The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity.Â
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne
Western media tabloids repeatedly refer to legitimate “national security concerns” as a justification for the banning of China’s telecom equipment. This is in reality a fierce battle in the global wireless telecom industry.
On July 17, the spy chiefs from the “Five Eyes” nations travelled from Ottawa to Nova Scotia for a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. that was casually described by The Sydney Morning Herald as “an informal evening after intense talks in nearby Ottawa”.
The encounter with Canada’s Prime Minister was neither informal nor spontaneous. His presence at that meeting served to provide a “political green-light” to the Five Eyes “intelligence campaign” against China:
CIA Director Gina Haspel and Britain’s MI6 Chief Michael Younger were in attendance. The intent of this meeting was crystal clear. The arrest of Meng Wanzhou was part of a broader intelligence strategy directed against China which had been planned well in advance.
The US based telecom conglomerates are up against the wall. The industry is in a shambles. The US no longer produces smart phones. Its manufacturing base in Silicon Valley has been closed down. US smart phone companies increasingly rely on China not only for cellphone production but also for the development of intellectual property.
China is not only the largest producer of cellphones worldwide, it is a leader in wireless technology. According to an August 2018 report by Deloitte Consulting: “China is winning the race against the United States to build a faster nationwide wireless network that uses 5G technology, billed as the mobile industry’s future. Unless the US moves more quickly, it will be at a major disadvantage when it comes to creating dominant new companies in the emerging space….Accordingly, countries that adopt 5G first are expected to experience disproportionate gains in macroeconomic impact compared to those that lag,”.
US companies have been sounding the alarm over a purported race against China over 5G, perhaps playing to the fears and strategic desires of the Trump White House. (Fortune, August 7, 2018). The complicity of the Canadian government in the arrest of Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the Trump White House puts in jeopardy Canada’s longstanding economic, social and cultural ties with the People’s Republic of China.
High-intensity fire tends to create a layer within the soil that is hydrophobic and therefore water repellent causing mass soil erosion Philip Stewart
During history the means of defence against foreign danger have become the instruments of tyranny at home James Madison
17 Democrats in US Congress still won’t sign on to save net neutrality — and all of them got money from big telecom companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Bill Maher
To have the justice department basically say that the president of the United States not only coordinated but directed an illegal campaign scheme that may have had an election-altering impact is pretty breathtaking Jerrold Nadler
The national debt is not my problem. I won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes untenable D Trump
Nearly 15,000 immigrant children are being held in a network of detention centres across the US. Changes implemented by the Trump administration have filled the child jails to near capacity, and the government is considering adding more employees and more beds to make it possible to hold even more adolescents. Future terrorists? Binu Mathew
Perpetual Growth – the biggest global religion – is both impossible and a disease. It is impossible because it needs infinite energy and resources. It is a disease because it will kill everything if we chase it. And we are chasing it. This is exactly the ideology of a cancer cell. Mansoor Khan
From Egypt’s Nile delta to China’s Yellow River delta, more than 500 million people currently live in the world’s river deltas, which are subsiding at an alarming rate of 10 centimetres or so a year. Over the past decade, 85 percent of the world’s major river deltas experienced flooding, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Boston Review
“Our leaders are behaving like children,” 15-year old told the UN summit. Action to fight global warming is coming whether world leaders like it or not, school student Greta Thunberg has told the UN climate change summit, accusing them of behaving like irresponsible children. Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school in Sweden in August. But more than 20,000 students around the world have now joined her. The school strikes have spread to at least 270 towns and cities in countries across the world, including Australia, the UK, Belgium, the US and Japan. “For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future,” she said. “I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not. Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”
Arctic is in even worse shape than realised Entirely ice-free summers, if they began to occur regularly, could add another half a degree Celsius of warming on top of whatever else the planet has experienced by that time. “If that were to happen, I would think of it as an unmitigated disaster,” said Ramanathan of consistently ice-free Arctic summers. “It will quickly pump in this half a degree of warming.” That extra warming, he said, in turn could trigger a world with multiple other cascading effects, such as increasing losses of carbon from northern permafrost soil, or major damage to the Amazon rain forest. The additional heat would also melt snow cover over land in the Arctic, further driving up global temperatures as the darker land surface absorbs more incoming radiation. The Arctic situation is so dire that it calls for emergency intervention. The Planet Has Seen Sudden Warming Before. It Wiped Out Almost Everything and parallels climate change today. Some 252 million years ago, Earth almost died. In the oceans, 96% of all species became extinct. It’s harder to determine how many terrestrial species vanished, but the loss was comparable. This mass extinction, at the end of the Permian Period, was the worst in the planet’s history, and it happened over a few thousand years at most — the blink of a geological eye. “The way the Earth system is responding now to the buildup of CO2 is in the exact same way that we’ve seen it respond in the past. Left unchecked, climate warming is putting our future on the same scale as some of the worst events in geological history.
The winds felt like opening a fan-forced oven. Since 22 November, more than 1m hectares has been burnt across Queensland, much of which lies in the tropics. Since the beginning of its bushfire season in August, more than 3.6m hectares have been destroyed. The most recent fires occurred on a magnitude never before seen in the state. Over a period of 12 days, the Queensland fire and emergency service said it had attended more than 1,200 fires, with help from crews from every state and territory in Australia.
“Persian Gulf of Tonkin” Ingredients All in Place for US War on Iran? With the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident as historical precedent, there’s a real possibility that the US government could stage an incident in the Persian Gulf that would allow the administration to push for military intervention in the Persian Gulf, targeting Iran. Earlier this week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repeated an earlier threat to block ships from leaving the Persian Gulf if the US continues to seek to block Iranian oil exports. Rouhani’s comments came a day after the US sent an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in an apparent “show of force,” ending the longest period the US had gone without an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf over the past two decades.Map Shows Where Animal Poop Is Turning into Deadly Ammonia Pollution This map of atmospheric ammonia fluxes based on 9 years of satellite data shows 242 ammonia hot spots (surrounded by black circles) and 178 wider emission zones (framed by white rectangles). According to a new study, about two thirds of these hot spots were previously unknown. When lots of animal manure starts to decompose all at once — say, on a large industrial farm — the released ammonia can combine with other compounds to pollute the air, water and soil. Exposure to these polluted resources can lead to lung disease and death in humans as well as crop failure and mass animal death.
Is Michael Cohen Trumputin’s Dead Meat? In the Trumputin world of organised crime, Michael Cohen has committed the ultimate betrayal: he’s helped Robert Mueller prove beyond doubt that don Putin in the Kremlin put his very own bagman into the White House. Cohen is the ultimate mobster nightmare, the inside attorney who flips. Many a consigliere has died at Mafia hands for far less. Trump’s decades of money laundering are no secret. As documented by David Cay Johnston, Craig Unger, and many more, Trump used some 1300 shady real estate deals with Russian oligarchs to flip a multibillion-dollar debt and at least four bankruptcies into a cash-rich buying spree. His flagship Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue is a porous membrane for ruble-to-dollar osmosis. All that set the stage for 2016. Because he didn’t plan on winning, Trump ran the campaign as just another self-promoting reality show. The Trump Tower he wanted to build in Moscow, with its $50-million Putin penthouse, was to be his flashiest combination showpiece and laundromat. We don’t yet know how far Cohen’s inside information will reach, or what more he has to offer. We don’t know if Mueller will do anything with Trump’s criminal past. We don’t know what might turn the Trumputin catastrophe thermonuclear, as Nixon’s earlier treasons might have done to Watergate. We also don’t know how long Trumputin will let Michael Cohen live. There’s no reason to believe the New York prosecutors who want him in prison can protect him there. Nor is there reason to doubt that Donald Trump will blow up this entire Earth and all of us with it before he faces the true karmic payback of a sad, sad life defined entirely by organised crime. East Antarctica’s glaciers are melting faster than previously thought “The change doesn’t seem random, it looks systematic. That hints at underlying ocean influences that have been incredibly strong in West Antarctica. Now we might be finding clear links of the ocean starting to influence East Antarctica.” Ice in West Antarctica is already in serious retreat, with scientists reporting a threefold acceleration in recent years, meaning it is vanishing faster than at any previously recorded time. In April, researchers found that hidden melting beneath the ocean surface was also increasing, putting Antarctica on track to overtake Greenland as the biggest contributor to sea-level rise. Without big cuts in carbon emissions, the melting will continue for thousands of years.
