Category: Environment

They tell us we’re dropping about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan so we can catch that Bin Laden guy…but eventually, we’re gonna catch him, and as soon as we do you can imagine that folks will be wondering why we’re still over there – and I gotta tell ya, I’m one of those people.

I mean, we’re over here talking about how we’re so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama…but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.

And I don’t think y’all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is – but today we’re gonna see if we can’t fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.

Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two – and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.

I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let’s move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.  

I need help and advice.  I am more than 50% certain that I can affect the intensity and direction of hurricanes.  I believe I have done so, multiple times over a period of three years.  And possibly saved thousands of lives.

This is the problem:  I do acknowledge that there can be extremely dangerous consequences to “messing with Mother Nature”, and I’m worried that I’ll make a disastrous mistake somewhere along the line.  I do have a college degree (computer related), but I’m not a meteorologist.  My family knows what I can do–since I’ve documented it, told them what I was going to try to do in advance, then shown them the results–and they’ve convinced me I shouldn’t continue doing this without expert guidance.  (Or, possibly, supervision;-)

In this I will just add a few reports I’ve come across this morning while waking up, might add some more as they trickle in.

This is just breaking within the past hour or so.

Below is the press release from the ‘Restore the Gulf.gov’ site along with the initial draft agreement.

Still looking at the news articles just coming online.

cross-posted from Main Street Insider

A couple weeks ago, we looked at new regulations on greenhouse gases (GHG’s) being imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This week’s episode focuses on a bill proposed as a response to these new regulations by House Republicans who oppose the EPA’s efforts. Contrary to what the title of the bill would suggest, this proposal has absolutely nothing to do with taxes. In fact, aside from the title, the word “tax” does not appear once in the text of the bill. The actual language of the bill shows that the real intent is to strip the EPA of power in the area of GHG’s and leave any decision making to Congress.

It should be noted that the EPA has been regulating air pollutants for over 40 years (just missed the 40th anniversary last December). Though regulating GHG’s is new, thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that declared GHG’s to be air pollutants, this type of EPA authority has been the status quo for a long time.

cross-posted from Main Street Insider

This week, we explore how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG’s) after a 2007 Supreme Court ruling declared that GHG’s meet the standard of an air pollutant. These new regulations take effect over three phases, the first of which is currently taking place.

More below the fold…

Japan.

Three US wars-one starting right now, today.

The destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. The eroding of civil liberties, assassination, torture,  drones attacks.

Economic destruction for the poor and middle.  The rise of the banks, and of military interests.  

The war on drugs – which has essentially just created a for profit industry.

Global warming.

Nuclear power. Nuclear weapons.

What do these things have in common?

Governments worldwide have generally become less and less responsive to guidance by their citizens and more and more controlled by an elite over-class.  The revolts in the middle east are certainly symptoms of reaction against that, in nations that have long been dictatorships, but in the larger countries, such as the US, have in fact gotten much worse.  The unified europe has made an attack on Europe’s poor and middle class possible, and even against it’s poorest member states.

Simply put: fewer europeans have more power than ever before-well, since perhaps medieval times. The trend of hundreds of years towards more human rights for more and more Europeans has been checked, stopped, reversed.  

In the US, polls show that the policies of the government are increasingly unpopular, yet they go forward as before.  There is no where to turn, no accountability.  The US has always done some bad things in the world.  But the difference today is that it does the no matter what the public opinion is, with perhaps even less attempts to guide public opinion than ever before-because it doesn’t matter anymore. During even what is now seen as the deeply unpopular Vietnam War – it was in fact popular with many Americans, something the government had to work very hard to cultivate as so many Americans died.

Today though,  despite the unpopularity of US wars (even with few US deaths) , of US nuclear plants, of bank bailouts, the civil liberty erosions, the institutionalization of insurance companies as health care providers, the war on drugs; these will go forward no matter which American party is supposedly in power – because they agree on many things- first and foremost that:

You don’t f’ing count.

Got a simple little story for you today of a multinational corporation that wants to build a great big cement plant in North Carolina really, really, bad, and the local opposition to what appears to be a corrupt and distorted decision process.

Two local activists in particular have drawn the ire of Titan Cement, the Grecian corporation who seeks to build the plant-and because the Company doesn’t like what the activists have been saying about what the impact of that plant will likely be or how the deal’s going down…they’re suing Kayne Darrell and Dr. David Hill, residents of North Carolina’s New Hanover County, and the two folks who are doing the complaining the Company dislike the most.

The Company further claims that they were slandered and defamed by the damaging statements that were uttered by the two at a county commissioners’ meeting and that they have lost goodwill and the chance to do business with certain parties as a result of these statements.

But what if everything the Defendants said was not only true…but provably so-and the Company was, maybe…just looking to shut people up by sending teams of lawyers after them?

As I said, it’s a simple story today-but it’s a good one.

Hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracture or just fracking, is a commonly used method to increase the yield of fluid raw materials, usually petroleum or natural gas, from formations that are not “easy” extraction targets.  Easy targets are ones that the fluids dispersed in sands or very porous rock formation.  

Let us dispel a common myth right now:  oil and gas is almost NEVER found as big pools of those materials in large holes in the rock.  Almost without exception, and perhaps quite without exception, these materials are dispersed in some more or less porous rock or sand.    When you see pictures of underground reservoirs of gas or oil, you are really looking at the fluid as it is dispersed in the native matrix.

Sand and very “rotten” sandstone are easy matrices from which to extract the fluids.  Shale and hard sandstone are much more difficult matrices, and hydraulic fracturing is used to increase yields from such formations.

What the detractors, whether they believe the obvious or not and the flock just follows what they’re told, are effectively locking the brakes on what we once were and envied around this planet.

Innovators in moving forward with the new idea’s, interstate roadways, infrastructure, flying, etc. etc. etc. and with the same innovative workforce that made the advancements a reality with everyone following in trying to catch up.

Now those everyone’s are leading and we aren’t even following much, like as to energy innovations and a cleaner planet, even so called third world countries are moving ahead of us on the obvious human advancements!

A Press conference was held at the National Press Club on 11 January 2011 at 10AM and lasted a little over an hour with statements at the beginning and refreshingly, considering what we usually get in our so called political discourse and from the journalism profession, intelligent questions and answers following.

The Daily Climate has a breakdown of the past decade of America’s corporate-held media’s coverage of climate change, where they found that 2010 was the year climate coverage ‘fell off the map’. Media coverage of climate change in 2010 dropped globally by 30 percent since 2009 and “slipped to levels not seen since 2005”.

Corporate broadcast news coverage of climate change was so insignificant that Robert Brulle, a Drexel University professor, who has analyzed nightly news coverage of climate change stories, said he is doubting his data. “I can’t believe it’s this little. In the U.S., it’s just gone off the map,” he said.

“The cycle of media interest in climate change has run its course, and this story is no longer considered newsworthy,” Brulle said. Total coverage of the UN climate talks in Cancun last month by the networks was a single 10-second clip, he said.