tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46930006693029176762024-03-19T02:20:44.095-07:00eco sustain green Sustainability BlogWe’re looking at the Five E’s of sustainability – energy, environment, equity, economy, education – to find solutions offered by those looking at efforts to push us into a new paradigm. We’ll comment on ways our species and biosphere are adapting to changes in climate and ecosystems.
Dedicated individuals working in planning, climate science, architecture, computer technology, and other disciplines will make connections to technology and science with sustainable development.PacifiCAD Staffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09781034573529104451noreply@blogger.comBlogger269125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-55871215495866178932013-01-17T12:27:00.003-08:002013-01-17T12:27:50.546-08:00Photo worth a million spikes to the trees and gallons of sugar to the gas tankssuslud<span style="font-size: large;">Some sick stuff, clear bulldozing mountains in the grand US of A. Nothing like hitting Obama's and the rest's heart-<span style="font-size: large;">s</span>trings!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <br />
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/17/first-there-was-a-mountain/<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="subheadlinestyle">
Mountain Top Removal and the Crimes of the Coal Industry</div>
<h1 class="article-title">
First There Was a Mountain</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">
by MIKE ROSELLE</div>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">
</div>
<div class="main-text">
The first time I went to West Virginia my life changed forever. I
was invited down by Judy Bonds and Bo Webb to take a tour of the
“coalfields”. Conditions there went swiftly from John Denver’s Almost
Heaven, to John Prine’s Mulenberg County in less than a broken
heartbeat. Nothing prepares you for this. A mountain is gone, a creek is
gone. Gone too is a church, a cemetery, a Union Hall, a school house,
gone is a town. I’m standing next to someone who lived there, played in
the creek as a child there, yet today there is no there there. And the
place where I was standing wouldn’t be there much longer either. Every
day, two millions pounds of explosives continue to reduce Appalachia to
rubble. Every day, you hear there is progress being made. You haven’t
heard the whole story. Here is my take on it.</div>
<img alt="http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2013/01/mtr.jpeg" class="decoded" src="http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2013/01/mtr.jpeg" />Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-80524276401723534782013-01-15T14:33:00.004-08:002013-01-15T14:33:25.562-08:00Climate Change -- NOAA style!<div class="entry-date">
January 15, 2013
<div style="float: right;">
<div style="float: left;">
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/15/inside-the-latest-climate-report/print" target="one"><img src="http://www.counterpunch.org/images/printer.gif" /></a></div>
<div style="float: right;">
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="subheadlinestyle">
The Multidimensional Reality of Climate Change</div>
<h1 class="article-title">
Inside the Latest Climate Report</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">
by MANUEL GARCIA, JR.</div>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">
</div>
<div class="main-text">
A Federal Advisory Committee called the “National Climate
Assessment and Development Advisory Committee” or NCADAC, was
established under the Department of Commerce in December 2010 and is
supported through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). NCADAC now oversees the activities of formulating the National
Climate Assessment (NCA), and is funded through a program established by
the Global Change Research Act of 1990.<br />
<h2>
Good stuff on climate change -- </h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/15/inside-the-latest-climate-report/</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
The 11 conclusions of this massive report are
described in the Executive Summary (on pages 8-10), and these are very
briefly listed here (as 11 direct quotes):<br />
<blockquote>
1. Global climate is changing, and this is apparent
across the U.S. in a wide range of observations. The climate change of
the past 50 years is due primarily to human activities, predominantly
the burning of fossil fuels. (U.S. average temperature has increased by
about 1.5°F since 1895, with more than 80% of this increase occurring
since 1980.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
2. Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent
decades, and there is new and stronger evidence that many of these
increases are related to human activities.<br />
3. Human-induced climate change is projected to continue and
accelerate significantly if emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to
increase.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
4. Impacts related to climate change are already evident in many
sectors and are expected to become increasingly challenging across the
nation throughout this century and beyond. (Climate change is already
affecting human health, infrastructure, water resources, agriculture,
energy, the natural environment, and other factors – locally,
nationally, and internationally.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
5. Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways,
including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire,
decreased air quality, diseases transmitted by insects, food, and water,
and threats to mental health. (Food security is emerging as an issue of
concern, both within the U.S. and across the globe, and is affected by
climate change.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
6. Infrastructure across the U.S. is being adversely affected by
phenomena associated with climate change, including sea level rise,
storm surge, heavy downpours, and extreme heat. (Sea level is projected
to rise an additional 1 to 4 feet in this century.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
7. Reliability of water supplies is being reduced by climate change
in a variety of ways that affect ecosystems and livelihoods in many
regions, particularly the Southwest, the Great Plains, the Southeast,
and the islands of the Caribbean and the Pacific, including the state of
Hawai’i.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
8. Adverse impacts to crops and livestock over the next 100 years are
expected. Over the next 25 years or so, the agriculture sector is
projected to be relatively resilient, even though there will be
increasing disruptions from extreme heat, drought, and heavy downpours.
U.S. food security and farm incomes will also depend on how agricultural
systems adapt to climate changes in other regions of the world.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
9. Natural ecosystems are being directly affected by climate change,
including changes in biodiversity and location of species. As a result,
the capacity of ecosystems to moderate the consequences of disturbances
such as droughts, floods, and severe storms is being diminished.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
10. Life in the oceans is changing as ocean waters become warmer and
more acidic. (Warming ocean waters and ocean acidification across the
globe and within U.S. marine territories are broadly affecting marine
life.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
11. Planning for adaptation (to address and prepare for impacts) and
mitigation (to reduce emissions) is increasing, but progress with
implementation is limited. (In recent years, climate adaptation and
mitigation activities have begun to emerge in many sectors and at all
levels of government; however barriers to implementation of these
activities are significant. The level of current efforts is insufficient
to avoid increasingly serious impacts of climate change that have large
social, environmental, and economic consequences.)</blockquote>
<h2>
</h2>
</div>
Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-66941742266434260262013-01-06T08:41:00.003-08:002013-01-06T08:41:13.888-08:00<br />
<br />
<img alt="Order "Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege"" border="0" height="209" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/bce8370d0cae6847aa397b61d/images/green_new_red_book_cover_215x300.jpg" style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0pt;" width="150" /> <span style="font-size: large;">Check out Will Potter's book and web site --</span><br />
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/<br />
<br />
<a href="http://greenisthenewred.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=bce8370d0cae6847aa397b61d&id=850eb8a475&e=76df059fff" style="color: #c40404; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Subpoenaed to California Grand Jury</a><br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;">
Jan 04, 2013 04:06 pm | Will Potter</div>
Another activist, Priyesh Patel, ordered to appear before a California grand jury investigating animal rights activists.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br /><div>
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img alt=" US oil prod plain_edited-2.jpg" class="mt-image-center" height="246" src="http://kunstler.com/blog/%20US%20oil%20prod%20plain_edited-2.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 20px;" width="325" /></div>
<div style="color: #312f30; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 110%;">
<a href="http://greenisthenewred.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=bce8370d0cae6847aa397b61d&id=b5a50cb5d8&e=76df059fff" style="color: #c40404; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Fourth Person Jailed for Refusing to Talk about Other Anarchists in Grand Jury</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;">
Dec 27, 2012 11:53 am | Will Potter</div>
Maddy
Pfeiffer is the fourth person jailed for refusing to cooperate with a
federal grand jury targeting anarchists in the Pacific Northwest.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">NPR just keeps on giving with its stories on energy!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Definitely, NPR's reporting, tied to all those underwriters, like the natural gas mafia, just bluntly, in one fell swoop, says that that's it for green energy:</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="storytitle">
<h1>
Budget Deal Provides Tax Breaks For Green Energy</h1>
</div>
<div class=" linkLocation" id="storybyline">
<div class="bucketwrap byline" id="res168590224">
<div class="byline">
by <a href="http://www.npr.org/people/4566209/elizabeth-shogren" rel="author"><span>Elizabeth Shogren</span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="date">January 04, 2013</span><span class="time"> 2:30 A</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span> <br />
Quote:<br />
<br />
The tax benefits for green energy that Congress extended were
originally created over the past decade. At the time, it seemed that
energy sources, especially homegrown ones, were scarce. The country also
seemed to be on the verge of setting limits on emissions of greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide.<br />
<br />
"There was a sensible reason to want
to subsidize a transformation," says energy analyst Kevin Book. It's
harder to make a case for renewable energy now, given the booms in
natural gas and oil, he says.<br />
<br />
"All of these things are
different now: Demand is declining, supply is increasing, the
decarbonization mandate has weakened if not disappeared, and energy
security isn't the risk that it used to be," he says.<br />
Book predicts that the New Year's tax package may be the last big payday for green energy.<br />
<br />
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/04/168590135/budget-deal-provides-tax-brakes-for-green-energy<br />
<br />
Decarbonization mandate disappeared? Energy security isn't the risk that it used to be?<br />
<br />
Great reporting. Just great!<br />
<br />
Another view --<br />
<br />
http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/12/forecast-2013-contraction-contagion-and-contradiction.html<br />
<br />
Quote:<br />
<a href="http://kunstler.com/blog/%20US%20oil%20prod%20plain_edited-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt=" US oil prod plain_edited-2.jpg" border="0" class="mt-image-center" height="246" src="http://kunstler.com/blog/%20US%20oil%20prod%20plain_edited-2.jpg" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px;" width="325" /></a><br />
<br />
The people who like to think they are managing the world's affairs
seem fiercely determined to ignore the world's true condition -- namely,
the permanent contraction of industrial economies. They just can't grok
it. Two hundred years of cheap fossil fuel programmed mankind to expect
limitless goodies forever on an upward-swinging arc of techno miracles.
Now that the cheap fossil fuels have plateaued, with decline clearly in
view, the hope remains that all the rackets of modernity can keep going
on techno miracles alone.<br />
<br />
<div>
Meanwhile, things and events
are in revolt, especially the human race's financial operating system,
the world's weather, and the angry populations of floundering nations.
The Grand Vizier of this blog, that is, Yours Truly, makes no great
claims for his crystal ball gazing (Dow at 4,000 - ha!), but he
subscribes to the dictums of two wise men from the realm of major league
baseball: Satchel Paige, who famously stated, "Don't look back," and
Yogi Berra, who remarked of a promising rookie, "His whole future's
ahead of him!"</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In that spirit, and as for looking back,
suffice it to say that in 2012, the world's managers -- and by this I do
not mean some occult cabal but the visible leaders in politics,
banking, business, and news media -- pulled out all the stops to
suppress the appearance of contraction, and in so doing only supplied
more perversion and distortion to the train of events that leads
implacably to an agonizing workout, or readjustment of reality's balance
sheet. There's a fair chance that these restraints will unravel in
2013, exposing civilization to a harsh new leasing agreement with its
landlord, the Planet Earth. </div>
<br /></div>
Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-53988415254268473122012-12-31T11:11:00.001-08:002012-12-31T11:11:38.137-08:00Whoa -- Been Working So Hard I Forgot to Blog ItOkay, so this blog was started to assist a friend's computer software company tied to Autodesk.I've been busy since this last post --<br />
<br />
here is what you can find as updates on some of my writing , before I begin, once again, with<br />
<br />
the Eco Sustain Green blog --<br />
<br />
http://spokanecda.com/featured/one-pedal-at-a-time/<br />
<br />
http://dissidentvoice.org/author/PaulHaeder/<br />
<br />
http://www.downtoearthnw.com/paul-haeder/<br />
<br />
<br />
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1xq7n/SpokaneCoeurdAleneLi/resources/44.htm<br />
<br />
Page 33-39 for Spokane Riverkeeper: <br />
<br />
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1uewy/SpokaneCoeurdAleneLi/resources/12.htmPaul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-12678153106779132912011-11-07T12:58:00.000-08:002011-11-07T12:58:00.109-08:00Seven Billion, and the One-percenters are Counting on Collapse, Oddly enough<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJvdQLIa4ERcEeOmwyptKZjc4Ycd3Ja07bE1alZ528GYUcXgEUDLlmB_dWAi7hsdue7s_NtNuLATST1S5PM4OvEjzocavHCGKzuJe7gpvLpU6uDuEv-DbsjnSQy-Lr_XzZaYilJwpqls8H/s1600/2011-09-06-birth-control-philippines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJvdQLIa4ERcEeOmwyptKZjc4Ycd3Ja07bE1alZ528GYUcXgEUDLlmB_dWAi7hsdue7s_NtNuLATST1S5PM4OvEjzocavHCGKzuJe7gpvLpU6uDuEv-DbsjnSQy-Lr_XzZaYilJwpqls8H/s320/2011-09-06-birth-control-philippines.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>After three children, Filipino mother Gina Judilla tried to induce abortion, but failed. She can't get birth control. (IHT)<br />
<br />
<br />
Cross-posted with permission from the <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/14/3/gpr140302.html">Guttmacher Institute</a>.<br />
<br />
This fall, world population will reach 7 billion people at a time of accelerated environmental disruption. This article is part of a series commissioned by <em>RH Reality Check</em> to examine the causes and consequences of population and environmental change from various perspectives and the policies and actions needed to both avoid and mitigate the inevitable impacts of these changes.<br />
<br />
Women & BC -- <br />
<br />
According to the United Nations, the world’s population will reach seven billion later this year and, if current trends continue, will rise to more than nine billion by the middle of this century.<sup>1</sup> This new population milestone—and the projection—prompt renewed debates about the balance between population size and consumption of natural resources, about age structure and political stability, and about the consequences of rapid population growth rates for poor countries’ ability to develop economically.<br />
<br />
These relationships and others pertaining to population size and the rate of population growth are complex and their implications often controversial. To a large extent, however, these macro-level dilemmas reflect a micro-level problem about which there is a universal consensus and where the solution is relatively straightforward. Millions of women and couples, especially in the developing world, are still unable to control for themselves the timing, spacing and total number of their children. Recognition of this fact provides a road map for moving forward that can address the needs of the people and the planet at the same time.<br />
<br />
That path forward must include a central focus on increasing access and eliminating barriers to voluntary contraceptive services. Responding directly to individual people’s needs and desires to determine for themselves whether and when to have a child will contribute significantly toward their ability to lead healthier, more productive lives. In turn, these benefits for individuals and families accrue to their communities and to society at large. Ultimately, the impact would be felt at the global level. Meeting the stated desires of all women around the world to space or limit births would result in the world’s population peaking within the next few decades—and then actually starting to decline.<br />
<br />
All of the articles in this series <a href="http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/08/29/blog/2011/08/23/blog/tag/seven-billion-people" target="_blank">can be found here.</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXgFVp6XWmRpey_EeTaIhou7EjsasnMs7oOU8uHHq-1fJIBkixm3oXVWdjnAN1hNTPNK_OUWnPUdo9ni97e7eMES3Cehg9aD_3JicMlDrt-U2FnxsEWxrjjloK3liCz5iR9opws-FhOZRB/s1600/gpr140302-f1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXgFVp6XWmRpey_EeTaIhou7EjsasnMs7oOU8uHHq-1fJIBkixm3oXVWdjnAN1hNTPNK_OUWnPUdo9ni97e7eMES3Cehg9aD_3JicMlDrt-U2FnxsEWxrjjloK3liCz5iR9opws-FhOZRB/s320/gpr140302-f1.gif" width="320" /></a></div>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-90557144497214120272011-11-06T12:57:00.000-08:002011-11-06T12:57:58.617-08:00Stoppping Science in its Tracks -- Presidential Hopefuls Lack Skills to Understand Science, SustainabilityWhile presidential hopefuls from the Rotten Tomatoes leagues -- Republican candidates, Tea Bag Party, Cain, Koch-supported anything -- take shots at EPA, anything tied to environmental sustainability, and science in general, and the record profits of Exxon and other energy companies splash on the news headlines, we have real issues to fight onward for.<br />
<br />
Arctic --<br />
<br />
Dear Friend,<br />
Right now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking for your input on a plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that, for the first time, could recommend Wilderness protection for the Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain — the Refuge's biological epicenter that has been in Big Oil's sights for decades. This plan will guide how the Arctic Refuge will be managed for the next 15 years or more.<br />
<br />
A Wilderness recommendation could protect this unparalleled area and the abundant wildlife that depends on it— including polar bears, musk oxen, caribou, and millions of birds from around the globe. But to make sure the final version of the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan includes a Wilderness recommendation, we must demonstrate overwhelming support for protecting the Refuge's Coastal Plain. If we speak with a loud and united voice, we'll be sending a strong message that the Fish and Wildlife Service can't ignore.<br />
<br />
Will you speak up for the Arctic Refuge? Please sign our letter to Secretary Salazar and the Fish and Wildlife Service.<br />
<br />
There are some places in this country that define what it means to be American — the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of those places. For the past 50 years our country has remained committed to protecting one of our last wild places. Some places are just too extraordinary to drill, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of them.<br />
<br />
This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will make some big decisions about the future of the Arctic Refuge. If we all speak out, we can make sure that those decisions offer the critical Coastal Plain the strongest possible protections from Big Oil and harmful development.<br />
<br />
Please sign our letter to Secretary Salazar and the Fish and Wildlife Service, and speak out for this national treasure.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRfEELvBx3_RWo0hPWVk9DSR3KElQ2MdBkFvak_QQPQlxyCCkQq-rnhaKQs90_sR-OmfNaOcDDnIUeGPS7QumwKvL0wHVtKct2_K5KugLOUqycvvhKqRlPUOCtWMjzgnlWnQJ-WOV8KaFP/s1600/Arctic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRfEELvBx3_RWo0hPWVk9DSR3KElQ2MdBkFvak_QQPQlxyCCkQq-rnhaKQs90_sR-OmfNaOcDDnIUeGPS7QumwKvL0wHVtKct2_K5KugLOUqycvvhKqRlPUOCtWMjzgnlWnQJ-WOV8KaFP/s320/Arctic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Thanks for all you do,<br />
<br />
Cindy Shogan<br />
Executive Director<br />
Alaska Wilderness League<br />
*****************************************************************************<br />
Western Australia -- <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceX474mX8RpUIcoe56kxLYxTxq1ZASU3HtcES03OScoJacYcUNz0XIP6nPDvAHdKh1BLVMFTbBh-Ryu8bTlPuGTi7cBoDXBb_Hw67KMY_cijsbQflGAiCl2mpQadNA1Om2EdkgWSCETks/s1600/shark_attack_australia_10_11_11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceX474mX8RpUIcoe56kxLYxTxq1ZASU3HtcES03OScoJacYcUNz0XIP6nPDvAHdKh1BLVMFTbBh-Ryu8bTlPuGTi7cBoDXBb_Hw67KMY_cijsbQflGAiCl2mpQadNA1Om2EdkgWSCETks/s320/shark_attack_australia_10_11_11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="print-content"><div class="node " id="node-5680148"><div class="node-inner"><div class="gp3_blog_title"><h2><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/down-under/australia-shark-attacks-jaws-hollywood" title="Shark attack hype belongs in Hollywood, Australian scientists say"><span style="color: black;">Shark attack hype belongs in Hollywood, Australian scientists say</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1]</span></span></h2><div class="subhead"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></div><div class="submitted"><span class="submitted-by"><a class="submitted-by-link" href="http://www.globalpost.com/bio/freya-petersen" rel="author"><span style="color: black;">Freya Petersen</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[2]</span></span></span></div><div class="submitted"><span class="submitted-by"><span class="print-footnote"></span></span><span class="submitted-date">November 2, 2011 22:20</span></div></div><div><div class="article-content"><div class="field field-type-text field-field-torsotitle"><div class="field-label"> </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"> Jaws doesn't live here any more? </div></div></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-subhead"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"><!--paging_filter-->It's been a summer of shark hunts, but are the politicians' responses to the perceived threat of attack justified? <br />
</div></div></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-byline1"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"> Freya Petersen </div></div></div><!--paging_filter--> <br />
Perhaps it will be remembered as the Great Shark Hunt of 2011, prompted by three fatal attacks in quick succession off Australia's western coastline.<br />
<br />
According to a recent article in <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/shark-hunts-a-hollywood-response-to-real-horror-20111024-1mgb3.html#ixzz1cbTkE6QG"><span style="color: black;">The Sydney Morning Herald</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[3]</span></span> (SMH), a shark cull — authorized by the government of Western Australia to find what many were speculating was a "rogue" great white, and to rid the waters of other potential man eaters — was only the fifth such hunt of the year.<br />
<br />
Shark attacks in Russia, the Seychelles, Reunion Island and Mexico similarly led officials to spring into action, mainly to reassure a terrified public it seems.<br />
<br />
The WA state government, meanwhile, reportedly given the go-ahead for any great white sharks to be killed if they posed a threat to human life.<br />
<br />
Now, Christopher Neff, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney into public responses to "shark-bite incidents" off South Africa and the United States, has penned a timely response to the hype (although, with just a handful of recent stories on shark attacks in this column generating more than 10,000 page views, we of course consider it legitimate coverage of a serious public safety concern).<br />
<br />
Neff tries to turn attention to prevention rather than a knee-jerk political cure.<br />
<br />
Despite the nightmare-invoking details of the attacks of Western Australia, Neff's SMH article makes you want to go back in the water, be it Perth, Sydney or that unspecified place in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/plotsummary"><span style="color: black;">New England</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[4]</span></span> where Sheriff Martin Brody (almost) met his toothy match.<br />
<br />
He starts by arguing that while the public's concern about the risks is reasonable, swimmers "are being offered a political solution to a public safety problem."<br />
<blockquote> There is no evidence that shark hunts reduce attacks. Research shows these responses are political, symbolically reducing public perceptions of risk rather than the actual risk. At the core of this reaction are two elements: the pressure on any government to respond after tragic and unexplainable events; and the familiarity of the ''rogue shark'' theory.</blockquote>Can we pause there just to say, "Hallelujah!"<br />
<br />
Supporting Neff's assertion that shark hunts, or culls to use the more palatable of the terms for the conservation-minded, is a collection of responses from the science community — published by Down Under's new favorite resource, the <a href="http://www.aussmc.org/2011/10/rapid-reaction-culling-great-white-sharks-in-western-australia-%E2%80%93-expert-respond/"><span style="color: black;">Australian Science Media Centre</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[5]</span></span>. <br />
