vossy
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Post by vossy on Mar 12, 2007 1:16:01 GMT 4
Al Gore's Documentry was Great who ever on this forum hasn't watched it, you have to, it's a real eye opener. It shows the reality of Global Warming
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vossy
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Post by vossy on Mar 12, 2007 11:25:11 GMT 4
Yeah Chris i agree, i think the world and america woulg have been a better place than it is today, with Bush. Also i think that terrorism would be so big, worldwide since bush has just agrovated the terrorist, i mean Bush dragged Blair into war and look what happened in London on July 7th. Michelle, why do you think that Al Gore threw some stuff together? Because the whole film is filled with hard evedence
vossy
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Mar 22, 2007 15:58:37 GMT 4
US fudging of climate science - details revealed12:30 20 March 2007 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young The Bush administration has again been charged with interfering with federal climate science, in order to underplay the significance of global warming.In a continuing investigation, the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held its second hearing on the issue on Monday. Documents "appear to portray a systematic White House effort to minimise the significance of climate change", said a memo released by the committee. The committee heard from James Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and one of the first scientists to warn of the threat of climate change. In written testimony, Hansen said: "In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now.""Normal review process"However, the committee also heard a former White House aide defending his editing of government reports on climate change, to put them in line with the views of the Bush administration. Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) from 2001 to 2005, said this editing was part of the normal review process between agencies. Before he joined the White House, Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, and he now works for the oil giant ExxonMobil.The committee heard of this top-down pressure on climate scientists during the first hearing in January (see US climate scientists pressured on climate change). Former government scientist Rick Piltz said that Cooney had tried to downplay the consequences of climate change in government documents. Fudge and deleteIn a 10-year policy plan, Cooney and Brian Hannegan, also at CEQ, made at least 181 edits to emphasise scientific uncertainty regarding the effects of climate change and 113 changes to minimise the importance of human contributions to global warming, according to the committee's memo. For example, Cooney replaced "will" with "may" in the sentence: "Warming temperatures will also affect Arctic land areas." He also deleted this sentence: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." Cooney says he thinks his edits, including the scientific uncertainties, are in line with conclusion of a 2001 report on climate change by the National Academy of Sciences (presumably this one). In another case, Cooney said he was concerned that a US Environmental Protection Agency draft report was not leaving enough uncertainty on the link between human activities and observed warning. "I wanted a broad quote because it's an important question," Cooney said in his first public statement about his changes. Right to speakHansen had previously accused political appointees of trying to silence scientists (see US agencies accused of muzzling climate experts). His case came to prominence in 2006 after he had called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (see Top climatologist accuses US of trying to gag him). NASA public affairs officer George Deutsch, a political appointee, subsequently denied a media request to interview Hansen and instead offered other NASA managers for the interview. "I'm an American," Hansen said. "And I exercise my right to free speech. If public affairs people tell me I can't do that... I ignore them." Deutsch later resigned when it was revealed he had fudged his résumé. However, the Bush administration is not the only one to have exerted political pressure in this field of research, according to one witness. Meteorologist John Spencer, who said his position is that humanity's role in climate change is not fully understood, said he felt political pressure much earlier – under the Clinton administration. Spencer, also a proponent of intelligent design, resigned from NASA in 2001 after a 14-year career. "I'm just pointing out that the political interference goes both ways, but not everybody has felt compelled to complain about it," Spencer told the committee. Source:environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11417------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scientist accuses White House of 'Nazi' tacticsBy Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer 1:05 PM PDT, March 19, 2007 WASHINGTON -- A government scientist, under sharp questioning by a federal panel for his outspoken views on global warming, stood by his view today that the Bush administration's information policies smacked of Nazi Germany. James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, took particular issue with the administration's rule that a government information officer listen in on his interviews with reporters and its refusal to allow him to be interviewed by National Public Radio."This is the United States," Hansen told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. "We do have freedom of speech here." But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said it was reasonable for Hansen's employer to ask him not to state views publicly that contradicted administration policy. "I am concerned that many scientists are increasingly engaging in political advocacy and that some issues of science have become increasingly partisan as some politicians sense that there is a political gain to be found on issues like stem cells, teaching evolution and climate change," Issa said. Hansen said the Bush administration was not the first in U.S. history to practice information management over government scientists, but it has been the most vigorous. He deplored a "politicization of science." "When I testify to you as a government scientist," he said, "why does my testimony have to be reviewed, edited and changed by a bureaucrat in the White House?" Sitting beside him was one of the bureaucrats Hansen was talking about: Philip Cooney, chief of staff to the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2001 to 2005.
Cooney, an official of the American Petroleum Institute before going to the White House, acknowledged having reviewed some of Hansen's testimony as part of a long-standing practice designed to result in consistency.Cooney was asked about changing "will" to "may" in prepared testimony describing the impact of human activity--particularly the burning of oil and coal--on the Earth's temperature. He said his edits were based not on political views but a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences. "I offered my comments in good-faith reliance on what I understood to be authoritative and current use of the state of scientific knowledge, and for no other purpose," Cooney said. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) didn't buy that. He said the basis of Cooney's editing changes was not scientific evidence but "loyalty to a person who had appointed you to a political position."Some of the sharpest exchanges came between Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the committee, and a Republican member, Mark Souder of Indiana. Souder said the Democrats' approach made "a mockery of the hearing process." joel.havemann@latimes.com Source:www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-climate20mar20,1,1206407.story Note: Michelle, why do you think that Al Gore threw some stuff together? Because the whole film is filled with hard evedence vossy vossy, you need to reread what I said in my previous post....Michelle
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Apr 23, 2007 16:16:16 GMT 4
FLIPPING THE SWITCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE, HOAXES & CYCLESby William Thomas Thanks to an American Senator, the world is being set straight on climate change. Working tirelessly to scuttle former elected President Al Gore's upcoming Capitol Hill celebration as part of a seven-continent "Live Earth" concert tour intended to rally the planet in cheerfully addressing runaway global warming, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe speaks with the conviction of a Holocaust denier when he calls climate change "The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people!" [The Hill Mar 28/07] A least since the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, WMD in Iraq, the Iranian "threat", the Bush Terror War On Terror, and the constitutional curtain-closing Patriot Acts 1, 2 and 3. Apparently unafraid of facing future Nuremberg-style environmental trials, Climate Change Deniers as influential as the U.S. National Science Teachers Association have refused 50,000 free DVDs of Gore's Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" in fear of alienating heavy corporate funders like Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute, which gets scientists fired, publishes expensive ads in newspapers ridiculing melting glaciers, and helpfully provides "teaching aids" such as coal coloring books and classroom videos asserting, "You Can't Be Cool Without Fuel." That means you, Mr. and Mrs. Penguin. In sharp contrast, Tony Blair's government is sending a copy of Gore's global warming documentary to every high school in England, where it will form part of a year-long environmental program in state schools. [Cybercast News Service Feb 9/07] GLACIAL INDIFFERENCE It's not easy debating a destabilizing 10,000-foot thick glacier. Despite sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets already at the upper limits of the next 30 year projections, another 500,000 square miles of reflective Arctic sea ice melted into heat-retaining dark water and Alaska's glaciers decanting more than 13 trillion gallons of meltwater into world ocean circulations each year, and Greenland's fast-shrinking 2,000 kilometres of solid ice increasing its melting rate over the past five years from a metre a year to a metre a month, and polar bears drowning a hundred miles offshore while looking for ice floes retreating another 300 miles out, and thousands of Canadian harp seal pups experiencing 100% mortality from the same lack of ice, and the first month of 2007 3.4°F hotter than the any January ever recorded and the snowpack serving drinking water to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest shrinking toward bare rock and more than a quarter of the American West in either severe or exceptionally severe drought while Arizona cactus wither and die from lack of water—Inhofe and the White House insist, this planet can't be heating up! [Reuters Mar 23/07; CBC Aug 3; Aug 20/04; BBC Radio 4 Aug 7/05; Independent Oct 2/05; Knight Ridder News Service July31/03; New York Times Mar 10/06; www.cejnewsviews.blogspot.com/ - www.realclimate.org ] On the other hand, an 18-inch rise in sea level will see salt water flowing into the Sacramento River Delta, destroying the drinking water for 23 million Californians. A 20-foot ocean level rise will put half of Florida under water— including Miami, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville—along with the new WTC memorial in Manhattan, and much of Washington DC, where Senator Inhofe is busily blocking climate change-inspired discourse, dancing and music. