Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Labor resources spokesman Martin Ferguson has warned his colleagues to stop "scaremongering" over radioactive waste as he backed a low-level nuclear waste centre in Australia, reported The Australian (8/9/2006, p.5).
A scoping paper on the potential for a global series of perhaps 10 CO2 dump experiments at a cost of up to $US5 billion – carried out for the US Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California – suggests that two large pending Australian projects, Gorgon and Latrobe, might be worthy of inclusion.
Epicontinental shelf storage testbed? "Although Australia’s emissions are too small to consider key plays, their geology is representative of many continental shelf settings," the study says. Gorgon and Latrobe might therefore provide an opportunity to "test epicontinental shelf storage for much of the world".
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=678
Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease
By Jeffrey M. Smith
Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealisticthe perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image.
It was that image, in fact, that convinced Kirk to take the job in 1996. “When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro.” Kirk was thoroughly impressed with Shapiro’s promise of a golden future through genetically modified (GM) crops. “He described how we would reduce the in-process waste from manufacturing, turn our fields into factories and produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It was fascinating to me.” Kirk thought, “Here we go. I can do something to help the world and make it a better place.”
He left his job and accepted a position at Monsanto, rising quickly to become the facilitator for GM cotton sales in California and Arizona. He would often repeat Shapiro’s vision to customers, researchers, even fellow employees. After about three months, he visited Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters for the first time for new employee training. There too, he took the opportunity to let his colleagues know how enthusiastic he was about Monsanto’s technology that was going to reduce waste, decrease poverty and help the world. Soon after the meeting, however, his world was shaken.
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/101330
Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
RAMADI, Sep 5 (IPS) – The U.S. military has lost control over the volatile al-Anbar province, Iraqi police and residents say.
The area to the west of Baghdad includes Fallujah, Ramadi and other towns that have seen the worst of military occupation, and the strongest resistance.
Despite massive military operations which destroyed most of Fallujah and much of cities like Haditha and al-Qa’im in Ramadi, real control of the city now seems to be in the hands of local resistance.
In losing control of this province, the U.S. would have lost control over much of Iraq.
Don’t be fooled by this reform: the IMF is still the rich world’s viceroy
What will be passed off as a democratisation is in fact a way of ensuring the poor global majority continue to have no say
George Monbiot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1864832,00.html
The glacier has begun to creak. In the world’s most powerful dictatorship we detect the merest hint of a thaw. I am not talking about China or Uzbekistan, Burma or North Korea. This state runs no torture chambers or labour camps. No one is executed, though plenty starve to death as a result of its policies. The unhurried perestroika is taking place in Washington, in the offices of the International Monetary Fund.
Like most concessions made by dictatorial regimes, the reforms seem designed not to catalyse further change, but to prevent it. By slightly increasing the shares (and therefore the voting powers) of China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey, the regime hopes to buy off the most powerful rebel warlords, while keeping the mob at bay. It has even thrown a few coppers from the balcony, for the great unwashed to scuffle over. But no one – except the leaders of the rich nations and the leader writers of just about every newspaper in the rich world – could regard this as an adequate response to its problems.
Ice Bubbles Reveal Biggest Rise in CO2 for 800,000 Years
The rapid rise in greenhouse gases over the past century is unprecedented in at least 800,000 years, according to a study of the oldest Antarctic ice core which highlights the reality of climate change.
Air bubbles trapped in ice for hundreds of thousands of years have revealed that humans are changing the composition of the atmosphere in a manner that has no known natural parallel.
Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge have found there have been eight cycles of atmospheric change in the past 800,000 years when carbon dioxide and methane have risen to peak levels.
Each time, the world also experienced the relatively high temperatures associated with warm, inter-glacial periods, which were almost certainly linked with levels of carbon dioxide and possibly methane in the atmosphere.