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CORRUPTION UPDATES 135

Posted: December 5, 2007, Draft edition

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Environment Page IV

pages 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,

 

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1) The Articles linked below were Abstracted from the sources cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.

 

UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report 2007

 

NOV 17, 2007

http://www.ipcc.ch/

 

(Ed Note: This report finally puts to rest any notion that CO2 level rise is not human induced, and smashes contentions that diminish the seriousness of this increase. The link below the headline above brings you to the IPCC page. You can download a pdf of the summary, or the whole report there. The second article below offers a brief summary of the report, and the Bali conference on forging a new global greenhouse gas treaty, which followed publication of the IPCC report.)

 

UN Human Development Report 2007/2008

Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world

 

Nov 27, 2007

 

http://hdr.undp.org/en/

 

(Ed Note: This report builds on the IPCC report by applying the science to society. As good as these reports are, they are still dealing in the past, in terms of CO2. The present situation is that a seasonal shift has already occured.

The seasons neither begin, nor end at their traditional times. The winds blow from a different direction. The temps, humidity, rainfall, and all the elements that make up our traditional progression of seasons has changed, and is no longer predictable.)

 

 

 

Bali: Climate Talks Take on Added Urgency After Report

By PETER GELLING and ANDREW C. REVKIN

NYT, December 3, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/asia

/03bali.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 2 — Thousands of government officials, industry lobbyists, environmental campaigners and observers are arriving on the Indonesian island of Bali for two weeks of talks starting Monday that are aimed at breathing new life into the troubled 15-year-old global climate treaty.

A heightened sense of urgency surrounds the meeting in light of a report issued last month by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which detailed the potentially devastating effects of global warming in the panel’s strongest language yet.

The original treaty, signed by almost all nations in 1992, set voluntary goals for curbing the emission of greenhouse gases, which mostly come from burning fossil fuels and forests, and which have been linked by scientists to global warming. But few of those goals have been met.

Five years later, the Kyoto Protocol, a much-praised 1997 addendum to the original pact, set mandatory limits on emissions, but only for the three dozen industrialized countries that ratified it, and only through 2012. Since it took effect in 2005, emissions have continued to rise in many of those countries.

By far, the biggest obstacle to forging a new accord by 2009 is the United States, analysts say. Senior Bush administration officials say the administration will not agree to a new treaty with binding limits on emissions.

Instead, President Bush recently proposed that the world’s biggest countries work toward a common, long-term goal set decades in the future, without specific targets or limits, and more immediate goals set by individual nations using whatever means they choose.

In his latest statement on climate change last Wednesday, Mr. Bush said, “Our guiding principle is clear: we must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people.”

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What's Really Going on Here?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

A vortex of forces, operating on many levels, is centered in Bali right now.

These forces have a heiarchy. Political power is first in precedence, represented by the US, followed closely by the distorted power of nature. Nature itself. Nature, or more accurately, nature's monumental recent abberations, have the strength to draw the attention of political power to Bali, but nature lacks the power to force politics to action. Thus Bali is doomed to fail. Nature occupies the second tier in the precedence of powers gathered at Bali.

Third in the decending order of powers meeting at Bali are the combined forces representing western environmental thought, scientific concessus, oceanic islands, climatically marginal 3rd world nations, the various opponents of american-dominated "globlism," (otherwise known as empire) and the press.

Despite the power of these combined forces, they cannot touch the lynchpin of america's pre-determined dominance at Bali. The reason is that the core of america's political power at Bali, and in the us, is corporate control of america's might. Our power lays in our productive and consumptive powers, and those powers

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Also See:

Bali Update, Reuters, 12-4-07

Rudd takes Australia inside Kyoto, BBC 12-3-07

link to many weather, climate abstracts

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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Rain continues to avoid region in November

By Dan Vierria - dvierria@sacbee.com

Published 10:47 am PST Wednesday, November 28, 2007

 

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/527559.html

 

Sacramento will finish the month of November at 53 percent of normal rainfall.

