Decline of Common Backyard Birds

In Idaho, the west and worldwide the sight and sounds of common backyard birds is becoming less common. Bird watchers, scientists and anyone interested can see overwhelming evidence that this decline is due primarily to the loss of critical natural habit resources such as grass, shrubs, trees and water. Many of the same human development actions that are responsible for the increase of "Greenhouse Gases" also cause this habitat decline.

Recent News reports in the Seattle Times, The Oregonian (Oregonlive.com) and CNN.com have provided articles about a recent National Audubon Society Report that notes some species have lost more than half their populations in the past 40 years.

Video below - Sparr0w & Song- near Boise River.
by Gary Grimm - Mountain Visions


The Audubon web site contains a section called "State of the Birds" where it is stated that,
"Birds are important indicators of the overall health of our environment. Like the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, they send an urgent warning about threats to our water, air, natural resources, climate and more." On another page called "Common Birds in Decline" it is reported that "Since 1967 the average population of the common birds in steepest decline has fallen by 68 percent; some individual species nose-dived as much as 80 percent. All 20 birds on the national Common Birds in Decline list lost at least half their populations in just four decades."

A conclusion provided on the same page is: "The findings point to serious problems with both local habitats and national environmental trends. Only citizen action can make a difference for the birds and the state of our future."

If citizens want to see and hear a variety of birds, and want future generations to have the same opportunity to enjoy the many additional values that birds provide, we all need to be more active in making our views known to our friends, neighbors, communities, businesses and lawmakers. Social Networking concepts on the Internet that I am discussing in this Blog should provide some of these opportunities. If you are in Idaho and interested in being involved in a networking group about this topic please leave a comment or contact me personally.

To Err on the Side of Caution

To err on the side of caution are words often heard today especially when globally we are concerned about human caused global warming that appears to be already causing problems that will be long lasting and probably irreversible. Given our current knowledge and technology there are some who believe we can slow down some of these effects, especially if the governments of the major polluting countries like the U.S. and China would act now.

However, there are others who believe that human caused global warming is not enough of a problem yet that we should take measures that would affect the growth of our current global economies. Economic growth is the mantra of the industrialized world, even at the expense of the biological world, and it is difficult for individual citizens to argue against this concept.

I, like many people worldwide probably, would like to have the intellectual ability, and time alive, to understand the profound and intricate complexity of ecosystems. This study would include an understanding of all of the scientific knowledge about the complex environmental factors that support the changing life forms on earth. I believe that this knowledge would certainly make us want to make different decisions about our economic growth and the future than we are today.

We would probably be much more cautious about how we affect the ecosystems that we humans and other species depend on.

As I write this I found an article in Forbes.com written on March 8, 2007 that notes that there is an ongoing effort to catalog every living species on earth and by 2011 it is expected to reach 1.75 million species. This is approximately 750,000 more species than has been catalogued to date. The article titled "Effort to Catalog Species Tops 1 Million" by Randolph E. Schmid.

I will add more of my ideas about related issues in future blog posts.

Western States Unite to fight Global Warming

Today, the governors of five western states agreed to work together to reduce greenhouse gases by forming the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. Articles in News Channel 21 in Oregon, and in the Seattle Post Inteligencer explain that Washington, Oregon, Arizona, California, and New Mexico announced the plan at the annual Winter meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington D.C. .

Idaho is not one of the states - yet! The time has come for concerned citizens to become much more proactive in petitioning our Governor and other state leaders to join this regional plan, or explain publicly why they won't. This issue has to go beyond the silly game of politics we often see. Clearly, for our own future and future generations, we have to start creating positive actions now to slow down the pollution and greenhouse gases problems we are causing in Idaho, the U.S. and the World.

I submit that a strong effort to promote this communication with our Idaho state leaders could take place in the next 8 weeks as the International Equinoctial Earth Day March 21, the Step It Up - 2007 event April 14, and Earth Day April 22 are being organized. In Idaho as elsewhere, individual citizens, community organizations, environmental groups, churches, businesses, and schools are all starting to take a role in reducing greenhouse emissions. We have every right to expect our state and federal government to help us with this effort now and in the future.

In earlier posts I have discussed similar issues and actions. See especially February 05, 2007,

Lisa Stifler in the Seattle PI, notes that the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative sets out to:

"-- Create a regional target for reducing greenhouse gases within 6 months.

--Establish over the next 18 months a mechanism for meeting that target, which may mean creating a cap-and-trade system that would allow utilities or businesses that are beating the target to sell others the right to pollute.

-- Create a five-state registry for tracking and managing greenhouse gas emissions."

Stifler's article also notes that, "The initiative is being designed so that additional states and provinces can sign on, said Kathleen Drew, Gregoire's climate policy expert. Leaders in British Columbia have expressed interest in the plan, she said. And it could provide a framework for a national program for combating climate change."

