The current draft is discordant with Prince George’s County's Climate Action Plan. It preserves only 4 out of 102 acres as reserved open space. At a time when it is critically important to preserve and expand our urban forests to help adapt to ongoing climate change, the Sector Plan greenlights zoning changes that could result in the future destruction of Guilford Woods (>1,000 trees) The current plan does not adequately acknowledge the Guilford Run watershed as part of the countywide Green Infrastructure Network. The current plan ignores the recent University of Maryland “pause” of the Western Gateway Project (which would have destroyed Guilford Woods). This project was paused due to an outpouring of community opposition that highlighted the environmental and human health benefits of this urban forest as well as related stream and wildlife habitat. The draft Adelphi Road Sector Plan drastically increases the zoning density of the entire area without regard to the preservation of Guilford Woods. A far more reasonable plan would be to up-zone only the parcels of land along Adelphi Road and Campus Drive up to the Domain apartment complex (at the corner of Campus Drive and Mowatt Lane). This would protect Guilford Woods and Guilford Run stream while still allowing for a significant amount of additional higher-density housing proximate to the Purple Line Station. The poor planning behind the current draft is reflected in the fact that it omits areas north of Campus Drive (including the University of Maryland Global Campus and UMD Lot 1), even though development of both sides of a street is fundamental to good planning. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, we need genuinely sustainably development and smart growth in our county that prioritizes the preservation of our existing forested areas. Let's pause the planning process to make sure that community voices are heard.

Help us protect birds in Boca Chica: Please demand a full-scale, in-depth analysis of SpaceX’s environmental impacts. The SpaceX facility in Boca Chica is surrounded by federal and state public lands used by hundreds of thousands of birds, including the federally Threatened Piping Plover and Red Knot, as well as the Endangered Northern Aplomado Falcon. These lands also support several species of sea turtles and mammals listed under the Endangered Species Act. Despite the area's ecological importance, SpaceX has conducted and expanded operations with little oversight by federal authorities. Construction at the facility, launch activities, fires, and rocket debris are already impacting the wildlife of the Boca Chica region. Rather than minimizing operations to protect this fragile area, SpaceX has increased its scope well beyond what was specified in the Federal Aviation Administration’s 2014 Environmental Impact Assessment. This includes testing a new rocket — a massive 400-foot-tall ship — that is much larger than originally authorized. It also includes development of a natural gas facility to extract and deliver fuel to the site. Over 14,000 acres of federal and state public lands have already been affected by the SpaceX facility — and much more is at risk if we don’t raise our voices now.

The Subway restaurant is a favorite of millions of people in many countries, and that is great. Unfortunately, however, Subway is also a major contributor to the plastics pollution that is inflicting harm to countless wildlife around the globe. More specifically, the single-use plastic bags that Subway places its sandwiches in and hands them to all its customers are a major contributing factor to the ever-increasing plastics pollution that is harming wildlife. Here are the mind-boggling statistics: Subway sells over 7,000,000 sandwiches every day of operation, which adds up to over 2.5 billion single-use plastic bags dispensed by Subway into the environment every single year (https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/280957). True, plastic bags are technically recyclable, but hardly any of them get recycled, and thus nearly all of them end up in landfills or float around in the environment, with devastating consequences for wildlife. For example, it is estimated that over a million seabirds alone are killed by plastic pollution each year (UNESCO.org). Of course, Subway is not the only company who dispenses plastic bags into the environment. Unfortunately, there are many companies that do the same. However, we are hoping that Subway will take the lead on this worthwhile goal of ending the practice of dumping hundreds of billions of pieces of plastics into our fragile environment every single year. There are two alternative steps that Subway could take to ameliorate this problem: A) The best alternative would be for Subway to do away with the use of plastic bags all together and instead use paper bags to place its sandwiches in before handing them to the customers. Paper bags may not be as versatile as plastic bags for such uses, but in terms of versatility of use, paper bags represent an acceptable alternative, an alternative for which the benefits to life far outweigh its disadvantage of lesser versatility. Also, although paper bags have a higher initial cost to the environment in the production process than paper bags, there is no arguing that plastics disposed in the environment have a much more harmful effect on wildlife than disposed paper bags. B) Offer Subway customers choices: a) No bag at all (especially for customers who will eat inside Subway restaurants); b) a paper bag; or c) a plastic bag (the currently used one). Currently, Subway restaurants automatically place sandwiches in plastic bags without even asking customers if they want one or not. We hope that if customers are asked and given options other than plastic bags, they will opt for the better alternatives. Let us ask Mr. Chidsey, the CEO of Subway restaurants, to take the minimal steps outlined above and reduce the harm that Subway plastic bags inflict on wildlife. Please take a moment to sign this petition. Thank you!

