New Civilization News: Who Will Be US President In 2015?    
 Who Will Be US President In 2015?25 comments
picture20 Nov 2007 @ 02:23, by Richard Carlson

The timpanist plays upon a living being. The stars are bursting with their messages: Turn to a child for the star's announcement.

---Robert Aitken

Greed is the basic cause of misery. Free yourself of greed, and the mountains, rivers, and earth do not block the light of your eyes.

---She-Hsien

To enter one's own self, it is necessary to go armed to the teeth.

---Paul Valery

Why 2015? That is the year, dictated by consensus of the 2500 scientists whose work created the UN report on global warming, when further growth of carbon emissions on this planet must cease. Within 35 years from that date, carbon dioxide and other atmospheric polluting gases must be reduced by 50 to 85 percent to avoid killing as many as a quarter of the species on Earth. [link] This was the announcement on Saturday, when the final portion of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) study was released to the public by this group that already has won the Nobel Prize.

I try to be a patient man. I waited Sunday and I waited today. I expected lead items in newspapers and broadcasts in this country. Well...let's say I hoped for them. Certainly it is the case elsewhere in the world, where concern is at the forefront. One of the good things about Google News is you can see what makes news in the various nations of the world...and what that news is. At the moment you have to type "global warming" into Search to find anything about these stark pronouncements.

We have people campaigning for President right now. The New York Times reported today that in Iowa, a sixth-grader asked Mrs. Clinton if she had any views on global warming. The paper went on to consider whether the question had been planted in the student's mind. There was no mention of what the candidate replied. [link] Have we all gone mad?

Recently it has been the pattern in this country for a person elected (or otherwise achieving the office of) President to serve 2 terms or 8 years. If that continues, whoever ends up President in 2008 still may be there in 2015. Do any of these candidates have a plan for such an incredible challenge? Next month---that's NEXT month---President Bush will lead the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on climate change in Bali. Last year around this time that man announced he was pretty sure global warming wasn't caused by anything consumers in the free market might be doing...like burning coal or oil. US News & World Report asked this morning Do we HAVE to have this guy representing us? [link]

I listened pretty hard to my world today to see or hear if anyone seemed concerned about the IPCC report or global warming. It's going to be in the mid to upper 60s tomorrow and probably for Thanksgiving. People did remark on that...and sorta smile and shake heads. Ten years ago Dana and I were proud to go out to the garden and kick some snow off a little kale that was left to serve our smoked oysters on for Thanksgiving dinner. The other day people were telling me the crocuses and daffodils they planted in September are coming up already. What will it take to crash through all this denial?


If you care to catch up with the weekend news, there are a couple of significant and brief summaries of the report. Thankfully one will appear tomorrow in Science Daily, and here's a look at it~~~

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — The challenges and opportunities facing the world as a result of climate change have been distilled into a concise and sobering guide by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This fourth IPCC report raises serious concerns of species extinction as well as arguing strongly in favor of stepping up support and action on adaptation to the effects of global warming.

The guide, officially known as the Summary for Policy Makers, underlines the urgency to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions alongside the economic costs of a transition to a low carbon society.

It also argues strongly in favour of stepping up support and action on adaptation. "Neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can avoid all climate change impacts. However, they can complement each other and together can significantly reduce the risks of climate change," says the report by the IPCC, a panel jointly established by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

It also highlights five "reasons for concern" which are now stronger than before. This is because scientists now conclude that they may happen at lower increases in temperature or because the risks may be larger than had previously been supposed.

These include the impacts on species and biodiversity hotspots as temperatures rise including polar and high mountain communities and ecosystems.

Key points

The report says that around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the plant and animal species assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperatures exceed 1.5 degree C to 2.5 degree C over late 20th century levels.
The report also points to the likelihood of "irreversible" impacts. For example if temperature increases exceed about 3.5 degrees C, between 40 per cent and 70 per cent of the species assessed might be at increased risk of extinction.
Increases in sea surface temperatures of about one-three degrees C are projected to result in more "frequent coral bleaching events and widespread mortality."
There is also concern over the oceans and seas becoming more acidic as they absorb rising levels of carbon dioxide and the impacts on "marine shell-forming organisms" like coral reefs.
Other reasons for concern focus on the risks of extreme weather events with higher confidence in the projected increases in droughts, heatwaves and floods as well as their adverse impacts.
The report also flags up concern that the poor and the elderly in low-latitude and less-developed areas including those in dry areas and living on mega-deltas are likely to suffer most.
There is high confidence that by mid-century "many semi-arid areas, for example the Mediterranean basin, western United States, southern Africa and northeast Brazil, will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change."
The IPCC summary also expresses concern that any benefits linked with climate change will be gone after more modest temperature rises. The guide, launched after five days of discussions in the Spanish city of Valencia, will be essential reading for delegates attending the upcoming UN climate convention meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Concern is also raised that new observations linked with the Greenland and possibly Antarctic ice sheets may mean that the rate of ice loss will increase above previous forecasts.
Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, said: "This is perhaps the most essential reading for every person on the planet who cares about the future. In this Summary, the hard science has been distilled along with evidence of the social and economic consequences of global warming but also the economic rationale and opportunities for action now."

"While the science will continue to evolve and be refined, we now have the compelling blueprint for action and in many ways the price tag for failure-from increasing acidification of the oceans to the likely extinctions of economically important biodiversity."

"The momentum on climate change in 2007 has been nothing short of breathtaking and in no small measure due to the series of assessments from the IPCC. Today's final synthesis report translates the complex science into a lingua-franca so that governments meeting in Bali can not only understand the challenge but be empowered to act collectively on a decisive post 2012 emission reductions regime," he added.

"This pocket guide for policymakers is also more than that. It is also a citizens guide for engaging political leaders, their members of parliament, local authority officials the chief executive officers of national corporations in a public debate on what needs to happen next," added Mr Steiner.

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the WMO, said: "The science of climate change has been finally and forever heard in 2007 as a result of the painstaking and transparent assessments of the IPCC. Agreement on the climate assessments should stimulate action to protect lives and property against natural hazards and to reduce risks of economic setbacks and conflicts over water, food and energy."

"Now that the issue of climate change is established and recognized, observational and research efforts should be increased, rather than reduced. Because societies need more detailed information about anticipated impacts at regional and local levels for responding and adapting to climate change," he said.

"Individuals, enterprises and civil society cannot adapt autonomously without reliable information and projections, especially since they should make some of their investment choices well before the effects of climate change are fully visible. They should have access to scientifically credible and adequate information on climate, from prediction on the likely timing, extent and effects of climate change, to knowledge of drought and flood resistant crops and new crop planting techniques," said Mr Jarraud.

The summary makes a strong link between climate change and the wider challenges facing in particular developing countries a result of issues like poverty, unequal access to resources, conflict and disease.

On an optimistic note, the summary point out that combating climate change does not have to damage or derail economies.

"There is high agreement and much evidence of substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades" if governments adopt the right policies and incentives, it says.