<br />
Among them, that of Shaun Collin — Western Australia Premiers Research Fellow and Professor of Neuroecology in the School of Animal Biology and Oceans Institute at the University of Western Australia (we're hoping that's his full title). Here's a snapshot quote:<br />
<blockquote> The culling of any species of sharks is not the solution. Not only will this be indiscriminate killing of a protected Australian species (under both the EPBC Act and state legislation), there is no way of being sure the sharks caught will be those responsible for the attacks. At present, there is no data to suggest that shark numbers are increasing off WA’s coastline and shark attacks in Australia have remained relatively constant over time, occurring at a rate of approximately one per year for the last 50 years. Sharks are apex predators and they play a critical role in the complex balance of oceanic ecosystems and their removal can have major impacts on other marine species. Education and surveillance are the best prevention of human fatalities off the WA coast until better repellent devices are developed.</blockquote>Meanwhile, Dr Charlie Huveneers — a Shark Ecologist within the Marine Environment and Ecology Program at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences) and lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at Flinders University, Adelaide (ditto on the titles) writes, among other things:<br />
<blockquote> Although shark attacks are tragic events and are often highly mediatised, they are still very rare events with a low probability of occurrence... Around the world, several means of mitigating shark attacks have been put in place with variable level of success, but it is unlikely that one method can be considered the best way to reduce shark attacks. A combination of techniques selected depending on the characteristics of each location frequented by potentially dangerous sharks is likely to be the most efficient.</blockquote>Techniques, he says, such as the Shark Spotter program instituted by the City of Cape Town, South Africa, where spotters perched on mountains towering directly over the city's beaches "monitor for the dark silhouette of sharks on the sandy background.”<br />
<br />
Well, it's a start. <br />
<br />
Back to Neff, who's done his homework — stretching back to a British Medical Journal article from 1899, which almost half a century later inspired a Sydney doctor (no less) to develop the "rogue shark theory."<br />
<blockquote> The article addressed a series of unexplained shark bites and caught the attention of the shark researcher and Sydney surgeon Sir Victor Coppleson, a good man and public servant. With his heart in the right place, he developed the ''rogue shark'' theory in the 1940s and '50s; however, it went awry as he tried to explain why sharks bite. His theory has been discredited by science over the years, but found its way into the film "Jaws" and into our collective consciousness.</blockquote>Enough said.<br />
<br />
Neff concludes by saying that sharks are not "looking for people," but rather "are following prey, such as whales, dolphins, bait fish and seals.<br />
<br />
He says that rather than send out the shark hunters, governments can educate the public to "reduce personal risk based on their behavior."<br />
<br />
He even specifies four shark-attack-risk-reducing factors:<br />
<ol><li> environmental conditions (stay out of the water after or before storms, at dawn or dusk);</li>
<li> ecological conditions (avoid areas with bait fish, dolphins, seals and whales);</li>
<li> personal behavior (be conscious of how far out you are and how long you've been in the water, and avoid shiny jewelery);</li>
<li> and lastly shark behavior (sharks are curious and defensive; we are in the way, not on the menu).</li>
</ol>Finally in the interests of balance, here's a politician's reaction to the fatal attack on bobyboarder Kyle James Burden, 21, at Bunker Bay in September, cited in <a href="http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/shark-attack-claims-life-at-bunker-bay/story-e6frg13u-1226129414956"><span style="color: black;">Perth Now</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span></span>:<br />
<blockquote> Shire of Busselton president Ian Stubbs said he wants the shark responsible killed.<br />
“A lot of people say the water is the shark’s territory,” Mr Stubbs said.“But I think if they can find the shark (responsible) they should get rid of it. It’s a personal opinion, not a shire opinion but I personally think they should (kill it.) If they have attacked a human in one of those areas they may want to do it again and I think we should be stopping that.”</blockquote>Perhaps, given the statistics, Stubbs might be better advised keeping personal opinions to himself and urging rate payers to read Neff's four risk-reducing practices ... and then have a nice swim.<br />
<div class="field field-type-text field-field-torsobody"><div class="field-label"> </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd"><!--paging_filter--><br />
It's been a summer of shark hunts, but are the politicians' responses to the perceived threat of attack justified? </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-76008648971734566182011-10-31T08:40:00.000-07:002011-10-31T08:40:53.020-07:00Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky Elegantly Traces the Real Cause of Dinosaur Extinction....And the UW professor is hitting the headlines with some comments concerning this bizarre back-slapping self-congratulatory crap that the world is all rosy and sustainable now that "we hit only 7 billion humans" only Halloween, 2011, no less. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUYHptPUmVmuu4kTaWlndibuzJaYF7oO6P7tYn20nP5KZ38jveVtfY730V1B7mkG5TeDQhQRQHgn1wK-rssOvoNGVtZ41vXRiKnuRV6KiM6LrlU9Y5YGawgN5b97HXoEv9EILir7-X2grZ/s1600/food-variety-tree-754.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUYHptPUmVmuu4kTaWlndibuzJaYF7oO6P7tYn20nP5KZ38jveVtfY730V1B7mkG5TeDQhQRQHgn1wK-rssOvoNGVtZ41vXRiKnuRV6KiM6LrlU9Y5YGawgN5b97HXoEv9EILir7-X2grZ/s320/food-variety-tree-754.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
We seem to have one movement now that is relevant -- how the 1 percent of the globe is pushing its consumer cart and energy-sucking ways and capital-grubbing mentality over the cliff, with the 99 percenters attempting to wrest back community, democracy, control of the village that it is to raise a village. Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Towns/Occupy Colleges, et al, will persist unfortunately on one hand because more are joining the ranks of the 17 percent unemployed, and, fortunately, there is no other option than to camp out, dialogue and build the movement to tar and feather corporations and CEO devils.<br />
<br />
National Geographic, in all its mainstream and sometimes reactionary glory, has a year-long series on the 7 billion person gambit -- check it out:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/7-billion">http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/7-billion</a><br />
<br />
There's even an app at National Geographic for population countdown to load on those unnecessary "dumb-down" phones.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, in the Evergreen State, the incompetent administrators and bureaucrats have gone forward with another 15 percent cut to the future of this generation and others: these overpaid bloated administrative class are finding more faculty to cut from colleges, finding more programs to diminish, finding more affective education to put on the chopping block and on the posts for the whipping boy mentality those who ascribe to the propaganda-laden Waiting for Superman (a pro-for-profit in PK-12 education movie made by the idiot who gave us Gore and Inconvenient Truth) to whip up fury from the one-percenters and their ignorant minions in the Republican, Democratic and Tea Bag cults to attack independent science and independent education.<br />
<br />
Funny thing is that Peter Ward, at UW, now a 150-year old, a lumpy state land grant college looking to attract Asian students for the 3 times the tuition they garner while pushing out domestic students, would be on the chopping block if he was a young whipper snapper, barely starting his shaky tenure process (tenure is on the chopping block too).<br />
<br />
So, Ward's green sky is all about the agnotology in paleontology whereby the meteor impact theory tied to extinction on earth of 90 percent of all species has been propped up by a gullible media, disarrayed academic collection of disciplines. Read the book and see how we now are pushing back that media hype of a giant ball of ice killing everything. Think climate change -- bubbling up basalt fields, oceans switching off and flushing into a current and deep water fury, and microorganisms hissing up methane and hydrogen sulfide from Davey Jones locker. It's a great piece of writing, the book. <br />
<br />
National Geographic preface:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Population is a complicated topic.</strong> With the worldwide population slated to top 7 billion in 2011, we decided it was one we needed to tackle. But we wanted to do it in a way that gives readers room to think. We spread out our coverage over a year, with articles that take deep dives into specific issues—demographics, food security, climate change, fertility trends, managing biodiversity—<br />
that relate to global population. Our reporting is collected here</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="color: black;">From Alternet, Scott Thill's piece TODAY -- </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">10 billion or more expected to stress the planet's already overweight system by 2100. </span><br />
<br />
<div id="paragraph3" name="paragraph3"><span style="color: purple;">"Let's assume the average weight, or mass, of a human is 50 kilograms, or 120 pounds," University of Washington paleontologist and <em>The Flooded Earth</em> author </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ward_%28paleontologist%29"><span style="color: purple;">Peter Ward</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> told AlterNet. "That takes into account all the fat men, and all the kids, so it's a ballpark figure. That means 350 billion kilograms, or 770 billion pounds, of humanity on the planet. I wonder if this is the highest mass of any chordate on Earth. Only rats might weigh more of all natural populations."</span></div><span style="color: purple;"> </span><br />
<div id="paragraph4" name="paragraph4"><span style="color: purple;">But even rats have the good sense to abandon a sinking ship. Not so for humanity, whose resource wars have created a hyperreal dragnet that has caught up everything from mass-media distractions like Herman Cain and Mommar Gaddafi to worthy insurgencies like Occupy Wall Street. As those stories, for better or worse, dominated the news cycle, British Petroleum was quietly freed to </span><a href="http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/bp_makes_a_comeback_in_gulf_of_mexico_20111027"><span style="color: purple;">resume drilling</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> in the Gulf of Mexico after turning it into a marine nightmare since 2010. Exxon Mobil posted a </span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/10/exxons-profits-hit-31-billion-so-far-year-yet-big-oil-subsidies-flourish.php"><span style="color: purple;">$31 billion profit</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> on the year thanks to billions in groundless government subsidies. American rivers and streams have become </span><a href="http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_science_pick/u-s-rivers-and-streams-super-saturated-with-carbon-dioxide/"><span style="color: purple;">hypersaturated</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> with carbon dioxide, and Arctic sea ice has become as </span><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/10/25/3344289.htm"><span style="color: purple;">thin</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> as the United States is fat in the gut and head. Environmentalists and other concerned parties can be forgiven for not breaking out the bubbly because the planet has managed to spawn seven billion souls with increased life expectancy, thanks to miracles of science and industry. Because in the scariest scenario, that same science and industry could doom most, and perhaps even all, of us.</span></div><span style="color: purple;"> </span><br />
<div id="paragraph5" name="paragraph5"><span style="color: purple;">"Seven billion is not a time for unbridled celebration," cautioned Bill Ryerson, fellow at the </span><a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Post-Carbon Institute</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> and president of </span><a href="http://www.populationmedia.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Population Media Center</span></a><span style="color: purple;"> and </span><a href="http://www.populationinstitute.org/"><span style="color: purple;">The Population Institute</span></a><span style="color: purple;">. "It must be a catalyst for people, leaders and advocates regarding the steps we need to take to achieve sustainability."</span></div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQMW_U-vlWJrLMTvYndZ4KtyGvZ3jyAulCJGoFXu_gSRFLHjCHjSjJYt0K1rbz-JczM5VjY5CqhmgiZcmeKEVRn7IzMS3hRfaWCiQsS6yHDcQY7Dbd7uvbWKZ89F-yrlp7-fjw_9h7Y-E5/s1600/storyteaser_populationsixbillion1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQMW_U-vlWJrLMTvYndZ4KtyGvZ3jyAulCJGoFXu_gSRFLHjCHjSjJYt0K1rbz-JczM5VjY5CqhmgiZcmeKEVRn7IzMS3hRfaWCiQsS6yHDcQY7Dbd7uvbWKZ89F-yrlp7-fjw_9h7Y-E5/s1600/storyteaser_populationsixbillion1.jpg" /></a></div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5"><span style="color: #274e13;">NOTE -- Anything tied to discussing population planning -- think about maintaining birth control on the one-percenters</span></div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5"><span style="color: #274e13;">From Alternet -- </span></div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><span style="color: purple;">"Slowing population growth would not only help to avert these challenges, but also aligns with women's own wishes," explained UC Berkeley School of Public Health lecturer Martha Campbell, "Globally, there are about 80 million unintended pregnancies each year, and 40 million induced abortions, most conducted in unsafe, painful and dangerous ways. Surveys have shown that over 200 million women do not want to become pregnant, but are not using modern contraception."<br />
<br />
***********<br />
<div done0="57">"Emission of carbon dioxide per year is equal to the product of four quantities: population, wealth per person, amount of energy required per year to generate this wealth and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of energy generated," <a href="http://www.atmos.illinois.edu/people/schlesinger.html"><span style="color: #598607;">Michael Schlesinger</span></a>, atmospheric sciences professor and director of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Climate Research Group, told AlterNet. "Although the latter two quantities are projected to decrease during this century, the carbon dioxide emission per year is projected to increase. The cause of this increase is the projected increase in human population from seven billion now, to nine billion in 2050 and perhaps 12 billion in 2100. Reducing this carbon dioxide emission would be greatly enabled by reducing population growth, help safeguard Earth's climate and reduce the level of poverty in the world. A win-win solution."</div><br />
<div done0="58">Schlesinger and colleagues Michael Ring, Daniela Linder and Emily Cross have submitted a plan to the journal <em>Climatic Change</em> to mitigate, reduce and zero out greenhouse-gas emissions by 2065. They are hoping that <a href="http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/"><span style="color: #598607;">COP 17</span></a>, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban this November, takes notice. But their plan, and all of those from similarly concerned scientists around the world, simply cannot be efficiently executed if population growth continues to exponentially replicate. Solutions are everything this late in the game, and there are no solutions if increasing billions whittle the planet's natural bounty and biodiversity down to the bone.</div><br />
"If we don't reduce our collective resource use, move concretely towards environmentally sustainable practices both in our households and countries, and pay serious attention to global population stabilization, we will have an imbalance," said Ryerson. "We've already crossed the threshold." <br />
</span><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-50463903923775471392011-10-10T08:30:00.000-07:002011-10-10T08:30:21.202-07:00What Would Steve Jobs Say about OWS -- Occupy Wall Street?<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9TkfnImc3iW7Rgo_PCnZ3e__HOqyU3pHyC-Ey69dDaUKxsY9J3zSTGhOy0r0Nvv2Xs3tkTBgv25W-aJFVtDClvIuIeC6dv4sG8zEM3-HigCvqCl2mMWAQLlJHAQuZq225QjwU8v4R00S/s1600/Jobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9TkfnImc3iW7Rgo_PCnZ3e__HOqyU3pHyC-Ey69dDaUKxsY9J3zSTGhOy0r0Nvv2Xs3tkTBgv25W-aJFVtDClvIuIeC6dv4sG8zEM3-HigCvqCl2mMWAQLlJHAQuZq225QjwU8v4R00S/s1600/Jobs.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: right;"></div><br />
Edison? Ford. The innovator of today's cool computerized world of music downlads, the iPod and iPad.<br />
<br />
Dead at 56, Steve Jobs, and the witty obituaries -- Read Jobs backing of using LSD, and how Bill Gates should have dropped a few tabs!<br />
********************<br />
<br />
One of the most meaningful to us at The Fix was what he said in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-peyronnin/steve-jobs-the-irevolutio_b_998172.html"><span style="color: #1c8585;">a commencement address</span></a> at Stanford University in 2005, a year after his cancer diagnosis: <br />
<br />
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.…Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." <br />
<br />
<div id="paragraph3" name="paragraph3">But equally suggestive, at least to us, is a quote from Steve Jobs to<em> New York Times</em> reporter <strong>John Markoff,</strong> who interviewed him for his 2005 book What the Doormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer. Speaking about his youthful experiments with psychedelics, Jobs said, "Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." He was hardly alone among computer scientists in his appreciation of hallucinogenics and their capacity to liberate human thought from the prison of the mind. Jobs even <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/read-the-never-before-pub_b_227887.html"><span style="color: #1c8585;">let drop</span></a> that Microsoft's <strong>Bill Gates</strong> would "be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once." Apple's mantra was"Think different." Jobs did. And he credited his use of LSD as a major reason for his success.</div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph3">Read more:</div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div class="headline"> <h1>What Do Steve Jobs' Obituaries Leave Out? His Appreciation for LSD</h1></div><div name="paragraph3"><!-- end: headline --><!-- start: teaser --> </div><div class="teaser">Apple's legendary co-founder Steve Jobs said acid was one of the most important things he did in his life. </div><div name="paragraph3"><!-- end: teaser --><!-- START BODY --> </div><div class="body_living" id="the_body"> <div style="float: left; font-family: Georgia, Arial, Sans-Serif;"><em>October 7, 2011</em> | </div><div class="story_images_top"> </div><em> </em><div class="article_insert_container"><em> </em><div class="insert_border_top"> </div></div><em> </em><div id="paragraph1" name="paragraph1">Want to get the latest on America's drug & rehab culture? Sign up for <a href="http://www.thefix.com/subscribe"><span style="color: #1c8585;">The Fix's newsletter here</span></a>.</div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph1"><em>*****************************************************************</em></div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div class="headline"> <h1>Occupy Wall Street Hitting Critical Mass on Columbus Day... And Can Only Get Bigger</h1></div><div name="paragraph1"><!-- start: teaser --><!-- start: body --><em> </em></div><div class="body_" id="the_body" style="margin: 10px 0px;"> <div id="paragraph1" name="paragraph1">It's Columbus Day, which means many Americans, including students, have the day off—which means Occupy Wall Street is expecting a swell of numbers today. And after Paul Krugman's awesome column in the Times yesterday, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/677540/plutocrats_react_to_ows%3A_krugman_calls_it_panic/#paragraph4"><span style="color: #ca8500;">a must read</span></a>, </div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div class="headline"> <h1>Plutocrats React to OWS: Krugman Calls it Panic</h1></div><div name="paragraph1"><!-- start: teaser --><!-- start: body --><em> </em></div><div class="body_" id="the_body" style="margin: 10px 0px;"><em> </em><div id="paragraph1" name="paragraph1"><em> </em>The Pundit-Elite Class is besides themselves, trying to figure out how to put this Citizen's Action genie back in its bottle ... and so they just keep doing what they do best -- lie, censor, obscure, mis-construe. And above all, shift the debate ... redirect those Citizen advocate spotlights ... to anywhere, but on them.</div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div id="paragraph2" name="paragraph2"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html" style="color: #e5721e; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Panic of the Plutocrats</a><br style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />by Paul Krugman, NYTimes -- October 9, 2011</div><div id="paragraph3" name="paragraph3"> </div><blockquote style="background-color: #f6f3ec; border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px;">[...]<br style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “<strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mobs</strong>” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “<strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">class warfare</strong>,” while Herman Cain calls them “<strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">anti-American</strong>.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.<br style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />[...]</blockquote><blockquote style="background-color: #f6f3ec; border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px;">The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which <strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favorreact with hysteria</strong> to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.</blockquote><blockquote style="background-color: #f6f3ec; border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(226, 226, 225); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 20px;">[...] <br />
<div id="paragraph4" name="paragraph4">They’re people who got rich <u style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">by peddling complex financial schemes</u> that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whoseaftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.</div><div name="paragraph4"><br />
</div><div id="paragraph5" name="paragraph5"><strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Yet they have paid no price</strong>. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees -- basically, <u style="line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose</u>. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.</div><div id="paragraph6" name="paragraph6"></div></blockquote><br />
<div id="paragraph7" name="paragraph7">And what they are Panicking about most of all -- is that bright light will finally uncover, the "rigged game" they've been scamming us with, all along ...</div><div id="paragraph8" name="paragraph8"> </div><div id="paragraph9" name="paragraph9">They're panicked that we may discover their hypocrisy for calling us "Mobs" while previously issuing Congressional "Resolutions of Thanks" for similar Tea Party demonstrations:</div></div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph1">....[cont.] ...it's not inconceivable that the crowds will contain a reader or two who wasn't planning on heading to the protest before reading it. </div><div name="paragraph1"><br />
</div><div id="paragraph2" name="paragraph2">Many noted over the weekend that the tide was turning for OWS, at least in the mainstream media... that publications which refused to acknowledge the movement at its start were now publishing several stories a day about it, and positive ones at that. Here's a good example: CBS, that bastion of middle-of-the-roadness, has published an article on its website entitled "<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/10/earlyshow/main20118005.shtml"><span style="color: #ca8500;">Occupy Wall Street's Drumbeat Grows Louder</span></a>":</div><div name="paragraph2"><br />
</div>On "The Early Show" Monday, Former Senator Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said of the protests spreading across the country, "I'm not just pleased about it, I'm excited about it." <br />
<div name="paragraph2"> </div><br />
<div name="paragraph2"> </div>He reflected on the pro-labor demonstrations in Wisconsin earlier this year that were sparked by the governor's fight to take away collective bargaining rights from public sector workers in his state. "We did it here, and I think this is going to happen all over the country," Feingold said, "because people have been kicked when they are down, over and over again. You can only kick people so long before they react. <br />
<div name="paragraph2"> </div><br />
"This is time now for accountability, and this is a good way to show people how strongly we feel. The working people of this country have been treated very brutally and it has to change."<br />
<div name="paragraph2"><em> </em></div><em>***************************************************************</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqVAZskEK9rypqTdFwt1N6eKfik_Q9vgwzRsfzNTnX1We0yj_TafyfW93BLWP-Qn88gl6W34d7GcIQzzawigX1mzDGbFE_79elpsvdxciOm-EBOLJmHyblP4fxnMSCU4MRW2royfvpCTL/s1600/Ocpy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqVAZskEK9rypqTdFwt1N6eKfik_Q9vgwzRsfzNTnX1We0yj_TafyfW93BLWP-Qn88gl6W34d7GcIQzzawigX1mzDGbFE_79elpsvdxciOm-EBOLJmHyblP4fxnMSCU4MRW2royfvpCTL/s320/Ocpy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div name="paragraph2"><em> </em></div><em></em></div></div><!-- author bio -->Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-24242424961971517812011-10-07T08:33:00.000-07:002011-10-07T08:33:00.915-07:00Environmental News -- Tar, Seals, Arctic, More<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, 10 years of Aghan War -- $1.2 million per grunt on the ground for a year's worth of failure. Nobel Prize gives award to 4 great women. AOccupy Wall Street surges. Occupy Colleges comes on strong. Occupy Seattle, Spokane! Here is a quick update not on those great stories, news breaking stories like the Chilean students, in the tens of thousands, being fire hose sprayed by the flagging vanguard in Santiago. Fed up? You bet. Occupy Wall Street, here in Seattle, elsewhere, is a movement spurred by tech savvy folk. The powers that be are scared. But some environment news first, today.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFAPg5mXcZ8qnPm7kXzXzC_2-BigD2daa08wqKVCH9Djam3XC9obb-guxfqaJmZTbRBSLCxNir5rVV5Mg5LhDcMN2HI6SArM9E2ZItZDqEo1jC33uswZSqVtS-1tSQlM6lTVXlTOBlFRT/s1600/harp_seal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXFAPg5mXcZ8qnPm7kXzXzC_2-BigD2daa08wqKVCH9Djam3XC9obb-guxfqaJmZTbRBSLCxNir5rVV5Mg5LhDcMN2HI6SArM9E2ZItZDqEo1jC33uswZSqVtS-1tSQlM6lTVXlTOBlFRT/s1600/harp_seal.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Seal pups rely on their warm insulating fur to keep them warm in Arctic waters. <br />
