Category: Columns

The John James Newsletter 23
31 October 2014.

Ebola Is Now ‘Aerostable’ And Can Remain On Surfaces For 50 Days
The information was contained in a 33-page report released Oct. 24 by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It states “preliminary studies indicate that Ebola is aerostable in an enclosed controlled system in the dark and can survive for long periods in different liquid media and can also be recovered from plastic and glass surfaces at low temperatures for over 3 weeks.”
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-story-changes-ebola-is-now-aerostable-and-can-remain-on-surfaces-for-50-days?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-story-changes-ebola-is-now-aerostable-and-can-remain-on-surfaces-for-50-days
and
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40096.htm

If Ebola batters US, we are not ready
To assess America’s ability to deal with a major outbreak, the AP examined readiness in training, manpower, funding, emergency room shortcomings, supplies, infection control and protection for health care workers. The results were worrisome. Supplies, training and funds are all limited. And there are concerns that health care workers may refuse to treat Ebola victims.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EBOLA_US_HEALTH_CARE_PREPAREDNESS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-29-12-25-52

CIA Mouthpiece Lets Slip On Russian ‘Aggression’
Since the beginning of its observer mission at the end of July, the CIA has not recorded any movement of military equipment or units from Russia into Ukrainian territory.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/10/29/cia-mouthpiece-lets-slip-on-russian-aggression.html

15 Signs That We Live During A Time Of Rampant Government Paranoia
The US has become the nation of the “permanent emergency”.  There has been at least one “state of emergency” in effect in this country since 1979. Almost everyone is considered to be a criminal.  Nearly one out of every three Americans has a file in the FBI’s master criminal database.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/15-signs-that-we-live-during-a-time-of-rampant-government-paranoia

Another record year for big solar – but where is Australia?
Figures released on Tuesday, along show that at the end of September the US was leading the big solar stakes with 407 utility-scale plants, amounting to a total installed capacity of 7.08GW. China comes in a close second with 245 plants, totalling 6.5GW; followed by Germany, with 281 plants and 3.46GW total installed utility-scale capacity.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/graph-day-another-record-year-big-solar-australia-66409

Economic Collapse? How Will The Stock Market React To The End Of Quantitative Easing?
This market binge has been solely fueled by reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve.  It is not backed up by economic fundamentals in any way, shape or form. And now that quantitative easing is ending, many are wondering if the party is over.

Economic Collapse? How Will The Stock Market React To The End Of Quantitative Easing?

Nearly 25 million food insecure in Sahel
The dramatic rise in insecurity over the last year has forced a tremendous number of people to seek fed, housing and health care. There’s a big difference between negative coping mechanisms that would include taking out a loan that must be repaid from profits from the following year’s harvest, eating seeds that should be saved for next year’s planting, and reducing the number of daily meals from three down to two, or even one. “It becomes a very slippery slide very quickly”.
http://worldpress.org/link.cfm?http://www.IRINnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=100769

Resolving Key Nuclear Issue Turns on Iran-Russia Deal
The key to the new approach is Iran’s willingness to send both its existing stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) as well as newly enriched uranium to Russia for conversion into fuel for power plants for an agreed period of years.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40083.htm

The Stark Facts of Global Greed, a Disease as Challenging as Climate Change
A stunning 95 percent of the world’s population lost a share of its wealth over the past three years. Almost all of the gain went to the world’s richest 1%. The gains seem almost incomprehensible. The world’s wealth grew from $224 trillion to $263 trillion in three years. The world’s richest 1%, who owned a little under $100 trillion in 2011, now own almost $127 trillion. For every four dollars they possessed just three years ago, they now have five. From New York to Kenya and Indonesia, the rich are pushing people out of the way to acquire land and build luxury homes. The “winner-take-all” attitude is breaking down society everywhere.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40084.htm

Bogotá: Improving Civic Behavior
A unique and surprising story of two mayors, Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa, who have changed behaviour patterns in the Colombian capital, bringing Bogotá out of a negative spiral of violence and chaos and remaking it as something of a visionary role model for other megacities.

