Need environmental website source

[Southern Patriot]

I was debating with a Certified Washed in Purple Koolaid WingNut on a website and made what, to me, is a "given" point: the environment in the U.S. (and worldwide) is being degraded by pollution at an alarming rate.

He came back and said, "Prove it." He threw out some semi-stats that sounded like Rush-disinfo (eg. there are now more forests in the U.S. than when Columbus landed).

I'm not a very knowledgeable environmentalist so I Googled and came upon the EPA site which had report called "The State of the Enviroment, 2003. Sure enough, I almost fell out of my chair. It seemed to support this guy's contention.

Now I know that the Bushies deleted the Global Warming section but did they really distort scientific stats enough to say that overall air quality is <i>improving?</i>

Is there a reputable (non dismissable as "treehuggers")website that I can go to for a general evaluation of the trend lines on environmental pollution?

[Webster Green]

1. Have you tried the Sierra Club?

I consider them to be mainstream. i don't know if folks would call them tree-huggers.

The problem is that once you learn the truth about environmental degradation, you start hugging trees.

Wierd Huh?

http://www.sierraclub.org/

[Southern Patriot]

6. The right has perfected the technique of discrediting

a wide swath of folks that they don't agree with by portraying them as "crazies" or not sharing the same values as "God-fearing" people with common sense. They combine that technique with an appeal to anti-intellectualism and class-related resentment for a pretty effective way to sell anti-environmentalism.

All they need to do is to characterize a whole organization by a few distorted stories and they've discredited an entire movement.

[serryjw]

2. 4 YEARS of Bushit

A very detailed account of the roll backs of legislation of this administration. Where does this guy live? Ever visit Detroit? Every town in this country will soon look like this. I grew up in LA...I know whats its like to not be able to play outside because of the smog alerts...the future of this country

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/2004.asp

[Southern Patriot]

7. Ever heard the story of boiling a frog by raising the

temperature in a pot of water gradually--- one degree every few minutes?

I don't know where this guy lives but my guess is that it's a relatively comfortable part of suburbia somewhere in the Southeast. He may even live in a mostly rural area that's not nearly as affected as Detroit, Love Canal or the the higher elevations of the Smokies. Air pollution from power plants is killing trees up in the Smokies at locations like Mount Mitchell.

[nosmokes]

3. more forests now than pre columbian era...

and you wanna waste your time with this guy?

less than 1% of the ancient coastal redwood forest is left, less than 2% of the ancient montane redwood forest is left, the only temperate rain forest left in the contiguous US is on the olympic penisula in washington state and only 15%-18% of it's old growth is left intact. overall in the continental US approximately 8% of the ancient forest is left.

there are a number of sites, sierra club, greenpeace usa, and similar.

[Southern Patriot]

5. He didn't cite that particular example so I didn't call BS

right away.

Remember, the most effective lie contains a grain of truth. Limbaugh phrased the statement as if tree farms are the same as old growth forests.

The guy that I was "debating" actually used some stats about heavy metals in the air being reduced in the last decade etc. that made me wonder where he was getting his info.

Check out the EPA report and you'll see that it paints a pretty rosy picture.

[hatrack]

9. A tree farm is not a forest

You might also want to bring up the mercury warnings on fish published this week. They covered about one-third of America's lakes and one-fourth of our rivers.

[enough]

4. An excellent site is Bushgreenwatch.org

Their stuff is very well organized and documented. You can easily get to whatever issue you are interested in.

I highly recommend them for data on any environmental issue.

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/

[SHRED]

8. Here ya go

http://www.ucsaction.org/action/

http://www.lcv.org/fedfocus/fedfocusList.cfm?c=11