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Holiday season is nearly upon us, and you may soon be looking for the perfect gift for friends and family. Or maybe you'd just like to find a good deal on a little something for yourself. 

We've got more than 200 sustainable gifts, unique experiences, and trips near and far. Whatever you are looking for, you can find it by visiting nccn.cmarket.com. 

The starting bid for most items is half of their retail value, so we've got some great deals. Here are a few of the items you can bid on:

• many ways to Go Green!;
• beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and earrings;
• trips across North Carolina and travel further away;
• yoga, massage, reiki and other ways to improve your health and well-being;
• and much much more!

You can even create your own list to keep tabs on your favorite items. Just click on the "Register" link at the top of the page and then click the "Add to My Items" link on your favorite gifts.

It's my favorite time of year: our online holiday auction starts next Friday!  Check it out today!

Our online auction is an easy way to support the work of the NC Conservation Network and find some great holiday gifts.
Thanks to all of you who donated, we've got more than 160 great items -- with more added every day. To view all of the items, visit http://nccn.cmarket.com.

Here are a few of the great items you'll be bidding on:

• Handmade jewelry;
• Get-a-ways near and far;
• Items to help you Go Green!;
• Beautiful photos and art from across the state;
• All kinds of outdoor adventures including boat tours, a fishing class, and surfing lessons;
• and much much more!

You can create your own list to keep tabs on your favorite items. Just click on the "Register" link at the top of the page and then click the "Add to My Items" link on your favorite gifts.

Our friends at Toxic Free NC have been publishing weekly tips for the green home on a local blog: NewRaleigh.com.  But, these tips are great for wherever you live!  Take this week's installment: Attack of the Cockroaches:

Lots of people have been fighting the cockroach battle lately it seems, myself included.

Oh, how I hate them. Unlike spiders and bees and the like, I have no qualms about killing cockroaches (or for that matter mosquitoes, fleas, and anything else that’s equally gross). I’m sorry beautiful nature where everything has its rightful place in the grand ecological system, and the seasons turn turn turn and all that stuff - I don’t care. Cockroaches deserve to die.

So, I understand the impulse to scream and run for the can of Raid, or even the bug bomb, and nuke the little [buggers]. But people, please get ahold of yourselves...

Click here to read all of their great tips!

I'm putting the call out for your help! This fall, we are hosting our fourth annual Holiday Auction, and I need your help to find a few good items to auction off. The auction is a fun way to support our work, and it gives you the opportunity to bid on sustainable gifts for friends and family -- or just one for yourself.

Last year, supporters like you donated and bid on over 170 items and helped us raise $10,000 to support our work of protecting North Carolina's air, water, and quality of life.

This year, I'm looking for sustainable holiday gifts like:

• get-a-ways to beautiful spots in North Carolina or further afield
• fly fishing, kayaking, or surfing experiences
• handmade jewelry, paintings, or quilts
• signed books
• nature photos

...or anything else fun you can think of!  If you have something you'd like to donate, please email me or give me a call at (919) 857-4699 ext. 103.

I've already found a few auction items and you can preview them on the auction site.  And be sure to keep checking back in -- I'm adding new items all the time.

This just in from the New York Times: our nation’s Clean Water Act has been violated over 500,000 times in the past five years by chemical factories, manufacturing plants, workplaces, and other polluters. Sadly, the vast majority of these polluters go unpunished by state and federal regulators tasked with protecting the public health. It’s a tragic story and reminder that we need to have meaningful consequences and regulation.

One story from the report:

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va….neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system. “How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks….

When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.

The Times report is worth the read and is a reminder of the interconnectedness of public health and environmental protections: http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters

It's probably no surprise the world's largest public oil company is on our list of Pollution Superstars. We could have given them this 'award' for denying global warming.  Or for their support for offshore oil drilling.  And who can forget the Exxon Valdez oil spill?

Although any of these actions would be cause enough to give Exxon-Mobil our Pollution Superstar award, we're giving it to them for their dogged efforts to crush Congress' efforts to deal with climate change. Exxon-Mobil is a strong opponent of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454), spending $9.3 million -- more than double what the entire environmental community has spent -- on lobbying efforts to weaken the bill.  We’re working with 1Sky to make sure a strong bill passes, despite the efforts of polluting giants like Exxon-Mobil.  Click here to take action and tell Congress that we need a strong climate bill now!

For more than 20 years, North Carolina has not allowed hardened structures on our 300 plus miles of coastline.  This has prevented landowners from building small jetties, or groins, to interrupt the natural flow of sand up and down the coast and keep the beach in front of their beachfront properties.