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar 11/07; BBC July28/04] In more than 180 countries, one out of every ten people on this planet could soon be chuckling over the climate change hoax while swimming inland. Fortunately for U.S. legislators like Inhofe, only one of these countries is the United States. The rest—China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, Thailand and the Philippines have mostly expendable non-white populations who don't buy much stuff from the United States, which today mostly exports self-deluding fictions, weapons and wars. [Inter Press Service Mar 28/07] Meanwhile, the rapidly melting and slip-sliding Greenland ice sheet does not know it is a hoax and is set to raise world sea levels 20 to 30 feet, while far to the south, inland Western Antarctic glaciers uncorked by the calving Larson ice shelf are rushing to add another 20-feet or so to the rising sea level hoax. As for the melting Eastern Antarctic, think about relocating to a mountaintop with a dock in your front yard. OCEANS 'R' US Onboard a lonesome space colony that is more Ocean than Earth, the gigantic saltwater buffer covering 70% of its surface is absorbing half of our carbon folly every day. This is good and not so good, because the resulting hot water is shutting down nutrient-rich water columns and helping megatons of farm fertilizer runoff create vast fishless Dead Zones off the coast of California and Oregon every year for the last five years. Dead zones are also blooming in the waters off Chile, Namibia and South Africa. Nearly 50% of the world's fisheries are in these areas. [BBC News Feb 17/07] Even worse, in contributing to a 25 million ton carbon deposit into the One World Ocean every day, we are seeing a resulting carbonic reaction that is rapidly turning this whole watery wilderness into acid. [ www.earthfiles.com Aug 13/04; Agence France-Presse July 20/05 ] And our oceanic carbon contributions are increasing rapidly. Meanwhile, the global warming hoax so stridently opposed by Senator Inhofe and his cohorts can only mean that temperatures in Eastern Europe are not averaging 8° Fahrenheit above normal, even though they are. Canada on average is more than 5 degrees warmer than normal, and hoax-ridden Siberia is 9°F hotter than usual. [Agence France-Presse Feb 16/07; AP Feb 16/07] FOR PEAT's SAKE This is a scream because the world's largest frozen peat bog stretches for a million square kilometres across western Siberia's once permanently frosty permafrost. Warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth, this time bomb tundra contains several hundred billion tons of methane that—if thawed by a few more cheap flights to Mexico—could be burped like a giant cow fart into an atmosphere already overloaded with fast-food bovine flatulence. [NewScientist.com Aug 11/05] Thing is, each molecule of methane released into the atmosphere destroys millions of sunshielding ozone molecules. And despite the media-promulgated hoax of ozone layer recovery, last year's 11 million square miles ozone hole over Antarctica was the biggest ever recorded, with local ozone absence often reaching 99%. No more ozone means no more plankton means no more oceanic carbon scrubbing or oxygen—and no more fishies. [National Science Foundation Press Release Dec 17/03; www.greenguerrilla.com/om.htm Agence France-Presse Dec 26/06] Another thing: each molecule of methane traps 21 times more heat than a measly molecule of carbon dioxide. [EPA] Suddenly—hopefully—that next drive to Burger King may not seem as urgent as leaving the key unturned in our aptly-named ignitions. Because another few degrees rise in global temperatures could release more heat-trapping tundra methane all at once than all the carbon released over the past century. Then the cows and us are hooped. [Baltimore Sun Dec 16/04] THE IPCC's BIG MISCALCULATION But hey, relax, Inhofe and his followers invite, and throw another forest on the fire. It turns out that the latest scary Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections showing an "upper range" temperature increase of about 11°F by this century's end based on carbon burning trends in places like the USA, Canada and China are yesterday's baloney. Instead, our current situation is much more dire than they predicted. It seems that 1,200 of the world's best atmospheric scientists forgot to factor in land-based methane releases, which are "emptying at an alarming rate," according to Chris Freeman of the University of Wales. Apparently uninformed that methane levels already rising three-times faster than CO2 cannot really be happening, a frightened Freeman exclaims, "It's a vicious circle. The problem gets worse and worse, faster and faster" as more methane heats the atmosphere releasing more methane and so on. [National Science Foundation Press Release Dec 17/03; NewScientist.com Aug 11/05] Even with tundra terror factor inserted into updated computer models, panicked oceanographers are warning that just a few degrees more ocean warming could release another 2,000 billion tons of frozen methane "clathrates" from the seafloor into the atmosphere. That's a lot. In fact it's enough to trigger a sudden "destabilization event". We won't like it. A NASA study confirmed that 55 million years ago a similarly tremendous underwater methane belch instantly heated Earth's atmosphere as much as 13° F within a few decades. This messed up critters afloat and ashore, and disrupted climate worldwide for more than 100,000 years. Some 200 million years before that, another series of methane releases came close to wiping out all life on Earth. As oxygen levels plummeted and every living creature teeter-tottered on the brink of extinction, more than 94% of marine species headed for off-planet dimensions. It took between 25 and 100 million years for coral reefs and forests to regrow into their former diversity. For those of us who don't like waiting for anything, such an interruption could be extremely inconvenient. NOT ALL CYCLES ARE BICYCLES These Big Extinction Events—and other periodic warming and cooling episodes—are what people like Inhofe and your neighbors and coworkers unknowingly refer to when they say that climate change is "cyclical". They're right. But not in the way they mean. For example, about 12,700 years ago average temperatures in lands bordering the North Atlantic abruptly plummeted nearly 5°C and remained that way for 1,300 years. The resulting Younger Dryas is named after a cold-loving Arctic wildflower that flourished in the US and European regions during an era that saw icebergs off the coast of present day Portugal. Another abrupt warming took place about 1,000 years ago that allowed Norse voyagers to settle a northern green land. Three centuries later, the Norse abandoned their Greenland settlements when the climate chilled abruptly, with "profound" agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe. Over in the USA, the American revolution was nearly aborted by rapid climate shift as George Washington struggled to get his thinly-clad troops across the unexpectedly icebound Delaware River. "Rapid changes in ocean circulation are linked to these abrupt climate changes," Robert Gagosian, President and Director Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution told the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2003. "A growing body of evidence demonstrating linkages among ocean-related climate shifts, 'megadroughts' and precipitous collapses of civilizations, including the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia 4,200 years ago, the Mayan empire in central America 1,500 years ago, and the Anasazi in the American Southwest in the late 13th century." OUT OF CIRCULATION Now, unless we immediately embrace a low carbon diet, a lot more folks could soon experience that excitement again. In May 2005, climate change researcher Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, aimed sonar upwards beneath the Arctic ice cap from Royal Navy submarines and correlated ships‚ measurements across the Greenland Sea to detect that one of the biggest "heat pumps" driving the Gulf Stream has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength. "Until recently we would find giant 'chimneys' in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 metres below, but now they have almost disappeared," Wadhams said. "As the water sank it was replaced by warm water flowing in from the south, which kept the circulation going. If that mechanism is slowing, it will mean less heat reaching Europe." Today, the powerful Gulf Stream that bathes Britain, northern Europe and the northeastern U.S. seaboard in warm waters conveyed from the tropics has slowed by 30% in the last dozen years. According to UK newspapers, "The Gulf Stream delivers the equivalent of 1 million power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10°C in some regions. Ireland, Britain and northwestern Europe lie on the same latitude as Siberia." The shut down of this Gulf Stream "radiator" could lead to a century or more of no frost-free days on the northern European, UK and US Atlantic seaboards—at a time when the end of cheap oil sends fuel oil and food transport costs skyrocketing. [Sunday Times (Ireland) May 8/05; Guardian Dec 1/05] Unusually violent solar flares, and Earth's wobbly axis are peripherally implicated in these major climatic events. The sudden stoppages of "thermohaline" ocean circulations are primarily caused by rapid global warming caused by massive methane releases caused by voluminous volcanic eruptions—are. These drastic warming and cooling periods are not really "cyclical" but result from Earth's intricately interconnected feedback mechanisms that miraculously work to maintain narrow margins of habitability for warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing lifeforms like us. So far. Unfortunately, as U.S. government geologist John Atcheson observes, "Humans appear to be capable of emitting carbon dioxide in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions." According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels in cars, jets, ships, wood stoves and power plants has so far released more than 150 times the amount of volcanic carbon dioxide—"The equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes the size of Hawaii's Kilauea." [Baltimore Sun Dec 16/04] Inhofe stubbornly insists that more than 700 million cars and trucks running their motors inside an eggshell-thin atmosphere as enclosed as any garage are not affecting anything. [Independent Dec 6/03; Globe and Mail Apr11/98] Atcheson simply says, "Once these methane releases really get cooking, it's likely to play out all the way." [Independent Dec 6/03] WHY IT's COOL TO BUY LOCALLY PRODUCED FOOD, CRAFTS, GOODS AND SERVICES Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping are increasing at a hair-raising rate and could rise by another 75% in the next 15 years unless we stop shopping for cheap junk at Wal-Mart and similar consumption emporiums. All this shipping traffic to deliver consumer toys and suicidal oil is nearly double Britain's total emissions and more than all African countries combined. For anyone who still believes in leaving their personal responsibility and children's‚ future to governments governed by corporate interests as big as Exxon-Mobile, more than 200 million tons of carbon emissions from 70,000 perpetually steaming ships do not come under the Kyoto agreement or any proposed European legislation. Few studies have been made of these gigantic carbon burners that transport 90% of our not-so-goods across a gasping ocean. "Buying local" takes on new urgency and appropriateness with 20,000 new ships on order and shipboard emissions heading toward more than a million tons a day by 2020. [Guardian Mar 3/07] ALTERED STATES Apparently still clueless that climate change is a hoax, 409 mayors have signed a climate-protection agreement requiring cities to reduce greenhouse emissions, and 29 states have already passed legislation limiting greenhouse gases. