Posted on June 5, 2011, Printed on June 11, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/151201/3_massive_world_events_that_will_change_your_life

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As for the bad news: the world faces an array of intractable energy problems that, if anything, have only worsened in recent weeks.  These problems are multiplying on either side of energy’s key geological divide: below ground, once-abundant reserves of easy-to-get “conventional” oil, natural gas, and coal are drying up; above ground, human miscalculation and geopolitics are limiting the production and availability of specific energy supplies.  With troubles mounting in both arenas, our energy prospects are only growing dimmer. Read the complete Post.

By Bill McKibben
Published: May 23
The Washington Post

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected. Read the complete Post.

Ian Fletcher

Author, ‘Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why’

Many Americans are already concerned about China’s growing economic challenge to the United States. Indeed, the challenge itself is hardly news anymore. But a new book, Red Alert by Stephen Leeb, argues that Americans have radically misunderstood just what this challenge consists of.

Everyone who has “woken up” to the problem (i.e. not the administration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or the Republican leadership) understands the threat posed by China’s cheap labor and low standards for everything from child labor to environmental protection. Most people who aren’t hopeless laissez-faire ideologues are twigging to the fact that China’s state-directed capitalism is running rings around America’s private-sector capitalism right now. But what few people realize is that China has an even more radical economic strategy up its sleeve, a strategy that aims not just to equal the United States but to surpass it and quite possibly shut America out of the economic future. Read the complete Post.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 6, 2011

Watchdog finds oil giants block legislation and push Washington around on safe gas drilling

ARLINGTON, VA –DeSmogBlog today released the first comprehensive report on the lobbying and misinformation campaigns run by the gas industry to confuse lawmakers and the public and effectively limit federal oversight of unconventional gas operations.

The report found that the gas industry’s influence in Washington, D.C. has grown tremendously over the last few years because of the industry’s consolidation into conglomerate oil corporations with new interest in unconventional gas plays. Although front groups promote the image of an “independent” industry representing “mom and pop” companies, oil giants such as BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron now dominate the gas patch. Read the complete Post.

ANDREW MIALL
From Friday’s Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Apr. 22, 2011 2:00AM EDT

Well, Earth Day Canada® is now a “brand,” like your toothpaste.

It’s supposed to be about “empowering Canadians to achieve local solutions.” Its mission is “to improve the state of the environment by empowering and helping Canadians to take positive environmental action.” Its vision is that “Earth Day will remain Canada’s strongest positive voice in promoting constructive and sustainable environmental values, actions and solutions.”

Its website boasts a list of corporate sponsors. The sponsored activities seem to be mostly about picking up garbage on roads and the correct disposal of household chemicals. And there’s going to be a gala this summer: “Join us and a capacity crowd of 500 corporate and environmental leaders as we show you just how cool going green can really be.” Read the complete Post.

A FILM from the Post Carbon Institute – an animated journey from then to now.

Plus a peak into the future and some advice on what we should do next. I’d like to see more emphasis on having a reduced global population and empowering women, but alas, one can see from the animation and voice-over that this is a male written, produced, and directed film. Still it’s a fine quickie for the under informed. I suggest sharing this with friends.

300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Reuters reports that, “A string of Arab uprisings are giving a foretaste of the likely havoc that climate change will cause without greater effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a British foreign ministry official warned. …’Treat this as a prequel, because if we can’t remove some of those upward pressures on resource stresses then crises that are difficult to deal with when they happen will become more likely,’ said John Ashton, special representative for climate change at Britain’s foreign ministry.”

“Soaring food prices, stoked by Russia’s drought last year and subsequent ban on wheat exports, were an additional trigger in the popular revolts across North Africa and the Middle East mostly blamed on public frustration with autocratic rule. …(Ashton) used the example of food riots in Mozambique after the Russian wheat export ban. …A Libyan uprising follows revolts which toppled the long-time rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and threatened entrenched dynasties including Bahrain.” Read the complete Post.

By Julio Godoy
24 January, 2011
Inter Press Service

PARIS – Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global consumption of primary energy in 2010 reached some 500 exajoules (EJ), a number just under the worst-case scenario formulated ten years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, published in 2000, calculated the worst-case scenario as 525 EJ consumed in one calendar year. Read the complete Post.

December 29, 2010, 6:15 am

It may seem a strange time to say so, but 2010 remains on pace to be the hottest or second-hottest year ever recorded, according to NASA:

By email, Reto Ruedy of NASA elaborates:
… the 2010 mean will most likely be 0.65 C [above the 1951-80 mean], statistically indistinguishable from 2005 (0.63 C), and barely distinguishable from 2007 (0.58 C), 2009 (0.57 C), 1998 and 2002 (0.56 C), 2003 and 2006
(0.55 C), but definitely warmer than 2004 and 2001 (0.47 C) and 2008 (0.43 C).

All other years are below 0.4 C and all years before 1981 are below 0.2 C above the 1951-1980 mean.

Here’s hoping Congress takes some action in 2011.

When people tell me the dire messages about which I write don’t resonate with other people, I struggle with a coherent response. Would you prefer continued overshoot on an overshot planet? Would you prefer we keep heating our overheated home? Would you prefer we ignore the most important issues in the history of our species? Party on, brothers and sisters, when you bother to extract your head from your asses the sand. As long as we ignore reality, it’ll all be fine.

And then, there’s reality. I’ll go there. You’ve been warned.

We’re irrevocably broke. I’ve made that announcement before. Finally, though, mainstream financial analysts are joining the party of reality.

Perhaps our individual and collective bankruptcy (of every kind) explains why 79.6% of respondents to a Scientific American poll are unwilling to forgo even a single penny to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change. Scientific American readers undoubtedly are better informed than the general populace. And yet they won’t pay a thing to avoid extinction of our species. Kinda makes you warm and fuzzy all over, doesn’t it?

At the request of corporate CEOs and their minions, high-level politicians, we’ll spend, spend, spend to keep propping up the industrial economy that is making us crazy and killing us. Far be it for me to suggest those CEOs and politicians are killing us directly — I’ll leave that charge to others — but there is no doubt this system is destroying every aspect of the living planet on which we depend for our lives. In return, we’ll throw away fiat currency in the name of infrastructure so we can maintain our non-negotiable, completely disastrous way of life. But we won’t spend a buck a dime a single cent to preclude disaster for our children.

Excuse me, I need to retch into my composting toilet. I encourage you to do the same. I’ll wait. Read the complete Post.