The John James Newsletter 157

21 January 2017

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron

Dwight Eisenhower

The Obama Administration has prosecuted more whistle-blowers than any presidency in American history, and has viciously victimized those who sought to expose this program

George Gallanis

In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

They Released 14 Wolves In A Park. But No One Was Prepared for what Happens Next

It was a miracle. It proves we must take care of our amazing planet. Though small in number, the wolves transformed not only the ecosystem of the Yellowstone National Park, but its physical geography, just by being themselves.

http://www.ifreakingloveanimals.com/released-14-wolves-park-no-one-prepared-happens-next-miracle-proves-must-take-care-amazing-planet/ 

Methane will drive sea level rise for centuries

Even if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere tomorrow, the expansion effect would continue in the oceans for centuries, making it irreversible in our lifetimes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/09/methane-may-not-last-long-in-the-atmosphere-but-it-drives-rising-seas-for-hundreds-of-years/ 

More Than 600 Companies Urge Trump Not To Renege On Climate

“We, the undersigned members in the business community of the US, re-affirm our deep commitment to addressing climate change through the implementation of the Paris Agreement. We want the US economy to be energy efficient and powered by low-carbon energy. Cost-effective and innovative solutions can help us achieve these objectives.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/companies-climate-change-trump-letter_us_5873ebe5e4b099cdb0fede62 

Top climate experts give their advice to Donald Trump 

Reversing action on climate change and championing fossil fuels will only “make China great again”.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/20/top-climate-experts-give-their-advice-to-donald-trump 

The Human World Has Never Experienced A Time When Global Sea Ice Was So Reduced

The crucial issue of sea ice has tended to continue despite a jaw-dropping plunge in both the coverage and volume of a substance so crucial to maintaining a stable global climate

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/01/13/the-human-world-has-never-experienced-a-time-when-global-sea-ice-was-so-weak-and-reduced/ 

Obama Expands NSA Spying

Raw data previously investigated by the NSA will be thrown open to 16 other agencies, with entire personal information of millions of people exposed to and combed through by the CIA, FBI, and other agencies. Perhaps most significant, under the new rules, any incriminating information of American citizens will be sent to the Justice Department, setting forth a wave of possible new accusations and investigations. Snowden revealed the existence of the massive surveillance program known as PRISM, which collected the e-mails, phone calls, text and video chats from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and other tech giants of both foreigners and Americans.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/14/obama-expands-nsa-spying/

Obama transfers $500m to Green Climate Fund in attempt to protect Paris deal 

This leaves $2bn owing, with Donald Trump expected to cease any further payments

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/18/barack-obama-transfers-500m-to-green-climate-fund-in-attempt-to-protect-paris-deal 

John Pilger: “Obama served the Power he was meant to serve” 

“Obama has been one of the most violent presidents. He initiated a worldwide terrorist campaign with Hellfire missiles from drones at weddings and funerals…in some of the poorest countries in the world.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46255.htm 

Is this what we want in Australia? It is wanted by our banks….

Modi’s Man-Made Calamity:  How Many Will Die?

India’s demonetisation is a man made calamity for rural India. This is a slow moving tsunami. How many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of people in India are going to die from hunger, starvation, malnutrition and disease as a result of Modi’s demonetisation?

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/15/modis-man-made-calamity-how-many-will-die/ 

Ecuador’s poverty rate was reduced to 35% in December 2015 from 51% in December 2009.

The reduction of both urban and rural poverty has been one of the major objectives of the Correa administration and the Citizens Revolution that was initiated 10 years ago on Jan. 15, 2007. The country is working to eliminate extreme poverty completely, having already successfully done so in the capital region.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nearly-2-Million-Ecuadoreans-Lifted-out-of-Poverty-since-2009-20160206-0002.html 

Why are most people right handed? The answer may be in the mouths of our ancestors

It’s believed that handedness played an important role in human evolution, with a recent study on the earliest evidence of right-handedness in the fossil record shedding light on when and why this trait arose. Interestingly, the clues were found not in our ancient hands, but in our teeth.

https://theconversation.com/why-are-most-people-right-handed-the-answer-may-be-in-the-mouths-of-our-ancestors-69712 

The World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems

This is surprising

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html 

Eight richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world 

Oxfam emphasized the potential connection between the growing gap between the richest and the poorest, and the increasing anger at establishment politicians. “It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 survive on less than $2 a day,”

https://www.rt.com/news/373786-wealth-gap-oxfam-report/ 

The Great American Bubble Machine

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again. The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful substance on Earth — pure profit for the rich.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 

EVs are Coming — Global Sales Likely to Exceed 1 Million During 2017

During 2015, as EV ranges extended, as charging networks expanded, as countries like China and India began to incentivize electric vehicles in an effort to fight choking air pollution, and as high value vehicles like Tesla’s model X became available, global EV sales jumped to over 500,000. This momentum continued during 2016 despite plummeting gas prices. Map of Tesla’s ever-expanding charging network includes both super-chargers and more conventional charging stations.

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/01/12/the-electric-vehicles-are-coming-global-sales-likely-to-exceed-1-million-during-2017/ 

The insights of the Large Hadron Collider are being made open to everyone 

Ambitious plan to make all its research in particle physics available to everyone inspired by the way scientists came together to make discoveries at the LHC. This initiative is called the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing, and is now about to enter its fourth year. It’s a worldwide collaboration of more than 3,000 libraries (including six in Australia), key funding agencies and research centres in 44 countries, together with three IGOs.

https://theconversation.com/how-the-insights-of-the-large-hadron-collider-are-being-made-open-to-everyone-70283 

Nepalese Women: Symbols of Historical Achievements and Political Leadership

Nepal is unique among nations today with its three top public offices occupied by women.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nepalese-women-symbols-of-historical-achievements-and-political-leadership/5569227

Could you lose your home if rates rise?