French clash with Islamists in Mali
France’s intervention in Mali was designed to retake control of northern towns that had been overrun by separatists and rebels linked to al Qaeda in 2012 after a coup in the capital Bamako. It has since evolved into a 3,000-strong counter-terrorism mission stretching from Mauritania to southern Libya.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/french-soldier-killed-with-20-islamists-in-fierce-clash-in-mali-30703877.html

The John James Newsletter 40
10 January 2015

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
Bumper sticker

2014 was the hottest year on record globally by far
http://www.climatecodered.org/2015/01/2014-was-hottest-year-on-record.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29

Why do we do nothing when the world is disintegrating around us?
Here is one answer I found fascinating! It is played out through organisations funded by the unnamed and dedicated to denying any evidence for anything. How do we deal with moral and ethical uncertainty when the very facts are in doubt? It is the modern day version of Orwell’s world, of power through propaganda and confusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wcy8uLjRHPM

Tropical forests a key
Tropical forests are a crucial factor as they are absorbing CO2 at a far higher rate than previously thought. As atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases have continued to rise, tropical forests have been absorbing roughly 1.4 billion metric tons of CO2 out of a total global absorption of 2.5 billion, while the uptake in the vast boreal forests in northern regions like Canada and Siberia is diminishing
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/04/nasa-tropical-forests-key-fighting-greenhouse-gases

Injustice of US and Israeli Policies
The Palestinian Authority’s formal application to join the International Criminal Court has been met with a flood of retaliation and threats from Israel and the United States. The PA seeks “justice for all the victims that have been killed by Israel,” including during the latest 50-day military assault on Gaza, which killed at least 2,194 Palestinians, over 75 percent of them civilians and more than 500 of them children.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/05/retaliatory-response-palestinian-authoritys-icc-bid-underscores-injustice-us-and

Ebola: ‘nothing prepares you for the sheer brutality,’ says Australian nurse
“I was unprepared for the grace that patients accepted their state; their lack of panic. I was unprepared for the full extent of the distance created between the patients, population and us as caregivers as a result of the disease and the necessary precautions. I was unprepared for how overwhelmed we were and how truly horrible it was to feel so inadequate, to work so hard and for it to feel, ultimately, so little. As a nurse I can only hope to never face such barriers to care again. Seeing the continued failure of the world to respond fast enough to the current situation I can only assume I will see worse. And this I truly dread.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/ebola-nothing-prepares-you-for-the-sheer-brutality-says-australian-nurse?CMP=ema_632

Attempt to Assassinate Iranian N. Scientist Foiled by IRGC
“In the last two years, the Zionist enemy (Israel) was trying hard to assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist, but the timely presence of the IRGC security forces thwarted the terrorist operation,”
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931013001240

Wobbles in US-EU Axis Against Russia
French President Francois Hollande this week called for an end to Western sanctions on Russia. He is the latest senior European political figure to express misgivings about the hostile policy that Washington and Brussels have embarked on against Russia over the year-old Ukrainian crisis.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40640.htm

2015 Will Be All About Iran, China and Russia
The EU’s declaration of economic war against Russia makes no sense whatsoever. Russia controls, directly or indirectly, most of the oil and natural gas between Russia and China: roughly 25% of the world’s supply. The EU is doing everything it can to cut itself off from its most stable supply of hydrocarbons, prompting Moscow to redirect energy to China and the rest of Asia.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40612.htm

Ten Reasons Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Must Be Defeated
The disastrous trade agreement is designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of democracy. The treaty has been written behind closed doors by the corporate world. While Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and major media companies have full knowledge of the treaty, the people and members of parliament have been locked out of the process.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/31/ten-reasons-why-tpp-must-be-defeated
and
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/07/why-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-pending-disaster

Start planning for climate change migrants now
Natural disasters displace three to 10 times more people than all conflicts and war in the world combined. 22 million people were displaced by extreme events in 2013, led by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.Many more in a growing population live more exposed to more extreme weather.  Governments should step up planning for migrants.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/start-planning-for-climate-change-migrants-now-experts-warn-worlds-governments-20150108-12kmqp.html