Only 2 inches of precipitation has fallen since the season began July 1, compared to the seasonal average of 3.88 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

"Pretty dry and similar to last season," meteorologist Felix Garcia said Wednesday, adding that the next chance of rain will be early next week.

Only 11.95 inches of rain fell on Sacramento last season; normal is 19.87 inches.

November rainfall this season has been less than an inch, with Nov. 11 the last day Sacramento had any precipitation.

Garcia also said Sacramento was experiencing slightly colder temperatures for November with lows in the 30s in recent nights.

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What's Really Going on Here?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

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3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

'Tropics expand' as world warms

 

BBC NEWS: 12-04-07

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7126069.stm

 

Climate change is causing the tropics to widen, with possible impacts on the global food supply, research suggests.

Scientists examined five different measures of the width of the tropical belt, and found it expanded by between 2 and 4.8 degrees latitude since 1979.

Other researchers meanwhile said climatic change could increase the number of thunderstorms in the US.

The findings emerged as delegates met in Bali for UN climate talks focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The capacity of poorer countries - many of them in the tropics - to respond and adapt to impacts of climate change will be another major theme of the talks.

 

Widening belts

The new analysis of tropical expansion comes from a team of US scientists who reviewed five separate strands of evidence, all gathered from satellite data.

While geographers define "The Tropics" rigidly as the region between 23.5 degrees North and 23.5 degrees South, to atmospheric scientists it is a more variable zone marked by features such as the jet stream and the circulation known as Hadley cells.

On these measures, the tropics have expanded since the era of reliable satellite observation began in 1979.

"The edges of the tropical belt are the outer boundaries of the subtropical dry zones, and their poleward shift could lead to fundamental shifts in ecosystems and in human settlements," the researchers write in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"Shifts in precipitation patterns would have obvious implications for agriculture and water resources, and could present serious hardships in marginal areas."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in its series of reports this year that serious impacts on food and water supplies lie ahead, including:

75-250 million people across Africa could face water shortages by 2020

Crop yields could increase by 20% in East and South East Asia, but decrease by up to 30% in Central and South Asia

Agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020

The scientists behind the new study note that the tropical zone appears to be expanding much faster than predicted by computer models.

Thunder rolls

While impacts on agriculture could prove important for developing countries, a bigger concern for richer nations such as the US may be the damage wrought by extreme weather.

The IPCC forecasts stronger hurricanes in the future, but possibly fewer of them. Now another US team is suggesting an increase in thunderstorms over the country as well.

In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers report a computer modelling study that projects a doubling of the frequency of weather conditions right for the formation of severe thunderstorms.

Already, they write, extreme weather events are costing the US economy more than $2bn (£970m) each year.

 

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What's Really Going on Here?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

Climate Change has already happened Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside

April 6, 2007

Those of you who know me, and have talked to me for the last decade, are not surprised.

Six years ago I predicted the rate of global climate change would break all the climatologists' models, regaling scientists to the role of merely reporting. rather than predicting, climate change.

This prediction has proven itself.

Hear that chainsaw in the distance? That's the sound of nature coming to return all the favors we have bestowed on it.

Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT

April 6, 2007

For about 10 years I have been telling my buddies that the heat of summer was not retreating southward during winter. This has been increasing each year, diminishing the polar chilling, changing the timing of the onset and end of the seasons. Most important in my view is the radical changes in the direction of the winter winds.

Winter Winds in the Bay Area have traditionally come from the NW. For the past 8 years the Winter winds have been shifting, coming from the West and the South West. These winds are dry in mid-winter, and keep the wet Northern Storms at bay. Then, in Spring, these Southern Winds have brought tropical-style downpours, barely offsetting our drying Winters.

This year the freakish Southern Spring storms did not come and bail us out.

Every Winter has become drier and warmer for the past 10 years. Fall now regularly extends into December, and spring trys to start in February. For the majority of you who are from someplace else, this is very abnormal weather.