Australian research has found one in five Aussies are walking such a fine line on their mortgage they could lose their home if mortgage rates were to rise by just 0.5 percentage points.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11784564 

Investors are bracing for a massive stock-market selloff

f options traders are correct, stocks are in for a wild ride in February. Demand for one-month call options tied to the CBOE Volatility Index, a popular gauge of stock-market volatility, has spiked in the past week, a sign that some are bracing for a sharp downturn following the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/investors-are-bracing-for-a-massive-stock-market-selloff-2017-01-13 

90% of rural Australians say their lives are already affected by climate change

The majority of people – 59% in capital cities and 53% in regional areas – said solar was their preferred energy source, followed by wind and hydro.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/16/climate-change-90-of-rural-australians-say-their-lives-are-already-affected 

Australian renewables investment bucks global trend to grow 49% in 2016

Figures released this month reveal that total clean energy investment reached $4.29 billion in 2016, up from two weak years, but still below the $5 billion-plus milestone reached between 2010 and 2013.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-renewables-investment-bucks-global-trend-grow-49-2016/ 

Military Spending in the US on wars past, present and future

Every 25 minutes you give the military a dollar. All day, every day and during the night. A family of five donates a dollar every 5 minutes. This is a year’s rent for many, money could have been yours to make a better life for you and your kids.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spending-united-states/ 

The John James Newsletter 156

14 January 2017

America’s entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock, but what else can you call legions of soldiers, spooks and special forces straddling the globe?

Michael Ignatieff

Abrupt climate change could follow collapse of Earth’s oceanic conveyor belt

Under an AMOC collapse scenario, the researchers predict the waters of the North Atlantic would cool and sea ice would expand. Precipitation would increase over the tropical South Atlantic and Brazil while also decreasing over the North Atlantic tropics and Central America. Wei says the Greenland ice sheet may also expand, though the researchers did not explore this in the new model. “It shows climate change could be more abrupt than IPCC predictions,”

http://news.wisc.edu/abrupt-climate-change-could-follow-collapse-of-earths-oceanic-conveyor-belt/ 

2016 Was the Year of Shrinking Ice 

A graph tracking the loss of sea ice at both poles between 1978 and this year — an image which has been referred to as the “doom spiral” — shows how dramatic the loss of sea ice has been during 2016.

http://imgur.com/T20V2tk 

Ignorance

In order for the international monetary system established at Bretton Woods to function, the US is forced to run a permanent trade deficit with the rest of the world. Year after year, the US must purchase more from the rest of the world, than what the US sells to the rest of the world, thus creating a permanent flow of dollars to the rest of the world. This flow makes possible the creation of Monetary Reserves in the Central Banks of the rest of the world.

http://www.plata.com.mx/mplata/articulos/articlesFilt.asp?offset=140&fiidarticulo=303 

Mexican Protests Continue As Consumer Prices Rise

Already the effects of the fuel shock are adding to Mexico’s inflation. Under the impact of a price explosion in basic items, such as tortillas, beans and now fuel, adjusted for inflation, the new minimum wage represents a regression in living standards, in the space of one month.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/12/mexican-protests-continue-as-consumer-prices-rise/ 

Lost British birdsong discovered in New Zealand birds 

A new study reveals that a type of native birdsong, now lost in Britain, can still be heard in New Zealand where the birds were introduced in the 19th century.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/12/lost-british-birdsong-discovered-in-new-zealand-birds 

Ten Aircraft Carriers Aligned in a Row

According to what I have been told, the Russians discovered that copper wiring permits them to disrupt the operating systems with certain radar frequencies built into their air control systems

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46212.htm 

US Foreign Policy and the Campaign to Destabilize the Trump Presidency

Obama has formally accused Moscow of interfering in the US elections on behalf of Donald Trump. These are serious allegations.  Whereas the sanctions are  directed against Russia, the ultimate intent is to undermine the legitimacy of president-elect Donald Trump and his foreign policy stance in relation to Moscow. The strategy is to delegitimize Donald Trump by accusing him of high treason.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-campaign-to-destabilize-the-trump-presidency/5565825 

and

http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2cc48fb30f331d97157a65aa2&id=0829a363fd&e=542bfe3cb7 

End of Empire? Russian Warships in the Philippines

in 1945, the United States had “literally half the world’s wealth, incredible security, controlled the entire Western Hemisphere, both oceans, [and[ the opposite sides of both oceans.” In that context – and in the context of the United States waging war in multiple countries across the globe with the most advanced military technology in the world – it is hard to understand how this has happened……. The United States has only one move left: surround Russia’s borders with NATO troops and missiles, which they are doing quite rapidly. Sooner or later, however, the United States will have to admit its very real decline in world standing and will have no choice but to learn to coordinate global affairs with the likes of Russia and China.

http://theantimedia.org/us-empire-russian-warships-philippines/ 

and

https://www.rt.com/news/372846-duterte-visits-russian-warship/ 

China cementing global dominance of renewable energy and technology

It now owns five of the world’s six largest solar-module manufacturing firms and the largest wind-turbine manufacturer and this dominance is rapidly spreading overseas, with the country accelerating its foreign investment in renewable energy and supporting technologies.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/06/china-cementing-global-dominance-of-renewable-energy-and-technology 

Rafsanjani’s Legacy

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the man known as the “order’s pillar” (sotun-e nezam), died from a sudden heart attack on Sunday. He leaves behind a legacy as complicated and multifaceted as the order (and associated institutions) that he more than anyone else was responsible in erecting. Rafsanjani shaped most of the new institutions established by the Islamic Republic in 1979, from the office of the Leader to the Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Expediency Council (which he chaired almost from its inception until he died).

http://lobelog.com/rafsanjanis-legacy/#more-37490 

Donald Trump and the Russian Honeypot

In the world of espionage, the “honeypot” is trap in which someone seduces an unsuspecting diplomat or embassy employee. Then the seducer – a “swallow” (woman) or a “raven” (man) – blackmails the dupe. The Obama administration claims that it has proof of Russian fingerprints on this operation and thus its influence on the November presidential elections. These charges are serious and should be investigated. But they are a distraction. The real operation Russia is conducting in the United States is an old-fashioned honeypot trap. But it’s not a conventional version of the scheme in which an attractive woman makes eyes at a lonely intelligence officer. Rather, the “raven” in this case is Vladimir Putin. And the dupe is Donald Trump.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/777881.html 

Is President-Elect Trumputin a “Useful Idiot”?

