Activism Across America

Environmentalists in Florida must be feeling a little bit used right now. A few weeks ago, they gave a Obama a great photo opportunity, with a speech about how important it is to preserve Florida’s coastlines by keeping the nationwide moratorium on expanded offshore drilling for oil.

Then, with that photo op over and done with, Barack Obama performed his trademark flip flop yesterday, and declared that he is now willing to support expanding offshore drilling in America’s coastal waters.

So, it’s become clear that Florida voters can’t count on Barack Obama to stand up for them against big oil corporations. Who can they count on, then? Try Environment Florida, who is running a campaign against offshore drilling.

Thanks to them for working for Florida when politicians refuse to do so.

My congratulations go out to environmental activists in Iowa, for sustaining a great idea for the presidential primary season beyond that short time frame. The project is called Iowa Global Warming, and it was created by a combination of local and national organizations:

- Iowa Environmental Council
- Iowa Renewable Energy Project
- Environmental Law and Policy Center
- League of Conservation Voters
- National Wildlife Federation
- Audubon Society

The idea of the Iowa Global Warming project was to use the attention of the Iowa presidential primary to bring pressure upon presidential candidates to pay attention to issues of climate change. Now the Iowa presidential primary seems long gone, but the Iowa Global Warming project goes on.

Their latest activity: Covering the lecture in Iowa City by global warming skeptic Bjorn Lomborg.

The Iowa Global Warming people have got exactly the right idea: Work on a global problem in terms of the location you find yourself in. I hope they keep it up, next year and for years to come. The problems of global warming are not fading away, and that’s why we need good organizations with equal staying power.

Unlike traditional presidential campaigns, which just focus on how great the candidate is, the Barack Obama campaign has organized ways to bring out the greatness of the people who support Obama for President. It’s a form of community service campaigning called ObamaWorks.

Through ObamaWorks, people gather to work on projects to improve their neighborhoods. Last weekend in Missoula, Montana, for example, Barack Obama supporters got together to clean up a stretch of the Clark Fork River.

Now, does making the Clark Fork River clean help elect Barack Obama as President? Not directly, but it does show that Barack Obama’s supporters care about a lot more than just electing Obama President. There’s a great deal of idealism among Obama supporters, and yes, that does reflect well upon Barack Obama himself.

Politics aside, good for the ObamaWorks crew in Missoula for helping to keep Montana’s rivers clean.

I went to Yazoo in the 1990s, and found it a charming small town. As nice as the town was, however, the Yazoo River had much more of an impact on me. I saw it in a time of high water, mind you, but the vision of its thick, muddy water surging through that small town will never leave me. The Yazoo is quite a river.

It’s easy for those of us who are not from Mississippi to make fun of the name of Yazoo. It’s an odd name - no denying it. Let’s get past the name, now. Yazoo is in trouble.

The Army Corps of Engineers has come up with a scheme to build the world’s largest water pumping station on the Yazoo River, even larger than the mammoth pumps used in Holland to keep the ocean at bay. Why do they want to put such a huge pump there, right in the middle of Mississippi?

They want to drain over 200,000 acres of prime wetlands, including federally protected wetlands in the Delta National Forest, that draw in a huge range of migratory birds. The presence of those birds adds significantly to the local economy. Drain those wetlands, and the birds are gone.

There’s good news and bad news on this matter. The staff of the Environmental Protection Agency has reviewed the matter and recommended that the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant project be vetoed. That’s good news.

The bad news is that, in the past, the staff of the EPA has not always had final say. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, a political appointee of the Republican Bush Administration, has sometimes chosen to ignore the advice his own staff of scientists give him.

Take action: Send a letter to Stephen Johnson urging him to veto the Yazoo Pumps.