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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Friday, March 4, 2011

4 March - Water and Climate News

The Duwamish River seen from the South Park Br...Image via Wikipedia

 Reiki Training Program's BlogLooking down the Duwamish River from a micro-p...Image via Wikipedia

Dealing with the unknown: the space of not-knowing

Ah, the space of not-knowing.  It’s not a comfortable place at all.  What’s going to happen?  How is going to happen?  What can I control?  Can I control anything?

It’s a downward spiral if we keep following the fear aspect of not-knowing, because the fear will take over, and in effect, make us paralyzed.
When you are in that paralysis, you become stuck, energy does not flow and it’s difficult to move in any direction.
I’ve been in this place, like most of us, many times over.  But as I’m going down the spiral, if I can acknowledge what’s happening sooner than later, I’m able to stop the process.
Half-way down I can decide, do I continue toward despair or do I realize that I actually have the choice to begin climbing back out and making some changes.  Even if the first change is just acknowledging I can make the change.Inflatable boat on Puget Sound off of West Sea...Image via Wikipedia

 

Here is a recap of our work last year, taken from the chapter in my book, Touching the World Through Reiki.
Healing the Waters with Reiki
This is a story of the convergence of healers, healing intention, and helping the planet by surrendering to something greater than one’s self and gently holding space for what will occur.
The Duwamish River blessings the Reiki Fellowship became involved in begins with the work of Dr. Masura Emoto, who has photographed the effect of healing intention and positive versus negative words on the crystalline structure of water. When he was coming to Seattle on a speaking engagement, his coordinator asked me if I would facilitate healing blessings of various areas of water in the Seattle, as Dr. Emoto was leading other blessings for the Puget Sound.
The Reiki Fellowship initially held two simultaneous blessings: one in the north part of the city at Green Lake Park and the other at the south end at the Duwamish River.
Floating aquaculture on Puget Sound.Image via WikipediaThe Duwamish served as a main artery through the Puget Sound for the Native Americans before the settlers came. Once white settlement came to the Sound, industry cropped up along the river, and in the last century, much of the river had become so polluted it was declared a Superfund site.
After the first blessing we did, the Boeing company, whose factory over the years had contributed much of the pollutants to the river, announced it was going to offer two million dollars for a cleanup to begin next year. So, we decided to repeat the blessings each month. Dr. Emoto was encouraging other healers and community members around the world to continue the process each month for six months and then take a water sample to see the final effect.
Overall, the process of the Duwamish blessings has reminded me of all the Reiki work I have done and continue to do:
  • Gathering people together to participate in classes, circles, and sessions;
  • Developing the healing technique of Insight Reiki, which came out of my training and backgrounSunset over Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, WA.Image via Wikipediad as a counselor;
  • Taking Reiki out into various environments, corporate, theater, and outdoors and delving into working with veterans on their own healing.
Treehugger 
( From the synopsis )

Shocker: Political & Industrial Influence Forced EPA to Downplay Concerns About Fracking's Eco-Impact




New York Times has some more information on fracking that you should pay attention to, this time in regards to how EPA concerns about the environmental impact of the natural gas extraction procedure were actively downplayed, and impact studies deliberately narrowed by politicians effectively wanting to keep the public in the dark.
The documents show that the agency dropped some plans to model radioactivity in drilling wastewater being discharged by treatment plants into rivers upstream from drinking water Snowcapped peaks are a backdrop to many Puget ...Image via Wikipediaintake plants. And in Congress, members from drilling states like Oklahoma have pressured the agency to keep the focus of the new study narrow.
In fact EPA had planned to call for a moratorium on fracking in the New York City watershed last year but that part was removed due to political influence when the federal agency sent a letter to the state of New York.
This latest revelation comes less than a week after the Times released documents showing that fracking has created significantly higher levels of radiation in drinking water than the industry has reported.
More on Fracking:
Natural Gas Far Less Green Than Claimed - Fracking Emissions 1000s Times Higher Than Reported: EPA
Pennsylvania Township Bans Fracking Wastewater Disposal - Defies State Government

