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(Also see “Manhattan-Size Ice Island Cracks in Half.”)

The crevasse stretches 19 miles (30 kilometers) long and up to 260 feet (80 meters) wide, as shown in a picture taken by NASA’s Terra satellite in October and featured this week as a NASA Image of the Day.

Snaking across the floating tongue of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, the crack is expected to create an iceberg 350 square miles (907 square kilometers)—versus 303 square miles (785 square kilometers) for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx combined, according to NASA.

As for when the iceberg might shove off, “that is very difficult to predict,” said oceanographer Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “but in the coming months for sure.”

Glacier “Contributing Most to Sea Level”

Usually there’s nothing extraordinary about a glacier calving, said glaciologist Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

Glaciers that flow into the sea, like the Pine Island Glacier, go through a normal cycle in which the floating section grows, stresses mount, and an iceberg breaks off, Scambos said.

“That is nothing unusual in most cases.”

But when the pattern deviates, glaciologists take notice. In this case, the crack is forming significantly farther “upstream” than has previously been the case. That “signifies that there are changes in the ice,” he said.

When “that point of rifting starts to climb upstream, generally you see some acceleration of the glacier.” That means that the ice will flow into the ocean at a faster rate, contributing even more to sea level rise.

(Related: “Hundreds of Glaciers Melting Faster in Antarctica.”)

 Such an acceleration is of particular concern at the Pine Island Glacier, because, among Antarctic glaciers, it’s “the one that’s contributing the most to sea level rise.”

In fact, he said, ice flows from that glacier alone account for a quarter to a third of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea level rise.

“It’s moving at about three kilometers [almost two miles] per year,” Scambos said. And, he noted, “it’s been accelerating quite a bit.”

(Pictures: Antarctica Warming.)

Cracking Glacier “Really Important”

As far as sea levels are concerned, changes in the Pine Island Glacier and other West Antarctic glaciers are far more important than shifts among the continent’s other glaciers, such as East Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier—despite Mertz’s much publicized release of a Luxembourg-size iceberg in early 2010.

That’s because the “Luxembourg” iceberg came from a glacial ice tongue that had just been “sitting there,” said oceanographer Doug Martinson of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

By contrast, “West Antarctica has ice streams, of which Pine Island is one. Those are fast-flowing streams of ice,” said Martinson, who specializes in polar oceans.

When ice breaks off the Pine Island Glacier, he said, more ice can flow in faster from the mountains above—ice that will eventually wind up contributing to sea level rise.

“This glacier,” NSIDC’s Scambos added, “is really important.”

Source National Geographic

The following YouTube presentation is taken from the soon to be release book ‘Letters from 2030’
Leon Tolstoy once wrote – People were not inclined to take their situation with any degree of seriousness: on the contrary they became even more frivolous, as is always the case with people who see a great catastrophe approaching … they argue that it is too depressing to think of the danger since it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and avert the general march of events, and it is better therefore to shut one’s eyes to the disagreeable until it actually comes, and to think instead of what is pleasant.

The Reality is a future we must change for all who will inherit the future we have left them, my children, your children and theirs.

The Reality is that those with vested interests to protect (big oil and coal; amongst others) have the status quo to protect. They have successfully done this with misinformation about climate change, as others have done in the past. :– Smoking is not addictive or a heath hazard!

The Climate Reality Project is to raise awareness of a need for collective understanding that the single (multiple) ‘extreme weather events’ around the world over recent times are related to a change in climate, directly resulting from the pollution of our atmosphere by the burning of once safely stored carbon (fossil fuels ) along with the increase of other greenhouse gases resulting from positive feedbacks linked with these emissions. We have entered unknown and very dangerous territory with our giant chemical experiment with the atmosphere.

Join with us now on this global action day to ask those still sitting on the inactive fence of comfortable complacency, to demand action from our policy makers, to move to a future, safe, for those who will inherit what we are leaving behind; my children and yours.

Join us in the live discussion

Free desktop streaming application by Ustream

On March 1^st 2005 (the same day) we had been honored to be invited by the Governor of WA to a reception at Government House to meet Prince Charles on his visit to Perth.

Over the coming weeks my family pondered on March 1^st 2006 whether we should be sitting quietly on the back patio of our home, or standing on the international stage accepting this great honor. We decided to go.

