Some of the press may be wondering why we are announcing offshore drilling in a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. Well, if there’s any doubt about the leadership that our military is showing, you just need to look at this F-18 fighter and the light-armored vehicle behind me. The Army and Marine Corps have been testing this vehicle on a mixture of biofuels. And this Navy fighter jet — appropriately called the Green Hornet — will be flown for the first time in just a few days, on Earth Day.

Working towards a sustainable future is a responsibility that will require dedication all 365 days of the year.

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

Environmental advocates from around the world gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia, this week and resolved that, a year from now, they would hold a world’s people referendum on climate change to marshal support for the rights of the planet.

This Earth Day, while an oil rig was burning and sinking and spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico, I joined a small band of protesters during my lunch break to tell the government to stop a similar crime against nature, one that is taking place in my home state of Pennsylvania. There are no offshore oil rigs here, of course, but the new and dangerous method of extracting natural gas through fracking is becoming a larger and larger threat to our water, our land, and our climate. And Pennsylvania is ground zero.

So I took to the streets at a Green Party-organized protest. We stood outside the regional Department of Environmental Protection and made our voices heard.

(Go below the fold for more info on the protest, fracking, and what you can do, including upcoming actions.)

It’s Earth Day and in addition to all of the other lists advising you to turn off the lights, get green power, and pay attention to what you are buying (all of which are very important) there are five more concrete things you need to do today, that can have a huge impact on the health of the planet. Best of all, they will take you about 10 minutes.

In honor of Earth Day, Gallup has just released polling showing how American’s opinions of the environmental movement have changed in the previous ten years. At first glance, the results aren’t pretty:

But as has been the case in several other recent polls, the change is due almost entirely to a sharp shift among Republicans. Gallup explains:

These results indicate that the decline in positive views of the environmental movement among Americans over the past decade is disproportionately the result of substantial declines among Republicans, which dwarf those among Democrats.

Using data provided by Gallup, I created this chart showing how Republican views of the environmental movement have changed in the past 10 years:

As you can see, nearly 50% of Republicans now think the environmental movement has done more harm than good, up from 28% just 10 years. And on the flipside, while 70% of Republicans thought the environmental movement did more good than harm in 2000, just 49% feel that way now.

Happy Earth Day, Republicans!

For me, more than anything, Earth Day is a great opportunity to draw attention to the many important issues affecting our environment.

Earth Day

Think the US Government is protecting against those invisible toxins in the air, in our water, in the food we eat, in the containers that store the food and beverages we consume? Think again.

Written by Amie Newman for RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

We want Michele Bachmann out of our district, and we can’t do it alone.