<br />
But when that fur is covered in oil, it loses its ability to insulate – and even seals can freeze to death. <br />
Right now our government is opening up the Arctic to oil companies – even though there is no proven way to clean up an oil spill in icy conditions. That’s why we have to stop this drilling before it starts, but we don’t have much time left. <br />
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We only have until midnight. Don’t let seals freeze to death – help keep oil off seals and out of Arctic waters.<br />
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Drilling in the Arctic Ocean is a huge gamble, with thousands of seals, other marine animals, and vibrant coastal communities on the line. Even in the best conditions, like those in the Gulf of Mexico – calm weather, warm water, and nearby response teams – cleaning up spilled oil is risky, dangerous, and imprecise. Only about 10% of the oil was recovered in the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year, and Arctic conditions are, to put it mildly, less than ideal.<br />
<br />
Oil booms don't work in ice. Once oil is spilled, it will spread and stay – in the middle of the homes of seals and other Arctic animals – for a very long time. <br />
<br />
That’s why we are fighting to keep oil from being spilled in the first place. We have just until midnight to raise the money we need to keep up this critical fight and work to protect our oceans by: <br />
<br />
Fighting the expansion of offshore drilling into the fragile Arctic Ocean in court.<br />
<br />
Reaching thousands more activists to put pressure on government regulators to make the right decisions.<br />
<br />
Demanding that our government require tested and proven oil spill response plans and not just take the word of oil companies that they can clean up an Arctic spill.<br />
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Working with local native communities to document traditional knowledge and combine it with scientific information to map special areas at risk.<br />
<br />
Seal pups are relying on us to keep oil out of their homes. You could make a huge difference in the future of our oceans. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://na.oceana.org/">http://na.oceana.org/</a><br />
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<strong><span style="color: purple;">TAR SANDS XL Pipeline FEEDS Climate Change, Billionaire Koch-habit </span></strong><br />
<br />
<h2 align="center"><a href="http://stoptarsands.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/albertas-tar-sands-one-of-the-most-destructive-projects-on-earth/" rel="bookmark" title="Read Alberta’s Tar Sands: One of the Most Destructive Projects on Earth"><span style="color: #5c5c5c;">Alberta’s Tar Sands: One of the Most Destructive Projects on Earth</span></a></h2><span class="date_day"></span><span class="date_year"></span> One of the Most Destructive Projects on Earth<br />
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<div class="entry"><div class="snap_preview">Located beneath 4.3 million hectares of boreal forest, an area the size of Florida, the tar sands are the dirtiest source of oil in the world. Few Canadians know what is happening in northern Alberta. While many may know about Alberta’s immense oil reserves in the tar sands (2nd only to Saudi Arabia) few know the environmental and social devastation that is taking place.The tar sands could destroy over 149,000 square kilometres or Boreal forest an area the size of Florida. By 2020 they are expected to emit more than 141 million tonnes of greenhouse gases – more than double that currently produced by all the cars and trucks in Canada and Alberta is now home to the world’s largest dam and it is built to hold the toxic waste from just one Tar Sands operation.The tar sands of Alberta are now the world’s largest industrial operation. Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians have become hostage to their development. Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Canada is quickly increasing them and fully half of that emissions growth is projected to come from the Tar Sands.This is just beginning. The Alberta government has already given approvals that will double the size of existing operations, and has been talking with the US government to grow the Tar Sands five-fold in a “short time span” looking to move from 1 million barrels of oil per day to over 5 million The Tar Sands are now the biggest capital project anywhere on Earth and the biggest energy undertaking anywhere.With the Tar Sands, Canada has become the world’s dirty energy superpower.<br />
A few quick facts:<br />
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• The Tar Sands can single handedly prevent Canada from meeting it’s international obligations under the Kyoto protocol. By 2020 the tar sands are expected to release over 141 megatonnes of GHG – twice that produced by all the cars and trucks in Canada.<br />
<br />
• An area the size of the state of Florida (149,000 km2) can be leased to oil sands development in the future.<br />
<br />
• It takes 3-5 barrels of fresh water to get a single barrel of oil from the tar sands. 350 million cubic metres is the volume of water currently allocated to the tar sands, the equivalent to the water required by a city of two million people.<br />
<br />
• Cumulatively, the environmental impact of the tar sands has made Alberta the industrial air pollution capital of Canada, with one billion kilograms of emissions in 2003.<br />
<br />
• 600 million cubic feet of Natural gas is used every day – that’s enough to heat more than three million Canadian homes.<br />
<br />
• First Nation communities downstream of tar sands operation have been experiencing unprecedented rates of bile and colon cancer, lupus and other diseased that they believe are attributable to tar sands.<br />
<br />
• 70% of the crude oil being extracted from the tar sands is exported directly to the United States mostly for use in transportation.<br />
<br />
Across the country, individual Canadians are taking action to fight climate change. Most provincial governments – other than Alberta – have begun to meaningfully respond. But every step forward is undermined by ever larger greenhouse gas emissions from the Tar Sands. If we care about our planet or our future we need to <b>STOP THE TARSANDS.</b></div></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWtZUH9ReDei750UEzUMkBBiP9W8Fo_FDitX8jh53yrhM-no4_ubyEaUJPYxbusFNnuuVlnibzqLo345A0CtI2Z7Za3I8-ne5kCBv3FH2dmSu_6Ubl3mjbsXI0SLRHZ1Yh6GXq6LIYgzBQ/s1600/tar2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWtZUH9ReDei750UEzUMkBBiP9W8Fo_FDitX8jh53yrhM-no4_ubyEaUJPYxbusFNnuuVlnibzqLo345A0CtI2Z7Za3I8-ne5kCBv3FH2dmSu_6Ubl3mjbsXI0SLRHZ1Yh6GXq6LIYgzBQ/s1600/tar2.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="headline"> <h1>Arrests Made and Thousands More Expected in DC as Protests Grow to Block Tar Sands Pipeline</h1></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><!-- end: headline --><!-- start: teaser --> </div><div class="teaser">At stake is what has quickly become the largest environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election. </div><div class="teaser"> </div><div class="teaser"> </div><div class="headline"> <h1>Why the Tar Sands Pipeline Will Be Game Over for Our Planet</h1></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><!-- end: headline --><!-- start: teaser --> </div><div class="teaser">The country's leading climatologist talks about why he was arrested at the Tar Sands protests in DC and what the pipeline will mean for our future. </div><div class="teaser"> </div><div class="teaser"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><!-- end: teaser --><!-- START BODY --></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxIwEFDeZt8c2zckvnCYsfkrkIhOK-z6ndsxNLpUNjpvvHIqxYjSfhCpsv-omV9pJA4x8QaMTxHVccDebGaOuaraSgknkMAiT81QtSWWUj-Z0On1LTVqinycliKGlzZtN4bKYKic0SRBA/s1600/hansen2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQxIwEFDeZt8c2zckvnCYsfkrkIhOK-z6ndsxNLpUNjpvvHIqxYjSfhCpsv-omV9pJA4x8QaMTxHVccDebGaOuaraSgknkMAiT81QtSWWUj-Z0On1LTVqinycliKGlzZtN4bKYKic0SRBA/s1600/hansen2.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a class="link" href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/" target="_blank">Tar Sands Action</a> organized a civil disobedience sit–in at The White House to oppose construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that began on August 20 and will culminate in a big rally on September 3rd. On August 29 I joined 60 religious leaders and other fellow protestors. I was arrested that day. But before I was handcuffed, I addressed fellow activists who had gathered outside The White House with these words:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.climatestorytellers.org/">http://www.climatestorytellers.org/</a></div>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-544689057032665062011-10-03T08:59:00.000-07:002011-10-03T08:59:00.806-07:00Spokane Lost a River and Sustainability Advocate, Lawyer -- His Voice is in Us All<span style="color: blue;">Mike Chappell, who worked at Gonzaga running the environmental law clinic, died recently. Here are some decent eulogies on him --</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Published on September 14, 2011</span><a href="http://cforjustice.org/2011/09/14/farewell-to-my-river-hero/">http://cforjustice.org/2011/09/14/farewell-to-my-river-hero/</a> <br />
<br />
<br />
Halfway through what has been an incredibly difficult week I reflect on one of my biggest inspirations and share stories, links and quotes from those he touched<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">***********</span></strong><br />
<strong><a href="http://cforjustice.org/2011/09/12/gone-in-a-heartbeat/">http://cforjustice.org/2011/09/12/gone-in-a-heartbeat/</a></strong><br />
<br />
Mike Chappell, the visionary lawyer and environmentalist who helped breathe life into the Spokane Riverkeeper program, dies suddenly.<br />
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***********************************<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTSK3kZRHhjJuj70zjgE7hVVDGekXvTQUSGJQeYBiAfG7O5DPyiUchF3OSfqiKTFx8WjiVFJY2Xi7WVtAuK9olopFrXD8yvktbRnRoqVcLLjLPz1n4620nIVbP0QwoleP8B0tEnU6S6yK/s1600/Lappe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTSK3kZRHhjJuj70zjgE7hVVDGekXvTQUSGJQeYBiAfG7O5DPyiUchF3OSfqiKTFx8WjiVFJY2Xi7WVtAuK9olopFrXD8yvktbRnRoqVcLLjLPz1n4620nIVbP0QwoleP8B0tEnU6S6yK/s1600/Lappe.jpg" /></a><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Writer suggests environmental advocates ‘think like eco-systems’</span></strong><br />
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<strong><em>By Paul K. Haeder</em></strong><br />
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I had all sorts of thoughts swirling in my head while listening to Frances Moore Lappe, author of 1971’s book, “Diet for a Small Planet.” <br />
<br />
<br />
Here, she discussed how she thinks people’s sense of powerlessness is the real dilemma facing us, not climate chaos, not six species going extinct daily, and not global hunger affecting billions.<br />
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<br />
Lappe’s backdrop at Seattle’s Town Hall lecture earlier this month was the quote, “Hope is not what we find in evidence. It is what we become in action.” I’ve been really pondering the question of life and death, after the recent passing of 44-year-old Mike Chappell, Gonzaga environmental lawyer.<br />
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I’d seen Frances’ daughter, Anna Lappe, at Spokane Community College in April 2010 as part of the Spokane Earth Day lead-up in conjunction with Get Lit! A day later I spoke with Mike about the pressing issues of the environmental movement under President Obama, a disarrayed Democratic party and recalcitrant Republican gang under the thumb of a tea party.<br />
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Mike’s message to me in 2010 was both pessimism and also confidence that solutions already figured out and yet to be uncovered would be the leading edge of change if only young people could get ahold of individual and collective power and will. Mike was blown away Spokane was so engaged, literary and environmentally speaking.<br />
<br />
Mike represents the goodness of hard environmental work drenched in a healthy dose of hope and skepticism.<br />
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Lappe’s dominant message was positive, AFTER, citing how out of balance, or mal-aligned with nature, our world has become. She reiterated that for every one of our representatives, corporations and special interests own two dozen lobbyists. <br />
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Then there’s the 2005 Citi Bank memo to investors proclaiming America as a plutocracy, and that the top 1 percent of our population controlling the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent is a thing of glory. <br />
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Lappe was in Bellingham and Seattle for the launch of her new book, “Eco Mind: The World We Want,” and her controlling theme is steeped in neuro-psychology, cultural framing and what she calls “thought traps.”<br />
<br />
From Eric Fromm to Adam Smith to Wangari Mathai, Lappe is steeped in a globalist viewpoint, looking now — after 20 books — at how we need these “thought leaps,” that even the hard earnest work of environmentalists needs to be stripped of the “thought trap” of “we’ve hit our ecological limits.”<br />
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“This puts the blame on nature,” she says of environmentalists who drill the message of scarcity as a dominant theme. “This focus on quantities, on things humanity needs, puts the blame on nature.”<br />
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Her talk was splashed with studies and factoids she used to try to break apart that mind trap. How some studies say that up to 80 percent of all energy generated in this country is wasted, and that more than 50 percent of food grown here is thrown away. Adding to the food analogy, she pressed that 40 percent of calories consumed by youth are empty calories.<br />
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She pressed that we are at a moment when the eco-mind is aligning with nature’s collective and holistic cycles. While we have the backdrop of extreme concentration of power, lack of transparency and the blame game, Lappe continually imparted how “blown away” she has become over the past few years witnessing how powerlessness is being replaced with collective will and action.<br />
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Smallholder farmers worldwide still account for 70 percent of the food produced. Niger has re-greened 12.5 million acres with 200 million trees. The president of that country put it wisely: “We stopped the desert and everything changed.”<br />
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The United Nations Agro-forestry group has recently stated one-third of the world’s carbon pollution could be dealt with through reforesting programs.<br />
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Lappe’s message ended with a critique of the trap that says “it’s too late to avoid suffering … with climate change … and a billion people going hungry.”<br />
<br />
“Solutions to global crises are within reach,” she said. “Our challenge is to free ourselves from self-defeating thought traps so we can bring these solutions to life.”<br />
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This idea of fear causing us to fight or flee must be expunged, Lappe says, to be replaced with the idea that fear is a type of power to inspire.<br />
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“When I met Wangari Maathai on the first Earth Day in 1970, she was planting seven trees in Kenya as a tribute to seven environmentalists,” she said. “I thought, ‘Well, isn’t that nice.’ I gave her little chance of accomplishing much. Through her work, Wangari has planted 40 million trees in Kenya and won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004.”<br />
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It’s about imagining a world outside our frames and contexts. To learn how to walk with fear and use fear as a prod, a reminder that we are collectively in this struggle. <br />
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As Lappe reminded us that powerlessness and futility end up in depression and inaction, that there are 50 percent more suicides globally than homicides, she made it clear that there are more cooperatives in the world than corporate thugs. <br />
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Mike would have smiled at Frances Moore Lappe’s message that we have to think and act like an ecosystem:<br />
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“What is ecology but the science of relationships? If we look through an ecological lens we can see the core lessons that all organisms including human organisms are shaped by the relationships we have and the contexts in which we grow,” she said.<br />
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That’s how Mike Chappell lived his life – helping shape relationships in Spokane toward the shared values of healthy water, air, soil and communities.Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-79898366423921857422011-09-21T10:01:00.000-07:002011-09-21T10:02:43.858-07:00Why Did these Nobel Laureates Sign On to a Collective Letter to Obama Administration?Sincerely,<br />
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Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) – Ireland<br />
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Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) – Ireland<br />
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Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate (1980) – Argentina<br />
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate (1984) – South Af<br />
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His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Laureate (1989) – Ti<br />
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Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate (1992) – Guatemala<br />
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President José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate (1996) – East T<br />
<br />
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1997) – USA<br />
<br />
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate (2003) – Iran <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.savebiogems.org/stop-the-pipeline/nrdc-pipeline-nobel-laureates.pdf">http://www.savebiogems.org/stop-the-pipeline/nrdc-pipeline-nobel-laureates.pdf</a> <br />
<br />
Nine Nobel Peace Laureates -- including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- have called on President Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada’s Boreal forest to refineries in Texas. The pipeline will drive more destruction of songbird habitat, fuel global warming, and threaten drinking water for millions of Americans. The U.S. State Department is rushing towards approval of this fiasco. Please join the Nobel Laureates by sending a message to President Obama, urging him to stop the pipeline before it’s too late. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XZ8hDwligQiyhfsZ6uYa-eVlSGnnKwyoFTIlWJrXwVQZvkAQ7FtGzIFkccfyw1R_CgerHzUizWr2cAotVhw7PwuX1QoYPMTjK3UkygBPfO55x2DUZoTm90D-qdITUZHRwmYKOTQbN8th/s1600/web_banner_tar_sands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="53px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6XZ8hDwligQiyhfsZ6uYa-eVlSGnnKwyoFTIlWJrXwVQZvkAQ7FtGzIFkccfyw1R_CgerHzUizWr2cAotVhw7PwuX1QoYPMTjK3UkygBPfO55x2DUZoTm90D-qdITUZHRwmYKOTQbN8th/s320/web_banner_tar_sands.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
We did it! Thanks to donations from thousands of supporters like you, our ad carrying a message to President Obama from nine Nobel Peace Laureates -- including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- against the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is running in today’s national New York Times. <br />
<br />
<br />
And because of your extraordinary generosity, we were able to run the same ad in The Washington Post, bringing even more pressure to bear on the White House! <br />
<br />
Spreading the Nobel Laureates’ message far and wide could be a turning point in our campaign to stave off one of the most destructive projects on Earth. We are going to reach millions more Americans and leading opinion makers who can make their own opposition felt in the critical weeks ahead when the President must decide whether to accept or reject the tar sands pipeline. <br />
<br />
Frances Beinecke<br />
<br />
President<br />
Natural Resources Defense CouncilPaul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-42598447429201769302011-09-19T08:09:00.000-07:002011-09-19T08:09:33.881-07:00Sustainability through Environmental Protections<span style="color: purple;">There are actions, petitions and struggles out there to stop this unending attack on ecosystems. Below that cut and paste actions, you'll see a piece on smallholder farmers' movements published in Down to Earth NW. But first, a few struggles going on in the environmental "community."</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgM0soB0xKIqfBhG5pUjr5W9f1B7AZRBEaGTXYhzf-hvg70F9bCwio4jo22DlmfOPiVaTDzYTShc28kVzav2Aorp3FKCuCWoQFjcnam6LKxF1NplEYL8EkuozqljOCkP9_59sWp83ykRw/s1600/caribou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgM0soB0xKIqfBhG5pUjr5W9f1B7AZRBEaGTXYhzf-hvg70F9bCwio4jo22DlmfOPiVaTDzYTShc28kVzav2Aorp3FKCuCWoQFjcnam6LKxF1NplEYL8EkuozqljOCkP9_59sWp83ykRw/s1600/caribou.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<li><strong>Target:</strong> President Barack Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe</li>
<br />
<li><strong>Sponsored by:</strong> <a href="http://www.care2.com/petitions/feedback/598208152">Sierra Club</a></li>
<br />
<span id="overview_trunc">We've waited more than fifty years for this moment: to permanently protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness.<br /><br />The Arctic Refuge is valuable for its unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values, not its development potential. Oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Refuge would harm the wildlife and wilderness, adding to the stress the region already faces from global warming. Once this wilderness is destroyed, it's gone forever. <br /><br /><strong>Big Oil wants to drill in the coastal plain and change this magical place forever. Take this historic opportunity to protect the wildlife and wilderness of the Arctic Refuge.</strong></span>
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$('#overview_trunc').truncate({max_length: 1000});
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<br />
*********<br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">Another one --</span> <br />
<br />
Dear Citizen,<br />
<br />
<br />Time is Running Out to Save Seal Pups From Toxic Fumes<br />
<br />
Save spotted seals and other Arctic animals<br /><br />Right now, families of seals are swimming in Arctic waters. But just like you and me, seals need to breathe and must take a break from their underwater lives to come to the surface for air.<br />
<br />
But imagine if instead of inhaling crisp, clean Arctic air, seal pups are forced to breathe in oil and its toxic fumes – potentially deadly poisons they can’t escape.<br />
<br />
Our government is about to let oil companies drill in the Arctic, endangering seals, other marine animals, and local communities who rely on a healthy Arctic Ocean. But the drilling hasn’t started yet – and we still have a chance to save seals from a slow, painful death from toxic oil.<br />
<br />
Tell our government you won’t let it put the lives of seal pups and other Arctic animals on the line – speak out against Arctic offshore drilling now and help us reach our goal of 30,000 signatures in the next 72 hours»<br />
<br />
Recently, the government approved Shell's plan for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea. Other oil companies are hot on their heels. But the truth of the matter is that there are no proven techniques for successfully cleaning up Arctic oil spills.<br />
<br />
The results of an Arctic oil spill would be deadly. Spilled oil would gather in openings in the ice – the same openings that marine mammals like seals use to come up for air. Inhaling oil and its toxic fumes can slowly poison, or even kill, marine mammals. Once seals’ coats get oily, they lose their insulating powers, leaving them to freeze to death without the protection of their coats.<br />
<br />
Shell says they can clean up 95% of an oil spill. Not only has that never happened in an offshore oil spill, anywhere in the world, Shell has not proven their equipment will work in the Arctic. Just last month, a leak from a Shell drilling platform dumped more than 50,000 gallons in the North Sea and they cleaned up hardly a drop.<br />
<br />
Luckily, it isn’t a done deal yet – we still have a chance to stop drilling in American Arctic waters until Shell and other oil companies can prove without a doubt they can clean up their mess. But there is no time to waste.<br />
<br />
Don’t let Shell and other oil companies pull the wool over our government’s eyes – stand up for the lives of seals and other Arctic animals and help us reach our goal of 30,000 signatures in the next 72 hours»<br />
<br />
For the oceans,<br />Tatiana Marshall<br />Oceana<br />
<br />
************************<br />
<br />
Dear Paul,<br />
<br />
You made yesterday a success.<br />
<br />
In the months that went into planning 24 Hours of Reality, I saw firsthand the passion and energy of our Climate Presenters, staff and partners around the globe who are calling attention to the climate crisis and working to solve it.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I was honored to see your passion and your energy. I can't thank you enough for making 24 Hours of Reality a global success.<br />
<br />
By the time our chairman, former Vice President Al Gore finished his presentation, the 24 hour long event had 8.6 million views.<br />
<br />
I am incredibly proud that so many people around the world participated, but it's also important to remember the individual actions it represents. There are countless stories of impressive grassroots mobilization. A company in Tel Aviv hosted a watch party at their headquarters. A group of graduate students in Athens, Georgia rented out a popular local movie theater. People across the world joined hands to say: Climate change is real, it's happening now and the time to act is now.<br />
<br />
But this is just the beginning. There are important actions you can take today:<br />
Request a presentation. There are more than 3,000 trained Climate Presenters around the globe. <br />
<br />
Organize an event and invite a Presenter to come to your community.<br />
