UNLESS WE PROTECT HIM, PRES. OBAMA IS AS GOOD AS CRUCIFIED:
Gold Futures Advance to Record in New York on Inflation, Dollar ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=a_0KV3_1FIp4
"Sweeping positive changes have only come to America when there's been a progressive President,
pushed to do the right thing by large numbers of rowdy citizens. (Think FDR and the New Deal;
think LBJ and the Civil Rights movement.) Today, we've got the progressive President. Now all we
need is to vote with our feet, and enable him to do what we elected him for."
Yes Men
>>>>>>>>>>> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE <<<<<<<<<<<<<
[I wish I'd thought of it.]
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From Idaho to Utah to Colorado, with a side trip to Wyoming and Montana.... Posted: 01 Oct 2009 11:36 AM PDT So, now, it's two weeks later already, and again we're going to have to encapsule the multitude of experiences. Traveling takes so much TIME! Idaho was beautiful, and so were the activists in Boise, where we had two great events. Liz Woodruff of Snake River Alliance did an incredible job of planning, promoting and hosting the "Dinner For Disarmament" at the Shangri-La Tea Room (a wonderful event!). She also kindly included us in the "Peace Corner" at Boise's annual Hyde Park Street Fair at Camel's Back Park, combining forces of SRA, Vets for Peace, the Idaho Peace Coalition & Prop1 to hold down the peace vibe in a blue corner of red Idaho. And Liz's family provided us elegant hospitality (Thanks, Dr. & Mrs. Briggs!). After Boise, we went to West Yellowstone and spent the night with the Buffalo Field Campaign folks before heading through Yellowstone National Park. The Buffalo Field Campaign was established to protect the buffalo from cattle ranchers who want them killed when they leave the Park. People come from all over the country in the dead of winter to go into the park and not only keep watch, but respectfully (with head lowered and body in a non-threatening pose) turn buffalo around if they're headed in the wrong direction. The young people at the lodge were incredibly healthy! They spent the summer cutting, hauling, and splitting wood to heat the lodge all winter. During our day-long drive through Yellowstone, we saw bubbling mud pits, spouting geysers, elk, antelope, and numerous buffalo. We had a profound experience with one old bull who chose to walk across the road right in front of the van. On the way out of Yellowstone on the last day of summer, it snowed! We spent the night in Bozeman, Montana, with Jim MacDonald and Genevieve Calmes, and their boy River, hiked up to a waterfall, then took off for Pocatello, Idaho, where (former DC teacher and Statehood activist) Tom Briggs arranged a room at the university and hosted us in his home. Early the next morning we went to the Idaho National Labs, where (thanks to Beatrice Brailsford of Snake River Alliance) we were given a VIP tour of the cleanup currently underway. We'll post separately about that experience. We then rejoined allies Snake River Alliance and HEAL Utah in Salt Lake City for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "workshop" (hearings) about re-classifying depleted uranium (DU) as a waste stream, affecting whether DU should be brought in massive quantities into Utah. (Vanessa Pierce and Chris Carpenter of HEAL Utah, and Beatrice of the SRA, were at the table for the good guys!) Then, with the public allowed only 15 minutes of testimony at the very end of two full days of hearings, Jay managed a quote in the Salt Lake Tribune with his testimony: Before we left, we got a glimpse of HEAL's downtown offices as they were busy preparing a follow-up press conference on the Utah state capitol steps, and caught an interview with their newest staff member, brought on specifically to focus the public (and Utah's two red senators) on ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) when it comes up in the spring. Go, HEAL! From Salt Lake City we drove to Colorado, by way of Canyonlands and Arches national parks, incredibly beautiful places to wake up in the morning. We drove through Moab, Utah, and visited the site where uranium mine tailings are finally being cleaned up from where they've been resting beside and polluting the Colorado River for the past 50 years, 2 miles from downtown. It was disturbing to see that the only thing keeping the dust from flying as they dig was a sprinkler. At Idaho National Labs, the contractor has built a structure around where they're working so none of the dust escapes. In Colorado Jay gave a great talk at the University in Boulder (thanks to Duke Austin of Students for Peace & Justice). Meanwhile Ellen