Bringing down global carbon dioxide emissions to 2005 levels by 2030 will require a big shift of investment patterns -- "although the net additional investment required ranges from negligible to five to 10 per cent," concludes the report.

The IPCC estimates that biggest prospect for emissions cuts comes from buildings, followed by industry and energy supply, agriculture and forestry under a variety scenarios based on the market price of carbon.

Adapted from materials provided by United Nations Environmental Programme. www.unep.org/

[link]

Another appeared in The Independent overnight, with the forboding headline A World Dying~~~

Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world's governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process – thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years – is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse.

The warning is just one of a whole series of alarming conclusions in a new report published by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which last month shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore.

Drawn up by more than 2,500 of the world's top scientists and their governments, and agreed last week by representatives of all its national governments, the report also predicts that nearly a third of the world's species could be driven to extinction as the world warms up, and that harvests will be cut dramatically across the world.

United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the launch of the report in this ancient Spanish city, told The Independent on Sunday that he found the "quickening pace" of global warming "very frightening".

And, with unusual outspokenness for a UN leader, he said he "looked forward" to both the United States and China – the world's two biggest polluters – "playing a more constructive role" in vital new negotiations on tackling climate change that open in Indonesia next month.

The new IPCC report, which is designed to give impetus to the negotiations, highlights the little-known acidification of the oceans, first reported in this newspaper more than three years ago. It concludes that emissions of carbon dioxide – the main cause of global warming – have already increased the acidity of ocean surface water by 30 per cent, and threaten to treble it by the end of the century.

Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said yesterday: "The report has put a spotlight on a threat to the marine environment that the world has hardly yet realised. The threat is immense as it can fundamentally alter the life of the seas, reducing the productivity of the oceans, while reinforcing global warming."

Scientists have found that the seas have already absorbed about half of all the carbon dioxide emitted by humanity since the start of the industrial revolution, a staggering 500 billion tons of it. This has so far helped slow global warming – which would have accelerated even faster if all this pollution had stayed in the atmosphere, already causing catastrophe – but at an increasingly severe cost.

The gas dissolves in the oceans to make dilute carbonic acid, which is increasingly souring the naturally alkali seawater. This, in turn, mops up calcium carbonate, a substance normally plentiful in the seas, which corals use to build their reefs, and marine creatures use to make the protective shells they need to survive. These include many of the plankton that form the base of the food chain on which all fish and other marine animals depend.

As the waters are growing more acid this process is decreasing, with incalculable consequences for the life of the seas, and for the fisheries on which a billion of the world's people depend for protein. Every single species that uses calcium in this way, that has so far been studied, has been found to be affected. And the seas are most acid near the surface, where most of their life is concentrated.

A report by the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, concludes that, as a result, of the pollution, the world's oceans are probably now more acidic that they have ever been in "hundreds of millennia", and that even if emissions stopped now, the waters would take "tens of thousands of years to return to normal".

Professor Ulf Reibesell of the Leibnitz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany's leading expert on the process, concludes in an issue of UNEP's magazine Our Planet, to be published next month, that, if it continues to the levels predicted by yesterday's report for the end of the century, the seas will reach a condition unprecedented in the last 20 million years.

He recalls how something similar happened when a comet hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, blasting massive amounts of calcium sulphate into the atmosphere to form sulphuric acid, which in turn caused the extinction of corals and virtually all shell-building species.

"Two million years went by before corals reappeared in the fossil record," he says, adding that it took "a further 20 million years" before the diversity of species that use calcium returned to its former levels.

Scientists add that, as the seas become more acidic, they will be less able to absorb carbon dioxide, causing more of it to stay in the atmosphere to speed up global warming. Research is already uncovering some signs that the oceans' ability to mop up the gas is diminishing. Environmentalists point out that the increasing acidification of the oceans would in itself provide ample reason to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and felling forests even if the dwindling band of sceptics were right and the gas was not warming up the planet.

But yesterday's cautiously worded report, which was agreed by the US government, also provides ample evidence that climate change is well under way, and is accelerating. It concludes that the warming is now "unequivocal" and "evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level".

It adds: "Eleven of the last 12 years rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature". It goes on: "Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases."

If humanity were not affecting the climate, it concludes, declines in the sun's activity and increased eruptions from volcanoes – which throw huge amounts of dust in the air that screen out sunlight – would have been likely to "have produced cooling" of the planet.

But emissions of all the "greenhouse gas" pollutants that cause global warming increased 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004 alone, it reports, adding that levels of carbon dioxide, the most important one, in the atmosphere now "exceed by far" anything that the Earth has experienced in the past 650,000 years. And it goes on to conclude that "continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century."

It makes a host of specific predictions for every continent (for examples, see graphic) and warns that "impacts" could be "abrupt" or "irreversible". One example of an irreversible impact is an expected extinction of between 20 and 30 per cent of all the world's species of animals and plants even at relatively moderate levels of warming. If the climate heats further, it adds, extinctions could rise to 40 to 70 per cent of species.

The IPCC scientists and governments say that they are also more concerned about "increases in droughts, heatwaves and floods" as the climate warms. They believe that the damage to the world's economy would be even greater than they had previously predicted, and were even more certain that the poor and elderly in both rich and poor countries would suffer most.

Yet the report also concludes that, while some climate change is now inevitable, its worst effects could be avoided with straightforward measures at little cost if only governments would take action. It says that the job can be done by using "technologies that are either currently available or expected to be commercialised in coming decades". It could be done at a cost of slowing global growth by only a tenth of a percentage point a year, and might even increase it.

The missing element, virtually everyone agrees, is political will from governments. Next month they meet in Bali to start negotiations on a new treaty to replace the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, which run out in 2012.

The timetable is desperately tight; time lags in the process of getting a new treaty ratified by the world's governments means that it will have to be agreed by the end of 2009 – and there is no sign of anything on the horizon.

Yet the treaty will have to go far beyond the protocol in order to put the whole world on track rapidly to reduce emissions if the world is to achieve the pollution cuts that the scientists say will be needed to avoid catastrophe. And it will have to ensure rapid action. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman, yesterday repeated a consensus among experts that the world as a whole will have to start radical reductions within eight years if there is to be any hope of preventing dangerous climate change.

Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace International said: "It is clear from this report that we are gambling with the future of the planet – and the stakes are high. This document sets out a compelling case for early action on climate change."

The UN Secretary-General, agreed. The effects of climate change have become "so severe and so sweeping" he said "that only urgent, global action will do. There is no time to waste."

Mr Steiner called the report "the most essential reading for every person on the planet who cares about the future". He added: "The hard science has been distilled along with evidence of the social and economic consequences of global warming, but also the economic rationale and opportunities for action now. While the science will continue to evolve and be refined, we now have the compelling blueprint for action and, in many ways, the price tag for failure – from increasing acidification of the oceans to the likely extinction of economically important biodiversity."

And Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the parent treaty to the Kyoto Protocol – told the IoS that reaching agreement was "incredibly urgent".

He pointed out that the world would replace 40 per cent of its power generation capacity in the next five to 10 years and that China is already building one or two coal- fired power stations a week. Those installations would last for decades – and the nations that built them would be reluctant to demolish them any earlier – so that unless the world rapidly changed direction it would be all the more difficult to avoid climate change running out of control.

