The Importance of Knowing People Good at Rescuing Turtles

Back in August, The Green Miles was at a meeting in Vermont for his day job with the National Wildlife Federation & spotted a turtle trapped in an abandoned pool. Nice to work with people who are experts in wildlife rescue:

Merchants of Doubt Now Attacking Polar Bears

I usually try to keep my day job with the National Wildlife Federation & my personal blog separate, but I have a new post at the NWF blog I wanted to share.

The same polluter front groups that defended cigarette companies & attacked climate scientists are now targeting polar bears. Journalists, rather than trying to determine the truth, are instead reporting to the controversy & leaving it there.

How Are Climate Deniers Like Peacocks, Ostriches & Sheep?

The only thing more fun than taping this edition of the National Wildlife Federation's Climate Capsule at the Reston Zoo? Being described as Dirty the Global Warming Denier Sock Puppet's "earnest human keeper" by Restonian.

Watch The Green Miles Talk BP Oil Spill on PlanetForward.org

I joined PlanetForward.org this week to talk about my trip to the Gulf of Mexico with the National Wildlife Federation:

Miles vs. Dirty

I work for the National Wildlife Federation. While The Green Miles is my personal blog, I do like to share some of the fun things I get to work on ... and getting to debate a global warming-denying sock puppet definitely qualifies:

You can see all the weekly videos & subscribe at the Climate Capsule archive.

Jeremy Symons: "If Corporate Polluters Succeed, We All Lose"

As I watch the winter wind rattle my screen door, it's hard to put today's weather here in the context of our global climate. But the data keeps coming in, and it's undeniable. 2000s: Hottest decade on record. 2009: 2nd-hottest year on record. And now this -- January 2010: Hottest January on record.

Once you start looking at the bigger picture, the consequences of one snowy winter in one metro area seem insignificant. "Hey grandkids, I know it's 3 degrees warmer in your world, but check out this snowman!"

Jeremy Symons, a Leeland Station, VA resident & senior vice president for the National Wildlife Federation, frames our choice in today's Fredericksburg Free Lance Star:

For our kids and grandkids, snowstorms may be the least of their concerns if we fail to act to reduce pollution and invest in clean energy alternatives. Warmer average temperatures could increase concentrations of ground-level ozone, which is known to aggravate respiratory problems such as asthma, especially in children and seniors. Virginia's incredible diversity of native wildlife--more than 700 species of birds, fish, and animals--will have to adapt to rapid changes in climate and habitat or perish.

Why do polluters work so hard to persuade us not to believe NASA and other scientists? Because they are worried we are going to shift to cleaner alternative energy sources like wind and solar and also pursue greater energy efficiency. If we take a bite out of our dependency on oil, we take a bite out of their enormous profits.

Congress is working now on clean energy legislation that would reduce our dependence on oil, create more than 45,000 clean energy jobs here in Virginia, and reduce pollution. Corporate lobbyists are hard at work pressuring Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, and Congressman Rob Wittman, to let clean energy legislation die in Congress.

If corporate polluters succeed, we all lose. We will lose the clean energy race, and those jobs will go to Beijing instead of Virginia. Instead of being good stewards of the environment, we will leave our kids with a dangerous inheritance. Our senators need to stay focused on delivering jobs and clean air to Virginia by passing legislation that limits pollution and unleashes investments in clean energy alternatives.

As always, full disclosure: While I work for the National Wildlife Federation for my day job, I blog at The Green Miles on my personal time. (Really, I should just replace this disclaimer with a little picture of me in an old sweatshirt drinking coffee.)

A Sure Sign of Fall Drops In

I was out at National Wildlife Federation office in Reston on Monday and heard one of the early signs of fall -- big, fat acorns falling off trees, tearing through the canopy and crashing to the forest floor.

It was an encouraging sound in the wake of last year's odd acorn shortage. NWF naturalist David Mizejewski explains why acorns are so important to a wide range of animals:

New Report: Global Warming Bringing More Extreme Heat Waves

Connecting the Dots: Global Warming & Stronger Hurricanes

As Hurricane Ike comes ashore in Texas, here's a short, easy-to-understand video explaining the connection between global warming and stronger hurricanes:

Skunks Flunk Arlington

An odd question makes the front page of today's Washington Post. Are there any skunks left in Arlington?

"We're 40 percent paved over, so there's not much nature left," he said, shrugging. With a growing population of 200,000, the 26-square-mile county might be reaching a "critical mass" of dense urban landscape, [Arlington County naturalist Greg Zell] said, where even the hardiest wild survivors, such as skunks, can no longer make it.

[Earl] Hodnett, a wildlife biologist in Fairfax County, which has a healthy skunk population, says he has a hard time believing the animals have disappeared from Arlington. "It would really raise questions about our own quality of life," he said. "If a skunk can't make it here, how are we doing?" [...]

Zell has mapped all the green spaces in the county, the largest of which is Arlington National Cemetery. What shows up looks like the disjointed pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. "Nothing is connected," he said. "The natural open space that's left is all isolated. Like little islands." Maybe that's why there might be no more skunks, he said. The islands are small. And it's dangerous to move between them.

