BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A PROCLAMATION on EARTH DAY

As the world's technological leader and home to some of its most breathtaking natural wonders, America has a special responsibility to safeguard our environment. On Earth Day, we celebrate our rich legacy of stewardship and reflect on what we can do, as individuals and as a Nation, to preserve our planet for future generations.

The first Earth Day marked a renewal of America's global leadership in conservation. It began as a national discussion on pollution and came to embody a simple truth: that nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for change. In only a few years, those voices rang as clear in our laws as on our streets -- from the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency to landmark legislation for clean air and water. These successes continue to bring health and prosperity to communities nationwide, demonstrating that our economy can grow alongside a healthy environment.

As environmental challenges evolve with a changing world, my Administration is committed to meeting them.

During my first term, we launched the America's Great Outdoors initiative, made historic progress restoring precious ecosystems, and finalized standards to curb toxic emissions from power plants. Implementing these standards will help prevent thousands of premature deaths each year by substantially reducing mercury and other pollutants.

We have made real progress, but we cannot stop there. We cannot afford to ignore what the overwhelming judgment of science tells us: that climate change is real and that it poses an urgent threat to our people and our planet.

That is why my Administration set historic fuel efficiency standards that will nearly double how far our cars go on a gallon of gas while reducing harmful carbon pollution. It is why we made unprecedented investments in clean energy, allowing us to double renewable energy production in only 4 years. And it is why I am challenging Americans to double it again by 2020.

Because climate change and other environmental problems cannot be fully addressed by government alone, we are also engaging key stakeholders at home and abroad. Last year, we launched a global initiative to cut short-lived climate pollutants that contribute to global warming.

We have proposed historic investments in Land and Water Conservation Fund programs. And we continue to stand behind innovators and entrepreneurs who will unleash the next wave of clean energy technologies and drive long-term economic growth.

-snip-

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In related Earth Day news:

Stunner: Golden Gate Park Trashed During Massive ‘Pot Party’

Well, let’s look at the upside. At least nobody was shot. Yet on the eve of the so-called Earth Day thousands of maggot-infested hippies showed up at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to get stoned and left the place a mess.

San Francisco park workers and volunteers spent much of Sunday picking up and hauling away 10,000 pounds of garbage strewn all over the eastern part of Golden Gate Park known as Hippie Hill, the remnants of Saturday’s annual yet unofficial pot-smoking bacchanalia.

But this year’s annual celebration – which falls each year on April 20 and is known as “420″ – drew a larger-than-average crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers on the warm weekend day. They proceeded to smoke, drink, eat and rack up more than $10,000 in costs for city crews to clean up the mess, ironically just before Earth Day.

Even by early Sunday afternoon, mounds of empty bags of chips, candy wrappers, snack containers, plastic cups, bottles and other debris still remained to be picked up, the fallout of what appeared to an enormous, collective case of the munchies.

Dan Kling, a nearby resident who was playing in the park with his 2 1/2-year-old daughter Sunday, was disgusted. Kling, 39, said he didn’t have an issue with the event, just with what was left behind.

“If you can’t be responsible for yourselves, you can’t have a party,” he said.

Hey, man, like that’s so uncool, man!

“It’s almost completely unmanageable. There are no officials you can contact to deal with things so that’s a frustration for us,” said Lt. Simon Silverman of the San Francisco Police Department‘s Park Station, located near Hippie Hill. “The people paying for all of this are going to be the taxpayers, so it’s not without cost.”

Many other unofficial events – like spontaneous gatherings for July Fourth – can draw hundreds if not thousands of people to parks. But July 4 activities do not typically involve as much excessive drug and alcohol use as the April 20 festivities, Silverman said.

Still, Silverman described Saturday’s activities as relatively smooth and free from violence, other than a robbery and the numerous ambulances called for medical problems related to the drugs and alcohol. He said issuing tickets for littering or other infractions would have overwhelmed the department’s resources.

Well, at least it was mostly peaceful. Ironically, while these freaks leave a mess wherever they go, whenever there’s a Tea Party rally they leave the place cleaner than before they arrived, as you can see from a DC event a couple of years ago.

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/stunner-gol...sive-pot-party/

Thank you for posting.