Small-scale demonstration of the Gravity Power Module (GPM), an in-ground energy storage system.

Here is a very cool evolving energy storage and generation technology that will absolutely work here as well as anywhere - there is no reason I can see why we won't see “Gravity Power Module” or GPM installations in Ohio - what are we doing to advance our position with this, as we are trying to do with off-shore wind. This is an excellent compliment to wind, and water.

Perhaps this would be a good fit and project for the Water Technology Information Cluster, based in Cincinnati, established by the EPA and intended to benefit environmental protection and economic development in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Could we combine GPM with wastewater management and treatment - could this be built into a smart sewage treatment system leveraging the need to store and move huge amounts of water anyways? We need that several places in Ohio, I know of. I'm going to explore that.

Legal Aid proudly announces the launch of our redesigned website.  Visit www.lasclev.org now to find resources, read success stories and learn how you can help Legal Aid provide access to justice.

The day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2011, AlterNet highlights the reality that the mainstream media in America is incompetent in its duty to inform the world about affairs in America, if it is not worse and directed by media and government leadership to deceive the people of the world into believing America is right and good, when we are not. As a resident of Northeast Ohio, subjected to the incompetency and/or deception of our regional mainstream media in not-covering and/or covering-up real news of Ohio and our region (e.g. covering up for local political corruption, environmental crimes, and theft of public funds and opportunity from the poor for the rich), the harm caused my family is realized in lead poisoned children and the waste of family resources and loyalty to a place and leadership that are undeserving, if not evil.

Here is how things are working out in the rest of America, for the rest of the world, in the era of the most ineffective, corrupt and despicable "free press" imaginable:

85-Year-Old-Woman Arrested for Bank Protest -- 6 Revolts the Tea Party-Obsessed Corporate Media Overlooked

Some of the most undercovered stories of 2010 were actions taken by ordinary people standing up for a more just and equitable society.

What if MLK took what he learned from civil rights and applied it to herbal rights?

The odd notion of ye olde dispensary sandwiched between the barbershop and the pizzeria took a hit this Election Day, when rural Loveland, Colorado voted to abolish its existing medical marijuana businesses. The ban is symptomatic of regulatory tussles playing out in every medical marijuana state. Yet advocacy groups accepted the result without a whimper. No candlelight vigils. Not one person carrying a sign.

I strongly recommend subscribing to Greenversations - the Official Blog of the EPA - it is written by EPA staff with their personal observations and perspectives about the environmental world around them. The latest posting is about Environmental Justice and schools, which should interest all parents of school children, and school children.

I would be interested to see or help develop an environmental justice rating system for Northeast Ohio schools - that could be used to improve academic performance and the health and well being of students and staff region-wide. Does anything like that exist today, here? How is the environmental justice in Cleveland Schools?

Grace, how is the environmental justice in the schools down in Austin?

Principles of Environmental Justice

(Printable PDF version)

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.

PREAMBLE

WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to ensure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice:

1) Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

Environmental Justice leader/victim Barbara Miller speaking to panel at First White House Forum on Environmental Justice

In what I consider the most important positive environmental development in America in the 21st Century, on December 15, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley convened the First White House Environmental Justice Forum, where leadership of the recently-reconvened Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (EJ IWG) met with over 100 environmental justice leaders (typically long-suffering EJ victims), in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, at the White House complex, to develop new federal interagency strategies and interactions with citizens to right current EJ wrongs in America, in anticipation of worse to come as results of climate change.

This Forum was the public interface, and culmination of a year of expansive activity in the White House, throughout the Obama Administration, and nationwide, to advance EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to “expand the conversation on environmentalism and work for environmental justice” in America, in clear recognition of harm caused disadvantaged citizens by current Environmental Injustice (aka Environmental Racism... Environmental Genocide... from the mouths of victims), and showing clear US government concern over "Climate Gaps" (e.g. in Heat Islands), and over those worsening, causing more environmental injustices, to be exacerbated by future Climate Change and resulting Climate Injustices that will harm life on Earth, in this age of human-caused global warming.

I have compiled a summary outline list of 15 "Top 10ish Environmental lists of 2010" found on the Internet - these are drawn from diverse, largely US-oriented environmental media services and organizations - many focus on organizational objectives - most feature positive and negative developments. I have summarized all but the last list - A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice - by Joe Romm, as that should be read in its' entirely, including linked reference material.

Romm points out: "The last year or so has seen more scientific papers and presentations that raise the genuine prospect of catastrophe (if we stay on our current emissions path) that I can recall seeing in any other year." "Any one of these would be cause for action — and combined they vindicate the final sentence of Elizabeth Kolbert’s  Field Notes from a Catastrophe:  “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”

Romm concludes: "Unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases threaten multiple catastrophes, any one of which justifies action.  Together, they represent the gravest threat to humanity imaginable.  The fact that the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media ignored the overwhelming majority of these studies and devoted a large fraction of its climate ‘ink’ in the last 12 months to what was essentially a non-story (Climategate) is arguably the single greatest failing of the science media this year."