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is seeking to terminate global warming by imposing the first state cap on greenhouse gas emissions that will reduce those risky exhausts to 1990 levels by 2020. On Monday, March 25, 2007 the governors of Washington, California, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico announced a regional agreement on climate change. On Thursday, as temperatures rose to the highest level ever for March at 11 locations across Japan, Senate hearings examined these state and local programs as models for federal legislation. [Kyodo news Mar 30/07] As astonished Japanese shed their parkas and uncorked Saki for cherry blossom-viewing in a Tokyo sweltering under July-like temperatures, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, "We are making tough choices. We are investing our taxpayers' money. We are transforming our cities into laboratories for climate protection. In short, we are making a difference, and laying the groundwork for strong federal policies and programs." Urging Congress to pass a plan "that calls for a hard and declining cap on emissions," Nickels insisted that cities and states should be eligible for federal grants that underwrite innovative programs and research. "We need the federal government to take on a leadership role now so that we move beyond the grass-roots innovation that is blossoming in every state in the country," he said. On Sunday, Saint Gore won an Academy Award for his must-see documentary. "We are operating the planet like a business in liquidation," he later told Charlie Rose on national TV. Not even the world's mightiest military, with more weaponry than all other nations combined, can shoot global warming. But blowing up Iraq and Afghanistan, and getting ready to blow up Iran, Syria, North Korea and possibly Canada if we don't fork over the rest of our natural gas, oil and fresh water for Hummers and desert golf courses, continues to vacuum desperately needed dollars from the U.S. economy. As Truthout's Environmental Editor Kelpie Wilson points out, the anticipated cost of the terrorist-incubating Iraq slaughter "will be at least a trillion dollars. The installed cost of solar power is currently about $9 a watt, so $20,000 would buy a 2.2 kilowatt solar power system. That is enough power for a household with modest needs to spin the meter backward a good portion of the time. A trillion dollars would put a system like that on 50 million roofs." [Truthout.com Mar 29/07] SURGES The most reckless surge is taking place not in Baghdad but across a greenhouse globe, where current levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are zooming higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years as worldwide carbon fuel emissions surge past 900 tons each second. In response, Oklahoma's doughty senator vows to fight any carbon-curbing legislation based on a California model that, as this writer has seen, is already reducing traffic, de-stressing lives and pouring saved fuel dollars into happy pockets. "Let's be [dis]honest about what these programs, and their companion proposals here in Congress, really are," Inhofe said. "They are the biggest tax increase in U.S. history." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Mar 2/07] Was the outspoken senator running his own climate change hoax? By becoming the first local government in the United States to deal with climate change back in 1993, the city of Portland has already achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions below 1990 levels—while booming in smiles, improved health and cash savings. "People have looked at it the wrong way, as a drain," Mayor Tom Potter explained after parking his Prius hybrid. "Actually it's something that attracts people. It's economical. It makes sense in dollars." Portland has led the way into a more fun, less carbon future by installing two light rail lines and a streetcar system, and 750 miles of bicycle paths. As a result, another 10 out of every hundred residents have left vehicles as dangerous as rabid dogs chained up in the yard, and are happily commuting on foot or bicycle. [Guardian Mar 5/07; Washington Post Feb 27/07] FLIPPING THE OTHER SWITCH The "DO NOT CROSS" threshold of a further three degree temperature rise must be avoided at all costs—even if it means turning off computers, TVs and other appliances in hundreds of thousands of showrooms, and similar gadgets not actually in productive use in our offices and homes. So why not switch off global warming now? CLIP - To read about the numerous positive steps Will recommend go to: www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Global-Warming.htm------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Related articles:Successor Deal to Kyoto Now Vitalwww.truthout.org/issues_06/042007EA.shtml"The lesson is that collective action on the climate, from the developing and the industrialized countries together, is the great imperative for the world," writes Michael McCarthy. Study Shows Sudden Sea Level Surges Threaten One Billionwww.truthout.org/issues_06/042007EB.shtmlMore than one billion people live in low-lying areas where a sudden surge in sea level could prove as disastrous as the 2004 Asian tsunami. UN Backs Biofuel Despite Fears of Deforestationwww.truthout.org/issues_06/042007EC.shtmlThe UN's top environment official has backed a European Union plan to require the blending of plant-based biofuels into road fuels despite fears by environmentalists that this could lead to increased deforestation in south-east Asia and Brazil.
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Apr 24, 2007 14:42:24 GMT 4
Global warming: a rapidly advancing threat to human life bringing more hunger and povertyI let Earth Day pass without one post mentioning it; I was just too damned depressed to say anything. We're up the creek without a paddle and life goes on, as usual, for most. We get very few reads here at this thread. You know, the world wars, political corruption, and other assorted items of deviltry won't matter one bit when the effects our actions have taken on Mother Earth begin to rapidly pick up speed. If you read the previous post here, you can begin to understand some of what I'm trying to say. Even when I mention to some of my most thoughtful acquaintentces that the buring of fossil fuels must stop, they become aggitated and say, "It ain't gonna happen."
The United States leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions, although China and its exploding economy will soon catch up. Not to leave other countries out of the denial, note Australia's role in poisoning the Earth's atmosphere. Australians are among the world's biggest per-capita energy consumers, and among the top producers of carbon dioxide emissions. Despite that, the country is one of only two industrialised nations - the United States being the other - that have refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The governments argue that to do so would harm their economies. [see article below, Australia's Epic Drought: The Situation Is Grim]
About 70percent of U.S. carbon emissions come from two big sources - power plants and motor vehicles. Political contenders in the united States know a good band wagon when they see it, and are currently giving much lip service to global warming:
So far, the presidential candidates haven't really discussed the difficult decisions ahead on global warming. John McCain favors a "cap and trade" plan but is vague on what it might cost. Hillary Clinton said her solution comes down to "two words - innovation and efficiency."
Barack Obama even found a rhetorical trifecta, describing how tackling global warming is a "win-win-win" because it would protect the environment, boost the economy and enhance national security.
And don't forget Schwarzenegger's feel-good assurance that reducing emissions doesn't mean giving up Hummers and SUVs, just refitting them to use biofuels.
David Rothkopf, who worked on energy issues in the Clinton administration, says no one should expect candidates to discuss sacrifices or changing lifestyles - yet.
"You won't hear a lot about taxes or meaty solutions prior to the 2008 election, although the next administration will have to deal with that," he predicts.
Rothkopf, a Carnegie fellow, should know. He has spoken with candidates and their staffs about tough energy choices, and he says their reaction often is, "Do we really have to grapple with this right now?" [ www.truthout.org/issues_06/042307EA.shtml : Hard Choices, Sacrifices Ahead on Global Warming - Including Higher Costs ]
Today, my son and I will sevice our bicycles, pumping up tires and lubricating chains....we try not to drive the car if it can be avoided.
After that, we'll clean up trash left by humans in my neighborhood which is clogging the creek and river by my house. This trash consists mainly of junk food packaging and a lot of plastic bottles which hold drinks of dubious nutritional value. We will bag the plastic and turn it in for recycling. It is a testimony to human ignorance and crassitude that we must do this so many times a year.
Once, when I politely suggested to some young people that they pick up after themselves, I was greeted the next day by a mess of takeout styrofoam packages they brought with them, drink bottles, and candy wrappers littered about the area they were at. They also threw the garbage receptacle over the hill.....such fine, upstanding young people the world is rasing. My son and I never mention our cleanup actions anymore in worry that more troglodytes will screw with us.
Doing this type of work eases my depression and re-beautifies my neighborhood.....still.....humanity continues to cause pain and grief in my heart......Michelle PS: I have yet to discuss the worldwide, near complete loss of our bees and what this means to our food production. I can only take so much knowledge at a time....look for more bad news from me soon....PSS: There are some things you can do to help the remaining natural population of our bees....I will leave you hope on that....I'm not sure where I'll put this info, later in the week, only that it will be in the Environmental Section....MAustralia's Epic Drought: The Situation Is Grim By Kathy Marks The Independent UK Friday 20 April 2007 Sydney - Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.