Land Concentration, Land Grabbing And People’s Struggles In Europe
This report, involving 25 authors from 11 countries, reveals the hidden scandal of how a few big private business entities have gained control of ever-greater areas of European land. It exposes how these land elites have been actively supported by a huge injection of public funds –at a time when all other public funding is being subjected to massive cuts
http://www.countercurrents.org/cit060115.htm

See the Most Beautiful Space Photos of 2014

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array’s first picture of the sun taken in high-energy X-rays released on Dec. 22, 2014.
http://time.com/3652639/international-space-station-timelapse/
NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array’s first picture of the sun taken in high-energy X-rays released on Dec. 22, 2014.

Was the Mayan civilisation wiped out by an extreme drought?
Study of Great Blue Hole suggests 100-year dry spell caused collapseThe Classic Period from 300 to 900 AD. In 514 they were building around ten monuments per year, rising to about 40 in 750. The numbers began to decline quickly so by 900 no monuments were being built. This theory of the Classic Maya Collapse argues that climate change was the reason.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2891111/Was-Mayan-civilisation-wiped-extreme-drought-Study-Great-Blue-Hole-suggests-100-year-dry-spell-caused-collapse.html

The Euro Crisis Is Entering A New, Highly Dangerous Phase
Although Mr Tsipras says he wants to keep Greece in the euro, he also wants to dump most of the conditions attached to its bail-outs: he would end austerity, reverse cuts in the minimum wage and in public spending, scrap asset sales and seek to repudiate much of the country’s debt. Such a programme seems, to put it mildly, to sit uncomfortably with Greece’s continuing membership of the single currency. It is hard to believe that a Greek crisis will not unleash fresh ructions elsewhere in the euro zone – not least because some of Mrs Merkel’s medicine is patently doing more harm than good.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-euro-crisis-is-entering-a-new-highly-dangerous-phase-2015-1#ixzz3NrWvuZK7

Iran’s leader talks of nationwide referendums
Iran’s president said Sunday that he might invoke a powerful but neglected tool in his fight with hard-liners, suggesting the possibility of organizing direct referendums that would bypass the institutions the conservatives control and give more of a voice to Iranian voters. In the largely opaque world of Iranian politics, Rouhani’s remarks are a clear warning.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2015/01/05/iran-president-proposes-direct-referendums-way-bypass-rivals/a3S3xLDEuaXQdVPSRqUZdO/story.html

Israel to ask US Congress to halt aid to Palestinian Authority
Move follows freeze on millions in tax revenues after ICC bid; Palestinians looking to resubmit statehood bid Israel was weighing its options Sunday for further punishing the Palestinians after freezing millions in tax revenues as a first response to their bid to join the International Criminal Court. A senior Israeli said Jerusalem would lobby pro-Israel members of the US Congress to enforce a law that would halt $400 million in annual American aid to the Palestinian Authority, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/56722-150105-israel-to-ask-us-congress-to-halt-aid-to-palestinian-authority

Western idealism is cruelled in the Middle East
The Islamic State is confined to largely poor Sunni areas of eastern Syria and northern and central Iraq. It is no match for the Iranian-backed Shia south. And any threat to Australia and the US is better handled with tough anti-terror laws and homeland security than endless wars in the Persian Gulf.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/western-idealism-is-cruelled-in-the-middle-east-20150105-12hxpv.html

The Boko Haram crisis
A few guides to this insurgency and its hatred of western education.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30728158
Lnk to a profile on their leader.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-18020349
A screengrab taken on 24 March 2014 from a video obtained by AFP showing Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

Worse Than the Dictators
Egypt is enacting authoritarian laws at a rate unmatched for 60 years. Since the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Morsi’s successors have used the absence of an elected parliament to issue a series of draconian decrees that severely restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/26/sp-egypt-pillars-of-freedom-crashing-down

The John James Newsletter 24
2 November 2014.

