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tagged w/ Morality
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from EX TIMES: The War on SIN: Educating parents about the LGBT agenda
They just want to 'keep GOD's people informed' about: There is an unprecedented attack on morals coming from the school.
Particularly in the area of sexuality, so-called public morality has moved outside of the realm of life-and-family-affirming principles to such an extent that a veritable anti-morality is being fed to our children. And this year there is a concerted effort to restrict parents from countering the efforts of the school to promote this anti-morality.
http://tinyurl.com/3znelflThey just want to 'keep GOD's people informed' about: There is an... more-
- LOrion
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- 9 months ago
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TVO.ORG | Video | The Agenda - Patricia Churchland: Neuromorality
Talk on the neurobiological basis of morality.-
- mollymew
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- 9 months ago
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Deportation is Inhumane
The National Day Labor Organizing Network tries "TO IMPROVE THE LIVES OF DAY LABORERS IN THE UNITED STATES. NDLON UNIFIES AND STRENGTHENS ITS MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS TO BE MORE STRATEGIC AND EFFECTIVE IN THEIR EFFORTS TO DEVELOP LEADERSHIP, MOBILIZE DAY LABORERS IN ORDER TO PROTECT AND EXPAND THEIR CIVIL, LABOR AND HUMAN RIGHTS."
http://ndlon.org/
Families are torn apart when immigration officials take parents away from their children. We in the U.S. benefit from day labor in the inexpensive produce we all eat to stay healthy. Is it too much to ask that the people who put food on our tables be treated like human beings?The National Day Labor Organizing Network tries "TO IMPROVE THE LIVES OF DAY... more-
- Progresshiv
- added this
- 10 months ago
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- 50 comments
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Gallup poll: Americans want all or most abortions illegal
I won't be offering any opinions, I just find this poll rather interesting.
***
By a 24 percent margin, 61-37 percent, Americans take the pro-life view that abortions should either be legal under no circumstances or legal only under a few circumstances. Although Gallup doesn’t specify those “few” circumstances, polling data has consistently shown that, when asked about cases such as rape, incest, or the life of the mother, a majority of Americans want all or almost all abortions made illegal — leaving only life of the mother or rape and incest as the exceptions.
“Americans are rather conservative in their stance on abortion, with 61% now preferring that abortion be legal in only a few circumstances or no circumstances. By contrast, 37% want abortion legal in all or most circumstances,” Gallup analyst Lydia Saad writes. “Over the past two decades, Americans have consistently leaned toward believing abortion should be legal in only a few or no circumstances, although less so in the mid-1990s than since about 1997, when combined support for these has averaged close to 60%.”I won't be offering any opinions, I just find this poll rather interesting.... more-
- maasanova
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- 1 year ago
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- 43 comments
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Robin Hood Tax: “Morally Right”
Robin Hood Tax: 1,000 economists urge G20 to accept Tobin tax-
- joeeddy
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- 1 year ago
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GMO Report: A glimpse into the future
It's 2031. Biodistress is taking its toll on our planet as many islands in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans have now succombed to the rising seas while drought is now "normal" in many parts of Africa, Asia and the Western and Southeastern United States. The great rivers of the world, the Yellow, the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Amazon, the Mekong, the Thames, the Colorado to just name a few all with continuing falling water levels as population increases have brought about migrations from areas where drought and water scarcity can no longer support growing food, and where the great glaciers of the world such as the Himalayas, Alps and Patagonia are now melting to the point where water is scarce and in many areas non existant.
Great forests that once spanned South America and the U.S. were levelled to grow BT corn, GM soy and the fuel that takes our food and water, giving us back diseases, deforestation and pollution as people continue to starve in our world as access to food is but a dream in a world where markets over value that which has no value while ignoring what has the greatest value. Our food is also now part of this vast monoculture world of the biotech companies that stole our seeds and our right to save them. And through their greed we now hunger not just for sustenance, but for justice.
It was in 2020 that the great famine occurred. It started in Africa where the GM seeds had been forced upon the people there with stories of high yields, little pesticide usage and a promise of bringing people out of poverty, failed. With the coercion of government agencies however, including and most prominently the U.S. these terminator seeds made their way around the world, eventually blowing their transgenic pollution onto organic crops and perpetuating a death spiral of biodiversity that now seeks to bring an end to the richness and beauty of a planet that was once thriving.