Sticking poin: It is crucial to get the US and China on board

Getting agreement on a new treaty to tackle climate change hangs on resolving an "after you, Claude" impasse between the United States and China, the two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming.

China insists – with other key developing countries like India and South Africa – that the United States must move first to clean up. It points out that, because of the disparity in populations, every American is responsible for emitting much more of the gas than each Chinese. But the US refuses to join any new treaty unless China also accepts restrictions.

There is hope of breaking the logjam. Chinese leaders know their country would be severely affected by global warming, and have done more than is generally realised to tackle it, not least by rapidly expanding renewable energy. The US will have a new leader by the time negotiations are completed, and even President Bush is backtracking, at least rhetorically.

Yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was optimistic. "I look forward," he said, with a hint of steel, "to seeing the United States and China playing a more constructive role in the coming negotiations."

Arctic

Greenland ice sheet will virtually completely disappear, raising sea levels by over 30 feet, submerging coastal cities, entire island nations and vast areas of low-lying countries like Bangladesh

Latin America

The Amazon rainforest will become dry savannah as rising temperatures and falling water levels kill the trees, stoke forest fires and kill off wildlife

North America

California and the grain-producing Midwest will dry out as snows in the Rockies decrease, depriving these areas of summer water

Australia

The Great Barrier Reef will die. Species loss will occur by 2020 as corals fail to adapt to warmer waters. On land, drought will reduce harvests

Europe

Winter sports suffer as less snow falls in the Alps and other mountains; up to three-fifths of wildlife dies out. Drought in Mediterranean area hits tourism

Africa

Harvests could be cut by up to half in some countries by 2020, greatly increasing the threat of famine. Between 75 million and 250 million people are expected to be short of water within the next 30 years

[link]


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25 comments

20 Nov 2007 @ 04:56 by bushman : Yet,
no mention that the Earth has gone thru many extinctions and famins, and melted ice, long before man was spewing CO2, no mention that water vapor is the single most agent in our atmoshere that holds heat, no mention that volcanic activity has increased world wide, no mention that other planets in our own solar system are expiriancing warming, and no mention our Suns output has increased. Need I mention that in 1950 there were only 5000 polar bears left and now there are 25,000.

Dont be brainwashed by the pirates:
{http://www.handpen.com/Bio/sun_freaks.html}

Also notice, they are useing solar electron content to help predict the weather, this is dirived from coronal holes and solar flares that produce geomagnetic storms. They dont tell or show the sheep this info on local news. You might also notice that the jet stream is affected by where these electrons hit the Earth, just look at your local weather tv news that shows water vapor maps, and you will see the direct coralation.
{http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ustec/}  



20 Nov 2007 @ 10:44 by jazzolog : And Now Some Good News
Thanks for the links bushman, it's always good to keep an open mind---but not so open your brain falls out. I hope you can agree it wouldn't HURT to ease off oil and coal a bit---or a lot---and give these alternative energies another try.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the profit motives this morning and records current investments. They are suspicious though the fabulous free market won't make enough off this and tax subsidies will enter the picture. Too bad if some tax money is drained away from the war industry and private armies~~~

Global Warming, Inc.
November 20, 2007; Page A18

Al Gore no longer needs to make claims about creating the Internet, because the former Vice President deserves much of the credit for creating an entire new industry -- the global warming business.

And like the energy barons of an earlier age, Mr. Gore has the chance to achieve enormous wealth after being named last week as a new partner at the famously successful venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. No fewer than three of his new colleagues sit on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans. If Mr. Gore can develop market-based solutions to environmental challenges, we will cheer the well-deserved riches flowing his way. On the other hand, if he monetizes his Nobel Peace Prize by securing permanent government subsidies for nonmarket science projects, he'll have earned a different judgment.

There's no shortage of new capital pouring into alternative energy projects these days. According to the National Venture Capital Association, "clean tech" start-ups attracted more than $800 million in venture capital last quarter, a new record. What's not clear is whether these are fundamentally energy ventures or political ventures. The Manhattan Institute's Peter Huber, a former engineering professor at MIT, exaggerates only slightly when he says that "Basically, 'alternative' means stuff that nobody actually uses." If that turns out to be true, then alternative energy companies could struggle for market share without government assistance.

Those doubts exist even for the companies backed by Kleiner Perkins. After making more than a dozen "green tech" investments, Kleiner is still waiting for its first exit. According to a Kleiner spokeswoman, many companies in its portfolio are "in stealth mode." The firm will "neither name nor comment on them." So it's impossible to determine precisely how much the Kleiner-backed firms will benefit from either current federal subsidies, or new provisions that are part of the House and Senate versions of the stalled energy bill. But we do have some hints.

Of the portfolio companies acknowledged publicly by Kleiner, at least two, Altra and Mascoma, are involved in the production of ethanol, which is already heavily subsidized and would get more subsides in the House bill and higher mandates in the Senate version. A third firm in the portfolio, Amyris Biotechnologies, is developing a biofuel that will provide "more energy than ethanol," according to its Web site, and should be just as eligible for government set-asides.

Two portfolio companies in the solar energy field, Miasole and Ausra, should benefit if a House provision requiring investor-owned utilities to generate 15% of their power from wind, solar or geothermal sources becomes law. The same is true for Altarock Energy, a Kleiner-backed geothermal company. Lux Research analyst Ying Wu reports that "company valuations will take a pretty big hit" in Miasole's market segment if Washington turns off the subsidy spigot.

To put it another way, Kleiner's "risk-taking" here isn't all economic. When everything is going according to plan, do venture capitalists normally turn to a politician/filmmaker to help them cash out of engineering firms?

Nope, but then again alternative energy has never fit the usual venture model. Jack Biddle, co-founder of Novak Biddle Venture Partners, says there's a reason few start-up companies try to build commercial jetliners. "Large, complex systems with slow deployment cycles do not play to venture's strengths. The whole idea with venture-backed companies is speed, speed, speed." Mr. Biddle says the size and complexity of energy systems "make 787s look like tinker toys. You need lots of capital, lots of time, lots of people."

Mr. Gore seems to grasp the scale of the challenge, and the need for government help, telling Fortune magazine, "What we are going to have to put in place is a combination of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo Project and the Marshall Plan, and scale it globally." That's the kind of "green" vision that will require a lot of greenbacks.

We'll be as happy as the Sierra Club if one or more of these new technologies turns out to solve the secrets of cheap, efficient energy. But we recall the same technological promises being made in the 1970s, the last time the feds poured subsidies into alternative fuels.

Which leads us to suspect that maybe Mr. Gore has been hired by Kleiner Perkins for more than his technological knowhow, investment acumen, or global vision. His new partners may have hired him for the more prosaic task of getting 60 Senate votes to keep those taxpayer greenbacks coming.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119551988237498583.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Some incentives might be helpful for startup companies, and it's possible the current energy bill may provide them~~~

RenewableEnergyAccess.com
November 19, 2007
Inclusion of Renewables in Energy Bill Receives New Political Support
Washington, D.C.