Without informing the public, the County is now preparing for extensive aerial spraying to control cheatgrass on Boulder County Open Space natural lands. We, the residents of Boulder County, don’t want our ecosystems and our communities to be exposed to toxic chemicals. The health of the local ecosystem will not be restored with chemicals. Boulder County Open Space natural lands need forward looking ecological restoration to improve the health of the local ecosystem, increase carbon sequestration, and help mitigate the climate crisis. Such restoration will not come from Boulder County Open Space weed managers who focus on the use of chemicals. Boulder County Commissioners need to seek competent restoration advice from ecologically minded practitioners. The use of chemicals to manage cheatgrass is not consistent with Colorado State recommendations. The State correctly categorizes cheatgrass as a List C species for which the goal “will not be to stop the continued spread of these species but to provide additional education, research, and biological control resources to jurisdictions that choose to require management of List C species”. Aerial spraying is no longer a standard activity for grassland management and requires substantial documentation and explanation for such an extreme action, particularly given the state classification of cheatgrass. While cheatgrass is a local nuisance, there is no evidence that it posses a threat to native species in the Colorado Front Range. *Additional resources* Spray to Play — Article from Boulder Weekly: https://www.boulderweekly.com/news/spray-to-play/ Information about Indaziflam from Beyond Pesticides: https://www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/Indaziflam%20Fact%20Sheet%202020.pdf Colorado State Weed Management Recommendations: https://ag.colorado.gov/conservation/noxious-weeds/species-id

The more parents and school boards are vigorously demanding self-charged school buses the sooner school bus manufacturers would invest in developing and deploying practical proven self-charged electric school buses.

Studies demonstrated that the most vulnerable time for any victim and children, is after they escape from there abuser. Abusers are using the courtrooms to enforce 50/50 custody or sole custody of minor children to continually have direct access to victims and their minor children and adult victims. This direct victimizing allows abusers access to minor children whom have zero voices inside a court of law, and are being forced to engage directly with their abuser over and over, despite watching this same abuse, or receiving this abuse, or experiencing sexual abuse, when the family was a unit. Victims are helpless inside a court of law from not only protecting innocent children but as well themselves. Meanwhile the abuser uses the court system to maintain control of victims and the minor children. With only 24 judges being mandated in learning, on the physical side of abuse, this has subjected and forced victims to have zero support inside court rooms throughout the United States. This is a direct violation to victims and innocent children because these judges hearing these cases are forcing victims and innocent children back into the same abuse they escaped. How many more innocent children and adult victims must die before these judges are mandated in all forms of domestic violence, including sexual assault and rape? Make your voice be heard by signing this petition today. Thank you!

Right now, more than 2 million Californians are living and breathing the toxic health impacts of oil and gas drilling sites in their neighborhoods. An end to chronic asthma and cancer in our neighborhoods is in sight. Just last month, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a draft regulation to stop new drilling within 3,200 feet of homes, hospitals, schools, and other sensitive receptors. Now, a 60 day comment period allows the public to raise our voices to: 1) SUPPORT the 3,200-foot setback for new wells 2) DEMAND that the setback rule applies to existing wells, not just new wells 3) URGE the Governor's administration and CalGEM to take emergency action to ban all new permits within the setback until the final rule is in effect.

Yesterday, 11/8, on the PBS Evening Newshour, we saw in Kabul's main children's hospital, 2½-year-old Guldana sitting up in her bed, too exhausted to even open her eyes. Her tiny body wrapped in a blanket, only her emaciated face showing. She is, probably was by the time you read this, just one of many infants in Afghanistan's hospitals, laying, two to four to a bed, starving to death, while helpless mothers watch them die. T he United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has warned that 22.8 million Afghans - that is more than half the country's population - now face hunger – including starvation. On Yesterday's NewsHour the WFP's Executive Director, David Beasley, reported that such suffering is occurring not just because Afghanistan has suffered severe drought for the last four years, but because “more than $9 million of the country's foreign assets have been frozen by the U.S. Government to prevent the Taliban from accessing them.... This is morally wrong, he said. “Don't politicize food....All I am ...saying, is please you must understand that people are dying. More people are going to die. If you don't unfreeze those funds — unfreeze them in such a way they go directly to the people through organizations like us. The Taliban have told us: We will stay out of your way. We will support anything you need to reach the people you need to reach.” PBS NewsHour, 11/8/21 Please sign the petition . And of course, you may go to the WFP and Doctors Without Borders' websites to support their incredible work to alleviate human suffering. …

