Opinion // Current

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1 month ago

Current Community 2010: What are your ideas?

Hi Current Crew! It's nearly the New Year, a time for resolutions and plans! I have some plans for the direction I want to go... more

DeliaTheArtist
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71 comments

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1 month ago

Ethical eating - plants want to live, too

"Before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. It’s time for a green revolution, a reseeding of our stubborn animal minds.

When plant biologists speak of their subjects, they use active verbs and vivid images. Plants “forage” for resources like light and soil nutrients and “anticipate” rough spots and opportunities. By analyzing the ratio of red light and far red light falling on their leaves, for example, they can sense the presence of other chlorophyllated competitors nearby and try to grow the other way. Their roots ride the underground “rhizosphere” and engage in cross-cultural and microbial trade.

“Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin. “They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech. “These are sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals,” Dr. Hilker said.

Plants can’t run away from a threat but they can stand their ground. “They are very good at avoiding getting eaten,” said Linda Walling of the University of California, Riverside. “It’s an unusual situation where insects can overcome those defenses.” At the smallest nip to its leaves, specialized cells on the plant’s surface release chemicals to irritate the predator or sticky goo to entrap it. Genes in the plant’s DNA are activated to wage systemwide chemical warfare, the plant’s version of an immune response. We need terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics — let’s move.

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within.

Enemies of the plant’s enemies are not the only ones to tune into the emergency broadcast. “Some of these cues, some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged,” said Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis, “cause other plants of the same species, or even of another species, to likewise become more resistant to herbivores.”

I thought this was an interesting perspective so I wanted to share it with the Current community... is the line between plants and animals just an arbitrary concept? Don't plants deserve to live as well? What implications does the further research of plant behavior have for our plate?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?_r=1&em"Before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we... more

DeliaTheArtist
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186 comments

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1 month ago

So You Want To Be A Scientist?

"Got an experiment you want to conduct? A theory to put to the test? Material World, Radio 4's weekly science show,... more

DeliaTheArtist
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4 comments

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1 month ago

People who say "I feel your pain" really do

"Ever literally felt somebody else's pain? You're not alone, with new research showing some people do have a... more

DeliaTheArtist
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3 comments

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1 month ago

Music Linked to Marijuana Use

"Students who listen to music with the most references to marijuana are almost twice as likely to have used the drug than... more

DeliaTheArtist
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66 comments

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1 month ago

Religious Right Pray For God To Stop The Health Care Bill

"The Family Research Council Action PAC held an extraordinary "prayercast" event last night, praying for the... more

DeliaTheArtist
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29 comments

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1 month ago

Mom gets kids into TV and video games, they excel and learn

An excellent testimonial of a gamer mother whose kids are into gaming as well. Great look into the educational value of games.... more

Nettle
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7 comments

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1 month ago

Baby Born Without a Brain, Turns 1

Nicholas Coke was born one year ago with a rare and horrific birth defect that left him without most of his brain. Infants... more

TravG73
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16 comments

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1 month ago

6 Worst Fast-Food Burgers (and What You Should Eat Instead!)

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/39713/6-worst-fast-food-burgers-and-what-you-should-eat-instead/ A hamburger... more

Rickharmon25
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2 comments

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1 month ago

They Didn't Seal the Deal; They Sealed the Coffin

So that's it. The world's worst polluters - the people who are drastically altering the climate - gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings. They didn't seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world's low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives.

Those of us who watched this conference with open eyes aren't suprised. Every day, practical, intelligent solutions that would cut our emissions of warming gases have been offered by scientists, developing countries, and protesters - and they have been systematically vetoed by the governments of North America and Europe.

It's worth recounting a few of the ideas that were summarily dismissed - because when the world resolves to find a real solution, we will have to revive them.

Discarded Idea One: The International Environmental Court. Any cuts proposed at Copenhagen were purely voluntary. If a government decides not to follow them, nothing will happen, except a mild blush, and disastrous warming. After all, Canada signed up to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 percent - and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred Canadas.

The brave, articulate Bolivian delegation - who have seen their glaciers melt at a terrifying pace - objected. They said if countries are serious about reducing emissions, their cuts need to be policed by an International Environmental Court that has the power to punish people who endanger our shared stable climate. This is hardly impractical. When our leaders and their corporate lobbies really care about an issue - say, on trade - they pool their sovereignty this way in a second. The World Trade Organization fines and sanctions nations severely if (say) they don't follow strict copyright laws. Is a safe climate less important than a trade-mark.