As debate over the Energy Bill continues, inclusion of renewables in the bill has received new political support. In a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Reps John Hall (D-NY19) and Paul Hodes (D-NH02) led Freshmen Members of Congress in calling for inclusion of the House-passed Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and the Senate-passed fuel economy increases in the final version of the Energy Bill that the House and Senate are currently negotiating in conference.

According to the letter, combining the provisions of both the House and Senate versions of the Energy Bill would reduce emissions that cause global warming by approximately 1,530 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, and would save consumers an estimated $850 billion, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy www.aceee.org/ .

"The energy bill in conference gives us a historic opportunity to make landmark changes in our energy policy that will help end our addiction to foreign oil while fighting global warming. Raising fuel economy standards will help us escape the grip of Middle Eastern oil, reduce tailpipe emissions, and give drivers a break at the gas pump," said Rep. Hall. "The renewable energy standard will allow us to fight global warming and jumpstart a green energy boom that will create thousands of jobs and billions in investment here at home. The House and Senate have driven these bold proposals down the field, now we need to fight hard to get them over the goal line."

Nineteen Members of Congress signed onto the letter to Pelosi: John Hall (D-NY19), Paul Hodes (D-NH02), Jerry McNerney (D-CA11), Keith Ellison (D-MN05), Michael Arcuri (D-NY24), Timothy Walz (D-MN01), Ed Perlmutter (D-CO07), John Sarbanes (D-MD03), Steve Kagen (D-WI08), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH01), Patrick Murphy (D-PA08), Christopher Murphy (D-CT05), Hank Johnson (D-GA04), Joe Courtney (D-CT02), Joe Sestak (D-PA07), Yvette Clarke (D-NY11), Kathy Castor (D-FL11), Heath Shuler (D-NC11), and Harry Mitchell (D-AZ05).

{link:http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsessionid=B2C09B93A486BA6D9100204F70200332?id=50614}  



20 Nov 2007 @ 17:03 by bushman : Hey,
Im just saying that no president is going to solve it, all any president going to is cut oil supply to citizens and/or kick the price up to the point people start freezing in thier beds, and stock pile it for millitary and industrial use. Well at least they arnt sacrificing people as burnt offerings to the Sun god, like they used to do in the distant past, nor are they tossing virgins into volcanos. Gee I wonder how much CO2 output we could lower by not raiseing live stock and and 90% of the people stopped breathing? No matter that plants and trees love the extra CO2. Gee, maybe we can cork up all the volcanos so they dont spew thier billions of tons of greenhouse gases per day. Who was that guy who said they could of kept the Titanic from sinking if everyone on the ship used thier wiskey glass to bail the water out. Ya, just keep everyone busy doing something, while we the people in power and with all the gold, get the doors closed and locked on our underground bunkers. You know with the billions its costing to yack about all this BS, they could of installed solar pannels on every house in the USA, as well as huge solar and wind farms out in the deserts where they already run mega powerlines thru. Like if the Sun is giving you extra radiation, make power. Oh ya its the rich mans vocation to subvert nature, I forgot, lol.  


20 Nov 2007 @ 19:34 by quinty : For me
one of the most tragic aspects of Bush’s eight years in office is that he will have done absolutely nothing, allowing all this valuable time to pass, regarding this enormous problem. Instead he started a catastrophic war for oil resources and hegemony in the Middle East. When he could have worked instead for clean renewable energy resources.

I have no scientific inclinations. (I remember that at Bates my grades were brought down in my freshman biology lab because the teacher didn't like the way I stippled when drawing what I saw through the microscope. Me, the son of an artist!) But I do trust the scientists far more than those who are motivated by nonscientific concerns: such as religion and greed.

Now, to be honest, we should at least admit these irrational motives have often colored the debate in recent years, even if you don't believe in warming. That these nonscientific concerns have often motivated the right. Whereas most of the scientists dealing with the issue have been motivated by, well, science. True, they me be wrong. But we should ask ourselves who it is that claims they are wrong. The Christian right? Those who have a deep financial stake in opposing regulation, or a shift in the economy?

That cows fart and volcanoes belch has nothing to do with the problem. At least not according to the scientists. That vast manmade causes create excesses of CO2 is the problem. At least according to the scientists. They tell us, using their instruments, knowledge, experience, and training, all the state of the art tools at their disposal, that we, humanity, with our filthy energy resources are creating this problem. That’s what they tell us.

Yes, science can be wrong. But when following this debate we have to ask ourselves who is truly indifferent and objective? Not the Christian right or huge economic interests, that’s for sure. And certainly not our current president who represents these interests. There is a long history of opposing regulation and controls for profit. So what are we lay people to think? Do we believe the scientists or those who may be motivated by numerous subjective concerns? For there certainly no shortage of spurious arguments out there. I think we doubt the science at our own peril.  



20 Nov 2007 @ 19:39 by quinty : And
what's more. What makes us think we have a right to treat the earth, the sky, the water all around us like some sort of giant cesspool? To dump all our garbage in?  


20 Nov 2007 @ 20:12 by bushman : Hmm,
garbage in garbage out, they cause us to make garbage, because someone makes money on it, was there garbage when there was realtime food? Scientists are the tool for the profiteer. Religion has nothing to do with people being pigs and corperations overpackaging with toxic things, its the people who are makeing the money who should be putting that profit into cleaning up thier act, the consumer dosnt have the choice to not pollute, its the big guys that creat the problem, and then the little guy gets blamed and has to suffer the conciquences, furthering the big guys monopoly to produce. Lets all move out to the woods and live off the land, oh ya cant do that, because if we eat something we would have to crap and whipe our butts with something.  


21 Nov 2007 @ 00:05 by quinty : GIGO

Well, those scientists being tools for profiteers are often the ones paid to lambast global warming. The ones seeking reasons to lampoon scientific espousers of a growing global heat up. And while religion should have no part in any of this unfortunately it has. For if you should turn on and tune into the nightly chorus of the creatures of the night you will find that many a rightwing Christian fundamentalist believes global warming exist only in the imaginations of the looney left. And these folks over on the Christian right do indeed have power.

However, I do agree that changing lightbulbs won't really do much. A much larger seismic shift is needed, one administered and advanced by the federal government. A “Manhattan Project,” as it has been called, for clean renewable energy resources. Then we could all feel more at ease about what kinds of lightbulbs we use and how often we leave the lights on. And what kind of paper or leafs we use out in the woods will become insignificant.

That photo of the two polar bears up there is quite dramatic. And I hope their situation is only temporary.  



