The John James Newsletter 193
19 August 2017
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule
Friedrich Nietzsche
Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington? Because there’s no American embassy there
William Blum
We all by now know exactly what the Empire likes to do: find some weak country, subvert it, accuse it of human right violations, slap economic sanctions, trigger riots and militarily intervene in “defense” of “democracy”, “freedom” and “self-determination”
The Saker
Recent research points to several characteristics of species more likely to survive the rigours of a planet ravaged by climate change: two of the most vital being an indiscriminate palate and a rapid reproductive cycle. Therefore, humans are not prime survivors.
Karla Lent
Oh-oh, watch out for troubles ahead. Especially as resource shortages loom in the future as the human population grows, the fights will only get worse
Ban Ki-moon
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. Convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life declines and finally disappears. It no longer matters if someone dies
Isaac Asimov
On the present emissions pathway, it’s likely that the world will hit 4 C by 2100; a level that will be enough to bring heatwaves so hot that staying outside for even brief periods will be deadly
Robert Scribbler
Super-heatwaves of 55°C to emerge if global warming continues
Both temperature and relative humidity used to estimate the magnitude and impact of heat waves. It finds out that the combinations of the two, and the resulting heatwaves, leave ever more people exposed to significant health risks, especially in East Asia and America’s East Coast.
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/super-heatwaves-55-c-emerge-if-global-warming-continues
No El Nino, But July of 2017 was the Hottest on Record. So What the Hell is Going on?
The La Nina lag during July of 2016 was enough to pull global surface temperatures down to 1.04 C above 1880s averages. However, the added heat pumped out into the system by both fossil fuel produced greenhouse gasses and the shift to strong El Nino appears to have generated a step change in the global temperature regime. So despite a weak La Nina dominating during fall of 2016, global temperatures remained in a range of 1.06 to 1.21 C above 1880s averages.
6.5% of global GDP spent subsidising fossil fuels, or $12m every minute
Analysis of the subsidies steered towards the fossil fuel industry has revealed that a massive $US5.3 trillion ($A6.7 trillion) was paid to coal, gas and other finite resources in 2015 – up from $US4.9 trillion in 2013
http://reneweconomy.com.au/6-5-global-gdp-spent-subsidising-fossil-fuels-12m-every-minute-78351/
So, what of our attempts to compensate by planting trees? ????
Plants Belched 3 Billion Tons of Carbon into Atmosphere During Monster El Nino of 2014-2016
That’s equivalent to nearly 20% of the emissions produced during the same period by burning fossil fuels and making cement. .A combination of high temperatures and drought increased the number and severity of wildfires in southeast Asia, while drought stunted plant growth in the Amazon rainforest, reducing the amount of carbon it absorbed. And in Africa, a combination of warming temperatures and near-normal rainfall increased the rate at which forests exhaled CO2. The overall jump in emissions from tropical forests was roughly three times the annual average carbon output from deforestation and land-use change globally between 2006 and 20151.
Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism
Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force. Generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/why-women-had-better-sex-under-socialism.html
Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet
This is in addition to 47 already known. Their eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change. This is the largest volcanic region on Earth – two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica
Borneo (Kalimantan): A Frontline For Survival Of Our Planet
What I saw in Borneo simply shocked me. From now on I’ll refuse to shut up. If Indonesians themselves are too scared or too programmed to address the situation, I’ll try to do it myself. The more destroyed, damaged and brainwashed this part of the world becomes, the more it is hailed by the Western mass media as ‘successful’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘democratic’.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/11/borneo-kalimantan-a-frontline-for-survival-of-our-planet/
64 Million Tons Of CO2-et Emissions A Year In US From Meat-Eating Domestic Dogs & Cats
Dogs and cats are responsible for around 25% to 30% of the total environmental impact of meat consumption in the US. That might be surprising to some, but the reality is that there are now around 163 million domestic dogs and cats in the US
If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama
The war on leaks and other efforts to control information was “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, the crackdown has had a much greater chilling effect on press freedom. The Obama administration made combating leaks a top priority for federal law enforcement.
Why The Adults Are Not Reining in Trump
Repeatedly the excesses of Donald Trump have escaped any attempt to check them. Trump’s fire-and-brimstone threats against North Korea, which surprised his foreign policy advisers, are the latest example. Trump’s emulation of Kim Jong-un’s scary rhetoric played into the hands of Kim’s regime, whose propaganda emphasizes threats from the US, and escalated tensions to the point of shaking global stock markets. The rhetoric was the sort of thing Trump turns to when he evidently does not have any better ideas for addressing a problem.
http://lobelog.com/why-the-adults-are-not-reining-in-trump/#more-40663
OK, US government – see you in court
The young plaintiffs, and all youth today, confront a gathering storm. They have at their command considerable determination, a dog-eared copy of our beleaguered Constitution, and rigorously developed science. The courts will decide if that is enough.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2017/20170814_Hansen.Kivlehan.BostonGlobeOpEd.pdf
In pondering this, think Trump…
Does It Really Matter If Netanyahu Ends Up Behind Bars?