Discarded Idea Two: Leave the fossil fuels in the ground. At meetings here, an extraordinary piece of hypocrisy has been pointed out by the new international chair of Friends of the Earth, Nnimmo Bassey and the environmental writer George Monbiot. The governments of the world say they want to drastically cut their use of fossil fuels, yet at the same time they are enthusiastically digging up any fossil fuels they can find, and hunting for more. They are holding a fire extinguisher in one hand and a flame-thrower in the other.

Only one of these instincts can prevail. A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature showed that we can only use - at an absolute maximum - 60 percent of all the oil, coal and gas we have already discovered if we are going to stay the right side of catastrophic runaway warming. So the first step in any rational climate deal would be an immediate moratorium on searching for more fossil fuels, and fair plans for how to decide which of the existing stock we will leave unused. As Bassey put it: "Keep the coal in the hole. Keep the oil in the soil. Keep the tar sand in the land." This option wasn't even discussed by our leaders.

Discarded Idea Three: Climate debt. The rich world has been responsible for 70 percent of the warming gases pumped into the atmosphere - yet 70 percent of the effects are being felt in the developing world. Holland can build vast dykes to prevent its land flooding; Bangladesh can only drown. There is a cruel inverse relationship between cause and effect: the polluter doesn't pay.

So we have racked up a climate debt. We broke it, they paid. At this summit, for the first time, the poor countries rose in disgust. Their chief negotiator pointed out that the compensation offered "won't even pay for the coffins." The cliche that environmentalism is a rich person's ideology just gasped its final CO2-rich breath. As Naomi Klein put it: "At this summit, the pole of environmentalism has moved South."

Continued below . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/they-didnt-seal-the-deal_b_397765.htmlSo that's it. The world's worst polluters - the people who are drastically altering the climate - gathered here in... more

pjacobs51
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1 comment

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1 month ago

Meet Tony Soprano, New CEO of First Premier Bank

First Premier Bank is making the leap into legalized loan sharking with a new credit card offering a $300 credit limit for $256 in... more

omnipotentpoobah
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0 comments

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1 month ago

Don’t Blame Obama, America Did It To Itself

Obama is neither liberal nor conservative, he's a middle of the roader. It sure would've been nice if voters had noticed... more

omnipotentpoobah
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2 comments

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1 month ago

Black nativity angers Italy's Northern League Party

"A nativity scene featuring a dark-skinned Jesus, Mary and Joseph that has gone on display in a Verona courthouse has created... more

DeliaTheArtist
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198 comments

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1 month ago

A Battle to Redefine Humanity

"The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and aggression to bring down prey much larger than itself, break into new lands, roar its defiance of natural constraints. Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks.

The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accommodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way. In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.

Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits. The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.

But somehow this first great global battle between expanders and restrainers must be won and then the battles that lie beyond it – rising consumption, corporate power, economic growth – must begin. If governments don't show some resolve on climate change, the expanders will seize on the restrainers' weakness. They will attack – using the same tactics of denial, obfuscation and appeals to self-interest – the other measures that protect people from each other, or which prevent the world's ecosystems from being destroyed. There is no end to this fight, no line these people will not cross. They too are aware that this a battle to redefine humanity, and they wish to redefine it as a species even more rapacious than it is today."

More at link. What do you think?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/14/climate-change-battle-redefine-humanity"The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and... more

DeliaTheArtist
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2 comments

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1 month ago

Is Capitalism to Blame for Climate Change?

When Bolivian President Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela took the stage at COP15, there was little doubt the pair were going to have some strong words for the international assembly--and they certainly didn't fail to bring them. But beyond the wild-eyed, rambunctious delivery of such sentiments as "rich nations are selfish," or they promote a "culture of death," was something far more interesting to ponder: "(Climate change) is not a cause but an effect: the effect of the capitalist way of life." While a knee-jerk scoff may be unavoidable to some, a reasoned assessment of this statement may conclude it to be truer than you'd think.

The two South American leaders compared the economic disputes between rich nations, and what they see as an unjust burden imposed the poorer countries, to the historic exploitation of indigenous people world-wide by the West, according to a report in O Estado.

