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The ruling is being viewed as the first test of the European Union's biotechnology directive, passed in 1998, which set down policy on what kind of genetic material was patentable, and on what protection that patent enjoyed. Lawyers disagree about the wider impact of the court ruling, but some feel that it will restrict the scope of European patents on DNA.
“It turns out the highest-quality care also is the most cost-effective because we make fewer mistakes and create better outcomes,” says Patrick Hagan, the hospital’s president.
The commission, which says debt collection is its top consumer complaint, proposed that states require collectors to include more information about debts in their lawsuits, including a breakdown of the current balance by principal, interest and fees, and the relevant terms of the original credit contract, if not the contract itself.
China's leading credit rating agency has stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favour of the West.
Chinese president Hu Jintao said in April that the world needs "an objective, fair, and reasonable standard" for rating sovereign debt. Dagong appears to have stepped into the role, saying its objective was to assess countries using methods that would "not be affected by ideology".
"The reason for the global financial crisis and debt crisis in Europe is that the current international credit rating system does not correctly reveal the debtor's repayment ability," said Guan Jianzhong, Dagong's chairman.
No extraditions to the US http://norightturn.blogspot.com
the European Court of Human Rights has halted the extradition of a suspected terrorist from the UK to the US. Not because he would receive an unfair trial (he won't), or because he might face the death penalty, but because the penalty if convicted may constitute torture.
How a Torture Protest Killed a Career
In this modern age – and especially since George W. Bush declared the “war on terror” eight years ago – the price for truth-telling has been high, especially for individuals whose consciences led them to protest the torture of alleged terrorists.
One of the most remarkable cases is that of Craig Murray, a 20-year veteran of the British Foreign Service whose career was destroyed after he was posted to Uzbekistan in August 2002 and began to complain about Western complicity in torture committed by the country’s totalitarian regime, which was valued for its brutal interrogation methods and its vast supplies of natural gas.
Murray soon faced misconduct charges that were leaked to London’s tabloid press before he was replaced as ambassador in October 2004, marking the end of what had been a promising career. Murray later spoke publicly about how the Bush administration and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government collaborated with Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov and his torturers. [See, for instance, Murray's statement to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Torture.]
But Murray kept quiet about his personal ordeal as the victim of the smear campaign that followed his impassioned protests to the Foreign Office about torture. Finally, on Oct. 22 at a small conference in Washington, Murray addressed the personal pain and his sense of betrayal over his treatment at the hands of former colleagues.
While Murray’s account is a personal one, it echoes the experiences of many honest government officials and even mainstream journalists who have revealed inconvenient truths about wrongdoing by powerful Establishment figures and paid a high price.
National Demonstration in London: Bring the troops home from Afghanistan
October 21, 2009 Washington and Brussels Meetings
Am at Schiphol again at 5.30am, after an overnight flight from Accra, waiting eight hours for a connecting flight to Washington, and thinking "Why oh why do I put myself through this?" Slightly mitigated by the joy of being able to post again on a working internet connection.
AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, IRAN, IRAQ, VIETNAM: EXPOSING OFFICIAL LIES Ward Circle Building, Room 2, American University Wednesday, October 21 at 8:10 pm
Keynote Speaker: Col. Larry Wilkerson (USA, ret.) Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the critical period from August 2002 until January 2005; Served as Army officer for 31 years;
Recipient of 2009 Award from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence
Daniel Ellsberg, Former Defense and State Department official who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he was put on trial facing a possible sentence of 115 years; Author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers; Subject of newly released documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” which he was called at the time by Henry Kissinger
Coleen Rowley, Former Special agent and legal counselor, Minneapolis FBI, who called the FBI director's attention to serious flaws that might have prevented 9/11; Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2002; Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2002
Craig Murray, Former U.K. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who exposed the use of torture, declaring, "I would rather die than have someone tortured in attempt to give me more security." Sam Adams Award recipient, 2005
Ray McGovern, Veteran CIA analyst, whose duties included preparing and briefing the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; Co-founder Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); Colleague of Sam Adams
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History; Director, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute; Co-writer (with Oliver Stone) “Secret History of the United States” (forthcoming on Showtime)
The late Sam Adams, in calculating the number of Vietnamese Communists under arms, came up with more than twice the number Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. forces, would allow the Army to acknowledge. The country-wide offensive at Tet in January-February 1968 proved Sam right.
Sponsored by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, American University History Department, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute
October 20, 2009
Death of Democracy
A particularly damning example of New Labour's Stalinist approach to propaganda. The FCO website carries news of the High Court judgement in the Binyam Mohammed case. If you click on the headline, it gives you an utterly mendacious statement by Milliband attacking the High Court judgement - but nowhere on the website does it give you the High Court judgement, any kind of objective summary of the High Court judgement, or even a link to the High Court judgement.
