Sierra Club: Why Do Sea Turtles Need Solar Panels?

[Omaha Steve]

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/michaelbrune/2011/04/sea-turtles-puerto-rico-oil-drilling.html

04/06/2011
Why Do Sea Turtles Need Solar Panels?

Five things you may or may not know about sea turtles: They can live 80 years or longer. They're important to ocean and beach ecologies. They're immune to (and happily feed on) deadly box jellyfish. All seven species worldwide are either endangered or critically endangered. And solar panels might be their salvation.

People sometimes ask me why the Sierra Club is so focused on stopping dirty coal plants or fighting to get our country off of oil and onto clean, renewable energy sources. After all, you won't find pictures of wind turbines or solar panels in our Wilderness Calendar (at least not this year). Why not stick to protecting wild places and wild creatures -- like sea turtles and sequoia trees?

The answer is that we've never been more focused on saving wild places. But we can't succeed without also looking at the bigger picture. We must stop direct threats to habitat and species, whether it's from logging, mining, residential development, or other sources. But we must also address threats that might come from far away. And doing that almost always leads us back to energy -- whether it's the effect of climate disruption from burning fossil fuels or the increasingly harsh environmental consequences of extracting coal and oil.

Consider sea turtles. Five species are found in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year's BP oil disaster killed hundreds of sea turtles. That's not surprising, because sea turtles are particularly vulnerable to oil -- both in and out of the water. One species, Kemp's ridley, has its only nesting grounds in the world on the beaches of the western Gulf. But although the National Commission's official report on the Deepwater Horizon disaster dutifully reported more than 600 dead sea turtles, that's not a final number. Dead turtles (and bottlenose dolphins, which were the most-affected marine mammal) are still washing up on the beaches of the Gulf in record numbers.

FULL story at link.

[Angry Dragon]

1. I want to see Tony 'I want my life back' Hayward in jail

with others from bp.......
They knew they were breaking safety standards so I would say they are at least guilty of manslaughter

[Nihil]

2. I want to see the CEOs of the coal industry in jail ...

... along with the CEOs of the natural gas industry, the CEOs of
the rest of the oil industry, the CEOs of the nuclear power industry
and the CEOs of the motor industry.

They all actively profit not only from cutting corners with regard
to safety standards but from deliberately generating pollution that
will harm "lesser mortals".

Greed kills day in, day out, and the longer that those at the top of
the heap get away without facing any punishment, the worse it is going
to be when the eventual crunch happens.