• good Al Gore had his own L.A. school named after him – a first for a vice president. He shares the honor with Rachel Carson, another well-known environmentalist.
• bad Too bad the school was built on toxic soil that a bunch of workers had to spend Labor Day weekend attempting to replace. That’s one way to honor his name. source

• Live in California? You should read this. One of the propositions currently on the ballot for November is Proposition 23, an oil-company pushed piece of legislation that would prevent a landmark environmental bill from getting passed unless California had four straight quarters below 5.5 percent unemployment. This is a marker that the state has rarely hit over the last 35 years, and likely won’t for a long while due to the current unemployment levels, hovering above 12 percent. And big energy is backing it. Check it out:

• bad The bill is backed by two of the biggest polluters in the state, oil-hawkers Valero and Tesoro.
• worse The Koch brothers (remember them?) are pushing it financially with $1 million in help. source

• Poor guy! For the last two weeks, this Canadian bear has been wandering around the forest with a jar stuck on its head. Jokes aside, this is really scary for the guy, because he can’t eat, drink or anything. Animal control has been trying (and failing) to help him out. Some argue that this is a perfect example of the humans having unintended consequences on the environment. Because, really, who wants to see a bear in such an awful situation? source

• 5¢ amount shoppers have to pay to get a plastic bag at any store in D.C.; yes, it’s annoying, but at least it’s encouraging people to use fabric bags instead source
• $300 amount cell phone companies could soon pay in San Francisco for not posting information about cell phone radiation levels; this also sounds annoying source

• There’s lot of apocalyptic people in environmental circles. A lot of those people were outraged that we presented an optimistic view of the future. There’s a dark vision driving us, but we’re about moving toward a positive picture of what can be done.
• Transition US founder Raven Gray • On the response to her group, which is a British transplant. The group believes in the theory of “peak oil,” where there’s an economic collapse and “population die-off” that comes as the amount of oil in the world dwindles. The group is growing quickly – starting with just two chapters in 2008, it now has 68. Some granola hippies think we’re all gonna go through this post-apocalyptic drama. And that’s right, kids. We’re all gonna die. Because we don’t have oil. source

• Our good friends at Shell seriously have no place to talk. As bad as the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been, Shell has created problems as bad, if not worse (and mostly unreported), in Nigeria. A few quick numbers to throw your way on this, courtesy of The Guardian’s recent exposé on Shell:

• 14,000 tons of oil spilled by Shell in 2009

• 98% Shell’s estimate of spills caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage
• 7,000 number of oil spills Shell had in Nigeria between 1970 and 2000
• 2,000 the number of official spillage sites in Nigeria alone source

Two spills, two responses

• There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year. It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm.
• Friends of the Earth International’s Nigerian head Nnimo Bassey • Regarding the government’s response to the spill, which seems to only highlight the differences between the American and Nigerian responses to major oil spills. With nearly 1.5 million barrels reportedly spilled in the Niger River’s delta in the last 50 years, it seems that the country has resigned itself to the fate. “In Nigeria, they have been living above the law,” Bassey said. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice.” source

• cause In March 2009, 16-year-old (not really) Andry Rajoelina took over the island’s shaky, weakened government in a coup.
• reaction Since then, the country’s huge, diverse rainforests have been cut down en masse for sake of huge profits. source

• » Cha-ching!: The government has been reportedly turning a blind eye to the massive damage to the country’s rainforest because they’re reportedly taking in some of the ill-gotten profits. How much money are we talking? $167 million or more. For a nation like Madagascar, that’s huge.

• If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish.
• United Nations Environment Program leader Pavan Sukhdev • Regarding the possibility of the oceans running out of fish. The UN says that the problem can be prevented if subsidies to fishing fleets are cut, and fish are given safe zones where commercial fishing can’t take place. If not, we hope you like avocado rolls, because there may not be enough fish for your sushi if the UN is right. source

• 10 miles the length of one of the oil plumes, which is also a mile wide
• 30% the decrease in oxygen in some parts of the ocean due to the oil spill source