( I posted a comment to check the Topical Index for 'Water - Wealth and Power'  and especially
"How to Destroy the Earth's Fresh Water Supplies Without Anyone Finding Out" )

Will 7 Billion People Make Us Smarten Up About Water? A Look at Technology, Supplies, and Politics

 Groundwater Overuse Hitting All-Time Highs, Future Supplies Hitting Lows
Study Shows Haves and Have-Nots in World Water Supply
What the Water Crisis Really Means for You and the Planet
WaterLife Documents the Incredible Story of the Last Big Fresh Water Supply, the Great Lakes

From a Comment thread at Care 2 on

‘Fracking’ Comes to Europe,Sparking Rising Controversy

  :  The first national anti-fracking rally, saturday 28th of fabruary, assembled some 18 to 20.000 people (the figure of 10.000 is way to low) near one of the proposed sites at Villeneuve de Berg, a small 3.000 habitants strong village some 100 miles north of Marseille. Images can be seen on Youtube, like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TBVyyhzYDk&feature=related

The Limits of Laws as a Conservation Tool

Dr. Peter Gleick is a water expert at the Pacific Institute who is very vocal about the state of fresh water USCG Marine Protector Cutter in Puget SoundImage via Wikipediasupplies in the US. Recently he wrote about the debate in California on if some threatened species need to be allowed to go extinct to allow for better human and ecosystem health in riparian and coastal habitats. Basically, whether or not some species need to take one for the team as we deal with a water crisis. NYT columnist Andrew Revkin has a really interesting response to Dr. Gleick's argument in an article titled The Limits of Laws as a Conservation Tool. The two pieces together make for some fascinating reading on conservation and law, and they're both well worth a read. 

 The Royal Society’s science policy work is based on the recognition that:
  • An expanding range of critical areas of public policy have scientific aspects;
  • Sound policies are more likely if decision makers have access to expert, independent scientific advice;
  • A modern national academy should play a prominent role in monitoring the health of the UK and international science base, and assembling evidence to support investment.

Climate change: A Summary of the Science

The guide summarises the current scientific evidence on climate change and its drivers, highlighting the areas where the science is well established, where there is still some debate, and where substantial uncertainties remain.

The document was prepared by a working group chaired by Professor John Pethica, Vice President of the Royal Society and was approved by the Royal Society Council.

 

Chilly weather, warm words – science diplomacy in Moscow

Climate Realists

Terri Jackson: Reply to article: An email conversation with climate change sceptic Professor Freeman Dyson

( What a comment thread ! )

