The John James Newsletter 149
3 December 2016
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry: “The Peace of Wild Things”
Capitalism has neither the capacity, the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problem of poverty
Fidel Castro
What’s really worrying is that we are getting feedbacks that are almost dominating the warming process. A perfect storm of bad things is going on
Peter Wadhams,
The Drums of War
it’s not just Trump. Clinton and Sanders also made impossible promises to bring back jobs. Half the platform of both parties was based on a delusion. The social, environmental and economic crises we face require a complete reappraisal of the way we live and work. The failure by mainstream political parties to produce a new economic narrative, that does not rely on sustaining impossible levels of growth and generating illusory jobs, provides a marvellous opening for demagogues everywhere. The combination of automation, complexity and climate change is dangerous in ways we haven’t even begun to grasp.
http://www.monbiot.com/2016/11/24/the-drums-of-war/
Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it
For 15 years tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/donald-trump-george-monbiot-misinformationnb
Don’t Let Politics Trump Science, 2000 Scientists Warn President-Elect
Scientists are “looking at the kinds of people that Trump is appointing, and we have no good reason to be optimistic”
Warning of Global Havoc as Possible Arctic ‘Tipping Points’ Pile Up
The signals ‘are getting louder,’ What is happening in the Arctic will not stay in the Arctic. Researchers warn that as many as 19 ‘tipping points’ could be triggered by the increasingly warm temperatures in the northern polar region. These rapid Arctic changes will destabilize the regional and global climate, with potentially major impacts.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/25/warning-global-havoc-possible-arctic-tipping-points-pile
Cynthia: Flesh-Eating Synthetic Bacteria Has Mutated
In 2011, Cynthia was unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico and in its initial stages of life it was absorbing oil slicks at breathtaking speed. The bacteria was eating up its “meal”. But then this bacteria mutated and soon was feeding on organic lifeforms. Strange reports started coming from the US,
Grizzly-polar hybrid is a new result of climate change
Grizzly bears found in Alaska and Canada appear to be moving north as their environment warms, bringing them into contact with polar bears located on the coastline. Polar bears are spending more time on land as Arctic ice diminishes, causing them to lose body weight and decline in numbers as they are unable to hunt for favored prey such as seals.
The Great Barrier Reef has suffered the worst die-off ever recorded
Two-thirds of the corals in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef have died on in the reef’s worst-ever bleaching event
Stop Adani destroying our land and our culture
If the Carmichael mine were to proceed it would tear the heart out of our land. The scale of this mine means it would have devastating impacts on our native title, ancestral lands and waters, our totemic plants and animals, and our environmental and cultural heritage. It would pollute and drain billions of litres of groundwater, and obliterate important springs systems. It would potentially wipe out threatened and endangered species. It would literally leave a huge black hole, monumental in proportions, where there were once our homelands. These effects are irreversible. Our land will be “disappeared”.
http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/
San Francisco’s Official Response to the Election of Trump
RESOLVED, That no matter the threats made by President-elect Trump, San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one third of our population. This is the Golden Gate—we build bridges, not walls.
http://sfbaytimes.com/san-franciscos-official-response-to-the-election-of-trump/
Finland set to become first country to ban coal use for energy
The groundwork for the ban already seems to be in place. Coal use has been steadily declining in Finland since 2011, and the nation heavily invested in renewable energy in 2012, leading to a near doubling of wind power capacity the following year. It also poured a further €80 million into renewable power this past February.
Vast methane reservoir beneath Antarctic ice
Half the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and a quarter of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet lie on pre-glacial sedimentary basins containing around 21,000 billion tonnes of carbon. “This is an immense amount of organic carbon, more than 10 times the size of carbon stocks in northern permafrost regions.” TEN TIMES??? !!
Brace yourself, the polar vortex is shifting
it’s going to make winters on the east coast of the US and parts of Europe even longer, with exceptionally cold temperatures expected during March.
http://www.sciencealert.com/satellite-data-shows-the-polar-vortex-is-shifting
Repair café
White Goods are now made to last only a few years. Here is an alternative!!
https://www.facebook.com/ATTNVideo/videos/1626807070957581/
India: Millions Rise Up Against Ban On Cash
Bankers attacked and locked up by angry mobs as Indian government teeters on the brink of collapse after citizens revolt against draconian anti-cash laws that have thrown the country into chaos as hundreds of millions of ordinary people are unable to access their savings. In a country where 98% of transactions are performed using cash, the sudden ban on cash transactions, and the withdrawal of cash from circulation, has created outrage.
http://yournewswire.com/india-millions-protest-new-world-order-ban-cash/
Facebook Must Stay Out of China
A Faustian pact with Beijing would almost certainly make user behavior around the world visible to Chinese state security.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/28/facebook-must-stay-out-of-china/
Climate Links Evident as Fire for the History Books Ravages Tennessee
The southern Appalachians have endured their hottest and driest autumn on record, setting the stage for dozens of wildfires across the region that culminated in Monday’s blazes. “In my 25 years of federal park service, I’ve participated in many fires, but none of that could have prepared me for this.” He called the winds on Monday “unprecedented.”
How ‘Alfred’ the whale lost its teeth to become a giant filter feeder
Baleen whales, such as the gigantic 30m-long blue whale, are the largest animals that have ever lived on this planet. They even beat the largest of the dinosaurs. But, ironically, the secret to their success lies in their taste for tiny prey.
Australian schools continue to fall behind other countries in maths and science
Only in Year 4 mathematics is the score significantly higher than in 1995, and this is because of a small jump in scores in 2007. Since then there has been no change. During this same 20-year period countries such as Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Japan made steady improvements, while Canada, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US have improved and now outperform Australia.
Obama Failed to Understand Putin
Relations between the US and Russia are the worst they have been since the end of the Cold War and perhaps worse than some periods during the Cold War. The risk of accidental conflict seems higher now than in years, with US and Russian war planes conducting combat sorties in close proximity in Syrian airspace, repeated harassment of US and NATO aircraft and ships in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere, and the open discussion of nuclear war by the both governments and civil defense drills being conducted in Moscow.
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/obama-failed-understand-putin-1090
China on verge of wasting $490 billion on unnecessary coal plants
Currently, the country has 895 GW of operating coal capacity, or 2,689 coal plants being utilized less than half the time, with another 205 GW of capacity under construction. Therefore if plants under construction are finished, and existing capacity is run at 45%, then 210 GW of coal capacity will be unnecessary in 2020 with growth at 3%.
Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues
Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years. The causes of soil destruction include chemical-heavy farming techniques, deforestation which increases erosion, and global warming. “Soils are the basis of life,”
“Orders to Kill” Dr. Martin Luther King
The evidence gathered and documented in The Plot to Kill King, proves that King was killed by a conspiracy masterminded by the US government. Much of his evidence was presented at the 1999 trial. The names and details make clear that, as with the murders of JFK and RFK, the conspiracy was sophisticated with many moving parts organized at the highest level,
Obama Extends Global Reach of US Special Operations Death Squads
The mandate of the new formation, to be called the “Counter-External Operations Task Force,” or Ex-Ops, will embrace the entire planet. US military death squads could be sent to virtually any location, from European cities to South American jungles, including the US itself. This makes counter-terrorism an independent, global command.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/29/jsoc-n29.html
How Obama’s climate change legacy is weakened by US investment in dirty fuel
An agency inside the Obama administration poured billions into fossil fuel projects that will lead to global carbon emissions on a damaging scale. Since 2009, seven of the bank’s 10 largest deals went to oil and gas giants, including ExxonMobil, BG Energy Holdings – now part of Royal Dutch Shell – and Australia Pacific LNG.