In discussion with a colleague from the Department of Environment he suggested while in Atlanta I should try to get a meeting with Ray C. Anderson. At that time I had no knowledge of Ray or Interface Inc. A Google search soon introduced me to this great man. Why would such a giant visionary wish to meet little old me I thought? Maybe he would be interested in the research project we had conducted into the ‘recovery of embodied energy from discarded polypropylene’ I thought. You can view the report here. I dispatched an email to his publicist with a copy of the report advising of our planned trip in the hope she could introduce it to Ray. To my great delight some time later an email came from Ray’s personal secretary saying Ray would be pleased to see me. The meeting was set for 9am on February 28^th, the day we were to arrive in Atlanta.

On February 23^rd 2006 we set out for Atlanta with a stopover in Hawaii. At Sydney airport my suit along with some other cloths decided to take an alternative route via Canada. It wasn’t until the afternoon of our 3^rd day in Hawaii, the day of our departure that the suit bag caught up with us.

Arriving at 6.30am at the Sheraton in Atlanta where the GPEC 2006 conference was being held, my suit looked like a tattered old rag. Hastily my wife pressed it as best she could and I set off for my meeting with Ray.

Joanne Ray’s secretary met me as I came out of the lift on the 20^th floor of the Outlook Building and I was given a coffee to await Ray. As he came out of the lift hand extended in friendship he said “You must be Bob Williamson, I’m so pleased to meet you” In his office we talked for several hours, Ray telling me of his journey to sustainability and his reasons for doing so and me telling him of our decade of struggle. Ray was inspired by our efforts and told me I should write a book to inspire others. At the time I didn’t give this suggestion a second thought as writing wasn’t considered by me to be any part of my skills. ZERO Greenhouse Emissions did get written a year or so later and was published in October 2008 in New York.

As Ray and I talked like old friends inspiring each other with various stories, I committed to adding my voice to his at every opportunity. Finite resources consumed out of balance by us now will be needed by those that come after us. We need a Mid-Course Correction.

As our meeting drew to a close Ray penned in a copy of his book ‘To Bob Williamson comrade-in-arms for the good of Earth’ Ray C. Anderson. Ray’s voice fell silent on August 8^th 2011 but his echo is interwoven into every thread of carpet that is manufacture by Interface and into every person around the world that works for them.  

Ray you inspired me to start the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation with the vision ‘To broaden the understanding of choices made that impact or increase the depletion of finite resources resulting in environmental and ecosystem damage’ You have inspired many like me and left a legacy as large as the man. You will be missed but never forgotten. Rest now while others carry on the work you have started.

Your comrade-in- arms

Bob Williamson.

Within the next seven days the world will decide on what will happen with stock markets around the world. Within 12 hours from now the Australian Stock Exchange will open for business on Monday August 8^th.

For some time I have argued and promoted that economic growth; consuming out of balance without consideration of sustainable resources; is a designed for demise model. The world is living on a credit card that it cannot and does not intend to repay.

There are many such issues with the current ‘business and living as usual model’ that we are now encountering. Climate change is accelerating out of balance with how we can adapt. Resources are being depleted out of balance with how the future generations will continue to need to consume. We are living on a global credit card with a finite credit limit.

As the Cree Indian prophecy proclaimed “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”

Within the next week the economic domino may fall. It may only wobble. But the certainty is that if we continue on the current path of demanding economic growth without regard to the finite outcome…….it will fall.

Excerpt from the book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions. 

They could see that the business as usual model adopted and passed onto developing nations, irrespective of any of the Kyoto protocol aspirations, presents a high threat of pushing the global thermometer to four, five or even six degrees of warming by 2100. They now knew as with finite resources it was not if, it was when. And it wasn’t going to be later, it was sooner. When would the circle of economic dominos start to fall, and just like a hurricane, where would it strike first?

Around the world the business-as-usual model of the economically powerful was at risk.

What would be the eventual effect of increased concern for the security of investments? What about the global investment domino? Which investments would be safe and which at risk of panic? Who would panic first? All linked through the Dow Jones, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the FT100, Nikkei, Hang Seng, the Dax and All Ordinary Index, who would blink first? Which of the growing market concerns would start the selling? What would be the tsunami effect of a market panic? With corporate globalization comes its risks, with corporate diversification of interests, comes cross losses. Who would report the story: “Blue-chip stocks are no longer a good investment for the long haul, the long haul looks a bit shaky! You need to get in quick for a high return and get out of the market before it crashes!” And what of the term “Market Correction?” When I was at school and the math teacher corrected my work, it meant that I had done my sums wrong! How many chances to get it right do these experts in economic finance need?

