“Lake Michigan is like a giant bathtub with a really, really slow drain and a dripping faucet, so the toxics build up over time,” said Emily Green, director of the Great Lakes program for the Sierra Club.

Despite this knowledge, an Indiana refinery of the global petroleum giant, BP, has been given a permit to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan. The permit overrides an existing limit of 1.3 ounces per year on mercury discharges into the Great Lakes. BP will be allowed to continue their practice of dumping 3 pounds of mercury through surface water discharges as it has been since 2002, according to the Toxics Release Inventory, an EPA datebase on pollution emissions. The permit, which accompanies the plant’s $3.8 billion expansion, gives BP until at least 2012 to meet the federal standard.

“With one permit, this company and this state are undoing years of work to keep pollution out of our Great Lakes,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., co-sponsor of a resolution overwhelmingly approved by the House last week that condemned BP’s plans.

This lack of corporate responsibility brings to mind the mercury poisoning of the Japanese fishing village of Minamata in the 1950’s. The outcome was tragic as the town was poisoned by mercury from industrial pollution created by the town’s main employer, the Chisso Corporation. The plight became known as Minamata Disease for its devastating effects on the entire population., and was famously documented by Life photographer Eugene Smith who, with his wife, Aileen, lived in Minamata for many years.

It seems neither pervasive environmental awareness, nor the regulations designed to “protect” our resources are strong enough to deter the circumnavigation of this knowledge. It is disturbing to recall the images of a time only a few decades previous, but perhaps in the end, a picture is worth a thousand words.

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In the past 35 years, approximately half of the U.S. honey bee colonies have disappeared. This loss has been attributed to a cummulative effect from causes such as urbanization, pesticide use, mites, and commercial beekeepers retiring or going out of business. Between 2006 and 2007, losses have increased dramatically and a new term, Colony Collapse Disorder , has been created to give the bees a complex. Only kidding, yet “disorder” does seem to hold the bees responsible for their population decline when current evidence supports human impact.

It says here, pollinators are required for producing 15-30% of the human food supply, and farmers rely on managed honey bees throughout the world to provide these services. Everything is connected, so it seems that helping bees would be helping humans.

In aknowledgement, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced legislation Tuesday to fund research into the die-off of millions of honeybees in the United States. The Pollinator Protection Act would authorize $89 million in federal funding for a research and grant program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture over five years, for work related to maintaining the bee population as well as native pollinators.

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The Los Angeles Times reports that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed Wednesday on a plan to cut by 25% the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from California electric power plants, refineries and other sources by the year 2020. It would make California the first state in the nation to fight global warming by slapping caps on carbon dioxide and other emissions.

As curbing emissions is an essential step in this immense global problem, and as legislation of corporate action is necessary in solving it, Root applauds these steps. In doing so, we encourage further action on the part of the global community and the rest of our 49 states to act now to restrain and repair the damage done to our fragile ecosystem.

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Furthering our suggestions on how to curb our carbon addiction, Root arrived at an interesting carbon conscious idea with a few clicks of our mouse. The Carbon Emission Offset Directory provides a number of options to offset our driving impact.

The site offers the opportunity to calculate one’s carbon footprint, in addition they provide links to sites for purchase of carbon emission offsets, a solution offering an immediate and lasting effect on our cumulative impact.

According to the site, a mid-sized 30 mpg car driving 12,000 miles/year will create about 3.55 tons of CO2/year. Using Carbonfund.org’s calculator they figured this would cost only about $19.50 or $1.63/month to be offset. This means that for a very small amount of money you can drive the equivalent of a zero-CO2-emission car. Impressive, indeed.

Athough we may not be eliminating driving for walking or biking (not an option for all), we can lessen our impact with very little cost and increased awareness of our actions.

Click on.

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Over the weekend, we saw An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s uber-budget slide show that he has presented globally for a number of years. Although seeing it felt a bit like preaching to the choir - afterall, we do live in west Sonoma County, CA - the subject is especially timely, given the last year’s worth of weather extremes, and the reality that we are all carbon addicted. So what can we, as individuals do? Their website provides 10 things to do to help stop global warming:

Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive!

Recycle more
You can save 2400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires
Keeping your tire inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging
You can save 1200 pounds of of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Adjust your thermostat
Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer can save about 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.

Plant a tree
A singel tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Turn off electronic devices
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you are not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Root would like to add a few more things to the list -

Pay attention to the products you buy - Buy locally, act globally - the less products have to travel to market, the less carbon load.

Pay attention to the people we elect - and fight for your vote! Don’t allow corporate interests to override the interest of the planet.

And most importantly,
don’t become jaded. Teach our children how to live with awareness of these truths, and live them ourselves.

See An Inconvenient Truth - and pass it on.

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