In recent years, Trump has found it difficult to obtain loans from U.S. and Western banks to finance his real estate deals, and has been forced to look elsewhere for financing, first to junk bonds. Since 2000 or so, one of the ready sources of money has been the Russian oligarchs enriched after the privatization and looting of Russia’s public assets by Putin and his friends.

https://www.laprogressive.com/trump-useful-idiot/ 

Donald Trump Versus the CIA

What all too many Americans simply do not want to confront is the fact when the national-security establishment was called into existence in the 1940s, it fundamentally altered America’s constitutional government structure in such a way that the military, the CIA, and, later the NSA, ended up becoming the most powerful branch of the federal government. We are taught that the federal government is divided into three branches — the legislative (Congress), the judicial, and the executive (the president). All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state. For all practical purposes, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA became a fourth branch of government and ultimately the most powerful branch. Within a few weeks, Donald Trump will encounter that reality.

http://www.fff.org/2017/01/09/donald-trump-versus-cia/ 

Samsung shows off electric car battery that gives a 310 mile range on a 20 minute charge

“This means that only 20 minutes in the highway rest area will be enough for a battery to be charged, eliminating the range anxiety of electric vehicle drivers. Mass production of the cell is slated for 2021.”

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/10/samsung-electric-car-battery-gives-a-310-mile-range-on-a-20-minute-charge.html 

and

http://www.samsungsdi.com/sdi-news/1502.html 

The John James Newsletter 155

7 January 2017

What the US government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State

Father Miguel D’Escoto

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster

James Baldwin

South Florida’s Rising Seas – Sea Level Rise Documentary 

we all need to plan for this future. Florida keys is only a few feet above SLT, just like Barmagui another parts of Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfWJ_X1Uijs 

Earth Under Water – Worldwide Flooding | Sea Level Rise 

Everywhere exposed cities and agricultural land will be flooded. Meltwater Rie pulse 1A 5m+ or 16 feet in a century. By 2100 coastal cities will nkow they are doomed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGrtqyWSRM 

Antarctic contribution to meltwater pulse 1A from reduced Southern Ocean overturning

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6107 

Giant iceberg poised to break off from Antarctic shelf 

Predicted to be one of the largest break-offs ever recorded, separation of iceberg could trigger breakup of most northern major ice shelf, Larsen C. A thread of just 20km of ice is now preventing the 5,000 sq km mass from floating away, following the sudden expansion last month of a rift that has been steadily growing for more than a decade. “It just makes the whole shelf less stable. If it were to collapse there would be nothing holding the glaciers up and they would start to flow quite quickly indeed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/giant-iceberg-poised-to-break-off-from-antarctic-shelf-larsen-c 

Is that a Black Hole or a hole in the data?

How to quickly spot dodgy science.

https://theconversation.com/how-to-quickly-spot-dodgy-science-65160 

To spot false information

The US government is creating a new $160 million bureaucracy to shut down information that doesn’t conform to U.S. propaganda narratives, building on the strategy that sold the bloody Syrian “regime change”

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/01/the-war-against-alternative-information/ 

Most Important Videos Uploaded In December 2016

*  Peter Wadhams interview Farewell to Arctic Ice

*  Mark Jacobson presentation How the Future of Energy Impacts the Future of Our Cities

*  Paul Beckwith video Abrupt Climate Disrupting Arctic Changes

*  Peter Wadhams also in video interview for ExtinctionRadio

*   Guy McPherson presentation 22 December.

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/ 

Earths past was much hotter

Today global land temperature stands at 14.8C where the most common has been 7C hotter – far too hot for us

Morality vs Ethics: the problem with trolleys 

Many people – even many philosophers – think that morality and ethics are the same thing. But they are not. Morality is primarily about making correct choices, while ethics is about proper reasoning. Should you kill the fat man?

http://crookedtimber.org/2010/09/25/trolley-problems-2/ 

and

http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2010/10/morality-vs-ethics.html 

Fresh doubt over global warming ‘pause’

When the researchers corrected the data to take the “cold bias” into account, they concluded that the oceans had warmed 0.12C per decade since 2000, nearly twice as fast as previous estimates of 0.07 degrees. The warming experienced in the first 15 years of the 21st Century was “virtually indistinguishable” from the rate of warming between 1950-99, a time generally acknowledged to have seen significant rates of warming from human emissions of CO2. The study did not go down well with climate sceptics and US House of Representatives subpoenaed the author’s emails which Noaa refused to hand over.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38513740 

Population growth masking weak economy, making households worse off

One of the economic arguments that has been used to support current immigration rates has been that it helps offset an ageing population. However, the Commonwealth Bank report noted that this is only “kicking the can down the road”, with the current working age migrants themselves ageing and leaving the workforce 20, 30 or 40 years from now.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-14/population-growth-masking-weak-economy-cba/7931928 

When hoping for population decline

It is worth remembering what happened to the numbers of the St Matthew Island reindeer herd in the late 1960s.

https://www.adn.com/features/article/what-wiped-out-st-matthew-islands-reindeer/2010/01/17/

Record-breaking extreme weather in Australia in 2016 devastates ecosystems

Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement cites unprecedented bushfires in regions that don’t usually burn and worst coral bleaching on record, and has been attributed as the cause of damage to vast tracts of crucial kelp forests, oyster farms and salmon stocks across southern Australia.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/05/record-breaking-extreme-weather-in-australia-in-2016-devastates-ecosystems

A well-kept open secret: Washington is behind India’s brutal experiment of abolishing most cash

In early November, without warning, the Indian government declared the two largest denomination bills invalid, abolishing over 80 percent of circulating cash by value. Amidst all the commotion and outrage this caused, nobody seems to have taken note of the decisive role that Washington played in this. That is surprising, as Washington’s role has been disguised only very superficially.

http://norberthaering.de/en/home/27-german/news/745-washington-s-role-in-india#weiterlesen 

Changing the Global Food Narrative

The dominant story about the future of the world food supply is logical, well known and wrong. Changing Diets, Not Population Growth, is the Dominant Driver of Food Demand

https://ensia.com/voices/changing-the-global-food-narrative/ 

Climate change is going to be very bad for the global economy

But by analyzing temperatures alone we have more precise estimates of how climate change could affect the economy. It turns out that temperature has a surprisingly consistent effect on different economic inputs: labor supply, labor productivity, and crop yields all drop off dramatically between 20°C and 30°C.

http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-effects-global-economy-gdp-2016-12?IR=T 