10 of the Most Polluted Places on Earth The most polluted areas of the world are little known even in their own countries, yet they impact millions of people, leading to cancers, birth defects, mental retardation and reduced life expectancies all over the globe.
George Orwell would be proud. Big Brother is truly here. Will this apply soon to the whole population? Will it apply to Chinese overseas? Will those in Australia become coopted agents of Beijing? Will that apply to any person of other nationalities doing business in China? Will it, as Chinese expansion continues, turn the world into its subjects?
China introduces ‘social’ punishments for (scientific) misconduct Offending researchers could face restrictions on jobs, loans and business opportunities under a system tied to the controversial social credit policy. Researchers in China who commit scientific misconduct could soon be prevented from getting a bank loan, running a company or applying for a public-service job. The government has announced an extensive punishment system that could have significant consequences for offenders — far beyond their academic careers. Under the new policy, dozens of government agencies will have the power to hand out penalties to those caught committing scientific misconduct, a role previously performed by the science ministry or universities. Errant researchers could also face punishments that have nothing to do with research, such as restrictions on jobs outside academia, as well as existing misconduct penalties, such as losing grants and awards. The policy, announced last month, is an extension of the country’s controversial ‘social credit system’, where failure to comply with the rules of one government agency can mean facing restrictions or penalties from other agencies.No deal Brexit could cost Great Britain 750,000 jobs In the country as a whole, it is estimated that almost 750,000 jobs will be lost as a result of a no deal exit from the EU, representing 2.5 percent of all jobs in Great Britain. Worst hit, not only in terms of the absolute figure, but also the share of jobs being hit, is expected to be London. The almost 150,000 positions to go would equate to 2.9 percent of all jobs. Wales is seen to be the least at risk, proportionally speaking, with a slightly less daunting 2.2 percent of jobs forecast to go. Lund professor freed student from Islamic State war zone A chemistry professor dispatched a team of mercenaries into an Islamic State war zone to free one of her doctoral students and his family. Charlotta Turner, professor in Analytical Chemistry, received a text message from her student Firas Jumaah telling her to to assume he would not finish his thesis if he had not returned within a week. He and his family were, he told her, hiding out in a disused bleach factory, with the sounds of gunshots from Isis warriors roaming the town reverberating around them. Jumaah, who is from Iraq, is a member of the ethno-religious group Yazidi hated by Isis. The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95%. The oldest ice can be thought of as a kind of glue that holds the Arctic together and, through its relative permanence, helps keep the Arctic cold even in long summers. The younger the ice, the thinner the ice, the easier it is to go away. If the Arctic begins to experience entirely ice-free summers the planet will warm even more, as the dark ocean water absorbs large amounts of solar heating that used to be deflected by the cover of ice.
Australian solar-powered electric vehicle with swappable bodies The recent sightings of a strange, solar-panelled electric vehicle lurking in the grounds of the University of Melbourne herald an exciting development in the possible future of transport: the Australian developed AEV from Applied Electric Vehicle Robotics has today been formally ‘soft-launched’. Quietly developed for over three years now, the company is finally breaking cover. The vehicle is designed as a multi-adaptable platform rather than using the conventional monocoque construction. Described as a ‘modular vehicle system’, the electrics, motors, batteries and ‘brains’ of the vehicle are all contained in a flat platform with mounting points for swappable ‘pod’ bodies.
The Mueller Investigation Nears the Worst Case Scenario We are deep into the worst case scenarios. But as new sentencing memos for Trump associates Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen make all too clear, the only remaining question is how bad does the actual worst case scenario get? The potential innocent explanations for Donald Trump’s behavior over the last two years have been steadily stripped away, piece by piece. Special counsel Robert Mueller and investigative reporters have uncovered and assembled a picture of a presidential campaign and transition seemingly infected by unprecedented deceit and criminality, and in regular—almost obsequious—contact with America’s leading foreign adversary. Judge allows Maryland, D.C. to sue Trump over president’s … Mar 28, 2018 – A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a lawsuit filed by Maryland’s attorney general alleging President Donald J. Trump violated a constitutional prohibition on accepting foreign gifts may proceed. … A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a lawsuit filed by Maryland’s attorney … New York attorney general sues Trump and family over ‘illegal’ charity Jun 14, 2018 – New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and their charitable foundation … Baltimore sues Trump administration over immigration policy city says … Nov 29, 2018 – The city of Baltimore is suing the Trump administration over … knows, the case in U.S. District Court in Maryland is the first of its kind to be filed. Trump Organization tax records among DC, Maryland subpoena … 3 days ago – Trump Organization tax records among DC, Maryland subpoena …. The lawsuit by DC and Maryland claims Trump is in violation of the … .To unsubscribe from any future messages, please click the unsubscribe link below.
Fires in Australia November 18th, 2018. The accumulation of heating the earth leads to this …………..
Between 2014 and 2016, emissions remained largely flat, leading to hopes that the world was beginning to turn a corner. Those hopes have been dashed. In 2017, global emissions grew 1.6 percent. The rise in 2018 is projected to be 2.7 percent.
Michael Mann
Extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys is perhaps a “so what” event. It’s not just the extinction of a species, but the assault on its entire web of life. If Leadbeater’s possum is not protected, Victorian forests will probably suffer irreversible collapse the next time there is widespread bushfire.
Bob Rich
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy
Rabindranath Tagore
Coal is a product that kills people when used according to the seller’s instructions.
Adam Bandt
This year the world emits 40.9 billion tons of C02, up from 39.8 billion tons last year Global Carbon Project
What was normal on average 20 years ago is not normal or average now. If you’re getting unprecedented conditions, that’s what climate scientists have been warning us.
Lesley Hughes
Trillions of bugs flitting from flower to flower pollinate some three-quarters of our food crops, a service worth as much as $500 billion every year. Plus the 80 percent of wild flowering plants, the foundation blocks of life everywhere, that rely on insects for pollination. If monetary calculations like that sound strange, consider the Maoxian Valley in China, where shortages of insect pollinators have led farmers to hire human workers to replace bees. Each person covers five to 10 trees a day, pollinating apple blossoms by hand.
Smithsonian
Bushfires have become more intense and longer-lasting. Last week conditions in parts of Queensland were classified “catastrophic” for the first time.
Paul Gray
Forest fires in California this year released carbon emissions equivalent to power the state’s electricity for one year Emily Birnbaum
The highest recorded rate of change in CO₂ before the Industrial Revolution is less than 0.15 ppm per year, just one-twentieth of what we are experiencing today. Katrin meissner
There is a really important story at the end of this Newsletter that we should all read, and imagine that it is OUR children being left ill and alone over Christmas.
What does the Insect Apocalypse mean for the rest of life on Earth?
People who studied fish found that the fish had fewer mayflies to eat. Ornithologists kept finding that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble: eight in 10 partridges gone from French farmlands; 50 and 80 percent drops, respectively, for nightingales and turtledoves. Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just three decades. The numbers are stark, indicating a vast impoverishment of an entire insect universe, even in protected areas where insects ought to be under less stress. The speed and scale of the drop were shocking even to entomologists who were already anxious about bees or fireflies or the cleanliness of car windshields.Mass extinctions and climate change: why the speed of rising greenhouse gases matters
We have emitted almost 600 billion tonnes of carbon since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are now increasing at a rate of 3 parts per million per year. With increasing CO₂ levels, temperatures and ocean acidification also on the rise, it is an open question whether ecosystems are going to cope with such rapid change.
Kris de Decker demonstrates that we cannot continue our way of life AND reduce the heating of the planet. They are incompatible. Especially high-energy use electronic gear. Back to the 1950s, folks.
How Circular is the Circular Economy?
The first dent in the credibility of the circular economy is the fact that the recycling process of modern products is far from 100% efficient. A circular economy is nothing new. In the middle ages, old clothes were turned into paper, food waste was fed to chickens or pigs, and new buildings were made from the remains of old buildings. The difference between then and now is the resources used.