This long-standing ban will be lifted if a group of wealthy beachfront property owners and local officials called Save Our Sand gets their way.  According to the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western NC University, the hardened structures this group wants to allow on our beaches can:

• Reduce beach access
• Cause erosion of downdrift beaches
• Create potential hazard to swimmers 
• Reduce water quality by impeding circulation of water
• Impair aesthetics

So let me get this straight - these structures will make our beaches uglier, dirtier, more dangerous, and harder to get to?  Sounds like a great deal!  Click here to learn more and urge our legislature not to allow this to happen.

For their ongoing fight for their own property values over the public good, we crown Save Our Sand as a Pollution Superstar!

Who do you think should be a Pollution Superstar?  Let us know who and why in the comments.  And don't forget to make a donation today!

In addition to being the lone legislator among our Pollution Superstars, we have also crowned Senator David Hoyle the King of Government Giveaways. Just check out the bills he has introduced at the NC Legislature this year:

• S447, No Monetary Exaction for Development. This bill spells out that city and county governments cannot collect taxes, fees, or monetary contributions from development unless specifically authorized by state law.  Your city wants to protect its water from polluted runoff through developer fees? Sorry! If the state doesn’t give the okay, you are out of luck.
• S865, No State Regulation of Toxic Title V Sources. Blocks the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources from implementing state standards for Title V Hazardous Air Pollutants, weakening public health protections from air toxics.  This bill is a clear response to the resounding public groundswell for more toxic air pollution.
• S117, Clarifying Development Moratoria Authority. This bill prohibits local governments from adopting temporary moratoria on development for the purpose of developing and updating ordinances. No time to waste – that development/landfill/cement plant needs to go in today so don’t you dare take a little time to think through the potential long-term impacts on public health and the environment!

Blocking air pollution standards, crippling local governments, and stopping environmental rulemaking—pretty impressive! Congrats, Senator Hoyle for being selected as one of our Pollution Superstars.

Time is running out to nominate a Pollution Superstar!  Just leave a comment below with who you think should be a star and why. 

How can the folks building a project that the Charlotte Observer calls “an environmental time bomb” not show up in our collection? They can't! That’s why Titan Cement, who is trying to build a cement plant on the banks of the Cape Fear River near Wilmington, has joined our list of Pollution Superstars.

On the surface, cement seems harmless... but then you learn a little more about it. To make cement, the company has to mine limestone, which just happens to be buried underneath wetlands. According to the Friends of the Lower Cape Fear and StopTitan.org, Titan plans to get their raw materials for cement by building a “1,200 acre mine, 70-feet deep that would destroy over 1,000 acres of irreplaceable wetlands, wildlife habitat and harm critical surface and ground water...”. That's almost two square miles of open pit mining in wetlands!

Then, to power the cement plant, Titan plans to use a mix of coal and coke, and maybe even tires. The plant, if built, would become the 5^th largest emitter of mercury in the state – right up there with our coal-fired power plants! And with 22 fish species in this area already under consumption advisories, we don’t need more mercury in the water. (Read more about fish and mercury in our recent blog).

Thankfully, there’s a bill in the legislature to slow down Titan and let the full environmental impacts of their plans be considered. Click here to learn more about the bill and take action to support it.

Who do you think should be a Pollution Superstar?  Let us know who and why in the comments.  And don't forget to make a donation today!

Wow. Where do we even start with Jim Rogers and Duke Energy? Maybe it’s Jim’s active opposition to last year’s federal global warming bill? Or his court fight against an EPA plan to reduce power plant emissions of deadly pollutants? Or how about his vocal opposition to President Obama’s plan to auction off carbon credits and reduce global warming emissions?

But really, that’s all to be expected from the CEO of Duke Energy, right? After all, they are the company that is trying to build a new coal-fired power plant in western North Carolina.

What really gets our goat is his repeated attempts to greenwash himself and the company. Think Progress calls him the “master of doublespeak” and Grist has dubbed him “the most adept figure in corporate America at making himself look better than he is”.According to a glowing New York Times profile, Jim Rogers is ”one of the electricity industry’s most vocal environmentalists” (not a hard distinction to earn, by the way) with a vision for making Duke Energy carbon-free by 2050. While we’d love it if the description of Jim Rogers as a “Green Coal Baron” were true, we just can’t square it with his actions over the past few years.

And we just have to leave you with our favorite quote from that great New York Times piece: “Sometimes I tell people that Duke is really just a company that processes chemicals to produce clean air, and we get electricity as a byproduct” – Jim Rogers. Sure.

Who do you think should be a Pollution Superstar?  Let us know who and why in the comments.  And don't forget to make a donation today!