Nearing exit, Obama seeks to tie Trump’s hands

Obama has also permanently banned oil and gas drilling across large swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, closed off 1.6 million acres of Western land to development and scrapped the last vestiges of a registration system used largely on Muslim immigrants.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/312162-nearing-exit-obama-seeks-to-tie-trumps-hands 

‘The Greatest Single Step’ to help Elephants

In ‘game-changing’ development, China announces it will ban all domestic ivory trade by end of 2017.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/31/greatest-single-step-help-elephants-was-just-taken

History suggests Australia could be left behind by the next industrial revolution 

There’s a new industrial revolution just around the corner, driven by artificial intelligence and robotics. Deterioration within the key institutions of suffrage, education, and land policy indicate that Australia may be left behind this time.

https://theconversation.com/history-suggests-australia-could-be-left-behind-by-the-next-industrial-revolution-69335 

NATO’s Playbook Of Proxy Wars In The Middle East

Since the times of the Soviet-Afghan jihad, during the eighties, it has been the fail-safe game plan of the master strategists at NATO to raise money from the oil-rich emirates of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait; then buy billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the arms’ markets of the Eastern Europe; and then provide those weapons and guerilla warfare training to the disaffected population of the victim country by using the intelligence agencies of the latter’s regional adversaries. Whether it’s Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Libya or Syria, the same playbook has been executed to the letter.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/01/02/natos-playbook-of-proxy-wars-in-the-middle-east/ 

What Kerry Did

What set off the firestorm was that Kerry dared to publicly and forcefully criticize Israeli policy. And that was what the overreaction intended to snuff out. The standard Israeli approach used in situations of this sort is to launch a campaign of intimidation designed to pummel the offender into submission and to discourage others from taking similar course.

http://lobelog.com/what-kerry-did/#more-37365 

2016 was a great year for wind and solar, even if nobody noticed.

Renewable energy’s gains this year were incremental and unglamorous. In the US, the amount of residential solar installed rose, with no limits in sight. Utilities built solar projects in record-breaking numbers.

http://grist.org/briefly/drought-doesnt-just-mean-less-water-it-also-means-more-pollution/ 

The future of nuclear power runs on the waste of our nuclear past

The conventional nuclear power method involves inserting radioactive rods into a reactor core where their fissionable material is converted into energy. Problem is, it’s not particularly efficient. Over the four years or so that a rod will remain in use, only about three percent of its available nuclear material is expended, leaving 97% as “waste.” And since nobody seems particularly willing to just fling it into the Sun, this waste must be disposed of in a nuclear repository. Over the past forty years or so, the US has generated 67,500 metric tons of the stuff—enough to cover a football field with spent fuel rods to a depth of seven yards. But what if there were a way to recycle the waste and recapture the remaining energy?

http://gizmodo.com/5990383/the-future-of-nuclear-power-runs-on-the-waste-of-our-nuclear-past 

The John James Newsletter 154

31 December 2016

Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you’ve only founded a superstition. If you test it, you’ve started a science

Hal Clement

Twenty Photos: My Seven Months Living at Standing Rock 

These images show some of the defining moments of the past seven months — some that made it to mainstream media coverage and others unseen until now. Among the ever-growing lessons this place has taught me is what it means to simultaneously build and tear down. The life we have built here has taught many how to live a large-scale sustainable, decolonized, anticapitalist lifestyle that until now academics, sociologists, theoreticians, and greenies alike have only been able to hypothesize.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38930-twenty-photos-my-seven-months-of-living-at-standing-rock 

Climate Change 2016: The Year the Future Arrived 

Global warming didn’t really get started in a big way until the 1950s. Today, the warming rate is seven times greater than it was in the 1950s and the carbon emission rate is four times greater than in the ’50s. That same sulfur pollution that caused all the acid rain in the ’60s and ’70s is a global cooling pollutant that hides warming. With grossly increasing smog in Asia since about the turn of the century, the results have been that 30 percent of warming that should have occurred has been masked or covered up by global cooling sulfate smog.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38905-climate-change-2016-the-year-the-future-arrived 

2016’s most memorable moments

As the year comes to a close, there’s a few memories that really stand out. “I’ll remember the winning moments of the campaign to stop the privatisation of ASIC, and succeeding in saving funding for renewables. I’ll remember being among the crowds of people rallying for justice for refugees and people seeking safety.”

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/core-member-2016/2016-reportback/2016-s-most-memorable-moments 

US Aims to Break Russia With Arms Race

During the Reagan presidency, the US embarked on a surge in military spending which inevitably induced the Soviet Union to respond likewise. Both countries incurred massive financial problems owing to the accelerated arms race. In the case of the Soviet Union, the unsustainable arms expenditures led to the collapse of its economy, and consequently its political system dissolved in 1991. At all costs, Russia must avoid an arms race that would shatter its economy and eventually its national sovereignty. That is exactly what American adversaries want.

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201612251048979856-us-russia-arms-race/ 

Why Putin Is Winning in Syria

Recent press headlines about Syrian peace talks and a possible ceasefire reflect naivete and false hopes that come from thinking the world is the way we wish it to be and not the way it really is.  Russian President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical gambit in Syria is poorly understood and generally underestimated

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/why-putin-winning-syria?utm_source=Join+the+Community 

Former UK Ambassador to Syria Debunks Aleppo Propaganda

Assad is not going to be removed by force of arms or at the negotiating table. What Britain should do now is three things: we should stop supporting a failed and divided opposition; we should start to try to help the people of Syria by lifting sanctions; and we should be working with the Russians on an overdue political settlement.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46108.htm 

Israel Threatens 

Israel has been angered by the vote and has retaliated by announcing that it would cut funding to several UN institutions and countries who voted in favor of the resolution which proposes that Israel cease its settlement building in occupied Palestinian lands, stating that the settlements have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law.”