Before industrialisation, almost everything was made from materials that were either decomposable – like wood, reeds, or hemp – or easy to recycle or re-use – like iron and bricks. Modern products are composed of a much wider diversity of (new) materials, which are mostly not decomposable and are also not easily recycled. For example, a recent study of the modular Fairphone 2 – a smartphone designed to be recyclable and have a longer lifespan – shows that the use of synthetic materials, microchips, and batteries makes closing the circle impossible. Only 30% of the materials used in the Fairphone 2 can be recouped. A study of LED lights had a similar result.
The more complex a product, the more steps and processes it takes to recycle. In each step of this process, resources and energy are lost. Furthermore, in the case of electronic products, the production process itself is much more resource-intensive than the extraction of the raw materials, meaning that recycling the end product can only recoup a fraction of the input. And while some plastics are indeed being recycled, this process only produces inferior materials (“downcycling”) that enter the waste stream soon afterwards. New Study Shows Greenland Ice Sheet Likely Hasn’t Melted This Fast for More Than 7,000 Years
The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is off the charts today. “It matters to everyone living near a coastline. Climate change is not a thing of the future. It’s here now. It’s clear. It’s not just increasing, it’s accelerating,” he explained. “That’s a key concern for the future.” Thawing and refreezing on the ice sheet’s top layer has led to a vicious cycle: bright snow is replaced by darker patches of ice that absorb more heat from the sun, further warming Greenland. The melting and freezing cycle also makes ice below the surface less permeable, so more runoff is shunted to the ocean rather than trickling down into the ice sheet.
Small farms make up almost half of all agricultural land on the planet
Smallscale farms–defined as those that cover less than two hectares–make up an incredible 40% of total agricultural land area spread across the planet. Put another way, that means that almost half of all the land that produces our global food supply is made up of smallholder farms. We may be getting much more of our food from smallscale farms than previously believed.
Put more carbon in soils to meet Paris climate pledges
Take these eight steps to make soils more resilient to drought, produce more food and store emissions. Soils are crucial to managing climate change. They contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere. Plants circulate carbon dioxide from the air to soils, and consume about one-third of the CO2 that humans produce. Of that, about 10–15% ends up in the earth. Carbon is also essential for soil fertility and agriculture. Decomposing plants, bacteria, fungi and soil fauna, such as earthworms, release organic matter and nutrients for plant growth, including nitrogen and phosphorus. This gives structure to soil, making it resilient to erosion and able to hold water. Increasing the carbon content of the world’s soils by just a few parts per thousand (0.4%) each year would remove an amount of CO2 from the atmosphere equivalent to the fossil-fuel emissions of the European Union.Global food system is broken
The global food system is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all emissions from transport, heating, lighting and air conditioning combined. The global warming this is causing is now damaging food production through extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. The food system also fails to properly nourish billions of people. More than 820 million people went hungry last year, according to the UN, while a third of all people did not get enough vitamins. At the same time, 600 million people were classed as obese and 2 billion overweight, with serious consequences for their health. On top of this, more than 1bn tonnes of food is wasted every year, a third of the total produced. The Poison Papers
They show Monsanto chief medical officer George Roush admitted under oath to knowing that Monsanto studies into the health effects of dioxins on workers were written up untruthfully for the scientific literature such as to obscure health effects. These fraudulent studies were heavily relied upon by EPA to avoid regulating dioxin. They also were relied upon to defend manufacturers in lawsuits brought by veterans claiming damages from exposure to Agent Orange. Unlike a Globalized Food System, Local Food Won’t Destroy the Environment
If you’re seeking some good news during these troubled times, look at the ecologically sound ways of producing food that have percolated up from the grassroots in recent years. Small farmers, environmentalists, academic researchers and food and farming activists have given us agroecology, holistic resource management, permaculture, regenerative agriculture and other methods that can alleviate or perhaps even eliminate the global food system’s worst impacts: biodiversity loss, energy depletion, toxic pollution, food insecurity and massive carbon emissions. Solar geoengineering could be ‘remarkably inexpensive’
A hypothetical deployment programme, while both highly uncertain and ambitious, would be technically possible. It would also be remarkably inexpensive, at an average of around $2bn to $2.5bn per year. About $500bn (£388bn) a year is currently invested in green technologies. However, the costs of compensating for droughts, floods and food shortages that geoengineering might cause would be much larger than the engineering costs,
David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon
Naturalist tells leaders at UN climate summit that fate of world is in their hands – listen to the full talk.Facebook’s Very Bad Month Just Got Worse
The two hundred and fifty pages of internal Facebook documents show, irrefutably, that the company did indeed whitelist a number of lucrative business partners, including Netflix, Lyft, and Airbnb, allowing them continued and unfettered access to the accounts of Facebook users and their friends after the company claimed that it had stopped the practice. The documents also reveal that, in 2015, a permissions update for Android devices, which users were required to accept, included a feature that continuously uploaded text messages and call logs to Facebook.9,000-Year-Old Stone Mask Discovered in a Field in the West Bank
The mask probably was brought to the surface by agricultural activities that disturbed the soil. The field is full of Neolithic artefacts, indicating that there is an archaeological site underground, The newly discovered mask, and some of the others, have holes drilled around their edges, possibly so that they could be tied around a person’s face or another object. Without much archaeological context for these artifacts, archaeologists don’t know exactly how the masks were used 9,000 years ago. “Get me outta here.”
At the recent G20 meeting in Argentina, Donald Trump was on the world’s stage when he muttered this to an aide. He was supposed to be getting ready for a photo op with the other global leaders. And, after some confusion, Trump eventually did come back to pose for the group shot. But the unscripted utterance perfectly captured the US in the world today. With all eyes on him, the leader of the free world wandered away from the spotlight, whining like a six-year-old upstaged at his own birthday party. Trump, who lambastes his counterparts for being “weak,” was publicly incapable of manning up even when the stakes were so low. This is what passes for US “leadership” at the moment. US Senate resolution potentially changes Middle East dynamics
A draft US Senate resolution effectively portraying Saudi policy as detrimental to US interests and values and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as “complicit” in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if adopted and implemented, potentially could change the dynamics of the region’s politics and create an initial exit from almost a decade of mayhem, conflict and bloodshed. The measure of gaming’s massive carbon footprint.
Globally, PC gamers use about 75 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year, equivalent to the output of 25 electric power plants. (And that doesn’t include console games.) In the US, games consumes $6 billion worth of electricity annually—more power than electric water heaters, cooking appliances, clothes dryers, dishwashers, or freezers. Video gaming is among the very most intensive uses of electricity in homes. And more power means more greenhouse gas emissions: NASA releases time-lapse of the disappearing Arctic polar ice cap
Warning!!! Watch what you eat
In 1998, I finished a sculpture of Lilith – the first woman – from blue mussel shells that came from Canada, and I’d buy them in bulk in Chinatown, so I could sort through the bins and choose shells in the shapes I wanted.
A curator of invertebrates mentioned that bones and shells accumulate toxins in their environment. Upon further research, I discovered that common blue mussels are filter feeders. They pump several litres of water per hour and concentrate chemicals in their tissues. Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
In 2015, I was diagnosed with heavy-metal poisoning. Doctors found high levels of arsenic and lead in my blood, the result of chronic exposure. The water where the mussels grew was likely contaminated from industrial waste, and the mussel shells I’d been working with for decades were toxic. Metals can be absorbed through consumption, air or skin. I’d been exposed in every way.
When you make art, you often feel diminished and small—you’re just a vessel for the creative energy to pass through. My body was carrying a painful message about the poisoning that Earth is experiencing. Each of my sculptures has precious metal and stones embedded in them; all too often, treasure is defined by its scarcity. But the real treasures aren’t jewels and silver. They’re the creatures being eliminated, the beauty that’s disappearing.
I will never fully recover, and I continue to live with many neurological and metabolic symptoms. I have difficulty holding a thought. I’ll pick up a tool to work on a piece and forget why I chose it. I struggle with autoimmune disorders, and there are many foods I can’t eat without becoming ill. I’m at a high risk for developing Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Heavy metals have an affinity for the tissues of the nervous system, particularly the ones in the brain.
