The John James Newsletter 151
13 December 2016
Anyone who has surplus funds should be holding gold and silver because the dollar should be priced as toilet paper. The Fed’s massive increase in supply of money is not matched by goods and services. We don’t have hyperinflation because most of that money went into financial assets and bid up stock and real estate prices. If the world turns on the dollar, the Fed is not able to sustain it. Gold and silver have always been money.
Craig Roberts
What is it we are trying to sustain? A living planet, or industrial civilization? Because we can’t have both.
Kim Hill
The world’s total nuclear arsenal 15,375 enough to destroy all advanced life several time by accident or design
http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report
Climate Change and the Coming ‘Humanitarian Crisis of Epic Proportions’
Military and national security experts are sounding the alarm about tens of millions of climate refugees. Without radical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, “we will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy, Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity, and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.
Farmers believe in climate change, so why don’t the politicans
Nine in 10 of the farmers surveyed being concerned about damage to the climate. They are experiencing rapid change on their land, and in regional weather patterns. Two-thirds of those surveyed had observed changes in rainfall patterns during their lifetime, and almost one in two reported more frequent or intense droughts; rain events or flooding; or heatwaves.
Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening
By the year 2050, the planet could see 55 billion tons of carbon (which converts to 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide, were it all to be in this form) released from soils. It has taken us 200 years to release this amount from industrialisation.
Climate change escalating so fast it is ‘beyond point of no return’
Trump could face the ‘biggest trial of the century’ — over climate change
The case, brought by 21 youths aged 9 to 20, claims that the federal government isn’t doing enough to address the problem of climate change to protect their planet’s future — and that, they charge, is a violation of their constitutional rights on the most basic level. the planet is on the docket, it would be hard to imagine a more consequential trial, because the fossil fuel policies of the entire United States of America are going to confront the climate science put forth by the world’s best scientists. And never before has that happened. By declining to dismiss the lawsuit, the court was indicating that the plaintiffs do indeed have a right to sue the government over their constitutional right to a healthy environment in the context of the climate change threat — something that has never been done before.
Adani’s solar shift puts Carmichael in the shade
Adani is central to a profound energy transition in India, which is on track to achieve a national 40% renewable energy target by 2030, equivalent to 350GW, or around seven times Australia’s total electricity sector.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/adanis-solar-shift-puts-carmichael-shade-63467/
Future temperatures could exceed livable limits
The researchers calculated that humans and most mammals, which have internal body temperatures near 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, will experience a potentially lethal level of heat stress at wet-bulb temperature above 95 degrees sustained for six hours or more,
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/100504HuberLimits.html
Does the US have, at the present time, a Middle East policy?
Not really, unless haphazardly responding to disorder in hopes of preventing things from getting worse still qualifies as a policy. Sadly, US efforts to “fix” the region have served only to make matters worse. Even more sadly, members of the policy world refuse to acknowledge that fundamental fact. So we just blunder on. There is no evidence — none, zero, zilch — that the continued US military assertiveness in that region will lead to a positive outcome. There is an abundance of evidence pointing in precisely the opposite direction.
How climate change is affecting the wine we drink
“We are working with shorter time frames. Once upon a time a vintage would have taken 100 days but we do the bulk of it within 60 days,”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-04/how-climate-change-is-affecting-the-wine-we-drink/8074252
and
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212977414000222
Italian banks tumble as investors eye contagion risk
Shares in Italy’s beleaguered banks tumbled by up to 6% as investors took fright at the decisive ‘no’ vote in the country’s constitutional referendum. With prime minister Matteo Renzi (pictured) promising to resign after securing just 40% of votes for his plans to streamline Italy’s electoral system, the country is set for a period of further political uncertainty that will hamper the banks’ efforts to recapitalise.