21 Nov 2007 @ 00:44 by bushman : Still,
what was it before there was the last iceage? Theres profit to be made either way with or without so called man made global warming. Its about truth, if they tell the truth everyone will know they been living a lie, if they tell us there has been ETs visiting for 1000s of years it make religion a lie, if they come clean and tell us the Sun is roasting us, then we know its a lie that man is the main cause. Fact is the Brookings report... If we tell the people the truth we will loose money and productivity, some people will quit working and following our money makeing laws, there would be anarchy and chaos world wide. They wont tell use a giant rock from space is about to kill everyone for those same reasons, people out there right now telling the truth are labled lunatics, and those who propagate the lies are given a nobel prize and called heros and saviors. People make money for just keeping everyone confused. They have power because not many sheep have the education nor the common sence to think about it. The tech is there and has been there for more than 100 years to of solved the situation if it was by mans industrialization. All you have to do is look at the distant past civilizations to see the pattern, where did they all go? What made the Anasazi just up and disapper? The answer is climate change, was it man that melted the huge ice dams in Canada? No it was the normal cycles of this planet. How did modern looking man made trinkets get 5 miles underground and embeded in 500 million year old coal deposits? We been here before and we will go there again. That the truth of our existance is based on lies perpetrated by those in power and some religion to keep that truth out of mans mind, is the biggest crime of all. If they are so worried and truthful, we would have the green products 100 years ago. Because those in power know the truth and control the truth, just like they control the sheep that work thier asses off for less than min wage thinking they are kings because they can drive a car and have a microwave and cell phone. Yes the poor dinos, to bad man wasnt here to save them. lol  


21 Nov 2007 @ 07:54 by vaxen : And lest I forget...
Dow: Committed to Solving World Problems
U.S. Public Policy Initiatives

Dow is a diversified chemical company that harnesses the power of science and technology and the Human Element to improve living daily. Dow has annual sales of $49 billion and employs 43,000 people worldwide. The Company offers a broad range of innovative products and services to customers in more than 175 countries, helping them to provide everything from fresh water, food and pharmaceuticals, to paints, packaging and personal care products.

Built on a commitment to resolve global problems, Dow has set a series of bold 2015 Sustainability Goals to address the most pressing economic, social and environmental concerns over the next decade. These include affordable and adequate food, housing and water, climate change, energy efficiency, and sustainable chemistry. The Sustainability Goals reflect Dow's commitment to strengthening relationships within communities of operation, continuing to improve product stewardship and innovation, and reducing Dow's global footprint.
Dow's Most Pressing Legislative Priorities:

Energy and Climate Change

Water Solutions

Chemical Safety and Security

Healthcare

http://www.dow.com/publicpolicy/

http://www.dow.com/publicpolicy/images/publicpolicy_home.jpg

http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel.html  



21 Nov 2007 @ 10:46 by jazzolog : Renewable News For Ohio
When I talk to people involved with solar installation, what I hear is there are months of delay in getting parts manufactured and imported to the States. They say there are no companies in this country that can supply the panels, that everything has to come from Europe, where the Green Revolution has been supported by the people and the governments for years. Last summer Athens Middle School, where I work, held a grand opening ceremony for a bank of solar panels that are going to help our electric bills slightly but teach our students a lot. However, they still hang off the back wall without hookup awaiting essential parts from Germany. As yet, the American market is not high priority. I can't help but wonder whatever happened to Yankee can-do know-how. And so this article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer yesterday perked me up considerably~~~

German solar vendor to build headquarters in Cleveland
U.S. headquarters here could be its production site
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
John Funk
Plain Dealer Reporter

IBC Solar AG, Germany's oldest solar vendor, will build its U.S. headquarters in Cleveland - and hopes to produce solar equipment here.

But whether the company begins manufacturing will depend on whether the state requires that a portion of the power sold here be generated with renewable energy technology such as solar panels and wind turbines.

IBC employs about 150 people in Germany and 200 worldwide to assemble solar systems manufactured by suppliers. Advocates of renewable energy say IBC's headquarters could be the first step toward creating an industry employing thousands of people in Ohio.

"I have decided to make Cleveland the U.S. headquarters for IBC," Udo Mohrstedt, chairman and CEO, wrote in a letter Nov. 5 to Cleveland Foundation President Ronn Richard.

Richard revealed the document Monday during a meeting with the Cuyahoga County delegation of Ohio lawmakers about the fate of Gov. Ted Strickland's energy bill, which would rewrite Ohio's utility regulations. The bill includes a rule about renewable energy - one that has already been watered down by the Ohio Senate and has an uncertain future in the House.

Mohrstedt and his top advisers spent two days in the city last month, arriving here convinced they would build headquarters in California. The foundation had invited them.

But after spending time with Mayor Frank Jackson, Case Western Reserve University researchers, the Ohio Department of Development's top people and others, the German group saw Ohio in a new light.

"We learned a lot about the infrastructure that interested us," Vaughn Buntain, IBC's vice president of international marketing, said Monday in a telephone interview from Germany. "We were very impressed."

Ohio has a strong manufacturing culture; is centrally located; has excellent rail, highway and port facilities; and offers robust research labs, Buntain said.

"We were impressed by the ready access to the research environment. That is critical to us - access to research universities," he said. "We had a very promising meeting with Case Western Reserve University."

IBC also ruled out New Jersey after the two-day visit.

Founded in 1982, IBC Solar has designed and built 10,000 solar installations in Germany, other European countries and the Far East.

Sales for this year are projected at $700 million. The U.S. solar market is just beginning to develop, and IBC is eager to establish a presence here.

Germany is the world leader in solar installations, though it has only about 70 percent of the sunlight Cleveland receives. A solar manufacturing industry in Ohio would create thousands of jobs, advocates say.

Despite the commitment to locate U.S. headquarters here, the company has nagging questions about the "renewable portfolio standard" in Strickland's bill.

"Our understanding is Ohio is in process of seriously considering some form of RPS," Buntain said. "When we were there a few weeks ago, one of the things we emphasized was Ohio needed to do that."

For months, the Cleveland Foundation has sent teams to Europe in an effort to sell Ohio to solar and wind turbine companies as the right place to manufacture. But these companies prefer states that support wind and solar. Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin all have such requirements and are competing for the same global companies.

Strickland included a rule in his legislation requiring power companies to generate 25 percent of their electricity by 2025 with "advanced energy" technologies - including 12.5 percent from wind, solar and other renewables and 12.5 percent from clean-burning coal plants and approved nuclear reactors.

But the bill has no milestones to meet between now and 2025, and no penalties if the utilities do nothing. It would have been impossible to get those requirements through the Senate, which advocates say further weakened the bill by stripping out language ordering state regulators to develop milestones. The only requirement in the amended bill is that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio hold a hearing in 2025.

"That means the utilities will wait until 2025 and say they forgot," Richard said, urging the Cuyahoga County delegation of state lawmakers to push for amendments in the House.

"Ohio has the opportunity, if we move very quickly," said Richard, former head of North American research and development for Panasonic. "I think Ohio can be the next Silicon Valley."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138

© 2007 The Plain Dealer
http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-4/1195551468201250.xml&coll=2  



21 Nov 2007 @ 17:18 by vaxen : Perks?
You can get all you need, it has been available for years, here in the piebold USSofA. Years ago in the deep woods I was using solar chargers for battery operated shortwave. Solar panels, not hooked up? Brains not hooked up either! ;)

Insanity runs the show in solar thinking as well as...

Bush Fingered in Plame Leak Deceit
Associated Press | November 21, 2007
WASHINGTON - Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.


