The White House-sponsored “It’s On Us” sexual consent campaign just released its new PSA. It’s filled with celebrities and a pretty decent tagline.

The tagline, “Consent: If you don’t get it, you don’t get it,” is uttered at the end of the PSA. While it’s that line that’s most poignant, the lead up to the grand finale is compelling, too.

Related on EcoSalon

Dr. Ruth Has Some Bonkers Views About Mandatory Sex

Great News for Sexual Assault Activists and a Pointless ‘Consent’ App

‘Yes Means Yes’ is an Awesome, No-Brainer Sexual Safety Measure

The post Watch the New Sexual Consent Campaign [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

President Obama has been killing it lately. The President has been visiting a lot of notable people for interviews over the past few weeks. Most recently, he spoke with David Attenborough.

The video below has a five minute snippet of the duo’s conversation (you can watch the full special from BBC here). During the special, Attenborough and Obama discuss the planet, climate change, and nature.

Related on EcoSalon

Say Hello to American’s Newest National Park (You’ll Need a Snorkel)

Bluefin Tuna Breeding Grounds Protected by NOAA Amendment

Obama Pursues ‘Politically Binding’ International Global Climate Change Agreement

Image: Official White House photo by Chuck Kennedy

The post David Attenborough and Obama Talk About Climate Change [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

10 global events we were all intrinsically part of.

What makes an event memorable? How does a “happening” sear into our collective mindset and take up permanent residence in our hearts and in our souls? Most often, of course, we are not personally there to witness or directly experience occurrences of global importance.

How many of us were in Cairo’s Tahrir square as protests raged earlier this year?

Who among us lost a loved one or ate radioactive food in Japan, or suffered pangs of hunger in East Africa?

In our media-saturated world, memorable events – indeed memories themselves – are delivered to us via an increasingly wide range of words and pictures, bits and bytes, accounts that stream to our attention, some touching us for a moment, some for a lifetime. Here’s a look at our Top 10 (in no particular order), with links to the stories and accounts that made them indelible to us.

1. March of Horrors: Japan’s Suffering

A tsunami generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeast Japan killed nearly 20,000, caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and triggered a nuclear power plant disaster that unleashed radiation into the environment. Within hours, videos of the unimaginable waves crushing the Japanese shoreline flooded world consciousness via YouTube and other Internet outlets.

2. The Harder They Fall: Arab Spring

Beginning with a small demonstration in Tunisia that grew to topple a regime, flames of unrest spread to Egypt, ousting dictator Hosni Mubarak, and then to Bahrain and Yemen. Eventually Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi would be dead, and even today, Syrian protesters remain caught in a bloody battle with dictator Bashar al-Assad. Did social media enable and perhaps even spark these events?

3. European Disunion: Economic Crisis in the E.U.

The global economic downturn wreaked havoc in the European Union where austerity measures in Greece resulted in riots and protest, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was driven from office, and measures taken by Germany and France exacerbated an ongoing fissure between the E.U. and Britain. Meanwhile, disagreement about how to avoid a catastrophic meltdown flared across the Atlantic, as opinions about what to do remained as numerous as there are pundits and stakeholders.

4. Wanted Dead: American Operation Kills Osama Bin Laden

In May, American helicopters bearing a special operations team raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, whose followers carried out the 9/11 attacks. Within hours his body was buried at sea, and images of the corpse suppressed. Instead, a powerful and now-famous image of White House personnel – including president Barack Obama and Secretary of state Hillary Clinton – remotely watching the mission was made public.

5. The Fruit of Invention: The World Mourns Loss of Apple Founder Steve Jobs

The world lost some great minds to cancer and health issues as 2011 wore on, including writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens and Czech playwright, dissident and politician Vaclav Havel. But, despite the sense that “it was coming,” the loss that seemed to most deeply move our high-tech world was that of innovator, inventor and Apple Founder Steve Jobs. As news of his death spread across the internet in October – in part via millions of his own inventions – biographer Walter Isaccson’s iBio hit the presses, eventually to set new sales records.