Watching the Sierra Bears in November and December is sad. Instead of enjoying a cold sleep, they are hungrily patrolling dead, dry meadows that have no berries, grubs, or food to sustain them until the uncertain advent of Winter snows and hibernation.

Watching the lowland trees this winter was disturbing: deciduous trees were dropping leaves all winter long. There was no "fall" to speak of, as in a tempature fall triggering a massive leave drop.

I suspect that the increasing incidents of mountain lion attacks reflects the lions response to decreasing late-fall food supplies. In any case, these seasonal changes have had a cascading effect in ecosystems. Budding times in Spring are off, affecting birth and survival rates of all interrelated species. Increasing Summer temperatures are killing off high altitude plants. Lack of Winter snowfall is drying out the land early in the Spring, affecting budding timing and density. And the cycles of life continue to decline in the thrall of our ignorance.

Expect large declines in crop productions, if not outright crop failures, across the United States, and the world this year.

The Climatoligists will catch up with the changes, but it will be too late to preserve our predictable seasons. We do not need science to tell us we have severely damaged our climate, we needed wisdom.

Wisdom would have prevented us from blinding ourselves to the early warnings of nature, and the subsequent warnings of science. Wisdom would have prevented us from overburdening our land with people, our water with dams, and our skies with endlessly expanding pollution. The oceans contain a thin shadow of the life they held in 1600. And we desperately need wisdom now that our science cannot keep up with the damage our industrial-strength ignorance is perpetuating.

We seem to have traded, or maybe sold, our wisdom for luxury, prestige, greed and power.

It was a bad trade. The latter commodities are short-lived, unless balanced with wisdom. But Wisdom is not a market commodity, so it has little contemporary value, and was let go of cheaply.

I have a wise plan: Let's double California's population by 2050. Let's give everybody in the state a driver's licence and a car or two. That should fix things right up. I'm glad we have such wise leaders, who represent our best interests so well.

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Also See:

Massive underestimation of Seasonal Changes, NYT 5-1-07

Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn't slowed, U.N. report says, LAT, 4-6-07

Permanent drought predicted for Southwest:Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists too stupid to see it, LAT,4-6-07

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4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

U.N.: Greenhouse Gases Hit High in 2006

 

By ELIANE ENGELER, Associated Press Writer

 

Friday, November 23, 2007

 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/11/23/international/i081115S72.DTL

 

(11-23) 08:11 PST GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) --

 

Two of the most important Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached a record high in 2006, and measurements show that one — carbon dioxide — is playing an increasingly important role in global warming, the U.N. weather agency said Friday.

The global average concentrations of carbon dioxide, or CO2, and nitrous oxide, or N2O, in the atmosphere were higher than ever in measurements coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, said Geir Braathen, a climate specialist at the Geneva-based agency.

Braathen said measurements show that CO2 is contributing more to global warming than previously.

CO2 contributed 87 percent to the warming effect over the last decade, but in the last five years alone, its contribution was 91 percent, Braathen said. "This shows that CO2 is gaining importance as a greenhouse gas," Braathen said.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by about half a percent last year to reach 381.2 parts per million, according to the agency. Nitrous oxide totaled 320.1 parts per billion, which is a quarter percent higher than in 2005.

There is 36.1 percent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was in the late 18th century, primarily because of combustion of fossil fuels, the World Meteorological Organization bulletin said.

A report presented by a U.N. expert panel said last week that average temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years, and that 11 of the last 12 years have been among the warmest since 1850. Global Warming also led to a sea level increase by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The panel's report, which said human activity is largely responsible for global warming, noted that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.

The World Meteorological Organization also concluded that "Greenhouse gases are major drivers of global warming and climate change."

The World Meteorological Organization said it based its findings on readings from 44 countries.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast that by 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.

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What's Really Going on Here?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

 

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5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Warning on Impact of China and India Oil Demand

By JAD MOUAWAD and JULIA WERDIGIER

NYT, November 7, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/07cnd-energy.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

 

LONDON, Nov. 7 — A leading international energy agency today urged oil-producing countries to replenish crude oil inventories in light of a record oil price.

