1. President Obama addressed clean energy, environmental policy– and even name-checked climate change– in last night’s State of the Union.  (Huffington Post Green)
2. Are you under 31?  Then you probably want a hybrid car.  (CleanTechnica)
3. Scientists discovered 46 new species in the tiny little South American country of Suriname.  (Mongabay)
4. These old dumps are being converted to parks and nature preserves.  (Grist)
5. New research reveals that the sun can’t save us from climate change.  (Guardian.co.uk)

1. An Indonesian rock band highlights the plight of the orangutan in song.  (Mongabay)
2. Save energy (and money!):  tint your windows.  (CleanTechnica)
3. The Interior Department has banned the import of four nonnative snakes.  (Green)
4. White nose syndrome has killed an estimated seven million bats.  (Washington Post)
5. The new science classroom battle:  climate change.  (Wired)

1. Anchovies are making a North Sea comeback.  Thanks, climate change?  (Conservation Mag)
2. Some rare good news for rhinos– none were poached in Nepal last year!  (Mongabay)
3. The “doomsday clock” jumped a minute forward.  Why?  Climate change.  (CleanTechnica)
4. President Obama visited EPA staff to let them know he still cares.  (Green)
5. Oil rigs could possibly be responsible for turning migratory land-based birds into shark snacks.  (Wired)

Archeologists tell us that the symbolism of the winter solstice, which occurred this last week, was not lost on even the earliest human communities—longer days and the triumph of light over darkness.

The people who lived in those primitive communities were not insulated from the rhythms of the natural world as we are in the U.S. today. There were no brightly lit cities sprawling across hundreds of square miles. Only the flickering light of wood fires and the most basic shelter separated people from the forests and steppes that surrounded them. They knew that their lives were completely and utterly dependent upon nature. They noticed, recorded, and attributed meaning to even the subtlest changes in the world around them.

Most Americans today are increasingly separated from the natural world. They live in urban areas. They don’t know where their water comes from. They are often not clear on how their food is grown. They have few experiences in the outdoors. Their separation from land, air and water seems now made more complete, particularly for young people, by the amount of time they spend looking at the screens of electronic devices.

The commentators (of which we have no shortage these days) suggest that this separation of people from nature is leading to a loss of support for conservation of land and water and that it makes folks vulnerable to misinformation from anti-environmental interests. There is some truth in this, of course, but recent public opinion polls reveal that the vast majority of Americans still consider themselves conservationists. And the debate over the final Federal budget for 2012 suggests that important political leaders from both parties realize that being against protection of the country’s natural resources may well not be as popular as some of those special interests would have us believe.

The track of the Interior Appropriations bill over the last six months is evidence of this. (The Interior Appropriations bill contains funding for most of the Federal government’s natural resource and environmental protection programs). Last July, for the first time in The Nature Conservancy’s history, our CEO, Mark Tercek, wrote to all of the members of Congress urging defeat of the version of the Interior Appropriations Bill for 2012 that had been proposed by the House of Representatives. He was against it because that legislation zeroed out or slashed the budgets of some of the country’s most important and successful conservation programs and because the bill was full of provisions (called riders) that would undo fundamental protection of our land, air and water. The potential impacts on natural systems were alarming. The Conservancy joined with other conservation and environmental groups to create coalitions to provide stronger voices for American conservation and environmental protection.

The result? Last week an amended Interior Appropriations Bill was made part of the Omnibus Appropriations package that was approved by both the House and the Senate. The bill includes enough funding such that almost all of this country’s conservation and environmental programs can continue in a workable and functional way. There are even a few cases where budgets for conservation activities (Land and Water Conservation Fund, Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program) have increased over Fiscal Year 2011. And the final budget passed without significant riders curtailing the ability of government to protect our environment.

What happened to change the course of events since July?

The conservation coalitions reached out to their members and supporters across the country. They visited their Senators and Representatives at home and in Washington and made compelling case that conservation is good for the economy, good for communities and good for regular people like hunters and fishermen. The leadership of the Interior Appropriations Committees of both parties worked together to continue the long tradition of bi-partisan support for American conservation. And, I’d suggest, there was something else. Politicians got a sense from their constituents that, despite what some might say, nature remains a part of this country’s feeling about itself, that we still possess a deep seated memory of our relationship and dependence upon the natural world, that we want to pass along to our children the farms and forests, winding rivers and graceful coastlines that define America’s character, that we remain not, after all, so different from our ancestors gathered by the fire, watching the tracks of the stars, and celebrating the winter dawn that marks the triumph of light over darkness.

1. When it comes to solar power, just how much solar do you really need?  (CleanTechnica)
2. For sparrows, exposure to spooky sounds leads to fewer babies.  (Green)
3. Do you commute by public transportation?  In 2012, your tax benefit will be halved.  (The Daily Green)
4. You’ll find the two greenest restaurants in the United States in Chicago.  (GreenBiz)
5. Do away with disposables and break out the Tupperware.  You can do it!  (Grist)

Bob Bendick is the director of U.S. Government Relations of The Nature Conservancy.