Idaho Climate Actions

On February 22 I met with about 10 people to discuss ideas for the Step It Up 2007 event to be held in Boise on April 14. My own input was that we should be learning how to use Social Networking tools to empower citizens to learn how to take action every day in the future - and that this single day event should be aimed at this objective. The meeting resulted in the formation of a Yahoo Discussion Group where some messages have already been exchanged. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday February 27. (More detailed information is available on the Step It Up Boise Yahoo web site.)

On February 16, 2007 I created a new Environment page and Posted the following article on the local.wikia.com section for Boise, Idaho.

Idaho Cities join Climate Protection Agreement

Boise Mayor, David Beiter, Sun Valley Mayor, Jon Thorson, and Pocatello Mayor, Roger Chase have joined with over 400 other mayors nationwide to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to make their cities more environmentally friendly.

On June 13, 2005 the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement was unanimously passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Seattle Mayor, Greg Nickels has provided a web page with detailed information and list of all the Cities in the U.S. participating.

You can find out what Mayors and their cities are doing to fight climate change, improve the local environment a conserve energy by downloading the U.S. Conference of Mayors Energy and Environment Best Practice Guide.

National Day of Climate Action

I am seeing many efforts on the Internet to engage people in Global Warming actions now and in the future. Al Gore's book and movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" is one of the most well known. An associated effort is the web site "Stop Global Warming.org" where over 600,000 people have already joined a "Virtual March." It is encouraging to see efforts to organize action groups in local communities starting in the next few months. The links below go to a specific effort to organize a National Day of Climate Action in cities across the U.S. I hope this day will extend out to actions by everyone every day of the year in the future.

I plan to attend the organizational meeting in Boise and, as I noted in my recent February 5, post, to suggest we should organize some local social networking tools to help this important action continue.

Visit the national Step it Up 2007 web site for for information about 675 similar events that are already planned in 48 states across the country!

In Boise a group of people have registered for Boise to participate in this important nationwide day on April 14, 2007 to begin to reshape our Global Warming future. If interested in attending an organizational meeting there is an online RSVP form you can send in or you can ask questions by e-mail.

An e-mail notice has been distributed that notes "Our first organizing meeting will be held on Thursday, February 22nd, at 7pm, at the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, located at 6200 N. Garrett St., in Garden City. This meeting will be to decide on what type of event we would like to have here in Boise, and then making the plans to make that even a success! We hope to see you all there!"

Local Wikia Community - Help please!

(Update Feb.17) I did get a response from DNL who is helping with the Local.wikia site.

"I saw that you added some stuff to Category:Boise, Idaho Environment. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that anyone will read it there. If you want people to find your articles, enter them into this form. At the bottom, be sure to select "Idaho" and "Boise" in the drop down boxes as prompted, and in the "tags" box, type "Environment." If you do it that way, your article will be added to the Category:Boise, Idaho Environment page automatically, and your article will have a chance at hitting the front page of the site! Let me know if you have any questions. --DNL "

My response - "Thank you DNL -- Before I saw your note above I started to write another article this morning and the Form did work."

And, as DNL suggested, two articles I wrote appeared as "Popular Articles" on the National Local.Wikia home page and also now show up on the Boise, Idaho local.wikia page.
_________________

Original Post Feb. 16/

I need some help understanding how to edit the Local Wikia pages I mentioned in my last post. For some reason some of their "help" sections do not give me the results I expect. For example the "Create" page forms do not always work.

I have been trying to add some information to the Local Wikia Community for Idaho and Boise. I was able to create a new page titled "Environment" in the Local news section and add some information about Global Warming and Climate Change. However, I am having trouble getting a link to the "New Articles" section to appear on the Boise, Idaho main page as I expected to be able to do.

Does anyone have suggestions to help me (and others) to learn how to use the Local Wikia Community efficiently?

Thanks,
Gary

Al Gore - Positive Idaho News

Kudos to the Idaho Statesman for their positive editorial today on Al Gore's speech and a "Call to action." Hopefully this will simulate more local citizens to become more actively involved in personal and local organizational efforts to control pollution causing Global warming. I am considering trying to start a Wiki group to help share project ideas and efforts that already exist and to stimulate ideas for new projects. I will write more about this as time permits. Comments are welcome!

On January 23, the morning after Al Gores speech in Boise this week The Idaho Statesman published an article by Anne Wallace Allen titled "Gore charms, daunts crowd of 10,000 at Taco Bell Arena." Even though the article accurately reported that the crowd was cheerful and raucus, I wondered about the word "daunt" in the title, a few paragraphs about a "half dozen" protesters and a final negative sentence from one student, leaving the speech halfway through, that "He's not a scientist; he's a politician."

I looked at the online version of the paper today to see if anyone was commenting about this first, article and the slight impression of despair and pessimism I felt was implied by the earlier Anne Wallace Allan article. I did not find any public comments yet, but was encouraged to see the Idaho Statesman has written a new and very interesting Opinion > Editorial titled, "Our View: This is the time for action on warming."

