Category: Water

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Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies – socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor – and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food.
John Pilger

Help one person at a time, and start with the one nearest to you.
     Mother Teresa

The Plague Species grows by nearly 1/4 million daily. Extinctions (excluding micro organisms) and toxification will only worsen.
Steve Kurtz

This was not a good year for journalists. 80 members of the press have been killed in 2018, at least 60 are currently being held hostage, and nearly 350 are being detained.  Of those who were killed over 40 were targeted murders. Julian Assange still held hostage.
Reporters Without Borders

Who will rebuild after a climate disaster as workers retire and weather worsens? We simply don’t have enough tradespeople to rebuild after an event. Presently we are three months out from the next tornados hitting Ottawa and there are whole apartment units that haven’t been touched and are filled with snow because there hasn’t been anybody available to work on them.
David Burke

‘Conservation never ends’: 40 years in the kingdom of gorillas
While studying Rwanda’s critically endangered mountain gorillas in the 1970s, newlywed graduate students Amy Vedder and Bill Weber learned that the government was considering converting gorilla habitat into a cattle ranch. At the time, conventional wisdom held that the mountain gorillas would inevitably go extinct. But Vedder and Weber believed the species could be saved, and proposed a then-revolutionary ecotourism scheme to the Rwandan government. Forty years later, that scheme has proved its worth. Mountain gorilla populations have rebounded, and tourism generates hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Vedder and Weber now work to inspire the next generation of conservationists both in Rwanda and abroad.
PICA year of hard-fought wins in conservation
There were other things happening out there too: conservation successes, huge wins for global health, more peace and tolerance, less war and violence, rising living standards, some big clean energy milestones, and a quiet turning of the tide in the fight against plastic. Stories of human progress, that didn’t make it into the evening broadcasts, or onto your social media feeds.

And for more happy news click here.
Lets hope we may be in time
In 2017, Darebin Council in Victoria, Australia, became the first council in the world to declare a climate emergency. They wrote a Climate Emergency Plan and in 2018 held a Climate Emergency Conference. https://www.yoursaydarebin.com.au/climateaction
Recently, London became the third city in the UK to declare a Climate Emergency, after Bristol and Manchester, with Totnes and Stroud following soon after. The London emergency transition program will include retrofitting buildings, creating a national electricity system that runs without creating greenhouse gas emissions, and electrifying the transportation system.
There are now 21 councils and cities that have declared a climate emergency and eight of these declarations were in the last two weeks!
In the US, The Climate Mobilization succeeded in having emergency climate action and a World War two-scale mobilisation written into the platform of the Democratic Party. Newly elected Democrats are pushing hard for a Green New Deal.

So, now we have the story. Stage wars in small S**hole countries to strike terror, and against the bigger more determined like Russia and China only threaten and rattle the sabres, but under no circumstances risk a real war. That might hurt. The expensive might of America may be used only to destroy the weak but merely to bully the strong.

The Pentagon Wants You to Go Shopping While the Experts Go to War
People are calling the US wars failures – Afghanistan, Syria, etc. But suppose this was not their purpose? Suppose the most powerful military on earth was not created to conquer but to destabilise and overawe? Suppose that institutional instability was the real aim? The benefits are many. People in these countries are then too busy surviving to prevent the theft of their assets; leadership too fragmented to construct a defence against the Empire; nations too deeply in shock to realise what is being done to them. In this scenario every country should be made into willing allies – like the UK and Australia – or shambles. Then there is nobody to oppose the Imperial will.
Americans are in the dark about the near-global warfare being waged in their name. Societal degradation and democratic implosion, caused in part by endless phoney war and the lies associated with it, are this country’s real existential enemies, even if you can’t find them listed in any National Defence Strategy. Indeed, the price tag for America’s wars may in the end prove not just heavy but catastrophic.Iceland elects 41-year-old environmentalist as prime minister
One of the most well-liked politicians in Iceland, Katrín, a former education minister and avowed environmentalist, has pledged to set Iceland on the path to carbon neutrality by 2040. As Iceland’s fourth prime minister in only two years, Katrín will take office at a time when national politics have been tainted by public distrust and scandal. A democratic socialist, Katrín is viewed as a bridge-building leader that may lead the country towards positive, incremental change. “She is the party leader who can best unite voters from the left and right,”
Democratic Party Platform
The US cannot wait for another nation to lead the world in combating the global climate emergency. We must move first in launching a green industrial revolution, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because it is in our own national interest to do so. Our generation now must lead a World War II-type national mobilisation to save civilisation from catastrophic consequences. In the first 100 days of the next administration, the President will convene a summit of the world’s best engineers, climate scientists, climate experts, policy experts, activists and indigenous communities to chart a course toward the healthy future we all want for our families and communities.40 years ago we had the chance to save the planet.
In the 1970s it was clear we needed to act on fossil fuels, and even the big producers supported action. By 183 the voices of caution and uncertainty were dampening any sense of urgency. Within ten years the sense of urgency was gone and the US government and the press moved to counter action. Attention was concentrated on diversions, such as the hole in the ozone layer which took the pressure off the fossil fuel industry. Inaction has just solidified since then, with hints of progress to still the opposition.

