The
rapid and terrifying acceleration of global warming, which is
disfiguring the ecosystem at a swifter pace than even the
gloomiest scientific studies predicted a few years ago, has been
confronted by the power elite with two kinds of self-delusion.
There are those, many of whom hold elected office, who dismiss
the science and empirical evidence as false. There are others
who accept the science surrounding global warming but insist
that the human species can adapt. Our only salvation—the rapid
dismantling of the fossil fuel industry—is ignored by both
groups. And we will be led, unless we build popular resistance
movements and carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience,
toward collective self-annihilation by dimwitted pied pipers and
fools.
10 Ways Mother Earth Will Strike
Back If We Don't Stop Our Wanton Destruction of the
Environment
Deniers are dancing on the graves of
their reputations, to say nothing of reality itself. But Earth
will still get the last laugh on all of them, and us for that
matter.
March 21, 2010 |
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And if the ground's not cold/Everything is gonna
burn/We'll all take turns/I'll get mine too. -- Pixies,
"Monkey Gone to Heaven."
Bad news. Thanks to perfectly timed, premeditated reality
assassinations like so-called ClimateGate, nearly
half of Americans may now believe that the various threats
of climate change are exaggerated. That's the highest quotient
ever since polling on the issue commenced. But there is good
news: They're on the
wrong side of history and science, and Earth will still get
the last laugh on all of them, and us for that matter.
Welcome to our existential nightmare. From rising seas and
runaway droughts and storms to the outer limits of dystopian
catastrophes like the fart apocalypse -- I'll explain later --
our planet has no shortage of ways to bitch-slap us back into
our dangerous reality, whether we want it to or
not...........Read
Article
Did Bill Gates Just Give the Most
Important Climate Speech of the Year?
When we talk about zero climate
emissions, we sound crazy. When Bill Gates does it, bankers
pick up the phone.
February 16, 2010 |
On Friday, the world's most successful businessperson and
most powerful philanthropist did something outstandingly bold,
that went almost unremarked:
Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the
world to zero climate emissions.
Now, I'm not a member of the Cult of Bill myself (I'm typing
this on a MacBook), but you don't have to believe that Gates has
superhuman powers of prediction to know that his predictions
have enormous power. People who will never listen to Al Gore,
much to less someone like me, hang on Gates' every utterance.
Incentives to Going 'Off Grid' Bring Power
to the People
by Matt Ford
The price of power has always been a political issue -- but
now campaigners argue it could be the key to starting a green
energy revolution.
Roofs
in the Vatican City covered with solar
panels point the way to off-grid power.
On February 1, the British Government announced details of
the rates that will be paid for renewable power generated by
homeowners and communities.
Called the Clean Energy Cashback, or feed-in tariff (FIT),
the aim is to provide an above-market bonus that will
encourage individuals and groups to invest in solar panels,
wind turbines and other forms of green power.........Read
Article
Most dairy enthusiasts would be horrified to know the
conditions cows endure and how closely dairies are tied to
veal operations and the rest of the meat industry.
January 26, 2010 |
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The bucolic scene of Holsteins grazing on a grassy hill
that adorns milk cartons and cheese wrappers is nothing more
than fantasy these days. While the meat industry has come
under intensive scrutiny (and with good reason) for the
massive
factory farm system of raising cattle in confinement,
animals in the dairy industry are arguably worse off.
Eating milk, cheese, sour cream, ice cream, and other dairy
yumminess is impossible to do with a clear conscience -- and
I'm not referring to the fat or cholesterol. Calves born into
the industrial grip of today's dairy industry have a road
ahead of them that is short, but not merciful. Dairy cows are
subject to brutal conditions before being sent to slaughter
for beef and male calves are worth next to nothing in the
dairy business. Some are simply left to die after birth. Many
are slaughtered for low-grade "bob veal" a few days after they
are born and will end up as cheap hot dogs or dog food..........Read
Article
BERLIN - Biodiversity, already decaying fast as a result of
climate change and intensive farming, is under further threat
by genetic modification (GM) of seeds, says a leading German
ecological activist.
Genetic modification of seeds is
dangerous, "since it is at the beginning of the agricultural
chain, and can spread all over," says Benedikt Haerlin, former
campaign manager at the environmental organization Greenpeace
and former member of the European Parliament.
Haerlin now leads the global
‘Save our Seeds' campaign in cooperation with some 300
environmental organizations across Europe.
The
campaign is currently calling attention to plans by the
European Commission (EC) to tolerate "accidental or
technically unavoidable" contamination of conventional seed
with GM varieties....Read
Article
The Melting of
America: The Story of a Can’t-Do Nation
by Orville Schell
Lately, I've been studying the climate-change induced melting
of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the
cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the
planet's most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely,
left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious
downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North
China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems --
the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra,
Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim -- that arise in these
mountains isn't much of an antidote to malaise either.