6. From Wall Street to Main Street: Occupiers Take a Stand

Beginning with a September protest in a New York City park near Wall Street, what became known as the “Occupy” movement quickly spread to many major American cities and beyond. The “leaderless” protests are said to represent “the 99 percent” against the richest 1 percent of Americans, who benefit from corporate and political corruption and greed at the majority’s expense. In November, images of a campus police officer at the University of California Davis pepper-spraying students went viral over the internet, instantly becoming a rallying point for the movement.

7. Us vs. Them: Obstructionism Paralyzes Washington

Despite being fractured between party traditionalists and Tea Partiers, a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives shackled the hands of Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate. On issues ranging from the economy to the environment, American leaders reached a seemingly endless stream of stalemates. Most notably, the President unveiled a massive jobs bill that was labeled dead-on-arrival by members of both parties. The New York Times commented on the political gamesmanship, and EcoSalon presented the many rifts dividing America.

8. Weather, Weather Everywhere:  Climate Change Marches On

With drought in Texas, killer cyclones in the Philippines, and monster floods in South America and Thailand, 2011 was another year in what seems like an annual escalation of climate change and severe weather. Perhaps the most wrenching weather-related disaster was the return of drought to the Horn of Africa. Data continues to show the impact humans have on the world’s climate, yet deniers continue their war on science. In October, EcoSalon named names.

9. We are the World: All 7 Billion of Us

As the human population reached the 7 billion mark (with 3 billion more projected by the end of the century), debates about resources and birth control reheated. Can our planet sustain such exponential growth? In its inimitable way, National Geographic gave us the story in pictures.

10. Ask and Tell: End of Anti- Gay Military Policy in the American Armed Forces

After 18 years of controversy, the Pentagon repealed its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in September. After encouraging those who have been expelled under the policy to reenlist, President Barack Obama declared: “We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.'” An MSNBC story covered a historic kiss.

Images: TenSafeFrogs, Official U.S. Navy Imagery, S a l e e m – H o m s i, PIAZZA del POPOLO, bkusler, lwpkommunikacio, bogieharmond, Alex Barth, kevin dooley, woodleywonderworks, Beverly & Pack

The post The 10 News Stories of 2011 You Shouldn’t Have Missed appeared first on EcoSalon.

The White House is going solar (again). Two weeks ago, Nancy Sutley, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced at a “GreenGov” symposium plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the executive residence next spring. This, they say, is “a project that demonstrates American solar technologies are available, reliable, and ready for installation in homes throughout the country.” Nice. But while the Obama administration’s promotion and support of alternative energy is encouraging, if not exactly aggressive, I’m reading these greening of the White House stories and am not sure whether to be encouraged or depressed. To be sure, this solar panel installation is a good thing. Likewise, it was a good thing four presidencies and three decades ago – when we did it the first time.

Maybe it’s because we’re staring down the barrel, so to speak, of a 1994 redo; a tragic, almost identical backslide to the one that took place on the Hill in the midterms of 15-plus years ago. With this history repeating itself right now, the idea of traction on issues like solar power seems so fleeting. To wit, I bring you Jimmy Carter, who installed similar panels on the mansion to much fanfare in 1979.

It was a move supporting his energy policy, which he discussed in a famous televised speech a few years prior: “Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.” he told us. “It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.”

Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy put an end to that nonsense – immediately and completely. “The budget for the [Solar Energy Research] Institute – which President Jimmy Carter had created to spearhead solar innovation – was slashed [under Reagan] from $124 million in 1980 to $59 million in 1982. Scientists who had left tenured university jobs to work [on the project] were given two weeks’ notice and no severance pay,” Arthur Allen wrote in Mother Jones back in 2000, just months before another Big Oil president would take office. “By the end of 1985, when Congress and the administration allowed tax credits for solar homes to lapse, the dream of a solar era had faded”¦ Solar water heating went from a billion-dollar industry to peanuts overnight; thousands of sun-minded businesses went bankrupt.”