Rise of carbon dioxide–absorbing mountains in tropics may set thermostat for global climate
Many mountains in Indonesia and neighbouring Papua New Guinea consist of ancient volcanic rocks from the ocean floor that were caught in a colossal tectonic collision between a chain of island volcanoes and a continent, and thrust high. Lashed by tropical rains, these rocks hungrily react with CO2 and sequester it in minerals. That is why, with only 2% of the world’s land area, Indonesia accounts for 10% of its long-term CO2 absorption. Its mountains could explain why ice sheets have persisted, waxing and waning, for several million years (although they are now threatened by global warming). Now, researchers have extended that theory, finding that such tropical mountain-building collisions coincide with nearly all of the half-dozen significant glacial periods in the past 500 million years.

5G Network Uses Same EMF Waves as Pentagon Crowd Control System

If anyone thinks that mass protests and marching on the streets is going to achieve anything, then watch these two. If the streets can be cleared how do our greater numbers have any impact. With this system, now well-developed in China, you wont want to march any more – not if the pollies feel threatened. A new strategy is needed. Its urgent to consider this, for the media is owned by the fossil fuel industry and the internet and social media can be switched off at the first hint of real trouble. Do we have any other role than to be consumers?  ?????
And to this add swarms of miniature killer drones, and we the people may be forced to stay home and be mindlessly entertained.

Active Denial with 5G

Is this an answer?

620 KM Long Women’s Wall of Kerala Challenges Brahmanical Patriarchy
About 3-5  million women formed a wall across Kerala to protect to protect Kerala’s renaissance values and for women empowerment. About three million women stood shoulder to shoulder across Kerala and formed 620 KM “wall” from Thiruvananthapuram to the northern district of Kasaragod. They also pledged to protect the renaissance values of Kerala. The wall was organised against the backdrop of the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala temple entry of menstruating women. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the wall was to save Kerala being ‘dragged back into the era of darkness’. The wall saw massive participation cutting across class/caste/religious barriers. Expressing solidarity, thousands of men also lined up parallel forming a second human ‘wall’.
PIC
The Gathering Climate Storm and the Media Cover-up
With the exception of the few who comprehend the nature of a Faustian Bargain, some billionaires, captains of industry and their political and media mouthpieces are driving humanity toward self-destruction through the two biggest enterprises on Earth, the fossil fuel industry, which is devastating the Earth atmosphere, and the industrial-military machine leading toward nuclear war. The rest of the world is dragged subconsciously, induced by bread and circuses.
The Emissions Gap Report 2018 from the UN lays out the past failure with brutal clarity.
This year will most likely be the fourth warmest year on record since 1880, with the past five years the warmest ever recorded. Worse, in 2017 emissions increased once again, after three years of stagnation. We are still to turn this corner.
Furthermore, the “determined commitments” made in Paris in 2015, would be insufficient, even if implemented, to keep the temperature below 1.5C. Instead, current commitments imply global warming of about 3C, with warming continuing afterwards. Moreover, the shift has to start now.
The commitments announced so far are inadequate. The climate talks in Katowice, Poland, have not changed this, particularly now that the US is an egregious free-rider. Yet, even without US backsliding, the commitments are inadequate.
What makes this so depressing is that a zero-carbon economy is now both feasible and affordable. The tragedy is that while the scientists and technologists have won the argument, the climate sceptics and deniers have effectively won the policy debate: we are doing far too little, far too late.Here’s what may be driving a US troop withdrawal from Syria
Turkish forces want to push their troops into Syria. The U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds want to keep the Turkish forces out. And the U.S. has struggled for months to keep both players happy.mA confrontation between the U.S and Turkey, officially NATO allies, would create a geopolitical crisis at the heart of the world’s most powerful military alliance.

National debt interest will soon exceed national defence spending
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the interest payments will surpass Medicaid costs within 18 months and that they will exceed all national defence spending by 2023. By 2025, the interest will surge past the combined totals of all non-defence discretionary programs together, including funding for national parks, scientific research, health care, education, the court system and infrastructure. Between now and 2023 nearly three-quarters of the federal debt will mature and must be refinanced at whatever the presumably higher interest rates are in effect then.

$800M in Taxpayer Money Went to Funding For-Profit Immigrant Prisons in 2018
While President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda has been disastrous—and deadly—for asylum-seekers fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, a Daily Beast investigation published on Thursday found that the White House’s xenophobic policies have been a major boon for the private prison industry at the expense of American taxpayers.The beginning of the water wars
There is no doubt, Egypt will be in serious problems if the level of the Nile actually sinks.  And it is not only Ethiopia with  its new Renaissance Dam threatening the water flow of the Nile. The African countries around Lake Victoria also make their claims. East Africa seeks more Nile water from Egypt. Egypt considers such claims as a declaration of war. The countries recognise that, without co-operation, if you add climate change and growing populations the future is a very risky. Egypt and Ethiopia have tried their best to defuse the potential armed conflict, and with some success so far. The negotiations are based on the Nile water treaty of 1929, in which Egypt and Sudan were given rights to a stipulated amount of water and  safeguard Egypt’s historic rights by giving Egypt full reservations on any agreement concerning the flow of the water. The East African countries no longer accept old  agreements made by the colonial rulers in the Nile countries.