This particular famine was unlike any other, as it was started by a gene that was placed in the GM crop shutting off and producing a toxic mold that could not be controlled, as the companies had not tested these new "climate change" seeds properly before releasing them upon us all. Biodistress was actually the catalsyt as warming temperatures interacting with other environmental factors attributed to soil nutrient depletion had affected the capacity of the seeds to perform as was claimed they could. All who had purchased those seeds saw their crops yellow, wither and die globally. Economies across the world were scrambling to cover their losses as the hungry crowded streets in anger demanding restitution as many died. Farmer suicides increased not only in India, but in Asia and Africa where they had lost everything not only to the crop collapse but to the drought, deforestation and lack of water that dessimated their livestock as well.
We had warned the world that entering into this too fast and too deeply without knowing all of the consequences could lead to this result. We demanded restraint and disclosure from governments. We fought for sustainable agriculture, saving seeds and a world where farmers not corporations that made war chemicals grew our food. But we were overruled and finally in 2015, it was deemed illegal to grow any other seeds but those GM seeds of these companies. We were essentially told, you eat what we provide or you die... only, people are now dying in greater numbers as monoculture has proven to be a failure as it has dessimated our forests, polluted our water, killed our biodiversity and brought about new diseases we were not prepared to deal with.
However, we keep on fighting. Underground seed distribution centers are now coming into place by those who foresaw this disaster and saved organic non GMO seeds. Imagine that. We who simply wish to grow healthy food, now considered outlaws. But it is a badge we wear with honor as the fight for our right to grow food, save seeds and preserve agriculture continues.
Next installment: How we take our food back.
I have written this to illustrate what can happen if we continue on the road we are on. The good news in this is that we have a choice. We have a voice. It doesn't have to be this way. Let's raise our voices. Let's make that choice. Let's take back our food, our water, our planet! More to come.It's 2031. Biodistress is taking its toll on our planet as many islands in the... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Bible has some shocking ‘family values’
The Bible was very definitely written by men, and not superior men either; far from it!
This is why so much of it can be shown to be historically and scientifically dead wrong about damned-near everything back-to-front.
We’re talking about people who believe snakes and donkeys can talk ([Genesis 3; Numbers 22:1-35]),
who believe in incantations ([Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14 ,20, 24, 29]),
blood sacrifice ([Genesis 4:4 & 31:54; Leviticus 1:9 & 9:18; 2nd Kings 16:15; Ezekiel 39:17]),
ritual spells ([Leviticus 14]),
enchanted artifacts (1 Samuel 5: 6-9; Exodus 7:8-12; 1 Samuel 5:69, 6:19]),
pyrotechnic potions ([Numbers 5:20-26]),
astrology ([Genesis 1:14-15; Job 38:32; Isaiah 14:12-14; Luke 21:25; Matthew 12:32 & 28:20]),
and the five elements of witchcraft ([Leviticus 14]).
They thought that if you use a magic wand to sprinkle blood all over someone, it will cure them of leprosy.
We’re talking about people who think that rabbits chew cud ([Leviticus 11:6]),
and that bats are birds ([Deuteronomy 14:11-18; Leviticus 11:13-19]),
and whales are fish (Jonah 1:17; Matthew 12:40]),
and that Pi is a round number (1st Kings 7:23; 2nd Chronicles 4:2]).
These folks believed that if you display striped patterns to a pregnant cow, it would bare striped calves (Genesis 30:37-43]).
How could anyone say that who knows anything about genetics?
Obviously the authors of this book didn’t.
If the Bible had been written by a supreme being, then it wouldn’t contain the mistakes that it does.
If it was written by a truly superior being, and meant to be read as a literal history, then the Bible wouldn’t contain anything that it does.