In 1986, when work was done to fix a leaky roof, President Reagan took down the panels. “By ripping the solar thermal (aka solar hot water) panels off the White House roof in the mid 80s to make a “˜statement’ against alternative energy – and for oil – Reagan was instrumental in killing the U.S. solar thermal industry,” says Lisa Margonelli, Director of the Energy Productivity Initiative at the New America Foundation. Sadly, she also informs us that the Virginia company that made the White House panels was out of business by 1991.

So here we are again, more than a quarter of century later, and Obama’s repeat of Carter’s gesture leaves us to wonder where we would be today “if only.” Think about 30 years of intensive, subsidized investment in solar power – or wind, for that matter. How different would our world be today? I’m not just talking about global warming and environmental issues here. I’m talking about jobs. I’m talking about geopolitics. I’m talking about war and peace.

Ironically, as recent as last month, in an effort to avoid comparison to the ill-fated, one-term Carter administration, the Obama White House looked like it was about to balk at installing the panels. So the turnaround (albeit symbolic) this close to election time does indeed show some alternative energy chops.

I hope they’ll still be there in 2015.

Image: Beverly & Pack

The post Rays Redux: After 30 Years, White House Once Again Amps Up for Solar Power appeared first on EcoSalon.

Today in Hill/Street Greens, from the Hill…

Know what spells efficiency? A 6,200-word blog post that attempts to define efficiency.

This morning, the White House responded to criticisms that suggested it acted slowly to the Gulf oil disaster by posting an entry on its official blog. It’s more of a movie treatment, really, dutifully story-boarding what the government has done since the moment the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana on April 20th.

From the post, written by White House Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Heidi Avery:

Evening of Tuesday, April 20

Search and Rescue

The U.S. government response to the BP Oil Spill began immediately after the explosion on the night of April 20 as an emergency search-and-rescue mission. At approximately 10:30 p.m. that night, notification was received that Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) Deepwater Horizon had exploded and was on fire. The rig was located 45 miles southeast of Venice, LA.

Establish Command Center to Address Potential Environmental Impacts

Concurrently, the administration also quickly establishes a command center on the Gulf Coast to address the potential environmental impact of the event and to coordinate with all state and local governments. Since this point, the administration has continuously anticipated and planned for a worst-case scenario.

NOAA Mobilizes to Provide Trajectory Support

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) mobilizes within three hours of the explosion and started to provide trajectory support and coordinated scientific weather and biological response services. The NOAA weather forecast office in Slidell, LA., also provided weather information to the Coast Guard at its request shortly after the explosion to support initial search-and-rescue operations.

The President is Alerted

The President is alerted to the event and he begins actively monitoring the situation. At the time, it was known that 126 people were on the rig when the explosion occurred.

…and fade out.

The Obama administration has worked hard to beat the press and public relations clusterspill to the punch and address the impact and restoration of the disaster. Thus far, key members of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard have been deployed to Louisiana to help coordinate the response.

Then there’s the tough talk, a la Martin Scorsese. President Obama said this two days ago:

“Let me be clear. BP is responsible for this leak, BP will be paying the bill. But, as President of the United States, I’m going to spare no effort to respond to this crisis for as long as it continues. We will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused. And while there will be time to fully investigate to find out what happened on that rig and hold responsible parties accountable, our focus now is on a fully coordinated, relentless response effort to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the Gulf.”

This hard-boiled rhetoric has that De Niro ring to it, doesn’t it? BP better pay-up on the environmental and economic debt this spill has caused – or else. Also, at several press briefings, President Obama has mentioned that the oil company will bear the full cost of the disaster. (And cue the price spike for gasoline in 3…2…1…)

Do you feel that the administration is still only providing a play-by-play from behind the scenes? Several criticisms suggest that it took the government over a week to label the spill as being of “national significance,” which green-lights more federally approved monies and personnel to respond to a crisis. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: U.S. Army Environmental Command

The post The White House Pens Oil Disaster Response Screenplay on Its Blog appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fighting for a hybrid in every garage is cake compared to the battle to allow an outdoor clothesline in every yard. Still,  advocacy groups like Project Laundry List are urging a return to the days before newfangled cleaning machines drained our electric bills and resources – a time when nobody flinched at the sight of a big bra or jockey shorts flapping in the wind.