videotaped a presentation by Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center which was happening simultaneously in another building across campus. Leroy Moore, a co-founder of RMP&J, passed around a petition asking that Rocky Flats not be opened to the public as a nature preserve, as currently planned. We also visited RMP&J offices and heard about their work. They have a wonderful photograph of some of the 16,000 people who linked hands and surrounded Rocky Flats in 1983, one of the many citizen actions which ultimately led to the temporary shutdown of that plutonium pit four years later, and final shutdown in 1992. We visited Rocky Flats, and were surprised to discover that there's virtually no security, and perhaps a dozen construction firms have offices right beside or on Rocky Flats. So now, as the leaves are turning yellow and red and the nights are turning cold, we're on our way home, and ready to be back. Today we leave for Oklahoma, where we'll be speaking in Oklahoma City (on the 4th) and Norman (Oct 3rd), where we came through early on our tour back in June. Then we'll be going to Kansas City, where we have a series of events the 5th - 7th, Columbia (the 8th), and St. Louis, Missouri. In St. Louis we'll be at St. Louis Public Library, Carpenter branch, 3309 S. Grand Ave., on October 10th at 3 pm. From there we drive to The Farm in Tennessee on the 11th, then to Aiken, South Carolina, then back home to DC. Ellen will be going on to North Carolina and Florida, Jay will stay in DC. Meanwhile we're planning our next tours. Ellen will be in Vermont for town hall meetings in February, and hopes to connect with folks who have already expressed interest in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. Jay may go to support the Los Alamos Blockade over spring break (proposed at Think Outside the Bomb by Lisa Fithian), and will join Ellen in New York the first week in May for the NPT review at the UN. Then we'll head north and west and try to get to all the other states we weren't able to visit on this tour. Please let us know if you want us to visit your town & group! Ellen, Jay, Troy and Sophia the Peace Dog |
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Posted: 25 Sep 2009 10:32 AM PDT Schwarzenegger: ready to work for Obama, go green California
Clean-energy jobs touch off bidding wars between states
Vietnam Finds Itself Vulnerable if Sea Rises
Recession slows U.S. wind power growth rate
Stimulus Is Greenest in South Korea and China
Droughts, melts signal climate change quickening: U.N.
Houston a Hub for Renewable Energy?
The possibility of carbon-trading fraud elbows into Senate debate
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SurvivaBalls Take Manhattan — and Pittsburgh Posted: 25 Sep 2009 05:01 AM PDT A repost from Wonk Room. This Tuesday, as President Barack Obama and other world leaders addressed the United Nations on the need to tackle global warming, some entrepreneurs hoped to demonstrate their own solution. Notably, this solution allows humanity — at least those who are sufficiently wealthy — to completely ignore climate change. The Yes Men displayed SurvivaBalls, self-contained survival suits impervious to the ravages of global warming, on the banks of the East River:
Although the demonstrators of "Halliburton's solution to global warming" hoped to reach the United Nations headquarters, they were detained by New York City police. However, CNN's Jeannie Moos was able to file a report on the pranksters' novel approach to a planet under siege [Video above]. Just as Yes Men activists were detained on Monday "when they handed their own version of the New York Post (headline: 'We're screwed!') to the paper's conservative owner, Rupert Murdoch, the group's founder was arrested during the roll-out of the SurvivaBall." After all charges were dropped, Yes Men founder Andy Bichlbaum has been released. Update: Huffington Post's Jason Linkins interviews Andy Bichlbaum about the New York Post action, the new Yes Men Fix the World movie, and how his group is beating the media at their own game. Update2: I also saw photos of SurvivaBalls at the big G20 party last night, here in Pittsburgh. No partying for me, yet! |