Peak Trump
Whatever you might think of Trump’s record in office, the last two years were something of a honeymoon for Donald Trump. The president will never again have so many levers of power at his disposal. After the mid-term elections, the Democrats control the House of Representatives by a significant margin of more than 30 seats, and able to block Trump’s legislative agenda. They will also use their control of committees to launch multiple investigations into Trump personally (such as his tax returns), into his 2016 campaign (including campaign financing), and into the actions of his administration (for instance, the use of his office to increase his family’s wealth). In 2019, Trump will face greater pressure from the investigation by Robert Mueller. So far, this investigation under the auspices of the FBI has resulted in five guilty verdicts for Trump associates.
Growth of CO₂ in the atmosphere to be accelerating.
And it’s not just carbon dioxide emissions that are rising. Methane emissions are rising as well. Sadly, politicians typically ignore this elephant in the room, i.e. seafloor methane emissions that threaten to trigger a huge temperature rise within years. In December sea surface temperature anomalies were as high as 8.9°C in the Pacific and as high as 10.1°C in the Atlantic. Albedo change is one of the feedbacks that the IPCC has yet to come to grips with, and merely hoped it would somehow compensated for by albedo gain in the Antarctic.

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In some future AI-saturated world the role of humans, even in nuclear decision-making, is likely to be progressively diminished or disappear entirely, leaving machines to determine humanity’s fate.
Michael Klare

Most people do not see their beliefs; instead their beliefs tell them what to see. This is the simple difference between clarity and confusion
Dom Perignon

The volatile US president complied with the Turkish leader’s demands and took his own advisers by surprise in the latest example of a pattern in which Trump tends to side with authoritarian foreign leaders, over the advice of US officials.
Julian Borger

In spite of all we have done, so much written and so many meetings, more fossil fuels are being extracted than ever before. We have not made even a small dent in the system. Not one iota. So don’t bother to ask why so many of us retain little hope for our future.
John James

Huawei is the only game in town! If your country wants 5G in the next year or three, Huawei is the man with the plan, the maven with the moxie, the monster with the mojo, the Master of the Universe. This means the United States, Five Eyes and every other country Team Trump attacks with the imperial toolbox, to stop using Chinese equipment, are going to be dangerously outdated and exposed, compared to those who go Sino.
Jeff Brown

As the Club of Rome pointed out 50 years ago, we would, around now, run out of economically extracted resources that would trigger a general collapse. Fracking is one more example of the desperation to extract the last drop of oil no matter that we destroy the land around it. We pay for these resources with the soil that feeds us. We get oil and we lose our food. These expensive attempts to extract the last resources out of the earth are the final act in our madness. We are consuming the home we live in and leaving ………
We not only kill life in the sea, eliminate insects and the multitude of creatures, large and small that have made the earth such a precious place, but when we recognise what we are doing we cannot stop ourselves. We have had two generations to turn recognition into action, but have failed to even marginally limit the slaughter.
As a species none can mourn our end.

A ‘Gold Rush’ at The Bottom of The Ocean Could Be The Final Straw For Ecosystems
As the world’s population scales to ever-greater heights, a growing demand for resources is driving humans to new lows. In the next few years, commercial mining on the deep ocean floor could become a real possibility. But with several permits already issued, a new report suggests the mining industry is racing to the bottom in more ways than one in a deep sea “gold rush” for minerals and metals could wind up causing irreversible damage to what are already fragile ocean ecosystems.Ocean Dead Zones
In the 1960s there were 49, now there are over 400. Not only do the fish die without oxygen, but so does the Phytoplankton which is the basis of the food chain. All that survives is algae, a smelly stuff that no one anywhere near the sea can smell without puking.
A very effective display from Bernie Sanders – worth the watch if you love our oceans.Arthropod Armageddon?
Researchers returned to the island recently and repeated the study using the exact same methods.  To their surprise, they found that arthropod biomass was just one-eighth to one-sixtieth of that in the 1970s — a shocking collapse. And the carnage didn’t end there.  A bevy of lizards, birds, and frogs that feed on arthropods had fallen sharply in abundance as well. For the Earth’s ecosystems, a collapse loss of arthropods could be downright apocalyptic.  Arthropods pollinate plants, disperse seeds, recycle nutrients, and form the basis of food chains that sustain entire webs of life and agricultural production.

Ten feelgood environment stories you may have missed in 2018
Let’s be honest – environment news isn’t always the jolliest, and 2018 was no exception. From climate change, to recycling, to energy policy, at times it has felt like we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next. So here are ten upbeat environmental stories from this year that prove it’s not all doom and gloom.

Jichang Liu captured this charming image of a swan and ducks swimming on a lake in China. The image landed him a highly commended honor in the “tranquility single” category. Lets hope for a Tranquil 2019.

Indian Agencies Snooping Into Your Computer: The Orwellian Nightmare Is Here
The BJP government legalised “Hacking or Spying of Data by 10 Agencies of the Central government” just replicated “1984” in India. The ten agencies that have been authorised to intercept, monitor and decrypt “any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource” include the two intelligence agencies — internal spy body Intelligence Bureau and external agency Research and Analysis Wing.2019 may be the warmest year on record as a result of an El Niño event exacerbated by global warming
El Niño is a part of a routine climate pattern that occurs when sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean rise to above-normal levels for an extended period of time. It can last anywhere from 4 to 16 months and it typically has a warming influence on the global temperature. 2018 started out under La Niña conditions, which usually has a cooling influence on global temperatures, but it was not nearly enough to cancel out the warming from the release of man-made greenhouse gases. Since late April 2018, sea-surface temperatures across much of the east-central tropical Pacific returned to neutral. With the return of El Nino, 2019 may be the warmest year on record.