As a moral guide, it utterly fails, because much of the original Hebrew scriptures were written by ignorant and bigoted savagesThe Bible was very definitely written by men, and not superior men either; far from... more -
Hard times for the pure of heart: is it possible to live ethically in modern society? | Scholars and Rogues
Where do you buy groceries? Really – they’re pretty anti-union, aren’t they? You like coffee? I assume it’s organic and fair trade, right? You drive a what? Not only is it not a terribly green model, one of the company board members donates a lot of money to a variety of anti-gay rights organizations. Your electricity is generated in coal-fired plants, by the way. Your shirt was made in a sweat shop. Your computer is indeed nice, but it’s also the product of one of the country’s harshest chemical production cycles. Your kids attend a charter school? Thanks for helping suck more funds out of the public school system that’s so critical to our shared national interest. Sweet hell – are you wearing a diamond? Yeah, that restaurant does do a great bowl of pasta. And the owner has supported every hatemongering politician to run for office here in the last 30 years.
Been there. Feel your pain. I mean, I’ve turned my back on Target. I won’t be going back in a Dillard’s anytime soon. I haven’t had a Domino’s pizza in decades. Even if it didn’t taste like horse piss you’d never catch me drinking a Coors. And don’t even get me started on Wal*Mart (although they are implementing some encouraging green practices across the enterprise).Where do you buy groceries? Really – they’re pretty anti-union,... more-
- hoosierdaddy
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- 1 year ago
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Monsanto puts all liability for GM seeds on farmers
My most recent entry for those who requested to be kept current on what I post about.
Thanks.
Excerpt:
I am truly incensed about this as a person who has such a strong sense of what this planet is here for and our role as stewards. To see farmers actually sign this agreement especially if they do indeed read it they must be one of two things... totally desperate and gullible, or greedy. Unless of course, there is also the factor of duress being placed upon them by Monsanto through their goon squad. Who knows. There are stories about that as well... Cars pulling up in front of farms, farmers being threatened and intimidated, etc. Otherwise, I do not see farmers who sign this agreement as real farmers. Real farmers would not enter into such agreements because they cherish the soil, their animals, the biodiversity of this planet and the future much more than these lies they are being sold for profit. These lies for example have led to thousands of suicides in India, illnesses due to pesitice exposure in Argentina, loss of indigenous corn varieties in Mexico and biodiversity loss worldwide.
continued at link.My most recent entry for those who requested to be kept current on what I post about.... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 37 comments
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Heartland Institute: Misrepresenting climate science by cherrypicking data for political purposes
Again, these deniers have no science. Only lies and deceptions.
_________
Excerpt:
"In a desperate attempt to try to support Schmitt’s false statement that there was as much or more ice in 2009 than 1989, Bast (or colleagues at Heartland) searched through the ice records from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and found the single month (April), where the area of ice was higher in 2009 than 1989. There was less ice in 2009 in January, February, March, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, on average, the maximum, and the minimum. But not in April (and just barely). Figure 1 shows the monthly ice area for the Arctic for 1989 and 2009 and the carefully picked month of April. I’ve circled the data point Bost and Heartland “cherry-picked.”
If Figure 1 was your bank statement for 1989 and 2009 could you claim with a straight face that you had more money in 2009 than 1989? And should anyone believe you?
On Monday February 7th, the National Snow and Ice Data Center itself weighed in with an official letter disputing Heartland Institute and Schmitt and agreeing with Boslough (and my analysis here).
“it would be incorrect to suggest that 2009 represented a recovery of Arctic sea ice to 1989 levels.”
It doesn’t get much more brazen than this effort by the Heartland Institute to mislead readers in New Mexico. Unfortunately, lots of readers probably fell for it. But scientists and honest researchers don’t cherry-pick data to support pre-determined positions.
I recently argued in testimony to the U.S. Congress that science
“is inherently adversarial — scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But no one who argues against the science of climate change has ever provided an alternative scientific theory that adequately satisfies the observable evidence or conforms to our understanding of physics, chemistry, and climate dynamics.”
Individuals can make mistakes. Harrison Schmitt made a mistake about Arctic sea ice having recovered in 2009 to 1989 levels (among many other fundamental mistakes) and he refused to correct it when his error was pointed out to him privately. I cannnot speculate on his motivations. But of much greater concern in this episode is the role of the Heartland Institute, which has long tried to piggyback on Schmitt’s reputation and history of public service. Heartland has established itself as a coordinator of climate denial efforts, as a publisher of a discredited pseudo-scientific attack on climate science called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and as organizer of a conference that brings together groups and individuals that work against the science and policy of climate change. Their irresponsible actions in this cherry-picking exercise substantially diminish even further Heartland’s claim to be any kind of honest broker of serious scientific skepticism on the topic of climate change."Again, these deniers have no science. Only lies and deceptions. _________... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 8 comments
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CA Council of Churches Supports Single Payer
Rev. Jim Burklo of the California Council of Churches sees California OneCare as the solution to the moral bankruptcy of our current, broken health care system, because it would minimize suffering and save lives.Rev. Jim Burklo of the California Council of Churches sees California OneCare as the... more-
- Cuchulainn
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- 1 year ago
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- 1 comment
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Magnets Can Manipulate Morality
Magnetic fields targeting the moral center of the brain could scramble our sense of right and wrong.
