Final Decisions Day At SCOTUS

Via the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court is meeting for the final time until the fall to decide three remaining cases and add some new ones for the term that starts in October. The court decided its two blockbuster cases last week by declaring the right of same-sex couples to marry in all 50 states and upholding a critical part of the health care overhaul. The three remaining cases that are expected to be decided Monday raise important questions about a controversial drug that was implicated in botched executions, state efforts to reduce partisan influence in congressional redistricting and costly Environmental Protection Agency limits on the emission of mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plants. The justices also could add important cases for next term on abortion, affirmative action and the power of unions that represent government workers.

SCOTUSblog begins its live-blog at 9:15AM.

NYC Bridges Get Baby Peregrine Falcons

Endangered peregrine falcon pairs have been nesting atop three New York City bridges and city environmentalists are tagging the twelve newborns with the help of the MTA.

Each year around the end of May research scientist Chris Nadareski, of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, climbs to the top of the three bridges and puts identifying bands on the falcon chicks. This helps wildlife experts keep track of the number of peregrines in the city, and identify them in case they become sick or injured. This year he was assisted by Barbara Saunders of the state DEC. The bandings took place on May 28 and May 29 when the falcon chicks were about three weeks old. Peregrine falcons were nearly wiped out in the 1960s as a result of pesticides in their food supply, and remain on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation endangered birds list. Urban falcons like to nest atop bridges, church steeples and high-rise buildings because they provide an excellent vantage point for hunting prey, including pigeons and small birds.

This clip was made at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Dennis Prager And Glenn Beck: An Angry God Totally Caused California's Drought

California Imposes "Unprecedented" Mandatory Statewide Water Restrictions

Speaking from a water-parched perch in the Sierra Nevadas that would normally be covered with five feet or more of snow, today California Gov. Jerry Brown announced unprecedented mandatory water use restrictions. ABC News reports:

For the first time in the state's history, the governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions across California, in an effort to reduce water usage by 25 percent. The measures include replacing 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought-tolerant landscaping, banning the watering of grass on public street medians, requiring agricultural water users to report their water use to state regulators, and requiring large landscapes such as campuses, golf courses and cemeteries to make significant cuts in water use.

The last four years have been the driest in California’s recorded history. As of March 24, more than 98 percent of California is suffering from abnormally dry conditions, with 41.1 percent in an exceptional drought, according the U.S. Drought Monitor, which estimates that more than 37 million Californians have been affected by the drought. The state’s snowpack, which is largely responsible for feeding the state’s reservoirs, has been reduced to 8 percent of its historical average, and in some areas in the Central Valley the land is sinking a foot a year because of over-pumping of groundwater for agriculture.

The snowpack in neighboring Nevada's Lake Tahoe water basin is reported to be at 3% of its normal size. For now, neither state is restricting water usage by private homes, but experts have warned that that is surely coming. Yesterday the water provider to the Reno area asked customers to cut their use by 10%.

Sao Paulo Is Almost Out Of Water

The world's third-most populous city may be out of water in just a couple of weeks.

São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year. One of the causes of the crisis may be more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the growing deforested areas in the Amazon region. “Humidity that comes from the Amazon in the form of vapor clouds - what we call ‘flying rivers’ - has dropped dramatically, contributing to this devastating situation we are living today,” said Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist at INPE, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute. The severity of the situation in recent weeks has led government leaders to finally admit Brazil’s financial powerhouse is on the brink of a catastrophe. São Paulo residents should brace for a “collapse like we’ve never seen before” if the drought continues, warned Vicente Andreu, president of Brazil’s Water Regulatory Agency. Dilma Pena, chief executive officer of Sabesp, the state-owned water utility that serves the city, warned last week that São Paulo only has about two weeks of drinking water supplies left.

The region's main reservoir is only at 5.3% of its capacity. According to the above-linked Reuters report. the Amazon lost another 2300 square miles of rainforest just last year.

American Conservative Union Rages Against California's Plastic Bag Ban

The ACU is the group that puts on CPAC.

California Bans Plastic Bags

California today became the first state to outlaw plastic bags after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the ban into law.

SB270 prohibits stores from providing disposable plastic grocery bags to shoppers, and requires them to charge for paper bags. The bill, which proponents called a national model, represents a step toward elimination of the plastic checkout bags which have been a standard for American shoppers since the mid-1970s. Bag manufacturers, however, have vowed to repeal the bill through a ballot initiative. “This bill is a step in the right direction – it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself,” said Governor Brown. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.” The law mandates a sweeping change in consumer habits that supporters hope will lead to widespread reliance on reusable shopping bags. Cutting out disposable sacks will reduce the stream of plastic film that winds up in waterways and landfills, they said.