The FCO, having just lost a court case and been heavily criticised by the High Court, on a taxpayer funded website is hiding the facts while spewing out pure propaganda that we are paying for.
Absolutely fucking disgusting. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=21042723
October 17, 2009
The Documentary Evidence on New Labour and Torture
It is my birthday today, and I feel rather pleased with the progress being made on exposing the torture crimes of New Labour.
Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett's "Get Out of Jail Free" card has been that the courts accept the argument that national security overrides all, and the biggest threat to national security is the threat of withdrawal of intelligence cooperation in the "War on Terror".
It was precisely the threat of withdrawal of Saudi security cooperation that the Law Lords concluded was the potential greater evil, which justified forbidding the prosecution of New Labour's personal paymasters at BAE for corruption.
And it was precisely the alleged threat of withdrawal of US security cooperation which persuaded the High Court to ban publication of material detailing the torture of Binyam Mohammed.
Only then Obama got in and the Americans said "Milliband is wrong (ie lying), we never threatened to withdraw security cooperation".
If you read the Guardian report of the High Court judgement, in any other age a Minister caught behaving as appallingly as Milliband has, would have resigned. I would love to be locked in a room with the little twerp for a couple of hours to teach him about the reliability of intelligence from torture. I would have him confessing to menbership of Al-Qaida before I severed his second testicle. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/16/binyam-mohamed-torture-evidence-miliband
Which is of course the major point. Binyam Mohammed is an innocent man whom we gave over to torture for no reason. The thousands tortured in Uzbekistan into confessing to Al-Qaida links were almost all innocent. That is just one problem with the "Torture Works" argument put forward by Britain's highest paid thug Jonathan Evans http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/mi5-chief-torture-al-qaida
Can anybody construe the government's line as anything other than "We were not complicit in torture. We were complicit in torture, but it was necessary."?
In a Kafkaesque twist, Sky News are today running the banner headline
"Release of Intelligence Papers Could Damage UK/US Intelligence Sharing Agreement"
They are reporting from "US sources" that the Americans have now been persuaded to help Milliband by threatening to reduce cooperation if the evidence of Binyam Mohammed's torture is released. Is there a single person out there who genuinely does not now believe that Mohammed was tortured, and further that MI5 and MI6 were not complicit in torture worldwide? The documentary evidence I have already published is damning: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Wood.pdf
More so are the minutes of the FCO meeting at which I was formally instructed to stop complaining internally about collusion with torture as it had been set as an undeclared government policy. The High Court ruling gives still further weight to my Freedom of Information Act request to have those minutes released. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/10/either_craig_mu.html#comments
Friday was the twentieth working day by which the FCO was supposed under the Freedom of Information Act to respond to my request. Hardly surprisingly, it has not done so (other than to acknowledge receipt). I shall now appeal to the Information Commissioner. The government's attempts to prevent the truth being known about their complicity in torture, are simply desperate. There appears to be a weird fiction that everybody does not realise the truth already.
It really is "The Emperor's New Clothes".
October 14, 2009
And How Many More Body Bags Are They Sending?
The war of invasion in Afghanistan is being sustained on two things: the imbecilic argument that it is preventing terrorism in the UK, and on a feast of cod patriotism. Real deaths on the battlefield are not noble; they involve the smells of blood, sweat, shit and piss, and a lot of fear and tears. But this nation cultivated its Spartan myth for generations, and we mentally convert each terrible waste of young life into a tableau of the death of Nelson.
Or this, one of the most popular paintings of the Victorian era; the Last Stand at Gandamak, showing the sad end of the first British army to foolishly invade Afghanistan.
War Is a Hate Crime Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:35 EDT http://www.sott.net/articles/show/195666-War-Is-a-Hate-Crime
Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed last week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon's budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents.
It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game.
"Every thinking person wants to take a stand against hate crimes, but isn't war the most offensive of hate crimes?" asked Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who did not vote for the bill, when I spoke to him by phone. "To have people have to make a choice, or contemplate the hierarchy of hate crimes, is cynical. I don't vote to fund wars. If you are opposed to war, you don't vote to authorize or appropriate money. Congress, historically and constitutionally, has the power to fund or defund a war. The more Congress participates in authorizing spending for war, the more likely it is that we will be there for a long, long time. This reflects an even larger question. All the attention is paid to what President Obama is going to do right now with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the Democratic Congress could have ended the war when it took control just after 2006. We were given control of the Congress by the American people in November 2006 specifically to end the war. It did not happen. The funding continues. And while the attention is on the president, Congress clearly has the authority at any time to stop the funding. And yet it doesn't. Worse yet, it finds other ways to garner votes for bills that authorize funding for war. The spending juggernaut moves forward, a companion to the inconscient force of war itself."