THE GIST:
* Strong magnetic fields could affect moral judgment.
* Targeted magnetic fields can make people more inclined to judge outcomes, not intentions.
* The findings could have implications for neuroscience, as well as the legal system.
...more at link.
Mind control weapons.Magnetic fields targeting the moral center of the brain could scramble our sense of... more-
- rodstradamus
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- 1 year ago
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Why are Americans so ill informed on the topic of climate change?
As glaciers melt and island populations migrate from shores to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.
The frustration revealed itself during a handful of sessions at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, and it came to a peak during a Friday session, “Science without borders and media unbounded.”
Near the session’s conclusion, Massachusetts Institute of Technology climate scientist Kerry Emanuel asked a panel of journalists why the media continues to cover anthropogenic climate change as a controversy or debate, when in fact it is a consensus among such organizations as the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, National Research Council and the national academies of more than two dozen countries.
"You haven't persuaded the public," replied Elizabeth Shogren of National Public Radio. Emanuel immediately countered, smiling and pointing at Shogren, "No, YOU haven't." Scattered applause followed in the audience of mostly scientists, with one heckler saying, "That's right. Kerry said it."
A tone of searching bewilderment was typical of a handful of sessions that dealt with the struggle to motivate Americans on the topic of climate change. Only 35 percent of Americans see climate change as a serious problem, according to a 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
It's a given that an organized and well-funded campaign has led efforts to confuse the public regarding the consensus around anthropogenic climate change.
And in the absence of such a campaign, as in South Korea, there is no doubt about the findings of climate science, said Sun-Jin Yun of Seoul National University. All three of the nation's major newspapers—representing conservative, progressive and business perspectives—accept climate change with little unjustified skepticism.
Still, it is hard to explain the intransigence of the U.S. public and policy-makers on the issue.
Explanations: the media, under-education or denialism
Tom Rosensteil of the Project for Excellence in Journalism pointed the finger at the media, focusing on its overall contraction in the past two decades. Shrinking budgets have led to a proliferation of quick, cheap reporting, as well as discussion and commentary formats that rarely provide informative discussions of actual science results.
"What is shrinking is the reportorial component of our culture in which people go out and find things and verify things," he said. Truth has little chance to make itself known in the new narrow and shallow public square.
Poll after poll, and even late night TV, seems to revel in Americans’ ignorance of basic scientific facts, including the fundamentals of physics and biology.
Is this "deficit model" then the reason for our failure to accept climate change? Naomi Oreskes, a University of California, San Diego, science historian rejected that hypothesis that during a session on climate change denialism. "It's quite clear there are many highly educated people who do not accept global warming," she said. Still, scientists "must communicate climate science as clearly and effectively and robustly as we can," she added.
The current political and cultural context drive the nation's denialism around climate change, evolution and vaccines, said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, during a session. Education and scientific literacy and general intelligence levels are not causing the problem.
Meanwhile, most Americans in fact are ignorant of the facts of climate science and even "confuse climate change with the ozone hole," Schmidt remarked. The processes around the latter's disappearance are related to global warming but "how is that a basis for having any sensible conversation?" he asked.
Solutions: Smart talking and media mastery
Surveys show that most people want more information about climate science, Schmidt said, so scientists should engage in public forums such as blogs, question-and-answer sessions and public talks, provided they are not simply stacked with angry debaters.
Scientists must engage with the public and be vigilant against projecting stereotypes of their profession—such as the elitist, arrogant scientist, Schmidt said.