Go local: Team up with our partners around the world and help solve the climate crisis. Visit our website to find a partner organization near you.<br />
<a href="http://climaterealityproject.org/category/local-action/">http://climaterealityproject.org/category/local-action/</a><br />
<br />
Moving Planet: On September 24, hit the streets with 350.org for a global day of action. Find an activity near you.<br />
Check our comprehensive video library to watch highlights from 24 Hours of Reality.<br />
<br />
It is up to you to continue to stand up for reality and share the truth about the climate crisis. We will succeed because we must. Thank you,<br />
<br />
Maggie L. Fox<br />President and CEO<br />The Climate Reality Project<br />
<br />
********************<br />
<h2>
The right to grow</h2>
<h5 class="subhead">
Brazilian farmworker tells crowds to unite against Big Ag</h5>
<div class="details nested grid-8">
<span> Paul K. Haeder / Down to Earth NW Correspondent</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It might not be easy to fathom, but think 2,500 Nicklesvilles in terms of sheer numbers of displaced – landless and homeless — farmers. That was what one farmer from Brazil recently alluded at the Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair.<br />
<br />
Yes, the Harvest Fair in early September was phenomenal in its own rural-to-urban way. I counted two chicken coops, 80 vendors, loads of fresh produce, elfin garlands on old and young alike, children chomping on fresh peaches, a few goats, music and an overflow number of enthusiastic folk pushing through the corporate miasma that’s infected almost everything Seattle, especially our food.<br />
<br />
Did I mention the 80-degree weather on September 10 nourishing the activities at Meridian Park, behind the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford? Over 400 people amassed at 2 p.m. checking out urban gardening, community empowerment, talks and music.<br />
<br />
Even with all of those green-loving and farmer-based activities, one demure non-English speaker was in the wings, watching the goat talk/demonstration by Lacia Lynne Badley. While the permaculture connection was made by Badley and her three mixed breed goats, Janaina Stronzake was waiting for her interpreter to help her decode from Portuguese and Spanish into English, in order to share her work with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement, the largest peasant movement in Latin America with over 1.5 million members.<br />
<br />
It was clear to the small tent audience that listened to Janaina, articulate, with a second master’s degree almost complete, she is the real thing.<br />
<br />
“We were small farmers, my family and I, but we lost our land in the 1970s. In 1984 we joined the landless farm workers movement and occupied land.”<br />
<br />
The organization is called, MST, or more formally, Movement for the Liberation of the Landless (Movimento de Libertação dos Sem Terra, MLST), and the Land, Labor, and Liberty Movement (Movimento Terra, Trabalho e Liberdade , MTL.<br />
<br />
The worldwide landless farmer movement totals 2.5 million fighting for land and social justice.<br />
<br />
She illuminated some startling facts about Brazil –<br />
• the rich, 1 percent of the population, owns 46 percent of land<br />
• that land produces less than 30% of food consumed by Brazilians<br />
• 90 percent of public subsidies goes to that 1 percent<br />
<br />
Yet, Stronzake made it clear that 70 percent of the food produced for Brazilian consumption comes from small farms, amounting to only 24 percent of the farmland and less than 10 percent of public subsidies. <br />
<br />
“Why do we have to occupy lands? Why do we have to fight this system of industrial agri-business?”<br />
<br />
She harkened back to 1500, when Portugal “discovered” Brazil, and quickly put into place the “three pillars” of agricultural production, still used by transnational agro-businesses today:<br />
<br />
1. slaves<br />
2. monoculture for exportation back to the colonizing country<br />
3. plantations <br />
<br />
Janaina pointed out that today, those three pillars are now buttressed by a fourth and equally deadly one – genetically engineered plants, pesticides and more toxins in both the production and harvesting of crops. <br />
<br />
Add to that economies of scale killing ag jobs, larger and more frequent land grabs, and millions of traditional farmers pushed off land and into cities looking for work and food.<br />
<br />
It’s then a vicious cycle: “When the farmers aren’t eating or are under-resourced, violence ensues … impacting not just Brazil,” she said. Militaries rise, and governments become despotic. <br />
<br />
Think of millions of displaced farmers crossing borders because their access to water, soil and seeds has been wrested away by governments in collusion with companies like Bayer, Monsanto, Novartis, Syngenta, Cargill.<br />
<br />
The irony is that the impacts from industrial agriculture hit the health of communities, especially women, hard. Then this Brave New World order unfolds — the pharmaceutical company, Novartis, produces drugs that treat the cancers and depression that come from the chemicals and seeds companies like Syngenta concoct. <br />
<br />
Janaina committed to the Seattle Tilth Harvest Festival and later that evening with a Community Alliance for Global Justice and Grassroots International event to promote collective power and solutions to this sick agro-chemical model. The farm workers movement in Janaina’s country has occupied land and put offspring into schools and colleges. <br />
<br />
While farmers historically have had high levels of illiteracy and education, the movement in Brazil has put investments into educating farmers to navigate the arenas of politics, bio-intensive organic farming and community development and engagement.<br />
<br />
“Each city and community can implement another model,” she said. “We can together fight for food sovereignty — the right to access water, soil … to own seeds. But only together can we unite against transnational organizations and countries that support them to get to this old-new model.” <br />
<br />
For more about Brazil or the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement--<br />
<br />
http://www.mstbrazil.org/<br />
http://viacampesina.org/en/<br />
http://familyfarmers.org/<br />
<br />
<br />
Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-28764980247010596952011-09-16T08:40:00.000-07:002011-09-16T08:40:23.287-07:00The Death Nail of Solar Energy in the USA? Thanks, Obama!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBiNzdLeOsdHqxH2Xe2VtZFky4p9tj9waomo2mouM6YLF8vLyVF80tK6tvaHfP9ly9LEW6fMVhCt6QlmemPJrdh8QCp6XUAFCsVV54Mfkjx6dj1gQ_RMp8AzJ-eWiN-ccKYnL6gc8jhRp/s1600/SOLYNDRA002_1306517040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBiNzdLeOsdHqxH2Xe2VtZFky4p9tj9waomo2mouM6YLF8vLyVF80tK6tvaHfP9ly9LEW6fMVhCt6QlmemPJrdh8QCp6XUAFCsVV54Mfkjx6dj1gQ_RMp8AzJ-eWiN-ccKYnL6gc8jhRp/s320/SOLYNDRA002_1306517040.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h1 property="dc.title">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </h1>
<h1 property="dc.title">
<span style="font-size: small;">Joe Stephens is on Democracy Now today talking about this story of Obama, Rahm Emanual, Joe Biden and others botching solar energy's key role in America's future. Read Michael Klare's piece here on </span></h1>
<div class="headline">
<h1>
How America's Decline Is Linked to Oil</h1>
</div>
<div property="dc.title">
<!-- end: headline --><!-- start: teaser -->
</div>
<div class="teaser">
America's rise to supremacy was fueled by control over the
world's oil supply. Now, the decline of the U.S. coincides with the decline of
oil as a major energy source</div>
<div class="teaser">
</div>
<div class="teaser">
<strong>Check it out at Tom Dispatch -- </strong></div>
<div class="teaser">
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175441/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_is_washington_out_of_gas/">http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175441/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_is_washington_out_of_gas/</a></div>
<div class="teaser">
</div>
<div class="teaser">
<strong>We are up a creek without a paddle when we are so tied to Oil. Up to $20 billion a year to air condition the US mercenary forces in those wars in the middle east. The US military is the single largest consumer of oil, gas, fuel, diesel, etc. </strong></div>
<div class="teaser">
</div>
<div class="teaser">
<strong>So, read the Stephens piece on Solyndra. Read the Post's follow up, 5 Myths about the Solyndra Collapse: </strong></div>
<div class="teaser">
</div>
<h1 property="dc.title">
Solyndra loan: White House pressed on review of solar
company now under investigation</h1>
<br />
<h3 property="dc.creator">
By <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/joe-stephens/2011/03/02/ABd6xmP_page.html" rel="author">Joe Stephens</a>
and Carol D. Leonnig, <span class="timestamp updated processed" contenttype="article" datetitle="published" epochtime="1315958507000" pagetype="leaf">Published: September 13</span></h3>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-pushed-500-million-loan-to-solar-company-now-under-investigation/2011/09/13/gIQAr3WbQK_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-pushed-500-million-loan-to-solar-company-now-under-investigation/2011/09/13/gIQAr3WbQK_story.html</a><br />
<br />
EXCLUSIVE | The Obama White House tried to rush federal reviewers for a
decision on a nearly half-billion-dollar loan to the solar-panel manufacturer
Solyndra so Vice President Biden could announce the approval at a September 2009
groundbreaking for the company’s factory, newly obtained e-mails show.<br />
<br />
The Silicon Valley company, a centerpiece in President Obama’s initiative to
develop clean energy technologies, had been tentatively approved for the loan by
the Energy Department but was awaiting a final financial review by the Office of
Management and Budget. <br />
<br />
The August 2009 e-mails, released exclusively to The Washington Post<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-solyndra-failure-auditors-wonder-what-other-bad-bets-obama-officials-made/2011/09/01/gIQALMlnuJ_story.html"></a>,
show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB reviewers when they would be
able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which
they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern
that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate
time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by
Republican congressional <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-solyndra-failure-auditors-wonder-what-other-bad-bets-obama-officials-made/2011/09/01/gIQALMlnuJ_story.html">investigators</a>.<br />
<br />
Solyndra <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-solar-company-fails-after-getting-controversial-federal-loan-guarantees/2011/08/31/gIQAB8IRsJ_story.html">collapsed</a>
two weeks ago, leaving taxpayers liable for the $535 million loan.<br />
<br />
One e-mail from an OMB official referred to “the time pressure we are under
to sign-off on Solyndra.” Another complained, “There isn’t time to negotiate.”
<br />
<br />
“We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a
couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week),”
one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer
and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, concluded, “We
would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews.”<br />
<br />
White House officials said Tuesday that no one in the administration tried to
influence the OMB decision on the loan. They stressed that the e-mails show only
that the administration had a “quite active interest” in the timing of OMB’s
decision.<br />
<br />
“There was interest in when a decision would be made because of its impact on
whether an event involving the vice president could be scheduled for a
particular date or not, but the loan guarantee decision was merit-based and made
by career staffers at DOE,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. <br />
<br />
Solyndra spokesman David Miller said he was unaware of any direct involvement
of the White House in securing or accelerating the loan. <br />
<br />
The e-mail exchanges could intensify questions about whether the
administration was playing favorites and made costly errors while choosing the
first recipient of a loan guarantee under its stimulus program. Solyndra’s
biggest investors were funds operated on behalf of the family foundation of
Tulsa billionaire and Obama fundraiser George Kaiser. Although he has been a
frequent White House visitor, Kaiser has said he did not use political influence
to win approval of the loan. <br />
<br />
The White House has previously said that it had no involvement in the
Solyndra loan application and that all decisions were made by career officials
based on the merits of the company.<br />
<br />
It is not clear from the e-mails whether the White House<br align="block" />influenced a final decision to approve the loan guarantee. <br />
<br />
The Sept. 4, 2009, groundbreaking event went ahead as scheduled, with Energy
Secretary Steven Chu in attendance and Biden speaking to the gathering by
satellite feed. <br />
<br />
Republican investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which
is holding a hearing about Solyndra on Wednesday, concluded that the White House
set a closing date for the OMB approval even before the OMB review had begun.
<br />
<br />
The White House pressure may have had a “tangible impact” on the OMB’s risk
assessment of the loan, the congressional investigators concluded.<br />
<br />
In one e-mail, an OMB staff member questioned whether the review team was
using the best model for determining the financial risk to taxpayers in
evaluating the Solyndra deal. <br />
<br />
“Given the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra, we don’t have
time to change the model,” the staffer wrote.<br />
<br />
Solyndra was a favorite of the administration until two weeks ago, when the
company abruptly shuttered its factory and filed for bankruptcy court
protection, leaving 1,100 people out of work and taxpayers on the hook for the
loans. Last week, FBI agents searched the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters
in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-searches-shuttered-solyndra-offices-plant-in-california/2011/09/08/gIQAu4kRCK_story.html">raid</a>
that Miller said appeared linked to the loan guarantee. <br />
<br />
In one e-mail, an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, then White House chief of staff,
wrote on Aug. 31, 2009, to OMB about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra
and asked whether “there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side.”<br />
<br />
An OMB staff member responded: “I would prefer that this announcement be
postponed. <span>. . .</span> This is the first loan guarantee and we should
have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right.” <br />
<br />
****************************************************************************<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAe7tlePcgnHeV_n7bXBVafGPb5a9Hf54T3oXlkg3Ph4SZvdIRuPHkzxi20Z73ynGvZCNdSaVz3M0qhYvET0wXViZWiMx8_cg1TEuh8CoiMHg9cg1CV-P9lIozeea-PK2CmhB4Vc2l5_Y/s1600/Sun-red-sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAe7tlePcgnHeV_n7bXBVafGPb5a9Hf54T3oXlkg3Ph4SZvdIRuPHkzxi20Z73ynGvZCNdSaVz3M0qhYvET0wXViZWiMx8_cg1TEuh8CoiMHg9cg1CV-P9lIozeea-PK2CmhB4Vc2l5_Y/s320/Sun-red-sky.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
There are still plenty of nagging questions about the collapse of Solyndra, the California-based solar-panel maker <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-solar-company-fails-after-getting-controversial-federal-loan-guarantees/2011/08/31/gIQAB8IRsJ_story.html"><span style="color: black;">that went bankrupt</span></a> last month after getting $535 million worth of loan guarantees from the Obama administration. Such as: Did the Energy Department fail to do due diligence? And did the White House intervene inappropriately in pressing for the loan guarantees?<br />
<br />
But as Solyndra becomes the newest political chew toy, there’s been no shortage of hyperbole about the affair — especially over what it means for energy policy more broadly. On Tuesday, for example, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/09/13/solyndra_and_the_end_of_green_jobs.html"><span style="color: black;">said</span></a> that Solyndra’s downfall proves “that green energy isn’t going to be the solution.” That’s quite a leap. So here’s a look at five overheated arguments about Solyndra’s bust:<br />
<br />
<b>1) This scandal is no big deal.</b> To the contrary, evidence is mounting that there <i>was</i> something irregular about the way the Solyndra deal got greenlighted. My colleagues Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-pushed-500-million-loan-to-solar-company-now-under-investigation/2011/09/13/gIQAr3WbQK_story.html"><span style="color: black;">have obtained e-mails</span></a> showing that the White House pressed the Office of Management and Budget to hurry up in reviewing the deal (note, however, that this only came <i>after</i> the Energy Department had approved the loan), even as OMB officials voiced concern about being rushed. <br />
Does that prove the White House engaged in cronyism, shoveling cash toward a political ally? Not necessarily. Democrats have <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63484.html"><span style="color: black;">pointed out</span></a> that Solyndra’s loan process was initiated by the Bush administration and that many key investors were Republicans. Still, there could have been other reasons the deal was hastened. As a former Clinton energy aide stressed to me, it was arguably a mistake to sell the loan guarantees as job-creating stimulus (the program was expanded as part of the 2009 stimulus bill). “It means you try to force huge amounts of money quickly through processes that aren’t quite ready yet,” the aide said. “It’d be better to have a calmer, steadier source of funding.”<br />
<br />
<b>2) Solyndra proves that energy-loan guarantees are a flop</b>. Not exactly. The Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program, enacted in 2005 with bipartisan support, <a href="http://loanprograms.energy.gov/"><span style="color: black;">has backed</span></a> nearly $38 billion in loans for 40 projects around the country. Solyndra represents just 1.3 percent of that portfolio — and, as yet, it’s the only loan that has soured. Other solar beneficiaries, such as SunPower and First Solar, are still going strong. Meanwhile, just a small fraction of loan guarantees go toward solar. The program’s <a href="https://lpo.energy.gov/?page_id=45"><span style="color: black;">biggest bet to date</span></a> is an $8.33 billion loan guarantee for a nuclear plant down in Georgia. Improper political influence in the process is disturbing, but, at least so far, Solyndra appears an exception, not a rule. (That said, the GAO and others <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08750.pdf"><span style="color: black;">have pointed out</span></a> potential pitfalls and the need for stricter oversight in the loan program.)<br />
<br />
<b>3) The government should leave energy R&D to the private sector.</b> Actually, there’s reason to think the private market is drastically <i>under</i>-investing in new energy technology. As a <a href="http://www.americanenergyinnovation.org/2011-executive-summary"><span style="color: black;">new report</span></a> from the American Energy Innovation Council lays out, the utility sector spends just 0.1 percent of its revenues on R&D — the average for U.S. industries is 3.5 percent. The electricity sector is heavily regulated and capital-intensive — power plants last for decades and turn over slowly — and hence tends to focus less on innovation. What’s more, many objectives that may be in the public interest, such as reducing carbon emissions, aren’t fully valued in the marketplace right now.<br />
As such, the AEIC report concludes, “Energy innovation should be a higher national priority.” Right now, the federal government spends a middling amount on energy research (about $3 billion in 2009), compared with the sums lavished on the National Institutes of Health ($36.5 billion) or defense research ($77 billion). And the AEIC report recommends public support for <i>all</i> aspects of the innovation process, from basic research to pilot projects to helping companies commercialize their products. (Solyndra was in that last phase.)<br />
<br />
<b>4) Solar is a doomed industry.</b> This view has been gaining popularity, but it’s not borne out by the numbers. Prices for solar photovoltaic modules continue to tumble, even as fossil-fuel prices rise. A June <a href="http://www.oursolarfuture.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-UK-50kW-to-5-MW-solar-PV-market-190611-Final.pdf"><span style="color: black;">report</span></a> by Ernst & Young suggests that large-scale solar could become cost-competitive within a decade, even without government support. Of course, grid operators still have to grapple with the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, but storage technologies continue to improve — in July, a solar plant in Seville, Spain, <a href="http://www.torresolenergy.com/TORRESOL/Press/gemasolar-solar-power-plant-reaches-24-hours-of-uninterrupted-production"><span style="color: black;">achieved</span></a> continuous 24-hour operation using molten salt storage. All told, some 24,000 MW worth of projects are <a href="http://solarbuzz.com/industry-news/solar-module-price-cuts-stimulate-massive-growth-us-photovoltaic-project-pipeline"><span style="color: black;">in the pipeline</span></a> in the United States, led by California. Those projects may not all get completed, but that’s a lot of growth underway.<br />
<br />
<b>5) It’s all China’s fault.</b> This one is complicated. China does provide hefty subsidies to its solar industry. As Climate Progress’s Stephen Lacey <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/09/315754/chinese-predatory-pricing-solar/"><span style="color: black;">details</span></a>, the Chinese Development Bank offers cheap long-term loans to domestic manufacturers that dwarf anything Solyndra ever got. That allows Chinese solar companies to offer cutthroat prices and drive competitors out. And yet, as Westinghouse Solar CEO Barry Cinnamon <a href="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/08/solyndras-exit-china-not-to-blame"><span style="color: black;">explains</span></a>, it wasn’t China that caused Solyndra to go belly-up — the company had invented a solar panel that didn’t use silicon, unlike its competitors, and foundered after silicon prices plummeted.<br />
<br />
What’s more, the fact that China hurls money at solar isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since cheaper solar prices can benefit the United States too. The Energy Department seems to have recognized that going toe-to-toe with China on direct subsidies may be futile and is instead trying to focus on complementary efforts to bolster innovation, through programs like its <a href="http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/"><span style="color: black;">Sunshot Initiative</span></a>. Also, for all China’s subsidy frenzy, the United States <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/29/306070/solar-exporter-america/"><span style="color: black;">still exported</span></a> $1.9 billion of solar products last year and actually has a trade surplus in solar with China.<br />
<br />
<br />
Five myths about the Solyndra collapse<br />
<br />
<div id="entryhead">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="blog-byline"><span style="color: #777777;">Posted by </span><strong><span style="color: #777777;"> </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/brad-plumer/2011/07/28/gIQAPrqSfI_page.html" rel="author"><span style="color: black;">Brad Plumer</span></a></strong></span><!-- <h1 class="entry-title">
</h1>
--><span class="timestamp">at 10:07 AM ET, 09/14/2011</span></span></div>
Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-25147014606334131952011-09-15T07:54:00.000-07:002011-09-15T07:54:36.407-07:00Traditional Corn WILL Weather Climate Change -- Monsanto's WILL NOT!<span style="color: purple;">Ahh, Monsanto, Dow Cargil, Syngenta, Norvis -- these giants are railroading into every country in the world to take our food away. Genetically altered, engineered, modified, trans-morphed, whatever you want to call them -- GE, GMO or Franken-foods, the bottom line is that king of high tech, Bill Gates, and spouse, Melinda, have their talons in the futures of smallholder farmers who DO NOT want their faux green revolution. We'll be looking at a study that shows that agro-ecological, or organic, can save the world, feed the world, and mitigate 1/3 of the carbon pollution we now have causing climate chaos.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-eC_0LKLoB7XgxaN7ZW3Kap2v29TGv1XIqXjgsnaGR_gNN_CWOtX7Uass4PQZPdAmTKPFNT9aw0140M5TB3d47_ddIecpamJmN-UzlF4UgpJRkrgGT8B_WvwAd2tfT3v9aKm4D_qwV4l/s1600/corn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-eC_0LKLoB7XgxaN7ZW3Kap2v29TGv1XIqXjgsnaGR_gNN_CWOtX7Uass4PQZPdAmTKPFNT9aw0140M5TB3d47_ddIecpamJmN-UzlF4UgpJRkrgGT8B_WvwAd2tfT3v9aKm4D_qwV4l/s1600/corn.jpg" /></a><span style="color: purple;">Here's the lo down on corn, where I spent a lot of my formative years as an activist, journalist and writer -- Mexico, Yucatan, Oaxaca.</span> <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xdRwOzTFdo0gBMjf29CEYtRLt1nKHZJjoMRq9mNe5FDSbndCUllO3SQv52fi53kkeXqVcGV98b85vvZV_dZVNXk4-YnOmy3BdwDRnpJdP3pMBcyqiivELP7F2mptqM8qFHv0V-F6FNcy/s1600/cornhistory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xdRwOzTFdo0gBMjf29CEYtRLt1nKHZJjoMRq9mNe5FDSbndCUllO3SQv52fi53kkeXqVcGV98b85vvZV_dZVNXk4-YnOmy3BdwDRnpJdP3pMBcyqiivELP7F2mptqM8qFHv0V-F6FNcy/s1600/cornhistory.jpg" /></a>MEXICO: Traditional Maize Can Cope with Climate Change By Emilio Godoy<br /><br />MEXICO CITY, Sept 8, 2011 (IPS) - Maize, Mexico's staple food as well as a symbol, has<br />the potential to adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects without any need for<br />genetically modified seeds, according to agricultural scientists.<br /><br />Mexico has at least 59 landraces (traditional, locally-adapted strains that are rich in<br />biodiversity) and 209 varieties of corn. White maize is the most commonly eaten variety,<br />while yellow maize is used for animal feed or processed into cornflakes, starch and other<br />products.<br /><br />Maize is thought to have developed from an ancestor grain in four possible geographical<br />locations in Mexico, according to the 2009 study "Origen y diversificación del maíz, una<br />revisión analítica" (Origin and Diversification of Maize: An Analytical Review) by<br />researchers at the state Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), the Autonomous<br />University of Mexico City and the Postgraduate College.<br /><br />"Climate change will have different impacts, because corn varieties are adapted to very<br />specific conditions," Carolina Ureta, a researcher at the UNAM Biology Institute, told<br />IPS. "While some varieties will benefit, others will be harmed."<br /><br />"We can focus our attention on varieties that grow in adverse conditions, and see what<br />genetic improvement is possible," she said.<br /><br />Ureta has been working since 2009 on a research project titled "Effects of Climate Change<br />on the Distribution of Mexican Maize and its Wild Relatives", due to be completed in 2012<br />as the final stage of her doctorate in biological sciences. Her research is to be<br />published in a forthcoming issue of the U.S. journal Global Change Biology.<br /><br />According to her results, the territorial distribution of maize is expected to shrink 15<br />percent by 2030, and 30 percent by 2050. The north of the country will be most affected<br />because of its drier conditions.<br /><br />Maize is a symbolic crop in Mesoamerica, the region covering southern Mexico and Central<br />America, because of its vital importance in pre-Columbian culture.<br /><br />Some 3.2 million Mexican farmers cultivate maize, and over two million of these producers<br />use it for family consumption, according to official statistics.<br /><br />Farm workers harvest white maize, in particular, for domestic consumption, while they<br />import yellow corn for animal feed. The government projects white maize output of 23<br />million tonnes this year, and a further nine million tonnes of yellow maize will be<br />purchased abroad.<br /><br />"The potential to face up to climate change lies in producing seeds in situ, the way it<br />has always been done in traditional environmentally-friendly agriculture," Aleida Lara,<br />coordinator ofGreenpeace Mexico's sustainable agriculture and transgenics campaign, told<br />IPS.<br /><br />In fact, traditional farming systems are being studied by three scientists, from the NGO<br />Biodiversity International, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and<br />theInternational Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), whose results were<br />published in August in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<br />(PNAS).<br /><br />The results suggest that "traditional seed systems may be able to provide farmers with<br />landraces suitable for agro-ecological conditions under predicted climate change<br />scenarios," Mauricio Bellón, David Hodson and Jon Hellin concluded in their paper titled<br />"Assessing the vulnerability of traditional maize seed systems in Mexico to climate<br />change".<br /><br />