2018 – the hottest La Niña year ever recorded
The past five years are the five hottest since the launch of reliable global measurements more than a century ago. Since 1970 there have been 15 El Niño years, 15 La Niña years, 13 neutral years, and six volcanic years. 2018 was a fairly weak La Niña year similar to 2009 and 2012, but the global temperature was about 0.16-0.18°C hotter in 2018 despite solar activity’s also remaining relatively low.

Greenland’s Rapid Ice Melt Persists Even in Winter
In the latest troubling study  regarding how the climate crisis is affecting the world’s iciest regions. The ice sheet’s persistent melting even in winter has come about because huge waves below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, created by unusually strong winter winds, are pushing warm water up to Greenland tocreate an environment that’s hostile for the country’s icy ecosystem. Accelerating, year-round run-off that persists even in the coldest months of the year is the greatest contributor to sea level rise.Big Business Wants You To Think It’s Fixing The Plastic Crisis. Don’t Buy It.
New plastic production is expected to increase by some 40% over the next decade. In the US about $180 billion has been invested in new petrochemical plants for plastic manufacturing. A new report from the International Energy Agency foresees rising demand for virgin plastics sustaining the global oil and gas sector to 2050, offsetting a projected slowdown in demand for transport fuels. Meanwhile, more than 4 million tons of plastic debris pour into marine ecosystems every year. It’s estimated that, by 2050, there will be more plastic garbage than fish in the oceans. Much of this will be single-use packaging. “The only way we solve the problem is if we reduce the use of plastic in the first place, and single-use consumer goods packaging is really the place where we need to do that,”

Demand for glass milk bottles triple as more people try to reduce their plastic waste.
Once finished glass milk bottles are returned to the dairy, they are washed out and refilled to be delivered again. This stops hundreds of plastic bottles being used which only have a single life-span. By switching to glass we worked out that we will save 3000 bottles every year.

40 million Americans depend on the Colorado River. It’s drying up.
Decades of warming temperatures have finally forced a confrontation with an inescapable truth: There’s no longer enough water to go around. This past winter was a preview of what the future will look like: A very low amount of snow fell across the mountains that feed the river, so water levels have plummeted to near-record low levels in vast Lake Mead and Lake Powell — the two mega-reservoirs that are used to regulate water resources during hard times. Since then, the news has only gotten worse. Water managers project that Lake Powell will lose 15 percent of its volume within the next 12 months. Lake Mead, which feeds hydroelectricity turbines at the Hoover Dam and is the region’s most important reservoir, will fare even worse — falling 22 percent in the next two years, below a critical cutoff point to trigger mandatory water rationing. In a dystopian twist, Las Vegas has already been planning for the worst-case scenario: Three years ago, the city completed a three-mile long tunnel to suck water from directly below Lake Mead. The tunnel will provide last-resort access to every drop of water.
Las Vegas will survive even when Californian farms close down. This is the way we will go, fighting each other for the last bit of whatever we think we need to preserve what we’ve got.

Where is the truth in an era of Faux-News? I published an article from a Russian source condemning the White Helmets in Syria. I publish below two articles defending their work. In steering a path between fact and fiction we can rely only on what we would like to call evidence, not just selected photos or staged videos. When both sides talk about evidence, and neither presents any that is unambiguous, where do we go? 

Are the Syrian ‘White Helmets’ Rescue Organisation Terrorists?
Through the course of the bloody seven-year war in Syria a network of Western pro-Assad activists and bloggers have helped spread to English-speaking audiences a series of conspiracy theories that deflect blame for atrocities away from the regime. A common theme is the baseless but relentless claim that the White Helmets, known officially as Syria Civil Defence, are either terrorists or are “staging” mass casualty events like chemical weapons attacks. They claim to have rescued 60,000 people since they began tracking that figure in 2014, and say more than 140 volunteers have died while serving. The group claims to be impartial, only interested in saving lives amid the chaos and atrocities of war. Their motto, taken from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, is “To save a life is to save all of humanity.”

White Helmets ‘staging fake attacks’ in Syria? We sort fact from fiction
For the past few months, however, the White Helmets have been the target of a smear campaign on social media, mainly led by supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Social media accounts, especially those belonging to conspiracy theorists and media with pro-Russian leanings, accuse the White Helmets of being allies of jihadist rebel groups. They also claim the White Helmets are carrying out a communications war with the Syrian regime.

Ten Charts Show How the World is Progressing on Clean Energy
Rapid progress towards clean energy is needed to meet the global ambition to limit warming to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures. But how are countries doing so far? In our Energy Revolution Global Outlook report we rank progress in 25 major world economies to provide tables of their efforts to clean up electricity generation, switch from oil to electric vehicles, deploy carbon capture and storage, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and tackle energy efficiency.
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We have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again. We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not.
      Greta Thunberg

We listen, we clap, we feel cheered for somebody has said what we feel …. and then the next sound-bite takes over and nothing is done. The quantity of fossil fuels being burned has not been reduced by one iota in decades. We continue to squeal, we prance about, and nothing changes. Are we really prepared to face what is wrong with us, yes us – you and me!
Complacency, Xmas shopping, flights to see friends and dance at weddings, nothing changes. To keep our earth habitable we must ….  …. use the holiday to work it out! its not that hard.