Rosensteil echoed this advice and further urged scientists to bypass the media, who are no longer critical intermediaries for reaching the public given the growth of the blogosphere and the general fragmentation of the industry.
cont.As glaciers melt and island populations migrate from shores to escape rising seas,... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 156 comments
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Republicans launch sneak attack on clean water in budget
Some environmentalists fear that industry lobbyists responsible for weakening the Clean Water Act have successfully convinced the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives to use this year’s Continuing Resolution budget to further weaken CWA regulations.
The GOP’s CR – the money bill that will keep the government running through September 30 – includes language on page 276, Section 1747, lines 12-18 that would deny funding to the Environmental Protection Agency to implement guidelines needed to enforce the Clean Water Act.
“None of the funds made available by this division or any other Act may be used by the EPA to implement, administer, or enforce a change to a rule or guidance document pertaining to the definition of waters under the jurisdiction of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.”
This language was inserted in response to the expected release of guidelines on enforcement of the Clean Water Act by the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB rulemaking is an attempt to restore protections that eroded during the Bush Administration. It is a strategy of last resort by clean water advocates after failing to strengthen the law during the previous, Democratically-controlled Congress.
A handful of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions limit the authority of the EPA to enforce CWA protections. The most significant of these decisions was Rapanos vs. the United States. In a split decision, the court changed the definition of the type of waters the CWA could protect from waters of the United States to a more narrowly defined “navigable waters.” The 2006 ruling resulted in numerous jurisdictional issues that pro-industry lawyers have used to help their clients avoid CWA permitting regulations regardless of public health or habitat concerns.
New York’s Assistant Commissioner for Water Resources James M. Tierney told The New York Times that the court decision creates a big problem. “There are whole watersheds that feed into New York’s drinking water supply that are, as of now, unprotected.” The EPA says that over 100 million Americans are drinking water that comes from unguarded sources.
Even the Members of Congress cannot use the water fountains on Capitol Hill for fear of contamination – especially lead, according to Natalie Roy, executive director at Clean Water Network. After the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 and the White House in 2008, former Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced legislation to clarify what they said was the original intent of the Clean Water Act – to protect all waters of the United States – (exclusions were made for agriculture and mining) but their efforts never made it into law. “Here is the U.S. Congress, and they can’t pass a bill that would protect the waterways and the headwaters that flow into bigger bodies of water. Common sense calls for them to enforce protections but they are making distinctions because they are being beat up by corporate interests,” Roy said.
Recently, the EPA submitted guidelines to OMB describing which waters should be protected under the CWA in response to inaction on the Hill, a decade of confusing court decisions, and a narrow definition put forth by the Bush White House that forced the EPA to abandon hundreds of pollution investigations and fines. According to a U.S. Congressional investigation, the Bush-era language may have been written with a lawyer-lobbyist representing industry, Virginia Albrecht, to better benefit her clients. “Documents produced to the Committee indicate that the White House significantly weakened guidance issued by the Administration to implement the Supreme Court’s decision in the Rapanos case. These actions appear to have been taken at the behest of J.P. Woodley, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and Virginia Albrecht, the lobbyist who intervened in the case involving the Santa Cruz River.”
Documents obtained by environmental groups through the Freedom of Information Act show that Albrecht wrote the White House in the fall of 2006 expressing concern over the proposed rules and they were then “pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers” for industry groups, according to The New York Times.
The new OMB guidelines are expected to affirm a broader view of what waters and wetlands should be protected, thereby forcing industry to obtain permits to pollute or fill them.
cont.Some environmentalists fear that industry lobbyists responsible for weakening the... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Oil sands destruction: Gliding past a monster
Our canoe emerged from that unsettled land, past the confluence with the Clearwater River, and into the stunning industry of the oil sands. We coasted past high banks of bermed-up sand. Yellow machines the size of houses roared down the roads, tore into the ground, stripped up the layers of earth to get at the seams of bitumen, or tar. Our mouths fell open - the scale of it, the sounds, and the effluent pouring back into the river that we had come to know. Even without understanding the challenges of refining that sludge, the transportation required and the environmental damage being done, we knew that we were gliding past a monster.
A quarter century has passed since that summer. The oil sands strip-mining effort has continued unabated, and steadily expanded. It has gone on non-stop, day after day, year after year, decade on decade: Knocking down forest, peeling up peat, dredging bitumen-soaked sand, denuding habitat, dumping countless gallons of tainted river water.