I’m now 59 years old, and my quality of life is poor. But while I continue to work, even though it’s more difficult every day, I feel a terrible sadness. When we talk about environmental damage, we speak of declines in populations. Numbers and species. But I’ve experienced the suffering of so many creatures trapped in their polluted habitats. I now hope their voices can be heard—that my art might create a sense of awe, a sense of connectivity and reverence for the natural world.Shot In the Head, His Back to the Soldiers
Almost nightly raids by Israeli forces in occupied territories, usually between midnight and dawn, ostensibly to search for “wanted” Palestinians and potential attackers but largely to terrorise an already beleaguered people. Often illegally crossing into areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, the raids are catastrophically successful: According to Palestinian sources, in November alone the IDF killed 24 Palestinians (mostly in Gaza), arrested 260, including children, and issued 33 deportation orders. Thus have Israeli forces “repeatedly violated…international law by responding to stone-throwing protests by using excessive force,” says Amnesty International, and the murder of innocents like Muhammad Habali is “nothing new.”
Escalating dangers to last tropical wilderness
Papua and West Papua – one of the largest surviving tracts of tropical rainforest in the world. Very expensive road-building schemes are being driven by the Indonesian government – but for questionable gains and with massive environmental and social risks. Alarmingly, we conclude that three major new centres of deforestation will be created, as you can see encircled in the map.
I have to share this. The Morrison Government is playing politics with the lives of children, with dishonourable and callous cowardice, fleeing rather than being seen publicly to avoid what people with compassion would do. These terrible men, with their climate denial and ongoing inhumanity, WILL be defeated at the coming election. I so deeply look forward to that!
This is a long email, but I’ve just returned from Parliament House, and I wanted to let you know exactly what happened. (From GetUp)
Yesterday, Scott Morrison’s Government played games in the Senate and then fled the House of Representatives – leaving their entire policy agenda behind – to avoid a bill that would compel Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to transfer children, their families and anyone else in need of medical assessment and treatment from Manus and Nauru to care in Australia.
But the Morrison Government’s cowardice didn’t stop Senators from an extraordinarycoalition of conscience. They voted hour after hour after hour, up against a filibuster from the Government, Pauline Hanson and Cory Bernardi on the final day of sitting for 2018, to push the #KidsOffNauru legislation through the Senate. But the final Senate vote came one hour too late. By the time it had passed, the Morrison Government had already shut down the House of Representatives and literally fled the building.
It was a bittersweet moment. But this legislation will still be waiting when the House of Representatives returns in February – and it will pass. When it does, within 48 hours of it becoming law, we will see the kids and their families off Nauru, and emergency flights of critically ill men and women from offshore detention touch down in Australia. But John, to come within one hour of passing a bill that would have brought children and critically ill people from Manus and Nauru to Australia BY SUNDAY was absolutely heartbreaking.
Newly elected Dr Kerryn Phelps, who drove this Bill through in the first fortnight of her Federal career, slumped back in her chair as the Bill passed the Senate but the lights were already off in the House.
These same scenes repeated themselves as Senators left the chamber. Senator Tim Storer who tabled the Bill, having worked night after night to finely balance competing considerations across the political spectrum, had his head buried in his hands. But the thing I most wanted to tell you, John, was that in that same moment that our politics most failed us, the incredible potential of politics and our democracy was also at its most evident.
The extraordinary events of yesterday happened because politicians of principle genuinely listened to the people-powered movement in Australia, and the voices of those still detained. Politicians who knew that the treatment of those on Manus and Nauru isn’t about left and right – it’s about right and wrong.
I watched the Australian Greens Senators huddle anxiously together outside the Chamber door (with Adam Bandt actually running across from the House of Representatives), trying to find a way through the Government’s filibuster. They knew they were just inches away from saving the lives of those in offshore detention, whose rights they had defended for decades.
Greens Immigration spokesperson Senator Nick McKim stood shoulder to shoulder with Senator Storer to table the bill, working tirelessly with people from across the political spectrum hoping for a win especially for the oft-forgotten adults. As, McKim exited the Senate when it was all done, close to tears, all he could say was:“How can I tell those people in the camps they have to wait another three months for treatment, when they needed it yesterday.”
I watched the women of the House of Representatives crossbench, Rebekha Sharkie, former Liberal MP Julia Banks, and Cathy McGowan embrace Dr Phelps and her Bill. They also stood in their own right to argue in different ways for a sensible solution to the medical crisis that has enveloped the children, and the adults in offshore detention.
I watched Senator Derryn Hinch forced to battle Twitter trolls from his Senate seat, remaining emphatic that he stood with all kids, including those detained offshore – even as the Morrison Government cynically dangled legislation he had long fought for to entice him over to their side. He sat alongside Centre Alliance Senators Griff and Patrick, both weary and indignant at the antics of the Government playing with Parliamentary procedure to avoid following the clear desire of the Australian public to get kids off Nauru, and follow doctors’ orders with the women and men.
There stood Andrew Wilkie and his staff, biting their nails as they watched the Senate filibuster and then the House of Representatives clock. Wilkie had put the initial #KidsOffNauru Bill forward in the House months ago, but had graciously worked with everyone else to help draft a new Bill and find a new pathway through the Senate to ensure it become law. He stood repeatedly in the House this week, as he has done for years and years, arguing for justice for the people detained in our name.
And then, after so long of being ripped apart on this issue, I watched the Australian Labor Party. Penny Wong, on her feet for hours at the table in the Senate, stabbing her finger in righteous fury at the Government’s dirty tricks. Their Senators determined to hold, in the face of fear-mongering Government speeches about boats and borders, to the fundamental tenet that sick people should never be denied treatment. When Opposition Leader Bill Shorten stood before snapping cameras and said kids should be off Nauru late last night, he stood for the work of a united Labor caucus led by Shadow Immigration Minister Shayne Neumann, which went back and forth for months between lawyers, doctors and internal champions – intent on finding the way through, even from Opposition, to finally address the medical crisis offshore. What I saw yesterday was a coalition of conscience emerge. And it renewed my faith in the promise of our politics. I watched this coalition of conscience come together and come within one hour of delivering a historic defeat to a cruel Government which has let 12 people die on their watch in offshore detention.
I saw politicians put aside party and ego. I saw them work together the way we always want them to. I saw them sneaking BBQ Shapes just off the Senate floor, because the filibuster meant they hadn’t eaten since 7am. I saw their faces crumple as they realised children would be spending another 3 months in detention, because the Government had thwarted them on timing. I saw them shake off the despair and go out with a grim smile for the media. And I saw them promise, on national television, that they would be waiting, when the Parliament returns on the 13th of February, to finally deliver care and safety to those offshore, and pass this Bill before the House so it becomes law.
That’s why I wanted to email you right now even though the words aren’t polished and I’m still in my pyjamas. Because I want you to know that yesterday showed us that this fight is still worth it. I want you to know that every email you send, every phone call you make, every protest you attend – it’s all worth it.
Because while politics created the cruel offshore detention regime, it can also break it.
Stay tuned for next steps. Because this movement won’t just sit waiting for February. We’re going to keep fighting, every step of the way alongside those people detained in our name. And now we know that we will win.
Yours in hope,
Shen and Renaire for the GetUp! team To unsubscribe from any future messages, please click the unsubscribe link below.
The insults hurled by David Leyonhjelm at Sarah Hanson-Young recently put parliamentary discourse in the gutter. Leyonhjelm was roundly condemned, but not by our leaders. A limp slap across the knuckles from Turnbull and Shorten, then on to more pressing matters, hoping it will all go away.
But not so fast; in governance parlance “the fish rots from the head”. Our leaders need to acknowledge the amoral, unethical parliamentary morass they have created, and its implications.
Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, a Director of Australia21 and a Member of the Club of Rome.