The brutality of Matthew Shepard's killers, who beat him to death for being gay, is a product of a culture that glorifies violence and sadism. It is the product of a militarized culture. We have more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries, weapons and troops than any other nation on Earth. Our military, which swallows half of the federal budget, is enormously popular - as if it is not part of government. The military values of hyper-masculinity, blind obedience and violence are an electric current that run through reality television and trash-talk programs where contestants endure pain while they betray and manipulate those around them in a ruthless world of competition. Friendship and compassion are banished. Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed last week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon's budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents.
It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game.
"Every thinking person wants to take a stand against hate crimes, but isn't war the most offensive of hate crimes?" asked Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who did not vote for the bill, when I spoke to him by phone. "To have people have to make a choice, or contemplate the hierarchy of hate crimes, is cynical. I don't vote to fund wars. If you are opposed to war, you don't vote to authorize or appropriate money. Congress, historically and constitutionally, has the power to fund or defund a war. The more Congress participates in authorizing spending for war, the more likely it is that we will be there for a long, long time. This reflects an even larger question. All the attention is paid to what President Obama is going to do right now with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the Democratic Congress could have ended the war when it took control just after 2006. We were given control of the Congress by the American people in November 2006 specifically to end the war. It did not happen. The funding continues. And while the attention is on the president, Congress clearly has the authority at any time to stop the funding. And yet it doesn't. Worse yet, it finds other ways to garner votes for bills that authorize funding for war. The spending juggernaut moves forward, a companion to the inconscient force of war itself."
The brutality of Matthew Shepard's killers, who beat him to death for being gay, is a product of a culture that glorifies violence and sadism. It is the product of a militarized culture. We have more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries, weapons and troops than any other nation on Earth. Our military, which swallows half of the federal budget, is enormously popular - as if it is not part of government. The military values of hyper-masculinity, blind obedience and violence are an electric current that run through reality television and trash-talk programs where contestants endure pain while they betray and manipulate those around them in a ruthless world of competition. Friendship and compassion are banished.
This hyper-masculinity is at the core of pornography with its fusion of violence and eroticism, as well as its physical and emotional degradation of women. It is an expression of the corporate state where human beings are reduced to commodities and companies have become proto-fascist enclaves devoted to maximizing profit. Militarism crushes the capacity for moral autonomy and difference. It isolates us from each other. It has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with our lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, our mentally ill, our unemployed, our sick, and yes, our gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual citizens.
Thirty-four years ago this month the young James Fallows published (in the Washington Monthly) what still remains a definitive article about the class divide in times of war—“What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?” I still have a yellowed original copy somewhere. Fallows was writing about the sickening reality that as a Harvard student he, like so many other Ivy Leaguers, could quite easily avoid fighting in Vietnam. They had the ways and means to avoid military service: exemptions, deferments, lawyers, connections.
I was reminded of Fallows’ awkward question a couple of weeks ago when I was in New Haven to receive Yale Divinity School’s William Sloane Coffin ‘56 Peace and Justice Award. Coffin famously commenced his 17-year chaplaincy at Yale by telling the members of the 1959 freshman class that “the Lord forbids our using our education merely to buy our way into middle class security.” Coffin and other antiwar religious activists of the time never could persuade a majority of upper-middle class students to take to the streets against the Vietnam madness, though they made a valiant effort—and they understood the ugly race and class dimension of American imperialism.
Thinking about Coffin’s legacy, I had to ask myself exactly what I have been doing during the current class war—a siege that is far more severe and ugly than the one that sent mainly working-class and rural kids to fight and die for nothing in the rice paddies of Vietnam.
Anyone who believes the establishment media in the U.S. learned even a single lesson from what happened with Iraq should immediately read this featured Washington Post article by Joby Warrick, which gravely and frighteningly warns that Iran's Qom nuclear facility "was intended explicitly for making highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons." It's filled with one alarmist claim after the next (all anonymously provided, needless to say), such as this: "That number is too small to furnish fuel for a civilian power plant, but just big enough to supply Iran annually with up to three bombs' worth of weapons-grade fuel, the former officials said" and "Qom could produce enough bomb-grade fuel for two to three bombs annually."
The issue isn't whether you believe Iran desires to develop nuclear weapons; it's obviously possible (even rational) that they do. The issue is the painfully reckless, transparently irresponsible, and Iraq-replicating "journalistic" methods for disseminating these war-fueling assertions.
Thanks to Ezra for reminding us that this health care reform debate, despite some recent progress, is still about preserving the employer-based health care system. And that system is terrible.
( Original French at EuroTrib : the following is English translation only )
EU Presidency (sic): M Juncker would have "no reason to reject" a call for his candidature - Le Monde
International relations in Europe no longer go through Berlin, London, or Paris channels alone. I'm not a dwarf... I have friendly relations with Vladimir Poutin, never mind what the British press says. And I have long known the Chinese leaders.
