There’s actually more good news than bad in this month’s Sierra Magazine. So I thought I would pass it along, starting with the bad news.
BAD NEWS
• Polar bears are moving further North in search of longer-lasting ice.
•A Montana man was fined $30,000 for killing three grizzly bears (which is a bit of both, good and bad).
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow the killing of up to 15 grizzly bears in Wyoming in connection with an elk hunt and livestock grazing.
•The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is determining whether the monarch butterfly belongs on the endangered species list.
• Sea lion pups off the California coast are starving in record numbers, apparently because warmer waters are driving their prey to deeper areas farther offshore.
Now for the GOOD NEWS
•Bald Eagles are nesting in New York City.
•President Obama proposes to designate 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness.
•Coal prices have fallen by half since 2011 due to oversupply and reduced demand, especially in China.
• India’s tiger population has increased by a third in the past four years.
• Obama proposed to sharply restrict oil drilling in Arctic waters but takes steps to allow it on the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Georgia. [A political trade-off??]
•President Obama vetoes legislation that would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline.
•Scotland bans fracking.
• Baby tortoises are sighted on the Galapagos’ Pinzon island for the first time in 100 years.
•The Senate voted 98-1 that “climate change is not a hoax.” [But, I dare say there is still a large number who insist the problem is not exacerbated by humans.]
• California broke ground for the nation’s first bullet train.
Wouldn’t it be nice to think that the good news each month from the Sierra Club were to increasingly outweigh the bad news? Now THAT would be good news.
hughcurtler 
Did Congress tell Governors Scott Walker and Rick Scott that they voted? Both would not allow them to use Global Warming or Climate Change in their states. My guess is ALEC told them to take a symbolic vote, as big employers were leaving unless they changed their position. Of course, ALEC says it will sue anyone who says they were once deniers, which they were.
The vote in itself means nothing if it is not followed by meaningful action. That may never happen!
Of course, the tandem vote that said man is influencing climate change was defeated. So, it was a partial victory. But, you are so right – talk is cheap. Actions matter.
For those of us who know the words to John Lennon’s IMAGINE…louder, please.
One exception to the good news is the Calif. Bullet Train. That is an unmitigated disaster for the state, little more than a political boondoggle and a way to “pay back” labor for supporting Brown. Just one example. The “train” is planned to stop at a myriad of towns along the way, some only 10-15 miles apart. No one has explained how that will make a high speed train run. And the financial numbers just do not fly.
I would have thought as a means of public transportation it would cut down on carbon from auto exhaust. No?
Not if it’s going to stop at whistle stop along the way. That was the only way they could get the right of way’s they needed. Its never going to be completed, I believe. Too much opposition, no money, impractical.
Sad. Such a good idea.
Some more good news, albeit through satire at the White House Correspondent’s dinner: the president makes some searing remarks about climate change deniers.
Here’s the link: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/obama-just-skewered-republican-climate-deniers-epic-anger-translator-rant