Scenes like this are why SNP is pumping the U.S. economy.
The Secret is Out in South Carolina
A report on how global warming could affect South Carolina outlines dire consequences if the state does not take action against invasive species, diseases, habitat loss and flooding. Here’s the twist: the report was buried by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources for more than a year, effectively hiding it from the public. The 2011 report predicts temperatures in the South to rise 9 degrees over the next 40 years, having a huge impact on South Carolina’s ecosystem and economy. The reason for not following up on the study seem to stem from a change in leadership, and thus a change in priorities, by the powers that be in the department. A decidedly Red state, S.C. seems to be following the trend of the Republican establishment of stonewalling any attempts by scientists – SCIENTIST! – to assist in preparing for the inevitable.
The nitty gritty of the ‘cover up’ is a little convoluted, but The State newspaper does a good job of explaining it here.
Shenandoah is an Economic Powerhouse
According to a new report from the National Park Service, Shenandoah National Park received 1,209,883 visitors in 2011. Those visitors spent $73.9 million in the park’s surrounding communities and this spending supported 1,050 jobs in the area. We reviewed the economic impact of outdoor recreation in our last Daily Dirt, and this report solidifies that our National Park system not only provides access to nature for the masses, but also injects a healthy dose of capitalism into the system. As a whole in 2011, the parks received 279 million visitors who spent $13 billion in communities in a 60 mile radius of a national park supporting 252,000 jobs and boosting the U.S. economy by $30 billion. BOOM!
PEDs Are (Not) Everywhere
With the Lance Armstrong big reveal last month, not to mention baseball, it is hard to read anything about competitive sports without mention of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), an umbrella term for anything that makes you jump higher, run faster, pedal longer, or lift more mass above your head. The skepticism on who is really doing what in a natural way has even reached that most holy of sports, one with a tradition of pure competitiveness with nary a wiff of cheating: Ice Fishing. Yes, at this year’s Wold Ice Fishing Championship several winners were tested post competition for PEDs. Apparently, ice fishing leaders want their sport in the Olympics – say wha? – and this is the road they have chosen to make it happen. The anglers took it in stride however, and were pretty tongue in cheek about the whole thing – pretty standard for dudes who sit in a hut on a frozen lake and stare at a hole all day.