Background: Trains transporting LNG have been approved to travel through Philadelphia neighborhoods in the coming months. The Trump Administration granted a Special Permit for this hazardous, flammable, and potentially explosive cargo to travel approximately 200 miles from Wyalusing, PA through communities to Gibbstown NJ. Up until now, transporting LNG by rail car was banned to protect public safety. The rail tank cars are substandard and have never been used to transport LNG. A release of LNG from a derailment or other incident in Philadelphia would impact all of the city with the most intense and inescapable harm in black and brown and low income communities bordering the tracks. This injustice cannot be tolerated. New Fortress Energy and Delaware River Partners want to expand a deepwater port terminal on the Delaware River to export the LNG overseas for sale. Shale gas would be extracted from fracking wells in PA and piped to a liquefaction plant being built in Bradford County, then carried by rail and tank trucks (up to two 100-car trains daily) through populated areas to Gibbstown, just 3 miles downriver from Philadelphia. From there, huge shipping vessels would transport it down the river, passing Delaware and NJ and through the Bay to ports proposed by New Fortress in Ireland, Puerto Rico, and beyond. There has been no environmental impact study of the LNG export project or the rail route. If there were to be a release of LNG, catastrophic impacts could include a fire that cannot be extinguished, a frigid vapor cloud that can kill instantly, and bomb-like explosions that destroy everything in its path. If such a disaster were to happen it is unlikely that New Fortress Energy would be held fully accountable for damages to life and property, risking them walking away with just a slap on the wrist. LNG is liquefied methane, which is a greenhouse gas 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in heating the atmosphere on a 20-year time scale and 104 times more powerful over a 10-year period, the periods of time when scientists say we must reduce GHG emissions to address the climate crisis. Over the past decade, oil and gas infrastructure has been the primary source of methane releases. To produce LNG, more gas wells would be fracked, polluting Pennsylvania communities, and methane will be leaked or vented at every stage, exacerbating climate change. PHMSA issued a federal rule on July 24, 2020, after the Special Permit for the Wyalusing to Gibbstown rail transport. The federal rule authorized the bulk transportation of LNG by rail tank car for carriers nationwide. In June 2021, the Biden Administration listed two rulemaking actions in its upcoming regulatory agenda – one would suspend the Trump Administration’s federal rulemaking for the transport of LNG by rail and the other would propose a new rule addressing LNG by rail. We urge the Biden Administration to pull back the federal rule and reinstate the ban on LNG transport by rail tank car to protect public safety. The federal rule endangers the nation, just as the Special Permit endangers our communities. We call for your Administration to rescind the Special Permit and the federal rule authorizing LNG to be transported by rail. All our communities must be protected!

While the Biden administration has promised to take bold steps to reduce the United States’ carbon footprint and invest in clean energy, there’s one BIG piece of the puzzle that’s always missing from the conversation — the Pentagon. Here’s the thing: the Pentagon is one of the world’s BIGGEST polluters, churning out more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries combined. It’s only gotten worse since the start of the “War on Terror” — military activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria alone weigh in at over 400 MILLION metric tons of CO2. If we truly want to combat climate change we’ve got to shrink the U.S. war machine. But while infrastructure funding and a Build Back Better agenda that would invest in clean energy sit on the chopping block, a few powerful Senators are ready to ram through an astronomical $778 BILLION budget to fund *more* weapons and war. We need your help to make sure ALL our Senators hear our call: Focus on Build Back Better, not spending more on the Pentagon!