If
you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss
creeps over you -- the kind that comes from contemplating the
possible end of something once imagined as immovable,
immutable, eternal, something that has unexpectedly become
vulnerable and perishable as it has slipped into irreversible
decline. Those magnificent glaciers, known as the Third Pole
because they contain the most ice in the world short of the
two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated
planet and no one knows what to do about it.....Read
Article
Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from
2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon
technology.
A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts
of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and
avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs.
Although an
electrical current will be used to stimulate the
chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low
and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches
will control brightness, as with traditional lighting.
The Carbon Trust has awarded a £454,000 grant to Lomox,
a Welsh company that is developing the organic
light-emitting diode technology.
Wallpaper that glows, lighting up a room evenly, with
sunlight-like coloring, and consuming a fraction of the
energy of an overhead lamp. Thanks to an enormous grant,
one company is working out how to make our wallpaper
into a light source, using super low-power OLED lighting
technology.
The trust said it would be
two and a half times more efficient than energy-saving
bulbs and could make a big contribution to meeting
Britain's target of cutting carbon emissions by 34 per
cent by 2020. Indoor lighting accounts for a sixth of
total electricity use........Read
Article
Leading
Climate Scientist James Hansen on Why He’s Pleased the
Copenhagen Summit Failed, “Cap and Fade,” Climategate and
More..
Published on Tuesday, December 15,
2009 by
RaceWire
Shifting Climate,
Moving People: Immigration and Climate Justice
by Michelle Chen
The
impasse in Copenhagen underscores just how interconnected,
and perhaps collectively doomed, we all are in the face of
global climate change.
And like the rapid currents of trade coursing around the
globe, environmental destruction is reshaping the flow of
labor and people as they move from one endangered livelihood
to another. So it turns out there’s an immigration question
embedded in the climate issue. As populations shift, so does
economic and political power. No wonder wonks in Washington
are starting to realize what people in conflict-ridden regions
have been shouting for years: that
climate change is a security issue.
....Read
Article
Climate Change: The Global
Media Presents an Apocalyptic Scenario
by Michel Chossudovsky
The following
text (in annex) was published simultaneously by major Newspapers
around the World. It constitutes a Worldwide public relations
initiative, intended to sway public opinion into unreservedly
accepting the "Global Warming consensus". The text of the
editorial was prepared by The Guardian team.
The editorial presents an apocalyptic scenario, with global
warming ravaging the planet.
While it rightly points to the need to reduce toxic manmade
emissions, as an environmental clean air objective in its own
right, it accepts the Global Warming Consensus, outright,
without debate or discussion, as an absolute truth as outlined
by the UN Panel on Climate Change......Read
Article
Excluded from the Copenhagen
Agenda:
Environmental
Modification Techniques (ENMOD) and Climate Change.
"Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional
modification or manipulation of the natural ecology, such as
climate and weather, earth systems such as the ionosphere,
magnetosphere, tectonic plate system, and/or the triggering
of seismic events (earthquakes) to cause intentional
physical, economic, and psycho-social, and physical
destruction to an intended target geophysical or population
location, as part of strategic or tactical war." (Eco
News)
"[Weather modification] offers the war fighter a wide
range of possible options to defeat or coerce an
adversary... Weather modification will become a part of
domestic and international security and could be done
unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive
applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The
ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth
or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial
weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military]
technologies." (US Air Force document AF 2025 Final
Report).....Read
Article
Copenhagen's Hidden Agenda: The
Multibillion Trade in Carbon Derivatives
Architect of Credit Default Swaps
behind the Development of "Carbon Derivatives"
And I have
pointed out that (1) the giant
banks will make a killing on carbon trading, (2) while the
leading scientist
crusading against global warming says it won't work, and (3)
there is a very high probability of massive fraud and insider
trading in the carbon trading markets.
Now, Bloomberg
notes that the carbon trading
scheme will be centered around
derivatives:
The banks are preparing to do with carbon
what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives
contracts that will help client companies hedge their price
risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell
carbon-related financial products to outside investors.
[Blythe] Masters says banks must be allowed
to lead the way if a mandatory carbon-trading system is going
to help save the planet at the lowest possible cost. And
derivatives related to carbon must be part of the mix, she
says. Derivatives are securities whose value is derived from
the value of an underlying commodity -- in this case, CO2 and
other greenhouse gases...
