Energy consumption has flattened depriving governments of revenue
An analysis of global energy prices and production released by Gail Tverberg of Our Finite World last week indicates that the Peak Oil crisis of 2007 has now translated into Peak Debt depriving governments of revenue and leading to high disatisfaction levels with governments.
Her analysis shows that a number of factors have led to a short term energy glut and decrease in raw energy prices. They include: the production of non-conventional fuels, such as Coal Seam Gas, the release of Iraq’s vast oil supplies subsequent to the US invasion and subsidies for renewable energy
Regardless, domestic energy prices have risen, energy consumption per capita across the globe has plateaued and the debt per capita increased to the point where governments can no longer afford to provide traditional services, thereby leading to popular unrest.
She predicts a global economic collapse significantly larger than the global financial crisis of 2008 or the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Local food has health as well as economic benefits
Greenwood is the latest town in the US state of Maine to consider a law protecting local food producers from State and Federal laws that favour industrial food producers. The proposed ordinance states “We hold that federal and state regulations impede local food production and constitute a usurpation of our citizens’ rights to foods of their choice.” So far, 16 cities in Maine have passed similar audiences. Cities as diverse as Baw Baw in rural Australia and Yemen
Camp Mountain is a great location for a bio-dynamics workshop
This experiential two day workshop gives you a balance of both practical and theory in a great setting on 5 acres at 7 Hogan Court, Camp Mountain, QLD. Its only 30 minutes from the Brisbane CBD and 5 minutes to our local railway station. Low cost local homestay is available. The property has very well established gardens and has been worked with biodynamic practices. The place has a beautiful feel, the bird sounds are ever present.
The workshop is suitable for food growers from small scale to hobby farmers who are interested in ramping up their organic food production in a sustainable way, whilst developing an appreciation of the deeper spirit of nature.Its ideal that you have some experience of organic food growing. If you have already studied permaculture, you will find the workshop extends your existing knowledge, adding a new and interesting perspective to maximising the effectiveness of your food growing activities.
The workshop content is contexualised to the food growing spaces at the venue and the presenter also works closely with each participant to ensure there is an action plan to bring all content into the context of their own food growing spaces. As such, workshop participant numbers are limited to 12 people.
During the 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, you will:
Work with our vegetable growing and orchard areasgaining practical experience of how to work with organic and biodynamic methods
Understand the philisophical framework that drives all biodynamic processes so you can work with them from a placing of knowing.
Immerse yourself in our beautiful nurturing space and be well fed with biodynamically grown food, so you appreciate the end point, healthy enlivened food
Appreciate how biodynamic methods will fit into the rhythm of your organic food growing system to produce the highest quality organic food.
People are lazy. With television you just sit – watch – listen. The thinking is done for you
Roger Ailes
A Manifesto for The Platform
There is a deep despair growing among good people as Trump promises to dismantle seventy years of Social Justice reforms and Environmental Safeguards. We have struggled and devoted our lives to implement worthwhile policies over our lifetimes, and they could be gone in a trice. I sense a forlorn hopelessness growing among us. Instead, The Platform offers an alternative. The Manifesto does not aim at concentrating all our efforts on fighting the polluters. We accept that so much heating is now built into the system that it does not matter what we do we will still suffer massive sea level rise and droughts, food scarcity and deaths. The Manifesto offers the positive message that we can make life better now and in the future, and that we, the people of Good Will, can succeed at this. The Manifesto for Our Platform offers the promise that we can do something, in place of succumbing to numbing despair.
Trump demands list of Civil Servants who worked on Climate Policy under Obama. “This action should not be viewed in isolation, The Trump transition team is teeming with individuals with a proven history of attacking climate scientists and undermining climate science. Several members now overseeing federal agencies have harassed scientists based on their research and have long signaled a desire to dismantle federal climate science research.”
Skepticism about Michael Flynn’s fitness for the position of national security adviser appears to be growing as more media outlets are paying closer attention to his (and his son’s) core beliefs about the world. Such scrutiny also appears to be more relevant since President-elect Trump may be relying more heavily on Flynn than on the CIA or other government intelligence agencies for his own assessment of world events.
Trump will use the media to sugarcoat, falsify, distract, intimidate, glorify and massify the millions of people who believed, once upon a recent time, that he would “Make America Great Again.” As the profiteers of Wall Street and the war hawks blend with the corporate statists, the super-confident Trump is telling us what their products will be like and that he’ll be their salesman. If you think all this sounds predictable, there are going to be more than a few “black swans” (to use Nassim Taleb’s best-selling book title) coming over the horizon. It is time to mobilize as citizens in the Paul Revere mode.