It's estimated that 47% of ALL U.S. homes have visible dampness and mold. People spend 90% of their time indoors, yet a lack of emphasis is put on indoor air quality and how that affects our health every day. The recent peer-reviewed medical journal “A Comprehensive Review of Mold Research Literature From 2011 – 2018” published in Internal Medicine Review concluded that 112 of 114 (98.2%) of epidemiological articles published between 2011 and 2018 supported the proposition that inhaled mold, mold fragments, toxins and various pathogenic inflammagen, or other components of the air in water-damaged buildings (WDB), cause single and multi-system illness in humans. Symptoms include chronic and daily manifestations of fatigue, pain, nonrestorative sleep, cognitive deficits, neuropathic pains, gastrointestinal issues, musculoskeletal compromise, post-exertional malaise, dermatological, ophthalmic, endocrine, and other chronic multisystem symptoms for those suffering. These studies included 273,000 subjects from over 30 countries and 5 continents! The time for adequate funding for research and awareness on this overlooked public health issue is long overdue.

Active or Proposed Barging Sites along the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers: Monongahela River Mile 96.7, Star City near Morgantown, WV River Mile 43.5, Speers, near Belle Vernon, PA; Allegheny River Mile 29.6, Freeport, PA; Ohio River Mile 93.5, Comtech Industries Terminal at Bellaire, OH; River Mile 123.1, Hannibal, OH and offloading at River Mile 160, Enlink Midstream/Belles Run Terminal, Newport, OH and River Mile 173, Deep Rock Disposal Terminal, Marietta, OH. These sites would put the public's drinking water at risk of toxic fracking wastewater contamination. The exact composition of the wastewater is extremely difficult to obtain due to the fractured permitting process that allows the fracking industry to claim their chemical slurry as proprietary making it is near impossible to assess the full extent of the risks of barging the fracking wastewaters. Nevertheless, we do know some of the wastewater’s composition, including highly toxic metals, such as arsenic and barium, and volatile compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide and benzene. These components are known to cause serious health problems, including cancers and death. Moreover, these wastewaters often contain toxic levels of salt and the radioactive human carcinogen radium. In fact, some samples from the Marcellus Shale show levels of radium 3,600 times higher than EPA’s drinking water standard. Because of the known and unknown elements of the fracking wastewater, the primary concern of transporting produced water by barges are spills - both periodic spills that are likely to occur and catastrophic spills that could potentially occur. Spills can occur directly from the barges as well as at the loading and unloading facilities. Spills can occur due to inadequate equipment, human error, and uncontrollable external forces, such as extreme weather conditions. According to a PSE report released in August 2021, rising water levels during high rainfall or snowmelt events obscures riverbanks and disturbs or moves river sediments, altering the riverbed and challenging the river’s navigability. Furthermore, the report found that these events can create water currents that can pull vessels off course and/or throw debris into the vessel’s path, further increasing the risk of a toxic spill into the drinking water for millions of people, many of which are already facing inequitable living conditions, risking their long-term health and life expectancy. The USACE estimates that up to 50% more water could flow through the Ohio River watershed within this century due to climate change. PSE’s report also examined the USCG’s database on inland accidents and found that serious accidents are on the rise. The USCG defines serious accidents as incidents involving death or serious injury, excessive property damage, or a discharge of hazardous materials. In 2010, about 8% of incidents were serious. By 2018, serious incidents accounted for 12% of all accidents. Furthermore, when a spill does occur, it is unclear who is responsible for accident management and spill mitigation—especially since the contents of each barge are not disclosed. Fracking wastewater carried on barges is considered a hazardous material by the USCG even though it is exempted as a hazardous material by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Because this contradicts hazardous designation along with the undisclosed nature of the produced wastewater, holding polluters accountable will be challenging and at the costs of the local residents - from their taxpaying pockets and their long-term health. We do not want ANY oil and gas waste being transported along the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers. Our towns and cities along these rivers get our drinking water from aquifers that are highly susceptible to river contamination, and we want to assure safe drinking water for current and future generations. We urge the United States Coast Guard and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to deny any authorizations. We ask you to deny and revoke any and all authorizations that might allow the transport of any fracking waste on our waters. To do otherwise demonstrates a callous disregard for protecting the public’s health and safety — a duty which you’ve solemnly sworn to uphold. In doing so, we thank you for protecting the health and safety of the residents that depend on these three rivers for their drinking water and recreation. For a full report on the known and expected impacts of barging fracking wastewater, see Rossi and Dominic DiGiulio (2021) https://bit.ly/3z8elyP.