Plastic bag manufacturers say they will immediately launch a petition drive to place a repeal of the ban on the 2016 ballot. Other opponents say that the ban will be a burden for the poor and that retailers will earn profits by charging ten cents for paper bags that only cost three cents each. In 2007 San Francisco became the first of more than 100 California municipalities to ban plastic bags.

RELATED: The New York City Council has proposed a similar ban and ten cent paper bag fee.

Paul McCartney - Meat Free Monday

Stereogum recaps:

Meat Free Monday is a campaign to convince people who eat meat to skip eating it one day of the week to help reduce their carbon footprint. As any self-respecting Beatles fan knows (or Simpsons fan for that matter), Paul McCartney is a guy who skips eating meat seven days of the week. He once wrote a song titled “Meat Free Monday” to encourage people to take that pledge, and now it’s resurfaced with a new video. The campaign released a new lyric video for the track featuring photos sent in by fans who took the pledge. It was posted this week as global leaders flock to the UN headquarters in New York for the first major discussion on climate change since the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

NEW YORK CITY: 300,000 March Ahead Of United Nations Climate Change Summit

Via USA Today:

More than 300,000 people marched through the streets of New York City on Sunday in what organizers called the largest climate-change demonstration in history. With banners, flags, floats and drums, protesters at the "People's Climate March" overwhelmed midtown Manhattan in flocks of vivid color, demanding action ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit this week. "I'm totally passionate about our planet and what's happening with our life here," said Heather Snow, 57, a massage therapist from Wilmington, N.C. "The whole Congress, everyone has gone insane, and it's time to end the insanity. I don't know how, I don't know when, but it's got to happen soon. We're running out of time." The massive march kicked off at 11:30 a.m. on the ritzy Upper West Side along Central Park before winding its way through the city on a two-mile route. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, former U.S. vice president Al Gore, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and actors Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio joined thousands of protesters at the march.

Breitbart Headline Of The Day

This is how Breitbart is reporting on today's anti-climate change marches.

Federal Judge Rules BP Was "Grossly Negligent" In 2010 Gulf Oil Spill

Bloomberg News reports:

BP acted with gross negligence in setting off the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, a federal judge ruled, handing down a long-awaited decision that may force the energy company to pay billions of dollars more for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier held a trial without a jury over who was at fault for the environmental catastrophe, which killed 11 people and spewed oil for almost three months into waters that touch the shores of five states. The case also included Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co., though the judge didn’t find them as responsible for the spill as BP. “BP’s conduct was reckless,” Barbier wrote in a decision today in New Orleans federal court. “Transocean’s conduct was negligent. Halliburton’s conduct was negligent.” Barbier apportioned fault at 67 percent for BP, 30 percent for Transocean and 3 percent for Halliburton.

BP faces fines of up to $18B. The judge did not rule on how much oil was spilled, which may affect the liability.

Jimmy Carter Slams "Nutcases" Who Block Anti-Global Warming Campaigns

“We’ve seen some countries devote themselves to renewable energy.  The United States is right at the bottom, with only 10 percent of our energy coming from renewable sources. So we still have a tremendous opportunity to do what we haven’t done. The biggest problem we have right now is some nutcases in our country who don’t believe in global warming. I think that they are going to change their position because the evidence of the ravages of global warming is coming or is already there." - Former President Jimmy Carter, speaking yesterday at a renewable energy summit. The people are Twitchy are predictably losing their shit at being called nutcases.

Climatologist: We Might Be Fucked

Climatologists such as the one above are not mincing words after a huge blow-hole appeared in the Siberian tundra. The deep cavern, they believe, was caused by the venting of methane. Via Salon:

The study concerns the large deposits of methane (CH4) — a greenhouse gas over twenty times more potent than CO2 — known to be buried beneath the Arctic. Stockholm University researchers found that some of that methane is leaking, and even making it to the ocean’s surface. They called the discovery “somewhat of a surprise,” which, according to [Jason] Box, doesn’t quite communicate its importance. “The Arctic is our most immediate carbon concern,” Box said, referring also to the CH4 escaping from the melting permafrost. But the sentiment can be expanded to all of climate change: “We’re on a trajectory to an unmanageable heating scenario, and we need to get off it,” he said. “We’re fucked at a certain point, right? It just becomes unmanageable. The climate dragon is being poked, and eventually the dragon becomes pissed off enough to trash the place.”