Show #11-20
Arctic Snap Feed
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Mar 04
Today
John O'Sullivan: As another NASA Climate Satellite Explodes – Conspiracy or Incompetence?
Article Tags: Headline Story, John O'Sullivan, NASA, SatelliteGate Cynics suggest foul play as NASA rocket explodes and yet another crucial space mission to measure global warming ends in disaster. Reports are that a catastrophic system failure of the second NASA’s ‘Glory’ Satellite is believed to have caused the craft to crash into the ocean somewhere near Antarctica. The onboard Orbitin
Nasa Earth observation satellite launch fails, BBC News
Article Tags: BBC, Headline Story, NASA, Video Link Nasa's attempt to launch its latest Earth observation mission has ended in failure. The Glory satellite lifted off from California on a mission to gather new data on factors that influence the climate. As these pictures show, about six minutes into the flight officials became aware of a problem. Glory's protective fairing on the rocket
MUST SEE YOUTUBE: Senators spar during hearing over alleged 1970s global cooling consensus by Amanda Carey
Article Tags: James Inhofe, World Temperatures, YouTube Senate Environment and Public Works Committee members sparred Wednesday over whether there existed a consensus in the 1970s that the earth was cooling. During the hearing, Republican Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming questioned the supposed need to enact policies to combat global warming by pointing to similar
Adam Yoshida: The Warmist's Dilemma
Article Tags: Adam Yoshida I have longed argued that one of the primary problems with the thinking of our well-meaning liberal friends is that they tend to live in the world of "wouldn't it be nice" and then attempt to argue that people who dissent from this view are just plain bad. Nowhere is that tendency better exemplified than in the battle over Climate Change. Most of us are familiar wit
Mar 03
Yesterday
Lubos Motl: Is there a 66-year cycle in temperatures?
Article Tags: A Graph to Debunk AGW, Headline Story, Lubos Motl, World Temperatures Many people have noticed that the global mean temperature was increasing in the first third of the 20th century (33 years), slightly decreasing in the second third of the 20th century (33 years), and increasing in the last third of the 20th century (33 years or so). If this evolution may be extrapolated in
John O'Sullivan: British Green Movement Backed Murderous Libyan Regime
Article Tags: John O'Sullivan New evidence raises growing concerns that environmentalism is the sinister tool of fascist politics. Revelations from a crumbling Libyan dictatorship show an enforced green agenda propped up by a discredited UK establishment. Latest news highlighted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (March 3, 2011) strengthens claims by global warming skeptics that not o
Stefan Gorzula: Speaker Calls Global Warming a ‘Hoax’ by Victoria Ross
Article Tags: Headline Story, Stefan Gorzula 'Truth About the Global Warming Hoax’ heats up RWC monthly lecture series. Is global warming an inconvenient truth, or a “flavor of the month” fraud used as a massive and successful fund-raising tool? According to Dr. Stefan Gorzula, a consulting ecologist and management specialist, it’s the latter, despite the evidence supplied by most mainstream
Meeting: ‘Climate Change? Who is Paying? And for What?’
Article Tags: Meetings, Philip Foster, Piers Corbyn, Repeal The Act CLICK to download PDF file to read meeting agenda etc. Also: ‘Climate Change? Who is Paying? And for What?’ – a landmark conference, March 19, 2011 March 01, 2011, Cambridge, UK. Press Dispensary. The price of misjudging the global response to climate change theories could be catastrophe: economic for developed nations and li
Darren Samuelsohn: Dem to co-sponsor bill to 'rein in' EPA
Article Tags: Darren Samuelsohn House Republicans can claim "bipartisanship" in their bid to handcuff the EPA's climate change rules. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) told POLITICO on Wednesday that he will be co-sponsoring the legislation from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) that puts a freeze on EPA's regulatory agenda for major
U.N.: work on climate pacts to start despite wrangling by Risa Maeda
Article Tags: Headline Story (Reuters) - Work on recent climate agreements, including a new green fund, will start next month despite wrangling over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, a top U.N. official said on Thursday. Christiana Figueres, the head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said the Green Climate Fund as well as the whole work agenda for this year's U.N. climate talks will be d

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Dan Rather

Dan RatherCANDU Nuclear Power Plant at Qinshan, ChinaImage via Wikipedia

Posted: March 2, 2011 02:22 PM

For many Americans, the words "nuclear power" still conjure up images of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, fears of meltdowns or radioactive leaks. Those reactor failures helped drive the U.S. nuclear industry into dormancy in the late 1970s.
But there's an increasingly urgent need in this country for a clean, carbon-free energy source. And to nuclear advocates, the answer lies not in burning dirty coal but with old-fashioned atomic fission. America was the first to harness the awesome power of atoms for peaceful purposes (and not so peaceful purposes.) As for safety concerns? We toured a research reactor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and director Dr. David Moncton told us the significance of Three Mile Island has been misunderstood. "What happened there was the nuclear equivalent of landing on the Hudson," Moncton said. An accident all right, but one that was brought under control before anyone was harmed. As for the deadly explosion at Chernobyl, Moncton told us our reactors are designed with a completely different technology that would make such an accident here impossible.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo C...Image via WikipediaBut even nuclear supporters concede that nuclear power remains hobbled by its price tag and the unanswered question of what to do with all that leftover radioactive waste that nuclear power generates. So what if there was a way to build nuclear power plants that were smaller, more affordable, and that even solved -- or at least greatly reduced -- the waste issue? I recently met entrepreneurs and scientists with radical ideas to do just that.
Dr. Eric Loewen oversees advanced reactor designs at GE-Hitachi, in Wilmington, NC. He's peddling a new nuclear reactor called the PRISM that actually runs on the waste generated by current reactors. The technology exists to recycle spent fuel, he says, it's the political will that's lacking.