To create an ideological shift, it is insufficient to cut off the king’s head; rather, what is needed is a sea-change in public opinion. Tragically, even if Netanyahu ends up behind bars, it appears that the colonial common sense will continue to reign for many years to come.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/11/does-it-really-matter-if-netanyahu-ends-up-behind-bars/
Dark Signs in the Persian Gulf
Saudi Arabia is now the de facto leader of a counter-revolutionary bloc dedicated to quashing any replay of the kind of tumultuous regime change we witnessed in the Arab Spring of 2011 when four autocratic regimes bit the dust—Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen—and Syria nearly so. Autocrats of course place top priority on retaining power.
http://lobelog.com/dark-signs-in-the-persian-gulf/#more-40668
How SA solar tower and storage won on costs
The answer lies in two key elements of the deal. The first is the length of the power off take contract SolarReserve has signed with the SA government, which at 20 years, allows the company to amortise debt over a longer period. The second key factor is the $110 million of recoupable finance promised by the federal government in April, in a deal Nick Xenophon to accelerate the development of a solar thermal plant or large-scale solar project at Port Augusta.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/how-solar-tower-and-storage-won-on-costs-81155/
The End of the “Wars on the Cheap” for the US
The US dilemma is simple: the Cold War is long over, and so is the Post Cold War, and a complete reform of the US armed forces is long overdue and yet politically impossible. In theory, the US should begin by deciding on a new national security strategy, then develop a military strategy in support of this strategy, followed by the development of a military doctrine which itself would then produce a force modernization plant. It took the Russians over a decade to do this, including a lot of false starts and mistakes, and it will take the Americans at least as long, or even more.
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-end-of-the-wars-on-the-cheap-for-the-united-states/
America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy
Overthrowing Other People’s Governments: The Master List. A companion book to the work of Naomi Kline, Noam Chomsky, John Perkins, Michel Chossudovsky, Colin Crouch, David Talbot and many others.
https://williamblum.org/books/americas-deadliest-export
Grooming the globe: denying fairness, complexity and humanity
There is a long list of authoritarian leaders across the globe ready to deride the rule of law, circumvent checks and balances, undermine institutions, cultivate ignorance and encourage fear. Making self-interest seem normal and a commitment to fairness an elite aberration has been a long-term project.
http://theconversation.com/grooming-the-globe-denying-fairness-complexity-and-humanity-81900
Silent Spring, 2017
In the 1970s, as Greenpeace staged its first campaigns, Norman Myers estimated that Earth was losing one species per day, and this appeared as a tragic crises. Today, after almost fifty years of ecological actions, Earth is now losing about one species per hour.
The Surprising Places We Waste Energy
https://futurism.com/videos/watch-the-surprising-places-we-waste-energy
Displaced Syrians heading home in larger numbers
IOM says over 600,000 Syrians set off for their cities and villages in first seven months of 2017 amid new displacement. The returning Syrians were motivated by the desire to protect their homes and possessions; an improved economic and security situation in their areas of origin; as well as problems with integration in their host countries.
Putin says dump the dollar
In 2014, the Russian Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China signed a three-year currency swap agreement, worth 150 billion yuan (around $23.5 billion), thus boosting financial cooperation between the two countries.
https://www.rt.com/business/313967-putin-says-dump-dollar/
Running Out of Gold
Most of the world has been scoured when it pertains to gold deposits. Centuries of digging and drilling for gold means we’ve found most of the large deposits. Therefore, annual gold discoveries have been in free fall the past 10 years.
https://www.streetwisereports.com/pub/na/running-out-of-gold-buyout-phase-imminent
China, Gold and the US Dollar – a forecast
When China backs the yuan with its big piles of gold, assiduously accumulated over the course of many years from generous Western banks disposing of the “barbarous relic,” the effects will be immediate and dramatic—the dollar will crash and burn, and gold and silver will skyrocket into the stratosphere. In the US hyperinflation will quickly become reality, and the population, made more psychologically unstable by heavy drug consumption and years of eating adulterated foods including dangerous substances like Aspartame and GM, will go crazy, and they are heavily armed. We can expect entire districts to go up in flames, food supplies will dry up as supermarkets have their shelves stripped in a matter of hours and truckers refuse to risk making the run to replenish supplies knowing they will be hijacked and their cargoes plundered. The now militarized police force will turn their impressive firepower on the rampaging citizenry, and possibly kill thousands, with thousands more being interred in FEMA camps. Angry mobs will march on Washington. Military bases across the world will be closed and become ghost towns. Starved of generous funding and military support Israel could suddenly find itself very vulnerable. It’s a very ugly prospect and it could happen very, very fast.