The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate-change skeptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock. A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought. Lovers of the Australian landscape often cite the poet Dorothea Mackellar who in 1904 penned the classic lines: "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains." But the land that was Mackellar's muse is now cracked and parched, and its mighty rivers have shrivelled to sluggish brown streams. With paddocks reduced to dust bowls, graziers have been forced to sell off sheep and cows at rock-bottom prices or buy in feed at great expense. Some have already given up, abandoning pastoral properties that have been in their families for generations. The rural suicide rate has soared. Mr Howard acknowledged that the measures are drastic. He said the prolonged dry spell was "unprecedentedly dangerous" for farmers, and for the economy as a whole. Releasing a new report on the state of the Murray and Darling, Mr Howard said: "It is a grim situation, and there is no point in pretending to Australia otherwise. We must all hope and pray there is rain." But prayer may not suffice, and many people are asking why crippling water shortages in the world's driest inhabited continent are only now being addressed with any sense of urgency. The causes of the current drought, which began in 2002 but has been felt most acutely over the past six months, are complex. But few scientists dispute the part played by climate change, which is making Australia hotter and drier. Environmentalists point to the increasing frequency and severity of drought-causing El Niño weather patterns, blamed on global warming. They also note Australia's role in poisoning the Earth's atmosphere. Australians are among the world's biggest per-capita energy consumers, and among the top producers of carbon dioxide emissions. Despite that, the country is one of only two industrialised nations - the United States being the other - that have refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The governments argue that to do so would harm their economies. Until a few months ago, Mr Howard and his ministers pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers. The Prime Minister refused to meet Al Gore when he visited Australia to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He was lukewarm about the landmark report by the British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, which warned that large swaths of Australia's farming land would become unproductive if global temperatures rose by an average of four degrees. Faced with criticism from even conservative sections of the media, Mr Howard realised that he had misread the public mood - grave faux pas in an election year. Last month's report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted more frequent and intense bushfires, tropical cyclones, and catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The report also said there would be up to 20 per cent more droughts by 2030. And it said the annual flow in the Murray-Darling basin was likely to fall by 10-25 per cent by 2050. The basin, the size of France and Spain combined, provides 85 per cent of the water used nationally for irrigation. While the government is determined to protect Australia's coal industry, the drought is expected to shave 1 per cent off annual growth this year. The farming sector of a country that once "rode the sheep's back" to prosperity is in desperate straits. With dams and reservoirs drying up, many cities and towns have been forced to introduce severe water restrictions. Mr Howard has softened his rhetoric of late, and says that he now broadly accepts the science behind climate change. He has tried to regain the political initiative, announcing measures including a plan to take over regulatory control of the Murray-Darling river system from state governments. He has declared nuclear power the way forward, and is even considering the merits of joining an international scheme to "trade" carbon dioxide emissions - an idea he opposed in the past. Mr Howard's conservative coalition will face an opposition Labour Party revitalised by a popular new leader, Kevin Rudd, and offering a climate change policy that appears to be more credible than his. Ben Fargher, the head of the National Farmers' Federation, said that if fruit and olive trees died, that could mean "five to six years of lost production". Food producers also warned of major food price rises. Mr Howard acknowledged that an irrigation ban would have a "potentially devastating" impact. But "this is very much in the lap of the gods", he said. How UN Warned Australia and New Zealand
Excerpts from UN's IPCC report on the threat of global warming to Australia and New Zealand: "As a result of reduced precipitation and increased evaporation, water security problems are projected to intensify by 2030 in south and east Australia and, in New Zealand, in Northland and eastern regions."
"Significant loss of biodiversity is projected to occur by 2020 in some ecologically rich sites, including the Great Barrier Reef and Queensland's tropics. Other sites at risk include the Kakadu wetlands ... and the alpine areas of both countries."
"Ongoing coastal development and population growth in areas such as Cairns and south-east Queensland (Australia) and Northland to Bay of Plenty (New Zealand) are projected to exacerbate risks from sea-level rise and increases in the severity and frequency of storms and coastal flooding by 2050."
"Production from agriculture and forestry by 2030 is projected to decline over much of southern and eastern Australia, and over parts of eastern New Zealand, due to increases in droughts and fires." "The region has substantial adaptive capacity due to well-developed economies and scientific and technical capabilities, but there are considerable constraints to implementation ... Natural systems have limited adaptive capacity." Source:www.truthout.org/issues_06/042307EB.shtml------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HEAVEN #2333 --- Make Your Own Footsteps
April 16, 2007
God said:
Into your hands, I give the world. Accept. You are a weaver of the world. You never stop. The world is My creation, and it is also yours. At every moment, you are weaving it. Your thoughts are the loom. Your thoughts are the threads. You implement the world. You play with it. All is connected to you. Uplift your thoughts, and you uplift the world. The world is as you see it. It is your chamber. It is your cornucopia, or it is your closet. It is your windfall. It is golden, or it is dark, according to your preference. The world is as it seems to you.
From this moment on, choose the world of your making.
You may not choose all the circumstances, yet you choose where you go with them. You choose whether to leave them as they are, or to transform them. You transform circumstances by rising above them. The same song can be sung in many versions. The same song can be many-rhythmed. It can have many verses. You can conduct the song. You can make it upbeat or downbeat. You are the wielder of the life you live.
Whatever the circumstances, make your life a testament to Me. Write a diary that you would show the world. Reveal Me within, and reveal Me without. Your life is vaster than its perimeters. Your life has no limits beyond the ones you set. Don‚t set any. Down with the bars. They are fictive anyway.
You are here to love, and that means breaking boundaries. Whatever keeps you from loving with a full heart, break it instead of breaking any heart, yours or another's. If you cannot break the boundaries, then jump over them. You do not know how far you can leap until you leap. And if you fall flat on your face, leap again. Who is to set the limits of you except yourself? Accept no limits. Accept what life hands you, and move on. I have handed you life. Now it is yours.
You chase life when you could be running ahead of it. You are the impresario of your life. You are the leader of it. You are not meant to be a mere follower. Make your own footsteps, and make them light. Your footsteps are not set in cement. Your life is not set in stone. Whatever you desire, you can inspire. We share in creation, you and I. We share the world. We share the momentum of it. We share how it plays out. It is not a card game where you have no say on what you deal yourself. You have every say. Deal out good cards for all. Deal out hearts and aces and kings and queens. Desire this fervently. Escalate your life. Take it out of the corners. Set it on the table. Make it a centerpiece. Set your table the way you like. And, if you cannot, enjoy the meal anyway.
Invite friends into your life. Make everyone your friend. Be the first to greet. Through greeting, you unite. Be the first. Reach out your hand. Offer something of yourself. Be friendly. Be a friend to all. Think in terms of greater rather than smaller. Smallness, you leave behind you. Vastness, you accompany. Become a partner with Vastness. Embody it. Serve the world, and you serve yourself. Serve amicably. Serve amply. Magnify the world so that all may see its Greatness, so that all may see your Greatness, so that all may see their own. Greatness is to be handed out. It is not to be held in reserve. It is not for someone to discover. It is yours to give, and to give rampantly.