The Chipewyan settlement of Fort Chipewyan, downstream, worries about elevated instances of kidney failure, Graves disease, and the risk of cancer from river water tainted with arsenic, mercury, other metals and sediments laced with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - toxics commonly found in tailings pond water. Chipewyans are told not to eat fish caught in the river, but fish and game provide their traditional diet.
Polluted river water sullies the Athabasca delta, one of the world's most important wetlands and migratory bird habitats. Year by year the mining expands its footprint, a scar visible from outer space. Combined, the oil sand fields of northern Alberta cover an area of 54,000 square miles, an expanse larger than England.
Northern Alberta is far enough off the radar that it might as well be another planet. Very few people live there. It's easy to forget about that carnage, even if, like me, you've been there.
Two years ago, watching the movie Avatar it all came back.
This is an old, tired story, I thought, watching the industrial colonization of a foreign planet, the clear-cutting of ancient forest and the apocalyptic demise of the beings who lived there. But in that dark theater, I felt the canoe paddle in my hands again, felt the river beneath the hull, witnessed the assault taking place just over the Athabasca's bank. I know where this Hollywood plot is unfolding right now, I thought.
And right now I'm reminded again because trucks are hauling behemoth loads across Montana, where I live, delivering equipment on a scale even science fiction screenwriters didn't anticipate.
Mega-trucks are pulling loads nearly 600,000 pounds, three stories high and 220 feet long across Idaho and Montana. This equipment is manufactured in Asia, shipped to the west coast, transported on barges up the Columbia watershed to the port of Lewistown, Idaho, and then transferred onto trucks that wind their way through some of the West's most picturesque river canyons and mountain passes.
These are the test runs. Imperial Oil, the Canadian arm of ExxonMobil, has plans to truck 200 similarly gargantuan loads along the same route to the oil sands of the North.
The trucks will hammer the pavement, stop traffic, add nothing to local economies. Scenic lands which support recreation and tourism are at risk. Citizen groups are waging campaigns. The Missoula County Commission and several districts of the U.S. Forest Service have lodged complaints.
But we are a small state, and the pressures from industry are immense.
The oil sands produce roughly 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. Alberta's biggest customer is the United States. Long-range, the plan is to build a pipeline from Alberta through Montana and Wyoming to Denver, and perhaps on to the Gulf Coast.
The problems are tremendous. The oil doesn't flow, to start with. It has to be separated, steam-injected, and mixed with liquids before it will even move through the pipe. Once south, it has to be further refined before it can be rendered usable.
To turn one barrel of oil sands bitumen into something you can pump into your gas tank requires removing two or three tons of earth, using three barrels of water, and burning 1,200 cubic feet of natural gas in a convoluted series of expensive processes to separate the oil, liquefy it, and refine it. All of this produces two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases as refining conventional petroleum. Talk about burning the candle at both ends. The mines pull 359 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River each year. While land reclamation is part of the discussion, not one reclamation certificate has been awarded to date, and the challenges of returning the landscape to anything remotely approximating its original state are appalling.
It took days to regain our mental rhythm, to let "river time" reassert itself. Life, and the river, bore us on. But now, it comes stabbing back.Meanwhile, Alberta's regulators just approved the ninth open-pit mine north of Fort McMurray. An industry-led monitoring body concluded that the pit would produce "no significant adverse environmental effects on water quality."
cont.Our canoe emerged from that unsettled land, past the confluence with the Clearwater... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Poll: If you had to choose between abolishing abortion and abolishing war, which would you choose and why?
I have been thinking about this quite a lot. We all know that I am a women’s right’s loving liberal and I seed a lot about reproductive justice. We see some very vocal views on the vine on this issue. We also see a lot of talk about American exceptionalism. So tell me this, if you had the choice between abolishing abortion and abolishing war which one would you choose? You can’t choose both. It is one or the other. Abortion, gone for ever OR war, gone for ever. Please explain your choices.