Over 40% of invertebrate pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, are facing extinction, and 16.5% of vertebrate pollinators, such as birds and bats from pesticide use and intensive farming, which reduces the diversity of insects’ nutrition.
      Dalial Freitak in here

Modern urban-industrial man is given to the raping of anything and everything natural on which he can fasten his talons.  He rapes the sea; he rapes the soil; the natural resources of the earth.  He rapes the atmosphere.  He rapes the future of his own civilisation.  Instead of living off of nature’s surplus, which he ought to do, he lives off its substance. He would not need to do this were he less numerous, and were he content to live a more simple life.  But he is prepared neither to reduce his numbers nor to lead a simpler and more healthful life.  So he goes on destroying his own home, like a vast horde of locusts.  And he must be expected, persisting blindly as he does in this depraved process, to put an end to his own existence within the next century.  The years 2000 to 2050 should witness the end of the great Western civilisation.  The Chinese, more prudent and less spoiled, no less given to over-population but prepared to be more ruthless in the control of its effects, may inherent the ruins.
      George Kennan, diary entry, March 21, 1977

The extraordinary censorship of anti-racist Jewish opinion by Google is not directed at all Jews but only against the very best of Jews –  the anti-racist Jewish humanitarians who believe that the post-WW2 Jewish Holocaust crie de coeur  of “never again” means “never again to anyone”, including the sorely oppressed  Palestinians . The clear advice for those seeking reputable information on the Web is “Bing it!”
      Gideon Polya

As I grow older I realise how limited a part reason plays in the conduct of men.  They believe what they want to—and although liable to shipwreck they generally get off with a hole in the bottom of their boat and just stick an old coat over it.
      Oliver Wendell Holmes

Humankind is a runaway project.  With more than 7.3 billion, we are a Malthusian plague species.  This is not a condemnation or indictment, nor some kind of ironic boast.  It is an observable fact.  The evidence is now overwhelming that we stand at a crossroads of history and of nature and our own nature.  Unfolding catastrophic change is is undeniable.  But before we can devise solutions of mitigation, we have to admit that we are problem.
      Michael Duggan

The Big Picture – a serious attempt at an overview
Serious discontinuities tend to disrupt the timelines of all complex societies (another name for civilisations—that is, societies with cities, writing, money, and full-time division of labor). The ancient Roman, Egyptian, and Mayan civilisations all collapsed. Archaeologists, historians, and systems thinkers have spent decades seeking an explanation for this pattern of failure—a general unified theory of civilisational collapse, if you will.

Crimes Against the Earth
A critical parameter in Drake’s Equation, which seeks to estimate the number of planets that host civilisations in the Milky Way galaxy, is L – the longevity of technological civilisations. Estimates of L range between a minimum of 70 years and 10,000 years, but even for the more optimistic scenarios, only a tiny fraction of such planets would exist in the galaxy at the present time. It is another question whether an intelligent species exists in this, or any other galaxy, which has brought about a mass extinction of species on the scale initiated by Homo sapiens since the mid-18th century and in particular since 1945.

To hinder the rich from taking control of the news, and limiting and recasting our views to their benefit, we have to support alternative news sources, like this Newsletter. Do get the non-faux news out, enrolled your friends. It is depressing for a good reason – the situation IS depressing. Until we all do something to press home our needs and our views we will become increasingly slaves to the rich and have been denied the possibility of formulating change.  

World’s Journalists Have Never Faced ‘As Much Violence and Abusive Treatment’ as This Year
Eighty journalists around the world were killed due to their reporting work from January to November 2018, while 348 were detained and 60 were held hostage, according to the the group’s annual “Worldwide Round-up” of dangers faced by journalists. “Violence against journalists has reached unprecedented levels this year, and the situation is now critical,”The new World Order is already here
A significant number of Americans believe that they’re still relatively safe behind the walls of Donald Trump’s Fortress America. Homeland Security protects them from international terrorists. Border patrol agents block caravans of refugees and asylum-seekers. By refusing to ratify membership in institutions like the International Criminal Court, Congress keeps the US safe from foreign influences. President Trump has only reinforced such feelings by pulling the US out of international pacts like the Paris climate accord and global bodies like the UN Human Rights Council. All such precautions, however, have done nothing to prevent the establishment of an actual New World Order on American soil. Yes, it’s happened, even if the conspiracy mongers haven’t cared to notice. There is indeed a new global order. It’s called climate change and, unlike the scenarios imagined by the anti-globalists, it’s wreaking its dystopian havoc right in the here and now.
Bizarre ‘Dark Fluid’ with Negative Mass Could Dominate the Universe
Our best theoretical model can only explain 5 percent of the universe. The remaining 95 percent is famously made up almost entirely of invisible, unknown material dubbed dark energy and dark matter. They can only be inferred from gravitational effects. Dark matter may be an invisible material, but it exerts a gravitational force on surrounding matter that we can measure. Dark energy is a repulsive force that makes the universe expand at an accelerating rate. The two have always been treated as separate phenomena. But now they may both be part of the same strange concept — a single, unified “dark fluid” of negative masses – a hypothetical form of matter that would have a type of negative gravity — repelling all other material around them if pushed, it would accelerate towards you rather than away from you.
Terror management theory
TMT posits that while humans share with all life-forms a biological predisposition toward self-preservation in the service of reproduction, we are unique in our capacity for symbolic thought, which fosters self-awareness and the ability to reflect on the past and ponder the future. This spawns the realization that death is inevitable and can occur at any time for reasons that cannot be anticipated or controlled.
The awareness of death engenders potentially debilitating terror that is “managed” by the development and maintenance of cultural worldviews: humanly constructed beliefs about reality shared by individuals that minimise existential dread by conferring meaning and value. All cultures provide a sense that life is meaningful by offering an account of the origin of the universe, prescriptions for appropriate behaviour, and assurance of immortality for those who behave in accordance with cultural dictates. Literal immortality is afforded by souls, heavens, afterlives, and reincarnations associated with all major religions. Symbolic immortality is obtained by being part of a great nation, amassing great fortunes, noteworthy accomplishments, and having children.
NOAA Arctic report card 2018
Record sea-ice minimums have occurred every year for the past 12 years. During two weeks in February—normally the most important weeks for sea-ice growth in the year—the Bering Sea actually lost an area of ice the size of Idaho
In the spring, the sea ice vanishes early, allowing algae blooms to envelop the open ocean. One warm-water species of algae produces toxins that trigger a disease called paralytic shellfish poisoning when absorbed by shellfish and then eaten by humans. Toxins in a single animal can kill a person in as little as two hours, according to the Alaska Division of Public Health. There is no antidote.
Caribou and reindeer herds have lost more than half their animals since the 1980s, said Howard Epstein, a professor at the University of Virginia. About 4.7 million caribou and reindeer roamed the tundra a few decades ago. Only 2.1 million do so today.
The Arctic Ocean has a higher concentration of micro-plastics than any other global basin in the world,Australia experiencing more heat, longer fire seasons and rising oceans
State of the climate report points to a long-term increase in the frequency of extreme heat events, fire weather and drought.  There’s been around a five-fold increase in extreme heat and that is consistent whether you look at monthly temperatures, day time temperatures or night time temperatures.
    Fire seasons have lengthened and become more severe
    The number of extreme heat days continues to trend upward.
    Drier conditions in south-east and south-west from April to October.
    Rainfall across northern Australia has increased
    Oceans around Australia have warmed by about 1C since 1910
    Sea levels have risen by 200+ mm since records began and is accelerating.
    30% increase in ocean acidity since the 1800s