Australian society today is not a pretty sight. Despite the hype around Australian “values”, years of neoliberal policy have seen money corrupt everything. The Banking Royal Commission, long resisted by the incumbency, is exposing not just a few bad apples but an industry rotten to the core from excessive remuneration, greed which is certainly not restricted to the finance sector. In sport, winning is everything, whatever the cost, but it long ceased to be sport in any true sense. Violence against women and minorities escalates, egged on by the Leyonhjelms of this world. Population pressure sees tolerance disappear. Inequality increases in leaps and bounds, exacerbated by mythical “trickle-down” economics. Drug and alcohol abuse is widespread. Terrorism threats and migration justify massive over-reaction in restricting individual liberties. Crass commercial media and shock jocks incite vindictive extremism. Continuing scandals suggest that few people in positions of public trust have any idea of the moral and ethical responsibilities which go with those roles.
Above it all sits a national parliament incapable of sane discussion on anything. Screamed abuse replaces reasoned debate, any sense of civility long gone. Little wonder societal standards decline when “leaders” set such an appalling example. But there are far more fundamental implications.
Concepts of left and right in politics long since became irrelevant to solving the critical issues facing Australia. The imperative is that those issues do actually get addressed, which is patently not happening.
The first priority of government, we are told, is to ensure the security of the people. In theory, we elect politicians to govern on our behalf to provide that security; politicians who, pre-election, profess undying commitment to public service.
What we get, with a few notable exceptions, are politicians who, once elected, focus largely on party machinations, getting re-elected or otherwise feathering their nest. Much sound and fury around minor issues, whilst the critical ones are ignored. It was not always thus; historically in politics and business there were statesmen and women prepared to set aside their personal interests in favour of the common good, but they are long gone since money came to dominate. Good people are elected to parliament, but their good qualities are rapidly subsumed by party politics.
Behind it all, the creeping cancer of the neoliberal agenda dominates the current government. Driven by right wing apparatchiks in the Institute of Public Affairs, the Minerals Council of Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Murdoch press and elsewhere, every opportunity is taken to push deregulation, reduce the size of government, emasculate and politicise the public service making it subservient to ideologically-blinkered political advisers, with no regard for the “common good”. Power is concentrated in a few wealthy hands in the interests of “conservatism”, shorthand for maintaining the status quo for the benefit of existing elites. So dissent must be suppressed, activist groups muzzled, the ABC silenced, academic freedom undermined, public debate dumbed down and the public treated as fools. Few are even aware it is happening, except when the occasional stuff-up occurs as with Tony Abbott spilling the beans on the real intentions of the Ramsay project for the promotion of Western Civilisation [1]. This is where facism begins; the cancer must be stopped if we want a prosperous, sustainable and fair society [2].
In this, Australia is following the US, where the process is far more advanced. The insidious efforts of right wing billionaires such as the Koch brothers, to seize the levers of power has been going on for decades, the inevitable outcome flagged by Lord Acton long ago: “Remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”
The deterioration of US society, with increasing inequality, violence, crumbling infrastructure and much more has, to a significant extent been brought about by this venality. US and Australian neoliberals are inextricably linked in moving this agenda forward.
Except that the status quo can no longer be maintained, as neoliberalism has long since sown the seeds of its own destruction. The inevitable result of decades of exponential growth in both population and consumption is that we are now hitting the limits of the global biosphere, which cannot be circumvented. This is manifest in multiple ways, inter alia: increasing water stress, massive biodiversity loss, decreasing productivity of agricultural land, escalating social conflict over declining resources and associated migration. To the point that the economic growth model under which our economies operate is no longer sustainable, despite desperate efforts to keep it afloat with massive financial interventions such as “quantitative easing”.
Overshadowing it all is human-induced climate change.
Its risks are intensifying and the physical impact worsening, with global climate-related losses running at record levels [3]. Despite 30 years of political and corporate rhetoric, nothing has been done to seriously address it, notwithstanding increasingly urgent warnings [4][5].
The result is that climate change is now an immediate existential risk to humanity. That is, a risk posing large negative consequences which will be irreversible, resulting inter alia in major reductions in global and national population, species extinction, disruption of economies and social chaos, unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced. The risk is immediate in that it is being locked in today by our insistence on expanding the use of fossil fuels when the carbon budget to stay below sensible temperature limits is already exhausted.
To prevent temperatures rising above the upper 20C limit of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, it is no longer possible to follow a gradual transition path. We have left it too late; emergency action, akin to wartime regulation, is inevitable. Market-based measures alone are insufficient [6][7].
Those still sceptical of this reality only have to look at the Northern Hemisphere now, particularly the Arctic [8], Asia [9][10][11]and the US [12], as extreme temperatures trigger positive feedback loops, creating global climate conditions which make normal life impossible .
Neoliberals in the US and Australian fossil fuel industries long ago saw climate change as the greatest threat to the stranglehold on power from which they have benefited for so long. Accordingly billions of dollars have been devoted to discrediting climate science, raising doubts about its authenticity through every possible means, with much US money flowing in to support Australian campaigns. A process which has been remarkably successful, albeit nothing less than a crime against humanity.
But even the Koch brothers, the IPA and the MCA cannot change the laws of physics. The climate science has been rock-solid for decades and the cost of neoliberal disinformation is now coming home to roost. Unfortunately that cost is being borne by the poor who can least afford it, and groups like Australian farmers, rather than the elites who created it.
As Churchill put it: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history”
Which places Australia in an extremely dangerous position. We are one of the countries most exposed to the impacts of climate change, particularly our agricultural sector. Yet our dysfunctional parliament has left the country totally unprepared for what is to come.
The crux of the problem is that our government is in total climate change denial. Climate and energy policy is a shambles, the result of endless contortions trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. Namely expanding our fossil-fuel based economy, particularly coal, whilst pretending to meet our wholly inadequate voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement. An Agreement which the government is doing its damndest to undermine, despite having ratified it in 2016.
Policy is dictated by scientifically and economically illiterate right wing hard-coalers, such as Messrs Canavan, Abbott, McCormack, Kelly and Abetz who cannot understand that reliable, dispatchable and lower-cost power is now available from renewable energy sources far more effectively and cheaply than from coal. Even when coal continues to be massively subsidised, far more than renewables, by the lack of a sensible carbon price to account for its externalities, namely the enormous damage done by the health and climate impacts of coal use, which have been ignored since the Industrial Revolution. None of which matters if you are in climate denial.
They stamp their feet like petulant schoolboys whose favourite coal toy is being taken away. They lie and dissemble, misrepresenting and cherry-picking sound technical reports, twisting them to achieve their preferred pro-coal outcomes, irrespective of the severe implications for the wider Australian community, egged on by the serried ranks of the neoliberal cheer squad.
Just because we have large coal resources does not give us the right to use them if the result is an existential threat to humanity. Commodities come and go; coal is no different. Coal has created great wealth, but it’s time has passed as its climate impact, along with that of other fossil fuels, is now destroying the societies it helped create. The development of Galilee Basin coal, along with CSG in NSW and Queensland, and shale gas in the NT and WA, would be suicidal in current circumstances.
As Sheikh Yamani put it in the oil context: “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil”
Australia was built upon the innovative application of science. That is also its future, which the government is destroying with third-rate, anti-science policy such as the National Energy Guarantee. The certainty for energy investment which business and politicians crave will be non-existent until action on climate change is accepted as the absolute priority in determining energy policy. The solutions are available and blindingly obvious, including a realistic price on carbon and bans on any further fossil fuel expansion.
We have many opportunities to invest in low-carbon alternatives for both domestic and export use which provide far greater potential than traditional commodities such as coal. Particularly in providing distributed energy across the rural community. This is where our aspirations must lie, not in massive investment in propping up coal-fired power stations or investing in new ones. The cost to Australia as these investments inevitably become stranded assets, will be enormous, along with physical damage to the country from their climate impact. Rather than holding back renewable energy development, which is clearly the objective of current policy, we should be accelerating it to the maximum extent possible along with dramatic improvements to energy efficiency and conservation.
Neoliberal climate denialists insist that Australia’s domestic carbon emissions, 1.3% of the global total, are such as small amount that nothing we do will have any effect in addresssing climate change globally. That is nonsense; if exports are included, which they must be given the rapidly accelerating climate impact, Australia is already the sixth largest carbon polluter globally and will soon be fourth given the ramping up of our LNG exports. In short, we are a very big emissions player. What Australia does mattters.