<br />The scientists studied the structure and spatial scope of traditional maize seed systems<br />in 400 households from 20 communities in five states of eastern Mexico, at altitudes<br />between 10 and 2,980 metres above sea level.<br /><br />In their view, given the expected changes in agriculture and climate, the introduction of<br />genetically modified maize (engineered to contain genes from other species, such as<br />bacteria, to confer resistance to insects or<br />herbicides) represents a threat to native species.<br /><br />"We have enough diversity to be able to introduce adaptation methods without the need for<br />transgenics," said UNAM's Ureta, who belongs to the Union of Scientists Committed to<br />Society (UCCS). "Very few landraces have been genetically characterised, and transgenics<br />could contaminate the genotypes that have not been produced commercially. Therefore, we<br />should develop our own technology, to meet our own needs," she said.<br /><br />Mexico's agriculture ministry decided in March to approve a pilot study of genetically<br />modified yellow maize resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, carried out by U.S. seed<br />giant Monsanto on less than a hectare of land in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.<br /><br />Since 2009, the government has received 110 applications for experimental cultivation of<br />transgenic maize and 11 for pilot programmes. The ministry has granted 67 permits for<br />experimental planting, on nearly 70 hectares of land in states in the north of the<br />country.<br /><br />Environmental organisations are accusing the government of conservative President Felipe<br />Calderón of breaking the Biosecurity Law for Genetically Modified Organisms, in force<br />since 2005, which stipulates that centres of origin of native seeds must be determined<br />before any permission is granted for transgenic crops.<br /><br />They want the government to reinstate the moratorium on transgenics that was in place<br />from 1999 to March 2009.<br /><br />The environmental watchdog Greenpeace reported the existence of transgenic maize in six<br />of Mexico's 32 states, as well as imports of genetically modified seeds.<br /><br />"In 2009 we requested the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to grant<br />precautionary measures against the sowing of transgenic seeds, because of the delay by<br />the Mexican justice system in enforcing the law in an issue of national security," said<br />Greenpeace Mexico's Lara.<br /><br />CIMMYT, founded by U.S. scientist Norman Borlaug (1914-2009), the "father"<br />of the Green Revolution that spread chemical fertilisers on fields all over the world,<br />has determined that transgenes – genetic material transferred from one species to another<br />– may affect the environment and farmers' welfare, and have commercial costs, such as<br />licences and distribution fees.<br /><br />"Maize landraces in Mexico show remarkable diversity and climatic adaptability, growing<br />in environments ranging from arid to humid and from temperate to very hot. This diversity<br />raises the possibility that Mexico already has maize germplasm suitable for the 'novel'<br />crop environments predicted for 2050," says the paper by Bellón, Hodson, and Hellin, who<br />works at CIMMYT.<br /><br />CIMMYT maintains a germplasm bank containing at least 25,000 maize seeds, while Mexico's<br />National Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIFAP) runs a<br />similar bank of 11,000 seeds. But these stored seeds may not be fully suited to future<br />climate conditions.<br /><br />National Maize Day will be celebrated in Mexico Sept. 29, organised by the "Sin Maíz No<br />Hay País" (Without Corn There is No Country) campaign undertaken by a coalition of NGOs<br />to protect native maize from genetically modified seeds.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxdzaLAHywuw_PHhdlW7-k8wLvgAIg7ofuVnHLvpHqURUMOOn3DAaBze68zg5wiqOoCrcNfJu4t1caWXFy3X5yX59Y84FMaTJtObArOKghMkkLoV1E1ZV7NvqMsPPrxaMEg4Op72v4FyzD/s1600/cornquality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxdzaLAHywuw_PHhdlW7-k8wLvgAIg7ofuVnHLvpHqURUMOOn3DAaBze68zg5wiqOoCrcNfJu4t1caWXFy3X5yX59Y84FMaTJtObArOKghMkkLoV1E1ZV7NvqMsPPrxaMEg4Op72v4FyzD/s1600/cornquality.jpg" /></a>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-65806324891086651592011-09-07T06:57:00.000-07:002011-09-07T06:57:15.974-07:00Feds Go After Our Business Owners -- Kick in the Door of Health Food Stores While Wall Street Financial Thugs Laugh All the Way to the Bank(s)<span style="color: purple;">So many stories out there today, as NATO, USA and EU attempt to rule the world, as they go into Libya with bombing runs and black-ops. Documents retrieved showing how CIA and MI-6 worked with Libya's torture agencies to "rendition" innocents in this global so-called war on terrorism.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">However, let's look at the jack-booted folk in our government going after health nuts, raw milk enthusiasts. Then the letter to me from CREDO and Food Democracy Now!</span> <br />
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<br />
<strong>Armed Federal Agents Raid a Health Food Club,
Drag Volunteer to Jail</strong><br />
<br />
<h5 style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;">
By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet</h5>
August 3rd was a telling day for the U.S. government's role in controlling
our food safety and food security. In Los Angeles, the Rawesome raw food club
was raided by armed federal and state agents who arrested a club volunteer and
seized computers, file folders, cash, and $70,000 worth of perishable produce.
The bail for volunteer James Stewart, 64, was set at $121,000 -- higher than the
bail amounts assessed to narcotics dealers and domestic abusers in the courtroom
that day. And, in a rare move, Stewart was denied the right to use a
bondsman.<br />
<br />
Of the thirteen counts against Stewart, 12 regarded raw milk and products
made from raw milk that were distributed to club members in a Rose Avenue
warehouse. (The other count involved unwashed, room temperature eggs). No
illnesses have been reported in the club's 12-year history. And if a problem
were to occur with the club's food, members say, they would be able to quickly
figure out the source. This was the second such raid on Rawesome, the first
having happened in June of 2010.<br />
<br />
In addition to the seizure of virtually every file, hard drive, wallet,
post-it note and receipt in Rawesome's office, the search warrant also demanded
seizure of "cheese, cream, milk, whey, yogurt, butter, kefir, dietary
supplements, and any other product deemed necessary for testing."<br />
<br />
It remains to be seen if the coconuts, watermelons and buffalo meat taken
from the Rawesome Food Club, as seen in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW00OqtQyqw&feature=youtu.be">this
YouTube video</a>, will be tested. What could they possibly test it for? Raw
milk contamination? More than likely this food will be tossed.<br />
<br />
Lela Buttery, 29, a Rawesome member and part of the de facto support team
that has coalesced around Stewart, says a bevy of high profile lawyers have
offered their services pro bono. Christopher Darden, who prosecuted OJ Simpson's
civil suit, appeared at Stewart's arraignment just in time to get his bond
lowered from $121,000 to $30,000 and strike a clause that prevented Stewart from
using a bail bondsman.<br />
<br />
Buttery says that when the bail amount was first read in court, it was almost
comical. "We'd been watching child molesters and wife-beaters get [their bail
set at] half that amount. James is accused of things like 'processing milk
without pasteurization' and gets such a high bail amount... the felons in court
burst out laughing."<br />
<br />
Rawesome started 12 years ago as a small group of raw milk drinkers who would
occasionally pool their money together for an order. Someone, often Stewart,
would take the money to a local farm and score some fresh unpasteurized milk to
be divided among the group. As more and more people joined, the club grew from a
cooler in a parking lot to a rented storage space to the current warehouse. The
inventory diversified as the club evolved, but the layout stayed minimal: in
piles, barely labeled.<br />
<br />
Rawesome members sign a form attesting "as a member of this private
members-only club, I demand access to food that is 1) produced without exposure
to chemical contaminants such as industrialized pesticides, fertilizers,
cleansers or their gases; 2) complete with its natural unadulterated enzymes
intact; 3) may contain microbes, including but not limited to salmonella,
E.coli, campylobacter, listeria, gangrene and parasites; 4) the cows are
grass-fed and the goats are pastured on a regular basis; 5) fowl are regularly
given the opportunity to range outdoors and not fed soy products; and 6) eggs
are unwashed and may have bacteria and poultry feces on them."<br />
<br />
Last year's raid on Rawesome resulted in seizers of cash, computers and other
equipment that have yet to be returned, says Buttery. It also resulted in
Rawesome agreeing not to distribute raw milk from Santa Paula-based Healthy
Family Farms, which had been supplying raw milk to Rawesome members.<br />
<br />
California is one of the few states that allows the sale of raw milk, but
only from dairies permitted by the state to do so. Healthy Family Farms, owned
by Sharon Palmer, 51, had not kept up with its permitting, and Rawesome was
ordered not to purchase HFF milk, which it didn't (Palmer disbanded the herd
although she kept farming, selling chicken and eggs to Rawesome and at farmers'
markets.) Where the club does get its raw milk from is complicated, says
Buttery, who mentions it is often stocked raw camel's milk. A biologist by
trade, Buttery gushed about the immunoglobulin chemistry of raw camel's
milk.<br />
<br />
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Although her farm did not supply raw milk to Rawesome, Palmer and her
employee Eugenie Bloch, 58, were also arrested on August 3, on nine counts
including conspiracy to commit a crime and unlicensed business. Like Stewart
they were initially held on bail amounts more appropriate for killers and
rapists.<br />
<br />
Later that day, as Stewart, Palmer, and Bloch languished in jail, Cargill
issued a voluntary recall, 4 months after people began getting sick, of 36
million pounds of ground turkey traceable to its Arkansas plant. Cargill has a
history of deadly outbreaks, is a major supplier to the nation's public school
meal programs, and sells turkey under dozens of handles and brand names, none of
which say "Cargill," reports Tom Philpott in <em>Mother Jones</em>.<br />
<br />
Nobody at the plant or at Cargill has been charged with a crime.<br />
<br />
While members of Rawesome who simply want to exercise their right to eat
whatever they want to are getting bullied by armed multi-agency stings, our
government agencies have no such powers of persuasion over corporations like
Cargill. The USDA, which oversees the safety of meat products, can only issue
"voluntary recalls" of products that have been infected with
antibiotic-resistant pathogens.<br />
<br />
And while the state of California and the federal government face
unprecedented financial problems, considerable state and federal resources have
been placed into an undercover investigation to root out information that nobody
was trying to hide.<br />
<br />
"Since the raid it's come out that we've been under investigation since June
30 of last year," says Buttery. "They've been monitoring us from unmarked
vehicles, they have agents who have become members."<br />
<br />
If the last week has taught us anything it's that raw milk advocates need
better lobbyists in Washington D.C. How the courtroom drama plays out is
anybody's guess, but Buttery doesn't think so many lawyers would be lining up to
take on this case if it wasn't a winner. In the meantime, Stewart and his
associates, and that space on Rose Ave in Venice, are prohibited from having
anything to do with the exchange of raw milk. Which basically puts Rawesome out
of business.<br />
<br />
Or more accurately, out of cooperation.<br />
<br />
Both Stewart and Bloch posted their bonds and were released by Friday, August
5th, but Palmer missed her arraignment that day. The mother of three children
with a farm to take care of had been in jail since Wednesday, and her detention
facility's transport got her to court too late for her arraignment. She'll have
to wait until Monday, after five days in jail, for the opportunity to post bail.
<br />
<br />
<i>Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column, <a href="http://www.flashinthepan.net/">Flash in the Pan.</a> </i><br />
***********************************************************<br />
<h5 style="margin: 30px 0px 20px;">
© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved. View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/151933/</h5>
Dear Paul,<br />
<br />
Why is a former Monsanto lobbyist currently serving as the FDA's food safety czar waging war on small dairy farms that producefresh milk?<br />
<br />
While factory farm operators are getting away with serious food safety violations, raw milk dairy farmers and distributorsacross the country have been subjected to armed raids and hauled away in handcuffs. <br />
<br />
The Food and Drug Administration is running sting operations followed by "guns-drawn raids usually reserved for terroristsand drug lords" as part of a crackdown on unpasteurized milk.1 Meanwhile, the FDA is letting the highly consolidatedindustrial meat and factory farm industry off the hook despite growing problems.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, the person responsible for prioritizing armed raids on small dairies over holding agribusiness accountableis a former Monsanto attorney and chief super lobbyist. Monsanto's Michael Taylor is the second highest-ranking officialat the FDA, and as Food Safety Czar is responsible for implementing the day-to-day policies that govern the food safety lawsfor the U.S. 2<br />
Tell President Obama to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from his job as Food Czar at the FDA. Click here to automaticallysign the petition.<br />
<br />
CREDO is joining our allies at Food Democracy Now! in calling on the president to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from theFDA. Midwestern farmers will play an important symbolic role in President Obama's reelection campaign. We need to let thepresident know that we stand with small farmers and not Monsanto!<br />
<br />
Michael Taylor seems focused on entirely the wrong aspects of food safety enforcement. Rather than making sure that foodsafety inspections are done properly at our nation's largest factory farms, where antibiotic resistance has run amuck, Taylorhas been leading a departmental crusade against small raw milk dairy producers. So far several dairy farmers have been subjectto a year-long undercover sting operation from the East Coast to California.<br />
<br />
Incredibly, Michael Taylor and FDA inspectors have not arrested or fined the Iowa agribusinessman — Jack DeCoster —who was wholly responsible for the half-a-billion eggs that were recalled in 2010 salmonella-tainted egg recall.3Though this industrial agribusinessman endangered the health of millions, Michael Taylor thinks Amish farmers producing freshmilk are more deserving targets of his FDA enforcement raids with guns drawn.<br />
<br />
While CREDO recognizes the inherent risks that are involved in food production, it's time that the U.S. government startresponsibly looking into the real origins of our nation's largest food safety recalls and stop harassing family farmers tryingto survive in the excessively consolidated food and agricultural sectors.<br />
<br />
Tell President Obama to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from his job as Food Czar at the FDA. Click here to automaticallysign the petition.<br />
<br />
Thanks for standing up for small farmers and taking our government back from Monsanto.<br />
<br />
Becky Bond, Political Director<br />CREDO Action from Working Assets<br />
<br />
1 "Food safety chief defends raw milkraids", San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2011<br />
2 "Monsanto's man Taylor returns to FDAin food-czar role", Grist, July 8, 2009.<br />
3 "DeCoster Gets Warning, HillandaleSales OK'd", Food Safety News, October 19, 2010.Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-41686964802625217762011-09-06T08:31:00.001-07:002011-09-06T09:05:52.339-07:00Obama -- Caves on Mother Earth's Rights, Americans' Health<span style="color: purple;">He caves on the environment, and he can't pull the Wall Street wax from his ears -- people are finally waking up, and these politicians can't hear. After this quick look at our president's most important stripping of environmental laws, safe guards and sanity, read the former Republican operative's look at his senile and insane former party. Things are getting worse, and, as this blog ramifies, the mainstream media and the mainlining corporate tea bagger types gutting education will take the USA down the sewer pipe if smart, educated and, yes, lucky-to-be-employed-in-living-wage-or-above jobs DO NOT rise up.</span><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<strong>Smog USA</strong><br />
<br />
The Obama Administration announced Sep. 2, 2011 that it is withdrawing an important new life-saving smog standard, once again delaying action to reduce ozone pollution that threatens millions of Americans and contributes to as many as 12,000 premature deaths every year.<br />
<br />
This decision leaves in place outdated, Bush-era standards that lag far behind what scientists have unanimously recommended and will result in more than 45,000 cases of aggravated asthma and over 1.5 million missed work or school days per year.<br />
<br />
Millions of children and adults with respiratory illnesses like asthma are particularly vulnerable to elevated levels of ozone pollution.<br />
<br />
Please join me in expressing your disappointment with the White House decision. Send an email to President Obama today.<br />
<br />
The Fight for Clean Air<br />
<br />
As disappointing as today's announcement is, we will have our hands full this Fall fighting back against many other outrageous assaults on the EPA and our landmark clean air laws.<br />
<br />
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) sent a letter this week to colleagues outlining a vigorous political strategy to block as many as eight life-saving clean air standards.<br />
<br />
We will need your continued support and constant vigilance over the next several months to take on the polluter allies in Congress and beat back these ideological and counter-productive attacks.<br />
<br />
<strong>First, What Happened up through Labor Day</strong><br />
<br />
A petition with 617,428 names opposing the pipeline was delivered to the White House and over the course of the two-week sit-in 1,252 people were arrested, including top climate scientists, landowners from Texas and Nebraska, First Nations leaders from Canada, and notable individuals including Bill McKibben, former White House official Gus Speth, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, actor Daryl Hannah, filmmaker Josh Fox, and author Naomi Klein. And even some Obama For America staffers.<br />
<br /><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OxmTKgrXF2g" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: purple;">Ahh, 28 Years as a Republican Ooperative -- Now He Sees the Light (and publishing deals!)</span></strong><br />
<br />
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<br />
<h1>
latimes.com</h1>
<h2>
Borrowing and spending the GOP way</h2>
The big deficit facing the U.S. is mostly Republican in origin, the
Congressional Budget Office says. The Bush tax cuts alone have added $3 trillion
in red ink, yet the party wants to double down on its failed policy.<br />
<br />
By Mike Lofgren/ June 26, 2011<br />
<br />
<div>
President Obama's fiscal policies are a mess. Whatever one thinks of the need
for stimulus in a severe recession, it is obvious that running trillion-dollar
deficits for years on end is unsustainable. Moreover, his proposals are
dishonest. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that his
proposed 2012 budget underestimates spending while overestimating
revenues.<br />
<br />
Sadly, the Republicans have offered no viable
alternative.<br />
<br />
The failure of our leaders to offer realistic budget
proposals was a major reason I decided to retire after 28 years in Congress,
most of them as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the
House and Senate Budget Committees. My party talks a good game, railing about
the immorality of passing debt on to our children. But the same Congressional
Budget Office that punctured Obama's budget also concluded that the major
policies that swung the budget from a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion
in 2001 to the present 10-year deficit of $6.2 trillion were Republican in
origin.<br />
<br />
Consider the two signature GOP policies of George W. Bush's
presidency: the wars and the tax cuts. Including debt service costs, Bush's wars
have cost about $1.7 trillion to date. Additionally, as part of being "a nation
at war," the Pentagon has spent about $1 trillion more than was expected in the
last decade on things other than direct war costs, which has been a bonanza for
military contractors but a disaster for the federal budget. And finally, there
has been another trillion dollars spent domestically in response to 9/11,
including spending on such things as establishing the Homeland Security
Department and increasing the budgets for the State Department and the Veterans
Administration.<br />
<br />
The Bush tax cuts have added another $3 trillion in red
ink. While Republican leaders wail that Americans — particularly their rich
contributors — are overtaxed, the facts say otherwise: U.S. taxpayers,
particularly the wealthiest, pay far less in taxes than they would in most other
developed countries. Today, the 400 wealthiest Americans have as much wealth as
the bottom 125 million. The GOP insists that those wealthy people use their
money to create jobs, and that taxing them more heavily would ultimately hurt
the economy. But, if that's so, why was the rate of job creation in the decade
after the Bush tax cuts the poorest in any decade since before World War
II?<br />
<br />
Like a drunk swearing off hooch for the hundredth time, Republicans
are now trying to show they are serious about controlling the deficit by saying
they won't raise the debt ceiling unless they get through some of their
cost-saving projects, like privatizing Medicare. Meanwhile, they want revenue
increases "off the table," even though, at 14.8% of GDP, revenues are at their
lowest level in 60 years. And the budget passed by the Republican-controlled
House further cuts taxes on the wealthy, a fact it glosses over with optimistic
growth forecasts.<br />
<br />
Raising the debt ceiling isn't, as the GOP tries to
say, Congress giving itself permission to continue excessive spending: It's
something that's necessary to pay for past congressional decisions on taxes and
spending, and those decisions were made primarily when Republicans were in
charge.<br />
<br />
No one wants to have to raise the debt ceiling. But not doing so
could lead to at least a temporary default on our debt, which would force up
interest rates for everyone and add more than a trillion dollars to the cost of
servicing the federal government's debt. Moreover, a default could seize up our
private financial system in a manner similar to the Lehman Bros. collapse. Do
the Republican holdouts really want that? If so, they might want to take a hard
look at the streets of Athens.<br />
<br />
The policy of full faith and credit,
constructed by Alexander Hamilton more than two centuries ago, has served us
well. We shouldn't abandon it to a misplaced ideology.<br />
<br />
Polarization based
on juvenile talk radio sloganeering is dragging this country to the cliff's
edge. If neither the Democrats nor the party I have served for three decades is
willing to act like adults, perhaps it's time for a party that is willing to
step into the void.<br />
<br />
Mike Lofgren retired as a congressional staffer on
June 17.<strong> </strong></div>
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">Read all of Lofgren's discrediting of the Republicans here:</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779">http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779</a>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-22891007620896611262011-09-02T11:52:00.000-07:002011-09-02T11:52:14.631-07:00Ya Gotta Give It to Real Americans Standing Down Injustice, Unstainable Practices!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dear Paul,
Over 1,000 people have been arrested in front of the White House in the last two weeks. One of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the environmental movement is underway to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline which will extend from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline is a threat to our environment and threatens the drinking water of millions of people in its path. Stand with us and ask President Obama to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.