I have found that neither fact-based reason nor the cognitive dissonance change many minds once they are firmly fixed; rationalization and denial are the twin pillars of human psychology and it is a common and unfortunate characteristic of our species to double-down on mistaken beliefs rather than admit error and address problems forthrightly.  Will this be our epitaph?
      Michael Duggan from here.

Possessed by a conscious fear of death, craving a god-like immortality and omniscience, Homo developed the absurd faculty to simultaneously create and destroy, culminating with the demise of the atmospheric conditions that allowed its flourishing in the first place.
      Andrew Glikson

Land-clearing figures show 314,000 hectares felled in Great Barrier Reef catchment.  More than 700,000 hectares cleared over two years, 40% of it in the reef catchment area. “It’s an environmental disaster and it shows why laws to end deforestation are desperately needed,”
       Queensland

Massive ocean carbon sink spotted burping CO2
The Southern Ocean’s complex contribution to the global carbon cycle is coming to light, thanks to a fleet of robotic floats that are gathering detailed data for the first time. The waters around Antarctica slow global warming by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But, during the winter months, the deep waters that rise to the surface release massive quantities of centuries-old carbon. The latest findings reveal that winter emissions reduce the Southern Ocean’s net uptake of CO2 by more than 1.4 billion tonnes per year — roughly equal to Japan’s annual carbon emissions.Risks of ‘domino effect’ of tipping points greater than thought
The study collated existing research on ecosystem transitions that can irreversibly tip to another state, such as coral reefs bleaching and being overrun by algae, forests becoming savannahs and ice sheets melting into oceans. It then cross-referenced the 30 types of shift to examine the impacts they might have on one another and human society. Only 19% were entirely isolated. Another 36% shared a common cause, but were not likely to interact. The remaining 45% had the potential to create either a one-way domino effect or mutually reinforcing feedbacks. “It’s a little depressing knowing we are not on a trajectory to keep our ecosystem in a functional state, but these connections are also a reason for hope; good management in one place can prevent severe environmental degradation elsewhere. Every action counts.”

Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state
A domino-like cascade of melting ice, warming seas, shifting currents and dying forests could tilt the Earth into a “hothouse” state beyond which human efforts to reduce emissions will be increasingly futile, a group of leading climate scientists has warned. This grim prospect is sketched out in a journal paper that considers the combined consequences of 10 climate change processes, including the release of methane trapped in Siberian permafrost and the impact of melting ice in Greenland on the Antarctic.
Long-Hidden ‘Pyramid’ Found in Indonesia Was Likely an Ancient Temple
It spread over an area of around 15 hectares and had been built up over millennia, with layers representing different periods. At the very top were pillars of basalt rocks framing step terraces, with other arrangements of rock columns “forming walls, paths and spaces”. They estimated this layer to be about 3,000 to 3,500 years old. Underneath the surface, to a depth of about 3 m, was a second layer of similar rock columns, thought to be 7,500 to 8,300 years old. And a third layer, extending 15 m below the surface, is more than 9,000 years old; it could even date to 28,000 years ago, Surveys also detected multiple chambers underground.