’Mid glad green miles of tillage
And fields where cattle graze;
A prosy little village,
You drowse away the days.

And yet—a wakeful glory
Clings round you as you doze;
One living, lyric story
Makes music of your prose!

That start and conclusion to The Poet’s Town, penned in 1913 by past Nebraska Poet Laureate John Neihardt (complete poem below), well describes Gothenburg, Nebraska.

I stopped there one winter morning, not long ago, for some wakeful glory away from the drone of the interstate - to find some fresh, local character and better-than-truckstop coffee and donuts.

Located off I-80, the living, lyric story promised by Gothenburg's towering grain elevators and freeway signs is the "Pony Express Capital of Nebraska". Being in the modern-day Pony Express business, delivering communications via the Internet, I thought I'd connect with my roots and find some inspiration there.

Fisheye view of KushCon2 Marijuana Industry Convention in Denver, Colorado, December 17-19, 2010

December 17 - 19, 2010, the Colorado Convention Center hosted the world's largest marijuana lifestyles convention TO-DATE - KushCon2 - offering those active in the legal global marijuana industries a place to meet, collaborate, learn and grow their new-economy enterprises, together. In one convention hall, in one weekend, mingled 10,000s of cannabis entrepreneurs and their stakeholders - nurturing $ billions in new GREEN, taxable economic opportunity for America - and their truly Green Revolution is just taking off.

Meet America's Greenest Revolutionaries ever... Mom and Pop Mainstreet, Small Town, Middle America!

NEO needs to start making sound policy decisions.  This tool can help.

Tomorrow, I'll be in DC to cover the following important environmental developments for Northeast Ohio...Environmental Leaders, Cabinet Secretaries to Participate in First White House Environmental Justice Forum.

Please see the agenda below and let me know if there are any specific concerns you would like addressed - you know I'll be focused on lead poisoning, source point industrial emissions in general, and especially industrial pollution from coal and steel-making, so serious in Northeast Ohio. I do not know the format of the forum but there will be some question and answer opportunities. I encourage you to tune in and watch it live at whitehouse.gov (link below). For Clevelanders, this is one of the most exciting developments yet from the Obama Administration. With all the right players at the table at the White House - and these are some very right players - I expect good outcomes for environmental justice in America to come of this. I look forward to covering and learning from it first hand.

Environmental Leaders, Cabinet Secretaries to Participate in First White House Environmental Justice Forum 

WASHINGTON – On December 15, Obama administration officials will convene the first-ever White House Forum on Environmental Justice. Environmental leaders from across the country will attend the day-long forum featuring White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. 

I have no doubt everyone interested in public health, planning, engineering, architecture, real estate development, cool stuff and local foods will find absolutely fascinating the feature and the following three videos from The Economist on vertical farming...

Three views of the vertical farm

GROWING crops in vertical farms in the heart of cities is said to be a greener way to produce food. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. But the concept is still unproven. Does it really stack up? To accompany our article on vertical farming in this week's issue, here are three videos offering different perspectives on the subject.

An original John F. Kennedy Democrat - paid-his-way through college - self-made-rich made Reagan Republican - this interview on 60 Minutes shows Boehner is highly emotional, very proud, business-like, with firm middle-American (Ohio) roots, firmly planted in his world... which is most of Ohio and middle America's dream-world, which has included achieving the American Dream... going en mass to mass EVERY MORNING... growing up one of 12 children in a modest, small house near Cincinnati... nice siblings... nice wife... what's not to like?

I'll find out for myself.

I intend to challenge Boehner on my core objectives for transforming the economy of Ohio and America, and will see where we find common ground.

My #1 priority is reducing harm from pollution here and worldwide. We need impartial science driving effective climate change legislation and environmental justice regulation - world-wide - to address our global environmental crises during our time together on common ground Earth.

The new science about lead's effect on the brain may force policymakers to re-examine some social issues through a new prism. For example, if lead can cause aggressive behavior, learning disabilities and hyperactivity, might it not also be a contributing factor in poor educational performance among low-income blacks, who suffer the most lead poisoning? - Newsweek, 1991

Where Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders, and CMSD overall, have been completely ineffective, and so failed, is in their Strange Ignorance of The Role of Lead Poisoning in Failing Schools. Sanders is not alone in responsibility for this tragedy, as leadership of Northeast Ohio in general has been so incompetent as to make Cleveland the lead poisoning capital of America and the developed world.

Perhaps our politicians even hired Sanders with the specific direction to ignore the realities of lead poisoning here, as "there exists a body of medical research which demonstrates that politicians themselves are responsible for a conveyor-belt of tragedy that produces precisely those symptoms attributed to "failing schools.""

The good news for the future of Cleveland and education and students here is Eugene Sanders has announced he shall resign, as of February 01, 2011, meaning we may now select a CEO who may lift CMSD students off the "conveyor-belt of tragedy" caused by lead poisoning that literally guarantees the direct hardship of around 30% of CMSD students, guaranteeing the failure of CMSD and Cleveland.... greatly harming the economic competitiveness and sustainability of the state of Ohio.