From: www.heavenletters.org
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michelle
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Post by michelle on May 1, 2007 9:29:59 GMT 4
[relative to previous post] Found the following...it does give food for thought, if nothing else....MichelleApril 29, 2007
Australia Begins Secret Talks On Evacuating Half Of Continent Due To Epic DroughtBy: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western SubscribersShocking reports from the Kremlin today are showing that just under one week from Australian Prime Minister Howard’s urgent plea to his citizens to pray for rain to fall on their drought ravaged Nation, the Government of Australia has entered into secret negotiations with the United States and their Commonwealth allies for the ‘proposed’ evacuation of upwards of 11 million of its 20 million citizens. To the tragedy currently unfolding upon the World’s smallest Continent of Australia we can read as reported by Britain’s Independent News Service in their article titled "Australia's epic drought: The situation is grim", and which says: "Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation. The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position. The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate- change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock. A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought." FSB sources commenting on these reports state that the Australian government request to other Western Nations are for the establishment of an International ‘working group’ tasked with devising a scheme for the ‘immediate’ evacuation of upwards of 11 million human beings. These reports further state that such a scheme is indeed workable due to the accelerated growth of the Western cruise ship industry over the past two decades; and which has seen World-Wide capacity reach to over 500,000 passengers…with just two of these industries giants, Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Lines, having nearly 60,000 capacities alone. With this giant capacity, and again according to these reports, it is ‘entirely feasible’ for Australia, or any Nation, to evacuate up to 10 million of its citizens in just 6 months time, with the main question being, of course, where to bring them? The most likely destination would be the vast wilderness areas of North America, including Alaska and Canada, and which according to the latest scientific reports of Global Warming will be one of the only areas on Earth to benefit from the vast climate changes taking place in our World. What remains an ‘unknown’, at this time, would be the reaction of other of the World’s Nations to the mass resettlement of climate change refuges by the West, but which some of America’s top military officers have warned the United States to be prepared for, and as we can read as reported by the Bloomberg News Service in their article titled "Global Warming Equals True Equivalent of War", and which says: "You know climate change has become a top priority in Washington when it starts penetrating the thinking of leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence community. Eleven retired generals and admirals have sent out a warning shot about national-security threats from climate change, calling it a ``threat-multiplier'' that will make unstable regions shakier through increased drought, extreme weather, migrations and rising extremism." The United Nations has, likewise, warned about these dangers, and as we can read as reported by the Houston Chronicle News Service in their article titled "Weather wars", and which says: "In a groundbreaking debate at the United Nations Security Council last week, diplomats raised the chilling specter of large areas of the world torn by armed conflicts among populations beset by flood, drought and other side effects of climate change. Pressing the case that global warming represents a threat to international security, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the council "an unstable climate will exacerbate some of the core drivers of conflict, such as migratory pressures and competition for resources." Most surprising of these World shaking events remains the perplexing attitude of the Americans, and who, seemingly, continue to ignore the grave implications of this dire threat. The same cannot be said of their Top Military Leaders who have, literally, gone to war with the entire World based upon the horrific 2004 Pentagon assessment of climate change, and its consequences, and as we can read as reported by Britain’s Guardian Unlimited News Service in their article titled "Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us", and which says: “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.” It would, perhaps, be instructive to these American people to follow the examples of their fellow human beings, from all around the World, who in knowing these things, and as the spring sun continues to shine, have ceased all of their ordinary activities to begin the planting of crops and vegetables for their own, and their families, security through the coming year. [Note from Michelle: Save your seeds from your own produce also.]© April 29, 2007 EU and US all rights reserved. [Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]Source:www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1006.htm
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Nov 19, 2007 13:08:08 GMT 4
Here it is: the future of the world, in 23 pages By Mike McCarthy, Environment Editor Published: 19 November 2007 It is about the size and weight of a theatre programme and when it was published in Valencia, Spain, at the weekend, the first eagerly grabbed copies were held together by a hastily punched staple. Yet these 23 pages are crucial for the future of the world. This is the key document on climate change, and from now on you can forget any others you may have read or seen or heard about. This is the one that matters. It is the tightly distilled, peer-reviewed research of several thousand scientists, fully endorsed, without qualification, by all the world's major governments. Its official name is a mouthful: the Policymakers' Summary of the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment. So let's just call it The Synthesis. It is so important because it provides one concise, easily-readable but comprehensive text of facts, figures and diagrams – in short all the information you need to understand and act on the threat of global warming, be you a politician, a businessman, an activist or a citizen (or for that matter, a doubter). The Synthesis has been distilled from more than 3,000 pages of research published in the three separate parts of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, or AR4, during the course of 2007 – on the science of climate change, on its potential impacts, and the possible remedies. These individual sections – published in Paris in February, in Brussels in April and in Bangkok in May – spelled out comprehensively that the Earth could warm by an average of up to 6C during the course of the coming century, and that this would be catastrophic in its impact for human society, most of all the poor in developing countries; but they also offered hope that the problem was solvable, if the governments took rapid and decisive action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing the warming. The IPCC, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year (along with Al Gore) for its efforts to raise awareness of climate change, was set up by the UN in 1988 and published its first assessment, sounding the initial warning about rising temperatures, in 1990; it issued subsequent reports in 1995 and 2001. But this year's fourth assessment has an importance all its own. For it is the one where scientists now feel confident enough to declare that the warming world is a phenomenon beyond all doubt, and that the likelihood of this being caused by the human actions of putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – and not say, by increased solar activity, as some have argued – is greater than 90 per cent.For all but the most perverse of sceptics, it ends the basic argument. And it also urgently warns that the risks are greater, and possibly closer in time, than was appreciated even six years ago, when the third assessment was published. It is chapter and verse, it is Holy Writ: you may not agree with it, but this (backed up by the full reports) is what the world scientific community thinks. Its opening words are magisterial – almost Biblical – in tone. "Warming of the climate system," it pronounces, "is unequivocal". It goes on to spell out that the atmosphere is rapidly warming, snow and ice are melting across the world, and the global sea level is rising at an increasing rate; yet the problem is solvable if governments act decisively.It is of immediate importance: for the 10,000 ministers, diplomats, officials and civil servants from every country in the world who are assembling in Bali, Indonesia, in two weeks' time to try to sketch out a new international climate treaty to follow the bruised and battered Kyoto protocol. The Bali conference was put back by a month so that the participants could be in possession of The Synthesis for the talks, and the document will provide the essential background information against which all delegates will work. "We expect to see their personal copies return from Bali, battered and worn from frequent use, with paragraphs underlined and notes in the margin," said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace. Because all governments adopted The Synthesis by consensus (after a week's negotiations in Valencia), it means they cannot disavow the underlying science and its conclusions (although it does not commit them to specific courses of action). In Bali, delegates will attempt to set a path forward to a replacement treaty for Kyoto, which runs out in its present form in 2012. The original protocol called on industrialised countries such as the US and Britain to cut their carbon dioxide emissions, without imposing a similar task on developing nations such as China and India – which was one of the reasons President George Bush withdrew. But no new treaty will work unless it brings together both the US and China – now jointly the world's greatest CO2 producers – along with the rest of the international community in a unified attempt to bring emissions under control.The Synthesis shows in its 23 short pages – just 5,000 words – exactly why that is necessary. It shows it to governments and it shows it to all of us. It will be one of history's most important documents, and because of the phenomenon of the internet you can read it in a matter of moments and judge for yourself. Download it on www. ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf Latest statistics and shocks still in store* 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in instrumental records of global surface temperatures (since 1850) * Global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an average rate of 1.8mm per year – but since 1993 at an average rate of 3.1mm * Temperature changes will depend on how much CO2 is emitted, but different scenarios see the increase by 2100 ranging from 0.3C to 6.4C * Up to 30 per cent of the world's species are at increased risk of extinction after a 2C temperature rise * Between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa could suffer water shortages by 2020; in Asia, heavily-populated "mega-deltas" are at greatly increased risk of flooding; tropical forest in eastern Amazonia will turn to savannah by mid-century Source: environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3174386.ece
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Nov 21, 2007 7:15:24 GMT 4
US power company linked to Bush is named in database as a top polluter16 November 2007 An American power company with close financial links to President George Bush has been named as one of the world's top producers of global warming pollution.The first-ever worldwide database of such pollution also reveals the rapid growth in global-warming emissions by power plants in China, South Africa and India. Power plants already produce 40 per cent of US greenhouse gas and 25 per cent of the world's. But it is the enormous carbon footprint of Southern Company - among the largest financiers of Republican Party politicians - which has raised eyebrows. Southern's employees handed George Bush $217,047 to help him get elected twice, and they and the company have contributed an extraordinary $6.2m to Republican campaigns since 1990 according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.A single Southern Company plant in Juliette, Georgia already emits more carbon dioxide annually that Brazil's entire power sector. The company is in the top two of America's dirtiest utility polluters and sixth worst in the world. Apart from vague promises by the Democratic presidential hopefuls, there is no pressure on this or any other power company to clean up their act and cut back on CO2 emissions. Politicians from both parties fear the influence of Southern, which spends huge sums both on lobbying and on political campaigns and is among the biggest power players in Washington. It has seen off numerous attempts to impose controls on the amounts of pollution it pumps out. The link between massive cash contributions by America's power companies and political arm-twisting in Washington has rarely been put into such sharp relief. Environmentalists have long suspected that President Bush's dogged refusal to sign up to international agreements to control global warming was linked to campaign contributions. Yesterday's report has finally identified the impact these power companies are having on global warming. Southern, which earned $14.4bn in revenues in 2006, is using its influence to block the introduction of wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energy sources on the grounds that it would eat into its profits.
Haley Barbour, one of the main lobbyists for Southern Co when President Bush took office, played a crucial role in persuading him to back away from his original campaign promise to reduce CO2 emissions when he first ran for president in 2000. Mr Barbour is a former chairman of the Republican Party, and was reelected governor of Mississippi last week.