Sydney and Melbourne vow to ditch coal power at COP24
The cities of Sydney and Melbourne committed themselves to phasing out coal on Thursday,  joined an international coalition of states, regions, cities and businesses who have committed to ending coal power generation. Australia is the fourth largest coal producer in the world. Its federal government is known for its fierce support for the sector and signalled on Wednesday that it would use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants. Scotland, gas and electricity company Scottish Power, Senegal and Israel are also joining the alliance, which has been convened by Canada and the UK.A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States — so She Lost Her Job
She was prepared to sign her contract renewal until she noticed one new pledge that she “does not currently boycott Israel,” that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract,” and that she shall refrain from any action “that is intended to penalise, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory.” … That language would bar Amawi not only from refraining from buying goods from companies located within Israel, but also from any Israeli companies operating in the occupied West Bank (“an Israeli-controlled territory”). The oath given to Amawi would also likely prohibit her even from advocating such a boycott given that such speech could be seen as “intended to penalise, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel.”
China is building a new Great Wall
The sand lands that cover about 18% of China have expanded rapidly. By 2006, they were devouring usable land at a rate of almost 1,000 square miles per year, up from 600 square miles per year in the 1950s. The Green Great Wall, was launched in 1978, and is slated to continue until 2050. It aims to plant some 88 million acres of protective forests, in a belt nearly 3,000 miles long and as wide as 900 miles in places. Prompted by China’s ever-worsening environmental conditions, the government has added a handful of other major afforestation projects in more recent years. It all adds up to what is easily the biggest tree-planting project in human history.

If this is believed in the Pentagon, then a preventative war to knock them out before they become a swarm may come very soon. The wrong people are in the White House, and our bigoted “leaders” are slaves to US interests and, more under cover, those of Israel.

US Powerless Against Hypersonic Missile Attack From China And Russia, New Report Warns
“China and Russia are pursuing hypersonic weapons because their speed, altitude and manoeuvrability may defeat most missile defence systems, and may improve long-range conventional and nuclear strike capabilities,”

Putin: Russia’s advanced weapons will make those accustomed to militarist rhetoric think
The Kinzhal air-launched precision hypersonic weapon has been successfully placed on combat duty and Peresvet combat lasers have entered duty. Putin stressed that “these weapons significantly increase the potential of the army and the fleet,” thus ensuring Russia’s security for decades to come.

US Demands Europe to Join Its War Against Russia
On December 16th, the Russian Senator, Konstantin Kosachev, who heads that body’s foreign-affairs committee, accused the US Government of coercing German corporations to abandon their investments in the key Russia-EU gas-pipeline project, which is now nearing completion. It’s a joint project of Russia and of corporations in some EU countries. He called this US pressure against European corporations an affront to the national sovereignty of both the German and the Russian Governments, and, more broadly, an affront against the sovereignty of the entire EU, which, he pointed out, is not like America’s NATO alliance with Europe is, an instrumentality of war, but is supposed to be, instead, an economic and political union — an instrumentality of peaceful international cooperation, not of any sort of international coercion.How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe
The German Chancellor and other European leaders have run out of patience with the President. Europe has had many fights with American Presidents over the years, but never in the seven decades since the end of the Second World War has it confronted one so openly hostile to its core institutions. Since Trump’s election, Europe’s leaders have feared that it would come to this, but they have disagreed about how to respond to him. Many hoped to wait Trump out. A few urged confrontation. Others, especially in nations more vulnerable to Russia, urged accommodation. (Poland offered to name a new military base Fort Trump.) Macron tried flattery, and then, when that failed, he reverted to public criticism of Trump-style nationalism. The challenge from Trump has been especially personal for Germans, whose close relationship with the United States has defined their nation’s postwar renaissance.
‘Organ traders, terrorists and looters’: Evidence against Syrian White Helmets presented at UN
The ‘White Helmets’ are not a rescue group but an extension of jihadist militants, and should be designated a terrorist organisation, Russia’s envoy to the UN argued at the presentation of evidence into the group’s wrongdoing. Praised in the West as humanitarian rescue volunteers, in reality the ‘White Helmets’ work with Islamist militants in Syria, harvest organs from the victims they pretend to be “rescuing,” stage false chemical weapons and other attacks for cameras, and loot the bodies and homes of Syrians killed and injured in the war, according to Maxim Grigoriev, director of the Russia-based Foundation for the Study of Democracy…It was in the Douma suburb of Damascus that the White Helmets staged the “chemical attack” that served as the pretext for French, UK and US missile strikes against the Syrian government in April this year.
El Nino events to become ‘stronger’ and more intense
A 15% increase in temperature variance in a key region of the Pacific translates into 50% more extreme El Ninos. The likelihood of intense El Nino events as measured by sea-surface temperatures will increase from about one every 15 years now to every 10 years. The results add to a string of recent studies pointing to accelerating impacts of climate change, such as the loss of almost all the thick, multi-year Arctic ice, and the discovery by NASA that glaciers in a large region of eastern Antarctica have “woken up” and are melting. The El Ninos – and their reverse, La Ninas – as “the dominant and most consequential climate variation on Earth”. Conditions are primed in the Pacific for an El Nino, with sea-surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific at about the threshold level that such events can begin. All it needs is for the atmosphere to “couple” with the ocean, creating a process that reinforces the up-welling of warm waters as normally easterly trade winds stall or reverse. According to projections, the Pacific Ocean, and most others, become more stratified, meaning more heat and therefore energy stays near the surface rather than gets mixed to lower depths.
Nigeria’s deadly land feuds
It was the biggest bloodbath yet in a cycle of retaliatory killings between farmers and herders competing for space across Nigeria’s hinterlands. At least 1,300 were killed in just the first six months of 2018. Nigeria’s population has grown exponentially and is projected to surpass the US by 2050, although Nigeria is 11 times smaller in area. Amid the boom, land has become increasingly scarce, and disputes over ownership are frequently turning bloody. New generations of farmers are planting on land traditionally used for grazing, and out of desperation, herders are grazing their cattle in fields still full of crops, destroying harvests. Many in the two groups now see each other as existential threats.
How Britain stole $45 trillion from India
Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938. It’s a staggering sum. For perspective, $45 trillion is 17 times more than the total annual gross domestic product of the United Kingdom today. It happened through the trade system. Prior to the colonial period, Britain bought goods like textiles and rice from Indian producers and paid for them in the normal way – mostly with silver – as they did with any other country. But something changed in 1765, shortly after the East India Company took control of the subcontinent and established a monopoly over Indian trade.
Here’s how it worked. The East India Company began collecting taxes in India, and then cleverly used a portion of those revenues (about a third) to fund the purchase of Indian goods for British use. In other words, instead of paying for Indian goods out of their own pocket, British traders acquired them for free, “buying” from peasants and weavers using money that had just been taken from them. It was a scam – theft on a grand scale.

