Dear friends,

At NWF we feel that global warming is the greatest enviironmental threat ever to people and wildlife.  We are full of hope that the leaders of the world can come together to lower greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.  This means having strong and effective global climate treaty.

As the world prepares for the global climate treaty summit in Copenhagen, the United Nations is reaching out to people worldwide to sign an online petition supporting a fair and strong global agreement.  If you think you would like to learn more about this you can visit the Seal the Deal website and sign on. 

The conference begins December 7, 2009.  National Wildlife Federation will be there pushing for protecting the planet and saving its wildlife.   Access the online petition here.

Who would have thought you would ever "friend" a gorrilla?

AFP reports:

"Users of the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter will be able to "befriend" rare Ugandan mountain gorillas and track their movements, a Wildlife Authority spokeswoman said Monday.

In a scheme designed to promote Uganda?s nascent tourism industry, users will receive regular updates about their endangered primate friends, Lillian Nsubuga told AFP.

'Through geo-tracking and GPS, you?ll be able to get information about new births within the family and other information,' she said, referring to a programme that will launch online next month.

Wildlife officials also plan to install cameras around Uganda?s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to roughly half of the world?s estimated 740 mountain gorillas, one of most endangered species on the planet."  See full article.

While we must continue to take steps to protect and restore wildlife species, especially in the face of global climate change, there are some glimmers of hope worth eyeing. (photo, Virginia Tech)

Green and Save.com has published a list by Andrew Wetzler at NRDC.

It includes:

Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay,

Yellow-crested Spangle butterflies in India,

Lapwings in the UK,

Indian estuarine crocodiles,

Greater Bamboo Lemurs,  

Humpback Chubs in the Colorado River basin,

Southern right whales in Tasmania,

Atlantic salmon in New York, and others.

The challenges before us are huge, but taking a few minutes to think about what can be accomplished is very helpful in maintaining the good fight.

See full article.

Apple's newest system upgrade brings attention to one of the most majestic large cats out there, the snow leopard. It would be a shame to know more about Apple's product than the Snow Leopard itself, so I wanted to share a few cool things about snow leopards that everyone who wants to can wow their friends with!



1. The estimated snow leopard population is between 3,500 and 7,000. Because of the shy nature of these animals, no one is entirely clear on how many there are. Apple is expected to sell over 100 times that many copies of their version.

2. Snow leopards live throughout the mountain ranges of central Asia. 



3. Poaching, harming livestock and loss of habitat are the leading dangers to Snow Leopards. Luckily thanks to organizations like Snow Leopard Trust a lot of work is being done to compensate people who lose livestock because they are in a snow leopard's range.

There is so much that we still don't know about the snow leopard because of the lack of research that has been done. They are shy animals that live in treacherous areas and so researching them takes so much patience and funding.

There is great opportunity for Apple to make an incredible contribution for snow leopards if they so desire. If you'd like to suggest to them that they donate a portion to snow leopards, sign the action alert!

Read the snow leopard blog for more!

In today's Washington Post, the top story spends its first 15 paragraphs detailing Big Oil's massive campaign against clean energy while incredibly avoiding any mention of one little detail: money.

In fact, to believe the first 15 paragraphs, the reason polluters have such a strong voice in the national debate is because conservation groups are "struggling" and "slow." Not a single mention of polluters' massive money advantage in the first 540 words.

Then, almost as an afterthought, the Post drops this in as paragraph 16:

Oil and natural gas groups have always had deeper pockets. In the first six months of 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics found they spent $82.1 million lobbying Washington on various issues, including climate policy. In the same time, environmental and health groups concerned with climate change spent about $6.6 million on lobbying and clean-energy firms $12.1 million, according to two other analyst groups, the Center for Public Integrity and New Energy Finance.

But those figures don't even come close to telling the real story of the financial disparity between polluters and conservationists. Exxon Mobil alone - just one of many oil and coal giants - turned a $40 billion profit in 2007. That was the largest profit in the history of the planet (#2 on the list: also Exxon Mobil, 2006).

Of course, that's just profit. Exxon Mobil's annual revenue in 2007 was $404.5 billion. Exxon Mobil alone has an annual budget hundreds of times that of every conservation group put together.

