MONSANTO INQUISITION METHODS
News Alert!
MONSANTO OUTLAWS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ORGANICS IN BRAZIL
While on my present visit in Brazil, I am staying for some time at APTA, the Government’s Agricultural Research Facility in Piracicaba in the Sao Paulo province. I am engaged in some experiments with agro-homoeopathy there, which the Government subsidises. Dr Fabricio Rossi, the man responsible for these experiments, told me yesterday on 5 August, after we returned from an experiment in the countryside that Monsanto has now made it illegal in Brazil to disseminate knowledge about organic farming, growing and sustainable agriculture. That legislation has just been passed by the Brazilian Parliament. The only people exempt are agricultural scientists and their publications, since they are not meant for public dissemination.
At first, I thought he was joking – would it now be impossible to publish my books on agro-homoeopathy here? They are being translated at present. He told me that was quite possible, because from now on, no publisher can publish any books, magazines or articles on the subject of sustainable agriculture, let alone one that propagates getting away from Monsanto’s poisons, for public distribution. If any publisher would still publish such information, they will no longer be allowed to sell those books. They will also be taken to court by Monsanto, for violation of this law. No bookstore in the country can and thus will carry any books on the subject in the near future – can you imagine?
Outrageous! Enter the Monsanto thought-police!
THE DANGERS FOR OTHER COUNTRIES
We can expect Monsanto to seek similar legislation to be passed in other countries too. India and China come to mind, as well as Indonesia – countries that are more or less dictatorial anyway. I suspect they will try something similar in the US, although there the laws guarantee freedom of the press. They will exploit any loophole they can find though, if the Brazilian experience is any indication. If I had the money, I would immediately engage a constitutional lawyer here, to find out if it violates the Brazilian Constitution. If so, I would also immediately mount a court case against Monsanto.
My thoughts on the subject are that politicians that allow such utterly draconian laws can only do so, due to ignorance of the public. If the only means to enlighten that public are taken away, one truly enters the world of Orwellian dictatorship, so well depicted in “1984” or Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. What are the authorities going to do with the books on the subject that already exist? Burn them?
It appears that Lula is in the pocket of Monsanto and that the Environment Minister, although a nice green-thinking man, has absolutely no clout at all. It also indicates the farmers are fed propaganda and kept in the dark about alternatives. It moreover indicates that Monsanto stoops as low as possible to ensure their version of the ‘truth’ is the only one available. Any individual or company disseminating such knowledge will immediately be prosecuted. Anyone I teach about the subject will be – like myself – breaking the law and subject to harassment and court cases by Monsanto, with possibly heavy fines and/or jail terms. Not a prospect I look forward to, I can tell you.
This means that the only chance to enlighten the politicians, the farmers and the consuming public, will be through the Internet. We should massively bombard the Brazilian authorities and the public with protestations through email, letters to the editor of the major papers and inform the TV stations. A site can be situated outside the country and still disseminate the necessary knowledge. One wonders whether such denial of information is not in violation of International laws concerning freedom of the press and whether it would serve to take Monsanto to court over its violation. Whether such could be mounted here remains to be seen, with the general ignorance of the public.
I will be in direct violation of that local Brazilian law when I do my teaching on the subject here. It is something I would like to make public here, if only to challenge Monsanto. One obstacle is my lack of the local language. It also means I am stuck in this country, because my only means of livelihood has just been taken away. I would need some support from others to fight this in any court of law, regardless whether local or at the International Court in Strasbourg. It is a pity the latter court is a toothless paper tiger that can only issue recommendations.
Anybody got any other ideas on how we could fight Monsanto on this important issue? Anyone interested in helping me to fight this draconian law?
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 08 December 2009 - 01:21:56 |
COPENHAGEN WHAT YOU DO , WATCH tv OR ACT
A Call to Climate Action:
We stand at a crossroads. The facts are clear. Global climate change, caused by human activities, is happening, threatening the lives and livelihoods of billions of people and the existence of millions of species. Social movements, environmental groups, and scientists from all over the world are calling for urgent and radical action on climate change.
On the 30th of November, 2009 the governments of the world will come to Copenhagen for the fifteenth UN Climate Conference (COP-15). This will be the biggest summit on climate change ever to have taken place. Yet, previous meetings have produced nothing more than business as usual.
There are alternatives to the current course that is emphasizing false solutions such as market-based approaches and agrofuels. If we put humanity before profit and solidarity above competition we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Instead we must invest in community-controlled renewable energy. We must stop over-production for over-consumption. All should have equal access to the global commons through community control and sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water. And of course we must acknowledge the historical responsibility of the global elite and rich Global North for causing this crisis. Equity between North and South is essential.
Climate change is already impacting people, particularly women, indigenous and forest-dependent peoples, small farmers, marginalized communities and impoverished neighbourhoods who are also calling for action on climate-and social justice. This call was taken up by activists and organizations from 21 countries that came together in Copenhagen over the weekend of13-14 September, 2008 to begin discussions for a mobilization in Copenhagen during the UN's 2009 climate conference.
The 30th of November, 2009 is also the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) shutdown in Seattle, which shows the power of globally coordinated social movements.