In unusually urgent tones, the International Energy Agency warned that demand for oil imports by China and India will almost quadruple by 2030 and could create a supply “crunch” as soon as 2015 if oil producers do not step up production, energy efficiency fails to improve and demand from the two countries is not dampened.

“At current prices the market is signaling that stocks need to be higher, something that is in the power of producers to address,” Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the I.E.A., told journalists at a briefing in London. “Since this time last year, the world outlook has deteriorated. Demand is higher and supply worsening.”

Bolstered by speedy economic development and industrialization, energy demand from Asia has been one of the main contributors to higher oil prices. Over the last two years, China and India accounted for about 70 percent of the increase in energy demand and the world’s energy needs would increase 55 percent by 2030.

High economic growth in China and India could push oil prices to $159 a barrel by 2030, the agency said. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist and the lead author of its flagship publication, The World Energy Outlook 2007, presented today, said that while economic growth should be encouraged because it helps to meet increasing energy demand through fostering innovation, it needs to happen in tandem with policies for energy efficiency.

Car sales in China, which overtook Japan last year and are expected to overtake the United States by 2015, contribute to rising oil demand and harm the environment and are an area where new policies could take effect, he said. “We’re not running out of energy or money, but we’re running out of time,” Mr. Birol said.

China’s and India’s energy use is projected to double from 2005 to 2030. By 2030, the two countries will account for nearly half the increase in global demand. China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s top carbon emitter this year and the largest energy consumer soon after 2010, the agency said. In India, where more than 400 million people have no access to electricity, energy demand is expected to more than double by 2030.

As the need for oil imports grows, and supplies level off in many industrial nations, the world will become increasingly reliant on a smaller number of oil-exporting countries, mainly Russia and in the Middle East. As a consequence, the agency said, global energy security will increasingly be at risk.

China’s and India’s net oil imports are expected to jump to 19.1 million barrels a day in 2030 from 5.4 million barrels in 2006, more than what the United States and Japan now import. By 2030, global oil demand is expected to reach 116 million barrels a day.

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What's Really Going on Here?

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

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Also See:

AMERICAN GREED-CONSUMPTION FUELS MANUFACTURING (POLLUTION) IN CHINA, SF Chron, 3-5-07 "China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together.”

China puts economy before climate, BBC, 6-4-07

US puts economy before climate WP, 7-15-07

China about to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases, SF Chron, 3-5-07

U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down:Corporate Media Whitewash American manipulation of press-science, WP, 5-7-07

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6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Australians named worst emitters

A study of the world's power stations has shown the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies.

Story from BBC NEWS; Published: 2007/11/14 22:42:48 GMT

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7092989.stm

 

 

Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much CO2 from generating power as China.

The US came second with eight tonnes of the greenhouse gas per head - 16 times more than that produced by India.

The US also produced the most CO2 in total, followed by China.

The Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website is the first global inventory of emissions and looks at 50,000 power stations.

Its data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank.

 

TOP 10 EMITTERS

National power sector emissions (in tonnes of CO2):

US - 2,530 million

China - 2,430 million

Russia - 600 million

India - 529 million

Japan - 363 million

Germany - 323 million

Australia - 205 million

South Africa - 201 million

UK - 192 million

South Korea - 168 million

(Source: Carma/CGD)

 

CO2 EMISSIONS PER CAPITA

Australia - 10.0 tonnes

US - 8.2 tonnes

UK - 3.2 tonnes

China - 1.8 tonnes

India - 0.5 tonnes

(Source: Carma/CGD)

 

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What's Really Going on Here?

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007

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7) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

Rulings on Endangered Species Are Reversed

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 28, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28brfs-RULINGSONEND_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper

The Fish and Wildlife Service reversed seven rulings that denied increased protection for endangered species, after an inquiry found that the actions had been tainted by political pressure from a former Interior Department official. In a letter to Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, the agency acknowledged that the actions had been “inappropriately influenced” and that “revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards.” The ruling affects species including the white-tailed prairie dog, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse and the Canada lynx.