Lost in the bad news about the failure of the Super Committee to reach agreement on a plan to reduce the nation’s budget deficit was the effort by the leadership of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees to provide a strong bi-partisan proposal on the future of U.S. Farm programs. The Chairs and Ranking Members of the Agriculture Committees agreed on legislative ideas that would cut the Farm Bill budget while continuing the effectiveness of the Farm Bill programs most important to The Nature Conservancy. In doing this the leaders of the Agriculture Committees demonstrated that, even in today’s contentious legislative environment, courage, determination and hard work can produce results that serve the broad interests of the American people. Sadly, however, the Farm Bill agreement could not move forward when the overall Budget Control Act process fell apart.

The Budget Control Act which created the Super Committee process said that House and Senate Authorizing Committees (the committees that draft the legislation that determines the direction of Federal programs) could make substantive recommendations to the Super Committee on how to reduce Federal spending over the next ten years and could put forward ideas about what program changes could best advance agency missions despite those reductions. Most of the authorizing committees did not seem to take this opportunity seriously and, in fact, submitted different recommendations from their Republican and Democratic members. Not the Agriculture Committees, where the committee leadership and their staffs worked night and day for months to hammer out a whole new Farm Bill to recommend to the Super Committee.

This proposed Farm Bill reduced spending by more than $23 billion over 10 years, thus more than meeting the target of the Budget Control Act. And the leaders also looked hard at how programs functioned and how they might be made more cost -effective. The Nature Conservancy is most interested in the Conservation Title of the Farm Bill. While a final version of the Conservation Title recommendations was not released publicly, what we saw and heard about the proposal strongly suggested that, while saving more than $6 billion over ten years, through program consolidation, moving funding around, and ensuring the ability of the Department of Agriculture to focus spending on high priority areas, the Conservation Title programs would continue to produce large scale on the ground conservation even with fewer resources. What’s more, with some certainty of funding in these uncertain times, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, which administers most of the Conservation Title, would be able to plan in advance to make limited money go further.

The question now is how to move this bi-partisan agreement forward in the absence of overall debt reduction legislation. One option is to hitch it to the tax extenders bill that presumably will sort out the payroll tax and unemployment benefits before the end of this year. A second would be to use the Agriculture Committee negotiations as the basis for a new Farm Bill to be voted on early in 2012. This would allow some issues to get further discussion, but would not unravel the progress that has been made. Least desirable would be starting over with a year-long Farm Bill process that might well not produce the positive results already put within the country’s reach by the hard work of the Agriculture Committees.

If I had any real say in the matter, I’d opt for getting the Farm Bill done quickly. How can you beat saving money but being creative enough to serve both the agriculture community and the long term interests of the American people. Swift, bi-partisan action would be an example for the rest of the Congress to follow and a sign of hope that our government can get back on track.

1. Bet you didn’t know our president/CEO Mark Tercek is an amateur singer-songwriter (we sure didn’t!).  (The Atlantic)
2. What’s the deal with “green jobs“?  This infographic breaks it down.  (CleanTechnica)
3. Grizzly bears are the new polar bears.  (Christian Science Monitor)
4. Microplastic threads in your fleece jacket are causing big problems for oceans.  (Grist)
5. A two-degree global warming limit is still a “prescription for disaster.”  (Scientific American)

1. After 20 years, consumers are finally getting greener.  (Maybe Green Gift Monday had something to do with that…?)  (GreenBiz)
2. COP17 just began, but is it doomed already?  (Scientific American)
3. Headline win of the day: “E. Coli: What doesn’t kill us, makes us biofuel.”  (CleanTechnica)
4. Climate change and crazy weather are driving up food prices.  (Green House)
5. Journalist Andy Revkin responds to critics questioning his role in the latest “Climategate” emails.  (DotEarth)

Glenn Prickett is chief external affairs officer with The Nature Conservancy.

Delegates from 195 countries are meeting in Durban, South Africa to negotiate a global agreement on climate change. On everyone’s mind is whether the Kyoto Protocol, the first international accord to limit greenhouse gases, will be extended or allowed to lapse, leaving the world without a regime to slow global warming.

It’s an important question… but the wrong one.

Kyoto is valuable and should be extended. It spurred industrial nations (notably not the United States) to cut emissions. It fostered cooperation between developed and developing countries on clean development. It created a fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Without it, we would be worse off.

But the United States and China, the largest emitters, didn’t agree to be bound by Kyoto and won’t now. In the U.S., Congress hasn’t mustered the political will to adopt emissions limits. China, while it has taken steps to slow its emissions, argues that as a developing country it shouldn’t be bound by mandatory limits.

Kyoto enshrined the principle that developed countries must reduce emissions while developing countries may not. This made sense in the 1990s, but not today, when fast-growing developing countries contribute over half of global emissions and slow-growing industrial nations question why they should bear the greater burden. Negotiators haven’t agreed on a new formula. No one expects great progress in Durban.