https://www.streetwisereports.com/pub/na/china-gold-and-the-us-dollar
Evidence of Google blacklisting of left and progressive sites continues to mount
A growing number of leading left-wing websites have confirmed that their search traffic from Google has plunged in recent months, adding to evidence that Google, under the cover of a fraudulent campaign against fake news, is implementing a program of systematic and widespread censorship.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/08/goog-a08.html
Containerized Solution Brings Clean Water & Solar Power To Remote Areas
Getting electricity and clean water to remote villages and off-grid locations can make a huge difference in the lives of those who live there, but running power and water lines from a central location can cost far more than bringing an electricity generation and water filtration system directly to the location, and one Italian startup has a $15,000 all-in-one modular solution to do just that.
Scientists Claim They Have Solved the Mystery of How the First Animals Appeared on Earth
Complex, animal life on Earth started some 600 million years ago after a significant event 50 million years earlier called Snowball Earth,” the hypothesis that the planet’s surface was entirely frozen from pole to pole. This event made the growth and spread of algae possible. “The Earth was frozen over for 50 million years. Huge glaciers ground entire mountain ranges to powder that released nutrients, and when the snow melted during an extreme global heating event rivers washed torrents of nutrients into the ocean,”
Here is an interesting one. Having read John Perkins one might, almost …… ?
Bombshell Connection Between Charlottesville, Soros, CIA
As evidenced this weekend, a civil war is brewing in this country, laying the foundation for a violent coup to take out Trump. Soros-funded NGO’s have been able to achieve regime change in other countries by quite literally teaming up with Neo-nazis and “moderate” terrorists. Now, the same players involved in the Ukraine overthrow are working behind the scenes to oust President Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L58T2dl997A
Crowds on demand
Are you looking to create a buzz anywhere in the US? We provide our clients with protests, rallies, flash-mobs, paparazzi events and other inventive PR stunts. These services are available across the country in every major US city, and even most smaller cities as well. We provide everything including the people, the materials and even the ideas. You can approach us with a general idea and we can help you plan the strategy then execute it.
Chinese climate impacts will hit Australian economy
Australia faces severe consequences if China’s economy grows at a significantly lower rate, or falls into recession.
Consider Infrastructure hotspots, Water insecurity, Major droughts and the inevitable Inundation of primary manufacturing zones, Internal migration. Imagine the following scenario:
In China’s north, a water crisis deepens with overexploitation of groundwater, reduced irrigation capacity, and a two-year northern monsoon failure. A political crisis develops in rural communities, strengthened in the north-west by long-standing grievances among the Muslim minority, and there is significant internal migration to the large cities. A category 5 typhoon hits the Pearl River Delta/Guangdong free-trade zone, and storm surges inundate half of the delta, destroying infrastructure and significantly disabling export capacity for up to a year.
Consequently, the Chinese economy stalls and tips into recession, while chronic and opaque debt, especially in the state sector, cascades into a full-blown credit crisis. The crash infects Asian markets, and Australian banks are exposed. As Chinese output stagnates, Australian resource exports fall, putting further pressure on a fragile Australian domestic stock market. The middle class revolt as they lose out from over-leveraged stocks in a plunging share market. An internal political crisis gathers strength, and other parties decide to test Chinese sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.
Such a climate-generated possibility should be of urgent concern to the Australian Government
http://www.climatecodered.org/2017/08/chinese-climate-impacts-will-hit.html
Where will climate change impact China most?
China’s infrastructure hotspots – the geographical regions most vulnerable to serious economic impact from climate change. These hotspots are vulnerable because they are located in areas where there is a concentration of infrastructure assets such as power plants, transport systems (air, rail, road) and water treatment centres – in other words, essential services to a large number of companies and individual customers. If you live in one of the “infrastructure hotspots”, you are more likely to experience the breakdown of one or more of these services because of natural disasters exacerbated by climate change.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/where-will-climate-change-impact-china-most/
Bombing the Rubble
In addition to Mosul, a number of Iraq’s other major cities and towns — including Ramadi and Fallujah — have also been reduced to rubble. Across the border in Syria, where a brutal civil war has been raging for six years, numerous cities and towns from Homs to parts of Aleppo have essentially been destroyed. Raqqa, the “capital” of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, is now under siege. (American Special Operations forces are already reportedly active inside its breached walls, working with allied Kurdish and Syrian rebel forces.) It, too, will be “liberated” sooner or later — that is to say, destroyed.