In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Nov. 20. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.

It is called "TREASON!"  



21 Nov 2007 @ 17:19 by bushman : Germany,
that BS, again some shmuck divesting the USA, everyone knows to buy local as in suporting the local economy, whats the point if yahoos destroy the US economy to save a few american dollars. Whos getting the kick back? Fire that butthead.
{http://store.solar-electric.com/}
And some more advanced pannels:
{http://www.etaengineering.com/panels/intro.shtml}  



21 Nov 2007 @ 19:15 by jmarc : Hillary will be the next
it's already been decided. The PR machine is behind her, AKA the major editorialists and the Major networks, and probably the Bush machine too, as a second choice.
The people do what their televisions tell them to do, so Hil is in.  



21 Nov 2007 @ 21:44 by jazzolog : Ohio Renewables: CORRECTION
As it turns out, I made a couple of mistakes, for which I apologize, in my remarks about the solar array at the Athens Middle School. I owe gratitude to Loraine McCosker, Chair of Appalachian Ohio Sierra Club, who came right over to AMS today to, among other things, see what she could do to get the operation moving. The first thing she did was remind me the ceremony was not last summer, but way back a year ago this past fall. We managed to put that together since Sherrod Brown attended, and he was running for office at the time. The next thing we did was take the elevator up to the 3rd floor (it's been a long day) where the science department holds forth. The teacher we wanted to see was giving individual attention to students in class, but he doesn't mind interruption when a science question needs an answer. Mr. Crawford, who monitors the system, let us know limited solar at Athens Middle School is in full operation now. The part arrived and final installation has been complete since August 20th. (Nevertheless, that's a long wait!) The really great news is there's a website where one can check the productivity and efficiency of the array. Of course, this display is for the students but I think all of us will be interested~~~

http://view2.fatspaniel.net/PV2Web/merge?view=PV/detailDC/HostedAdmin&eid=41937  



21 Nov 2007 @ 23:46 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : That's what's known
as "Sunshine!"

Thanks for the correction. Though the mistake was a small matter.

I suppose everyone knows Scott McLellan fingered the VP, Rove, Libby, the Pres himself in covering up the Plame leak? Though Scotty has been dancing a bit since it came out. One pundit opined McLellan may be the new John Dean, blowing the whistle on the entire administration. That would be nice, but Scotty doesn't appear to have that kind of fortified character. Dean was far too intelligent and basically honorable to remain on Nixon's wagon. Scotty appears to be more of a man considering himself and his own comfort.

A commentator on CNN remarked the story was briefly mentioned and soon forgotten by the national news media. Interesting. Does this mean we have become so immured in continuous scandal (by my reckoning we have had, on average, two or three stories a week for the past five years) that we no longer even pay much attention? Or that the lack of attention is part of the news? The faults of the news being news?

Okay. The president and some of his top men have been caught in a lie (according to McLellan.) Does that mean any one of them will pay the consequences? Patrick Fitzgerald, are you out there???

If you do a Google search you will find many hits. Here's one of them.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aoeVzcoWZAqc&refer=home  



22 Nov 2007 @ 01:23 by bushman : Hmm,
Well, I still think the class should intail the local economic benifits, and how much the school is saveing by having the solar production, like the web site puts down the average household carbon footprint, but not the schools carbon footprint, as well you must add the amount of co2 for shipping from Europe, when in fact there are a few companies in the USA that make equipment. And to me anyway, if we dont buy made in america its just going to force these companies to move to other countries and then when it comes to jobs these kids will have to go to some other country if they are intrested in working for a company that is makeing the tech, seems like bad business to me unless the whole point is to increase globalization. This is one or the reasons america is crumbling, all the good and smart people are leaving the country. It used to be we would train students from the 3rd world and then they would go home, now we send our kids to get trained in some other country and they dont come back because there are no jobs for them here.  


22 Nov 2007 @ 03:27 by vaxen : NAFTA,
GATT, NAU, SPP, dead Amerika. If you've ever been to the "seventh floor" of a certain, well known, institution which has a 'farm' then you'll know the shuck and jive going on in 'Foggy Bottom' and elsewhere and you'll also know that the 'president' and all his men are well accomplished liars and also have committed treason by outing Valerie Plame Wilson but...it's all a part of an act.

They've been doing this kind of thing since GOD (Gold, Oil, Drugs) so what else is new? The plutocracy wins, the people lose. The plutocracy educates (edu-crates) the people and the sheeple 'vote.' Higgs boson weeps and Stanford goes down in flames.

Best to get thy head out of the mud and 'carry on,' Jeeves...

Brainwash victims win cash claims
2004-10-17, London Times
{http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1313808,00.html}  



22 Nov 2007 @ 10:27 by jazzolog : Carbon Footprints
Bushman makes a very good point here about what goes up the school's stack...and all the other coal burned to run the place. This is a very small installation and wasn't intended to make more than a teeny dent in the electric bill.

http://energyseeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/athens-1.jpg
Photo from a cool Energy Seeds article on the installation...to read here http://energyseeds.com/2008/01/12/solar-shades-athens-middle-school-ohio/

Neverthless it cost $13,000 in grant money. However, doing an exact energy audit of a huge building like that might be next to impossible. At the moment there's a movement going on in the US for training people to do energy audits on homes. Part of it involves putting a huge fan at the front door, sealing as best as possible all around it. Once you know all the windows and other doors are closed, the thing is turned on and you go around and feel for drafts. Churches, including evangelical, are getting interested in this I'm glad to say, since buildings like that sit vacant a lot of the time but use up energy anyway.

While I'm at it I can make a further correction to my account. Ben Appleby, a solar installer at Third Sun who did the job and is the guy in that picture, writes that the part actually was coming from a supplier in California rather than Germany. He continues~~~

> "While we have been burned in the past with
> module shortages, it's usually a
> matter of shorter term price instability. Aka,
> supply and demand. We can get
> the modules we need, but sometimes the prices
> shoot through the roof if the
> exact unit we want is the same unit every other
> installer wants.
>
> "The american market is a priority for renewbles
> manufacturers. If we can get
> the ITC for solar and wind back in the energy
> bill we'll see even more of a
> commitment. For example Evergreen Solar, based
> in Massechuesetts, is
> building on to its factory and doubling its
> capacity. Sunpower, not to be
> confused the athens based company, is another
> fast growing manufactorer of
> solar panels. Third Sun is now a Sunpower
> autherized dealer and we have had
> no problem getting as many panels from them as
> we can install. Zero wait
> time, same day shipping.
>
> "With any market that's growing at 40+% a year
> there will be all sorts of
> short term bottlenecks in supply chain
> continuity. Unirac, a New Mexico
> based company who makes the hardware to mount
> panels, has been expanding
> their operations almost continuously for a
> couple years now. Despite this I
> still have to wait on orders at times. Same
> goes for inverters and other
> equipment. We call these growing pains.
>
> "The problem is not that we don't have the drive
> or motivation to keep up or
> make the investments in supply chain process,
> but that we can't do it fast
> enough. The growth rate for renewables has been
> staggering, but also
> frantic. It is still a small market sector and
> despite doing our best and
> doubling in size every 2-3 years the sector is
> still under the same
> constraints as everyone else: time, money,
> human resources, and market
> development pace."  