According to FrankO'Donnell of Clean Air Watch, after Mr Bush became president, "he was got at by Haley Barbour, who said, 'Hey, Mr President we didn't elect you to have high energy costs'".
Mr O'Donnell said: "Southern Company Lobbyists treated the president as if he was someone to give orders to and he took them. The upshot is that America's biggest polluters used their chequebooks effectively to block actions to stop global warming."The detailed breakdown of the worst polluters comes in the form of an on-line database, compiled by the Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent policy and research organisation that focuses on how the actions of the rich world shape the lives of poor people in developing countries. It lays out exactly where the worst CO2 emitters are and how much greenhouse gas they are pumping into the atmosphere. The globe's most concentrated source of greenhouse gases are the CO2 emissions of 50,000 power plants worldwide. The database clearly shows the US as the world's biggest carbon dioxide producer from electricity generation - emissions that are continuing to grow. At present electricity companies pump out 2.8 billion tons of CO2 each year. But China, with 2.7 billion tons, is about to overtake the US. The new report also reveals that power plants in other developing countries including South Africa and India emit more than the worst US plant. A spokesman for Southern Company, Mike Tyndall said the pollution is high " because of the size of the plants which are serving an ever-larger population" . The company opposes the idea of any legally enforceable cap on emissions, but Mr Tyndall said: "We're at the forefront of developing new technology to address CO2 emissions." Asked about the huge financial contributions of the company's employees to Republican party politicians, he said: "We don't influence them, but I think it's a good thing that we are involved in the political process." Source:news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3166414.ece------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Related data:Highest CO2 Emitting Power Plants in the Worldcarma.org/CARMA reveals the carbon emissions of more than 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies in every country on Earth. - While no society will escape the effects of climate change, the five billion people living in poor nations will be affected first and worst. Poor people in the developing world cannot afford to wait for the world's politicians to reach an agreement on the steep reductions in greenhouse gas pollution. CGD's new Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) Web site reveals the carbon emissions of more than 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies in every country on Earth, providing investors, insurers, creditors, consumers and environmental advocates the information they need to act now to begin to reduce emissions. Center for Global Development websitewww.cgdev.org/
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Dec 11, 2007 13:47:38 GMT 4
Gore Shares Nobel With Rajendra Pachauri, Warns of Ominous ThreatDid anyone watch the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on C-Span? I did and it was lovely, beautifully entertaining. As you may know, Al Gore shared the award with Rajendra Pachauri, the U.N. climate panel's chief scientist. Pachauri's speech centered more on science whereas Gore's offered plans for incentive type action for heads of state...his own country included. The beginning of Al's speech was bittersweet; you'll see what I mean when you read it at the end of this post.....MichelleGore Gets Nobel, Warns of Ominous ThreatBy DOUG MELLGREN – 18 hours ago OSLO, Norway (AP) — Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize on Monday and urged the United States and China to make the boldest moves on climate change or "stand accountable before history for their failure to act." In accepting the prize he shared with the U.N. climate panel, the former vice president said humanity risks sliding down a path of "mutually assured destruction." "It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in his acceptance speech that quoted Churchill, Gandhi and the Bible. "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war." Gore shared the Nobel with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it. The U.N. panel was represented at the ceremony by its leader, Rajendra Pachauri. "We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here," Gore said at the gala ceremony in Oslo's city hall, in front of Norway's royalty, leaders and invited guests. Gore urged China and the U.S. — the world's biggest carbon emitters — to "make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act." His remarks came as governments met in Bali, Indonesia, to start work on a new international treaty to reduce climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions. Gore and Pachauri plan to fly there Wednesday to join the climate talks. The governments hope to have the new pact, which succeeds the Kyoto accord, in place by 2012, but Gore has said the urgency of the problem means they should aim to come to an agreement by 2010. Before his speech, Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press that he believes the next U.S. president will shift the country's course on climate change and engage in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. "The new president, whichever party wins the election, is likely to have to change the position on this climate crisis," Gore said in the interview. "I do believe the U.S., soon, is to have a more constructive role." He said it was not too late for Bush administration to join efforts to draft a new global treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions. "I have urged President Bush and his administration to be part of the world community's effort to solve this crisis," Gore said. "I hope they will change their position." The Bush administration opposed the Kyoto treaty on climate change, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy and objecting that fast developing nations like China and India were not required to reduce emissions. In his speech, Gore urged nations to impose a CO2 tax, and called for a moratorium on the building of new coal plants without the capacity to trap carbon. He directed special attention to the United States and China, the world's biggest emitters of carbon emissions. "While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — and most of all, my own country — that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act," Gore said. "Both countries should stop using the other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment." Pachauri described in his speech how a warming climate could lead to flooding of low-lying countries, disruptions to food supply, the spread of diseases and the loss of biodiversity. The impact "could prove extremely unsettling" for the world's poor and vulnerable, he said, and ended his speech with a question for the Bali conference: "Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is now loud and clear?" Each Nobel Prize includes a gold medal, a diploma and a $1.6 million cash award. The Nobel Prizes, first awarded in 1901, are always presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of their creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The other Nobel awards — in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics — will be presented at a separate ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. In Stockholm, the winners of the science Nobels receive their awards Monday from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf before being treated to a lavish white-tie banquet at City Hall. The 2007 awards in medicine, chemistry and physics honored breakthroughs in stem cell research on mice, solid-surface chemistry and the discovery of a phenomenon that lets computers and digital music players store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks. Three U.S. economists shared the economics award for their work on how people's knowledge and self-interest affect their behavior in the market or in social situations such as voting and labor negotiations. One of the economics winners, Leonid Hurwicz, 90, and the literature prize winner, 88-year-old British writer Doris Lessing, could not travel to Stockholm. They will receive their awards at later ceremonies in Minnesota and London, respectively. On the Net: www.nobelpeaceprize.orgSource: ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilvtkllSpBuyPP4II1wWxLcNSJqwD8TEL7V80------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech December 10, 2007:10:06 AM SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE DECEMBER 10, 2007 OSLO, NORWAYYour Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.
Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.
Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”
The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.
However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.
As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.
We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.
Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.
Seven years from now.
In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.
We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.
Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.
But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.
We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”
In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.
Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."
More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear winter." Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.
Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”
As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”
But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.
We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.
These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.
No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.
Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?
Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”
In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.
Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.
There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.
We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”
That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.
This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.
When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”
In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.
My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.
Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.
We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.
Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.
This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.
Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.
We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.
And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.
The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.
But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.
Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.
These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:
The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.
That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”
We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.
The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”
The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”
Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”
We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.