Are those industries that are exploiting resources identified as in decline at highest risk, or will they be the ones who initially profit from the demand in commodities as the prices rise, while there are still reserves available?

End excerpt

Well within the next week we shall see if the domino wobbles or falls.

Despite America’s intense political polarization over climate change, the scientific measurement of global warming is not in dispute. Since 1900, the earth as a whole has warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, an empirical fact that has become an official statistic of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is a seemingly minuscule and barely perceptible increase of average temperature, but spread over the entire surface of the earth that extra energy accumulates into an enormous force. Just what the impact is on the climate system is something that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

“Seemingly very small changes can have very big implications,” said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

The 1.4 degree rise in average temperature means the entire surface of earth’s 500 million square kilometers has become home to between 250 and 500 million megawatts of energy that used to escape the planet’s atmospheric shell into space. That’s an extra 0.5 to one watt, or roughly one Christmas light bulb’s worth of heat, falling on every square meter of land and sea.

“It might seem small, but it actually is very significant when you look at earth’s history,” said Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and The Earth Institute at Columbia University. For the climate to be relatively stable, he said, the energy balance must remain “within a small fraction of a watt [per square meter].”

“No question about it, it’s a lot of energy,” said Warren Washington, a senior scientist at NCAR.

In a year’s time, this energy imbalance is roughly equivalent to 15 to 30 times the global energy consumption of 2007, or to the amount of power generated by 250,000 to half a million large coal-fired power plants.

Natural fluctuations in solar output are “somewhat” responsible, Kharecha said. But “when we look at the interdecadal trends, it’s very clear that the human force is what’s causing the vast majority of change in recent decades.”

“What humans are doing is creating an imbalance,” said Jeff Kiehl, a senior scientist in the climate modeling section of NCAR. “We’re … putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which limits the amount of flow of infrared radiation [heat] going back out into space.”

As a result, the planet as a whole is heating up, Kiehl said, because “[earth's] response is to warm up or cool down in response to any energy imbalance.”

“It’s a fundamental law of physics that energy is conserved. It can’t be created or destroyed. It can be transferred or transformed,” he continued. “If we’re trapping infrared radiation on this planet that energy has to go somewhere. It can’t just disappear.”

Extra Energy and Extreme Weather

So where exactly does all the extra energy go, and how does it influence earth’s complex weather phenomena? “Some goes into the oceans and some as latent heat in the atmosphere, and that energy is available to be transformed into things like storms,” Kiehl explained.

Scientists say most of the extra energy ends up warming the world’s seas because of water’s enormous capacity to trap heat. The rest goes into the ground or toward raising temperatures in the atmosphere. That captured heat can melt ice caps and evaporate water, creating additional water vapor, a greenhouse gas.

The extra moisture can also power climatic extremes, including severe thunderstorms.

Consistent with this picture of rising heat and moisture in the atmosphere, Kiehl said, is that the “frequency and intensity of extreme weather events should also increase,” including record heat waves, floods, blizzards and droughts.

“The big question is, is that what we’re seeing today?”

Climate scientists say the lack of uniform and lengthy historical data and the complexity of the climate system makes it difficult to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between the extra heat and extreme weather events, which seem to be occurring with alarming frequency in recent years.

“There’s a lot of complexity,” said Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at NCAR. “You can’t understand the [climate] system with simple links.”

But amid the current wild extremes the question is growing in importance. A quick look at some recent devastating weather events reveals why:

Across the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, temperatures climbed to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit this month. According to NOAA’s National Weather Service, 1,149 daily high maximum temperature records were broken between July 1 and July 19.

July 2010 was Russia’s hottest July in at least 130 years. Temperatures reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Moscow as wildfires burned hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and peatlands. The fires destroyed about a third of Russia’s cultivable land, leading to a temporary ban on wheat exports that sent food prices soaring.

The ongoing drought in East Africa is the worst to strike the region in six decades. Somalia has been particularly hard-hit as crop failure exacerbates a humanitarian crisis caused by military conflict and years of famine. The UN estimates that 10 million people are threatened by starvation.