More from an Australian news outlet:

Siberia’s Yamal region contains some of Russia’s largest gas reserves. It’s little coincidence that the first vent hole appeared about 40km from the nation’s largest gas field — Bovanenkovo. Since then another crater has been identified nearby. This one is smaller: Some 15m in diameter. Locals first found it in September last year, but it has only now come to the attention of authorities. A third — this time only 4m wide — was found several hundred kilometres away on the Taymyr Peninsula. Russian scientists examining the first blowhole found it to be 60-80m wide and some 70m deep. It runs into the permafrost of ice and mud. There is an icy lake at its bottom. Methane. It’s the lasting remains of an event which happened some 50 million years ago. An outbreak of a tiny green weed transformed the Earth from a virtually lifeless greenhouse by sucking the carbon out of the air and pumping oxygen back into it. It was a process which took millions of years to create the world as we know it. But the methane left trapped under the Arctic permafrost is a ticking time bomb — set to send the world into a mass extinction and set the climate clock back by millennia. “We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating,” Dr Box writes.

KENTUCKY: GOP Pol Says Climate Change Isn't Real Because Mars Isn't Heating Up

“As you (Energy & Environment Cabinet official) sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m aware of." - Kentucky GOP state Sen. Brandon Smith, speaking at a hearing on EPA rules about limiting greenhouse gases. For those wondering, the average temperature on Mars is about -80 Fahrenheit.

Google Honors Environmentalist Rachel Carson, Teabagistan Flips Out

Google marked the birthday of late environmentalist Rachel Carson today and the teabaggers are pulling their hair out in rage. Via Twitchy:

Of all the people in the world to commemorate today, people who have done truly great things, this is who Google chose? Today would have been marine biologist and “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson’s 107th birthday. Unfortunately, thanks to Carson’s radical environmentalism, millions of children were robbed of the chance to celebrate a fraction of that many birthdays.

According to the supportive tweets posted at Twitchy, Carson is up there with Hitler, Mao, and Stalin as one of the worst mass murderers in history. And, therefore, "leftists worship her." The truth about Rachel Carson and DDT is far different than the baggers claim, of course.

Rubio: Climate Change Isn't Manmade

This weekend Sen. Marco Rubio declared that he doesn't believe "human activity" is causing climate change. The Washington Post editorial board reacts:

It is one thing to invite a debate about the best policy to address rising global temperatures, a problem no country can tackle on its own. It is another to dismiss the evidence that “these scientists” have compiled — “a handful of decades of research,” Mr. Rubio derisively called it — to show that humans are driving much of that warming. On Sunday, Mr. Rubio insisted that he is ready to be president. We hope he does not count sidling up to climate change denial as a qualification. It is quite the opposite.

Porn Site: We'll Plant One Tree For Every 100 "Big Dick" Videos Viewed

One of the more amusing PR stunts we've seen.

Pornhub is giving America wood, literally rather than figuratively this time, by announcing that it will plant a new tree for every 100 videos viewed. The initiative, presumably designed to alleviate porn watchers' guilt, was launched on Arbor Day, a US holiday that encourages people to plant and care for trees. Trees will be donated for all views under the free porn behemoth's 'Big Dick' category, and given that the site receives over 1 billion visitors a month this could mean a hell of a lot of trees. So far over 12,000 have been planted.

View the possibly work-safe promo page. (Tipped by JMG reader Ray)

NASA Promotes Global Earth Day Selfies

NASA wants you to step outside on Tuesday and send them an Earth Day selfie.

For the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth-observing missions will be launched into space in a single year. To celebrate this milestone, NASA is inviting people all around the world to step outside on Earth Day, April 22, take a "selfie," and share it with the world on social media. Designed to encourage environmental awareness and recognize the agency's ongoing work to protect our home planet, NASA's "Global Selfie" event asks people everywhere to take a picture of themselves in their local environment. On Earth Day, NASA will monitor photos posted to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. Photos posted to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, or to the #GlobalSelfie Facebook event page and the #GlobalSelfie Flickr group will be used to create a crowd-sourced mosaic image of Earth – a new “Blue Marble” built bit-by-bit with #GlobalSelfie photos.

Put On Your Shocked Face

Headline Of The Day

(Via Wonkette)