Food & Water Watch's Board President and international water activist Maude Barlow has been instrumental in the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline. She's been fighting to oppose the pipeline because of the disasters it's already caused in Canada, and the disasters waiting to happen if it's built in the U.S.
She's joined up with other key movement leaders and scientists like Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, James Hansen and David Suzuki to call for direct action to stop this pipeline, which Bill McKibben calls the "biggest carbon bomb on the continent." Take action now to join her and the hundreds of thousands of activists that are working to oppose the Keystone Pipeline.
This pipeline is especially threatening because it will run through the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest supplies of fresh water, and other major rivers that supply substantial agricultural water to farmers and drinking water to millions of Americans. This issue is so critical that the Governor of Nebraska even wrote a letter to President Obama saying that he didn't want the pipeline coming through his state.
The only people that stand to benefit from this pipeline are the big oil and gas industry folks who will reap huge profits from the tar sands oil, while the rest of us are left with environmental disaster and undrinkable water.
Add your voice to the over 250,000 people that have already spoke out against the pipeline:
http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8132
Thanks for taking action,
Sarah Alexander/ Education & Outreach Director/Food & Water Watch
goodfood(at)fwwatch(dot)orgPaul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-38125203035181237542011-09-01T17:49:00.000-07:002011-09-01T17:49:26.218-07:00Obama, USA, Canada, US State, Tea Baggers - Unsustainable -- TAR and FEATHER Us<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vTwRoBUel5s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
Letter<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/declaration-of-youth-leaders-tar-sands-action/" rel="bookmark"><span style="color: #434343;">Declaration of Youth Leaders at the Tar Sands Action</span></a><br />
<br />
Today we sit to demand justice. Tomorrow, we’re getting back up to organize in our communities to <em>ensure</em> justice. And we’re calling on you to join us.<br />
<br />
A growing movement of young people has been organizing to build a more clean and just economy that works for all of us, addresses the climate crisis and creates jobs for those who need them. Together, we will build an economy steered by communities, not corporations.<br />
<br />
We’ve been successful in leading change in our communities; more than 700 college campuses have made commitments to adopt renewable energy and become carbon neutral. And we’re following up on these commitments by forcing campuses to move beyond coal and other forms of dirty energy.<br />
<br />
But it’s not an easy road, and we have major challenges ahead. Big corporations are using their financial influence to corrupt our democracy and deepen their pockets at the expense of Americans. And it’s not just related to energy and the environment; they are threatening the very foundations of our democracy, working to disenfranchise voters, attack workers’ rights and the middle class.<br />
<br />
In an act of civil disobedience, we stand together today and risk arrest in front of the White House to demand that President Obama stand up to these big corporate interests, reject the Keystone XL Pipeline permit, and put an end to this corporate-dominated madness. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would further open up disastrous mining on indigenous lands in Alberta, Canada. The pipeline would then take this toxic and corrosive crude across the country down to the Gulf Coast, threatening communities with spills and health impacts all along the way. It would release enormous amounts of global warming pollution, further fueling the climate crisis. Bottom-line: it threatens our future and we can’t let it happen.<br />
<br />
Read more here -- <br />
<a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/declaration-of-youth-leaders-tar-sands-action/#more-1234">http://www.tarsandsaction.org/declaration-of-youth-leaders-tar-sands-action/#more-1234</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
UXBRIDGE, Canada - The United States' biggest environmental groups put aside their differences last week to make an urgent intervention on the country's addiction to oil. The first step on the long road to recovery, they say, is to stop the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline that will "mainline" the world's dirtiest oil from northern Canada into the U.S. heartland.<br />
"This (Keystone) is a terrible project," they wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama, citing dangers to the climate, the risks of disastrous spills and leaks, and the economic damage that will come from continued dependence on fossil fuel. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarsandsaction/6096757991/sizes/m/in/set-72157627430991487/" rel="nofollow"><span class="image-right" style="width: 350px;"><img border="0" height="233" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/obamachallengedtostandup_0.jpg" style="height: 233px; width: 350px;" title=" Josh Lopez / Tar Sands Action)" width="350" /><span class="caption">The U.S. and Canada clearly have an oil addiction, but green groups argue that it is oil money that keeps them addicted - and keeps them from getting into rehab. (photo: Josh Lopez / Tar Sands Action)</span></span></a><br />
<br />
Oil from the Keystone XL will dump an estimated 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually into the atmosphere - more than most countries. Scientists warn that approval of the project will further fuel the extreme weather that has already resulted in over one billion dollars in damages recorded this year in nine separate extreme weather events in the U.S.<br />
<br />
And that doesn't include the estimated 20 to 45 billion dollars in costs from Hurricane Irene last weekend, mainly due to extensive flooding.<br />
<br />
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels do not cause hurricanes, tornados or droughts, but they do trap additional heat and water vapour that fuels those events, climate scientists have proven time and time again.<br />
<br />
Asked about the impacts of adding another 150 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, German climate scientist Malte Meinshausen, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told IPS that it will warm the planet for hundreds of years and lead to higher sea levels and "more pronounced droughts and floods".<br />
<br />
The green groups <a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #005588;">asked the president</span></a> to be strong and take the first step by denying permission to build the 2,400-kilometre, seven- billion-dollar pipeline, which would pump 700,000 to 800,000 barrels a day of bitumen oil from Canada's tar sands in northern Alberta.<br />
<br />
Thousands of people have brought the same message to President Obama's front door at the White House in the past 10 days. More than 500 have been arrested for protesting on the White House sidewalk, urging him to take the first step in breaking the country's addiction to fossil fuels by standing up to the Big Oil lobby.<br />
<br />
This is an unusual circumstance, where the president gets to make the "go, no go" decision all by himself. No need to deal with a dysfunctional Congress. And environmentalists argue that for a president whose popularity has plummeted, it would seem to be a public relations coup to take a stand and finally act on his promises to fight climate change.<br />
<br />
<b>No easy decision</b><br />
<br />
The problem for President Obama is that some of the world's most powerful oil companies have a problem. Big Oil has made enormous investments in Canada's tar sands, the second largest oil reserves on the planet. They need to ship their "product" - and lots of it - to the lucrative U.S. market for processing, and very likely export it to Europe or even China.<br />
<br />
TransCanada Pipelines is eager to build the Keystone XL to transport its "product" across the border. <br />
<br />
The company will charge hundreds of millions a year for the service, but it's worth it because Big Oil will use the pipeline to make an estimated 40 to 60 billion dollars a year, or maybe more, depending on how high they can jack up the street price of gasoline.<br />
<br />
Big Oil has worked hard to ensure the full cooperation and assistance of the government of Canada and the province of Alberta, where the tar sands are located. For a piece of the action, the governments of Canada and Alberta have been slow or failed to enforce their own environmental laws.<br />
<br />
Canada has completely ignored its international obligations to reduce fossil fuel use. Both governments have used public funds to furiously lobby their counterparts in the U.S. to follow suit.<br />
<br />
It was hardly surprising then to see a letter by Canada's ambassador to the U.S., Gary Doer, published Monday in the New York Times using arguments promoting the Keystone project that appear to be lifted from TransCanada's press releases.<br />
<br />
The U.S. and Canada clearly have an oil addiction, but green groups argue that it is oil money that keeps them addicted - and keeps them from getting into rehab.<br />
<br />
During the last election cycle, the oil industry gave members of the U.S. Congress more than 13.6 million dollars, reports Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International, an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas, coal corporations and governments.<br />
<br />
These <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2011/08/17/oil-money-and-the-supercongress" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #005588;">pay-offs are excellent investments</span></a>. Top U.S. oil companies reported 73 billion dollars in profits in just the first six months of this year. Part of those profits is thanks to at least four billion dollars in annual subsidies from U.S. taxpayers, noted Kretzman in a recent report.<br />
<br />
Despite the U.S.'s ballooning debt crisis, Big Oil will continue to receive this public money in what is by far the country's biggest welfare fraud. Eight of the 12 members of the newly-named Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction charged with tackling the debt crisis have voted in the last two years to allow oil companies to keep pocketing billions in taxpayer subsidies, Kretzman found.<br />
<br />
Remarkably, Canada's corporate welfare for Big Oil is far higher at 2.84 billion dollars in 2008 according to International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) based in Winnipeg, Canada. Last month one of the world's richest corporations, Shell Oil agreed to accept a 'gift' of 865 million in Canadian taxpayer's dollars to cover most of the cost of building an experimental carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility to cut its CO2 pollution in the tar sands.<br />
<br />
Study after study show that public subsidies for alternative energy - not including corn ethanol - which would actually wean the U.S. and Canada of their oil addiction are a small fraction of what the oil industry get. Which begs the question: If the U.S. and Canada are really trying to kick their oil addiction, why do they keep giving their dealers bonuses?<br />
<br />
Unless the river of money flowing into Big Oil's coffers from subsidies and the biggest corporate profits in history are diverted, scientists and activists say there is no hope of dealing with climate change, the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.<br />
<div class="copyright-info"> </div><div class="copyright-info">Copyright © 2011 IPS-Inter Press Service</div>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-24815551663768142132011-08-30T16:07:00.000-07:002011-09-01T21:33:34.390-07:00GMO Food, a Scam, US Government Inside Job for Monsanto, Wal-mart, Dow, et al<span style="color: blue;">Here's how rhetorical grace comes about after reading a purely self-interested Opinion piece in the New York Times on why genetically engineered foods are great (NOT).</span><br />
<br />
Genetic modified plants Warning! Nina Federoff — former “Science and Technology Advisor” to the U.S. State Department and well-known genetic engineering apologist — is back on her soapbox. In an Op Ed [www.nytimes.com] published in the New York Times last week, Federoff strings together one blazing falsehood after another, extolling the virtues of a technology that much of the rest of the world has rightly rejected. What is behind her evangelical commitment to this particular technology? Let’s take a look.<br />
<br />
Conflict of interest?<br />
<br />
Thanks to Tom Philpott [www.grist.org], we know that for the 5-year period before she joined the State Department, Federoff served on the scientific advisory board at Evogene [www.evogene.com]. This Israeli agriculture-biotech firm works closely with Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and others. She also served on the board of Sigma-Aldrich [www.sigmaaldrich.com], a transnational corporation that provides services and products — including transgenic animals — to agricultural biotech companies.<br />
<br />
And she herself was one of the early patent-holders [www.patentstorm.us] on transgenic technologies, back in the 1980s. Federoff was one of the early patent-holders on transgenic technologies, back in the 1980s.<br />
<br />
These solid corporate credentials proved just the ticket into the G.W. Bush Administration’s State Department; tapped initially by Condoleeza Rice, she was kept on by Hillary Clinton. During the same period (2007-2010),Federoff also served as the Science and Technical Advisor to the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID [www.panna.org] works with Monsanto and other partners to develop and commercialize GE crops, advancing U.S. trade interests in opening new markets abroad for these products.<br />
<br />
Feeding the world? Or feeding U.S. geopolitical interests?<br />
<br />
Corporate connections aside, it is entirely possible that Federoff truly believes in the technologies and products associated with high external input, industrial agriculture as the panacea for the world’s woes. Unfortunately, many (though certainly not all) molecular biologists and geneticists have a disciplinary habit of thinking in such narrow, reductionist terms that they miss a lot of historical and political context.<br />
<br />
For instance, often missed in such myopic preoccupations with what's on the other end of a microscopic gaze is the cold hard fact that the Green Revolution’s origins in 1940s Mexico were not really about feeding the world; Mexico was a food exporter at the time. Rather, the aims included stabilizing restive rural populations in our neighbor to the south, and making friends with a government that at the time was selling supplies to the World War II Axis powers and confiscating oil fields held by Standard Oil (a funding source for for the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the key architects of the Green Revolution).<br />
<br />
The dark underbelly of the Green Revolution — how it was driven largely by the political, economic and trade agendas of the U.S., then taken up by key partners including the World Bank and international research centers, is brilliantly dissected by historian Nick Cullather in his new book, The Hungry World, recently reviewed [motherjones.com] by Tom Philpott in Mother Jones. (Note to self: send copy to Federoff.)<br />
<br />
Today, the geo-political agenda behind the first Green Revolution, combined with a blind preference for silver-bullet solutions to complex global problems, has led to what Sussex University researcher Sally Brooks calls a “lock in” of genetics-led strategies that fail to meet the diverse needs of people on the ground. And hence, we are forced to read too many ill-informed commercials for corporate technologies — like the one by Federoff — published by news outlets that one would hope might know better.<br />
<br />
“Sorry, my dogma ate my homework”<br />
<br />
As the kids say now, Federoff gets a FAIL for her latest rant. She provides no empirical evidence to back up her sweeping claims, and blithely ignores the abundance of reports from U.N. agencies and independent scientific studies that have — over the past several years — consistently concluded that GE technologies are unlikely to reduce either hunger or poverty, but do pose a serious threat to food and livelihood security.<br />
<br />
For the empirically inclined, here's a quick roundup of the evidence:<br />
<br />
* Meeting the climate, water, energy and food challenges of the 21st century requires investing in agroecology [www.panna.org]; in contrast, GE technologies [www.panna.org] are unlikely to get us where we need to go (concludes the UN-led IAASTD [www.agassessment.org).<br />
<br />
* GE crops neither increase yield [www.ucsusa.org] nor provide nutritional benefits. They have led to a massive increase in herbicide use [www.organic-center.org] and epidemic of herbicide-resistant superweeds [www.nytimes.com];<br />
<br />
* GE won’t feed the world (see Anna Lappé's Civil Eats [civileats.com] rebuttal of Federoff and her Foreign Policy [www.foreignpolicy.com] dispatch of the ardent GE-proponent, Robert Paarlberg);<br />
<br />
* Agroecological farming can double food production [www.panna.org], save our soil [www.panna.org], protect biodiversity [www.panna.org] and help farmers adapt to climate change [www.panna.org]; and<br />
<br />
* Organic farming and reliance on traditional seed systems is the best option for achieving food security in Mexico [motherjones.com], Gaza [motherjones.com] and across Africa [www.unctad.org]; <br />
<br />
* oh, and it's more energy efficient [www.panna.org] too.<br />
<br />
This is not the first time that the New York Times has completely missed the mark [www.panna.org] in identifying the causes of world hunger — which makes it awfully difficult to identify the solutions.<br />
Fed up with Federoff? If you’re tired of being bombarded by pro-GE rants, and would rather get the real scoop on GE, food and ecological justice from leading thinkers, scientists and activists in CA, then join me next month at the Justice Begins with Seeds [biosafetyalliance.org] conference in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
See you there! <br />
<br />
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman [www.panna.org]<br />
<br />
*******************<br />
<br />
Here's the reason for Marcia's response --<br />
<div class="timestamp">August 18, 2011</div><div class="kicker"></div><h1><nyt_headline type=" " version="1.0">Engineering Food for All</nyt_headline></h1><nyt_byline><h6 class="byline">By NINA V. FEDOROFF</h6></nyt_byline><nyt_text><div id="articleBody"><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top>Washington <br />
<br />
FOOD prices are at record highs and the ranks of the hungry are swelling once again. A warming climate is beginning to nibble at crop yields worldwide. The United Nations predicts that there will be one to three billion more people to feed by midcentury. <br />
<br />
Yet even as the Obama administration says it wants to stimulate innovation by eliminating unnecessary regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to require even more data on genetically modified crops, which have been improved using technology with great promise and a track record of safety. The process for approving these crops has become so costly and burdensome that it is choking off innovation. <br />
<br />
Civilization depends on our expanding ability to produce food efficiently, which has markedly accelerated thanks to science and technology. The use of chemicals for fertilization and for pest and disease control, the induction of beneficial mutations in plants with chemicals or radiation to improve yields, and the mechanization of agriculture have all increased the amount of food that can be grown on each acre of land by as much as 10 times in the last 100 years. <br />
<br />
These extraordinary increases must be doubled by 2050 if we are to continue to feed an expanding population. As people around the world become more affluent, they are demanding diets richer in animal protein, which will require ever more robust feed crop yields to sustain. <br />
<br />
New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods. This is because the gene modifications are crafted based on knowledge of what genes do, in contrast to the shotgun approach of traditional breeding or using chemicals or radiation to induce mutations. The results have been spectacular. <br />
<br />
For example, genetically modified crops containing an extra gene that confers resistance to certain insects require much less pesticide. This is good for the environment because toxic pesticides decrease the supply of food for birds and run off the land to poison rivers, lakes and oceans. <br />
<br />
The rapid adoption of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant soybeans has made it easier for farmers to park their plows and forgo tilling for weed control. No-till farming is more sustainable and environmentally benign because it decreases soil erosion and shrinks agriculture’s carbon footprint. <br />
<br />
In 2010, crops modified by molecular methods were grown in 29 countries on more than 360 million acres. Of the 15.4 million farmers growing these crops, 90 percent are poor, with small operations. The reason farmers turn to genetically modified crops is simple: yields increase and costs decrease. <br />
<br />
Myths about the dire effects of genetically modified foods on health and the environment abound, but they have not held up to scientific scrutiny. And, although many concerns have been expressed about the potential for unexpected consequences, the unexpected effects that have been observed so far have been benign. Contamination by carcinogenic fungal toxins, for example, is as much as 90 percent lower in insect-resistant genetically modified corn than in nonmodified corn. This is because the fungi that make the toxins follow insects boring into the plants. No insect holes, no fungi, no toxins. <br />
<br />
Yet today we have only a handful of genetically modified crops, primarily soybeans, corn, canola and cotton. All are commodity crops mainly used for feed or fiber and all were developed by big biotech companies. Only big companies can muster the money necessary to navigate the regulatory thicket woven by the government’s three oversight agencies: the E.P.A., the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. <br />
<br />
Decades ago, when molecular approaches to plant improvement were relatively new, there was some rationale for a cautious approach. <br />
<br />
But now the evidence is in. These crop modification methods are not dangerous. The European Union has spent more than $425 million studying the safety of genetically modified crops over the past 25 years. Its recent, lengthy report on the matter can be summarized in one sentence: Crop modification by molecular methods is no more dangerous than crop modification by other methods. Serious scientific bodies that have analyzed the issue, including the National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society, have come to the same conclusion. <br />
<br />
It is time to relieve the regulatory burden slowing down the development of genetically modified crops. The three United States regulatory agencies need to develop a single set of requirements and focus solely on the hazards — if any — posed by new traits. <br />
<br />
And above all, the government needs to stop regulating genetic modifications for which there is no scientifically credible evidence of harm. <br />
<nyt_author_id> <div class="authorIdentification"><br />
Nina V. Fedoroff, who was the science and technology adviser to the secretary of state from 2007 to 2010, is a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University. </div></nyt_author_id></div></nyt_text><br />
**********************<br />
<br />
Wiki-Leaks strikes at GMO thugs:<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 class="title" style="font-size: 35px;">New WikiLeaks Cables Show US Diplomats Promote Genetically Engineered Crops Worldwide</h2><div class="meta"><span class="submitted">Thursday 25 August 2011</span></div><div class="source"> by: Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report </div><div class="artimage" style="display: inline; float: right; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 10px; width: 250px;"><img src="http://www.truth-out.org/sites/default/files/082911ludwig.jpg" width="240" /><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px; width: 238px;"> (Image: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout" target="_blank">JR / <span style="white-space: nowrap;">t r u t h o u t</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span>; Adapted: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterblanchard/3061822169/" target="_blank">Peter Blanchard</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span>, <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2005/06/05GUATEMALA1403.html" target="_blank">Wikileaks</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span>)</div></div><div class="content clearfix"><div class="art-body"> Dozens of United States diplomatic cables released in the latest WikiLeaks dump on <a href="http://wikileaks.org/reldate/2011-08-24_0.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Wednesday</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span></span> reveal new details of the US effort to push foreign governments to approve genetically engineered (GE) crops and promote the worldwide interests of agribusiness giants like Monsanto and DuPont.<br />
<br />
The cables further confirm previous Truthout reports on the diplomatic pressure the US has put on <a href="http://archive.truthout.org/us-vatican-genetically-modified-food-is-a-moral-imperative66369" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Spain</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[7]</span></span> and <a href="http://archive.truthout.org/wikileaks-us-ambassador-planned-retaliation-against-france-over-ban-monsanto-corn66131" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">France</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[8]</span></span>, two countries with powerful anti-GE crop movements, to speed up their biotech approval process and quell anti-GE sentiment within the European Union (EU).<br />
<br />
Several cables describe "biotechnology outreach programs" in countries across the globe, including African, Asian and South American countries where Western biotech agriculture had yet to gain a foothold. In some cables (such as this <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10RABAT14.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">2010 cable</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[9]</span></span> from Morocco) US diplomats ask the State Department for funds to send US biotech experts and trade industry representatives to target countries for discussions with high-profile politicians and agricultural officials.<br />
<br />
Truthout recently <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/second-green-revolutionaries-gates-foundation-and-monsanto-push-ge-crops-africa/1310411034" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">reported</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[10]</span></span> on front groups supported by the US government, philanthropic foundations and companies like Monsanto that are working to introduce pro-biotechnology policy initiatives and GE crops in developing African countries, and several cables released this week confirm that American diplomats have promoted biotech agriculture to countries like <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10TUNIS18.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Tunisia</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[11]</span></span>, <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10PRETORIA75.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">South Africa</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[12]</span></span> and <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10MAPUTO51.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Mozambique</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span></span>.<br />
<br />
Cables detail US efforts to influence the biotech policies of developed countries such as Egypt and Turkey, but France continues to stand out as a high-profile target.<br />
<br />
In a <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/02/07PARIS515.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">2007 cable</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[14]</span></span>, the US embassy in Paris reported on a meeting among US diplomats and representatives from Monsanto, DuPont and Dow-Agro-sciences. The companies were concerned about a movement of French farmers, who were vandalizing GE crop farms at the time, and suggested diplomatic angles for speeding up EU approvals of GE Crops.<br />
<br />