CO2 and mass extinctions of species – Andrew Glikson
Some nine mass extinctions due to rapidly escalating levels of CO2 are recorded over the past 580 million years. As our anthropogenic global emissions of CO2 are rising at a rate for which no precedence is known from the geological record another wave of extinctions is unfolding.
http://theconversation.com/another-link-between-co2-and-mass-extinctions-of-species-12906

The Day Israel Attacked America
Al Jazeera investigates the deadly Israeli attack on a US naval vessel.In 1967. At the height of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War the Israeli Air Force launched an unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty, a spy ship that was monitoring the conflict from the safety of international waters in the Mediterranean. Was it a cover for Israel’s imminent attack to capture the Golan Heights from Syria? Why did the US not object? Why was aid to Israel trebled in the next year?
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/10/day-israel-attacked-america-20141028144946266462.html

Victorian town aims to be 100% renewable by 2022.
Yackandandah and surrounding villages already have a penetration rate of rooftop solar of 28.7 per cent, with 201 of the 700 dwelling buildings hosting a total of 600kW of solar. The Indigo Shire has the highest solar penetration of any council in the state.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/victoria-town-aims-100-renewables-2022

Politics and aid (1)
Israel allowed only 75 trucks full of reconstruction material to enter the strip in mid-October to rebuild shelters for the estimated 110,000 Palestinians left homeless by Israel’s massive assault
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=736421

Politics and aid (2)
Russian convoy delivers the fourth Russian humanitarian aid convoy to Ukraine. The previous three convoys have delivered  6,000 tons of food products, including cereals and canned food, as well as medicines, electricity generators, warm clothes and bottled drinking water.
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/757574

Ecological farming on the Maldives
How to use our own wastes for the preservation of the planet.

Hungary suspends internet tax plan after mass protests
Around 100,000 Hungarians attended a rally protesting against the centre-right government’s plan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hungary-suspends-internet-tax-plan-after-mass-protests-9830515.html

Pentagon spending hits five-year high
The rate at which the United States economy grew last quarter from a surge in military spending that went up 16 percent. This is a five-year high not seen since the US was involved in wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Significantly, it has helped the economy overcome below-expectation consumer spending.
http://rt.com/usa/200911-gdp-defense-spending-surge/

Minnesota’s highways are poised to become renewable energy generators
The state is soliciting proposals for solar developers to lease unused land along highways with up to 1-megawatt solar panel arrays built on public right-of-way around the state.
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2014/10/how-minnesota-s-highways-are-poised-become-renewable-energy-generators?

The John James Newsletter 41
17 January 2015

I do not blame those who are resolved to rule, only those who are ready to submit
Thucydides

Edge of Extinction
Guy McPherson is convinced that humanity will be extinct within 20 years from a chain of events that would be triggered by the next Global Financial Crisis. Here is his sequence and its consequences.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/edge-of-extinction.html
and
http://truth-out.org/news/item/28490-the-methane-monster-roars
The global financial system is artificial and mired in debt.
Were it to fail, as many predict could happen this year, then trade and industry would decline sharply and rapidly.
Less power would be used and less pollution would continue to enter the atmosphere.
Up to now this has created an aerosol layer of smog that has masked warming by more than 1 degree.
In addition, this year or next we should see an ice-free Arctic for the first time.
Complete loss of Arctic ice could double the current rate of warming.
Together these two events will cause rapid global heat-rise, really rapid!
As it gets too hot to keep nuclear power plants cool there would be massive fires that create more heat.
Few forests could avoid destruction from catastrophic wildfires, all adding to the temperature.
The accelerated temperature increase speeds up the loss of Arctic and Antarctic ice that will raise sea levels
This further reduces trade and industry as docks and infrastructure is flooded
That leads to even more loss of aerosol cover
Leading to more temperature rise.
Together these would bring global temperature to beyond 2.4 degrees, and possibly double in the interior of large continents and result in widespread crop failure and loss of habitat.
At that heat a massive explosion of methane from the Arctic Sea is highly probable.
This would rapidly increase temperature by a further 1.2 degrees.
In addition there are more than twenty feed-back loops waiting to accelerate this process.
Governments will be overwhelmed and find it more and more difficult to operate
Populations have nowhere to go.
Nuclear war is almost inevitable.
Civilisation fails.
Events are now moving so rapidly this scenario is likely to commence very soon
It would unfold over the next twenty years or less
By then the earth will be 5-6 degrees hotter.
George Monbiot
There has not been one proposal, debate or even position paper on limiting fossil fuel production put forward at international climate negotiations. Almost all governments are pursuing the same policy of maximising the production of fossil fuels while paying lip service to the need to minimise emissions.
http://www.monbiot.com/2015/01/09/produce-more-consume-less/