To connect the pieces of the puzzle, the National Wildlife Federation has created the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program, helping people make their properties friendlier to birds and animals. Thanks to the efforts of Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment, Arlington was one of the first places in the country to be certified as a Community Wildlife Habitat.

But while Arlington is home to deer, raccoons, foxes, snakes, hawks and other critters, apparently skunks haven't been able to put down roots here.

How concerned should Arlingtonians be? It's never a good thing when our community is no longer hospitable to a native resident. But is there something Arlington should be doing differently? We already protect open spaces and have a terrific parks system. Issues like lowering our carbon footprint, protecting streams and improving public transportation are still the big environmental priorities.

Wednesday: Chill Out in DC

Here's an event coming up Wednesday night on the GWU campus:

Celebrate how campuses nationwide are solving global warming and join us for the 2nd annual Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming broadcast!

Be part of the LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE at George Washington University's Jack Morton Auditorium on April 16 at 6:30pm eastern. The program will be broadcast live to colleges nationwide beginning at 7pm.

Kick-off Earth Day with this special event!

* Meet award-winning students and staff who are creating solutions to global warming
* Be part of the conversation with the experts and join in the panel discussion
* Laugh and be inspired by student-made videos

Chill Out will include special appearances from Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm and more!

To reserve your FREE seat at the live Chill Out broadcast at George Washington University contact Kristy Jones.

You can also watch this video:

Pennsylvania Sportsmen Demand Congressional Action on Climate Change

The Green Miles was up in Harrisburg, PA yesterday for a news conference on the National Wildlife Federation's Sportsmen's Letter on Climate Change.

Note to self - don't sit in front row next time, giant head blocks view of podium.

Sportsmen Target Global Warming

The Green Miles spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where the National Wildlife Federation released its Sportsmen's Letter asking Congress to confront climate change.

More than 670 groups signed on in all. Sportsmen from as far away as Alaska came to DC to join us for the letter release and to lobby their members of Congress to support climate action.

You can read all about it on Daily Kos!

Making the Best of an Ungreen Hotel

The Green Miles is in Miami this weekend for the National Wildlife Federation-sponsored Carbon-Neutral Sailfish Tournament. I'm staying at the Royal Palm South Beach. It's a decent hotel, but if it wasn't right on the beach it would be nothing to write home about.

One thing that makes the Royal Palm so ordinary - its lack of green features. They give you a newspaper every day whether you want it or not, but there's no recycling anywhere - it's not even accepted at the front desk. About the only positive I noticed was the compact fluorescent light bulbs.

One little thing I do when I'm staying by myself is to leave the "do not disturb" sign on the doorknob, letting the cleaning staff know that the room doesn't need service. Do I really need new soaps, shampoo, towels, sheets, etc. every single day? I'm fairly confident they can survive more than one use.

Keep an eye on the the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Green Lodging Program. While relatively few hotels have been approved so far, there's a long list of applicants. Once the list expands and there are more choices, it should be a lot easier to find a green hotel.

Vote for NWF for Nonprofit of the Year!

Please vote for the National Wildlife Federation for MySpace Nonprofit of the Year! You'll make Ranger Rick very happy.

Should Facebook Have Banished Ranger Rick?

Coworkers here at the National Wildlife Federation were up in arms earlier this week as word spread that Facebook had canceled Ranger Rick's account. Any attack on Ranger Rick is an attack on The Green Miles, because we're one and the same in Arlington's Neighborhood Day parade each year (to the right is RR/TGM with Arlington County Board Chair Paul Ferguson).

Granted, Ranger Rick is not an actual person, a nominal violation of Facebook's rules that require a profile represent a real person. Facebook says nonprofits can still use the group function.

However, you could easily counter that by saying Facebook allows pseudo-profiles of politicians all the time. Anyone think the actual Hillary Clinton is checking who tagged her wall today? And for nonprofits like the NWF, creating a group or mascot profile protects the privacy of the staffers who work to reach out to members through social networking sites. Does Hillary's Facebook staffer wants to have his/her personal info out there for 35,000 supporters to see?

But here's the bottom line -- of all the fake profiles on Facebook, why has Facebook targeted the beloved Ranger Rick? A quick search shows six fake Paris Hilton profiles. Why kill off Ranger Rick? Would it really have torn a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum to look the other way while Ranger Rick spread cuteness across the Internet?

If you think Ranger Rick was unjustly targeted, join the Set Ranger Rick Free Facebook group, and tell Facebook to knock it off by emailing them here.

Change of Job Leads to Reverse in Commute

I've recently landed a new job at the National Wildlife Federation in Reston! It's quite a contrast to my last office. Instead of the drywalled office buildings and hot dog stands in McPherson Square, I now work in a green building next to Lake Fairfax Park. I've already spotted turtles, groundhogs and several deer, and the NWF even has a footbridge out front over a small waterfall.

One drawback -- instead of a quick and easy Metro ride, I now have to sort through several options to get to and from Reston. You can read all about it in a guest blog post I just did over at Arlington County's Fresh AIRE blog!