Category: Archive

US threats to Chavez

admin /5 November, 2006

On December 3, 2006 voters in Venezuela will again get to choose who’ll lead them as President for the next six years.  There’s no doubt who that will be as the people’s choice is the same man they first elected their leader in December, 1998 with 56% of the vote and reelected him in July, 2000 after the adoption of the Bolivarian Republic’s new Constitution with a 60% total.  They then saw him survive three failed US-directed and funded attempts to unseat him beginning with the aborted two-day coup in April, 2002, followed by the 2002-03 crippling oil strike, and then the failed August, 2004 recall referendum.  Chavistas must believe the man they revere has at least more six lives and will use one of them in a few weeks to continue in the job the Venezuelan people won’t entrust to anyone else as long as he wants the job. 

 

They may also hope he has as much good fortune and as many lives as his friend and ally Fidel Castro who in nearly 48 years as Cuba’s leader survived over 5,700 US-directed terror attacks against his country and about 600 US attempts to kill him – an astonishing survival record against a powerful and determined foe still trying to remove him to reinstate oligarchic rule over the island state.  The Bush administration has the same fate in mind for Hugo Chavez Frias and won’t sit by quietly allowing Bolivarianism to flourish and spread which it’s  doing as more people in the region and beyond are fed up with the old order and want the same benefits Venezuelans have.  It’s playing out now in Bolivia, on the streets of Mexico and in the run-up to the December 3 Venezuelan presidential election where the people show up in massive numbers most every time Chavez makes a public campaign appearance.

 

Ears of plenty

admin /4 November, 2006

From The Economist print edition

IN 10,000 years, the earth’s population has doubled ten times, from less than 10m to more than six billion now and ten billion soon. Most of the calories that made that increase possible have come from three plants: maize, rice and wheat. The oldest, most widespread and until recently biggest of the three crops is wheat (see chart). To a first approximation wheat is the staple food of mankind, and its history is that of humanity.

Yet today, wheat is losing its crown. The tonnage (though not the acreage) of maize harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of wheat for the first time in 1998; rice followed suit in 1999. Genetic modification, which has transformed maize, rice and soyabeans, has largely passed wheat by—to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming an “orphan crop”. The Atkins diet and a fashion for gluten allergies have made wheat seem less wholesome. And with population growth rates falling sharply while yields continue to rise, even the acreage devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time since the stone age.

It is time to pay tribute to this strange little grass that has done so much for the human race. Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid—it has six copies of each gene, where most creatures have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people. It is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

Pasture cropping – high yields low impact

admin /4 November, 2006

The integration of perennial grasses with cereal crops is a simple and uncontroversial farming practice with significant positive environmental advantages. Rather than removing plant life and exposing the soil to the sun, thereby increasing evaporation and reducing its living matter, the planting of cereal crops straight into the perennial grass preserves the existing ecosystem and Continue Reading →

Uniting Church & Randwick Council go green

admin /3 November, 2006

Resolute and much needed action on climate change is the key imperative for the Howard government, said Peter Garrett, Member for Kingsford Smith.

Stern report shows consequences of not taking climate change seriously: The release of the Stern report shows very clearly that the economic consequences of us not seriously and realistically addressing climate change mean that we face the prospect of a recession on the scale of that of the thirties.

On the minds of the community: "This is on the minds of the communities of Kingsford Smith," he said.

Uniting Church to switch to 100pc renewable energy: In particular he noted the lead that has been taken by the Maroubra Junction Uniting Church, with their project called Project Green Church. This is the Maroubra Uniting Church’s initiative towards environmental sustainability. The church will become one of the first churches in New South Wales to switch to 100 per cent renewable energy.

To be rolled out State-wide: Earlier this month the Uniting Church’s state wide meeting voted to endorse the Project Green Church plan for renewable energy right across New South Wales. Congregations joining Project Green Church will sign up to the green power program.

Will cut GHG by 4500 tonnes: If every Uniting Church in the New South Wales synod switched to green power, greenhouse gases would be cut by 4,500 tonnes, the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars off the road for a year.

Council setting up emissions trading scheme between local councils: Randwick City Council has again taken an important initiative in relation to addressing climate change. Randwick City Council has announced a proposal to establish a voluntary and simple form of emissions trading between local councils in New South Wales. Local councils are signatories to the Cities for Climate Protection program and Randwick City Council aims to build on the work it is already doing in reducing emissions further. It is doing what other levels of government talk about — that is, it is initiating a carbon emissions trading scheme.

Aim is to see if it will really work: The council will invite local councils to register their interest in an emissions trading scheme. They will work with environmental consultants, academic organisations and the community. The scheme will be voluntary and it will build on the efforts already underway, but particularly the aim is to see whether a small-scale, workable and voluntary trading scheme based on greenhouse gas emissions from council can actually be instituted.

Reference: Commonwealth Of Australia, House Of Representatives, Votes And Proceedings, Hansard, Monday, 30 October 2006

Erisk Net, 30/10/2006, p. 83

`Who killed the electric car?’ showing this month

admin /3 November, 2006

While electric cars contribute greenhouse gases whenever the electricity is generated from fossil fuels, they still only produce about a third of the emissions of a petrol engine, says Mark Whittaker in The Australian (27 October 2006 p36-37). And if the battery is charged at a time when the power station’s turbines are spinning but Continue Reading →

Howard supporters want more climate change action

admin /3 November, 2006

John Howard’s core electoral supporters have become climate-change warriors – and are waiting for the Prime Minister to catch up, according to Malcolm Farr and Nicolette Burke in The Daily Telegraph (2/11/2006, p.5). Majority say polluters must pay: A Newspoll survey revealed that 77 per cent of Coalition backers want dirty industries to pay for Continue Reading →