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Israel-Says-Obama-Backed-UN-Vote-Threatens-to-Give-Trump-Proof-20161227-0005.html 

UN vote exposes the true face of Israel’s settlement policy

The UN Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334, which condemns the settlements and calls for an immediate halt to their expansion, is merely the latest — and possibly most reverberant — incident to unmask the fiction of Israel’s commitment to a viable two-state solution.

http://lobelog.com/un-vote-exposes-the-true-face-of-israels-settlement-policy/ 

Kerry: ‘Israel Can Either Be Jewish or Democratic — It Cannot Be Both’

Today, there are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state or they can separate into two states. But here is a fundamental reality. If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both. And it won’t ever really be at peace.

https://news.grabien.com/story-kerry-israel-can-either-be-jewish-or-democratic-it-cannot-be 

The Demise of Greece’s Agricultural Commons

The strategy of the West of dumping its hazardous agricultural technologies and seeds on Greece and every other country that did not industrialize its countryside is threatening millennia of agrarian wisdom and practice,

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38867-the-demise-of-greece-s-agricultural-commons 

As the Sun Sets On The Nuclear Wasteland

The ruinous consequences of seventy years of nuclearisation are now patently manifest. The Hanford facility in the US, Sellafield in the UK and the Mayak Industrial Complex in the former USSR have all served as “sacrifice zones” where plutonium pits were manufactured for deployment in nuclear warheads during the Cold War era. They are now vast nuclear wastelands with unthinkable quantities of radioactive wastes stored in ageing containers and leaking landfill sites. Less visibly, countless abandoned uranium mines throughout the world continue to release radioactivity into the air, soil, local waterways and groundwater.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/29/as-the-sun-sets-on-the-nuclear-wasteland/ 

Nine Nations Have Nukes 

Nine nations — the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — possess approximately 16,300 nuclear weapons.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/nine-nations-have-nukes–heres-how-many-each-country-has-2014-6?r=US&IR=T 

Turkey Blasts the US for Supporting Terrorists in Syria

There is now “confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos” of US complicity in and support of terrorist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State group

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Turkey-Blasts-the-U.S.-for-Supporting-Terrorists-in-Syria-20161228-0004.html 

NATO Weaponry and Personnel in East Aleppo

Huge stockpiles of weaponry and ammunition, many with NATO markings, were discovered in East Aleppo when the Al-Nusra militants, a local branch of Al Qaida, were pushed out of the city by Syrian forces.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-gate-nato-weaponry-and-personnel-in-east-aleppo/5565358 

Corporate America Is Drowning in Debt

If you remove the top 25 cash holders, you’ll find that for most of Corporate America, cash on hand is declining even as these companies rack up more and more debt at historic rates. The bottom 99% of corporate borrowers have just $900 billion in cash on hand to back up $6 trillion in debt. “This resulted in a cash-to-debt ratio of 12%—the lowest recorded over the past decade

http://fortune.com/2016/05/20/corporate-america-debt/

Australian fur seal weighing 200kg wanders down Tasmanian street, squashes car

“It did this spectacular manoeuvre where it slid down the back of the first car and jumped onto bonnet of the second car and scrambled over the top of that.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-26/australian-seal-found-sitting-on-car-in-suburban-launceston/8148086 

The John James Newsletter Number. <153>

I want to know God’s thoughts, the rest is detail

Albert Einstein

Future Impact of Climate Change Visible Now in Yemen

“In our area, which is not served by piped water, we spend up to five hours a day fetching water. Our crops dry up, while we desperately wait for rain.”

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/11/24/future-impact-of-climate-change-visible-now-in-yemen 

In Yemen, Yet Another Undeclared US War

The United States has been directing drone strikes against what it calls al-Qaeda targets in Yemen since 2002, but our military involvement in that country increased dramatically in 2015 when U.S. ally Saudi Arabia inserted itself into a civil war there. Since then, the United States has been supplying intelligence and mid-air refueling for Saudi bombers (many of them American-made F-15s sold to that country). The State Department has also approved sales to the Saudis of $1.29 billion worth of bombs — “smart” and otherwise — together with $1.15 billion worth of tanks, and half a billion dollars of ammunition. And that, in total, is only a small part of the $115 billion total in military sales the United States has offered Saudi Arabia since President Obama took power in 2009.

http://lobelog.com/in-yemen-yet-another-undeclared-u-s-war/ 

Fake News

It is a multibillion-dollar industry skilfully designed to manipulate public opinion. This propaganda industry stages pseudo-events to shape our perception of reality. The public is so awash in these lies, delivered 24 hours a day through electronic devices and print, that viewers and readers can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction. The object of fake news is to shape public opinion by creating fictional personalities and emotional responses that overwhelm reality. Hillary Clinton, contrary to how she often was portrayed during the recent presidential campaign, never fought on behalf of women and children—she was an advocate for the destruction of a welfare system in which 70% of the recipients were children. She is a tool of the big banks, Wall Street and the war industry. Pseudo-events were created to maintain the fiction of her concern for women and children, her compassion and her connections to ordinary people. Trump never has been a great businessman. He has a long history of bankruptcies and shady business practices. But he played the fictional role of a titan of finance.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/21/fake-news-in-america-homegrown-and-far-from-new/ 

A Flood of Warm Water the Size of 30 Amazon Rivers is Melting One of East Antarctica’s Largest Glaciers

If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that few of Antarctica’s submerged coastal glaciers are safe from the warming ocean. Places that we once thought wouldn’t be vulnerable to melt for decades or centuries are now starting to feel the heat of rising water temperatures. The heat comes in the form of great floods of warmer than normal waters running beneath the ocean surface and then eating away at the undersides of ice shelves and sea fronting glaciers. These floods are provided by the warmth forced into the world ocean by rising global greenhouse gas concentrations. And such invasions are happening around Antarctica’s perimeter with increasing frequency. But perhaps the most disturbing event is the warm water flood running in from the Southern Ocean toward East Antarctica’s Totten Glacier. If large sections of Totten and the associated Aurora Basin were to melt, seas could rise by 12 feet or more. During recent years, researchers identified a great canyon running between 2,000 and 3,600 feet below sea level and stretching six miles wide as a weak point for the Totten glaciers that sit in an enormous, below sea level rift within East Antarctica. The floating ice shelf buttressing Totten is melting from below from a river of warm water flowing at a rate of 220,000 cubic meters per second that is flooding into the vulnerable canyon entrance to Totten’s weak underbelly. This volume of warm water equals more than 30 times that of the Amazon River.

