Greetings Earthlings. We take a brief hiatus from trying to save the Qhabbin woodlands and stopping the proposed fracked gas pipeline in order to talk bees. Hopefully by now you’ve all heard how threatened the bees are by Corporate America’s seeming endless penchant for inventing things to kill them. It gets worse: now they want to invent….bees! RoboBees to bee precise. Rev. Billy calls in on that travesty and Alisa and Karen from Mothers Out Front will remind you to listen to your Mother! As always, we visit the Fool-on-the-Hill and Meet the New Boss on our way to The Enviro Show Echo Chamber, but first it’s time for……….Revenge of the Critters! Bees Unite, Run-off Human!
Let’s Meet the New Boss as his Environmental “Protection” Agency proposes to expand the use of yet more bee-toxic pesticides, “neonicotinoids” a newer class of systemic insecticides that are absorbed by plants and transported throughout the plant’s vascular tissue, making the plant potentially toxic to insects. Hopefully YOU will be inclined to tell the EPA to clean up its act by going here. Without the bees we will bee in BIG trouble. Also: PLEASE do not buy plants from Home Depot or Lowe’s until they STOP using these pesticides………wait! why would you even shop at those corporate stores?? Sorry, we were thinking of someone else. Did we mention Monarch Butterflies are also being…um…sold down the river by big box stores? OK, so a lot of folks who should know better are falling all over each other praising the New Boss’s EPA Climate Plan announced Monday. Some are making “it’s a start” noises. And, of course some like us are saying…..what? It’s a climate CRISIS, not a climate bullet point. O, and guess what’s back if this plan flies…….cap & trade! (or if you prefer: pay-to-pollute). Remember how well that worked last time around?
This week’s Fool-on-the-Hill is Sen. Marco Rubio, Repugnican of Florida. The Daily Kos tells us “..during a brief exchange at the National Press Club, a member of the audience asked through a moderator ‘what information, reports, studies or otherwise are you relying on to inform and reach your conclusion that human activity is not to blame for climate change?’ He couldn’t name a single source.” We think that might be a source for some concern, no? What? You think he didn’t want to credit Faux “News”?
In The Enviro Show Echo Chamber we see that Grist might bee thinking about the hives! And this: Evil corporados trying to sue the EU for protecting bees? Also this: Bill McKibben calls for the largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change. Sooooo, we’ll see you in September for the UN Climate Summit. That’s Saturday & Sunday, September 20th and 21st. Bring your friends. Tell them it’s no thing, we’re just trying to SAVE THE PLANET!! And this: Bad Santa!….up north….in Putney?
Just a reminder here in our E-Valley-uation segment, since we’re talking about saving the planet, saving the trees in the Quabbin woodlands is part of that, OK? O, and that fracked gas pipeline the corporados want to ram down your Valley? It looks like Truthout has discovered it. Can the Rolling Stone be far behind? Also, Katy of NoFrackedGasinMass on the phantom jobs a new pipeline might create. Like we’ve said from the get-go on this show: want jobs? FIX THE LEAKEY OLD PIPELINE!
Our Enviro Show Quote of the Week is a rocker: “I’ve said this over and over, but I’ll say it a million more times – I’m concerned more about the death of a bee than I am about terrorism. Because we’re losing hives and bees by the millions because of such strong pesticides”. – Patti Smith. But why stop there? Here’s a closer to home quote from our own Sen. Ed Markey: “The next major piece of the West Antarctic glacier that breaks off into the ocean should be reserved as an island for climate deniers”! We’re not sure “glacier” was the correct term but why are we thinking of Galt’s Gulch?
After our interview we take by the hand over to the Bus Stop Billboard:
Wednesday, June 4, 8 to 1AM. Rebroadcast on WHMP & Montague Community TV Channel 17 of a community forum on the proposal by the Kinder-Morgan company to build a gas pipeline that would run through several Franklin County towns. The two-hour forum on the proposed pipeline and on related energy and environmental policy issues.
Wednesday, June 4, 7PM. Ralph Nader will speak about his new book: “Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance To Dismantle The Corporate State” at the Shelburne-Buckland Community Center in Shelburne Falls, MA. Tickets are $5 (buy at Boswells Books), space is limited to 150, the max for that space. Only about 30 tix left!
Friday, June 6 Bee-Themed First Night Greenfield – Downtown
June 6th – 9th, 2014. No Pipelines! Action Camp for Climate Justice, Monkton, Vermont. Join organizers and activists from across Vermont for a weekend of workshops and trainings to deepen our collective understanding of the politics of extreme energy and take action to stop the fracked gas pipeline! Go to: http://www.risingtidevermont.org/kickoff-weekend-registration-form.html
Saturday June 7, 2014. The Great Holyoke Brick Race! Performance art meets sport. Think pine wood car derby but with using bricks instead. VFR has an entry. Come out and cheer us on! Preliminaries: 11:00 – 1:00, Race: 1:00 – 4:00ish. Go to: http://www.brickrace.org/
Sunday, June 8, 6 to 7pm – Spring Farm Festival includes performance of “To Bee or Not to Bee”. Greenfield Community Farm, 34 Glenbrook Dri, Greenfield, MA. Call: 413.325.8969 or Email: info@justroots.org. Go to: http://ptco.org/shows/to-bee-or-not-to-bee/
Monday, June 9, 7pm. “Citizen Journalism: Building A Media Action Team” at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst. Our featured presenter will be Paki Wieland sharing skills learned by being there, where it matters and being loud and proud and most often with a video camera in hand. For more info email: SkillShare@ClimateActionNowMa.org
Saturday, June 14, 5pm. Documentary screening: “Take Back Your Power” at Green Fields Market, 2nd Floor meeting room, at 5 pm followed by info session on electromagnetic fields and health, bees and Swiss Harmony.
Saturday & Sunday, June 14 & 15: Plant Flowers Greenfield! Weekend of bee-friendly flower planting around town. First three “abutter pairs” of home/business owners who contact us will receive a free 1/2 hour “pollinator corridor” consultation from expert Tom Sullivan of Pollinators Welcome. The public is invited to listen in to these consultations at 10 am, 11 am and 12 pm on 6/14. Locations TBA. Email: info@ptco.org
Sunday, July 13,12:30pm – 4:00pm. Stop Fracked Gas Exports! Come together in Washington, DC to send a decisive message to President Obama and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: Say “no!” to fracked gas exports. Fracking fighters everywhere, movement leaders like Tim DeChristopher and Sandra Steingraber, mothers fending off compressor stations, fathers fighting pipelines – and everyday people demanding solutions to climate change – will march together by the thousands. Go to: StopGasExports.org
June 18, 7 pm. KM/TGP Fracked Gas Pipeline Presentation. The “CAFE”, Greenfield Community College, 1 College Dr., Greenfield, MA. Contact Jim Cutler – Snowalkerjim@gmail.com for more information
June 15-20: Michael Pollan, best-selling author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” will be the featured speaker as UMass Dining hosts the Tastes of the World: Chef Culinary Conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The conference will feature a conversation and book signing with Michael Pollan on Tuesday, June 17 at noon in the Campus Center Auditorium. Contact: Daniel J. Fitzgibbons 413/545-0444
June 28, 4:00-6:00PM. CAN’s Annual Meeting. First Congregational Church, 43 Silver St, Greenfield, MA. Annual meeting to find out what Entergy and the nuclear industry is up to! Hear what’s happening and what CAN is planning in the next year. We’ll have pizza and other refreshments. Please join us! Info at: can@nukebusters.org
That’s it. We are so out of here. One more thing though: remember what?……..to LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!!
The Enviro Show 