Morales:
In the past century our black and indigenous ancestors were treated as slaves, and their rights were not recognized. In a similar way, now our Mother Earth is being treated as a lifeless object, as if she had no rights. We have to abolish the slavery of Mother Earth. It is unacceptable for her to be the slave of capitalist countries. If we don't end this, we can forget about life
As the discussions of funding for poorer nations are heating up, Chávez highlights the disparities between wealth and financial responsibility when it comes to climate change:
I would like to remind you that the 500 million richest people in the world, that is, seven percent of the world's population, are responsible for 50 percent of polluting emissions, while the poorest 50 percent are only responsible for seven percent of emissions
While the content of the speeches made by Morales and Chávez may not have come as a surprise to most in the audience, the imagery the leaders used to articulate their point was of particular interest--especially considering the social implications of their elections. Hugo Chávez is of native Venezuelan decent and Evo Morales is Bolivia's first fully indigenous head of state in the 470 years since the Spanish Conquest.

The history of politics in Latin-America has been wrought with western involvement and Morales and Chávez have based their careers on their willingness to be confrontational against Western interests--seen often as pushing a corporate agenda to seize resources from the native peoples. This exploitation on the part of capitalistic interests has not ceased, Morales argues, but has expanded into the global problem of climate change as a result:

It is unacceptable that the atmosphere should belong to only a few countries for their development, and that these countries with their irrational industrialization should have filled it up with their greenhouse gas emissions. To pay back this debt, they must reduce and absorb those gases so that the atmosphere is distributed equitably.
The radical sentiments of Morales and Chávez shouldn't be shocking to those accustomed to their usually controversial stances in the past, but the allusion they draw to a historic capitalistic tendency to exploit resource rich nations is certainly of note--since too often, social injustice and economic imbalance is only viewed in hindsight. So, whether capitalism is to blame for clime change or not--and it very well may be--the real question is whether we'll take a lesson from history and not risk victimizing the most helpless of all--every future generation.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/capitalism-to-blame-for-climate-change.phpWhen Bolivian President Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela took the stage at COP15, there was little doubt the pair... more

pjacobs51
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18 comments

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1 month ago

The importance of the individual mandate

Markos Moulitsas explains his opposition to the Senate bill, and says it all comes down to the individual mandate. "Strip out... more

slovelett
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1 month ago

The Progressive Case For Passing The Senate Health Bill

John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress, on why liberals need to get behind health reform. -- Since Joe... more

slovelett
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1 month ago

Mutual mistrust won't stop Extremism

"The arrest of five American Muslims in Pakistan allegedly conspiring to join the terrorist groups Jaysh Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba exposes a troubling phenomenon of domestic radicalisation, but also highlights an evolved, proactive Muslim American community seeking partnership to curb extremism.

Recently, the disturbed army major Nidal Hasan killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood allegedly retaliating against the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he often referred to as "war on Islam".

Furthermore, two US Muslim men were convicted of plotting to aid terrorists by filming landmarks around Washington DC and sending the clips as potential target sites to terrorists abroad.

These isolated examples of imported radicalism nonetheless fuel the latent prejudices of a minority convinced their 4 million Muslim American neighbours represent a treacherous fifth column of stealth jihadists ready to spontaneously ignite. Despite the visible existence of millions of practising American Muslims who belie this stereotype by never engaging in terrorism, let alone felonies or misdemeanors, a study by the Pew Research Centre found that 38% of all Americans say Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions.

This misperception certainly is not assuaged by prominent religious and political figures, mostly stemming from the Republican party, who espouse divisive rhetoric fostering mistrust and fear. Franklin Graham, an influential evangelical Christian, recently stated on CNN: "We have many Muslims that live in this country. But true Islam cannot be practised in this country … I don't agree with the teachings of Islam and I find it to be a very violent religion." Sarah Palin casually suggested we "profile away" when it comes to our American neighbours of Muslim and Middle Eastern backgrounds.

This polarisation and the reckless mentality of treating Muslims as suspects instead of partners not only subverts civil rights and due process but greatly hinders the best opportunity to combat domestic radicalisation: respectful co-operation with the Muslim American community."

More at link! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/16/virginia-extremism-radicalisation"The arrest of five American Muslims in Pakistan allegedly conspiring to join the terrorist groups Jaysh Muhammad and... more