Melting ice caps expose over 100 secret Arctic lairs Posted: 25 Sep 2009 05:00 AM PDT ZACKENBERG RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND—Claiming it to be one of the most dramatic and visible signs of climate change to date, researchers said Monday that receding polar ice caps have revealed nearly 200 clandestine lairs once buried deep beneath hundreds of feet of Arctic ice. "We always assumed there would be some secret lairs here and there, but the sheer number now being exposed is indeed troubling," said noted climatologist Anders Lorenzen, who claimed that the Arctic ice caps have shrunk at the alarming rate of 41,000 square miles per year. "In August alone we discovered 44 mad scientist laboratories, three highly classified military compounds, and seven reanimated and very confused cavemen.. That's more than twice the number we had found in the previous three decades combined." "This is no longer conjecture," Lorenzen added. "This is a full-blown crisis." According to oceanographers, the Arctic Circle has been devastated by the effects of global warming in recent years, threatening hundreds of men and women who use the frozen tundra as a place to conduct bizarre experiments in human-animal grafting, carry out massive government cover-ups, or simply as a hidden headquarters from which to battle the forces of evil and fight crime. "Last week a giant ice sheet broke off and split my prized underground complex nearly in half," said Dr. Raygun, a self-described psychotic mastermind best known for his diabolical thought-control experiments. "Now millions of dollars in state-of-the-art doomsday devices are gone—all because of the environmental carnage wrought by the human race." "You spend your whole career concocting a brilliant scheme to wipe out all of mankind, and what happens?" Dr. Raygun continued. "They bring about a major global catastrophe completely on their own, those fools!"
Scientists predict the problem will only get worse as rising temperatures release methane trapped in Arctic permafrost, perpetuating the warming cycle and threatening the habitats of those who depend on the ice caps for safety from the prying, meddling public. Earlier this week a flying saucer surfaced and is reportedly still pulsating with increasingly intense, unearthly colors.. And late last month, a mystical order of Nazi occultists emerged from an underground bunker where they had spent decades communing with the Hyperborean gods and attempting to breed a new Aryan super-species destined to destroy Homo sapiens and rule the earth for untold millennia. The 12 elderly Germans were detained by local law enforcement in Wainwright, AK. According to a Natural Resources Defense Council survey, 78 percent of sinister one-eyed industrialists based in the Arctic have been forced to relocate their powerful underworld shadow governments, with many now secretly orchestrating world affairs from dormant volcanoes on remote islands. Many villains have also been forced to change their entire way of life. Zawallah, the super-intelligent ape whose gold-teleporter crippled the global economy during the 1980s, recently ceased operation of his orbital heat cannon. Others, meanwhile, are genuinely concerned about the effect that increased temperatures may have on the future of humanity. "Gwaahhhhrrr-huaawwwrr-gwaahhhrrrr," cried test subject PR-433809-21, the ghastly result of a human cloning experiment gone horribly awry. "Pwwwuuuagharrgh!" But not all inhabitants of the polar ice caps are upset by global warming. Last month saw the thawing out of a team of British explorers frozen in 1848. Expedition members told reporters they were confident that, if more ice melts, they can finally complete their original mission of discovering a Northwest Passage. For the time being, most researchers have shifted their attention away from the ice caps and toward finding a way to contain the giant reptile monster Bizarricus, who was trapped in an ice floe by Japanese scientists in the 1950s and has now returned to teach the world a lesson about the folly of man. |
GE CEO Immelt: Government has to play a 'key role' in clean energy investments Posted: 25 Sep 2009 04:58 AM PDT This is a Wonk Room repost. WR has been reporting from the Clinton Global Initiative conference this week. Earlier this year, the American Society for Civil Engineers roundly panned America's disintegrating infrastructure, giving it an overall D grade and estimating that "it would take a $2.2 trillion investment … over the next five years to bring it into a state of good repair." One of today's discussions at the Clinton Global Initiative focused on how to develop infrastructure in both the U.S. and the rest of the world, and the role that government plays in such development. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt — who has been critical of the business community for investing too much money in preserving America's status quo — noted that successful infrastructure improvements, particularly in creating the capacity for clean energy, means coordinating government standards with private investment:
