we rode the two miles into Nebraska where we immediately picked up a tailwind!! What a difference. We got to Rock Port in less than 3 hours (over 50 miles) and spent almost 3 hours with Eric Chamberlain, the local man who got the Rock Port owned utility to agree to install 4 large wind turbines that feed directly into the local grid.

We wanted to video Eric but he said that he has a face for radio and didn't want to be filmed. Rolf took lots of pictures so that and our memories and the notes that Catherine took will have to describe what we learned today. I called Eric from the Rock Port City Park and he cam out and we talked for a while about Rock Port's history as a town that not only has its own utility but also has its own phone company. Rather unique for a small town of 1500!

The Space Solar Power Systems is exactly what it sounds like -- solar energy collected from space. Check out this nifty video for details. The Japanese Space Agency hopes to have such a system in orbit by 2030. (h/t Space Gizmo)

Today, the Minerals Management Service approved a new drilling permit for an offshore well in the Gulf of Mexico. Last week, the president extended his ban on deepwater drilling for an additional 6 months, but lifted the ban on shallow water drilling, allowing this project to move forward.

Whether the groups are there in person, like Mennonite Disaster Service or the United Church of Christ (their work is here, here and here), or there are various religious groups - from Christians to Jews to Buddhists and more - all talking about a faithful response and the morality of our oil dependence, there's been an article about it and I've posted it on the blog in that group. Here are links to those blog posts: June 2nd post, May 14th post, May 11th post, and the May 7th post.

If you know of any other faith groups talking about and/or responding along the Gulf, let us know in the comments section.

The following comment isn't from The Bizarro World. It's from Sarah Palin's Twitter account. Via TPM: "Extreme Greenies:see now why we push"drill,baby,drill"of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

Oh I get it alright: Twitter is not the best venue for a politician to CYA. I think it makes more sense to frame the BP oil disaster as an "act of God," which is what Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma did yesterday.

Click here, punch in your zip code, and find out how much area BP's oil disaster would cover if it happened in your backyard.

BP CEO Tony Hayward is quite the character. He's the guy who blabbered that the spill is a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean's total volume. Now he complains that he wants his life back. Which life is that? I suppose it's the life in which his dirty-energy company turned record profits while bypassing basic safety standards and regulations. Hello! Your company has caused the worst spill in U.S. history (not to mention the loss of 11 people). Wake up, Mr. Hayward.

Today, President Obama pledged to consider criminal charges.

“If laws were broken, leading to death and destruction,” Mr. Obama said, “my solemn pledge is, we will bring those responsible to justice.”

Mr. Obama’s heightened rhetoric reflected deepening frustration within the administration at the inability of BP to stop the spill, along with wide concern that the government and Mr. Obama are appearing increasingly impotent as oil laps at the Louisiana shoreline with no end in near sight.

[O]n June 22, 2009, BP engineers noted concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use on the well could collapse under high pressure. BP used the casing anyway, after overriding its own design and safety standards. Other documents released this week reveal that the company knew that there was 'unlikely to be a successful cement job" on the site and that the casing would be "unable to fulfill M.M.S. regulations."

This is part of an unbroken chain of disproportionate impacts. It’s as if the Gulf Coast is the one of our country’s major sacrifice zones.

It is essential that we hold BP fully accountable for the cleanup, for helping Gulf Coast families facing job losses in fishing and tourism, and for restoring the destroyed wetlands and marine ecosystem – just as we should hold any oil company accountable for the spills they cause.

I’m saddened that the total cost of response efforts so far is equal to just a few days of BP's profits. All that money, and another hit to a region that is unfortunately becoming too accustomed to tragedy and destruction. Hurricane season starts on June 1, and all anyone can do is pray there will not be any big storms this summer.