More than 15,000
people will be gathering in Copenhagen for COP 15: the 15th
Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Official delegations from 192 nations
will mingle with the representatives of major multinational
corporations, including Royal Dutch Shell, British
Petroleum, The representatives of environmental and civil
society organizations will also be in attendance.
Parties & Observers
It is worth noting
that key decisions and orientations on COP15 had already
been wrapped up at the World Business Summit on Climate
Change (WBSCC) held in May in Copenhagen, six months
ahead of COP15.
The WBSCC brought
together some of the World's most prominent business
executives and World leaders including Al Gore and UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. (The
World Business Summit on Climate Change,
includes webcast)
The results of these
high level consultations were forwarded to the Danish
government as well as to the governments of participating
member states. A so-called summary report for policymakers
was drafted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, on behalf the
corporate executives participating in the event. This report
has very little to do with environmental protection. It
largely consists in a profit driven agenda, which uses the
global warming consensus as a justification. (For details
see
Climate Council: The World Business
Summit on Climate Change)
.......Read
Article
Agenda 21
Asian Natural Disasters --
Harbinger Of Events To Come
In a span of five weeks, repeated typhoons,
tsunamis, floods, mudslides and earthquakes swept through ten
nations leaving thousands of people dead and rendering millions
more homeless. The first of the natural disasters, tropical
storm Ketsana, struck Manila and the surrounding area on
September 26th during which time it caused massive floods and
mudslides in addition to forcing thousands to flee their wrecked
homes.........Read
Article
Confused
About All the Climate Talk and the Copenhagen Summit? Here's the
Skinny: Five Things You Should Know
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evidence of
connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee
die-offs known as “colony collapse disorder” reported across the
US, according to leading bee experts and the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC.) The NRDC sued when the EPA refused to
disclose the results of studies concerning the toxicity of
neonicotinoids — a new class of insecticides manufactured by
Bayer CropScience that impact the central nervous system of
insects. Both Germany and France banned similar neonicotinoids
due to concerns about their impact on bees.....Read
Article
What Happened to Global
Warming?
By Debra Saunders ·
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
"What happened to global warming?" read the headline -- on
BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event:
Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific
research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by
man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest.
Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson
reported, the warmest year recorded globally "was not in 2008 or
2007, but 1998." It's true, he continued, "For the last 11
years, we have not observed any increase in global
temperatures.".........Read
Article
At their meeting in the Italian city of L’Aquila
in July 2009, the heads of state and government of the G8
countries and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF),
whose members include India, Brazil and China, acknowledged the
importance that global warming must not exceed the 2°C guard rail
if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. WBGU views this as
an extremely important step towards the adoption of a binding
international agreement which establishes a well-founded target
for global climate protection. The task now is to build on this
consensus and reach agreement, at Copenhagen, on a follow-up
treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire in 2012. This
new international agreement should translate the relevant
scientific knowledge into a fair and practicable global strategy
to combat global warming. So far, however, the lack of unanimity
between the countries involved in the negotiating process has
meant that there is no clear leitmotif pointing the way towards
such an agreement.
A frightening new climate
change study says the United States must eliminate its
enormous rate of carbon emission within ten years.
Editor's Note: This is the kickoff to a series of pieces
as a Copenhagen Primer about climate change that we will be
running in the lead up to the international climate talks in
Copenhagen beginning on December 7.Stay tuned.
They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate
change has an "Oh, shit" moment -- an instant when the full
scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize
what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for
itself. Listening to the speeches, ground-breaking in their way,
that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered
September 22 at the UN Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded
of my most recent "Oh, shit" moment. It came in July, courtesy
of the chief climate adviser to the German government. Hans
Joachim Schellnhuber, chair of an advisory council known by its
German acronym, WBGU, is a physicist whose specialty, fittingly
enough, is chaos theory. Speaking to an invitation-only
conference at New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute, Schellnhuber
divulged the findings of a study so new he had not yet briefed
Chancellor Angela Merkel about it. The study, Solving the
Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach, has now been
published here.
If its conclusions are correct -- and Schellnhuber ranks among
the world's half-dozen most eminent climate scientists -- it has
monumental implications for the pivotal meeting in December in
Copenhagen, where world leaders will try to agree on reversing
global warming...........Read
Article
UXBRIDGE, Canada - The
world has failed to slow the accelerating extinction crisis
despite 17 years of national and international efforts since
the great hopes raised at the
1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The last big promise to act was in 2003, when government
ministers from 123 countries committed to reduce the rate of
biodiversity loss by 2010.
Experts convening an international meeting in South Africa
this week agree that target will not be met next year, which
is also the International Year of Biodiversity.