22 Nov 2007 @ 11:42 by jazzolog : The Gangster
The poet John Tagliabue used to remind us occasionally in class of the weakness Americans have for "jazz and gangsters." By this he meant wild, lawless living and anything that challenges how far I can reach and call it mine. This entry over at Blogger has attracted those 2 commentors, Hieronymus and Anonymous (who are reminding me increasingly of the Dujardins), and they urge concern over the candidacy of Giuliani. http://jazzolog.blogspot.com/

My question in the title up above was sorta rhetorical, but I did intend overtones to warn of another Republican takeover. I've been hopeful the polled Repubs who place Rudy in the front can't really be representing the mainstream of that party. I'm among those who consider his candidacy too outrageous even to consider---and of course therein lies the danger. Why haven't I learned by now that nothing is too outrageous for these people to consider?

Two features at AlterNet right now might be pertinent. First is an article by Margaret Kimberley entitled Gangster Giuliani: The GOP's Worst. http://www.alternet.org/story/67234/ And if that one doesn't scare you enough (and even if it does) don't miss the interview with Naomi Wolf about her book The End Of America. It concludes~~~

DH: As we are coming to an end here, there are a couple of concepts I found particularly interesting in the book. One is when you talked about the "10 steps," or the "blueprint" that fascists have used time and time again to close down democracies. You say that that these factors, ingredients, are more than the sum of their parts, which suggests a kind of synergy, "each magnifies the power of the others and the whole," as you write.

You also write about the pendulum cliché, that we have this illusion through our history that the pendulum always swings back. But because of the permanent war on terrorism, that may not be true anymore. Can you say a little bit more about those two things, and how that might fit together?

NW: Well part of the illusion is created because it seems we are in two different countries, operating at home and abroad. For example, they can come at you, anyone and claim you're an enemy combatant. They rendered people in Italy ... they can render people all over the world. And they can put people like Jose Padilla in solitary confinement for three years, literally drive sane healthy people insane.

If the president can say, Well, "Don is an enemy combatant," there is nothing you can do. It's like "Tag, you're it!" To that extent we can not be innocent. And then someone is in jail for three years without being able to see their families or have easy access to a phone.

If they can do that, the pendulum can't swing, because after the first arrest, it generally goes in one direction, and according to the blueprint, the time has come for those first arrests. We're having this conversation now, before these arrests. But if tomorrow you read in the New York Times or the Washington Post that New York Times editor Bill Keller has been arrested, the staff will all be scared, others will get scared. And people don't understand that that's how democracy closes down. And when that happens first, it's the tipping point at which we think it's still a democracy.

DH: That is when the rules have changed?

NW: Yes, and people need to believe and realize that that kind of negotiation is pretty much over. And there's just the lag time, which is so dangerous, when people still think it's a democracy, even while the martial law steps have begun. And that's where we are at, unless we get it.

Because you know, Congress keeps saying, "Hello, we're Congress." You have to answer us when we ask for information. The president's like, "Sorry, I'm ignoring you!" It starts becoming thinking like an abused woman, like: "Surely he's going to do it right this time, surely he's not going to do it again." And he does.
http://www.alternet.org/story/68399/?page=entire  



22 Nov 2007 @ 17:24 by bushman : Cool :}
Thats good to hear, I take my original criticisim back. :} Im all for supply and demand problems within a local/national economy, Its the spurs and whip that keeps the horse running strong.  


24 Nov 2007 @ 16:48 by vaxen : Skullduggery
I demand: "War with Iran." You "supply" it.

McClellan's Dish

Impeachment is Back on the Table

By Dave Lindorf

Here is rock-solid evidence from a man who, as press secretary, was privy to the inner workings of the White House, of a vile conspiracy involving the two top men in the Bush/Cheney administration, as well as their top three staffpeople, to expose the identity of an important CIA undercover operative, Valerie Plame, and then, when caught, to obstruct a criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, into that crime.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18762.htm


Michigan Supreme Court Allows Jan. 15 Primary
Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state could proceed with its Jan. 15 presidential primary, triggering an expected response from New Hampshire that is likely to intensify the unprecedented frontloading of the 2008 campaign.
{http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000002632174}

SAN FRANCISCO: Manager-Employee Sex Ban Rejected

http://www.governing.com/local.htm (scroll down)  



25 Nov 2007 @ 03:53 by vaxen : Star Announces
"The timpanist plays upon a living being. The stars are bursting with their messages: Turn to a child for the star's announcement." - Robert Aitken

Right, Robert. How about turning to these children for "the stars' announcement?"

"The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking...

"From all continents comes endless, disturbing, information about the human rights situation, revealing that men, women and children are being tortured and their dignity being made a mockery of....

It is all of humanity which has been wounded and ridiculed."

- Pope John Paul II, May 2004


"The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking,
... And this is your government at war."

Torturing Children

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 20 July 2004

The biggest story of the Iraq war is not about missing weapons of mass destruction, or about deep-cover CIA officers getting their covers blown by vengeful White House agents, or even about 896 dead American soldiers. These have been covered to one degree or another, and then summarily dismissed, by the American mainstream news media. The biggest story of the Iraq war has not enjoyed any coverage in America, though it has been exploding across the international news media for several weeks now.

The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the torture of Iraqi children.

A German TV magazine called 'Report Mainz' recently aired accusations from the International Red Cross, to the effect that over 100 children are imprisoned in U.S.- controlled detention centers, including Abu Ghraib. "Between January and May of this year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations," said Red Cross representative Florian Westphal in the report.

The report also outlined eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Staff Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, said that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16 year old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.

Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first broke the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently spoke at an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures and the videotapes the American media has not yet shown. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking," said Hersh. "And this is your government at war."

http://masters-of-war.org/deathculture2.html

http://masters-of-war.org/images/BUSH/DUshell.jpg

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous." - Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

http://masters-of-war.org/index.html

Who will be president in 2008? Sure, sure...  



7 Dec 2007 @ 15:03 by jazzolog : Some Environmental Stirrings In Ohio
Hopefully a few news items this week indicate a wakeup call could be letting out its first peep in this hardcore addict state. Coal and oil increasingly are fighting words here between conservation proponents and those who advocate jobs at all costs. The first thing you hear when coal and electric companies want more business is "We'll create jobs" (whether it's true or not) and the working man gets right in line.

Along the Ohio River in Meigs County, just to the south of us, there are plans for construction of a new power plant. Within this 10-mile stretch of river, there already are 5 or 6---"powerhouses" the locals call them. The Environmental Protection Agency has been holding hugely-attended hearings, which now have concluded, and soon we shall hear the outcome. The Columbus Dispatch reported it this way on Wednesday~~~

Attorneys general from six states say pollution controls not good enough
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 3:04 AM
By Paul Wilson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

American Municipal Power-Ohio's proposed coal-fired plant in Meigs County does not meet Clean Air Act standards and should not be built, two environmental groups said Monday.