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/20/a-flood-of-warm-water-the-size-of-30-amazon-rivers-is-melting-one-of-east-antarcticas-largest-glaciers/ 

PIC

Antarctic research into warm water causing rapid glacial ice melt

Last year a team of Australian researchers discovered a large channel of warm water about 10 kilometres wide and one kilometre deep in front of the western side of the Totten glacier, causing it to melt.    “This is very important to know because the glacier’s grounding line acts as a sort of plug that restricts the rate of ice flow, and helps hold back massive volumes of ice above sea level.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-17/search-for-source-of-warm-water-melting-totten-glacier/8129202 

Is India the trial run for Australia? We need to be aware.

Demonetisation To Hurt Downtrodden And Empower Digital Marketing in India

The ruling elites who devised this plan, purported to be a ‘surgical attack’ on black money, but which with each day becoming more and more clear that it’s a world bank devised plan (with the support of Bill and Melinda Gates foundation) to shove digital economy down the throat of Indian people which will be beneficial only to Indian and other transnational oligarchs, and suck up wealth from the bottom to the top in a monumental way, with ordinary Indians becoming poorer and the rich getting richer.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/20/the-well-planned-demonetisation-to-hurt-downtrodden-and-empower-digital-marketing-in-india/ 

Westpac predicts the nation will be cash free by 2022

The Westpac Cash Free Report found four in five (79 per cent) Australians agree making all electronic payments via a smartphone will become the norm by 2022, with over half of current payments now made electronically.

https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2015/21-september/ 

Blockchain and how it will change everything

There is massive hype around blockchain in certain circles even though there are yet few working networks. However, extensive testing of the technology is now beginning.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/blockchain-and-how-it-will-change-everything-20160204-gmmd6e.html 

How we could become a cashless society by 2022

We are quickly moving closer to becoming a cashless society and predict we will no longer be using notes and coins by 2022.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/cashless-society-is-on-its-way/news-story/fb46b2045ca20719c5925d8986a3de73 

Bitcoin is just the beginning

If payments can be made anywhere, anytime, across any device, why do you need a currency? Or even a bank? Fintech is set to change finance as profoundly as the issuance of the first permanent banknotes by the Bank of England did, way back in 1695. Financial technology is not only changing the way people purchase and invest, it’s changing the very definition of money as well.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/financial-services/fintech-is-going-to-be-much-bigger-than-you-think/news-story/f7a42de31e8faae702d8ae25afc1c87c 

World Bank Report: Digital Payments Vital To Economic Growth

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/08/28/world-bank-report-digital-payments-economic-growth 

What It’s Like Inside An ISIS Tunnel

Extensive networks of ISIS tunnels have been uncovered in many of the liberated areas of Iraq. A guerrilla warfare tactic, the ISIS tunnels served many different functions. They allowed ISIS fighters to pass between houses and under roads undetected, and to avoid coalition airstrikes. They also allowed fighters to pop up at various points and ambush their enemy, or to quickly escape. No one knows exactly how long it took ISIS to build the tunnels, but they had large-scale drilling machinery to help them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/vanessa-powell/what-its-like-inside-an-isis-tunnel/ 

Eavesdropping reveals hidden marine mammals in the ocean

Some endangered marine animals, including several whale and seal species, are “cryptic species”: they’re genetically different but look alike. This means that they are often mistaken for one another when identified visually, making conservation plans difficult to implement. However, most animals produce species-specific calls. Eavesdropping on their calls therefore provides a unique way to monitor them. This is completely rewriting our understanding of their population recovery. https://theconversation.com/eavesdropping-reveals-hidden-marine-mammal-populations-in-the-ocean-68968

Barack Obama bans oil and gas drilling in most of Arctic and Atlantic oceans

Obama uses law that allows presidents to block sale of new offshore drilling and mining rights and makes it difficult for their successors to reverse decision

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/20/barack-obama-bans-oil-gas-drilling-arctic-atlantic 

Smog refugees flee Chinese cities as ‘airpocalypse’ blights half a billion

Huge swaths of north and central China have been living under a pollution “red alert” since last Friday when a dangerous cocktail of pollutants transformed the skies into a yellow and charcoal-tinted haze. Greenpeace claimed the calamity had affected a population equivalent to those of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined with some 460m people having to breathe either hazardous pollution or heavy levels of smog in recent days.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/smog-refugees-flee-chinese-cities-as-airpocalypse-blights-half-a-billion 

Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index has never been higher than it is today.  

The “Trumphoria” that has gripped the nation ever since Donald Trump’s miraculous victory on election night shows no signs of letting up.  Tens of millions of Americans that were deeply troubled by Barack Obama’s policies over the last eight years are feeling optimistic about the future for the first time in a very long while.  The stock market keeps hitting record high after record high, the US dollar is now the strongest that it has been in 14 years, and CEOs are personally promising Trump that they will bring jobs back to the US.  These are things worth getting excited about.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-21/us-economic-confidence-surges-highest-level-gallup-has-ever-recorded 

The Rise of Fame: An Historical Content Analysis

A\an extraordinary shift appears to have taken place between 1997 and 2007. In 1997, the dominant values among 9-11 year olds were community feeling, followed by benevolence. Fame came 15th out of the 16 values tested. By 2007 fame came first, followed by achievement, image, popularity and financial success. Community feeling had fallen to 11th; benevolence to 12th.

http://www.cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2011061601 

Aleppo: High Point for the Iranian Venture in Syria

For the time being, the Islamic Republic of Iran revels in the fulfilment of the “divine promise” embodied by its victory in Aleppo. The Pasdaran, or Guardians of the Revolution, have given their all for five long years. They have steadfastly supported Bashar al-Assad’s shaky army. They have mobilized and trained combat-ready auxiliary Syrian forces, imported thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and Iraqi Shia militiamen,

http://lobelog.com/aleppo-high-point-for-the-iranian-venture-in-syria/ 

New map reveals shattering effect of roads on nature 

Rampant road building has shattered the Earth’s land into 600,000 fragments, most of which are too tiny to support significant wildlife.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/15/new-map-reveals-shattering-effect-of-roads-on-nature

Julian Assange saying Kremlin is NOT its source

He says the allegations are a ‘foolish’ and ‘dangerous’ effort by Democrats to overturn Donald Trump’s election victory.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4039310/Wikileaks-founder-Julian-Assange-goes-offensive-claims-Russia-Clinton-emails-saying-Kremlin-NOT-source.html 

Ah, So Putin Didn’t Hack Those Emails After All       

The neocon-driven propaganda campaign to prevent president-elect Donald Trump from taking office took an unexpected turn on Thursday when CBS posted an article claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally authorized the alleged hacking of the DNC.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/16/ah-so-putin-didnt-hack-those-emails-after-all/

Why Are the Media Taking the CIA’s Hacking Claims at Face Value?