The pretence that the government is serious about addressing climate change becomes ever more ludicrous. The most recent example is the $500 million allocated in a futile attempt to repair climate damage to the Great Barrier Reef, via the Great Barrier Reef Foundation [13], whilst simultaneously advocating the opening up of massive new coal mines in the Galilee Basin which would compound that damage, totally decimating the reef, along with tourism and other industries far more valuable than coal.
Likewise the announcement from Minister for Agriculture , David Littleproud, about an agreement with state ministers to help farmers adapt to climate change [14]. Why was this needed? Because the climate is changing. What are we doing to stop it? Nothing, just attempting to adapt whilst making the problem far worse by building new coal-fired power stations and mines. Just how long can this cognitive dissonance continue?
The Prime Minister proclaimed in 2010 that: “Our efforts to deal with climate change have been betrayed by a lack of leadership, a political cowardice, the like of which I have never seen — “. He promised never to lead a political party that did not take climate change seriously. He now revels in doing exactly that, placing the future of generations of Australians in jeopardy. An abject failure of principled leadership.
The Opposition are little better, continually sitting on the fence denying the urgency for climate action, and ambivalent toward new coal development such as Adani. Equally lacking in leadership and principle.
Many parliamentarians are climate deniers, but that does not absolve them of the fiduciary responsibility to set aside their personal prejudices and to act in the public interest with integrity, fairness and accountability. This requires them to understand the latest climate science; it is not acceptable for those in positions of public trust to dismiss scientific warnings in the cavalier manner which has typified the last few years. Particularly when the risk is existential.
Ministers in particular do not seem to understand that they have that fiduciary responsibility, along with the related public duty and a public trust.
“A fiduciary is a person to whom power is entrusted for the benefit of another. ——- Power is reposed in members of Parliament by the public for exercise in the interests of the public and not primarily for the interests of members or the parties to which they belong. The cry ‘whatever it takes’ is not consistent with the performance of fiduciary duty ———- All decisions and exercises of power should be taken in the interests of the public, and that duty cannot be subordinated to, or qualified by, the interests of the (parliamentarian or Minister)”
Effective action on climate change must be raised above political infighting if the government’s first responsibility to ensure the security of the Australian people is to have meaning. But nowhere in the political spectrum is there evidence of leadership that might step up to the challenge.
In the corporate sector, the widespread abuse of power, declining ethical standards and falling community trust in business is calling into question corporations’ “social licence to operate”, and their right to enjoy the privilege of limited liability, which has been the cornerstone of business since the early 1800s [16], on the grounds that it should be a privilege to be earned, not an inalienable right.
Trust “is a belief that a person or institution will perform their role or function in accordance with its obligations, or where not bound by duty, in a predictable manner”
Beyond trust is legitimacy “ a recognised and well-founded right to claim a certain status, role or function.” [17]
Our parliament must be held to higher standards than the corporate world. But community trust in parliamentarians is non-existent. Further, a parliament that is incapable of firstly, understanding, secondly, addressing and thirdly, is deliberately worsening, the critical issues which Australia faces, particularly climate change, has forfeited any legitimacy. It has no right to continue in its present form.
When the risks are existential, it is not acceptable to allow parliamentary renewal to await the next election and the likely continuation of dysfunctional government. The parliament is on Winter Break; it should not reconvene. The Governor General should disband it and consider alternative national governance arrangements.
Different forms of democratic structure are being canvassed widely, recognising the profound weaknesses of the current system [18][19]. This expertise should be used to create something akin to a wartime Government of National Unity, with leaders of foresight and integrity.
Because the brutal reality is that climate risk now has to be handled as an emergency. Either we act, or we face a bleak future. Parliament must work for the people, not destroy them.
Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, a Director of Australia21 and a Member of the Club of Rome.
References
1] “Academic Independence Threatened by US-Style Philanthropy”, Mike Seccombe, Saturday Paper. 30th June 2018:
I fear things have crossed the point of no return, both in terms of the climate and of the international “order”. Time to go bush and enjoy what is left of nature. Andrew Glikson
Lithium was such an inoffensive mineral when I was at school, but then so was uranium in my father’s day
Rob Durroch
By stating “no plateauing of human population growth by the end of this century” the IPCC report sidesteps the most important and damaging issue. My question: why bother to reduce fossil fuels if we do nothing to the major forcing: population? Isnt it time we were coercive and imposed sanctions on countries that do not take action to reduce their birth rate?
John James
They will stop at nothing to maintain the hegemony of the dollar, because this is the basis of the US empire. It’s not land-based, it’s not based on material goods, it’s based on lending dollars, getting out income and when countries can’t pay they dismantle the assets and take them over. This is how America built its empire. Max Keiser
The fatuity of Christmas products is matched by the profundity of the impacts. Rare materials, complex electronics, the energy needed for manufacture and transport are extracted and refined and combined into compounds that are trashing the living world through utter pointlessness.
George Monbiot
3 in 10 shoppers are going into the holiday season still carrying debt from last year’s festivities
Kelli Grant
The best things in life are free, but they’ve found a way of selling them to you. George Monbiot
Warning of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after dramatic plunge in insect numbers
Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth. Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is “on course for ecological Armageddon”, with profound impacts on human society.
Scientist unveils blueprint to save bees and enrich farmers
The collapse in bee populations can be reversed if countries adopt a new farmer-friendly strategy, with substantial gains in income and biodiversity from devoting a quarter of cropland to flowering economic crops such as spices, oil seeds, medicinal and forage plants.
Methane – Arctic now warmer than England
Sea surface temperatures in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are 16.9 C compared to further south. The situation is especially critical in many parts of the Arctic Ocean where the water is very shallow. Some 75% of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) is shallower than 50 m. The danger here is huge, for at least five reasons:
• shallow waters can warm up very rapidly in case of an influx of warm water;
• these shallow seas are now covered by ice, so the heat cannot escape to the atmosphere;
• sea ice is very thin, so the sea ice won’t act as a buffer to absorb the heat;
• methane rising through shallow waters will pass through the water and enter the atmosphere more quickly;
• in shallow waters, large abrupt releases will more quickly deplete the oxygen in the water, making it harder for microbes to break down the methane.
Orwellian climate newspeak
It is since the dawn of the enlightenment that humanism and science have been rising above prejudices and witchcraft, in some parts of the world. The enlightenment, defined as “ideas centred on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, advancing ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state”, is nowadays in full retreat. Recently messengers of hate and racism have been descending on public forums, while those who try to warn humanity of the climate and nuclear calamities are commonly barred from the mainstream media. As mourned by the late Patrick White, had a fraction of the tens of thousands of those attending sport carnivals participated in peace rallies, perhaps the world would have been different. But such ideas are less in evidence as the world moves back toward totalitarianism, whose basic tenets are expressed by demagogues with mass appeal, hate speech, racial vilification, anti-intellectualism,anti-science, and the promotion of war.
The Gift of Death
So effectively have governments, the media and advertisers associated consumption with prosperity and happiness that to say these things is to expose yourself to opprobrium and ridicule. The growth of inequality that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010 a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population. The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash. For a few decades of extra enrichment for those who already possess more money than they know how to spend, the prospects of everyone else who will live on this earth are diminished. In Sweden, cash is almost extinct and people implant microchips in their hands to pay for things
More than 4,000 Swedes have gone the microchip route as cash use fades and the government scrambles to figure out the effects on society and the economy. The central bank, which predicts cash may fade from Sweden, is testing a digital currency — an e-krona — to keep firm control of the money supply. Lawmakers are exploring the fate of online payments and bank accounts if an electrical grid fails or servers are thwarted by power failures, hackers or even war. In Australia the banks – who we know cannot be trusted at all – want all transactions to be cashless by 2020. Watch out! US ‘Empire of Debt’ will go to war to stop emergence of petro-yuan
The imminent introduction of oil trading in yuan before the end of this year is a very bold move by the Chinese, because the US will not give up the basis of its hegemony – the dollar as the world’s reserve currency – without a fight. Marcos and Saddam Hussein wanted to trade oil in Euros and they were killed, Muammar Gaddafi wanted to trade his energy in something other than the US dollar – he was killed.