Luxembourg PM and head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, steps up in an interview in Le Monde, and says he'll be a candidate if called on:
EU Presidency (sic): M Juncker would have "no reason to reject" a call for his candidature - Le Monde
Speaking clearly, would you like to be a candidate?
I've learned that one should not announce one's candidature for such a function. You have to let calls come from others. .... If I were called on, I would have no reason to refuse to listen. Provided it was underpinned by ambitious ideas for this post.
He also comes out openly against Blair:
Why are you opposed to Mr Blair's candidacy?
The three Benelux countries have adopted a common position, that goes beyond the personlity of M Blair. I can't see the areas in which the UK has shown a truly European spirit over the last ten years, beyond some progress on defence matters. My theoretical model calls for Europe to be represented by someone whose main concern has been to serve it, to bring it together in positive compromise agreements, and who would not go through the motions of representing it to the outside world without having taken care of its internal cohesion.
Must this person come from a country that has joined in all the major European policies: Schengen, euro zone?
Some Europeans' careers have been enriched by their wish to move the EU forward, including with the monetary union. Others have failed to get into the movement...
What should be the profile of the first "stable" president of the Council?
I am not pleading for myself, but for a certain idea of what the post should be. I have always acted according to the interests of my country, and especially the European Union. I'd like those who lay claim to this function to be able to show they've followed a similar path. Europe must be managed in a coherent, inclusive and comprehensive manner. The president must be able to combine the plans, ideas and dreams of both the large and the small countries. He must also be a "facilitator" for the Franco-German axis, without neglecting the dimension of the enlarged Union. Decisions cannot be taken only in the Western capitals. If the European Council leaned towards an easy solution, a ceremonial post, it wouldn't cross my mind to say yes to a possible call.
..............................................
Juncker evidently doesn't come down on the side of a "functionary" presidency, but one with a genuine European (not personal) ambition. Speaking of the relations between the President and the High Representative, he says that the role of the HR will be more international, but the HR could not do anything without the support of the president.
(And what of the bias of European Tribune itself ? How about a prominent 'Stop Blair' poster. )
Funding Cuts Mean Potential Collapse of Environmental Oversight in Pennsylvania http://dothemountain.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/funding-cuts-mean-potential-collapse-of-environmental-oversight-in-pennsylvania
(HARRISBURG, PA)—The Chesapeake Bay Foundation expressed grave concern over environmental funding cuts in the recently adopted Pennsylvania budget that threaten to further reduce Pennsylvania’s commitment to clean up rivers and streams, and fail to provide much-needed environmental oversight and funding to limit impacts from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.
“The budget approved last Friday rolls back years of progress in cleaning up Pennsylvania rivers and streams.” said Matthew Ehrhart, Executive Director of CBF’s Pennsylvania office. “It contains the biggest cuts ever made to environmental programs in the history of the Commonwealth.”
The new state budget reduces the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) personnel by $21.1 million, representing over 300 people responsible for implementing the agency’s environmental protection duties. The inequity of these cuts is stark—the 26.7 percent reduction in the DEP budget was nearly triple the average 9 percent cut other state agencies took in this budget.
“Not only has state government cut the Department of Environmental Protection by over 26 percent, it has failed to find the over $600 million in funding DEP says is needed by farmers and others to meet the mandates of the federal Clean Water Act to cleanup the watersheds contributing pollution to the Chesapeake Bay, Ehrhart said.”
The cut to DEP staff raises significant concerns about whether the agency can conduct basic and mandatory environmental protection duties. Without adequate staff, permits necessary for new business activity will not get reviewed and issued.
“Without the boots on the ground, full enforcement of environmental laws will not occur,”
Bacteria resistant to some antibiotics have been found in Toronto tap water, a University of Michigan scientist says. The water remains safe to drink, he said, but the finding raises the possibility that disease-causing bacteria will pick up the resistance genes.
Now if you really are looking for a radioactive (former) stream, try the filled ravine at the VA in Brentwood. That’s one of our lost streams. Low-level radioactive waste was dumped in there in (I believe) the 50s- and was setting off geiger counters and tempers a few years back. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
At the same time President Barack Obama invoked the "legacy of daring men and women" in our nation's quest for renewable energy initiatives, and as millions of concerned citizens rallied in support of 350.org climate change events around the world this past weekend, Big Coal bulldozers reportedly clear cut a swath of lush deciduous forests in the carbon sink of Appalachia and fired the opening salvos in the mountaintop removal mining blasting process to destroy the historic range slated for the Coal River Mountain Wind Project -- the most symbolic clean energy project in the nation.
But not without a fight.