We don’t have the luxury of waiting for this diplomatic standoff to work itself out.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just released a report on climate change and extreme weather. While there is uncertainty in the data, temperature extremes, intense precipitation, droughts, and floods appear to be on the rise and linked to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Economic losses and human fatalities from weather-related disasters are rising too.

Time is running out to prevent more dangerous warming. The International Energy Agency, in its latest World Energy Outlook, concluded that after 2017, the world will lock in too much fossil energy infrastructure to limit warming to 2 degrees C—the target of Durban’s negotiators.

Climate change is too important to leave to negotiations. What should we do?

Individual countries must act now. They should make their economies more energy efficient, less dependent on fossil fuels, less destructive of nature, and more resilient to climate extremes.

These are smart things to do. They make a society more prosperous, healthier, and more secure. That’s where hope lies—doing things to make our individual societies better, which will get us moving toward a global solution.

The Obama Administration just proposed new fuel economy standards for light vehicles to reach an average of 54.5 miles per gallon in 2025. Soon, the Administration will propose new limits on mercury and other toxic pollution from power plants. These measures will save hundreds of millions of tons of CO2. But they are politically viable because they boost Americans’ health, prosperity, and security.

The Government of China released a report this month on steps it is taking on climate change. It described a wide range of commitments in energy efficiency, industrial pollution control, clean energy, green cities, forest conservation, sustainable agriculture, and emissions trading. It’s clear that these policies are motivated primarily by the economic, health, and security benefits they provide to the Chinese people.

In March, Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono declared a moratorium on logging in primary forests and peatlands. This is the centerpiece of Indonesia’s commitment to reduce emissions 26 percent on their own or 41 percent with international help. Implicit is a recognition that Indonesia’s rainforests are of tremendous economic and ecological value to Indonesia itself.

Measures like these bring climate change out of the atmosphere and back down to Earth. Climate advocates should remember that political leaders focus on the question that matters most to constituents: “What have you done for me lately?”

Image: Sunset in Monument Valley, Arizona. Image credit: © J. R. Schnelzer

The sun shines daily on our blue (71% and rising) planet, and about 5,000 known species of tiny plants (phytoplankton) use that solar energy to transform carbon dioxide and water into sugar, fat and protein. Millions of tons every day. That’s a pretty neat trick of nature, to say the least. Slightly larger zooplankton (animals) graze on the plants, grow and pass their mass up to predators like striped bass, whales and osprey.

Along North America’s Atlantic coast, menhaden (aka bunker, pogy) are arguably the most important plankton predator. People don’t eat menhaden, as the fish are small, bony and oily and have a brief shelf life. Yet each one is a rich packet of embodied solar energy and a nutritious serving for a striped bass, bluefish, osprey, whale or one of many other larger animals.

Fish-science wonks call menhaden a “low trophic level species,” meaning they are at the base of the food chain. Our marine ecosystem needs plenty of menhaden to function properly — to transfer solar energy from plankton to higher-level species.

Probably for thousands of years, people have harvested menhaden for fertilizer and bait. But only during the last 150 years or so have menhaden been the target of industrial-scale fisheries. We take menhaden out of marine food webs to feed cats, dogs, pen-raised salmon and pigs and to enhance various products ranging from lipstick to paint.

Incredibly, until a few days ago, the east coast’s largest fishery — about 403 million pounds of menhaden were harvested last year — was managed with no annual catch limits. That’s highly unusual in the 21st century, and wrong.

For over a decade, scientists have talked about the need to manage fisheries in consideration of whole ecosystems — in other words, tuning harvest levels to ensure that solar energy gets captured by plankton and enough of it flows upward so that fish, whales and birds don’t go hungry. Unfortunately, while scientists were talking, Atlantic menhaden were fished down to historic lows, and mounting evidence suggests negative impacts to predators.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is in charge of the menhaden fishery, reported really bad news in its 2010 stock assessment: the reproductive capacity of Atlantic menhaden is now at just 8% of a (theoretically) unfished population. Sometimes it takes bad news to make good news happen, and since the report was released, the Conservancy and many partners have pushed to the surface both the science and a compelling case for change.

Last week in Boston, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of anglers, conservationists and a sprinkling of lawyers, the commission voted decisively to establish much more conservative harvest limits for menhaden — charting a rebuilding course that could triple the menhaden in our sea.

We commend the commission for its action, which will benefit menhaden, our coastal and marine ecosystem, and the diverse businesses and people who directly and indirectly depend on a healthy menhaden population.

It’s incredibly satisfying to report good news about the ocean — and this is very good news for fish and people — but the story is still being written. Between now and May 2012, the commission will evaluate options, collect public comments, and make rules regarding harvest monitoring and measures to reduce catch. These decisions will either delay progress or help set a global good example for ecosystem-based fishery management.

The Conservancy is ramping up efforts at high-priority places all around our blue planet, addressing ecosystem overfishing in ways that respect and help secure the future for communities that depend on ocean resources.

Let us know in comments below if you have questions or you want to start a conversation about how you can help.

(Image: Vacuum transfer of menhaden from purse seine to fishing vessel. Image source: John Surrick-Chesapeake Bay Foundation/Marine Photobank)