 

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What's Really Going on Here?

The background for this pathetic story, describing the political manipulations by former deputy assistant secretary at the United States Department of the Interior Julie MacDonald, is posted at WikipediaA under Julie MacDonald.

MacDonald: Spy for Big Oil in Interior, NYT, 3-28-07

MacDonald's Reign of Terror at Interior, AP, 5-1-07

Interior Report on MacDonald's Corruptions, Dept. of Interior, 3-23-07, PDF 

Union of Concerned Scientists article on MacDonald's influence

Union of Concerned Scientists, HOME PAGE

Passage from Interior Report:

"The former ES Director said that overall, MacDonald did not want to accept petitions to list species as endangered, and she did not want to designate critical habitats. He said the overall effect was to minimize the Endangered Species Act as much as possible or ensnare it in court litigation, which often happened"

Note that MacDonald did to endangered species at Interior the same thing Cheney and Bush did with pre-war intelligence: twist it to their purpose.

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Also See:

Political Corruption Inflitrates Interior Department, NYT, 9-14-06

White House under Investigation for Censoring Science, AP, 11-1-06

Interior Department Web Porn and Shopping Spree, WP, 10-5-06

Bush Suppressing Science and Truth: climate scientists censored, science suppressed, LAT, 1-30-07

Scientist accuses White House of 'Nazi' tactics, LAT, 3-19-07

Deputy Sec. of Interior Convicted in Abramoff Bribery Case, AP, 3-23-07

Judge Suspends Administration Rules For Managing Forests, WP, 3-31-07

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censoring science

 

 

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Senate panel set to begin work on global warming bill

By David Whitney - dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com

Published 3:09 pm PST Tuesday, December 4, 2007

 

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/543029.html

 

WASHINGTON - After 20 hearings and countless speeches on the Senate floor warning of the risks of failure, a key Senate committee headed by Sen. Barbara Boxer starts work Wednesday on legislation to end global warming.

Republican critics, led by the committee's senior Republican, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, also are energized for the fight. Inhofe is a global warming skeptic who believes that rising temperatures have more to do with cyclical changes and not with the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal.

By midday Tuesday, Republicans had filed more than 150 possible amendments. Inhofe has complained bitterly that the sweeping legislation intended to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than half by 2050 will impose huge costs on consumers and hurt oil- and coal-producing states such as his own.

But Matthew Dempsey, spokesman for the Republican minority on the committee, said Republicans will not be maneuvering to delay or kill the legislation.

"It's a foregone conclusion it's going to pass," he said. Rather, he said, the committee meeting "will provide Sen. Inhofe and committee members the opportunity to raise major concerns about the bill including the severe economic harm this bill will place upon American families and the American economy."

The legislation was introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va. It would cap emissions and reduce them by 60 percent by 2050 through an allocation system under which companies are assigned pollution credits that can be bought, sold and traded.

While the Lieberman-Warner bill has the endorsement of leading industry and environmental organizations, it also has its critics. Among the complaints is that it doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough and rewards the coal industry by initially offering cost-free emission credits based on historic pollution levels.

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What's Really Going on Here?

Boxer's Liar's game: Preserve growth, maintain pollution, while looking "Green"

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December 5, 2007

The magnitude of our environmental problem is little understood by our citidiot population living in our mega-cities, and covered up by our politicians. Our scientists are unable to bridge the gap between science and reality to make their findings meaningful. The press are a bunch of whores, and follow the lead of their corporate owners and their political pets.

Let's review the facts "on the ground."

Fuck global warming. Global warming is still being characterized as "tomorrow's problem," and whole segments of our corporate yuppie population are running to buy Prius' and paint their consumption green.

Citidiots are rushing towards global catastrophy while madly driving their prius to the recycling center in a futile attempt to simultanously preserve their consumption, growth, and self-image. At least one of these factors will be forced to change, as the climate already has.