http://citywire.co.uk/money/italian-banks-tumble-as-investors-eye-contagion-risk/a976414
‘I rigged parliament votes for President Poroshenko’ – fugitive Ukrainian MP
The president of Ukraine is personally involved in large-scale corruption, alleges a fugitive MP who claims to have rigged votes in the parliament by bribing fellow lawmakers with bags-full of cash on behalf of Petro Poroshenko. The money used to buy votes had been embezzled from the state coffers and even includes funds provided to Ukraine by the International Money Fund,
https://www.rt.com/news/369239-poroshenko-vote-rigging-allegations/
ACT aims for zero carbon transport sector, with launch of EV plan
Having led the country on renewable energy policy and ambition, the ACT is shifting its focus to its transport sector, the decarbonisation of which it says will be crucial to achieving the Territory’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/act-aims-zero-carbon-transport-sector-launch-ev-plan-81229/
Life On Earth Is Dying
The human onslaught to destroy life on Earth is unprecedented in Earth’s history. Planet Earth is now experiencing its sixth mass extinction event and Homo sapiens sapiens is the cause. Moreover, this mass extinction event is accelerating and is so comprehensive in its impact that the piecemeal measures being taken by the United Nations, international agencies and governments constitute a tokenism that is breathtaking in the extreme.
http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/12/07/life-on-earth-is-dying
For 2016, Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations are Rising at the Fastest Rate Ever Seen
“The Middle Miocene Climate Optimum was ushered in by CO2 levels jumping abruptly from around 400ppm to 500 ppm, with global temperatures warming by about 4°C and sea levels rising about 40m as the Antarctic ice sheet declined substantially and suddenly. “
Palynomorphs reveal a sudden remarkably warm Antarctica during the middle Miocene
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/37/10/955.short
Laughs, cries and deception: birds’ emotional lives are just as complicated as ours
Reason, thinking and making judgements were stubbornly thought to be outside the capacity of animals. For a long time it was not believed that animals were even capable of feeling pain, let alone complex emotions. We now know that is far from the truth.
On Top Of Demonetisation India Scraps Wheat Import Duties
The aim is to replace current structures with a system of chemical-intensive, industrial-scale agriculture suited to the needs of Western agribusiness, food processing and retail concerns. This is to be facilitated by the World Bank’s ‘Enabling the Business of Agriculture’ strategy, which entails opening up markets to Western agribusiness and their fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides and patented seeds. What we are seeing is the further commercialisation of rural India designed to entrench the forces of capitalist agriculture under US leadership and its transnational agribusiness corporations.
West Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Collapse Within 100 Years = 3m slr.
Looking at satellite images taken before the 2015 fracture, the scientists discovered that the rift spread upward for two years before breaking through the ice surface. The iceberg was then set adrift over 12 days in late July and early August 2015. “This kind of rifting behavior provides another mechanism for rapid retreat of these glaciers, adding to the probability that we may see significant collapse of West Antarctica in our lifetimes. The really troubling thing is that there are many of these valleys further up-glacier,” Howat said. “If they are actually sites of weakness that are prone to rifting, we could potentially see more accelerated ice loss in Antarctica.”
http://www.livescience.com/57016-west-antarctic-ice-shelf-melting-inside.html
Arctic and Antarctic sea ice reaches record lows after section the size of India melts
and
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/6/13856604/global-warming-antarctica-sea-ice-melting-climate-change
President Duterte – Fighting for his Life & his Country
“I support Duterte! Now children get free education and ‘medical missions’ provide basic medical care. We also receive allowances, and the government provides jobs. We are still lacking electricity, but at least the municipality is providing free drinking water.” The number of people killed in this country is actually decreasing. Before, under Aquino, those murdered were mainly poor farmers, indigenous people, and urban poor; people fighting for their basic human rights. Under Gloria Arroyo, the foreign mining companies were even given permission to kill protesters. All this is over now.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46002.htm
Rendered Uninhabitable by Heat
Heatwaves so hot that it’s impossible to perform any activity outdoors without threat of injury or worse. Raging dust storms that make the very air unbreathable. Massive droughts that wreck agricultural productivity and biodiversity altogether. Sections of Africa and the Middle East are currently getting a taste of these new, dangerous climate conditions. But their frequency could increase by five fold or more over the next 30-40 years is threatening government collapse, and the forced dislocation of millions.
http://gizmodo.com/extreme-heat-will-make-parts-of-the-middle-east-and-afr-1774311994
Climate Emergency Declaration Petition*
Call on the Australian Parliament to declare a climate emergency and initiate a massive society-wide climate action mobilisation.
http://climateemergencydeclaration.org/petition1/#sthash.GT2jbjeu.dpbs