The bear is back: A cautionary tale from Gerard Minack
Fiscal policy is very unlikely to be effective in the next downturn due to congressional gridlock in the US, and lack of centralised fiscal authority in Europe. So you’re left response-less when you enter the next downturn, with monetary policy that is ineffectual, unconventional and just embroidery.What we have are fully invested bears.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-bear-is-back-a-cautionary-tale-of-global-gloom-20150112-12mahk.html

A science experiment landed this little girl in handcuffs
Kiera is just one of over 260,000 students that were reported to law enforcement by their schools in 2012, the most-recent available data. By criminalizing every activity under the sun for both adults and children, the government is using the threat of violence (or sometimes actual violence) to create a docile, obedient, and subservient population.
http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/unbelievable-a-science-experiment-landed-this-little-girl-in-handcuffs-15884/

In an ‘Epic’ Chase, Sea Shepherd Vows to Pursue Poachers to ‘Ends of the Earth’
The dramatic chase, which has gone on for 22 days, is thought to be the world’s longest pursuit of an illegal fishing vessel.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/09/epic-chase-sea-shepherd-vows-pursue-poachers-ends-earth

What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do With the Ukraine Conflict?
The East-West competition over Ukraine is about the control of natural resources, including uranium and other minerals Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.

What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do With the Ukraine Conflict?

Is War in the Cards for 2015?
Either Obama and Putin enter negotiations over Ukraine or the war in Ukraine, with 4,700 dead since April, gets bigger and wider.
http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/is-war-in-the-cards-for-2015.html
and
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/appease-putin-and-avert-a-second-cold-war-20150112-12mc0c.html

What Hebdo execution video really shows
It seems impossible that an AK-47 bullet fired from close range would not have had a dramatic impact on that policeman’s head. The video shows nothing significant happened to his head when the bullet was fired.

and among the comments
http://chuckmanotherchoiceofwords.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/je-ne-suis-pas-charlie-extremely-dark.html

Complaint of war crimes against John Howard sent to the International Criminal Court

Complaint against John Howard to the International Criminal Court

China and Russia to launch new credit rating agency in 2015
The new agency will be based in Hong Kong, and provide a check on the ‘Big Three’, which have not always provided an accurate reading of economic situations.
http://rt.com/business/222175-russia-china-rating-agency/

What 2,000 Calories Looks Like
A healthy adult should be consuming around 2,000 calories a day, according to the US Department of Health. This photo series reveals just what 2,000 calories looks like at some of the UK’s favourite fast food chains — and it’s often a lot smaller than you might think.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/22/upshot/what-2000-calories-looks-like.html?_r=1&abt=0002&abg=1

The Rock of our Existence
The Zionist claim to Palestine was solely based on the Biblical history of the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon and the events of those times. Four generations of devoted archeologists, with a burning conviction and huge resources, produced not a single indication that any of these happened. On the Egyptian side thousands of  documents have been deciphered from 1730 BC onwards that show that Egyptian spies, traders and soldiers reported in great detail on events in every town of Canaan. Not a single item has been found that tells anything remotely resembling Biblical events.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1420212779

How the West was stolen
Scale of Native American dispossession revealed in a time-lapse video. Between 1776 and 1887, white conquerors razed across 1.5 billion acres of Indian-occupied land, claiming it for their own.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2902380/Story-Native-American-dispossession-told-unforgettable-new-visualizations.html

The John James Newsletter 25
3 November 2014.

IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change
Climate change is set to inflict “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” on people and the natural world unless carbon emissions are cut sharply and rapidly, according to the most important assessment of global warming yet published. The stark report states that climate change has already increased the risk of severe heatwaves and other extreme weather and warns of worse to come, including food shortages and violent conflicts. Carbon emissions will have to fall to zero to avoid catastrophic climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/02/rapid-carbon-emission-cuts-severe-impact-climate-change-ipcc-report?CMP=ema_565

Climate conference end acrimoniously
Behind the scenes particular countries had insisted on the removal of sentences, paragraphs and diagrams from the report’s summary that didn’t suit their perceived national interest.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/climate-conference-analysis-a-new-urgency-appears-20141102-11fmn7.html

Climate report huge omission obscures the real danger – methane
Rapid warming in the Arctic – where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the global rate – is thawing an incomprehensibly vast stockpile of nature’s own carbon which has been trapped in ice for millennia. The scale of this threat is mind-boggling. There is over three times more heating power stored in this “permafrost” than that which has been caused by human greenhouse gas emissions since the beginning of the industrial age – and this refers only to that located on land (as opposed to the coastal seabeds).
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/climate-reports-huge-omission-obscures-full-danger.html

IPCC significantly under-state the rate extent of impending change
At the heart is the omission of major feedback effects from the climate-models. The entire suite of the climate-change projections for the next 100 years come from models that omit significant ‘positive feedback’ effects thatt are already starting to become major sources.
http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/IPCC_AR5_Underestimates_Climate_Change.pdf

9 significant scientific findings too recent to be included in the new IPCC report
The IPCC reports, released roughly every six years, are the most comprehensive, authoritative consensus on climate change among scientific experts. However, the cut-off date for literature for each Assessment Report was in 2013 , so it’s worth taking stock of recent scientific advancements and climate-related events that have occurred since then. We discuss research highlights around four areas: sea level rise, extreme weather and climate events, ecosystems, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and temperature.
http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/10/9-significant-scientific-findings-too-recent-be-included-new-ipcc-report

The Last Hours
The threat is described in a new mini-documentary
http://lasthours.org/

And the talk I gave in Katoomba in June last year.

The John James Newsletter 42
24 January 2015

The best scientists in the world are telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.
President Obama’s State of the Union address

Trolling Russia
Israel Shamir is a Russian-born Jew and Israeli citizen. This is a tantalising analysis.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40751.htm

Russia signs military cooperation deal with Iran
Defence minister Hossein Dehqan states that Iran and Russia had a “shared analysis of US global strategy, its interference in regional and international affairs and the need to cooperate in the struggle against the interference of foreign forces in the region.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Russia-signs-military-cooperation-deal-with-Iran/articleshow/45954724.cms

QE warfare is pushing world financial system out of control
Since the GFC of 2008 the world’s combined public-private debt has increased by 20 per cent, and most governments have been engaged in competitive currency devaluations. The world is dangerously unanchored with true currency wars. The central banks may have bought exactly what they most feared by trying to keep growth buoyant at all costs with so much created debt they may have turned a good deflation into a really bad one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11358316/Central-bank-prophet-fears-QE-warfare-pushing-world-financial-system-out-of-control.html

The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
In Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest United States, residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity”, so it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies. The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years and will fall further so within at decade, it will cost a fraction of fossil fuel-based alternatives.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/09/19/the-coming-era-of-unlimited-and-free-clean-energy

Is Barack Obama Actually Trying To Help ISIS Take Over Syria?
That headline sounds crazy, right?  It must be untrue, right?  Well, read on, because you might be absolutely shocked by what you learn.  The Obama administration has used al-Qaeda fighters and other radical Islamic groups to topple governments such as Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/is-barack-obama-actually-trying-to-help-isis-take-over-syria Coalition For A Democratic Syria