Just as Appalachian mountaineers single-handedly turned the tide of the American Revolution, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, in defeating the British loyalists who threatened to lay waste to mountain communities at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780; just as mountaineers and union coal miners marched to liberate mountain communities at the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 against Big Coal and their armed thugs, an extremely organized and growing coalfield uprising movement against mountaintop removal has marked a line in the sand on Coal River Mountain as the ultimate battleground to stop mountaintop removal and launch President Obama's clean energy jobs program.
How can you join the battle at Coal River Mountain?
First, donate generously to the non-profit Coal River Mountain Watch advocates on the frontlines; support the coalfield organizations in the Alliance for Appalachia; put your body on the line with direct action organizations like Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice and Rainforest Action Network; contact national environmental organizations like the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign and Natural Resources Defense Council.
RAN, in fact, has called for a national "End Mountaintop Removal Day of Action" for next Friday, October 30.
And take action at the I Love Mountains website.
Coalfield residents and the national allies are calling on all concerned citizens to contact President Obama, CEQ chief Nancy Sutley, EPA chief Lisa Jackson, and Sen. Robert Byrd to halt this unfolding tragedy.
In a blatant act of aggression against besieged coalfield residents, blasting dangerously close to one of the largest coal slurry impoundmentsin the nation, and immediately eliminating 24 megawatts of wind power development for the internationally acclaimed Coal River Wind Project, a subsidiary of Big Coal behemoth Massey Energy recently lay waste to the first acres of the 1,100-acre Bee Tree Branch section of a proposed 6,000-acre mountaintop removal operation designed to destroy the last in tact mountain on the historic Coal River Mountain range.
Here are the first exclusive photos of the destruction:
This blasting in the Bee Tree Branch area of Coal River Mountain effectively derails the Coal River Wind Project. Unlike the limited 14-year supply of coal on the site, the Coal River Wind project could provide long-term energy for 70,000 households, an estimated 200 jobs and $1.7 million in annual county taxes. In spite of the blasting, the upcoming UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen will also be reviewing the Coal River Wind proposal as a model for sustainable green economic development in the United States.
Last week, area residents also appealed to Gov. Manchin to halt the blasting and order a state of emergency, in order to thoroughly investigate the catastrophic potential of the jeopardized Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment, which holds back billions of gallons of toxic coal sludge. Blasting is taking place within a dangerously close distance of honey-combed underground mines by the impoundment dam.
Residents noted that another Massey subsidiary in eastern Kentucky was responsible for the largest coal slurry spill in 2000, where 300 million gallons of toxic sludge into the area's waterways and aquifers. If the earthen Brushy Fork dam breaks, nearly 1,000 area residents will have less than five minutes to save their lives.
In effect, Coal River Mountain should be ground zero in the climate change and renewable energy movements.
And the blasting of Bee Tree Branch will not only strip the great range of its resources, its tributaries and lush forests, its history and its meaning;it will rob Americans of the possibility of creating long-lasting green jobs and energy. It will resound as the death knell of an American and Appalachian way of life, and a rejection of any opportunities for a sustainable future for the embattled coalfields.
The blasting has been launched.
Will the nation -- and the Obama administration -- defend Coal River Mountain from this reckless assault on American citizens, our American mountains and waterways, and a clean energy future?
Jeff Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia, and the forthcoming, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation/Basic Books).
Curator - Sustainable Agriculture Channel on Current.... http://current.com/groups/sustainable-agriculture/ Please join to discuss issues pertinent to our environment, health and future. I am also an environmental activist and blogger reporting on the global water crisis and our moral responsibility to be good stewards of Earth, our only home. I believe in sustainability and in protecting the balance of nature that can only be preserved through balance of the human soul.
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THOSE WERE HER HEADLINES AT 18:29 MDST
Jan had 7,476 entries at that point
today’s fastest growing group: water is life .....................................................................................................................
Water is our most precious resource. Yet it is currently under attack by our waste, pollution, privitization, and the exacerbation of climate change. We must be aware of this and work to preserve and conserve water for future generations. This will be our legacy to our children.
I knew bottled water was a social ill but I didn't know how damaging it was until I saw an explosive and compelling new documentary called Tapped.
With style, verve and righteous anger, the film exposes the bottled water industry's role in suckering the public, harming our health, accelerating climate change, contributing to overall pollution, and increasing America's dependence on fossil fuels. All while gouging consumers with exorbitant and indefensible prices.
Claire Thompson summed up the problem well in her post on the movie at Grist:
"Not only is it [bottled water] a clear waste of resources (only 20 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States are recycled, and far too many of the rest probably end up in the Pacific Garbage Patch), it's an incredible waste of money for consumers, who pay more than the price of gasoline for water that's marketed as "pure," but in reality is largely unregulated, full of harmful toxins like BPA, and far less safe for drinking than free tap water. (In fact, 40 percent of the time, bottled water is nothing but municipal tap water, freed from the government oversight that keeps it safe.)" Watch the movie's powerful trailer.