The facts on the ground are that the seasons have already changed: Seasonal onset times, their mid-season character, seasonal durations, their rain and heat content, and the directions from which each season's winds eminate are no longer following traditional patterns. To translate this to citidiot: we're fucked.

Seasonal change has already occured, while the science, industry, political and press fools continue to protect the source of warming that already triggered seasonal change: the doubling of the population, and the 15 fold increase in American consumption during the last 30 years.

That's what Boxer and the democraps are doing: leading us on a merry chase of "greeness," while still leaving our massive growth in population, consumption, and pollution unchecked. The source of our destruction of the seasons has been protected, while doing worthless lipservice to the idol of "green."

The politician's corporate masters are very happy with this. The're green too!

It's a neat political trick. Look green and responsible, while still maintaining the profits, power, and political bribes of the biggest corporate polluters in America.

If Boxer can pull this deception off, the dems can maintain their corporate sponsorship while maintaining the blind loyalty, and massive consumption, of yuppie consumers. It's a lose-lose situation for honest americans.

It's time for the average well-meaning dem to face the facts: your party has sold out to the corporate interests, and no longer represents the principals and practices of a democratic republic, let alone democratic voters.

The only hope for our environment is in political reform. Until we take Boxer out of the clutches of corporate bribery, she and her pathetic party will continue to represent corruption, rather than the will of our people, and our general welfare.

And seasonal change will continue to bring intensification of regional devastations around the world, as the Dems push the corporate cock deeper down their throats.

Restoring our democracy requires we limit contributions to individuals qualified to vote in the election to which they contribute. Voters alone are qualified to contribute in the election of their representatives. All non-voter bribes must be criminialized, and party contributions to candidates must total no more than 30% of all the contributions collected from local voters.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Read our Initiative. Form a Committee in your neighborhood. Restore our democracy. It's too late for the seasons. We're going to have to ride that one out to its bitter end.

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Also See:

Boxer collects foreign bribes, LAT, 5-30-07

Boxer works to Subsidize big Ag, while pretending to be green, SF Chron, 12-4-07

Democrats are Corporate Whores: The Link List

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Plan to Build Reactors Is Running Into Hurdles
By MATTHEW L. WALD

NYT, December 5, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/05nuke.html?ref=

business&pagewanted=print

 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 — For the first time in three decades, companies are getting ready to build nuclear reactors in the United States. They intend to do so under streamlined procedures meant to avoid the long delays and cost overruns that crippled the industry last time around.

But with early jockeying under way to win government approval for this new generation of plants, ominous signs are emerging that the plans may not go smoothly.

In recent years, at a time when nuclear construction was in the deep freeze, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry created a method that was supposed to simplify future planning and construction. Under it, manufacturers were to win advance government approval for a handful of reactor designs, and power companies would specify later where they would put new reactors of each type.

This cookie-cutter approach was meant to ensure that companies would not have to rip out concrete and pipes in the middle of construction to satisfy ever-changing requirements from Washington. That was one of the biggest problems when the industry foundered in the 1980s.

Now, Congress has thrown its support behind a new round of nuclear construction, and many people in the electric industry are eager to get going. Three companies have filed applications for licenses to build and operate five reactors.

But one company marched in with more than a dozen significant changes to a previously approved design. Two picked designs that have yet to win final government approval. And waiting in the wings is a fourth company that has ordered parts for a design that has not even been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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What's Really Going on Here?

Nukes Rising

Growth=Death

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December 5, 2007

We have reached past the limits of growth within the capacity of our planet to maintain itself. Here in the US, our growth has altered our seasons, bringing historic droughts and floods, not to mention strange, if not deadly, seasonal patterns to every region of the country.

Our solution to our irresponsible growth problem is to use this growth itself as a justification for ripping every resource out of our country's ass, and restarting the nuke industry.

Massive coal mining, gas drilling, expansion of artic drilling, and now, a mad rush to restart nuclear power, have all beem justified by the needs of our doubled, and doubling, population.

The logic is sick: as our "leaders" have over-filled our country with people, they have justified allowing our oil companies to find and exploit every source of domestic energy, even if it means destroying our last wilderness and natural areas. Even if it means restarting the nuke industry.