"It is hard to imagine a more important priority than
protecting the ecosystem services underpinned by
biodiversity," said Georgina Mace of Imperial College in
London, and vice chair of the international DIVERSITAS
programme, a broad science-based collaborative.
"We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of
biodiversity loss by 2010," said Mace in a
statement.................Read
Article
Countries Are Preparing for Rising Seas But the U.S. Is Far
Behind
All around the globe, there is growing awareness of coming sea
level rise. To date, the United States appears to be behind in
what are still very preliminary efforts of many other countries.
In 2008, the EPA released an important document intended to set
the stage for the nation’s response to sea level rise, but the
stated goal of the report was to add to the nation’s prosperity
while responding to sea level rise. Maintaining prosperity may
be desirable, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. A
report with such conflicting goals cannot be taken seriously.
Response to a major sea level rise will, of course, involve
economic sacrifice on the part of property owners, government,
and society as a whole even though jobs will be created in
building relocation and other industries.........Read
Article
Published on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by
USA Today
Report: Future US Heat
Waves Will Be Worse
by Dan Vergano
The nation is headed for strong heat waves in coming decades that
will hit cities and farmers and threaten wildlife with extinction,
a new global warming report warns.
The report, "More Extreme Heat Waves: Global
Warming's Wake Up Call," sponsored by medical, environmental and
civil rights organizations, comes as a legislative fight over a
climate change bill gets ready to resume next month in Congress. Its
remedies are based on recent findings of global warming effects by
the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates climate
research across federal agencies.........Read
Article
The Dark
Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late, Cap and Trade Is a
Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive
Father of the Gaia Theory, James
Lovelock says we can't stop climate change, but that humanity
will continue in some smaller form.
The recent narrow passage of the Waxman-Markey energy bill,
better known as cap-and-trade, marks halftime in Congress' first
attempt to put a lid on national carbon emissions. The bill’s
supporters ended the half on top in a squeaker -- 219 yeas to 212
nays. But it’s far from clear what this lead means, either for the
bill or the climate. The legislation’s fate remains as uncertain as
our own.........Read
Article
More than four fifths of people support the introduction of a
nature reserve in our seas to protect stocks of fish, according to
a survey published today on World Oceans Day.
The poll came
ahead of the launch of a film, The End Of The Line, which reveals
the impacts of overfishing on the world's oceans.
With climate change deepening the water crisis, wonky discussions
of how to manage our water systems are suddenly attracting
increased public attention. "Unlike oil, there's no substitute for
fresh water," says Maude Barlow,
senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations
General Assembly. "We all need it."..........more
Global Cooling is Here
Evidence for Predicting
Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades
The following article
represents an alternative view and analysis of global
climate change, which challenges the dominant Global Warming
Consensus.
Global Research does not necessarily endorse the proposition
of "Global Cooling", nor does it accept at face value the
Consensus on Global Warming. Our purpose is to encourage a
more balanced debate on the topic of global climate change.
INTRODUCTION
Despite no global
warming in 10 years and recording
setting cold in 2007-2008, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic
Change (IPCC) and computer modelers
who believe that CO2 is the
cause of global warming still predict
the Earth is in store for catastrophic
warming in this century. IPCC computer
models have predicted global warming
of 1° F per decade and 5-6° C (10-11°
F) by 2100 (Fig. 1), which would cause
global catastrophe with ramifications
for human life, natural habitat,
energy and water resources, and food
production. All of this is predicated
on the assumption that global
warming is caused by increasing
atmospheric CO2 and that CO2
will continue to rise rapidly.........more
The reality for the average Indian remains
the same: agricultural cultivation and the ability to farm is
the bedrock of rural living. With its historical practices,
values, and communal sentiments of respect, cultivation and the
practice of farming has embedded roots. Farming for Indians is
not only a source of income – it is a source of culture and
identity. Since the late 1990s however, Indian governmental
officials have wilfully compromised this sentiment for the
‘bright lights’ associated with the West.
After over a decade of trade liberalization
and free market reforms, mainstream economic development has
left rural India to fend for itself. Amidst great levels of
industrialization and growth, the vast majority of Indians have
been left behind. Agriculture is the primary source of
livelihood for some 70% of Indians[1].Considering the fact that
only 1% of Americans and 2-3% of Europeans derive their
livelihood from agriculture, this is a huge level of
dependence[2].
"to Wonder at
Beauty, Stand Guard over Truth, Look up to the Noble, Decide
for the Good: Leads Us on Our Journey to Goals for Our Life,
to Right in Our Doing, to Peace in Our Feelings, to Light in
Our Thoughts and Teaches Us Trust in the Guidance of God in
All that there is and in All the World, In the Soul's Deep
Soil." ~R. Steiner