Pentagon’s ‘lost’ trillions went to people connected to US military-industrial complex
The lost trillions have nothing to do with defence, but to prop up the high lifestyles of those connected to the military-industrial complex. After spending nearly a billion dollars to find out what has happened to trillions in unaccounted-for spending, the long look through the books has concluded that only ten percent of all Pentagon agencies pass muster. We need net zero by 2050
A crucial new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires “rapid and far-reaching” economic transitions. Disappointingly, the report does not call for action on population, but acknowledges that high population growth is a “key impediment” to reaching climate targets. We are currently heading for a 1.5°C warmer world as early as 2040, with lasting and profound environmental and economic implications. IPCC members said the next few years are probably the most important in humanity’s history as government action (or inaction) based on these findings will determine whether we can avert large-scale catastrophe.
All 1.5˚C emissions pathways rely upon carbon removal
The IPCC report shows clearly that we will need to focus efforts not only on reducing emissions, but also removing and storing carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon removal is necessary for both moving to net-zero emissions and for producing net-negative emissions to compensate for any overshoot of 1.5˚C. The pathways studied in the report rely on different levels of carbon removal (ranging from 100-1,000 GtCO2 over the 21st century for scenarios with limited or no overshoot), but all rely on it to some extent. The report notes that carbon removal deployed at such a scale is unproven, and is itself a major risk to our ability to limit warming to 1.5˚C. The report also notes that feasibility and sustainability of carbon removal could be enhanced if a portfolio of carbon-removal approaches is pursued.
Ukraine – Poroshenko Initiated Clash With Russia To Gain Dictatorial Powers – He Failed
The Ukraine does not accept the decision the people of Crimea and insists that the peninsula is still part of its territory. The Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko sent the boats with the order not to coordinate their passage with Russian authorities. The captured sailors confirm that. He obviously wanted to provoke a violent Russian reaction. The government of Ukraine practically admitted that the mission had nefarious intent
Russia Blocks Ukrainian Navy From Militarizing The Sea of Azov
The Ukrainian government, urged on by the U.S., wants to establish a new military harbor in the Sea of Azov. Two of its navy ships, a rescue vessel and a tug, passed through the street on September 23. In October the Russian government warned that it will not allow any further militarization of the sea. Some U.S. hawks even want NATO ships to enter the Sea of Azov. The Sea of Azov has a maximum depth of 7 meters. Typical U.S. frigates have a draft of 10+ meters. What NATO or U.S. ship could even go there? As Russia firmly controls the sole entry point into the sea and can easily attack any ship in the Sea of Azov from within its borders the idea is incredibly stupid.
Ukraine’s provocation in the Azov Sea
The ongoing crisis is the most significant direct military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, the countries with the two largest standing armies in Europe, since early 2014, when a far-right coup in Kiev, orchestrated and financed by the European Union and US imperialism, plunged the region into a state of perpetual crisis.
Antarctic melting slows atmospheric warming and speeds sea level rise
“Warming won’t be as bad as fast as we thought, but sea level rise will be worse,” As the Antarctic ice sheet melts, warming of the atmosphere will be delayed by about a decade but sea level rise will accelerate, In addition to slowing warming and increasing sea level, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will change precipitation regimes because the tropical rain belt will shift north. Ice losses from Antarctica have increased global sea levels by 7.6 mm since 1992, with two fifths of this rise (3.0 mm) coming in the last five years alone. The findings are from a major climate assessment known as the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise. It is the most complete picture of Antarctic ice sheet change to date — 84 scientists from 44 international organizations combined 24 satellite surveys to produce the assessment.
Trump administration downplays warnings of looming disaster
The Trump administration attempted to downplay the stark findings of its own climate change assessment, as Democrats sought to pressure the White House to avert looming economic and public health disaster. The US National Climate change assessment, the work of 300 scientists and 13 federal agencies, found that wildfires, storms and heatwaves are already taking a major toll on Americans’ wellbeing, with climate change set to “disrupt many areas of life” in the future, hundreds of billions of dollars lost, crop failures, expanding wildfires, altered coastlines and multiplying health problems, represents the most comprehensive and sobering analysis yet of the dangers posed to the US by rising temperatures.
Judge’s Ruling Against Trump Foundation Could Mean Beginning of Much Worse
“As we detailed in our petition earlier this year, the Trump Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests. There are rules that govern private foundations — and we intend to enforce them, no matter who runs the foundation. We welcome Justice Scarpulla’s decision, which allows our suit to move forward.”
Climate change strike: thousands of school students protest across Australia
‘Strike 4 Climate Action’ brings thousands of students together in defiance of prime minister’s warning. More than a thousand primary and secondary students filled Sydney’s Martin Place and students in Melbourne marched through the streets, bringing traffic to a standstill. Freya, 13, and Bee, 14, from Sydney Girls high school, said they felt like their voices were being heard. “Because we don’t have a vote in the elections, it sometimes feels like you’re silent,” Freya said. Bee added: “You can influence something. Now it actually feels like I am making a difference about something I believe in. “I think they are misjudging who we are,” Freya said. “They are underestimating us, You can look around and see how many people are here.” Elly, 14, was there with her sister Aidan, 10, and said they hadn’t expected so many students to turn up. “I wasn’t expecting this many,” she said. “I thought it would be small. It’s so good. I didn’t know many people coming from my school, but it’s so cool to have everyone else here.”
This action was not covered by some newspapers and trashed by others. Scroll through YouTube for dozens of posts taken by the students themselves.
To unsubscribe from any future messages, please click the unsubscribe link below.
Our firefighters have been experiencing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they’ve never seen in their life. We just ended the hottest summer on record. We have fuels that are in critical drought state. This is the sixth year of seven years of drought. Daryl Osby, chief LA County Fire Dpt
The way the fire came through, as fast as it did, was unreal. It was apocalyptic, like something you’d see in a movie. My place went up in flames with no insurance. Now I’m probably permanently homeless. I don’t know how we’ll recover from here.
Robert from Paradise
We just had 10% of our county’s housing stock erased in one day; it’s hard to convey the significance of that
Ed Mayer
We know with high confidence that the progressive disintegration of ice sheets and the transgression of other tipping elements are difficult to reverse after critical levels of warming are reached; Earth’s recent geological past suggest that a Hothouse Earth is likely at CO2 concentration either already realised or projected Will Stephen
Trump has much greater affinity for autocrats, claiming warm, even affectionate, relations with Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman, Rodrigo Duterte and now Brazil’s , Jair Bolsonaro The Guardian
Children born today may be the last generation to see coral reefs in all their glory. Today’s reefs have a history going back 25 million to 50 million years and have survived tectonic collisions, such as that of Africa into Europe, and India into Asia. Yet in five decades we have undermined the global climate so fundamentally that in the next generation we will lose the globally connected reef system that has survived tens of millions of years.
David Obura
If the trend of the past 600 years continues to hold, there is a larger than zero probability that we’ll see a new conflagration that could surpass that of the the second world war in destruction and victims Cassandra’s Legacy
A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions … control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources. Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us
Climate breakdown could be rapid and unpredictable. We can no longer tinker around the edges and hope minor changes will avert collapse. Public figures talk and act as if environmental change will be linear and gradual. But the Earth’s systems are highly complex, and complex systems do not respond to pressure in linear ways. When these systems interact, their reactions to change become highly unpredictable. Small perturbations can ramify wildly. Tipping points are likely to remain invisible until we have passed them. We could see changes of state so abrupt and profound that no continuity can be safely assumed.Read moreHuman activity is dissolving the ocean floor
Normally the deep sea bottom is a chalky white. It’s composed, to a large extent, of the mineral calcite (CaCO3) formed from the skeletons and shells of many planktonic organisms and corals. The seafloor plays a crucial role in controlling the degree of ocean acidification. The dissolution of calcite neutralises the acidity of the CO2, and in the process prevents seawater from becoming too acidic. But these days, at least in certain hotspots such as the northern Atlantic and the southern oceans, the ocean’s chalky bed is becoming more of a murky brown. Because of human activity, the level of CO2 in the water so high—and the water is so acidic—that the calcite is simply dissolving. “Because it takes decades or even centuries for CO2 to drop down to the bottom of the ocean, almost all the CO2 created through human activity is still at the surface, but in the future, it will invade the deep-ocean, spread above the ocean floor, and cause even more calcite particles at the seafloor to dissolve,”Read moreElephants come up with a foolproof way to survive ivory poachers
Never ever underestimate the intelligence of Mother Nature. A strange thing has been observed among the young female elephants of Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park: About a third of them never developed tusks. While tusklessness is not unheard of in female African elephants, normally it would only happen in about two to four percent of them. The tuskless crew in question here are amongst the first generation born after the end of Mozambique’s 15-year-long civil war, a war in which much was financed through the slaughter of elephants for ivory. Ninety percent of the area’s elephants were killed, yet those without tusks survived. And now they’ve passed the trait on to their daughters. Read moreIf you think the conflicts are bad now, just wait until a critical amount of resources run out in large portions of the world (including food and water) due to a combination of climate change factors, overpopulation and other matters intersected.