In <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/04/08PARIS714.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">2008 cable</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[15]</span></span> describing a "rancorous" debate within the French Parliament over proposed biotech legislation, Craig Stapleton, the former US ambassador to France under the Bush administration, included an update on MON-810, a Monsanto corn variety banned in France.<br />
<br />
Stapleton wrote that French officials "expect retaliation via the World Trade Organization" for upholding the ban on MON-810 and stalling the French GE crop approval process. "There is nothing to be gained in France from delaying retaliation," Stapleton wrote.<br />
<br />
Tough regulations and bans on GE crops can deal hefty blows to US exports. About 94 percent of soybeans, 72 percent of corn and 73 percent of the cotton grown in the US now use GE-tolerate herbicides like Monsanto's Roundup, according to the <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">US Agriculture Department. </span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[16]</span></span><br />
A <a href="http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/10/07STATE150199.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">2007 cable</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[17]</span></span>, for example, reports that the French ban on MON-810 could cost the US $30 million to $50 million in exports.<br />
<br />
In a 2007 cable obtained by Truthout in January, Stapleton threatened "moving to retaliate" against France for banning MON-810. Several other European countries, including Germany, Austria, Hungary and <a href="http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=124797" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Bulgaria</span></a> <span class="print-footnote"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[18]</span></span>, have also placed bans on MON-810 in recent years. MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which kills some insect pests.</div></div><br />
************<br />
<br />
One more response to Fedoroff:<br />
<br />
Letters to the Editor<br />
New York Times<br />
August 22, 2011<br />
<br />
In “Engineering Food for All” (op-ed, 8/18), Ms. Fedoroff rehashes<br />
industry-sponsored myths about genetically-engineered (GE) crops, while ignoring<br />
some ugly facts. First, massive adoption of GE crops has coincided with a<br />
swelling of the world’s hungry by over 100 million, consistent with science<br />
showing no yield boost from GE [1]. Second, herbicide-resistant GE crops<br />
have not reduced soil erosion (the no-till farming revolution preceded their<br />
mid-1990s’ introduction) [2]; but they have increased herbicide use, spawned an<br />
epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds, and forced a return to tillage and even<br />
hand-weeding for many farmers [3]. That beneficial GE crops have not been<br />
developed is due to the technology’s high failure rate, not the extremely lax US<br />
regulatory system [4].<br />
<br />
William Freese, Senior Science Analyst<br />
International Center for Technology Assessment<br />
660 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 302<br />
Washington, DC 20003<br />
<a href="mailto:bfreese@icta.org">bfreese@icta.org</a><br />
814-237-2767 (home office)<br />
202-547-9359 (work)<br />
<br />
Notes to Editor (FYI only of course, not for inclusion in the letter):<br />
<br />
[1] Frankly, we do not share Ms. Fedoroff’s simplistic assumption that<br />
increasing yields equate to less hunger. Yet this emotive card is regularly<br />
played (always in the future tense!) by biotech proponents who do not understand<br />
or care to learn about the overriding political factors that cause poverty and<br />
hunger. That said, increasing yields in exporting nations where most GE crops<br />
are grown would mean more abundant harvests; all other things being equal, this<br />
could slightly lower world food prices, benefitting the urban poor in<br />
import-dependent developing countries. Yet, as stated: 1) The world’s hungry<br />
have increased by over 100 million since the mid-1990s, when GE crops were first<br />
introduced (see chart of UN FAO figures at <a href="http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm">http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm</a> [www.worldhunger.org]); and 2) GE crops are not designed to, and do not, increase yields. See Gurian-Sherman, D. (2009). “Failure to Yield,” Union of Concerned Scientists: <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/failure-to-yield.html">http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/failure-to-yield.html</a><br />
[www.ucsusa.org]. Real solutions must come from helping poor farmers produce more, and GE crops do not do that. 84% of world GE crop acreage is planted with herbicide-resistant crops<br />
that are irrelevant to poor farmers, who cannot afford herbicides.<br />
<br />
[2] USDA National Resources Conservation Service (2010). “2007 National<br />
Resources Inventory: Soil Erosion on<br />
Cropland,” <a href="http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_012269.pdf">http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_012269.pdf</a> [www.nrcs.usda.gov]. See<br />
the table on page 2, which shows a large decrease in soil erosion from 1982 to<br />
1997, attributable to rapid adoption of conservation tillage (including<br />
no-till), and a leveling off of soil erosion in the years GE herbicide-resistant<br />
crops were massively adopted, from 1997 to 2007. (Note: GE herbicide-resistant<br />
crops in the U.S. expanded from just 16.0 to 117.2 million acres from 1997 to<br />
2007, as documented in Benbrook, C. (2009). “Impacts of Genetically Engineered<br />
Crops in the U.S.: The First Thirteen Years,” The Organic Center, Supplemental<br />
Table 5,<br />
at <a href="http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159">http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159</a> [www.organic-center.org]).<br />
<br />
[3] See Benbrook, C. (2009), cited above. The NYT’s Andrew Pollack also<br />
reported on this last<br />
year <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html</a> [www.nytimes.com]. It<br />
is disingenuous of Ms. Fedoroff to ignore the responsibility of GE crops for<br />
increasing herbicide use, resistant weeds, increased use of soil-eroding<br />
tillage, and sharply rising weed control costs, regarded by agricultural<br />
scientists as major challenges facing U.S. farmers.<br />
[4] See pages 2-3 of the letter (the section entitled “Regulation does not<br />
‘stifle’ GE crop innovation”) to USDA Secretary Vilsack, August 3, 2011, from 22<br />
farming and consumer protection groups, food companies and trade associations<br />
regarding US regulation of GE crops,<br />
at <a href="http://www.agra-net.com/content/agra/ips/pdf/APHIS-Rules-Letter.pdf">http://www.agra-net.com/content/agra/ips/pdf/APHIS-Rules-Letter.pdf</a> [www.agra-net.com].<br />
<br />
<br />
Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-77237692469112869392011-08-29T08:15:00.000-07:002011-08-29T08:15:14.728-07:00Climate Change Ain't Worth the Sweat on the Golf Course -- Coal is Obama's Middle Name, Tar Sands his Nick-name<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4_WZZxCgX801hD7WD_ckZ8WYIfoI2sLsxrWToBh9sorDtILufr_m179-4qbm4tOtiKSkqaq18fjKCUdpBcWeLAmts86_xTY0PM6wPOSKUDU4GftSC9EFzNmopzWA0WJBrevf2ti7UKMJ/s1600/White-House-Solar-Panels-2-300x234.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4_WZZxCgX801hD7WD_ckZ8WYIfoI2sLsxrWToBh9sorDtILufr_m179-4qbm4tOtiKSkqaq18fjKCUdpBcWeLAmts86_xTY0PM6wPOSKUDU4GftSC9EFzNmopzWA0WJBrevf2ti7UKMJ/s1600/White-House-Solar-Panels-2-300x234.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is no reason why Obama, his PR spinners, his confidants, his friends, all those folk helping him get out of his Harvard elitism, even the contentious ones harping on him, to PUT in SOLAR panels. This story below is tepid, somewhat, but this is not rocket science. You just get the things installed. It' easy. Spokane's own Eco-Depot could help. Community Building on Main has a few installed. This guy's handlers are just so out of touch.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">*************</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/20/249392/administration-fails-pledge-to-return-solar-to-white-house-roof-by-spring/">http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/20/249392/administration-fails-pledge-to-return-solar-to-white-house-roof-by-spring/</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Last fall, <a href="http://www.solaronthewhitehouse.com/"><span style="color: #333333;">thousands of youth climate activists</span></a> called on President Obama to restore solar to the White House, removed 20 years ago by Ronald Reagan. In October, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2010/10/05/174808/chu-solar-white-house/"><span style="color: #333333;">announced</span></a> that “<a href="https://blog.energy.gov/blog/2010/10/05/white-house-goes-solar"><span style="color: #333333;">by the end of this spring</span></a>, there will be solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House.” Today, with less than 24 hours before the summer solstice, Ramamoorthy Ramesh announced that the date of White House solar installation <a href="http://blog.energy.gov/blog/2011/06/20/update-white-house-solar-panels-and-our-solar-program"><span style="color: #333333;">won’t even be publicly decided until September</span></a> at the earliest, based on the timeline for the DOE’s Rooftop Solar Challenge:</div><blockquote>The Energy Department remains on the path to complete the White House solar demonstration project, in keeping with our commitment, and <strong>we look forward to sharing more information — including additional details on the timing of this project — after the competitive procurement process is completed</strong>.</blockquote>The <a href="http://www.eere.energy.gov/solarchallenge/"><span style="color: #333333;">Rooftop Solar Challenge</span></a>, part of the Department of Energy Sunshot Initiative to accelerate the deployment of solar technologies, is designed to encourage local and regional governments to improve market conditions for rooftop solar installations. The Sunshot Initiative program was only announced in April of this year, and the final date for submissions to the rooftop challenge is August 31. There is no date established for when the “competitive procurement process” is to be completed.<br />
<br />
Although the work being done by Ramesh, one of the nation’s top solar-power scientists, as the head of the Sunshot Initiative, is <a href="http://blog.energy.gov/blog/2011/06/20/update-white-house-solar-panels-and-our-solar-program"><span style="color: #333333;">crucial</span></a>, tying the White House demonstration solar installations to this program is a transparent excuse for a broken pledge.<br />
<br />
The threat of our polluted climate and the urgency of rebuilding our economy with clean technology should be the Obama administration’s paramount concern. Their deferral of a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/09/240548/two-weeks-for-president-obama-to-meet-his-deadline-to-return-solar-to-the-white-house/"><span style="color: #333333;">commitment</span></a> made to our nation’s youth in the midst of this crisis is a grave disappointment.<br />
***************<br />
<br />
<br />
<header><h1>Summer's almost over, and still no solar panels on White House roof</h1><div class="creditline_byline"><span class="byline">By Lauren Biron</span> <span class="creditline">— Medill News Service</span></div><div class="posted_modified"> <span class="grd">Posted: 2:36pm on Aug 25, 2011;</span> <span class="moddate">Modified: 11:53am on Aug 26, 2011</span></div></header><div class="tagline"></div><!-- Facebook Like Button --><div id="fb_iframe_container"> <iframe allowtransparency="true" class="fbLikeContainer" frameborder="0" id="fbLikeIframe" name="fbLikeIframe" scrolling="no" src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http://www.kentucky.com/2011/08/25/1857305/summers-almost-over-and-still.html?storylink=fblikebtn&layout=standard&show_faces=false&width=600&height=46&action=like&font=helvetica&fb_ref=storylink&fb_source=fblikebtn&colorscheme=light" style="height: 46px; width: 600px;"></iframe> </div><div class="story_body"><!-- Story Body with separating p tags --> WASHINGTON — In October, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged that solar panels and a solar water heater would be installed on the White House roof before the start of summer.<br />
Now, summer is almost over, the 2012 election campaign is well under way, and there are still no solar panels on the White House roof.<br />
<br />
Why? That's a mystery.<br />
<br />
The Energy Department will say only that the project is mired in the "competitive procurement process." Spokeswoman Joelle Terry declined to go into details of the holdup. Questions about when that process might be completed also were rebuffed. So were queries about the projected cost of adding the panels and where the panels would be located.<br />
<br />
The National Park Service, which put solar panels on White House outbuildings during the administration of President George W. Bush, said it couldn't comment on why the previous installation was completed more quickly. It directed questions to the White House, where press spokesman Clark Stevens deferred to the Department of Energy, where spokeswoman Terry stuck to her original statement.<br />
<br />
Not even Solar Design Associates, which according to the magazine Solar Today installed the previous panels, was willing to comment. A search of the government contracting website USASpending.gov did turn up a $10,000 contract, awarded in January, to Overly Manufacturing Co. That contract was to "support the contractor" for the photovoltaic system and "ensure that the integrity and warranty of the White House roof is maintained."<br />
<br />
No one was willing to reveal the details of the formal government bidding proposal, which was not posted online.<br />
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Solar panels atop the White House, America's most famous government building, have long been a policy statement. President Jimmy Carter installed 32 in 1979 when an Arab oil embargo spiked fuel prices.<br />
<br />
"No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us," Carter said at the installation ceremony, having never seen the episode of "The Simpsons" where Mr. Burns blocks out the sun with a giant disk.<br />
<br />
President Ronald Reagan removed the panels in 1986. Then came the National Park Service-directed installation during the most recent Bush administration. Those panels went on a maintenance building and on the president's cabana to heat water for the outdoor White House pool.<br />
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Chu announced that panels would be going up on the White House itself at the GreenGov Symposium, which was described on its website as "a three-day educational event to identify opportunities around greening the Federal Government." It was sponsored by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and held at George Washington University in Washington Oct. 5-7, 2010.<br />
<br />
"As we move toward a clean energy economy, the White House will lead by example," Chu said then when he promised that solar panels would be returned to the White House roof. "It's been a long time since we've had them up there."<br />
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The project was intended to be part of the Energy Department's larger SunShot Initiative to make solar technology cost-competitive.<br />
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Solar power is one of the staples of the growing alternate energy sector. Both commercial buildings and homes are incorporating the technology, though it still makes up only about 1 percent of the energy produced by alternative fuels in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.<br />
<br />
A spokesman for the organization 350.org, named after an atmospheric target of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide recommended by some scientists to ward off the "greenhouse effect" blamed for global warming, expressed disappointment that the solar panels hadn't yet made it to the roof of the White House.<br />
<br />
"This isn't rocket science. Hammer it in, make a few connections — you're good to go," said Jamie Henn, the group's spokesman. "If the first lady is going to go out and get her hands dirty planting her garden, then it's up to the president to do some home improvements as well."<br />
<br />
His group has been a leading proponent of heads of state adding solar panels to their residences.<br />
"The administration needs to do more to show that they're serious about moving clean energy forward," he said. "There's no better way of doing that than getting on the roof of the White House and proclaiming that there shouldn't just be solar panels there, but on rooftops all across America and around the world."<br />
<br />
While it may be a little more complicated than Henn jokes, two other heads of state have installed solar panels on their official residences.<br />
<br />
In the Maldives, 48 panels went up on the Mulee Agee Palace in 2010, within days of Chu's appearance at the GreenGov Symposium. President Mohamed Nasheed helped install the solar panels himself and pledged to make the island nation carbon-neutral by 2020. The Maldives, which sit off the tip of India, are vulnerable to the rising seas associated with climate change. How vulnerable? The highest point is less than eight feet above sea level.<br />
<br />
In New Delhi, 64 solar panels were installed on the auditorium at Rashtrapati Bhavan, home of India's president, Pratibha Devisingh Patil. One hundred solar-powered streetlights also illuminate various sections of the Rashtrapati Bhavan compound, which boasts of five electric vehicles that are charged with solar power and leave no carbon footprint, according to the government's website. India began greening the presidential compound in 2008 as part of the Roshni initiative to develop green urban habitats.<br />
<br />
<em>(Biron reports for Medill News Service, the Washington program of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.)</em></div><br />
<br />
Read more: <a href="http://www.kentucky.com/2011/08/25/1857305/summers-almost-over-and-still.html#ixzz1WQmwsXvM" style="color: #003399;">http://www.kentucky.com/2011/08/25/1857305/summers-almost-over-and-still.html#ixzz1WQmwsXvM</a>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-35334137915642186782011-08-25T16:01:00.000-07:002011-08-25T16:01:37.364-07:00Jailed for Peaceful Protest -- Back in the USA -- And it is going to keep going on until billionaires and politicians are jailed<span style="color: purple;">Try the abolitionist's shoes on. Or the farm workers' sandals with Cesar Chavez. Try civil rights workers' shirts. Anti-war protesting Americans' pants. The War on the Greens is a great book written by David Helvarg. Almost 20 years ago. So, Bill McKibben is in jail, or was, with more than 250 peaceful protesters.</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Using democracy to say no to Canadian energy companies getting a pipeline built from Canada to Texass and you end up jailed. For three days. Hell, it's also a property rights battle -- Canadian billion-dollar company getting USA soil to run their dirty oil pipes. USA helping secure Eminent Domain seizures?</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">Welcome to the 21st Century wars --</span><br />
<br />
<b>Jailed Over Big Oil's Latest Attempt to Kill the Planet</b><br />
<br />
After being arrested protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, activist Bill McKibben shares what he learned. <br />
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August 25, 2011 | <br />
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Pipeline about to be installed in Manitoba, presumably to link to Alberta Tar Sands<br />
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Photo Credit: Loozrboy <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijCIwQQJYMpIip5rfHjTQH90Vwf6JaUuUYckzS-5fp5JKPGaVrJwdqhECWFompEsOsfvfg3m012gR8-B0bAyVsOTm6Y6Y2Zu0sXmkQYF1aO1VpBEA7RQeHVNYtb_tKd4uSk9S2w1-dkAJL/s1600/Pipes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijCIwQQJYMpIip5rfHjTQH90Vwf6JaUuUYckzS-5fp5JKPGaVrJwdqhECWFompEsOsfvfg3m012gR8-B0bAyVsOTm6Y6Y2Zu0sXmkQYF1aO1VpBEA7RQeHVNYtb_tKd4uSk9S2w1-dkAJL/s400/Pipes.jpg" width="310px" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
I didn’t think it was possible, but my admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr., grew even stronger these past days.<br />
<br />
As I headed to jail as part of the first wave of what is turning into the biggest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement for many years, I had the vague idea that I would write something. Not an epic like King's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” but at least, you know, a blog post. Or a tweet.<br />
<br />
But frankly, I wasn’t up to it. The police, surprised by how many people turned out on the first day of two weeks of protests at the White House, decided to teach us a lesson. As they told our legal team, they wanted to deter anyone else from coming -- and so with our first crew they were… kind of harsh.<br />
<br />
We spent three days in D.C.’s Central Cell Block, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds like it might be. You lie on a metal rack with no mattress or bedding and sweat in the high heat; the din is incessant; there’s one baloney sandwich with a cup of water every 12 hours.<br />
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I didn’t have a pencil -- they wouldn’t even let me keep my wedding ring -- but more important, I didn’t have the peace of mind to write something. It’s only now, out 12 hours and with a good night’s sleep under my belt, that I’m able to think straight. And so, as I said, I’ll go to this weekend’s big celebrations for the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the Washington Mall with even more respect for his calm power.<br />
<br />
Preacher, speaker, writer under fire, but also tactician. He really understood the power of nonviolence, a power we’ve experienced in the last few days. When the police cracked down on us, the publicity it produced cemented two of the main purposes of our protest:<br />
<br />
First, it made Keystone XL -- the new, 1,700-mile-long pipeline we’re trying to block that will vastly increase the flow of “dirty” tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico -- into a national issue. A few months ago, it was mainly people along the route of the prospective pipeline who were organizing against it. (And with good reason: tar sands mining has already wrecked huge swaths of native land in Alberta, and endangers farms, wild areas, and aquifers all along its prospective route.)<br />
<br />
***********************************************************<br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">Or this --</span> <br />
<br />
On Saturday 70 people from across the US and Canada were arrested at the White House for the first day of a two week sit-in aimed at pressuring President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. Over 2,000 more people are expected to join the daily civil disobedience over the coming days.<br />
<br />
<br />
At stake is what has quickly become the largest environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election. The President must choose whether or not to grant a Canadian company a permit to build a 1,700 mile pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
<br />
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Environmentalists warn that the pipeline could cause a BP disaster right in America’s heartland, over the largest source of fresh drinking water in the country. The world’s top climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, has warned that if the Canadian tar sands are fully developed it could be “game over” for the climate.<br />
<br />
*********************<br />
<br />
<span style="color: purple;">or this,</span><br />
<br />
Within a few minutes, police began issuing warnings to clear the area. At 11:30 AM, a young woman from Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, AK was the first person to be arrested. Arrests proceeded for over an hour as van-loads of protesters were taken away from the White House.<br />
<br />
<br />
Jane Kleeb, an outspoken opponent of the pipeline and founder of BOLD Nebraska, stood in Lafayette Park this morning and cheered on the protesters as they were arrested.<br />
<br />
“Nebraskans are counting on President Obama to do the right thing,” said Kleeb, who is planning to risk arrest on Monday with a delegation of farmers and ranchers who are coming in from Nebraska. “Back home we are fighting to protect our land and water. We decided to bring that fight to the President’s doorstep because our families’ legacies, those that homesteaded the very land now threatened by a foreign oil company, are too important for us sit on the sidelines. We are acting on our values and expect our President to act as w<br />
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Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-50674075816177480672011-08-22T16:42:00.000-07:002011-08-22T16:42:21.594-07:00Tar Sands Be Damned<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FHTi_7_I0jmRqn1CQK19acmGpSaGAWN2jgiyPFZsW2BPy-6T1ypMsvKx7gm8VbJ3equZp__XqJVF1El4SZp0NxZoNtYbrS5aQfjtyYC5EaJEicVXpeZXxTHPMIKm6-mA8n0lhqgcrZKu/s1600/Tar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="178" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FHTi_7_I0jmRqn1CQK19acmGpSaGAWN2jgiyPFZsW2BPy-6T1ypMsvKx7gm8VbJ3equZp__XqJVF1El4SZp0NxZoNtYbrS5aQfjtyYC5EaJEicVXpeZXxTHPMIKm6-mA8n0lhqgcrZKu/s400/Tar.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<br />
Protests Continue at the White House Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline<br />
Bill McKibben, speaking from jail after getting arrested for protesting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, said, “We don’t need your sympathy, we need your company.”<br />
<br />
Who are the doctors, lawyers, teachers and students joining Bill McKibben in civil disobedience against the pipeline? Watch this video from the first days of protest to see who is answering the call:<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X4YkvHBqp7U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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www.tarsandsaction.orgPaul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-25436255238920922282011-08-19T10:09:00.000-07:002011-08-20T08:21:49.103-07:00Burning Trash in War Zone; Politics; Cult of Celebrity; Food Facts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcOYnFT5a1k3PWHbnzAsKF3hd32-o4B4RVcQcxXRkGG_6f_jPSGdGx1Tzze9PfQ4soam28AiNW39Idfp9eHZAl9nZsy-30pkSEJNXSJvZSzg32Zpci94F2xFdr1dWhSYlaVvXfqurnmXiF/s1600/BurnPit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcOYnFT5a1k3PWHbnzAsKF3hd32-o4B4RVcQcxXRkGG_6f_jPSGdGx1Tzze9PfQ4soam28AiNW39Idfp9eHZAl9nZsy-30pkSEJNXSJvZSzg32Zpci94F2xFdr1dWhSYlaVvXfqurnmXiF/s320/BurnPit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
"Veterans Administration and private physicians have seen a significant increase in respiratory problems in soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Other physical problems among war veterans include shortness of breath, headaches and coughing up blood. Almost all of these soldiers had exposure to burn pits as well as battlefield smoke and dust storms. It seems unlikely that the thousands of Iraqis and Afghans working on <span class="caps">U.S. </span>military bases or living nearby have escaped such debilitating ailments themselves."<br />
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Pulled from a recent article on the USA's grand sustainability and green methods in Afghanistan -- burn pits. That's 10 pounds of trash generated by each American soldier (100,000 total), maybe more by the tens of thousands of contractors shooting up the desert. Pretty nifty -- each ground troop in Afghanistan costs around $1.2 million a year to keep alive and "supported" by infrastructure, energy output, etc.<br />
<br />
Going to hell in a hand basket. Hmm, how apropos is that? Read the great piece here --<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2972/burn_pits_afghanistan_8_15_11/">http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2972/burn_pits_afghanistan_8_15_11/</a><br />
<br />
****************<br />
<br />
WING Nut central -- Aspirants Bachmann and Perry are losers when it comes to basic science -- here's a pulled chunk from a great piece in Alternet:<br />
<br />
<div id="paragraph2" name="paragraph2"><b>Science.</b> Both Perry and Bachmann object to the theory of evolution, even though evolution has a similar scientific consensus to the theory that mammals need to breathe oxygen to survive. Perry put his anti-science views into action, appointing creationists to the Texas School Board <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/12/gail-lowe-perry-picks-cre_n_230167.html" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #ca8500;">in hopes they can deceive Texas schoolchildren</span></u></a> about reality. </div><br />