I live in the southeast corner. We are very aware of the dryness that now reaches deep into the soil; of the heating water that extends the swimming season; the massive Brogo bushfire in mid-winter. We are not yet aware of the accelerating sea-level rise, but the first cyclonic storm barrelling down from Queensland could fix that.

Trends in sea surface temperatures in Australia from 1950 to 2017.

The rate of sea-level rise around Australia as measured by satellite observations from 1993 to 2015.

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View Email Online                          Send to Friends                          Subscribe to Newsletter18 December 2018

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

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou and stopping Chinese expansion
From https://mailchi.mp/d991f47c3f33/next-generation-5g-and-the-us-china-cellphone-war?e=542bfe3cb7

The unspoken US policy objective behind the arrest of  Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on trumped up charges, is to break China’s technological lead in wireless telecommunications.  What is at stake is a coordinated US and allied intelligence initiative to ban China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd from the “next generation” state of the art 5G global mobile phone network. 

The intelligence operation is led by “Five Eyes”, a so-called “intelligence-sharing alliance to combat espionage” between the US and its four (junior) Anglo-Saxon partners: UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.  

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:

In the months that followed that July 17 dinner, an unprecedented campaign has been waged by those present  to block Chinese tech giant Huawei from supplying equipment for their next-generation wireless networks. This increasingly muscular posture towards Beijing culminated in last week’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver, over alleged breaches of US sanctions with Iran. (Sydney Morning Herald, December 13, 2018)

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.

References:
America’s “Cell Phone War” against China: HuaWei CFO Meng Wanzhou Held Hostage by Canada
By Christopher Black. It is clear the US is pushing the battle line to our door … We can completely regard the US arrest of Meng Wanzhou as a declaration of war against China.” Read more…
China’s Toughness v. Weak-Kneed Russia: Beijing’s Response to Arrest of Meng Wanzhou
By Stephen Lendman. In response to the lawless arrest, detention, and mistreatment of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou by Canadian authorities in Vancouver on December 1, acting as a Trump regime proxy, Beijing demanded her immediate release, warning of “grave consequences” otherwise. Read more…
“Five Eyes” Intelligence Agencies Behind Drive Against Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei.
By Nick Beams. Evidence has come to light that US operations against the Chinese telecommunications giant HuaWei and the arrest and detention of one of its top executives, Meng Wanzhou, to face criminal charges of fraud brought by the US Justice Department are the outcome of a coordinated campaign by the intelligence agencies of the so-called “Five Eyes” network. Read more…
Trump and China: Towards a Cold or Hot War?
By Marc Vandepitte. At first glance, the dispute between the US and China revolves around unfair competition and theft of intellectual property. On closer inspection it is about something much more fundamental, namely frantic attempts by Washington to preserve its hegemony over this planet. Are we heading for a clash between the two titans? Read more…
Video: Behind the US Attack on Chinese Smartphones
By Manlio Dinucci. After having imposed heavy taxes on Chinese merchandise – 250 billion dollars – President Trump, at the G-20, accepted a “truce” by postponing further measures, mainly because the US economy has been struck by Chinese retaliation. Read more…
On World Human Rights Day, the Inhumane Treatment of Huawei Meng Wanzhou by Canadian Authorities Becomes Clearer
By Adam Garrie. After summoning the Canadian Ambassador in Beijing, China has now summoned the American Ambassador to discuss the status of Meng Wanzhou – the Chinese political prisoner who remains behind bars in Canada in spite of having committed no wrongdoing. Read more…
Trump’s Trade War with China: Imagine What Would Happen if China Decided to Impose Economic Sanctions on the USA?
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky. What Trump does not realize is that the trade deficit with China contributes to sustaining America’s retail economy, it also contributes to the growth of America’s GDP. Read more…To unsubscribe from any future messages, please click the unsubscribe link below.

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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.

Be Prepared: Climate Change and the Queensland Bushfire Threat
Record breaking heat and hotter weather over the long term in Queensland will worsen fire weather and the impacts of bushfires.

“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 …
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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.”

Israel has injured 24,000 Gaza protesters

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 extraordinary coalition 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
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