--**ACTION** - Learn How to Better Protect the Environment -

Ask EPA - If you could sit down to chat with the nation’s top environmental officials, what would you ask? Here is your chance.

This Thursday at 3:00 p.m., Administrator Stephen L. Johnson will host the launch of EPA’s new online interactive forum Ask EPA. Join the administrator online as he discusses the agency’s efforts to promote clean and dependable energy solutions, including the ENERGY STAR Change a Light Campaign. In this forum, the public will have the opportunity to ask the agency’s senior environmental officials questions on a wide range of environmental and human health issues. To submit a question now or during the live discussion on Thursday, visit the Ask EPA site ( http://www.epa.gov/askepa ).

You can also sign up to receive email alerts on upcoming hosts and topics. You can view or update your subscriptions or e-mail address at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page. All you will need is your e-mail address. If you have any questions or problems e-mail support@govdelivery.com for assistance. This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s just the future:

Here’s a short little article in the New York Times that takes a glimpse of the Environment Century ahead. Many tend to see environmental issues low on the political agenda this coming elections year with Iraq and health care up near the top. Many also think that it’s great that Al Gore, with the UN Panel on Climate Control, won the Noble Peace Prize and that maybe now Al can jump into the presidential race and shake things up.

But the real deal, the most important story of this century is that this century is not going to be pretty. We keep going on with our preoccupation on our lives as if the future will be like the past and holding on to what we think are the most important issues to vote upon and don’t really think about what future changes to our environment really mean.

They mean, that all those other things you had planned for yourself and your children are probable going to be compromised by major environmental changes. The issues the candidates are arguing about, who’s going to be tougher on terrorism or who’s going to fix mess George W. Bush created in the last six years, are going be set against a backdrop of the increasing intolerable environmental consequences that we have been shoving back on the things we think important.

Really read this short article “U.N. Warns of Rapid Decay of Environment” by the New York Time without your political hat on, without your assumptions about what you hope for the future, without dismissing what the majority of scientists around the world are trying to tell us. And, then plan for the future.

Also read: Earth hurtling towards dangerous environmental "tipping point", report warns OTTAWA -- The planet is in danger of crossing a "tipping point" of irreversible damage to its atmosphere, climate, water and ecosystems unless governments can develop comprehensive strategies to promote growth and sustainability, warns a new report released on Thursday by an environmental advocacy branch of the United Nations." Windsor Star

Getting serious:

This issue -- viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS -- is one that I have been following for some time and it’s on some people’s radar and not on others. I asked some friends who fish in the Great Lakes regularly and they have not heard much at all about this fish disease since I told them about last spring, which might have begun in our area.

But, for many VHS is on their radar and they are getting serious about trying to contain this newly found invasive species caused fish disease. JS Online: Board OKs interim rules against fish-killing virus "The Natural Resources Board wants to step up the fight to stop the spread of a fish-killing virus to Wisconsin's inland lakes." Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana

Learn more about this issue here: *A new threat to our lakes is underway by Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS). Check out all news links on this issue in the past: VHS News Links Get the official info & guidelines: Fish Health Regulations in Response to VHS - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation Effective June 6, 2007. On June 6, 2007, fish health regulations were finalized to prevent the spread of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) and other fish diseases into the inland waters of New York. A summary of the revised emergency regulations that the Department has adopted is as follows: NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Manmade planet

One of the great assumptions being made by those in power is that when we bump up against environmental problems, our best and brightest will up and fix them. Well, it’s not that easy. Seems like we really haven’t done our homework.

Planet Earth is very complex, a myriad of natural systems we barely understand, though we’ve been disrupting them and destroying. But, mostly we just have not understood the de