Listen here: In Immelt's world, the government would set the standards, and then let the private sector loose to achieve them, or, as in China, lay out five-year plans for infrastructure development. This is a distinctly different take from most of the rest of the business community, which recoils from standards, aided by conservatives who claim that if we just "let the free market work," everything will take care of itself. Of course, Immelt must see a way for GE to come out ahead under such a policy, but that doesn't mean that his viewpoint doesn't make sense. Smart standards, regulation, and a cohesive policy from the government would make energy investment — and infrastructure development as a whole — much less scattershot and much more effective. |
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 12:21 PM PDT
We have seen the future, and it is Australia — and it isn't pretty (see "Absolute must read: Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040, if we don't slash emissions soon"). NASA's Earth Observatory reported yesterday:
Australia is the the driest inhabited continent on earth, with a fragile ecosystem, which makes it the canary in the coal mine for how global warming will create Dust Bowls in the SW and around the globe (see "Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in": Are the Southwest and California next?). It is, sadly, probably too late to save much of Australia. But it is not too late to save the U.S. Southwest and other key regions in or near the subtropics. We can still prevent the worst. Two years ago, Science (subs. req'd) published research that "predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest" on our current emissions path — levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California. The Bush Administration itself reaffirmed this conclusion in December (see US Geological Survey stunner: SW faces "permanent drying" by 2050.) And a major new study led by NOAA found that if we don't act to reverse emissions soon, these global Dust Bowls will be irreversible for a long, long time (see NOAA stunner: Climate change "largely irreversible for 1000 years," with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe). The anti-scientific website WattsUpWithThat happily assures us that we should simply ignore all of the well-known climate science predictions that this part of Australia would become hotter and drier — even though Australia's 1000-year drought is strong evidence the predictions were right. Watts finds a 'reader' who claims the epic Dust Storm has "nothing to do with the dreaded Climate Change." Seriously! Watts also points out a bright side: "dust headed to sea has an unappreciated benefit – it will fertilize the ocean with its mineral rich dust." Yes, the record drought wipes out land-based crops, and we're in the process of poisoning the oceans for millennia, but hey, a massive Dust Bowl may create "some interesting blooms of sea life in the weeks to come." Ah, yes, the "unappreciated benefit" of a disastrous dust storm. You can't make this stuff up! But what do you expect from a guy who offered the 'inanity defense' for his effort to censor Peter Sinclair's video, saying he was "doing him a favor." Back in the real world, the ABC story Watts cites notes:
Record heat with record droughts — who ever would have predicted that (see "Must-have PPT: The 'global-change-type drought' and the future of extreme weather")? More from NASA:
Here's the amazing satellite picture of the Wall of Dust [click to enlarge]:
The rest of this post is an exclusive commentary on the great dust storm by Paul Gilding, former executive director of Greenpeace International, who blogs on The Great Disruption here. You may remember Gilding from Tom Friedman's Ponzi scheme column (see here).
More amazing photos here. Related Posts: |
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 10:48 AM PDT I'm going to be on a panel at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh Friday afternoon. Details below:
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Posted: 24 Sep 2009 10:42 AM PDT India Weighing Emissions Curbs
Buildings offer emission-cutting projects that pay for themselves
State regulators vote for a national plan to cover natural disasters
Bringing Solar Power to Africa's Poor
Duke Energy signs another China cleantech deal
Shippers back cap and trade scheme to cut CO2
Spain's Answer to Unemployment: Go Greener
SCENARIOS: Possible outcomes of Copenhagen climate talks
US officials cite climate change threats in South
Carper, Bingaman counter farm-state bid on ethanol emissions
Government backs a private emissions-trading experiment
Warming climate brings new El Niño 'flavor,' study finds
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