<div id="paragraph3" name="paragraph3">Perry and Bachmann also object to global warming, even though it also enjoys scientific consensus. Bachmann’s objections to science <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/04/28/37880/bachmann-energy-solutions/" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #ca8500;">won her a space</span></u></a> on the House GOP American Energy Solutions Group, which is dedicated to killing off any actual solutions to American energy problems. Perry went beyond vague insinuations that he somehow knows better than scientists about climate into the territory of <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/rick-perry-climate-change-is-a-hoax-drummed-up-by-scientists-looking-to-make-money.php?ref=fpa" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #ca8500;">promoting the theory</span></u></a> that climate change is a global hoax involving thousands---millions?---of scientists and leaders, in order to get the sweet cash from imaginary funders who have some non-disclosed interest in cutting into oil profits. Instead of listening to scientists on the subject of climate, Perry prefers a more 12th-century approach, <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/rick-perry-asks-texans-pray-rain" target="_blank"><u><span style="color: #ca8500;">asking people instead to pray for rain.</span></u></a> </div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph3"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/152096/michele_bachmann_vs._rick_perry%3A_who%27s_the_bigger_right-wing_extremist?page=1">http://www.alternet.org/story/152096/michele_bachmann_vs._rick_perry%3A_who%27s_the_bigger_right-wing_extremist?page=1</a></div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph3">We are heading for the Bronze Age, for sure, and James Howard Kunstler, of The Long Emergency and Geography of Nowhere fame, predicted the USA would be putting in more and more radically stupid and superstitious folk in low and high elected office. This is where we are heading, for sure, when you look at the GOP and tea bag party.</div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph3">**********************************</div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph3">Okay, Matt Damon for president is another reaction to these bizarre times --</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrPUl3vMklkY94qMTobEZfCAiM-AOvoMW1s8fVdU4bI-TnHuoNY72pIulb_zvILi7AvFMJJsUf3-oofo54GUceFkVWmXWG0d7NOE4mMFbeUyuDdzqxapVr6ex43HxgFg05VBkmIcuuv0m/s1600/Damon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrPUl3vMklkY94qMTobEZfCAiM-AOvoMW1s8fVdU4bI-TnHuoNY72pIulb_zvILi7AvFMJJsUf3-oofo54GUceFkVWmXWG0d7NOE4mMFbeUyuDdzqxapVr6ex43HxgFg05VBkmIcuuv0m/s1600/Damon.jpg" /></a></div><div name="paragraph3"><br />
</div><div id="paragraph5" name="paragraph5">The<em> Guardian</em> mentioned Damon as a defender of teachers and public education. As a misguided establishment consensus has emerged around standardized testing, privatization and charter schools, Damon has made a full-throated and deeply personal defense of public education, teachers and even the much-maligned teachers’ unions. He gave <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/matt-damons-clear-headed-speech-to-teachers-rally/2011/07/30/gIQAG9Q6jI_blog.html"><span style="color: #ca8500;">a real barnburner</span></a> speech at a recent pro-public education “Save Our Schools” rally.</div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5">Like many other progressives, Damon has grown weary of Democrats looking for phony centrism instead of standing up to a shockingly far-right Republican party. Against this backdrop, Damon’s principled and public stands do indeed make us sit up and pay attention.</div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5">*****************</div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5">Our own Spokane has some wing nuts running, including Mike Fagan for City Council -- </div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><div name="paragraph5">Here are some questions pulled from the Seeping Spokesman Review --</div><div name="paragraph5"><br />
</div><b>LIBRARIES, PARKS AND ENVIRONMENT </b><br />
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<b>12. Spokane’s library system offers significantly fewer hours than many of the 20 largest cities in Washington. Would you be willing to ask voters for a tax to boost this service as was requested earlier this year by the city library board? </b><br />
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Again, NO MORE TAXES! Please see answer #8. It is very imperative that we get a firm control on labor costs. Lower taxes, smaller and less intrusive and transparent government. To hear the Mayor claim that we are cut to the bone is laughable. <br />
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<b>13. A consultant hired by the city to review city services in 2006 said that the city was not investing enough in its urban forest. Should the city do more to plant and maintain street trees. If so, how? </b><br />
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I believe the urban forest is adequate. While I love trees, they sure can do a lot of damage and require a lot of maintenance to our infrastructure, i.e. pruning, leaves, sidewalks, sewer, and water pipes. Let’s not forget, the expansion of our urban forest program has been a contributing factor to growing the size of our city government also as we now have at least 3 arborists working for the city and parks.<br />
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<b>14. Do you support the sustainability plan promoted by Mayor Mary Verner, which was adopted by the Spokane City Council in 2010? Do you support the decision of former Mayor Dennis Hession to sign the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement? </b><br />
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I actively practice and support conservation, composting and recycling. I have been schooled and have hands-on experience with LEAN principles. I have had a hand in the creation of several community gardens in northeast Spokane, but, I do not and cannot support any taxation or regulation which has its roots in the “global warming” lie. <br />
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<b>15. Some nearby cities have crafted restrictions for watering lawns during certain hours. Would you support instituting similar rules in Spokane? </b><br />
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AHH, notice the tea bag, Patriot Party, Libertarian-faux guy go at all these things. He'll be with some interesting council members, if Fagan wins. Laughable, the city would be, but then we had a child rapist mayor, Jim West, supported by conservatives, Christian-talkers, no less. <br />
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Food, sustainable sanity -- <br />
<br />
Lastly, these are real tough times for people trying to eat, but here is a phalanx of ways to connect to positive action -- Nourishing the Planet (dot) ORG: <br />
<br />
Nourishing the Planet also highlighted five plants that not only provide nutritious crops, but also help farmers mitigate the effects of climate change. And we discussed how energy from the sun is being used to provide water for crops. <br />
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All the best,<br />
Danielle Nierenberg<br />
Nourishing the Planet Co-Project Director<br />
<a href="http://www.nourishingtheplanet.org/">www.nourishingtheplanet.org</a><br />
Please connect with us on Facebook!<br />
<br />
Here are some highlights from the week:<br />
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Marula Tree <br />
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Five plants you've never heard of that can slow climate change<br />
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Nourishing the Planet provides five plants that are helping farmers adapt to changes in the climate. Crop yields are estimated to decrease by 30 percent by the end of the century in the United States as a result of climate change. But heartier and more tolerant crops, such as the marula tree and marama, have significant potential to heal degraded soils and aid in the global fight against climate change.<br />
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SELF Innovation of the Week: Harnessing the Sun's Power to Make the Water Flow<br />
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This week's innovation discusses how energy from the sun is being used to get water to crops. In the Kalalé district of northern Benin, agriculture is a source of livelihood for 95 percent of the population, yet small-scale farmers lack access to effective irrigation systems. But the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a U.S. nonprofit, has introduced an innovative solar-powered drip irrigation system that is helping farmers-especially women-irrigate their fields. <br />
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Ending the Hunger Season<br />
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Fred Bahnson, co-founder of the Anathoth Community Garden in North Carolina, discusses the work that the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO), a Florida-based group, are doing to reduce global food insecurity. In addition to conducting research, ECHO provides free consulting for development workers, and promotes agricultural practices, such as growing indigenous crops, to make marginal land more productive. By helping small farmers, the staff at ECHO believe you increase food security for the whole country--and the world.<br />
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NtP TV Nourishing the Planet TV: Farmers Groups and Cooperatives<br />
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In this week's episode, we discuss the role cooperatives have in supporting small scale farmers in Africa. We highlight the role that organizations, including Urban Harvest and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, play in helping farmers establish local groups, which help to increase crop yields and improve access to markets.<br />
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Creating a sustainable world: An interview with Barton Seaver <br />
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In this interview, National Geographic fellow and chef, Barton Seaver, discusses the role that a chef can play in creating a sustainable food system. He believes that chefs can act as advocates and educators and can be an important part of changing people's food habits and food choices. <br />
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Food Waste -- Letting funding go to waste<br />
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In the United States, an estimated 27 percent of all food available for consumption is thrown away. Food waste in the United States amounts to about 30 million tons and accounts for 12 percent of total waste produced in a year. But organizations, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, are working to ensure that food that would otherwise be thrown away is delivered to the people in need.<br />
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30 Project Dinner kicks-off in San Francisco<br />
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Ellen Gustafson and her colleagues brought together food advocates from a variety of organizations,including California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA), CoFed, and the Jamie Oliver Foundation, to eat and talk about the best ways to change the global food system. This is the first of 30 dinners that Gustafson will host in 30 states, where she plans to bring policy makers and other important stakeholders to the table to discuss the future of domestic food policies.<br />
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What did you think of this newsletter? Please give us your feedback...we will use your comments to constantly improve our work. Write Danielle Nierenberg, Senior Researcher and Co-Project Director of Nourishing the Planet, at <a href="mailto:dnierenberg@worldwatch.org">dnierenberg@worldwatch.org</a>.Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-25078544530354950392011-08-17T20:05:00.000-07:002011-08-17T20:05:00.489-07:00Nothing Like Cutting Back on USA Science<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The stupidity never ceases. Jody Foster has to rile up the donors to keep the SETI going? That search for intelligent life needs to be pointed back onto earth -- it's dubious that there is much of that left in Congress, in political races, in the Administration of Obama. So, how do we get to mitigating climate change? How do we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels? Hell, Bill Gates is offering $3 million for the new toilet, for those 2 billion that don't have one. What the hell does this say about our society? Defunding tea baggers want the USA and enlightened to disappear so they can watch themselves lift into the miasma of their poor shaped flat heaven above flat earth? Nah, just kidding. We need MORE science, MORE arts, MORE healt care, MORE thinkers, MORE teachers, MORE people working in communitites.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5MZm1KpC7jTCLlDaHtMMDgesnT4BEMCgausFQOBn_LOATgEwq4MuO-BEvHWsYapd113NAuuyaRD6CjdozNff_0FPK8SnIrTSoH7R3hFmIkAGuv3Hgv-rEFZ6HB6g4b6JH2wDqVnY9-zU/s1600/_54638012_allentelescopearray1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5MZm1KpC7jTCLlDaHtMMDgesnT4BEMCgausFQOBn_LOATgEwq4MuO-BEvHWsYapd113NAuuyaRD6CjdozNff_0FPK8SnIrTSoH7R3hFmIkAGuv3Hgv-rEFZ6HB6g4b6JH2wDqVnY9-zU/s320/_54638012_allentelescopearray1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1"><br />
</div><div class="introduction">This is from truthdig.com</div><div class="introduction"><br />
</div><div class="introduction">Telescopes looking for extra terrestrial intelligence should re-open within weeks after donors replaced income lost in public funding cuts.</div><br />
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, had to shut the $30m (£18.3m) Allen Telescope Array in April. <br />
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Donors, including actress Jodie Foster, raised more than $200,000 (£122,000). <br />
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The 42 radio telescopes, in northern California, search space for potential signals from alien life forms. <br />
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Ms Foster was one of more than 2,400 people who contributed to the fund to save the Allen Telescope Array. She played the lead role of an astronomer looking for evidence of aliens in the 1997 film Contact. <br />
<span class="cross-head">Science Fiction into Science Fact</span> <br />
In a statement on the fund-raising website she explained her support: "The Allen Telescope Array could turn science fiction into science fact but only if it is actively searching the skies." <br />
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Another donor was the Apollo 8 astronaut, Bill Anders. <br />
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The SETI Institute says the fund should be enough to keep the telescopes operating until the end of the year, though the plan is still dependent on the institute receiving money from the US Air Force to track space debris that could damage satellites. <br />
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SETI Institute Astronomer Seth Shostak told BBC News, the deal with the Air Force is not yet done but he said he is fairly confident it will go through. Even then the money will need to be ratified by Congress and so there may be a delay. He hopes the array will re-open in September or October. <br />
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Thomas Pierson, SETI chief executive, agreed that a deal with the Air Force, combined with the donations, should allow the array to start listening for space chatter once again. <br />
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<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="dish shaped antenna" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54638000/jpg/_54638015_allentelescopearray3.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Some 42 dish-shaped antennas function as one radio telescope</span> </div><br />
He said: "For those who are interested in understanding whether intelligent life might be out there elsewhere in our galaxy, the Allen Telescope Array and our SETI team doing the research are the best bet."<br />
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The array began operating in 2007 and is named after its major benefactor, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. It consists of 42 dish-shaped antennas which work as a single radio telescope. <br />
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It is part of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, run by the University of California, Berkeley. Originally the array was a joint project between SETI Institute and the UC Berkeley Astronomy Laboratory but Berkeley had to pull out because of the loss of National Science Foundation grants and state budget cuts. <br />
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SETI is hoping to raise more money to contribute to the $2.5m (£1.5m) annual operating and staffing costs of the telescopes and keep them going beyond the end of this year. Ultimately the plan is to use the array to observe planets outside our own Solar System. <br />
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Mr Shostak said: "People still think this very fundamental question - is there somebody out there as intelligent or more so than us - is important and worth doing."<br />
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The array also contributes to research into black holes, pusars and magnetic fields in the Milky Way. Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4693000669302917676.post-66797682452825881762011-08-16T09:46:00.000-07:002011-08-16T09:46:28.018-07:00Man, the Same Old Saw -- Tuna, Emptying the Sea, Fighting the Un-sustainable Appetite<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNU-fX2KiS16Ap_6JGHzN8aXsJP9MhO3pkn5H5uG_eZF0VNCLhOZyKSf1z2oMSGKVmltz-_k48x8ObjVuIzBV9xBwfeCxjaWCQDuuoi1ZYjfmkDfROZGZVC1owFYD9AKl6FiQqg280bR4r/s1600/071911fish_story.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNU-fX2KiS16Ap_6JGHzN8aXsJP9MhO3pkn5H5uG_eZF0VNCLhOZyKSf1z2oMSGKVmltz-_k48x8ObjVuIzBV9xBwfeCxjaWCQDuuoi1ZYjfmkDfROZGZVC1owFYD9AKl6FiQqg280bR4r/s1600/071911fish_story.jpg" /></a></div><h2 style="margin: 20px 0px 0px;"> </h2><h5 style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I get blue in the face trying to convince friends that eating fish and marine protein is more than just a crap shoot in terms of how many PCBs, mercury lines and plasticized polyps are in the flesh. I get bluer trying to tell them that there are very few species in restaurants that are sustainable. As we all know, a marine biologist has the most depressing job in the world -- net losses are a daily event. No recovery, nothing positive coming out of their particular speciality.</span> </h5><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;">We can get to the Monterrey Bay aquarium and see and download their sustainable sea food pocket cards -- </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><a href="http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx">http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx</a></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;">But, these are sort of delusional things in a sea that has maybe 10 times the fishing boat-ship capacity of a sea that is almost fished out. Farmed salmon lover? Think 5 pounds of sardine-like fish for every pound of salmon produced in those ungodly sea pens full of flesh eating lice and tons of bacteria and disease. </div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;">I'll let this story rip below -- from Casson Trenor of Greenpeace, in his monthly column, 4 Oceans. Will our sustainability readers finally get blue in the face with all of these facts facing him or her?</div><div class="headline"> <h1>4 Dirty Secrets Hiding In Your Tuna Can</h1></div><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><!-- end: headline --><!-- start: teaser --> </div><div class="teaser">Tuna may be one of the most popular seafood products in the U.S. but there are four important things you should know before popping open that can</div><div class="teaser"> </div><h5 style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;">By Casson Trenor, </h5><div style="margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><em>This is the latest installment in Casson Trenor's monthly column, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/4oceans/">4 Oceans</a>, about protecting our fisheries and ocean health through sustainable seafood.</em></div><br />
Seafood isn't only sold in the seafood section. Americans buy a tremendous amount of seafood from the shelves of our local grocer rather than from the freezers, including one particular item found in everything from sandwiches and casseroles to salads: tuna fish.<br />
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For decades, tuna was the most widely consumed seafood product in the United States. Although it has recently lost pole position to farmed shrimp, it is still massively popular, and even though it's in a can, it is still fish, and thus merits scrutiny in terms of sustainable practices -- or, in this case, the total lack thereof.<br />
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Here's the issue: catching tuna in a manner that keeps the price hovering around $1-$2 per can is difficult. It's a challenging process for a number of reasons, not least of which is that most species of tuna are constantly on the move across the vastness of the open ocean. Chasing these schools around is a time- and resource-intensive process -- especially with oil prices on the perpetual upswing -- but the tuna industry has found a way to cut some pretty significant corners. Unfortunately, this has led to any number of nasty consequences, and those smiling bumblebees and luxuriating mermaids on the tuna cans at your neighborhood grocery store have done a great job covering them up... until now. <br />
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The tuna industry has a dirty little secret -- actually, it has four of them.<br />
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<strong>1. Fish Aggregating Devices</strong><br />
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Fish aggregating devices (aka FADs) are floating objects that tuna vessels cast adrift in the open ocean. They are generally attached to a radio beacon and can relay their position back to a given tuna boat. FADs work because fish in the open ocean find random flotsam absolutely captivating. Small plants and polyps anchor themselves to the physical body of the FAD, small fish use it as a hiding place, and larger animals flock to it as a source of shade and as a fertile hunting ground. After a few weeks at sea, a FAD can develop an entire ecosystem around it, which is wiped out entirely when the tuna boat returns and scoops the whole thing up in a seine net.<br />
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The problem is that FADs don't just attract the target species of tuna (usually skipjack). They are similarly mesmerizing to sharks, billfish and other animals -- most notably juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna -- that come swimming by wondering what all the fuss is about.<br />
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By then, it's generally too late.<br />
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FADs increase bycatch in the skipjack tuna industry by between 500 percent and 1000 percent when compared to nets set on free-swimming schools (FAD-free seining). To make matters worse, between 15 percent and 20 percent of the total catch of a FAD-associated skipjack seine is actually juvenile yellowfin and bigeye -- two species of tuna that are in serious trouble and cannot afford to have their young purloined before they ever have a chance to breed. The total content of bigeye and yellowfin in FAD-free skipjack seines is less than 1 percent.<br />
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I'll put this plainly -- if we don't stop using FADs, we will run out of yellowfin and bigeye tuna because we will kill all of the juveniles.<br />
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<em>Rule #1 for sustainable canned tuna: When shopping for "light" tuna, buy pole-and-line or FAD-free seined skipjack.</em><br />
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<strong>2. Longlines</strong><br />
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Cans of "white" tuna contain albacore, a temperate tuna species that is only popular in canned form in North America. Albacore isn't caught with purse seines as often as it is caught on longlines -- an equally destructive practice that incurs a tremendous amount of bycatch. Longlines are just that -- long lines set by fishing vessels that stretch from buoy to buoy across the open ocean, sometimes for multiple miles at a stretch. Every few yards, a long lead ending in a baited hook dangles from the main line. When the ship circles back to reel in the longline<br />
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The total bycatch rate of this massively destructive operation is estimated to be somewhere just shy of 30 percent of the total take. That means nearly one third of the total global catch of the albacore fleet -- thousands upon thousands of tons per year -- is turtles, sharks, sea birds, and other casualties of the industry's callousness and greed.<br />
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<em>Rule #2 for sustainable canned tuna: When shopping for "white" tuna, buy pole-and-line albacore.</em><br />
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<strong>3. Unregulated Fishing in the High Seas</strong><br />
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Outside of the boundaries of a country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 miles into the ocean beyond the shores of any given state, there exists a lawless, oceanic Wild West known as the high seas. When it comes to fishing, most anything goes as there are no universally acknowledged enforcement bodies that can serve to protect our common resources.<br />
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Tuna vessels regularly park just shy of this 200-mile line, inside what are often referred to as the "high seas pockets" -- four areas of unregulated ocean that are fully encircled by the EEZs of any number of island states in the western and central Pacific that depend on tuna stocks for their economic livelihood. Tuna, of course, know nothing of international boundaries, and pass freely back and forth over these lines until they are netted up by a nearby predatory seiner.<br />
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Since these vessels are operating in what are technically high seas areas, they have no rules to follow -- no quotas, no maximum limits, etc. -- and they don't have to pay dues or access fees to the countries that actually own and manage the resources. Activities like transshipping (transferring fish from one vessel to another to allow for longer fishing times and less resource expenditure) are common, which further reduces the abilities of these nearby states to manage their tuna stocks sustainably.<br />
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<em>Rule #3 for sustainable canned tuna: Tuna should be caught in managed waters. Buy tuna from companies that refuse to fish in the high seas pockets.</em><br />
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<strong>Stolen Fish, Stolen Future</strong><br />
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Might tends to make right when there aren't any overarching laws offering protection to those involved. The tuna industry has been the scene of an infuriating amount of bullying over the past decades, mainly by larger, more wealthy nations -- countries like Taiwan, Spain, the United States -- that have ransacked the waters of the independent Pacific Island states. Countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu have virtually no resources aside from tuna, and without a modicum of international law and market support to enable them to draw a fair and honest living from it, the established international tuna barons -- companies like Thai Union (which owns the well-known US brand Chicken of the Sea), Fong Chin Formosa and Dong Won -- are able to pillage their waters with near impunity.<br />
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Recently, a number of tuna-rich but cash-poor Pacific island states have banded together in an effort to take charge of their fisheries and to keep the tuna pirates out of their watery backyards. These states are known collectively as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), and they represent one of our best chances to foster a sustainable and equitable tuna industry that protects both the ocean's tuna populations, and the peoples that depend on them.<br />
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More information about the PNA and its struggle to wrest control of its own resources back from outside forces can be found <a href="http://www.youtube.com/pnatuna">here</a>.<br />
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<em>Rule #4 for sustainable canned tuna: Buy tuna from companies that support the PNA</em>Paul K. Haederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03990115945553573947noreply@blogger.com0