There is an outfit called the Centre for Inquiry (CFI) who I blush to admit I had never heard of. They profess to follow the following guidelines:
(i) the application of science and/or reason to questions regarding religion and the supernatural (e.g. questions about the divine, parapsychological questions, etc.)
(ii) the application of science and/or reason to pressing contemporary ethical dilemmas and social/political problems (e.g. stem-cell research, global warming)
(iii) the question of what is, and is not, good science (e.g. is intelligent design, or cold fusion, or magnet therapy, good science?)
They are doing a one day thingy in a couple of weeks at the Conway Hall in London. The subject is sea monsters and the two speakers are our very own Drs Darren Naish and Charles Paxton, and I am sure that a splendid time will be guaranteed for all....
Good news: In response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the federal government today proposed to protect more than 200,000 square miles of coastal lands and waters along the north coast of Alaska as critical habitat for the polar bear.
The Center for Biological Diversity launched a massive new interactive Web site today providing accounts of 350 plants and animals threatened by global warming. If we don't strengthen the U.S. climate change bill to require deeper, faster cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, we won't succeed in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million, dooming these 350 species and many, many more to extinction.
Thanks to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to safeguard more than 128 million acres of habitat for the polar bear -- the largest area ever designated as federally protected "critical habitat." The proposal is a great step toward protecting the great white bear; designating critical habitat will prohibit federal agencies from any activities that would harm the animal on all 128 million acres. Species with federally protected habitat have been found more than twice as likely to be recovering than those without. And the bear needs the best odds it can get -- especially because the habitat proposal comes the same week that the Obama administration approved oil-drilling plans in the bear's habitat in the Beaufort Sea. 
As if its bumbling, possibly criminal actions that culminated in the killing of the last known U.S. jaguar weren't controversial enough, the Arizona Game and Fish Department this week justified its efforts to prevent federal protection of jaguars by saying that "any freedom-loving American" would oppose regulations to protect North America's largest and most endangered cat.
Defending scores of the world's most imperiled coral species from global warming and ocean acidification -- which threaten all corals with worldwide extinction -- this Tuesday the Center for Biological Diversity filed a scientific petition to protect 83 corals under the Endangered Species Act. The corals, which occur in U.S. waters from Florida to the Caribbean to Hawaii, are among the species most threatened by climate change.
Responding to a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit battling corrupt endangered species science, this Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a greatly expanded area of protected habitat for the Buena Vista Lake ornate shrew. The highly endangered, highly intriguing shrew is now found in only four locations in central California. Almost all of its former habitat has been damaged by agribusiness and development. 
Thanks to an unsound Obama administration decision last Thursday, the Arctic's imperiled spotted seal could soon slip into oblivion along with its melting sea-ice habitat. In response to a Center for Biological Diversity petition and lawsuit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decided not to protect the seal under the Endangered Species Act -- even though the beautiful mammal could lose 40 percent of its main icy winter habitat to warming by 2050. In addition to loss of sea ice, spotted seals are threatened by increased oil and gas drilling: The Obama administration is now pondering proceeding on a Bush-era plan to expand offshore oil and gas development in spotted seal habitat.
Last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency revoked a permit for the largest mountaintop-removal mine in Appalachia, taking the first step toward vetoing it. The Spruce Mine would have buried more than seven miles of streams and annihilated 2,300 acres of hardwood forest. This is the EPA's first-ever revocation of an already issued permit. 
This Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity sharply criticized the U.S. Forest Service's latest take on devastating plans to log old-growth trees in the Kaibab National Forest. Unfortunately for the forest -- which houses the country's largest breeding population of the imperiled northern goshawk -- the Forest Service has issued a new environmental assessment for the controversial Jacob Ryan timber sale, which would log 26,000 acres but was halted in May thanks to work by the Center and Sierra Club. The new assessment drops protections for old-growth trees, essentially stating that the Kaibab Plateau has too much old growth -- so axing those irksome old, large trees will be good for wildlife.
Small-town grocery shoppers were treated to quite a scene last Thursday when a black bear ambled into a Wisconsin grocery store and headed straight for the liquor department. The 125-pound, five-foot-tall bear climbed up 12 feet onto a shelf in the beer cooler, where it sat for about an hour as human customers evacuated and wildlife officials convened. Eventually, the bear was tranquilized and removed -- and it hadn't had a sip of booze. Store workers say it seemed content to just chill with the beer. And it caused no damage, leaving nothing but a wet bear-nose print on the beer cooler's glass door.
This fall, through its Profits for the Planet Program, eco-savvy organic yogurt company Stonyfield Farm will donate a portion of $100,000 to the Center for Biological Diversity, based on the number of votes we get from people across the country. In October, Stonyfield yogurt lids will display a message about the Center and two other nonprofits; every time you lick the lid of a Stonyfield yogurt cup, you can read about the Center and our co-competitors, then vote with a simple click or use the codes from your yogurt lids to cast multiple votes for one of us -- and ahem, we hope that's the Center. Voting ends December 15, 2009.