The film's website lists where you can see the doc in the theater, and offers opportunities for hosting a screening of your own. (So far, it will be screened in a smattering of the coastal cities where you'd expect them to play.) _______________ It is time to stand up and fight these soulless corporate bastards who are out to steal your water. This film shows that spirit. A spirit we in America desperately need.
Will this area be a place of 'water wars' as climate change and population increases continue to place strains on water resources? Tensions are already flaring as Egypt claims it needs to have the water it was allotted previously due to the fact that it is the Nile alone that supplies the majority of its water. Whereas other riparian states have other sources of water and receive more rain. Is this a valid claim? Does Egypt not hold any responsibility for the water it uses, its population increases, nor its consumption and irrigation practices? What of the future as we already see many areas getting less rainfall and water evaporation taking place due to changes in climate?
Also, there are many dams built in this area that already decrease available water resources to agricultural areas and which have displaced thousands of people. I find it illogical that based on the predictions of future climate changes for this area, drought, and water usage that is wasteful as well as the many dams being built that cause diversion of water resources and environmental devastation that Egypt or Sudan can continue to give these same excuses for much longer.
Even after all that has happened and is happening globally regarding environmental factors and climate change, Americans are still under the impression that we are not vulnerable to that which now effects the developing world. I think this ignorance is what fuels much of the inaction regarding water issues and climate change in America. It needs to change. Now.
All reservoirs along the Colorado River might dry up by mid-century as the West warms, a new study finds. The probability of such a severe shortage by then runs as high as one-in-two, unless current water-management practices change, the researchers report.
The study's coauthors looked at the effects of a range of reductions in Colorado River stream flow on future reservoir levels and at the implications of different management strategies.
Even under the harshest drying caused by climate change, the large storage capacity of reservoirs on the Colorado might help sustain water supply for a few decades. However, new water management approaches are critical to minimize the chances of fully depleting reservoir storage by mid-century.
"This study, along with others that predict future flow reductions in the Colorado River Basin, suggests that water managers should begin to re-think current water management practices during the next few years, before the more serious effects of climate change appear," says lead study author Balaji Rajagopalan of the University of Colorado in Boulder (CU-Boulder).
The findings by Rajagopalan and his colleagues have been accepted by the journal Water Resources Research, published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
The Colorado River system is enduring its 10th year of a drought. Fortunately, the river system entered the drought in 2000, with the reservoirs at approximately 95 percent of capacity. The reservoir system is currently at 59 percent of capacity, about the same as this time last year, says Rajagopalan. Roughly 30 million people depend on the Colorado River for drinking and irrigation water.
The research team examined the future vulnerability of the system to water supply variability coupled with projected changes in water demand. They found that through 2026, the risk of fully depleting reservoir storage in any given year remains below 10 percent under any scenario of climate fluctuation or management alternative. During this period, the reservoir storage could even recover from its current low level, according to the researchers.
But if climate change results in a 10 percent reduction in the Colorado River's average stream flow as some recent studies predict, the chances of fully depleting reservoir storage will exceed 25 percent by 2057, according to the study. If climate change results in a 20 percent flow reduction, the chances of fully depleting reservoir storage will exceed one in two by 2057, Rajagopalan says.
"On average, drying caused by climate change would increase the risk of fully depleting reservoir storage by nearly ten times more than the risk we expect from population pressures alone," Rajagopalan says.
"By mid-century this risk translates into a 50 percent chance in any given year of empty reservoirs, an enormous risk and huge water management challenge," he says.
The river hosts more than a dozen dams along its 2,330-kilometer (1,450-mile) journey from Colorado's Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California.
end of excerpt.
St. Thomas which was a city covered by Lake Mead due to Hoover Dam construction is now exposed due to recession of water levels. To some that may seem like justice because of what was done to St. Thomas originally because of the dam construction, but now this lake which is one of the largest has millions of people dependent on it for water. So now, those in this area who once lost all due to the water coming in may well see that again because of the opposite effect. This is a stark example of what population increases and climate change combined with waste can lead to. It should be a lesson to us all.
The defining moment of the 21st Century will not be securing another planet for us to live on. It will be how we meet this challenge on Earth. Can we get beyond the backbiting to keeping our eye on the prize? Or will our continued political, social, and religious differences keep us from the moral imperative? This is no joke. Water is becoming a scarcer resource for many people around the globe through waste, pollution, climate change, and privitization. By our hand.
Humans cannot live without water. So it should follow logically that if humans cannot live without water and potable freshwater is becoming scarcer that this would certainly be a crisis that is a matter of life and death. And yet, this issue hardly gets the attention it deserves.