Despite the CIA’s uninspiring record for the past 70 years, the media are defending the agency for all it’s worth.

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-are-the-media-taking-the-cias-hacking-claims-at-face-value/ 

US sends 1,600 tanks to the Netherlands as NATO’s presence in Europe hits RECORD HIGH

The decision to ship the US tanks to Europe comes after Polish defence minister Antoni Macierewicz announced plans to send 4,000 American troops to the western town of Zagan in the new year.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/744518/US-1600-tanks-Netherlands-Nato-Russia-Europe-Tom-Middendorp-Germany-Poland-Belgium 

The New Exterminatory Warfare

During its final years in office, the Obama administration has devised a new form of warfare with major implications for how the US government confronts its enemies. With the ability to quickly locate and eliminate potential adversaries with little to no risk to US forces, the Obama administration has begun to eradicate some of its main enemies in a new kind of exterminatory warfare. Officials may insist that they are going to eliminate IS and other militant groups, but they also expect that their operations will spawn new groups that will need to be confronted in similar ways.

http://lobelog.com/the-new-exterminatory-warfare/#more-37191

Commandos Without Borders

How the US has moved, big time, onto a continent that may indeed, in the military’s own phrase, be tomorrow’s battlefield and yet that we hear next to nothing about. On any given day, between 1,500 and 1,700 American special operators and support personnel are deployed somewhere on the continent.  Over the course of a year they conduct missions in more than 20 countries.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176223/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_washington%27s_america-first_commandos_in_africa/ 

The Euro Is Heading For Parity With The US Dollar

The collapse of the euro is accelerating, and it looks like we could be staring a major European financial crisis right in the face early in 2017.  On Thursday, the EUR/USD fell all the way to $1.0366 at one point before rebounding slightly.  That represents the lowest that the euro has been relative to the U.S. dollar since January 2003. The world’s oldest bank has until Dec. 31 to raise 5 billion euros in equity or face being wound down by the European Central Bank, potentially triggering a wider banking and political crisis in Italy. If needed, the government will pump 15 billion euros into the Siena-based lender and several other smaller banks

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/major-economic-warning-sign-the-euro-is-heading-for-parity-with-the-u-s-dollar 

Gaza’s Water Crisis Is Causing Irreversible Damage: World Bank

Only 10% of Gazans can safely drink the water piped into their homes. The aquifer’s water level has plummeted due to overpumping because of population growth, but does not address the root cause of the water crisis: Israel’s punitive military occupation of the region and its total control of Gaza’s water supply.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Gazas-Water-Crisis-Is-Causing-Irreversible-Damage-World-Bank-20161218-0006.html 

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/after-election-great-barrington-bookstore-photo-goes-viral,490161 

The John James Newsletter 152

17 December 2016

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth and falsehood,

For the good or evil side  

James Russell Lowell 

People are lazy. With television you just sit – watch – listen. The thinking is done for you

Roger Ailes

A Manifesto for The Platform

There is a deep despair growing among good people as Trump promises to dismantle seventy years of Social Justice reforms and Environmental Safeguards. We have struggled and devoted our lives to implement worthwhile policies over our lifetimes, and they could be gone in a trice. I sense a forlorn hopelessness growing among us. Instead, The Platform offers an alternative. The Manifesto does not aim at concentrating all our efforts on fighting the polluters. We accept that so much heating is now built into the system that it does not matter what we do we will still suffer massive sea level rise and droughts, food scarcity and deaths. The Manifesto offers the positive message that we can make life better now and in the future, and that we, the people of Good Will, can succeed at this. The Manifesto for Our Platform offers the promise that we can do something, in place of succumbing to numbing despair.

http://cage.live/blog/2016/12/08/platform-manifesto/

This is the amateur film I assembled for the October Forum “Tomorrows World”- A climate change potpourri

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pA5Yl3Avfs 

Alarm Over “Witch Hunt” 

Trump demands list of Civil Servants who worked on Climate Policy under Obama. “This action should not be viewed in isolation, The Trump transition team is teeming with individuals with a proven history of attacking climate scientists and undermining climate science. Several members now overseeing federal agencies have harassed scientists based on their research and have long signaled a desire to dismantle federal climate science research.”

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38695-alarm-over-witch-hunt-after-trump-demands-list-of-civil-servants-who-worked-on-climate-policy-under-obama

Flynn’s Wacky Worldview

Skepticism about Michael Flynn’s fitness for the position of national security adviser appears to be growing as more media outlets are paying closer attention to his (and his son’s) core beliefs about the world. Such scrutiny also appears to be more relevant since President-elect Trump may be relying more heavily on Flynn than on the CIA or other government intelligence agencies for his own assessment of world events.

http://lobelog.com/flynns-wacky-worldview/

It is the people who will be paying the price. 

Trump will use the media to sugarcoat, falsify, distract, intimidate, glorify and massify the millions of people who believed, once upon a recent time, that he would “Make America Great Again.” As the profiteers of Wall Street and the war hawks blend with the corporate statists, the super-confident Trump is telling us what their products will be like and that he’ll be their salesman. If you think all this sounds predictable, there are going to be more than a few “black swans” (to use Nassim Taleb’s best-selling book title) coming over the horizon. It is time to mobilize as citizens in the Paul Revere mode.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/14/trump-trumpets-his-real-plans/ 

The December 19 Electoral College Vote : Anti-Trump Coup Attempt Underway?

Trump won 306 Electoral College votes to Hillary’s 232, her’s heavily concentrated in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and west coast. He won 30 states to her 20 – 270 EC votes needed to be elected. It would take 37 electors, from states he won, to deny him their vote, thereby throwing the process to House members to elect the president.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-december-19-electoral-college-vote-anti-trump-coup-attempt-underway/5562411 

Methane has just spiked at 2436 ppb

Methane levels over the Arctic Ocean were as high as 2436 parts per billion on the afternoon of December 5, 2016, with most rising from the water. Pre-industrial level was ~720 ppb and each molecule is 20 times more potent than C02. Add that up!