A Small and Shuffling Life
George Monbiot’s passionate evocation of our past – a beautiful read.
http://www.monbiot.com/2015/01/19/a-small-and-shuffling-life/

GM crops to be fast-tracked in UK
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/13/gm-crops-to-be-fast-tracked-in-uk-following-eu-vote?CMP=EMCENVEML1631

Humans Have Brought World’s Oceans to the Brink
We have profoundly decreased the abundance of both large (e.g., whales) and small (e.g., anchovies) marine fauna. Such declines can generate waves of ecological change that can alter entire ocean ecosystem. There are factory farms in the sea and cattle-ranch-style feed lots for tuna; Shrimp farms are eating up mangroves. Stakes for seafloor mining claims are being pursued with gold-rush-like fervor, and 300-ton ocean mining machines and 750-foot fishing boats are now rolling off the assembly line.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/16/humans-have-brought-worlds-oceans-brink-major-extinction-event

Nice and dirty – the importance of soil
As much as 95 percent of our food comes from the soil, but 33 percent of global soils are degraded, and we may only have 60 years of nutrient-rich top soil left – it is not a renewable resource. Africa is especially hard hit.
http://worldpress.org/link.cfm?http://www.IRINnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=101019
and
http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/Perspectives/Why-Africa-s-degraded-soils-will-cost-the-continent-dearly

Formation-flying satellites link up to create giant virtual telescope in orbit
The European Space Agency project depends on a level of precision never before achieved in orbit. By flying small satellites in formation, virtual telescopes of incredible power and sensitivity will help astronomers to observe the sun. One of the satellites will point its instruments towards the Sun while the second will place itself between the first craft and the sun with a disc to occlude it for a long-lasting total solar eclipse.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/17/formation-flying-satellites-space-telescopes-esa-proba-3?CMP=ema_565

Saudis to build world’s first large scale solar powered desalination plant
The plant, to supply Al Khafji City in the north-east of the country, will produce 60,000 cubic metres of water a day. It is due to be commissioned in 2017. Desalination is a costly, energy intensive process that is usually powered by fossil fuel baseload plant
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/saudis-build-worlds-first-large-scale-solar-powered-desalination-plant-82903

Drone Strikes Killed at Least 874 People in Hunt for 24 Terrorists
Drone strikes in Pakistan killed as many as 221 people, including 103 children, in the hunt for just four men. Obama’s secret Kill List selects individual targets for assassination and requires no public presentation of evidence or judicial oversight.
http://us.sputniknews.com/us/20150120/1013514542.html

Off the Charts
2014 is the 38th consecutive year with above average global temperatures.
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/2014-hottest-year-on-record-globally

3 Minutes to Midnight
Experts on the board said they felt a sense of urgency this year because of the world’s ongoing addiction to fossil fuels, procrastination with enacting laws to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow efforts to get rid of nuclear weapons
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/22/doomsday-clock-ticks-forward-climate-change-nuclear-weapons-push-humanity-closer

How Whales Change Climate
The astonishing story of how whales keep the oceans alive – and alter the composition of the atmosphere.
http://www.monbiot.com/2015/01/10/how-whales-change-climate/

Yemen: understanding Houthi motives is complicated
Yemen is a cornerstone of the US counterterrorism program. The Houthi group claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo killings. For most Yemenis the group is capable of reshaping the complex political landscape of the poorest country in the Arab world. Since September they have occupied some of the country’s most important infrastructure, including the presidential palace and sea ports.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/understanding-houthi-motives-complicated-essential-yemen-future
It is considered to be al Qaeda’s deadliest branch with the greatest global reach.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/rebels-battle-soldiers-near-yemens-presidential-palace-1421650439

Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists
A series of new laws define atheists as terrorists, in order to clamp down on all forms of political dissent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-declares-all-atheists-are-terrorists-in-new-law-to-crack-down-on-political-dissidents-9228389.html