Please look at these pictures at the link provided and realize that this is not about what is causing global warming/climate change and the petty political grudges that keep that debate from taking us to the necessary solutions to save this planet for ourselves and future generations. This is about seeing that future and visualizing what you know in your heart it should look like... and then making it happen.
Yes! Let's keep that going! Bottled water is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the planet! And then we need to start working on plastic bottles in general that waste fuel, create carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, and cause massive plastic garbage swirls as can be found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
It is time to assess just what we are doing to this planet and realize our potential to change it!
Excerpt:
An Australian town was set to ban bottled water on Wednesday over concerns about its environmental impact, in what is believed to be a world first. Bundanoon, a picturesque rural town with a population of just 2,000, was expected to vote heavily in favour of the move with a show of hands at a public meeting later. "At the moment we've got a lot of community support behind it. We're confident the town is going to back it," said activist John Dee.
"We believe Bundanoon is the world's first town that has got its retailers to ban bottled water. We haven't found it anywhere else." Local opinion was incensed when beverage company Norlex Holdings announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town, truck the water up to Sydney and then send it back in bottled form.
"The company has been looking to extract water locally, bottle it in Sydney and bring it back here to sell it again," said Dee. "It made people look at the environmental impact of bottled water and the community has been quite vocal about it."
Dee, whose Do Something group was instrumental in a plastic bags ban in Coles Bay, Tasmania, said he hoped the ban would make people think twice about buying bottled water. "It's possible it will extend to other places. The main idea is to get people thinking about their usage of bottled water -- we're spending about half a billion dollars on it here in Australia," he said.
'Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel must address the vital issue of water in the West Bank if meaningful peace talks are to take place. Israel's leaders said nothing, but Abbas had touched on one of the most sensitive issues in the seemingly endless negotiations, which have been in abeyance for the last few years, and one on which any expectation of a comprehensive settlement will probably ultimately rest.Israel's unilateral control over rivers and aquifers meant scarce water resources were not being shared equitably "as required by international law," he declared. "It is with dismay that I see 9,000 Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley utilize one-quarter of the water that the entire Palestinian population in the West Bank utilizes," he told the World War Forum in Istanbul.
In the largely arid Middle East, water is more valuable than oil and has been a source of conflict since time immemorial. As the world's resources, from oil to timber and minerals, dwindle, the prospect of more water wars in the Middle East in the decades ahead increase with each passing day. The crisis is deepened by rapidly expanding populations across the Arab world. This, coupled with industrial growth and a relentless drive for food self-sufficiency, is draining water supplies faster than they can be replenished. Global warming accelerates the damage.
Climate experts warn that one-third of the Earth's surface may be at risk of extreme drought by the end of the century, triggering mass migrations of "environmental refugees." Many of those will be in the Middle East and North Africa. The region has been hit by a severe drought for the last five years, making the water issue all that more critical, aggravating a dispute between the Israelis, whose own water resources are dwindling, and the Palestinians, who sit on a major aquifer under the West Bank that Israel covets as much as its ever-expanding archipelago of settlements.Israel views the water from the West Bank -- as it did the water it siphoned off from the Litani River in Lebanon during its 1978-2000 occupation of that country's southern zone -- as vital to its national security. The Palestinians will not be able to sustain a viable independent state without water. _________________ How hard is this for Israel or any oher country to understand? Water is the lynchpin to peace.
'A team of NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University, and the University of Michigan is forecasting that the "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record. The dead zone is an area in the Gulf of Mexico where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters.
Scientists are predicting the area could measure between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Jersey. However, additional flooding of the Mississippi River since May may result in a larger dead zone. The largest one on record occurred in 2002, measuring 8,484 square miles.
Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.
The dead zone size was predicted after researchers observed large amounts of nitrogen feeding into the Gulf from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. The rivers experienced heavy water flows in April and May that were 11 percent above average.
"The high water volume flows coupled with nearly triple the nitrogen concentrations in these rivers over the past 50 years from human activities has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone," said Gene Turner, Ph.D., a lead forecast modeler from Louisiana State University.
This forecast helps coastal managers, policy makers, and the public better understand and combat the sources of the dead zones. For example, the models that generate this forecast have been used to determine nutrient reduction targets required to reduce the size of the dead zone.
This hypoxic, or low-to-no oxygen area, is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries by destroying critical habitat."
End of excerpt _________ It isn't enough that we are killing the land and air with toxic waste and poisoning our food with an overuse of pesticides and herbicides... we are now literally sucking the life out of our water. Hypoxia is the phenomenon we now see in the Gulf Of Mexico, which is a lack of oxugen in the water whicha lso effects marinlife and which also effects many bodies of water worldwide.
And we, humans, are doing it. In our zeal to make lots of money that we think we can actually enjoy in a poisoned world where our health and the sustainability of our planet is threatened, we have lost touch with our true purpose as stewards of this planet. Pesticides, herbicides, CAFOS, climate change, and the relentless lobbying of the brokers of these poisons to politicians are all part of the vicious circle we now are part of.