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/seafloor-methane.html 

Start-up company breathes new life into old tyres

A biofuel from old rubber tyres that can run turbo-charged diesel engines while reducing emissions by 30 per cent.’We have zero waste from the tyre’

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/new-life-for-old-tyres-as-biofuel/8064350 

CEFC backs 270MW Sapphire wind farm, in vote of confidence for merchant market

A consortium between Vestas and Zenviron will deliver the project, with Vestas supplying and commissioning the turbines, and Zenviron delivering the balance of plant. TransGrid will build, operate and maintain an on-site substation connecting the Sapphire project to the national energy grid.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/cefc-backs-270mw-sapphire-wind-farm-in-vote-of-confidence-for-merchant-market-45541/ 

FBI v. Assange

Former Icelandic minister claims US sent ‘planeload of FBI agents to frame Assange’ during mission to the country in 2011.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4021166/Former-Icelandic-minister-claims-FBI-tried-frame-Julian-Assange.html 

The startling rise in oral cancer in men, and what it says about our changing sexual habits

Oral cancer jumped 61% from 2011 to 2015. HPV infects cells of the skin and the membranes that lines areas such as the mouth, throat, tongue, tonsils, rectum and sexual organs. Transmission can occur when these areas come into contact with the virus. HPV is a leading cause of cervical, vaginal and penile cancers. Younger men are more likely to perform oral sex than their older counterparts and to engage with more partners.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/25/the-startling-rise-in-oral-cancer-in-men-and-what-it-says-about-our-changing-sexual-habits/ 

A Drive To Save Saharan Oases As Climate Change Takes a Toll

From Morocco to Libya, the desert oases of the Sahara’s Maghreb region are disappearing as temperatures rise and rainfall decreases. Facing daunting odds, local residents are employing traditional water conservation techniques to try to save these ancient ecosystems.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/15/a-drive-to-save-saharan-oases-as-climate-change-takes-a-toll/

Is Sustainability Destroying the Earth?

Only one-quarter of all consumption is by individuals. The rest is taken up by industry, agribusiness, the military, governments and corporations. Even if every one of us made every effort to reduce our ecological footprint, it would make little difference to overall consumption. If the lifestyle actions advocated really do keep our culture around for longer than it would otherwise, then it will cause more harm to the natural world than if no such action had been taken.

http://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/sustainability-is-destroying-the-earth/ 

Saudi Arabia’s Glass: Half Empty or Half Full?

The people of Saudi Arabia have long accepted the bargain imposed by the founding king, Abdul Aziz al-Saud, in which they are disenfranchised but acquiesce in political powerlessness as the state provides them with security and a comfortable life. Now they are being asked to do more for themselves while the government does less, regardless of the price of oil.

http://lobelog.com/saudi-arabias-glass-half-empty-or-half-full/#more-36978 

Congress Votes To Give Jihadists Anti-aircraft Missiles 

The Senate passed a bill that puts every American who travels by plane at risk.  It is among the stupidest pieces of legislation ever written – to provide shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles to lunatic jihadists who will undoubtedly use them to take down American or Israeli jetliners. The argument that these Islamic militants are fully vetted is complete nonsense as both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly shown. Rebel groups “have entered into battlefield alliances with the affiliate of al Qaida in Syria formerly known as al Nusra to render the phrase ‘moderate rebels’ meaningless.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46036.htm

The “Golden Arches” Theory of Decline

One of the answers to Trump, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Salvini, Duterte, Le Pen, Farage and the politics they represent is to rescue democracy from transnational corporations. It is to defend the crucial political unit that’s under assault by banks, monopolies and chainstores: community. It is to recognise that there is no greater hazard to peace between nations than a corporate model which crushes democratic choice

http://www.monbiot.com/2016/12/10/the-golden-arches-theory-of-decline/ 

A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms

At 2C temperature increase the hot European summer of 2003 will be the annual norm. Anything that could be called a heatwave thereafter will be of Saharan intensity. Even in average years, people will die of heat stress.

Beyond 2C billions of people will face an increasingly tough battle to survive. To find anything comparable we have to go back to the Pliocene 3m years ago. There were no continental glaciers in the northern hemisphere (trees grew in the Arctic), and sea levels were 25 metres higher than today’s. In this kind of heat, the death of the Amazon is as inevitable as the melting of Greenland.

Between 3 and 4C the summers get longer  as soaring temperatures reduce forests to tinderwood and cities to boiling morgues. Temperatures in the Home Counties could reach 45C – the sort of climate experienced today in Marrakech. Droughts will put the south-east of England on the global list of water-stressed areas, with farmers competing against cities for dwindling supplies from rivers and reservoirs. Air-conditioning will be mandatory for anyone wanting to stay cool and the abandonment of the Mediterranean will send even more people north to overcrowded refuges in Scandinavia.

Between 4 and 5C it will be an entirely different planet. Ice sheets have vanished from both poles; rainforests have burnt up and turned to desert; the dry and lifeless Alps resemble the High Atlas; rising seas are scouring deep into continental interiors. Even in Canada and Siberia summers may be too hot for crops to be grown away from the coasts. When temperatures were at a similar level 55m years ago in the early Eocene, alligators were living in the Arctic.

Between 5 and 6C at the end of the Permian, 251m years ago, 95% of species were wiped out. That episode was the worst ever endured by life on Earth, the closest the planet has come to ending up a dead and desolate rock in space. On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs.

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

Arctic Warming at Least Twice as Fast as Rest of World

Much of this melt was almost certainly driven by the record warm Arctic temperatures seen during 2016. And according to NOAA, this year shattered all previous high marks for Arctic heat by a big margin — hitting 3.5C warmer than 1900. Overall, this rate of warming is at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe.

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/12/15/noaas-2016-report-card-the-arctic-is-shouting-change/

Change in the Arctic this year was unlike any ever seen, scientists say 

The annual Arctic Report Card documented air and sea-surface temperatures are higher, sea ice is sparser and more fragile and ocean waters absorbing more carbon, thus changing their chemistry to more acidic levels, while warming tundra is now expelling more carbon than it is drawing in from the atmosphere.

https://www.adn.com/arctic/2016/12/13/change-in-the-arctic-this-year-was-unlike-any-ever-before-scientists-say/