Why do these soldiers refuse to fold?

The advocacy group New American Dream calculates that if every American home switched to cold water for four out of five loads, together we can save $6.7 billion per year and keep nearly 50 million tons of carbon out of the atmosphere – the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road.

If only 40% of those households also line dried their clothes, the annual carbon savings would more than double.

Founded by Alexander Lee of Condord, NH, Project Laundry List has established a website that tracks states with ordinances banning outdoor clotheslines, such as Oregon. You can watch a compelling CBS video on the site of a feature Bill Geist did about a Bend woman engaging in civil disobedience in her subdivision by fighting for her right to conserve energy.

Nationwide, some 300,000 communities with home owner associations restrict outdoor laundry hanging, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Lee and others argue it is ridiculous to have to fight to hang clothes in your own backyard, and has spurred a national movement of likeminded enviromentalists. He has gone so far as to suggest the Obama White House reinstate clotheslines on the lawn as it once had in the early 1900s. You can vote for this as well, on the site.

Lee and his Laundry List have weight behind them with board advisors that include famed forward thinker,  Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dick McCormack, a former Vermont State Senator who re-introduced the Right to Dry bill in 1999, which his brother had introduced almost 10 years earlier. It resulted in passage this year, making it no longer a crime to do the right thing.

Helping push the bill along in Vermont was the owner of the wholesome Vermont Country Store. Owner Lyman Orton has written editorials in his national catalog and other media to egg on  homeowners to “set up a clothesline and hang your wash out even if you live in a neighborhood or subdivision where doing so is prohibited.” He asks rhetorically, “Is it not the height of snobbery to ban hanging clothes out to dry?”

Even before Vermont lawmakers got their act together, Orton was selling clothesline products, such as sheets specifically designed to billow in the breeze.

There are many such “Laundry Heroes” identified by Project Laundry List, including actress Daryl Hannah, Vermont Governor Jim Morris and Premier Dalton McGuinty of Ontario, Canada (above), who signed a rule allowing millions in the Province of Ontario to hang dry to their heart’s content.

To review more of the group’s accomplishments, check out the site and see what you can do to further the cause. Your backyard is standing by and waiting for you to feed it a line.

Ontario premier lifts outdoor clothesline ban (CTV.ca)

Images: Cyron, Vermont Country Store, CTV

The post Civil Disobedience in the Subdivision: Project Laundry List appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’d like to say that Michelle Obama is one smart lady. She’s doing something that many of us garden-loving idealists have been wanting for a long time: planting a White House veggie garden. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt’s WWII Victory Garden has there been such extensive planting at the White House.

Visible from E Street, an 1,100 square foot piece of south-facing lawn is being filled with raised beds and will be planted with 55 varieties of vegetables, berries and herbs, with surplus to be donated to a nearby soup kitchen. Michelle Obama said that feeding her own children was what inspired her to start a garden, as they have been more curious about trying new fruits and veggies if they’ve seen where they’ve been grown or met the actual farmers.

Of course the fresh, local produce will be greatly enjoyed by the First Family and the White House staff, but this garden will have eco-educational value as well; the highly visible White House garden’s soil will be amended with kitchen compost, crab meal and other natural fertilizers, and will use beneficial insects for pest control. Obviously our First Lady doesn’t want her kids eating petroleum-based fertilizers or chemical pesticides any more than you do!

This action shows the Obamas literally putting their walk where their talk is, and, dare I say it, it’s (eco) change we can believe in.

Source: NYTimes

Image: Treehugger

The post The Obamas Celebrate Spring with a White House Veggie Garden appeared first on EcoSalon.