In May 2011, the combination of heavy rains and snowmelt from a stormy winter fueled the worst floods to hit the Mississippi River Basin since at least 1937, prompting the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up levees to save cities from the surging waters.

Last year in Australia heavy precipitation triggered mass flooding from Dec. 2010 to Jan. 2011. In Queensland, flooding covered an area equal to the size of France and Germany. Thousands were evacuated from their homes, with total damage estimated to be $20 billion.

Not So Simple

“These things are consistent with the kind of changes we expect to see [from global warming],” said Kathleen Miller, a NCAR scientist who studies natural resource systems and the impact of climate change on societies. But she was wary of identifying global warming’s role.

“Anything you see is some combination of natural internal variability and the effects of climate change,” she said. “For any particular event, you can’t clearly separate out what is the primary influence.”

“We’re more certain of some things than others,” said Meehl. “Temperature is the one where there’s the greatest certainty.”

For instance, the United States had twice as many record-high daily temperatures than record lows from 2000-2009 compared to the 1950s, when the two were about equal, according to a study by Meehl.

That same trend is seen in decadal average temperatures, said Washington of NCAR, which “have gone up over time.” Other statistics show “the number of heat waves is increasing and the number of cold waves is decreasing,” he said.

Hurricanes, which get their power from hot humid air over the oceans, are also on the rise in parts of the world. Trenberth says there is a direct causal link with extra atmospheric heat.

“It’s now one degree Fahrenheit warmer and there’s four percent more moisture [over the oceans] than 30 to 40 years ago. That’s the environment in which all storms now develop … [and these are] conditions that tend to make storms more intense.”

In the tropical North Atlantic, said Kharecha, there’s a “strong correlation” between increasing sea surface temperatures and the “frequency and intensity” of hurricanes since the 1950s. But that trend cannot be found in hurricane trends worldwide, and the lack of reliable data before the 1960s — when satellites were first put into use — means more research is needed.

Extremes in rainfall patterns are also likely being affected, data shows. In the U.S., the amount of heavy precipitation events increased 16-20 percent from 1958 to 2007, said Washington, referencing a 2009 report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

“The hydrological cycle of the earth is spinning up as we put more energy into the climate system,” said Kiehl.

A Key Metric

With global average temperature expected to rise another 3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of the current century, scientific certainty over just how the extra energy will ripple through the climate system will likely lag behind the occurrence of extreme weather events.

But there remains little doubt among scientists that a planetary energy imbalance is changing the weather system. This, more than rising average temperatures, is perhaps the most important metric for understanding changes to the climate system.

“Temperature is a way to measure the heat, it’s a great metric,” Kharecha said. But energy imbalance is “the most fundamental gauge of the state of the climate system at any given time” and can help provide insight into “how much we must reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas levels to restore the planet’s energy balance.”

Source IBTimes Canada

Economic recession has failed to curb rising emissions, undermining hope of keeping global warming to safe levels Photograph: Dave Reede/All Canada Photos/Corbis

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.

Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.

“I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions,” Birol told the Guardian. “It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.”

Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.

“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”

Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding,” he said.

The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year’s emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree.

Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. “I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one,” said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on energy.

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. “This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world’s last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic. You don’t put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them.”

Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world.

But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets.

• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These “locked-in” emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.

“It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking,” warned Birol.

• Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power.

“People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide,” said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world’s nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels.

• Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. “The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago,” said Birol.

He urged governments to take action urgently. “This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies.”

Governments are to meet next week in Bonn for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. “The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly,” he said.

Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China.

Another telling message from the IEA’s estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a “breathing space” and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

Source Guardian

New University of Washington research shows that rising sea surface temperatures in the area of the Pacific Ocean along the equator and near the International Date Line drive atmospheric circulation that has caused some of the largest shifts in Antarctic climate in recent decades.

The warmer water generates rising air that creates a large wave structure in the atmosphere called a Rossby wave train, which brings warmer temperatures to West Antarctica during winter and spring.

Antarctica is somewhat isolated by the vast Southern Ocean, but the new results “show that it is still affected by climate changes elsewhere on the planet,” said Eric Steig, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the UW Quaternary Research Center.