And as we've covered, polluters are using that money not to push facts, but to push distortions, lies, and outright fraud. But again, the Washington Post gives a free pass -- mentioning pro-polluter contacts to Congress without mentioning many of those have been proven to be phony and funded by industry front groups.

People often ask me if I'm disappointed by polls showing six in ten Americans support clean energy & climate legislation. With energy price spikes and a climate in crisis, shouldn't the numbers be higher?

But with Big Oil's big money and free passes like this from the media, my response is that I'm constantly amazed that Americans see right through the lies and misinformation to support what's right for our economy now and for our children's future. I just hope the Senate follows their constituents' lead this fall to pass a strong clean energy & climate bill.

Image courtesy Office of Australian Senator Rachel Siewert: Chris Twomey

Could America's call for a new direction in energy policy be any more clear?

After a year and a half of being hit from all sides with Big Oil's multimillion-dollar campaign of deception to keep us hooked on dirty energy, a new poll shows support for new, clean energy policies is as strong as ever:

Most Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling energy issues and support efforts by him and Democrats in Congress to overhaul energy policy -- including the controversial cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Even as public support has slipped for Obama's health-care proposals, support for ambitious changes in energy policy has been steady. Although the issue of health care arouses more intense feelings than energy policy does, those who do feel strongly about energy and climate policy tend to tilt toward the administration's position and a broad majority of people echo Democratic lawmakers' views on the benefits of proposed changes.

It's past time for the Senate to follow in the House's footsteps and pass strong clean energy & climate legislation. Tell your Senators to take action now!

Photo via Flickr's mortsan

NWF's new "The Faces of Climate Change" photo contest is a great opportunity for you to show how you see climate change in your everyday life!

Here's a chance for you to bring your unique perspective from your niche of the world.

When I think of how climate change affects my local environment, I don't just consider the problems - but the critical solutions too. For example, I see the landfill in my Midwestern hometown that rose above all other points on the horizon, but I also think of the mammoth but graceful wind turbines I see when driving through rural Illinois.

So now's your turn. Bring your camera along for your next ride or walk around your community and capture the local impacts of climate change.

Besides telling your story, what's in it for you?

Well for one, the top two photos will win an opportunity to meet with your elected leaders in Washington DC.

PLUS, every image will make a mark because all the photos will be made into a photo collage that will be delivered to the U.S. Senate and help communicate the urgency of addressing climate change for our environment and our communities across America.

So, get your shutter snapping and be sure to submit your photo by September 15th.

Your pictures can be worth a thousand words and you also don't want to miss your possibility to meet with your decision makers!

For more details visit: fairclimateproject.org/photocontest

By Kolleen Kawa, National Wildlife Federation

UConn ecologists studying plant and animal movement in Costa Rica are finding that species may move up mountain slopes as the climate warms but areas left behind will have little to replace them:

AFP in the Vancouver Sun reports:

"In a rare study on the impact of global warming in the tropics, University of Connecticut ecologist Robert Colwell and colleagues worked their way up the forested slope of a Costa Rican volcano to collect data on 2,000 types of plants and insects.

'Half of these species have such narrow altitudinal ranges that a 600-meter (2,000 feet) uphill shift would move these species into territory completely new to them,' said a summary of their article released Thursday."  See full article.

This video from MSNBC features the National Wildlife Federation's Doug Inkley:

The National Wildlife Federation issued a new report today, More Extreme Heat Waves: Global Warming's Wake Up Call. From USA Today's coverage of the report:

The nation is headed for strong heat waves in coming decades that will hit cities and farmers and threaten wildlife with extinction, a new global warming report warns. [...]

"Heat waves worsen not only direct effects like heat stroke but also heart disease, asthma and other respiratory problems," says Peter Wilk of Physicians for Social Responsibility in Washington, D.C., a report sponsor. The 1995 Chicago heat wave killed more than 500 people, and the 2003 European heat wave killed more than 35,000, he adds.

"People in cities, the poor and often people of color, are the most vulnerable," says Benjamin Jealous, head of the NAACP, another report sponsor. "They are most likely to live in high-rise apartments, lack air conditioning and other resources. Climate change is a civil rights issue."

Here's a video explaining the report:

You can read the full report at NWF.org/ExtremeWeather.