The new statesman opinion does not apply the term "daunt" (discourage) to Al Gore, but did apply the words "denial and despair" to our politicians and those people who are convinced that we do not need to change our behavior - "in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence" that global warming caused by human activities is real. This opinion states a much more positive review of Al Gores speech quoted below:

This is no time for denial or despair. It's a time for action. If it originates at the local or state level, so be it. In a 105-minute speech on global warming Monday night, former Vice President Al Gore took on the skeptics and the doomsayers — and challenged Idahoans to lobby on behalf of the planet they'll pass on to their children.

The opinion article also noted that Gore argues effectively that "Idaho is not immune." "Climate change contributes to disease and wildfire in the forests. Global warming could bring drier summers and lower streamflows — while early snowmelt and spring storms provide a recipe for flooding. On top of that, he says, Idaho soil could lose up to 30 percent of its moisture, essential to growing." The article also notes that Gore gave examples of companies, cities (including Boise), and the global community that is already creating examples by making contributions. The article continues with the following comments that I quote.

"As Gore aptly puts it, political will is a renewable resource. Boise's political will poses a model to other Treasure Valley cities, and to state leaders."

"A Republican Legislature and a Republican governor may be tempted to scoff at the Democrat Gore's challenge to tackle global warming. But they should not dismiss Boise City Hall's commitment."

"And they would be foolish to ignore a sellout crowd of 10,000, engaged enough to pack a basketball arena on a Monday night to hear a presentation on global warming. It was the largest audience to hear Gore's presentation in one sitting, said Garry Wenske, executive director of Boise State University's Frank Church Institute, which sponsored the speech."

As I am about to post this I also read another interesting online story in the "New West" - The Voice of the Rocky Mountains. Dated 1-22-07 and written by Jennifer Gelband the article is titled "Gore Speaks; Now's Your Chance to Respond." Several comments are available.

Standing Ovations for Al Gore and Bethine Church

Former Vice President, Al Gore received several standing ovations in Boise, Idaho last night at the 2007 Frank Church Institute Conference on Public Affairs. Bethine Church also received standing ovations as she introduced Gore and noted that their families had been close friends for many years. For me and many of the "age 50+ crowd" it was a heartwarming and stimulating remembrance of the environmental movement in action 36 years ago.

As early as 1970, at the first Earth Day Idaho's Senator Frank Church warned of the "Green-House effect" and the melting of the polar ice caps. Al Gore has been publicly involved in trying to promote citizen and congressional attention to this issue since the early 1980's.

Gore encouraged a full house of 10,000 enthusiastic people to do everything possible to affect changes in attitudes and behavior related to the negative changes taking place all over the world because of human related "Global Warming" activities. The Keynote presentation was powerful and parts were tailored to an Idaho audience. It was also similar to the recently Academy Award nominated movie "An Inconvenient Truth," that has become one of the best documentary feature films of our times and has been viewed by many millions of people worldwide.

This huge issue and the many subtopics involved illustrates the growing need for Social Networking communication projects I have advocated on this Blog. If all of the 10,000 people who listened to Al Gore last night were to redouble their efforts to be actively involved locally, regionally, nationally and globally I feel it would make a difference. Add the millions of people around the world who have also seen the slide show or the movie and this would be a powerful force to dramatically affect changes in the political will needed to effect changes in Global Warming trends.

I will look for Social Networking Internet opportunities on this issue and report them in this blog as time permits. A few web sites that encourage education and participation include; stopglobalwarming.org, climatecrises.net, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Wikipedia (lots of information and references) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has changed its web page title from Global Warming to Climate Change and also provides interesting information and sections on "What you can do".

Al Gore's active and highly visible involvement in the late 1980's and 90's promoting public computer networks, the Information Highway and the Internet should also be noted in this context. A good condensed source of information about Al Gore's life and work is found on Wikipedia.

C/Net News publishes Media 2.0 and a Web 2.0 Blog

c/net News.com publishes daily reports on Media 2.0 including information about Social Networking applications. It also publishes a News.blog Web 2.

A recent article on September 26, profiled "Wallop," another social networking site that will compete with Friendster and MySpace.com. Another similar site is Facebook.com.

In the article Karl Jacob, Wallop's chief executive, said in a statement. "It’s about the trend of self-expression moving online."

My own review of these and similar social networking sites seems to indicate that individuals are encouraged to express their interests in popular culture, but not much emphasis is placed on interest in natural resources, the environment or other important activist issues. For example, global warming is a multifaceted issue that has the potential to dramatically change the lives of the many millions of people participating in the Social Networks mentioned above. Searches on the Internet reveal many discussion groups, blogs and web sites that do have a lot of participants on natural resource issues. I am interested in knowing more about how, or if, individuals include these interests in their social network profiles.

Our own efforts with Mountain Visions to work with natural resource projects to develop interactive web sites with community networking centers does include the invitation for people to participate in the projects. Some of these people may also decide to include their personal natural resource interests into one of the major social networking sites mentioned above. For example, we are creating projects now using Wiki and other applications. I will write more about these in the near future.