Wind Concerns Ontario


The Green Network: Putting the “ Green Eco” in Economics

Green Eco-giants know how to play the shell game and very few present their organizations financial statements for public view.

Public urged to attend wind-farm open houses

No windfall in false promise of green jobs

 The Copenhagen Consensus Centre asked Gurcan Gulen, a senior energy economist at the Centre for Energy Economics, Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, to assess the “state of the science” in defining, measuring and predicting the creation of green jobs. Read More…

Come Clean’s messy jobs reality

The job-killing consequences of massive government spending and regulation to force green energy development have yet to sink in with voters. But they might soon, which is why a cabal of environmental activists and subsidy-seeking industries have formed a new propaganda organization in Ontario called “Come Clean”. Read More…

McGuinty’s green jobs plan could kill 185,000 jobs

Ontario’s unemployment rate could reach 10%

The Ontario government has one of the world’s most aggressive green job-creating program, with plans underway to create 50,000 new green jobs in the province.  Based on the latest evidence from another aggressive green-job creating – the United Kingdom, where every green job created leads to the loss of 3.7 jobs elsewhere in the economy — if Ontario meets its green job target, a potential 185,000 jobs could be lost. Green jobs thus threaten to be a potential major driver of provincial unemployment. Read More…

40 doctors urge Québec Government to halt all wind turbine projects

—Roc Lebel, Terre Citoyenne
I am not a physician, but I work in the health care field. My work involves Research & Development and product formulation, and I have close ties with a number of physicians.
Indeed, this is what made it possible for Terre Citoyenne, a citizens’ organization to persuade 40 physicians to sign a petition (click here for French version, see below for English translation), urging the Québec Government to halt all wind turbine projects located in inhabited areas that are in development or under construction, until the research is sufficiently advanced to enable our public health authorities to establish beyond all doubt what is a safe minimum distance between a wind turbine and a home.
This is consistent with the principles of Québec’s Sustainable Development Act (R.S.Q. c. D-8.1.1) and, in particular, with the Precautionary Principle. Read More…

Ontario’s Wind Moratorium: Public Discontent Sends a Global Message to Government-Dependent Energy (and energy sprawl)

 by Sherri Lange, Master Resource
“Truth is tough.  It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch, nay, you may kick it all about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast Table
Something big just happened in Ontario–something the Wind Lobby fears. Recently, Minister of the Environment John Wilkinson held fast to what had been “for now” moratorium where tough talk about environment-before-wind was followed by turbine contracts and business-as-usual wind development.
It is about time for a change. Rural Ontarians are mad about wind development, as are Lakeside communities, fishermen, and boaters. Read More…

Why the £250bn wind power industry could be the greatest scam of our age – and here are the three ‘lies’ that prove it

 by Christopher Booker, UK Daily Mail
Scarcely a day goes by without more evidence to show why the Government’s obsession with wind turbines, now at the centre of our national energy policy, is one of the greatest political blunders of our time. Under a target agreed with the EU, Britain is committed within ten years — at astronomic expense — to generating nearly a third of its electricity from renewable sources, mainly through building thousands more wind turbines.
But the penny is finally dropping for almost everyone — except our politicians — that to rely on windmills to keep our lights on is a colossal and very dangerous act of self-deception Take, for example, the 350ft monstrosity familiar to millions of motorists who drive past as it sluggishly revolves above the M4 outside Reading. Read More…

