AFTER THE ELECTION: Conservation Alabama, the state’s only full-time environmental lobby, has suggested a few issues for the new legislature and governor of Alabama to address in the coming year. Topping their list is the renewal of Forever Wild, the state’s land protection program. Forever Wild was created by a constitutional amendment in 1992 and has purchased lands for public recreation, nature preserves and parks throughout the state. Unfortunately, the program is set to expire in 2012, and Conservation Alabama is looking to policy makers to extend it. The group also urges legislators to focus on developing a new state energy program, one that would improve our energy efficiency, create alternative energy sources and lessen dependence on foreign oil; develop a water plan that will protect our water resources and end our 20-year water war with Georgia; and ensure that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management enforces the environmental laws already in place in the state. For more information, visit www.conservationalabama.org. AM
KEEP OUR WATERS SWEET: SweetWater Brewing Company’s recent 2010 Save the Black Warrior campaign helped to raise more than $10,000 for Black Warrior Riverkeeper, a Birmingham non-profit environmental advocacy group. According to a Riverkeeper news release, the campaign has raised more than $30,000 for the group since it began in 2008. The money supports Riverkeeper’s river patrols and water-quality monitoring in the Black Warrior River and its tributaries. Nearly 40 bars and restaurants in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa participated in the campaign, selling paper fish and limited edition t-shirts. In fact, some of those establishments still have t-shirts for sale. For details, go to www.blackwarriorriver.org/shop.html. SweetWater is an Atlanta, Ga., craft brewery. Learn more about them at www.sweetwaterbrew.com. AM
HARVEST TIME: Fall harvest is something to celebrate, and Jones Valley Urban Farm is having a field day—literally. The Mt. Laurel Organic Farm, JVUF’s suburban site, located at 1185 Dunnavant Valley Road, will host a Farm Field Day on Saturday, November 6, from 1-5 p.m. Attendants will be enjoy live music, farm tours and hayrides. A complimentary fall sampling menu will be provided by Jim ‘N Nicks Bar-B-Q and Food Studio B, along with warm apple cider and cold beer from Good People and Reverend Mudbone. While mom and dad enjoy the fare, the kids can meet farm animals, make hula-hoops, stuff scarecrows and make their own trail mix. The suggested donation is $10 for adults, with free admission for children 12 and under. All proceeds will go to support JVUF’s education programs for children at their farms. For more information, visit www.jvuf.org. AM
GETTING FRACKED: Much like the waters of the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill, the plot thickens steadily around those responsible for the disaster. The presidential committee investigating the spill says that oil services company Halliburton knew that its drilling cement was faulty, yet said nothing. There have also been questions raised about Halliburton’s patented hydraulic fracturing process, according to a news release from the environmental group Earthworks. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the practice of injecting huge volumes of chemical-laden water into natural gas wells to force deposits to the surface. The process is only legal thanks to a loophole created in 2005 in the Safe Drinking Water Act”. According to Gwen Lachelt, director of Earthworks Oil & Gas Accountability Project, “Halliburton assured Congress and the EPA that fracking is safe, but that has not been the experience of people who live near natural gas wells in Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York and other states. The contamination of drinking water by fracking chemicals is a quiet disaster that’s happening every day in dozens of American communities, and we can’t wait until a big disaster gets our attention to do something.” According to Earthworks, the appropriate action would be for Congress to close the Halliburton loophole by passing the FRAC Act, which would restore protections against fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Act. Fracking is used in 90 percent of all oil and natural gas wells in the United States, according to the release. For more information, visit www.halliburton.earthworksaction.org. AM
GETTING TRASHED: The
Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating clot of human waste and
detritus in the northern Pacific Ocean estimated to be as big as Texas
or even the entire continental United States (Either way, damn big), has
gotten a lot of media attention. But according to Anna Cummins,
co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institutes, a non-profit organization
dedicated to eliminating plastic waste in the oceans, “You can’t cross
an ocean today without finding plastic pollution.” To that end, the 5
Gyres Institute is collaborating with Algalita Marine Research
Foundation and Pangaea Explorations to lead an expedition across the
Atlantic Ocean, according to a 5 Gyres news release. The expedition will
depart from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; travel through the South Atlantic
Gyre; and end their journey in Cape Town, South Africa. The trip is the
first transatlantic Southern Hemisphere plastic-pollution research trip. “We
want to show people wherever we sail that the problem contaminates
their international waters,” according to Marcus Eriksen, Anna Cummins’s
husband and fellow co-founder of 5 Gyres. “They cannot say, ‘Well,
that’s across the ocean, what does that have to do with my country?’”
According to the release, a gyre is a rotating system of ocean currents
where floating debris accumulates. Eriksen and Cummins plan to produce
the first comprehensive analysis of plastic pollution in each of the
globe’s five gyres. For more information, visit www.5gyres.org. AM
IS BABS REALLY A BITCH? I like the actor Elliott Gould. A lot. I love the corny comedies he made in the early 1970s, like Move. I like his chain-smoking take on Phillip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman’s 1973 Raymond Chandler adaptation. I like him as Reuben Tishkoff in the Ocean’s pictures. And the guy survived an eight-year marriage to Barbara Streisand, which couldn’t have been easy. That’s why, if I were to find myself in Los Angeles this weekend, I would likely attend a screening of M*A*S*H (the 1970 Altman film, not the TV show) to be held on Saturday, November 6, at Paramount Studios. The event is part of an annual series of film screenings that raises money for the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF). The series—called “California State Parks Starring in Hollywood Films”—benefits the state’s endangered parks, many of which have been temporarily closed or suffered service reductions due to the state’s budget crisis. By the way, Billy Dee Williams and Mark Hamill will be at Paramount that day to introduce a showing of one of those cheesy Star Wars films (yawn). The day will climax with a showing of two episodes of the M*A*S*H TV series (bigger yawn), followed by a Q&A that will include actor William Christopher (Father Mulcahy, whom I always despised for some reason). I’d check out the REAL M*A*S*H, then adjourn to Bob’s Frolic on Hollywood Boulevard next to the Pantages for a couple of whiskey sours. Oh, to find out more about the film series and the CSPF, go to www.calparks.org/filmseries. JC
Jesse Chambers is a Birmingham Weekly contributing editor, and Andy McWhorter is a Birmingham Weekly intern. Send your comments to jesse@bhamweekly.com or editor@bhamweekly.com.
KeepItSimple
