The John James Newsletter 73
8 August 2015 – back in Australia
We will build them cities and they will have the freedom to leave work and go home but return to work for us every morning for the rest of their lives, as they will own nothing.
John Rockefeller, 1906
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been two hundred years, and have progressed like this:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complaceny to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.
Sir Alex Fraser Tyler: (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian.
Where are we in this sequence??
Limits to Growth and the Club of Rome
This was my introduction to understanding the inexorable of our times, after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
The chart may be difficult to follow, but I recommend a careful study. It is central to the migration crisis.
The graph shows the 1972 estimates of our future, and in solid lines the only marginal corrections in these figures since then. The study hinged on reducing resources creating economic collapse triggering population decline. So far, 2030 is on track.
The model analysed five variables: world population, industrialisation pollution, food production and resource consumption. After thirty years of debate, the trends are largely confirmed.
and
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/looking-back-on-the-limits-of-growth-125269840/?no-ist
for a larger copy
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html#ixzz1riJDM6WT
Networks take revenge on solar households
It seems that the less people consume, the more they are charged. The more they consume, the less they are charged. Welcome to the new reality of network charges.
http://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/networks-take-revenge-on-solar-households-and-low-energy-users/
Europe’s offshore wind generation hits record yearly high with six months still to go
Germany drives bumper year for European offshore wind, installing three times more capacity than current leader, the UK
Sex trafficking: Lifelong struggle of exploited children
Poverty, deprivation and exploitation draw thousands of children into a dark underworld that offers few ways out.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33710224
Iran city hits suffocating heat index of 165 degrees
Bandar Mahshahr sits adjacent to the Persian Gulf in southwest Iran where water temperatures are in the 90s. Such high temperatures lead to some of the most oppressive humidity levels in the world when winds blow off the sweltry water.
http://robertscribbler.com/2015/07/31/killing-heat-it-felt-like-165-degrees-in-iran-today/
Ocean Heat Dome Steams Coastal China to Dangerous 35C Wet Bulb Temperatures
Unprecedented political buying power of wealthy donors
The 67 biggest US donors, each of whom gave $1 million or more, donated more than three times as much as the 508,000 smaller donors combined,
Jimmy Carter
The US is now an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery getting anyone elected. This is a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
The Migration Crisis – WAR AND SECTARIAN INTOLERANCE and too many people.
A typical selection of reactions around the world to the crisis of our times. With diminishing food and water, over-clogged cities and ever-rising sea levels and 60 million is only the beginning.
We need a national discussion of policy over the coming decades.
The making of the migration crisis
http://newsjamaica.net/component/k2/item/1966-the-making-of-the-migration-crisis
UN reveals that 60 million people are displaced around the world.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51185#.VcEmJHumTjA
Here is the UN report itself
http://www.unhcr.org/556725e69.html
How the Nordic far-right has stolen the left’s ground
These parties are making huge gains as champions of those alienated by the cosmopolitan left
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/scandinavia-far-right-stolen-left-ground-welfare
Migrants arriving outside Rome needed riot police to protect them from furious residents.
http://news.yahoo.com/protests-show-migrant-crisis-reached-italian-doorsteps-143432379.html
Finnish MP calls for fight against “nightmare of multiculturalism”
Refugees trying to cross from France to England are being aggressively stopped.
Arrivals in Greece have surpassed 107,000 through July.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/world/europe/lesbos-greece-migrant-refugee-crisis.html
US Vows More Mass Detention
https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=map+dsplaced+people&ei=UTF-8
Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles
Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years or face draconian austerity. Social spending is the glue that binds a medieval Wahhabi regime midst unrest among the Shia minority, attacks from ISIS, and the invasion of Yemen. Diplomatic spending is what underpins the Saudi sphere of influence in a Middle East version of Europe’s Thirty Year War.
Che Guevara Portrait to Appear Next to Pope Francis during Mass
How Germany Prevailed in the Greek Bailout
Germany persuaded European leaders to rally more firmly around what might be called the Berlin consensus by a combination of patient diplomacy and clever brinkmanship and by exploiting alarm over the antics of Greece’s leaders
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/world/europe/how-germany-prevailed-in-the-greek-bailout.html
Israeli leaders lit the match that burned baby Ali Dawabsha
It is difficult to find an Israeli cabinet minister who has not encouraged or perpetrated racist violence against Palestinians,
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-leaders-lit-match-burned-baby-ali-dawabsha
Cellphone radiation can cause cancer
To minimize your risk, use your phone less and go hands-free to keep the frequency away from your head,
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/cellphone-radiation-cancer-study-article-1.2308509
Stormchaser’s eye-popping images of tornadoes taken as he pursued them for thousands of miles
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3136363/
Palm Oil Company Is Accused of Exploiting Liberia’s Ebola Crisis
Villagers, faced with poor infrastructure and limited access to even domestic markets, said that growing food and vegetables had reaped few benefits for the community aside from feeding it.
“Safe Zone” in Syria will Inflame the War Zone
marks a breakthrough for Turkey in its confrontation with the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria. If the no-fly zone does come into being it will be a body blow for Assad and his supporters
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42531.htm
IS is no weaker than a year ago
After billions of dollars spent and more than 10,000 fighters killed,The IS remains a well-funded extremist army able to replenish its ranks with foreign jihadis as quickly as the US can eliminate them. Meanwhile, the group has expanded to other countries, including Libya, the Sinai Peninsula and Afghanistan.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/us-intelligence-isis-is-no-weaker-than-a-year-ago-2015-7?r=US&IR=T
Companies would be given new authority to monitor their users
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-greer/cisa-the-dirty-deal-betwe_1_b_7883722.html
Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out
http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/
Weapons that can kill without human operators are ‘the third revolution in warfare,’
More than 1,000 science and technology experts published an open letter calling for a ban on autonomous weapons—machines capable of killing without human operators.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/27/hawking-musk-woz-we-must-ban-kalashnikovs-tomorrow
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