MNR ignores Endangered Species Act

Chronicle Journal

I have been following the development of the low-key Greenwich Lake wind farm at Dorion, particularly in light of the provincial government’s latest flip-flop on Great Lakes wind farms. The Greenwich wind farm covers a large area and is close to many “potential” (MNR term) peregrine nesting sites and the Cavern Lake bat caves.
Wind farms exact a high mortality on raptors and bats, so in assessing this project what did Northern Bioscience determine to be an acceptable level of mortality on endangered and threatened species such as peregrine falcons and rare Keen’s long-eared bat? Will the Greenwich Lake Wind Farm incur any penalties such as Syncrude did in Alberta for the duck deaths in its tailings ponds in 2008?
As an aside, the construction of this wind farm appears to contravene everything in the Endangered Species Act 2007. Was the approval of this wind farm another government flip-flop to buy the “green” vote in southern Ontario?
Erwin Butikofer, Neebing

Eco-groups take shots at all parties. Does anyone care?

Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star
A coalition of environmental groups is launching a website Monday urging the Ontario government and opposition parties to “come clean” on their environmental intentions.
The effort at www.comeclean.ca debuts as groups including Environmental Defence and the Sierra Club grow frustrated with mixed or conflicting messages, such as Premier Dalton McGuinty’s recent decision to flip-flop on a plan to create electricity from wind turbines in the Great Lakes.
“At one point they were gung-ho about offshore wind,” said campaign director Matt Price, quoting McGuinty from 2008 saying wind turbines can be installed “in a way that does not compromise ecosystems.”
When the projects were cancelled, the government said more scientific study is needed to be sure wind turbines are safe. Read More…

Green zeal too costly

Chronicle Journal
An open letter to MPPs Michael Gravelle, Bill Mauro, Premier Dalton McGuinty:

Where do I start? It is obvious that your government has lost its way when it comes to Ontario energy policies. The sudden cancellation of future wind turbines due to unknown potential health affects, the moratorium on the grossly generous FIT program, and now the approval by the Ontario Energy Board of rate hikes to compensate for interest rate over-charging by OPG/Hydro One clearly shows that your party is lost when it comes to the realities of this so-called green energy plan.
Regarding the wind turbines, how is it that the setback for off-shore turbines is five kilometres, yet on-shore setbacks are 550 meters? Why is it that we’re afraid to put these turbines too close to shorelines, but we’re OK with putting them in people’s back yards? This makes absolutely no sense. Read More…

 

WCO didn’t commission panel

Orangeville Citizen
In your issue of February 17 you stated that Wind Concerns Ontario commissioned an expert panel of practitioners to undertake a study of the effects of noise, etc., associated with wind turbines. This is not correct.
What is correct is that to date one self-reporting case series has taken place in Ontario on people suffering due to their close proximity to wind turbines. That self-reporting survey was carried out in 2009 by WindVoiCe, an independent voluntary research team. The results can be seen at www.windvigilance.com Read More…

 

Ontario burns up more green cash

by Terence Corcoran, Financial Post

Ontario’s green jobs come at a cost of up to $207,000 each
North America’s only feed-in-tariff smokestack, a renewable energy program that burns money to generate electricity, announced fresh incinerations Thursday. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA), a euphemism for the Liberal Cabinet of Premier Dalton McGuinty, said it has signed contracts worth $3-billion with suppliers of wind and solar power.
Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid, who issues all the Cabinet directives telling the power authority what do to, said new contracts with a handful of subsidy-seeking corporations are inspired by a higher authority. “There’s no doubt Ontario has stepped up to Obama’s challenge, and together we’ve become a global clean-energy powerhouse,” Mr. Duguid said. Read More…

 

Dunc Quixote

By Tom Van Dusen, Ontario Farmer

After generally supporting industrial wind turbines for the past several years and saying so in this column more than once, I think it’s time to inject a little fresh air into my position.
I’m not abandoning the position entirely.   I still like the looks of sleek windmills dotting the landscape, and I feel that if carefully managed, they can contribute to the common power supply.
I’ve actually gushed in this space about the elegance of the 86 windmills now marching across Wolfe Island south of Kingston and waxed poetically about how lovely it would be to have a few turbines in my backyard.  Now I’m not so sure. Read More…

 

Peaceful Uprising

In Verbena
Royal Society
Updates about our work on providing scientific advice to policymakers.