Hell, restarting nuclear power is nothing. Bush is threatening to use nuclear weapons on Iran to further our pursuit of global control of the world's energy market. We have already gone to war, and devastated Iraq, to assure we can maintain control over the energy reserves that we will require to double our population again during the next 30 years, as we have done during the previous 30.

If you haven't noticed, it's not working.

I frequently hear the qustion, "What's more important, "people or nature?" The Democraps and the Repugnants always answer, "ever expanding profits come from ever expanding population," (people) and both agree that environmental law is secondary to the economy, and the "creation of jobs."

I approach this dishonest question differently. I believe that the general welfare of our country, as determined by a democratic process and discourse, is what is really most important. As we have lost our democracy to political corruption and bribery, no legitimate answer can come from washington or sacramento.

People or nature? Let's restore our democracy, then answer.

Today, the political game is fixed, and the welfare of our people is in a distant third place to the welfare of the corporations. Our politician's first priority is supporting corporate pursuit of wealth and power, no matter how irresponsible and damaging it is to our country. Our politician's second priority is to make the corporations pay massive bribes in exchange for the services rendered. Our political parties and their politicians are dependent on corporate bribes, not the financial support of their voters, to get and keep political office. Both political power and corporate wealth are mutally interdependent on irresponsible growth.

If this is true, the dems will continue to fast-track nuclear energy, just like the repugs did.

Beyond the question, "to grow, or not to grow," is the fact that only the people, arrayed in a representative democracy, can make this decision. No one sitting in government today is qualified by the legitimizing power of our Constitutional democracy. They maintain a false image of democracy, but our parties have intentionally broken the link between the people and their representatives in favor of political duopoly in corporate service.

Corporate whores, not representatives of the citizens of a democratic republic, are making our most important political decisons today. Such as using global warming as a pretext for restarting nuclear power, while not doing a thing to stop, let alone diminish, greehouse gas emissions.

As things stand now, the fix is in. Both parties are striving to maintain the massive growth and the ensuing massive concentration of wealth and political power that supports their parties, and their corporate bosses, while the corporate press represents them as "green."

The democraps, repugnants, and corporate media are joined at the hip in supporting this continious massive expansion of population and consumption. The democraps and repugnants are actually partners in this effort, with neither threatening the corrupt sources of funding that each depend on to maintain their political ascendency.

Until we can take back our democracy, we wil be forced to watch as nuclear plants spread across our country. We will be forced to watch as the massive expansion of gas and oil rigs strip the last energy resources from our land. We will be forced to watch as political corruption and war are employed to feed our insatable hunger for irresponsible growth, irresponsible profits, and irresponsible power.

And we will be forced to pay for these corruptions. First, we have already sacrificed our democracy and rights. Then the last of our natural environment will be lost. And finally, we will finish sacrificing our character and honor as a people. This will leave us stripped bare, without the power and wealth we had used to hide our naked greed and corruption. Finally, we will be left without the political, economic, or environmental resources necessary to live decently.

We will be naked before ourselves, and the world.

During the last 30 years we consumed the national resources that would have supplied our country indefinently into the future. We will pay for this indefently into the future.

Some will be too hot, some will be too cold, Some will be thirsty, and some will be hungry, but all will suffer.

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Also See:

Nuclear greenwashing, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 6-20-07

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Nuclear Power (1 Abstract)

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Today's Headlines

1) UN IPCC Report, UN Human Devel. Report, Bali climate meet,

2) Sacto still w/o Rain

3) Equatorial heat dominating weather patterns, N & S poles losing roles as weather engines

4) Greenhouse gases set record in 2006

5) Big Oil: China & India demand massive increase in global oil production, consumption

6) Australians: More Co2 per capita, USA #1 in total emissions

7) Bush program of extinction for nature thwarted: Bribery detected

8) Senate Dems forming worthless Co2 Bill

9) Nuke power problem: replacing one poison with another