Half Million Killed by America’s Global War on Terror ‘Just Scratches the Surface’
“This new body count signals that, far from diminishing, the war is only intensifying.” The new reportestimates that since 2001, between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed because of war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan—a tally that does not include the more than 500,000 deaths from the war in Syria, raging since 2011, which the U.S. joined in August 2014, and “indirect deaths,” or those killed by war’s impact on public health, such as limiting access to food, water, hospitals, and electricity.Read moreOur future is here, now … day by day.
On the 10th – California wildfires kill nine, drive 150,000 from their homes
Early Thursday morning, a small fire started along the Feather River in Northern California. Due to high winds and dry conditions, the fire spread rapidly to the west, and by Friday evening had burned 90,000 acres and erased the town of Paradise (population 26,000) from the map. The road to Paradise is now littered with the burned-out remains of abandoned cars. On the 12th – 300,000 people were forced to flee their homes as the worst wildfires in Californian history rage through the US state.
The ‘Woolsey Fire’ swept through hills around Malibu, killing at least 25 people and decimating thousands of homes including those of some well-known celebrities. On the 13th – Demands for ‘Real Climate Action’ as Death Toll From California Wildfires Hits Record
“This is not the new normal. This is the new abnormal,” said Gov. Jerry Brown. The statewide death toll hit 31 and destroyed more than 6,000 structures. It tops the record for the most destructive fire ever. Some areas now burning had fires in 2005 and 2008, so they aren’t fuel-choked closed-canopy forests. On the 14th – The confirmed death toll from the Camp Fire in Northern California soared to 48
as officials continued a systematic examination of the destroyed city of Paradise, a city of 26,000 people, destroyed in minutes. Hundreds of people remain missing. On the 16th – Searches intensify with more than 600 reported missing in California’s Camp Fire
The Camp Fire — the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history — has left 63 people dead, destroyed about 9,700 homes and scorched 142,000 acres.The Fossil Fuel Industry Spent $100 Million to Kill Green Ballot Measures in Three States — and Won
“We had a pretty good shot, but they definitely had way more resources than we did. I guess the oil and gas industry is just another example of money buying elections.We have had a warning,” Nelson said, referencing that report, “that we either end our dependence on fossil fuels or things are going to get extremely rough for mankind. For me, it shows that it’s just about greed and money for this industry.” Read moreWorld has no capacity to absorb new fossil fuel plants
The IEA calculated that existing infrastructure would “lock in” 550 gigatonnes of C02 over the next 22 years. That leaves only 40 gigatonnes, or around a year’s worth of emissions, of wriggle room if temperatures are not to overshoot the 2C threshold. The group’s annual World Energy Outlook, published on Tuesday, revised future CO2 emissions upwards on last year’s report. Read report
G20 nations still led by fossil fuel industry Stimulated by an increase of about 50% in subsidies over the past 10 years to compete with increasingly cheap wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. The G20 nations spent $147bn (£114bn) on subsidies in 2016, although they pledged to phase them out more than 10 years ago.Coal, oil and gas subsidies risking rise in global temperatures to 3.2C, well beyond agreed Paris goal. lRead more
10°C in a decade – rapid climate change is possible
The Younger Dryas is one of the most well known examples of abrupt change. About 14,500 years ago, Earth’s climate began to shift from a cold glacial world to a warmer interglacial state. Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to near-glacial conditions. This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower (Dryas octopetala) that grows in cold conditions and that became common in Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10°C in a decade. Other proxy records, including varved lake sediments in Europe, also display these abrupt shifts. Read moreISIS Again Claims Cyber Attacks Which Were Falsely Blamed On Russia
ISIS delivered flawless propaganda material with well edited videos and created its own glossy magazines. Producing these required computer expertise. It was thus not astonishing to learn that some hackers had joined ISIS and worked with its media team. From an ISIS perspective the listed targets all made sense. There was no reason to doubt the ISIS claims. Look at the list:Read morePlanet at risk of heading towards “Hothouse Earth”
Keeping global warming to within 1.5-2°C may be more difficult than previously assessed. Even if the carbon emission reductions called for in the Paris Agreement are met, there is a risk of Earth entering “Hothouse Earth” conditions at a global average of 4-5°C higher and sea level 10-60 m higher than today. Human-induced global warming of 2°C may trigger other Earth system processes, often called “feedbacks”, that can drive further warming – even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases. Avoiding this scenario requires a redirection of human actions from exploitation to stewardship of the Earth system. Read moreThe Ecological Crisis is a Political Crisis
The problem is political. Oligarchy has been a more fundamental cause of the collapse of civilisations than social complexity or energy demand. Control by oligarchs, he argues, thwarts rational decision-making, because the short-term interests of the elite are radically different to the long-term interests of society. This explains why past civilisations have collapsed “despite possessing the cultural and technological know-how needed to resolve their crises”. Economic elites, which benefit from social dysfunction, block the necessary solutions. The oligarchic control of wealth, politics, media and public discourse explains the comprehensive institutional failure now pushing us towards disaster. Think of Donald Trump and his cabinet of multi-millionaires; the influence of the Koch brothers in funding rightwing organisations; the Murdoch empire and its massive contribution to climate science denial; or the oil and motor companies whose lobbying prevents a faster shift to new technologies.Read moreNeglected pastures thrive under solar panels
Solar panels could increase productivity on pastures that are not irrigated and even water-stressed, a new study finds. Grasses and plants flourish in the shade underneath solar panels because of a significant change in moisture. The results bolster the argument for agrovoltaics, the concept of using the same area of land for solar arrays and farming. The idea is to grow food and produce clean energy at the same time. Shaded areas were 328 percent more water efficient, and maintained higher soil moisture throughout the heat of summer. That led to twice as much grass under the arrays as in the unshaded areas. The plants also had more nutritional value. with a 90% increase in late-season plant mass in areas under PV panels.Read moreCoal dumped as IEA turns to wind and solar to solve climate challenge
One of the world’s most conservative energy institutions, the International Energy Agency, has effectively abandoned the thermal coal industry, saying coal generation would have to be drastically scaled down if the world has any hope of getting anywhere near the targets needed to address climate change. Instead, the IEA – in its annual World Energy Outlook – turns to wind and solar, which it says will need to produce more than seven times the amount of coal power by 2040 if the “well below 2°C” limit to average global warming agreed to in Paris is to be met.Read moreIf you can’t build well, then build nothing at all
Scientists must call out infrastructure building that will ruin environments, lives and economies,. By 2050, Earth could accumulate another 25 million kilometres of paved roads, according to the International Energy Agency — enough to encircle the planet more than 600 times. When a new road penetrates intact forest, it can facilitate illegal deforestation, poaching, fires and land investors bent on encouraging a building boom — factors that are rarely considered in cost–benefit analyses of planned infrastructure projects. Around nine-tenths of new infrastructure is slated for developing nations, which contain nearly all of the world’s tropical and subtropical forests — biologically, the richest real estate on the planet. we need to develop global guidelines to assess whether an infrastructure project should even go forward.Read moreTo unsubscribe from any future messages, please click the unsubscribe link below.
18 December 2018
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou and stopping Chinese expansion