 

 Paleomap
Goal of the PALEOMAP Project

The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years.
In the Earth History section of this website are full-color paleogeographic maps showing the ancient mountain ranges and shorelines, active plate boundaries, and the extent of paleoclimatic belts.
NEW  3D movable Paleoglobes.  Interactive 3D virtual object - globes that you and manipulate, rotate, and view from many angles.  Times available:  Modern Globe, Miocene (20 Ma), K/T boundary (65 Ma), Late Cretaceous (80 Ma), Early Cretaceous (120 Ma), Earliest Cretaceous (140 Ma), Pangea - earliest Jurassic (200 Ma), early Permian (280 Ma).
3D Paleogeographic Animations.  A sample of the new 3D topographic and bathymetric models that can be visualized as stunning 3D globes.  3D Animations of the Latest CretaceousCretaceous, Early Permian. and the Middle Devonian.
(Check these out!) Animations you can view from your Browser. 

Apocalypse Now! Of Revolutions and Crop Disasters

North African and Middle Eastern regimes fall left, right and center. Is this an imperial operation directed from the shadows? Or a nascent uprising coming from below? The Egyptian protesters formed a cohesive unit which articulated political aims. I think THAT more than anything frightens the Powers That Be. They can handle chaos, they can control civil wars, but people organising resistance creatively into a united mass requires drastic shock treatment. Overshadowing the nascent political movement in Egypt is a list of countries in revolt that grows by the day:

Tunisia
Algeria
Egypt
Morocco
Yemen
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Bahrain
Libya
Oman
Iraq
Iran
And it's not consigned to Middle East. Mass protests have taken place against the state of Wisconsin's austerity fiscal measures, hundreds have been shot to death over a disputed electoral result in Ivory Coast, the Chinese government is stamping down on the slightest whiff of dissent, university students were recently shot in Nigeria, thousands demonstrated in Croatia this week, protests have flared up again in Greece and even isolated North Korea has caught the fever. Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi. Revolution is in the air across the whole globe. Indeed, it's already upon us.

Etymology of "revolution"

late 14c., originally of celestial bodies, from O.Fr. revolution, from L.L. revolutionem (nom. revolutio) "a revolving," from L. revolutus, pp. of revolvere "turn, roll back"
Within all of this we of course find a mixture of genuine revolutionary fervour - let's call it 'organic' dissent - and flames sparked and fanned by operatives of the Secret Team in what you might think of as 'controlled burns'. Now organic dissent can be captured and redirected towards a controlled burn. But the dynamic cuts both ways: controlled burns can get out of hand and become nationwide or even regional expressions of dissent. The end result will be the same - an inflamed planet enraged by grotesque injustice. It seems like they're seeking to stoke conditions until enough people cry out for some body, any body to bring order to the chaos. Going by some of the gruesome reports coming out of Libya, Gaddafi is being helped along the edge of a straight razor by an army of 50,000 mercenaries flown in from central Africa (whose services were allegedly sold to Gaddafi by those Lords of War across the Sinai).

Hundreds of thousands are already on the move. People just don't get up and flee in droves unless something has gone seriously wrong. Like Heart of Darkness wrong. But Colonel Kurtz had nothing on Colonel Gaddafi. How long before we begin to see this happen elsewhere? The number of refugees will swell as food shortages intensify and the prices of staples rise. There were countless disastrous crop failures in the northern hemisphere this winter, all the while speculators on Wall Street capitalise on the misery and pave the way for forcible acceptance of GMO food

15 bizarre green inventions

Lilypads


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