Abolish means make illegal and prosecuted to the full forces of the law.I have been thinking about this quite a lot. We all know that I am a women’s... more-
- magic3400
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- 1 year ago
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Droughts, Floods and Food
A well written piece by Paul Krugman appeared in the NY Times yesterday that gives a truthful view on the current protests we are seeing in relation to food prices and world weather events and the effects of climate change. I have been reporting and writing about sustainable agriculture here for a couple of years now primarily in regards to the effects of climate, speculation, world policy regarding loans and food grown for export, types of sustainable agricultural practices, seed patents and the effects of monoculture GMOs on the world's economy, health, environment and food sovereignty.
It is no overstatement to state that we are in a climate/food crisis. Recent events in Australia, Russia, China, Africa and Latin America for example have not only been a part of rising prices but also in giving us a glimpse of what life will be like in a warming world. Agriculture, its cultivation, its very existence is under threat by an ongoing assault of erratic and intensifiying weather/climate events, pesticides, expansive and destructive industrial agricultural policies and practices that see more land going to growing non food items, lack of food access and the effects of GMOs and the transgenic contamination they bring which has already affected not only the traditional corn varieties of Mexico's culture and livelihood, but crops around the world which works against what we must now be doing to save our agriculture.
As we look to the future our ability to provide for our needs is being made much harder by our own actions. As we see our population approaching a projected 9 billion within the next several decades we must begin to seriously understand the role our actions play in the world we see before us, and the world we will leave successive generations. The ability to feed ourselves and plant seeds that preserve our global biodiversity is being attacked by those who would profit from both their ownership and their demise.
In this century there will be no greater challenge to our species than working to preserve the planet that provides our food, our water, and our lives. What Mr. Krugman states here is not to be taken lightly. Climate change is indeed upon us, and its reach goes far beyond the political differences that have kept this urgent crisis from being faced as it must be now. The protests in Egypt and around the world are warning signs as well as hopeful signs. If we do not deal with the root causes of this crisis including and most importantly climate change, the world of our making will not be one we will be able to inhabit. This does come down to the very seeds we plant in our soils, and in our consciences.
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/2011/02/droughts-floods-and-food.html
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Excerpt by Mr, Krugman:
"While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning."A well written piece by Paul Krugman appeared in the NY Times yesterday that gives a... more-
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Asia faces climate induced migration 'crisis'
Asia must prepare for millions of people to flee their homes to safer havens within countries and across borders as weather patterns become more extreme, the Asian Development Bank warns.
A draft of an ADB report obtained by AFP over the weekend and confirmed by bank officials cautioned that failure to make preparations now for vast movements of people could lead to "humanitarian crises" in the coming decades.
Governments are currently focused on mitigating climate change blamed for the weather changes, but the report said they should start laying down policies and mechanisms to deal with the projected population shifts.
"What is clear is that Asia and the Pacific will be amongst the global regions most affected by the impacts of climate change," said the report entitled "Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific".
"Such impacts include significant temperature increases, changing rainfall patterns, greater monsoon variability, sea-level rise, floods and more intense tropical cyclones," it said.
The report, expected to be released in the next few weeks, comes as flooding overwhelms parts of Asia-Pacific, most recently in Australia, where a powerful cyclone worsened the impact of weeks of record inundations.
"Asia and the Pacific is particularly vulnerable because of its high degree of exposure to environmental risks and high population density. As a result, it could experience population displacements of unprecedented scale in the next decades," said the report, primarily targeted at regional policymakers.
Research carried out for the United Nations showed that 2010 was one of the worst years on record worldwide for natural disasters.
Asians accounted for 89 percent of the 207 million people affected by disasters globally last year, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).
Summer floods and landslides in China caused an estimated $18 billion dollars in damage, while floods in Pakistan cost $9.5 billion dollars, CRED’s annual study showed. Not to mention the catastrophic human cost.
"Governments are not prepared and that is why ADB is conducting this project," said Bart Edes, director of the Manila-based lending institution’s poverty reduction, gender and social development division.
"There is no international cooperation mechanism established to manage climate-induced migration. Protection and assistance schemes to help manage that flow is opaque, poorly coordinated and scattered," he told AFP.
"Policymakers need to take action now," he stressed, noting that negotiating treaties and efforts to raise funds takes time.
Last year’s natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific, including millions of people displaced in Sri Lanka and the Philippines, "give us a flavour of what to expect in the future", said Edes.
"Migration in general is not being properly addressed and the situation is going be made worse," added Edes, referring to the additional impact of climate change on migration patterns, fuelled by economic needs and armed conflicts.