Somewhat good news considering the drought Iraq is currently in. Although, considering they are also growing Monsanto seeds, I don't know how truly prosperous Iraqi farmers will be now.
"Rising temperature and deforestation have intensified drought and desertification in Tibet, China's state media said.
Drought conditions have hit 33 counties in five of the six prefectures in Tibet, affecting 15.3 percent of the Tibetan plateau, Xinhua said, quoting the regional drought relief and flood control headquarters.
According to the report, the drought has also killed 13,601 head of cattle. Nine meteorological centers in Tibet have not seen substantial rain for 226 consecutive days, Zhao Yiping, head of the Tibet Regional Meteorological Bureau said.
The drought has also been worsened by higher than normal temperatures. Tibet has experienced temperatures 0.4 to 2.3 celsius degrees higher than normal years, Zhao said.
The report by Xinhua news agency follows a warning by China's top weather official last month that Tibet faced a growing threat of drought and floods as global warming melts its glaciers.
The head of the China Meteorological Bureau, Zheng Guogang, last month was quoted by Xinhua as warning that global warming was accelerating glacial shrinkage, causing Tibet's lakes to swell.
"If the warming continues, millions of people in western China will face floods in the short term and drought in the long run."
Moreover, desertification is spreading by 39,600 hectares (98,000 acres) annually in Tibet, an official at the regional forestry bureau was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency." end of excerpt. ___________ Reported by Chinese media. Yes China, but keep building those dams.
WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? Really. Glaciers are melting faster than predicted. Lakes are swelling which have already caused flooding in villages in the Himalayas. And once the glaciers are gone with temperatures rising and the water trickling to almost nothing, what good will those dams have done? Let the water flow naturally and use it's natural power to harness electricity. Use the power of the sun. Let the water flow to sustain the people and allow them to grow food. These dam and damn schemes are only for profit and control. In a time when drought is now a threat not only to agriculture and the climate but to life itself, it is irresponsible and immoral of the Chinese government to continue plans for all of these dams.
Current Green is asking questions of Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco who is running for Governor. Water Is Life submitted the question above regarding the current California drought and desalination. Current Green will be carrying the interview on their station on June 11 at 12 noon. You can get all the information about it at the link.
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Some 160 villages in northern Syria were deserted by their residents in 2007 and 2008 because of climate change, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The report drawn up by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) warns of potential armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East.
"The 2007/8 drought caused significant hardship in rural areas of Syria. In the northeast of the country, a reported 160 villages have been entirely abandoned and the inhabitants have had to move to urban areas," it said.
In Syria and also in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, "climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large-scale population movements," the report said.
"This could hold serious implications for peace in the region," the Canada-based institute said.
The study, financed by Denmark, predicts a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East, "already considered the world's most water-scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply."
Oli Brown, who co-wrote the report with Alec Crawford, said: "Climate change itself poses real security concerns to the region. It could lead to increased militarisation of strategic natural resources, complicating peace agreements."
"Israel is already using climate change as an excuse to increase their control over the water resources in the region," he said.
In the study's conclusions, Brown and Crawford said: "As a region, the Levant produces a tiny fraction of global emissions -- less than one percent of the world total.
The exception among Levant countries is Israel, "whose emissions -- 11.8 metric tonnes per capita -- exceed the European average of 10.05 tonnes," they said.
"This may exacerbate the existing deep mistrust of the West, including Israel, which would be seen as causing a problem that it is unable or unwilling to resolve," they said.
The study also revealed the challenge posed by population growth.
"The combined population of the Levant will grow to 71 million by 2050 from 42 million in 2008" with major implications for water demand, food supply, housing and jobs, it said.
snip
"Rainfall shrank by 10 millimetres (a year) between 1956 and 2006 while temperatures rose by (an average) 0.5 degrees Celsius, though below the worldwide average of 0.6 degrees," Syrian meteorologist Khales Mawed said.
The IISD predicts even modest global warming would lead to a 30-percent drop in water in the Euphrates, which runs through Turkey, Syria and Iraq, while the Dead Sea would shrink in volume by 80 percent by the end of the century. ______________ The King of Jordan stated that the only thing he would go to war for was water. If a water policy is not agreed to with Israel also having to treat Gaza and other areas more equitably regarding water distribution, that war may come sooner than we think. And actually, that is what the current ongoing war is partly about as it is. It is my contention that the Israeli government wishes to place their settlements right over the two largest acquifers in this area in order to control the water supply. And with climate change and massive pollution taking its toll on the water in this region, I can see nothing but war associated with such a move.
Since its origins, the IPCC has been open and explicit about seeking to generate a ‘scientific consensus’ around climate change and especially about the role of humans in climate change
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