Steig is the corresponding author of a paper documenting the findings that is being published April 10 in the journal Nature Geoscience. The lead author is Qinghua Ding, a postdoctoral researcher in the UW Quaternary Research Center. Co-authors are David Battisti, a UW atmospheric sciences professor, and Marcel Küttel, a former UW postdoctoral researcher now working in Switzerland.

The scientists used surface and satellite temperature observations to show a strong statistical connection between warmer temperatures in Antarctica, largely brought by westerly winds associated with high pressure over the Amundsen Sea adjacent to West Antarctica, and sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific Ocean.

They found a strong relationship between central Pacific sea-surface readings and Antarctic temperatures during winter months, June through August. Though not as pronounced, the effect also appeared in the spring months of September through November.

The observed circulation changes are in the form of a series of high- and low-pressure cells that follow an arcing path from the tropical Pacific to West Antarctica. That is characteristic of a textbook Rossby wave train pattern, Ding said, and the same pattern is consistently produced in climate models, at least during winter.

Using observed changes in tropical sea surface temperatures, the researchers found they could account for half to all of the observed winter temperature changes in West Antarctica, depending on which observations are used for comparison.

“This is distinct from El Niño,” Steig said. That climate phenomenon, which affects weather patterns worldwide, primarily influences sea-surface temperatures farther east in the Pacific, nearer to South America. It can be, but isn’t always, associated with strong warming in the central Pacific.

Steig noted that the influence of Rossby waves on West Antarctic climate is not a new idea, but this is the first time such waves have been shown to be associated with long-term changes in Antarctic temperature.

The findings also could have implications for understanding the causes behind the thinning of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains about 10 percent of all the ice in Antarctica.

Steig noted that the westerly winds created by the high pressure over the Amundsen Sea pushes cold water away from the edge of the ice sheet and out into the open ocean. It is then replaced by warmer water from deeper in the ocean, which is melting the seaward edge of the ice sheet from below.

The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Source Science Daily

Read the following and join her and the Foundation to demand the Grand Canyon is not exploited for destructive Uranium mining. -

Save the Grand Canyon from Uranium Mining

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Suzanne Sparling.  While I am a co-founder of SEN4Earth.org and the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation’s Executive Director of Operations, USA, I’m also a simple person, someone who cares and has a passion to make a difference.

After moving to Arizona almost 7 years ago, I immediately fell in love with the beauty of the area. Shortly afterward, I began searching for avenues to be able to make a difference with regard to environmental issues. While working with the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation, I became the U.S. Executive Director. My work with the Foundation led to a joint inspiration of SEN4Earth.org, co-Founded by Gregory Hilbert and myself.  We created it with the vision to help others to not only be further educated about issues but to also arm them with information, encouragement, and the ability to take action. Though I care deeply about many causes, my primarily concern is with environmental issues. My love of Arizona and passion for environmental activism sparked the Worldwide Campaign to Save the Grand Canyon.

Simply put, I want to make a difference in the world and help others see that they can make a difference too. Every change we make toward sustainability, conservation, and environmental awareness and implementation of changes to achieve those goals – no matter how large or small – matters.

I’m writing to you today to request your organization’s support and promotion of the Worldwide Campaign to Save the Grand Canyon. We are in a critical time crunch. The deadline for public comment is May 4, 2011. At that time, it will be decided whether a new 20 year ban will be enacted or if the mining companies will be permitted to move forward with the toxic contamination and destruction of one of the most incredible places in the world.

When Change.org contacted me directly about the petition I have on their site, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. With their assistance and emailing of their members, signatures skyrocketed from approximately 1100 as of April 4, to over 40,000 as of the writing of this message.

Change.org News Release:
http://news.change.org/stories/razing-arizona-citizens-fight-to-protect-the-grand-canyon-from-uranium-mining

SEN4Earth.org Blog Update:
http://sen4earth.org/articles/2011/04/06/will-the-grand-canyon-survive/

I implore you, please help us succeed with this campaign. I’ve been canvasing the petitions for signatures since August 2010. You may find the petitions here:

http://www.change.org/petitions/worldwide-campaign-to-save-the-grand-canyon
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/worldwide-campaign-to-save-the-grand-canyon-take-action/

If your organization is able to assist us with a news, blog or any other post, publication, or email campaign to your members, please don’t hesitate to send me a link and/or information so that I can show others your support and link back to your site.

Please help us save the Grand Canyon and all the millions of lives dependent upon it.

Thank you,
Suzanne Sparling