With the deceptive headline "68% in poll say parents, not teachers, are to blame for students' poor performance" the Cleveland Plain Dealer published today results of a "poll", paid for by eugenics champions and world's richest "humans" Bill and Melinda Gates, which misrepresents poorly-surveyed, poorly-reported opinions of 1,001 Americans about public education in America as significant indicators regarding the failure of the American public schools system, and reports "68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what's wrong with the U.S. education system -- more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions."

In fact, "government" was not a category in this poll... and, statistically, these Americans placed the same level of blame on State Education Officials (65%, with +/-3.9% sampling errors) as on parents... and all these answers are irrelevant.

Science proves a primary cause of failure in education in America is lead poisoning and other toxins put in the environment by the industrialists partnered with the Gates to control the world.

Did You Pay Homage and Taxes To One Of The Most Heinous Humans Ever To Walk The Earth, Today? Did You Turn on Microsoft today! If you use Microsoft, you turned on the Bill Gates fortune and all the harm that causes the world, today and forever hereafter. If you use a computer running any Microsoft products, you must know how your Microsoft addiction and dollars work for the world today, via perversely enriched micro-psychopath Bill Gates... from AlterNet's "5 Awards For the World's Most Heinous Climate Villains":

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet

Misdeeds: Pretend to be friends while engaged in a vicious competition to see who ends up with the most expensive coffin. Flew together to inspect the Alberta Tar Sands and ponder investments, looking to add to Buffet's $34 billion Burlington Northern Santa Fe coal-hauling railroad purchase and the Gates Foundation Nigerian oil portfolio. Gates is dumping cash into geo-engineering as a way to "hack" the climate, instead of getting off oil and coal. The duo insist that the government should be responsible for clean energy development, but that we need to tax our citizens to pay for it. They can't be bothered, since they're too busy banking on sure things like fossil fuels.

Corporate Teat: They're the tits, not the pups. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, much of it tax sheltered by the Gates Foundation.

Americans certainly don't waste much of our limited TV-time and mutated brain-power seeking insight from our past failures, as our global industrial complex has so screwed-up humanity itself that the work-a-day citizen must stay focused on basic survival on Earth today. So, as a quick review of the distinctly American political views and interests of yesterday, as they shaped the world today, scan some highlights from the 1973 Presidential tapes of great visionary Republican leader Richard Nixon, among his White House staff, and know these people and their followers have shaped our national interests, civil rights, and international and humanitarian policies ever since - this is the legacy and culture influencing our post-Nixonian Industrially Complex President Obama, who is shaping our national interests, civil rights, and international and humanitarian policies today...

 Nixon offered sharp skepticism at the views of William P. Rogers, his secretary of state, about the future of black Africans.

“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.

“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.”

My Message to Washington DC about Working Class Issues With CRA, CDCs and Urban Planning In real NEO

My posting on CRA - Expand the Community Reinvestment Act to Bring Trillions MORE Dollars in Safe and Sound Investments to America's Neighborhoods - has had enough time online to offer some important insight.

First of all, from comments, CRA is a confusing issue and even liberal community development advocates associate CRA with urban development ills - projecting frustrations with local political corruption and planning failure upon all Federal urban renewal efforts, lumping in CRA (and organizations like NCRC). In fact, these citizens do not understand where CRA fits in and are misplacing their anger - missing an opportunity to support what may help.

Those responsible for educating citizens about CRA and credit issues - the councilpeople and CDCs - are the ones causing the harm and frustration for working class citizens, who feel under-served and under-represented - and they are under-educated about Federal efforts to improve their lives, and the availability of basic help.

I recently met with Marcia West, Regional Organizer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), in Washington, DC, to explore how economically distressed communities should respond to the foreclosure and housing crises in America, to expand credit access for working-class residents - to learn what leaders of Northeast Ohio may do to improve access to loans for housing and community development for us common folk. The short answer is "Expand the Community Reinvestment Act to Bring Billions of Dollars in Safe and Sound Investments to America's Neighborhoods" - go to Expand CRA to learn more and contact your representatives... SPREAD THE WORD!

CRA encourages banks to respond to a variety of needs in low- and moderate-income communities, including the financing of affordable rental housing, sustainable homeownership, small business creation, and economic development projects.

This is a GOOD IDEA - Forum provides ethics training to businesses to fight corruption

Published: Wednesday, December 01, 2010, 10:00 PM - Peter Krouse, The Plain Dealer

Joshua Gunter/ The Plain DealerSteve Dettlebach, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Ohio.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When federal prosecutors began to work with the Greater Cleveland Partnership on ways to encourage ethical business practices in the wake of local corruption scandals, they heard a stunning story.

During a trip abroad to recruit business, partnership representatives were told by a Dutch company that Cleveland wasn't a place they were interested in coming to because they believed it to be corrupt.