"Now we have another driver of migration."
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Asia%20faces%20climate%20induced%20migration%20crisis/4231667/story.html#ixzz1DD7MgrmFAsia must prepare for millions of people to flee their homes to safer havens within... more-
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A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice: and where's the media?
This week marks the one-year anniversary of what the anti-science crowd successfully labeled ‘Climategate’. The media will be doing countless retrospectives, most of which will be wasted ink, like the Guardian’s piece — focusing on climate scientists at the expense of climate science, which is precisely the kind of miscoverage that has been going on for the whole year!
I’ll save that for my media critiques for Part 2, since I think that Climategate’s biggest impact was probably on the media, continuing their downward trend of focusing on style over substance, of missing the story of the century, if not the millennia.
The last year or so has seen more scientific papers and presentations that raise the genuine prospect of catastrophe (if we stay on our current emissions path) that I can recall seeing in any other year.
Perhaps the media would have ignored that science anyway, but Climategate appears to be a key reason “less than 10 percent of the news articles written about last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday.”
But for those interested in the real climate science story of the past year, let’s review a couple dozen studies of the most important findings. Any one of these would be cause for action — and combined they vindicate the final sentence of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe:
“It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
1. Nature: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”: “Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
If confirmed, it may represent the single most important finding of the year in climate science. Seth Borenstein of the AP explains, “plant plankton found in the world’s oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world’s oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.” Boris Worm, a marine biologist and co-author of the study said, “We found that temperature had the best power to explain the changes.” He noted, “If this holds up, something really serious is underway and has been underway for decades. I’ve been trying to think of a biological change that’s bigger than this and I can’t think of one.”
2. Science: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting: NSF issues world a wake-up call: “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”
Methane release from the not-so-perma-frost is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle. This research finds a key “lid” on “the large sub-sea permafrost carbon reservoir” near Eastern Siberia “is clearly perforated, and sedimentary CH4 [methane] is escaping to the atmosphere.”
The permafrost permamelt contains a staggering “1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere,” much of which would be released as methane. Methane is is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 times as potent over 20 years!
The carbon is locked in a freezer in the part of the planet warming up the fastest (see “Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss“). Half the land-based permafrost would vanish by mid-century on our current emissions path (see “Tundra, Part 2: The point of no return” and below). No climate model currently incorporates the amplifying feedback from methane released by a defrosting tundra.
The NSF is normally a very staid organization. If they are worried, everybody should be.
It is increasingly clear that if the world strays significantly above 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for any length of time, we will find it unimaginably difficult to stop short of 800 to 1000 ppm.
3. Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path.
Dust-Bowlification may be the impact of human-caused climate change that hits the most people by mid-century, as the figure below suggests (“a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought”):
The PDSI in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl apparently spiked very briefly to -6, but otherwise rarely exceeded -3 for the decade (see here). The National Center for Atmospheric Research notes “By the end of the century, many populated areas, including parts of the United States, could face readings in the range of -8 to -10, and much of the Mediterranean could fall to -15 to -20. Such readings would be almost unprecedented.”
4. Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred and “Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century” — Co-author: “Unless we curb carbon emissions we risk mass extinctions, degrading coastal waters and encouraging outbreaks of toxic jellyfish and algae.”
Marine life and all who depend on it, including humans are at grave risk from unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases. This can’t be stopped with geo-engineering and there is no plausible strategy for undoing it.
Ocean acidification may well be the most under-reported of all the catastrophic climate impacts we are risking.
5. Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100 [see figure] and these related findings and studies:
•Satellite data stunner: “Our data suggest that EAST Antarctica is losing mass…. Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise.”
•Nature: “Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized.”
•New study of Greenland under “more realistic forcings” concludes “collapse of the ice-sheet was found to occur between 400 and 560 ppm” of CO2
•Climate researcher: “It is my assessment that we have had the strongest melting since they started measuring the temperature in Greenland in 1873.”
•Science: CO2 levels haven’t been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher — “We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm.”
For more on SLR, see Coastal studies experts: “For coastal management purposes, a [sea level] rise of 7 feet (2 meters) should be utilized for planning major infrastructure”
continued...This week marks the one-year anniversary of what the anti-science crowd successfully... more-
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