The December 19 Electoral College Vote : Anti-Trump Coup Attempt Underway?
Trump won 306 Electoral College votes to Hillary’s 232, her’s heavily concentrated in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and west coast. He won 30 states to her 20 – 270 EC votes needed to be elected. It would take 37 electors, from states he won, to deny him their vote, thereby throwing the process to House members to elect the president.
Methane levels over the Arctic Ocean were as high as 2436 parts per billion on the afternoon of December 5, 2016, with most rising from the water. Pre-industrial level was ~720 ppb and each molecule is 20 times more potent than C02. Add that up!
CEFC backs 270MW Sapphire wind farm, in vote of confidence for merchant market
A consortium between Vestas and Zenviron will deliver the project, with Vestas supplying and commissioning the turbines, and Zenviron delivering the balance of plant. TransGrid will build, operate and maintain an on-site substation connecting the Sapphire project to the national energy grid.
The startling rise in oral cancer in men, and what it says about our changing sexual habits
Oral cancer jumped 61% from 2011 to 2015. HPV infects cells of the skin and the membranes that lines areas such as the mouth, throat, tongue, tonsils, rectum and sexual organs. Transmission can occur when these areas come into contact with the virus. HPV is a leading cause of cervical, vaginal and penile cancers. Younger men are more likely to perform oral sex than their older counterparts and to engage with more partners.
A Drive To Save Saharan Oases As Climate Change Takes a Toll
From Morocco to Libya, the desert oases of the Sahara’s Maghreb region are disappearing as temperatures rise and rainfall decreases. Facing daunting odds, local residents are employing traditional water conservation techniques to try to save these ancient ecosystems.
Only one-quarter of all consumption is by individuals. The rest is taken up by industry, agribusiness, the military, governments and corporations. Even if every one of us made every effort to reduce our ecological footprint, it would make little difference to overall consumption. If the lifestyle actions advocated really do keep our culture around for longer than it would otherwise, then it will cause more harm to the natural world than if no such action had been taken.
The people of Saudi Arabia have long accepted the bargain imposed by the founding king, Abdul Aziz al-Saud, in which they are disenfranchised but acquiesce in political powerlessness as the state provides them with security and a comfortable life. Now they are being asked to do more for themselves while the government does less, regardless of the price of oil.
Congress Votes To Give Jihadists Anti-aircraft Missiles
The Senate passed a bill that puts every American who travels by plane at risk. It is among the stupidest pieces of legislation ever written – to provide shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles to lunatic jihadists who will undoubtedly use them to take down American or Israeli jetliners. The argument that these Islamic militants are fully vetted is complete nonsense as both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly shown. Rebel groups “have entered into battlefield alliances with the affiliate of al Qaida in Syria formerly known as al Nusra to render the phrase ‘moderate rebels’ meaningless.”
One of the answers to Trump, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Salvini, Duterte, Le Pen, Farage and the politics they represent is to rescue democracy from transnational corporations. It is to defend the crucial political unit that’s under assault by banks, monopolies and chainstores: community. It is to recognise that there is no greater hazard to peace between nations than a corporate model which crushes democratic choice
A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms
At 2C temperature increase the hot European summer of 2003 will be the annual norm. Anything that could be called a heatwave thereafter will be of Saharan intensity. Even in average years, people will die of heat stress.
Beyond 2C billions of people will face an increasingly tough battle to survive. To find anything comparable we have to go back to the Pliocene 3m years ago. There were no continental glaciers in the northern hemisphere (trees grew in the Arctic), and sea levels were 25 metres higher than today’s. In this kind of heat, the death of the Amazon is as inevitable as the melting of Greenland.
Between 3 and 4C the summers get longer as soaring temperatures reduce forests to tinderwood and cities to boiling morgues. Temperatures in the Home Counties could reach 45C – the sort of climate experienced today in Marrakech. Droughts will put the south-east of England on the global list of water-stressed areas, with farmers competing against cities for dwindling supplies from rivers and reservoirs. Air-conditioning will be mandatory for anyone wanting to stay cool and the abandonment of the Mediterranean will send even more people north to overcrowded refuges in Scandinavia.