So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”Source: blog.algore.com/2007/12/nobel_prize_acceptance_speech.html
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Dec 13, 2007 7:00:30 GMT 4
[glow=red,2,300]URGET ALERT![/glow] 12/12/07 7:06AM EST The US, Canada and Japan are climate-wrecking at Bali - here's our global emergency petition to save the talks, add your name automatically by clicking below! " We call urgently for the US, Canada and Japan to stop blocking serious 2020 targets for emissions reductions, and for the rest of the world to refuse to accept anything less." Dear Friends: We're here at the climate summit in Bali -- but it's reached crisis point. Working late, negotiators were nearing consensus that developed countries should pledge post-Kyoto emissions cuts by 2020--a step which the scientists say is needed to avert the worst ravages of global warming, and which will help to bring China and the developing world onboard. But then the news broke: the US, Canada and Japan rejected any mention of such cuts. Every few hours the draft changes. We can't let three governments hold the world to ransom: so we're launching a global emergency petition before the summit climax in 48 hours. We'll deliver our message every way we can -- a stark full-page advertisement in the Jakarta Post conference supplement which all the delegates are reading, stunts at the conference gates, direct to country negotiators -- telling Canada, Japan and the US to accept the option of post-Kyoto targets, and the rest of the world to settle for nothing less. Please take a moment right now to sign the new global emergency petition -- the text is in the box above, so click this link to sign automatically if you've taken action with us before -- then tell all your friends: www.avaaz.org/en/bali_emergency/7.php?cl=42766411&signup=1 Today marks the 10th anniversary of the expiring Kyoto pact, but Japan, the US and Canada don't seem to want a workable global deal to follow it. There is almost universal agreement in Bali that the idea of 2020 climate targets should be included, making possible a deal to bring the developing world onboard over time. As the news links below make clear, the US, Japan and Canada are destroying that delicate bargain, not even allowing the idea to be mentioned. We're doing everything we can. Tens of thousands of Canadian Avaaz members have launched an ad campaign telling their government not to betray them -- our Japanese members are emailing their leaders -- while our American members will send their own message to Bali as Al Gore and Congressional and local representatives land there, asking negotiators to ignore the official US delegation because it does not represent them. Coming from every country on earth, all of us can play a direct role in the Bali face-off by signing this global emergency petition -- delivered at the summit gates, in a full-page Financial Times ad, and direct to delegates . Add your name at this link, act now and spread the word -- we have just 48 hours: www.avaaz.org/en/bali_emergency/7.php?cl=42766411 With determination and hope, Paul, Ricken, Galit, Ben, Iain, Graziela, Milena and the whole Avaaz team PS This article explains a bit of what's going on: www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/climate.phpThe New Scientist has more detail here: www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/12/bali-draft-hints-emissions-targets-may_10.html We're in the thick of things here at Bali -- Avaaz was the only organisation allowed to demonstrate inside the fortified summit Saturday. As hundreds of thousands marched around the world, we brought over half a million voices to the heart of the decision-making venue, carrying big banners and scores of country flags. We've also been hosting the daily Fossil Awards of the Climate Action Network, the umbrella of all the NGOs here – see www.avaaz.org/fossils. ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in London, New York, Paris, Washington DC, Geneva, and ****** From: EdElkin@aol.com Date: 11 Dec 2007 Subject: Fwd: Climate treaty in peril Dear fellow American,I'm writing from Bali, Indonesia. It's hot here, it's humid--and it's infuriating. Our government is blocking progress at the all-important climate change negotiations here, even though it knows that the American people don't support its actions. Let's tell the world that the Bush administration doesn't represent us. Sign this petition now:www.avaaz.org/en/please_ignore_bush/3.phpMost countries here at Bali are working urgently to craft a treaty capable of tackling the climate crisis. Everyone understands the stakes, and negotiators are working late--when I left the conference center at 10:30pm tonight, they were showing no signs of slowing. The key debate is whether developed countries should pledge to cut their climate change emissions by 25-40% by 2020--a step the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say could avert worst ravages of global warming. Nearly every country supports these cuts. But not the Bush administration. In a press conference yesterday, Bush's delegates here tried to raise doubts about the credibility of the IPCC scientists (who just shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore). Bush's top negotiator called the proposed cuts in carbon emissions "totally unrealistic." And Bush's representatives have repeatedly denounced the Kyoto Protocol--even in the midst of the Kyoto Protocol's ten-year anniversary celebrations. And they're doing it in our name. Every few hours, the agreement here changes--one moment, the carbon cuts are in; the next moment, the cuts are out. Before the talks end this Friday, we can signal to the world that the American people are on their side--and encourage them to stand up to Bush's team by keeping the cuts in the treaty. Join me in signing this petition, and I'll make sure it reaches the key delegations here. It reads, in full: Dear world: please ignore President Bush. He doesn't represent us.www.avaaz.org/en/please_ignore_bush/3.phpTogether, we can send the world a message--a message of hope, a message that change is coming, a message that the Bush administration's actions are out of step with the American people, and that Americans take our global responsibilities seriously even if our own government doesn't. Most Americans, like most people everywhere, don't want catastrophic climate change. Most Americans, like most people everywhere, want leaders to work together to forge a strong agreement that can ensure a livable planet for our children and grandchildren. Most Americans don't have an official representative here. So let's represent ourselves. Please do sign this petition, and send it to your friends.www.avaaz.org/en/please_ignore_bush/3.phpWith hope, Ben Wikler Avaaz.org --- Related articles:US Rejects Stiff 2020 Greenhouse Goals in Baliwww.truthout.org/issues_06/121007EA.shtmlEmma Graham-Harrison of Reuters reports: "Washington rejected stiff 2020 targets for greenhouse gas cuts by rich nations at UN talks in Bali on Monday as part of a 'roadmap' to work out a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009." Big Oil to Sign Iraq Deals Soonwww.truthout.org/docs_2006/121007C.shtmlBen Lando, reporting for United Press International, writes, "Big Oil's big dreams are close to coming true as Iraq's Oil Ministry prepares deals for the country's largest oil fields." The Widening Chasm on Energywww.truthout.org/docs_2006/121107R.shtmlTruthout's environment editor, Kelpie Wilson, writes, "Last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed, by a 235-181 vote, the Energy Independence and Security Act. On Friday, the same bill passed the Senate by 53 votes in favor to 42 opposed. Republicans then threatened to filibuster, raising the bar for passage to 60 votes. The Senate will work on revisions and is expected to bring a modified bill to the floor sometime this week, but giant corporations are working overtime to trash as much of the renewable energy substance as they can." Gore Urges Bold Moves in Nobel Speechwww.truthout.org/issues_06/121107EA.shtmlReporting for The New York Times, Sarah Lyall says, "He has said it again and again, with increasing urgency, to anyone who will listen. And on Monday, former Vice President Al Gore used the occasion of his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize lecture ... to tell the world in powerful, stark language: Climate change is a 'real, rising, imminent and universal' threat to the future of the Earth." ******* Date: 11 Dec 2007 From: "Ricken Patel - Avaaz.org" (avaaz@avaaz.org) Subject: Canada voted worst in the world?!Dear friends, Right now, a major UN summit in Bali has just a few days left to hammer out an agreement on stopping catastrophic climate change. But instead of helping out, Canada is actually sabotaging the UN talks! On Saturday, experts gave us the global "fossil" award for being the worst country in the world on climate change. There's still a few days left to save Canada's reputation -- and the climate -- but we need a massive democratic roar to remind our Prime Minister what Canada is all about, and stop him from blocking the world at Bali. Click below to sign the petition and we'll advertize the number of signatures we get in an ad campaign across Canada this week. Our goal is to get 25,000 people to sign in just 3 days before the ads run. Click below, then forward this email to all your friends and family right away: www.avaaz.org/en/another_canadian_climate_crime/4.php?cl=41935219Enough is enough. Prime Minister Harper's short-sighted, undemocratic and big oil-driven policy on climate change is damaging the world and destroying our image as a good country. We're supposed to be the nice guys, who try to do the right thing in the world. The vast majority of Canadians are hopping mad on this issue -- we can win this. We just need to show Harper how serious we are that he change course. Sign up now and forward this email to everyone you know - we've got just 3 days to hit 25,000 signatures! With much respect and hope, Ricken Patel, Avaaz.org PS - Here are links to some more info on this:David Suzuki (the Nature of Things) calls the government's spin on climate change "humiliating" and "ludicrous"www.thestar.com/News/article/283829The former editor-in-chief of CBC news discusses the damage done by Canada's climate policy to our international reputation:www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_burman/2007/12/canada_flounders_on_issue_of_c.htmlThe Fossil of the Day Award site:www.avaaz.org/fossils******* Ominous Arctic melt worries expertsBy SETH BORENSTEIN - December 11, 2007 An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years. Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press. "The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo. Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions." So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models? "The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines." It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases. What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice. In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, like Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow. More than 18 scientists told The AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year. "I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here," said Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences. "This is going to be a watershed year." 2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways: * 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record. * A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated. * The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation. * Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total. * Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky. Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted - something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades - it could add more than 22 feet to the world's sea level. However, for nearly the past 30 years, the data pattern of its ice sheet melt has zigzagged. A bad year, like 2005, would be followed by a couple of lesser years. According to that pattern, 2007 shouldn't have been a major melt year, but it was, said Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which gathered the latest data. "I'm quite concerned," he said. "Now I look at 2008. Will it be even warmer than the past year?" Other new data, from a NASA satellite, measures ice volume. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other Greenland numbers, concluded: "We are quite likely entering a new regime." Melting of sea ice and Greenland's ice sheets also alarms scientists because they become part of a troubling spiral. White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth, NASA's Zwally said. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting. "That feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic warming is going to be faster," Zwally said. "It's getting even worse than the models predicted." NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday will tell scientists and others at a meeting of researchers in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data. "We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them," Hansen said in an e-mail. "We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time - but it is going to require a quick turn in direction." Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado startled their colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice in just a few decades. Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of 2007. Bitz, unlike others at NASA, believes that "next year we'll be back to normal, but we'll be seeing big anomalies again, occurring more frequently in the future." And that normal, she said, is still a "relentless decline" in ice. Source: news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071211/ap_on_sc/arctic_melt&printer=1;_ylt=AvPuz0W8S79Vq4iBilWO9NdxieAAOn the Net:National Snow and Ice Data Center on 2007 Arctic sea ice: nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html NASA's "Tipping Points" panel and slide show materials:www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/tipping_points.htmlOther related website and articles:OneClimate Virtual Bali Eventwww.oneclimate.net/virtualbaliThis is a unique place for you to put your questions and thoughts to delegates at the Bali Climate Summit, live every day at 12:30 UTC/GMT. "The Biggest Environmental Crime in History"www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121107G.shtmlCahal Milmo, reporting for The Independent, writes that BP, the multinational oil and gas producer, "is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America after Greenpeace pledged a direct action campaign against BP following its decision to reverse a long-standing policy and invest heavily in extracting so-called 'oil sands' that lie beneath the Canadian province of Alberta and form the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia." Norway to Spend Billions on Preserving Rainforestswww.truthout.org/issues_06/121007EB.shtmlAccording to Voice of America News, "Norway's prime minister has committed his country to spending more than $500 million a year to preserve the world's endangered rainforests." Hybrid Sales up 82 Percent in One Yearwww.truthout.org/issues_06/121007EC.shtmlGreen Car Congress says: "Reported sales of hybrids in the US in November rose 82 percent year-on-year to reach 33,233 total units, representing 2.8 percent of all light-duty vehicles sold during the month. Who Pays for Carbon on "Made in China" Labels?www.truthout.org/issues_06/121107EB.shtmlAntoaneta Bezlova, Inter Press Service, reports: "Standing on the brink of a year when its capital hosts the much-proclaimed 'Green Olympics,' China is anxious to present a constructive presence at the United Nations climate change conference underway in Bali, Indonesia." url for this post: tinyurl.com/2y9d6e
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Dec 19, 2007 19:22:48 GMT 4
Just in, Good News regarding the last item posted. Thank you all who made your voice heard....MichelleWow - what happened at Bali 12/19/2007 9:48:19 AM Eastern Standard Time Dear Friends, Wow - on Saturday, in desperate last-minute negotiations, the world faced down an effort by the US, Canada and Japan to wreck the crucial Bali Climate Change Summit. Over 600,000 Avaaz members mobilized to save the Bali talks, including 320,000 in the final 72 hours! Click below to read the whole story with photos and videos: www.avaaz.org/en/bali_report_back/6.php?cl=47154156 Arriving in Bali, most countries wanted to work towards a new global treaty on climate change as well as new targets for carbon emissions by rich countries. But late last week, the US and Canada teamed up to undermine the talks -- the US blocked the whole Bali summit consensus, and when a smaller group of Kyoto treaty countries tried to move ahead without the US, they were blocked by Canada. The summit was in danger of deadlock. The Avaaz community flew into action, signing and spreading petitions to each of the governments, supporting ad campaigns in Bali and Canada, marches around the world, and phoning and lobbying elected officials. At the summit, Avaaz members brought the storm of public criticism inside the conference walls with the only march allowed inside the venue, the largest climate petition delivery in history, daily press conferences and "fossil awards" for the worst countries in the negotiations, and constant lobbying of officials. In the final hours of the summit, Canada backed down completely and allowed Kyoto countries to agree to strong 2020 targets on carbon emissions, and the US team, now entirely isolated and actually booed by the world's diplomats, compromised and agreed to call for "deep cuts" and "reference" the 2020 targets. This paved the way for the summit to agree to sign a new global climate change treaty by 2009. Usually these conferences are stuffy diplomatic affairs - but this time the world was watching, and speaking, each day. Together, we brought people-powered politics to the halls of power, and put our governments on notice: in the fight to save our environment, we will not be spectators. Click below to see a report on this campaign with videos and pictures: www.avaaz.org/en/bali_report_back/6.php?cl=47154156This is just the beginning. Every nation of the world has now agreed that they will enter into accelerated negotiations and, by 2009, sign a new treaty to confront global warming. We need this treaty to set binding global targets for carbon emissions, and a mechanism for meeting them, that keep the earth's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees celsius - the amount that scientists say would be 'catastrophic'. Such a treaty will change the world's economy forever, weaning us off oil and fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy. Some leaders, in the pocket of the oil industry, will fight it tooth and nail all the way. And we will too. A great struggle to save our environment has begun, and this weekend, we showed together that the people of the world aren't intending to sit this one out.With much respect and appreciation for this amazing community of people, Ricken, Ben, Milena, Paul, Iain, Sarah, Galit, Pascal and the whole Avaaz Team.
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jun 30, 2008 12:40:59 GMT 4
US scientist calls for prosecution of energy company CEOs for global warming disinformationBy Shannon Jones 26 June 2008 In testimony before the US Congress on Monday, James Hansen, a leading climatologist, called heads of major energy companies criminals who should be prosecuted for deliberately spreading false and misleading information about the threat posed by global warming.Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to mark the 20th anniversary of his initial appearance before Congress in 1988. He generated the first significant public awareness of the issue of global warming by telling the Senate at that time that manmade greenhouse gasses were raising global temperatures. Since then climate scientists have reached a virtually unanimous consensus that the burning of oil and other fossil fuels results in additional atmospheric carbon dioxide, trapping heat. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased greatly over the last century, and global temperatures are rising as a result. “We have reached a point of planetary emergency,” Hansen told the Congressional panel Monday, saying the world was near a “tipping point” where climate change “would spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.”He compared the role of Exxon Mobil and other energy conglomerates, which have attempted to stoke doubts on scientific findings related to global warming, to the role of tobacco companies that denied the dangers of smoking. “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”Hansen warned, “Elements of a ‘perfect storm,’ a global cataclysm, are assembled.” He said that the climate could reach a point “that amplifying feedbacks spur large rapid changes.” He cited the melting of Arctic sea ice as one example. An even greater catastrophe looms with the melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheet, which would raise global sea levels at least two meters. “Hundreds of millions of people would become refugees,” he said. Global warming will lead to the extinction of species, the spread of arid regions, stronger floods, droughts, forest fires and the drying up of lakes unless it is halted, he continued.Hansen decried the extremely limited official goals set for reducing carbon emissions calling them “a recipe for global disaster.” He called for a moratorium on the construction of coal burning power plants and the development of carbon free alternatives to coal and petroleum.Hansen indicted the energy conglomerates for blocking action on global warming. “Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions about global warming.” He also denounced the fossil fuel industry for using “China and other developing nations as scapegoats to rationalize inaction.” The media paid very limited attention to Hansen’s remarks, particularly his attacks on the energy companies. The New York Times in its report on his testimony managed to not even mention the NASA scientist’s criticisms of the oil industry. House Democrats greeted Hansen’s testimony with patronizing condescension. Predictably they chose to ignore his call for the prosecution of energy company executives, who annually pour millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of both parties.Since Hansen issued his first warning in 1988, the US, which is responsible for about one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas production, has done nothing to limit carbon emissions. The Bush administration, in alliance with the oil industry, has sought to play down the scientific evidence in support of global warming. Last year Hansen testified before another congressional committee about Bush administration interference in climate research, recounting instances of government suppression of data related to global warming. In one case a staff member was told he could not issue a press release on research showing that the ocean was less efficient in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than originally estimated. In 2005, after Hansen presented climate data to the American Geophysical Union, the NASA public affairs office issued tighter regulations, stipulating that media interviews had to be pre-approved and that Hansen had to get prior permission before posting anything on the GISS website. Other government scientists have reported similar attempts by the Bush administration to muzzle data on global warming. Documents support the claims of scientists that the White House made deliberate attempts to mislead the public about the dangers posed by climate change by editing official reports. Oil company representatives have been given positions on federal environmental policy councils and climate information oversight. The White House appointed Phil Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, to head the Council of Environmental Quality. In that position he edited government climate reports in order to spread false doubt and uncertainty on the subject of global warming. After his activities were exposed, Clooney left his government post for a position with Exxon Mobil.The attempts by Exxon Mobil to discredit the scientific understanding about climate change on the basis of pseudoscience are well documented. A conservative think tank sponsored by Exxon Mobil offered scientists $10,000 to write articles critical of official studies on climate change. The world’s largest private energy company has spent millions of dollars to spread false and misleading information about the dangers of global warming. According to a report issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists in January 2007, Exxon Mobil gave nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to front organizations set up to provide a platform for “global warming skeptics.” In many cases these individuals are directly on the payroll of Exxon Mobil funded groups. Despite Hansen’s compelling testimony, there are no indications that US policy will change. Since Hansen first appeared before Congress in 1988, neither the Clinton administration nor the administrations of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have passed any major legislation restricting greenhouse gas emissions. There have been 21 coal-fired power plants constructed and US emissions of carbon dioxide have risen by some 18 percent.The domination of the energy sector by a handful of private monopolies and the subordination of both the Republicans and Democrats to these powerful interests blocks the adoption of any serious measures to deal with the looming catastrophe posed by global warming. These multibillion dollar corporations will not tolerate any measure, no matter how critical for human survival, that impinges on their profits.Further, any strategy to oppose global warming requires a coordinated international effort. However, energy companies dominate US foreign policy as well, dictating a strategy that seeks to secure world hegemony, including the invasion and occupation of Iraq and other oil rich regions of the world.Source:www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/clim-j26.shtml
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