Columbus-based AMP disputed those assertions and said its planned Letart Falls operation would use "state-of-the-art technology to control emissions," meeting Clean Air Act standards.

Nonprofit AMP-Ohio wants to build a $2.5 billion plant to serve customers in Cleveland, Jackson, Prospect and 75 other Ohio communities. It would be the first coal-fired operation built in Ohio in years, and AMP has said that it will be one of the cleanest in the nation.

But Shannon Fisk, staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said AMP-Ohio plans to build an "outdated and dirty coal plant." The group, along with the Ohio Environmental Council, filed concerns with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on Friday.

That was the deadline for comment on AMP-Ohio's draft air-pollution permit. Attorneys general from the District of Columbia, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont also wrote Ohio officials to oppose the plant.

"With a lifetime of more than 50 years, this plant, if built as proposed, might well emit more than 400 million tons of (carbon dioxide) in total, thus significantly contributing to the public health and environmental damage associated with global warming," the attorneys general said in their letter.

About 200 comments were filed with the state EPA about the plant. It could take several months for agency officials to review the comments before making a recommendation to EPA leadership.

AMP-Ohio said it will use technology that reduces emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury and small particles. The system is called Powerspan ECO, but AMP did not include details about it in its permit application, causing the environmental groups to question whether it actually will be used.

AMP-Ohio is committed to the system, said Kent Carson, company spokesman.

"When we filed the permit, (we) left it open in terms of the technology," he said. "Since that time, our board of trustees has committed to the use of Powerspan."

The environmental groups would like AMP-Ohio to use other power sources and energy-efficiency measures to keep up with increasing demand for electricity. But if the company is set on coal, Powerspan isn't the best way to use it, the groups said.

The plant would "subject people in the Ohio Valley to even more of the pollutants that can trigger asthma attacks, lost work and early death," the environmental council said. The group would prefer that AMP-Ohio employ technology similar to what American Electric Power is planning for a separate Meigs County plant, which turns coal into a gas that's then burned to make electricity.

AMP-Ohio and the environmental groups disagree on whether that technology is further ahead of what would be used in Letart Falls. Carson said the system AMP-Ohio is proposing shows promise for capturing carbon dioxide economically.

The plan for the plant has support in Meigs County because it would create jobs and bring investment money to one of the state's poorest areas. About 100 people would work at the plant and more than 150 jobs could be created elsewhere to support the plant, Meigs County officials have said.

But under the current plan, it's not a fair trade, the environmental groups said.

"We do want jobs for southeast Ohio," said Nolan Moser of the Ohio Environmental Council. "We just want the cleanest plant available. We know definitively that AMP has not chosen the cleanest plant available."

paul.wilson@dispatch.com
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/12/05/AMPconcerns.ART_ART_12-05-07_B7_8F8M8KE.html?sid=101

Today the Toledo Blade is reporting, "NEW YORK — FirstEnergy Corp., owner of Toledo Edison and other electric utilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, said yesterday that capital spending will rise 15 percent next year to clean up air pollution from coal-burning plants.
"Spending on environmental projects will rise 68 percent to $650 million next year, Chief Financial Officer Richard Marsh said at an investor meeting here. Total capital spending will rise to $1.7 billion. Higher revenue from power sales will more than cover the costs, he said."
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200771207005

I'm not just sure what "power sales" means, but in the past it's meant the bill we get every month for electricity. I suppose it's to be expected with the economy we have, but there are other ways to do this.

On Tuesday, also in the Blade, their business writer published "Most solar panels produced at a high-tech plant in Perrysburg Township owned by First Solar Inc. are shipped to Germany, Spain, and other European nations that provide big subsidies for renewable energy.
"But that could begin to change as the Phoenix company, which has major operations in northwest Ohio, launches a campaign in the coming months to sell U.S. utilities on the idea of solar-energy farms.
"'That's the next move for us,' Chief Executive Michael Ahearn told about 100 financial analysts who gathered at the local plant yesterday to hear about the fast-growing company with deep Toledo roots.
"The firm initially will concentrate on California and seven other states with climates favorable to solar power and policies encouraging alternative energy, said Ken Schultz, marketing vice president."
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071204/BUSINESS03/712040333

But alternative energy still seems alien to most Ohioans, and the new governor is cautious. His energy bill, now before the Ohio legislature, is a start, but lobbyists for coal and oil are hard at work finding some angle for profit. Again in this morning's Toledo Blade~~~

Ohio considers drilling for oil in state parks
ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS - Drilling for oil and natural gas in state parks is among the options Ohio lawmakers are considering as part of their debate over the state's future energy needs.

In behind-the-scenes discussions, a provision has been advanced that would allow drilling on state lands "covered by concrete, asphalt, gravel, turf, crops, or fields that have plants or trees not exceeding 10 years in growth."

The proposal would create a five-member oil and gas leasing board to oversee the leasing of state property for developing oil and natural gas reserves.

The idea is viewed as a way to simultaneously produce low-cost energy and increase the state's income.

"I think there is a strong enough interest that people are going to seriously consider it," said House Chief of Staff Scott Borgemenke.

Oil and gas companies have advanced the idea before, pushing similar action in 2005 when gas and oil prices spiked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Republican state Rep. John Hagan of Alliance, who chairs the committee considering a sweeping energy bill, sponsored the House bill at the time.

Under that unsuccessful plan, drilling companies would have been allowed to drill on state lands and under Lake Erie, an action Congress has banned. One-eighth of drilling proceeds would have gone to the state.

Gov. Ted Strickland told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer his position on the issue would depend on the specifics.

"I understand that some of the land is not pristine," Mr. Strickland said. "My attitude is that it would depend on the area and the location and the prior use. I would not want to take a flat approach on it. I'd like to look at it from a commonsense point of view."

Jack Shaner, policy director for the Ohio Environmental Council, said his group vehemently opposes expanded drilling.

"Does this mean oil and gas drilling rigs next to the campground check-in? Over next to the concession stand?" he asked. "Somebody needs to think this through a little better."

The drilling provision is part of a pending bill before another committee. That committee's chairman, Republican state Rep. Jim McGregor of Gahanna, said he expects the drilling provision as well as thresholds for the use of alternative energy will be folded into the energy bill.

The energy legislation, proposed by Mr. Strickland, would require that by 2025 Ohio utilities get 12.5 percent of the power they sell from advanced energy sources such as clean-coal power plants, as well as another 12.5 percent from renewable sources like solar and wind. The McGregor bill is greener, forcing Ohio utilities to get 22 percent from renewable sources only by 2020.

Mr. Borgemenke said he anticipates the House will end up with "a very strong green proposal."

Oil and gas officials told lawmakers last month that roughly a quarter of the land owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is suitable for oil and gas recovery. They estimated that drilling 200 wells a year over the next decade would pump out $20 million in lease bonus payments and $300 million in landowner royalties.

Mr. McGregor, who worked for ODNR for 12 years, said he thinks the drilling can be done in an environmentally responsible way.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712060440  



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