Between 4 and 5C it will be an entirely different planet. Ice sheets have vanished from both poles; rainforests have burnt up and turned to desert; the dry and lifeless Alps resemble the High Atlas; rising seas are scouring deep into continental interiors. Even in Canada and Siberia summers may be too hot for crops to be grown away from the coasts. When temperatures were at a similar level 55m years ago in the early Eocene, alligators were living in the Arctic.
Between 5 and 6C at the end of the Permian, 251m years ago, 95% of species were wiped out. That episode was the worst ever endured by life on Earth, the closest the planet has come to ending up a dead and desolate rock in space. On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs.
Arctic Warming at Least Twice as Fast as Rest of World
Much of this melt was almost certainly driven by the record warm Arctic temperatures seen during 2016. And according to NOAA, this year shattered all previous high marks for Arctic heat by a big margin — hitting 3.5C warmer than 1900. Overall, this rate of warming is at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe.
Change in the Arctic this year was unlike any ever seen, scientists say
The annual Arctic Report Card documented air and sea-surface temperatures are higher, sea ice is sparser and more fragile and ocean waters absorbing more carbon, thus changing their chemistry to more acidic levels, while warming tundra is now expelling more carbon than it is drawing in from the atmosphere.
Coal awaits transport in Katowice, Upper Silesia. According to the study, Polish coal power plants have the worst health impact in the European Union. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The research, from Stuttgart University’s Institute for energy economics and commissioned by Greenpeace International, suggests that a further 2,700 people can be expected to die prematurely each year if a new generation of 50 planned coal plants are built in Europe. “The coal-fired power plants in Europe cause a considerable amount of health impacts,” the researchers concluded.
Analysis of the emissions shows that air pollution from coal plants is now linked to more deaths than road traffic accidents in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. In Germany and the UK, coal-fired power stations are associated with nearly as many deaths as road accidents. Polish coal power plants were estimated to cause more than 5,000 premature deaths in 2010.
The cumulative impact of pollution on health is “shocking”, says an accompanying Greenpeace report. A total of 240,000 years of life were said to be lost in Europe in 2010 with 480,000 work days a year and 22,600 “life years” lost in Britain, the fifth most coal-polluted country. Drax, Britain’s largest coal-powered station, was said to be responsible for 4,450 life years lost, and Longannet in Scotland 4,210.
According to the study, Polish coal power plants have the worst health impact in the European Union. The Polish government and Polish utilities are planning to build a dozen new power plants. The utility companies with the worst estimated health impacts, according to the report, are PGE (Poland), RWE (Germany and UK), PPC (Greece), Vattenfall (Sweden) and ČEZ (Czech Republic).
Acid gas, soot, and dust emissions from coal burning are, along with diesel engines, the biggest contributors to microscopic particulate pollution that penetrates deep into the lungs and the bloodstream. The pollution causes heart attacks and lung cancer, as well as increasing asthma attacks and other respiratory problems that harm the health of both children and adults.
“Tens of thousands of kilogrammes of toxic metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium are spewed out of the stacks, contributing to cancer risk and harming children’s development,” says the Greenpeace report, which does not emphasise the impact of coal burning on climate change.
The 300 plants produce one-quarter of all the electricity generated in the EU but are responsible for more than 70% of the EU’s sulphur dioxide emissions and more than 40% of nitrogen oxide emissions from the power sector. The Greenpeace report notes that coal burning has increased in Europe each year from 2009 to 2012.
“The results are staggering. The only way to eliminate the health impacts associated with burning coal in Europe is to phase out these dirty power plants and replace them with clean renewable energy. The current EU renewable energy target has been proven to boost renewable energy and help modernise energy systems and the economy. Europe must continue down the path of clean renewable energy by setting an ambitious, binding 2030 renewable energy target,” said Greenpeace International energy campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta.
The air pollution from coal burning comes on top of transport emissions that are still increasing despite attempts by the EU to force reductions. According to the European Environmental Agency, more than 90% of urban population in the EU is exposed to fine particle (PM2.5) and ozone pollution levels above the World Health Organisation guidelines.
Greenpeace International is calling on the European commission to come forward with proposals for a binding renewable energy target of 45% and a greenhouse gas reduction target of at least 55% by 2030
Sarah Whyte Consumer affairs reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald
The prices of prepaid Australia Post packages have been raised by up to 30 per cent to take advantage of the online shopping boom.
For the first time, most of Australia Post’s revenue comes from parcels instead of letters, and 70 per cent of parcels are from online transactions.
The rises, which come into effect on Monday, also mean the cost of getting a signature on delivery, a requirement for most online sellers, almost triples from $1 to $2.95.