We call on all peoples around the planet to mobilize and take action against the root causes of climate change and the key agents responsible both in Copenhagen and around the world. This mobilization begins now, until the COP-15 summit, and beyond. The mobilizations in Copenhagen and around the world are still in the planning stages. We have time to collectively decide what these mobilizations will look like, and to begin to visualize what our future can be. Get involved!
We encourage everyone to start mobilizing today in your own neighbourhoods and communities. It is time to take the power back. The power is in our hands. Hope is not just a feeling, it is also about taking action. To get involved in this ongoing and open process, sign up to this email list: climateaction@klimax2009.org
To post on the climate09-int list simply send an email to
climate09-int@lists.riseup.net
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climate09-int-unsubscribe@list.riseup.net
Una Llamada a la Acción para el Clima
Estamos en una encrucijada. Los hechos son claros. El cambio climático causado por los seres humanos es un hecho que amenaz las vidas y el sustento de miles de millones de personas y la existencia de millones de especies. Movimientos sociales, grupos ambientales, y los científicos de todo el mundo están haciendo una llamada a la acción urgente y radical en relación al cambio climático
El 30 de noviembre de 2009, los gobiernos del mundo acudirán a Copenhaguen para la decimoquinta Conferencia de la ONU sobre el Clima (COP-15). Ésta será la cumbre más grande jamás realizada sobre el cambio climático. Sin embargo las reuniones anteriores no aportaron ningún cambio.
Hay alternativas al curso de acción actual con su énfasis en pseudo soluciones como los agrofuels y otras que se basan en el mercado. Si anteponemos la humanidad a las ganancias y la solidaridad a la competición, podremos vivir increíblemente bien sin destruir nuestro planeta. Tenemos que dejar los combustibles fósiles en la tierra. En cambio debemos invertir en energía renovable controlada por la comunidad. Debemos detener la sobreproducción destinada a un consumo excesivo. Todos deben poder acceder igualmente a los recursos comunes del planeta gracias al control y a la soberanía de la comunidad sobre bosques, tierras y aguas. Y por supuesto debemos reconocer la responsabilidad histórica que tienen las élites del mundo y el rico norte globalizador como causantes de esta crisis. La equidad entre el norte y el sur es esencial.
El cambio climático está afectando ya a la gente, particularmente a las mujeres, a los pueblos indígenas que dependen de los bosques, a los pequeños agricultores, a las comunidades marginadas y a los barrios pobres que también llaman a la acción para que se haga justicia en lo relativo al clima y y a lo social. Esta llamada ha sido adoptada por activistas y organizaciones de 21 países reunidas en Copenhaguen del 13 al 14 de septiembre de 2008 para iniciar discusiones sobre una movilización que tendrá lugar en Copenhaguen durante la Conferencia de la ONU sobre el Clima de 2009.
El 30 del noviembre de 2009 es también el décimo aniversario de la movilización que paralizó la reunión de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (WTO) en Seattle demostrando claramente el poder de los movimientos sociales coordinados en el mundo.
Apelamos a toda la gente del mundo a que se movilice y actúe contra las causas fundamentales del cambio climático y los principales agentes responsables tanto en Copenhaguen como en todo el mundo. Empecemos a movilizarnos ahora, sigamos hasta la cumbre COP-15, y más allá. Las movilizaciones de Copenhaguen y en el resto del mundo todavía están en fase de planificación. Tenemos tiempo para decidir conjuntamente como serán estas movilizaciones, y para empezar a imaginar lo que puede ser nuestro futuro. ¡Participen!
Los animamos a que empiecen hoy mismo a movilizase en sus barrios y comunidades. Es hora de recuperar el poder. El poder está en nuestras manos. La esperanza no es solo un sentimiento, también es acción.
Hier volgt een vertaling van de (oorspronkelijk Engelstalige) oproep tot mobilisatie i.v.m. de COP-15 top te Kopenhagen in 2009:
*Een oproep tot klimaat actie* in Kopenhagen, 30 nov – 10 dec 2009
We staan op de tweesprong. De feiten zijn duidelijk. Wereldwijde klimaatveranderingen, veroorzaakt door menselijke activiteit, bedreigen de levens en het levensonderhoud van miljarden mensen en het bestaan van miljoenen soorten. Sociale bewegingen, milieugroepen en wetenschappers van over de hele wereld roepen op tot urgente en radicale actie op het gebied van klimaatverandering.
Op 30 november 2009 komen regeringen vanuit de hele wereld naar Kopenhagen voor de vijftiende 'UN Climate Conference' (COP-15). Deze top over klimaatverandering zal de grootste worden die tot dan toe ooit plaatsvond. Maar toch hebben eerdere bijeenkomsten niet meer geproduceerd dan de gewone gang van zaken (business as usual).
Er zijn alternatieven voor de huidige koers, die de nadruk legt op verkeerde oplossingen zoals marktgerichte benaderingen en 'agrofuels'. Als we de mensheid boven winst plaatsen en solidariteit boven competitie, kunnen we op een geweldige manier leven, zonder onze planeet te vernietigen. We zullen fossiele brandstoffen in de grond moeten laten zitten en investeren in door de gemeenschap gecontroleerde duurzame energie. We zullen moeten stoppen met overproductie voor overconsumptie. Iedereen zou gelijke toegang moeten hebben tot de wereldwijde gemeenschappelijke goederen d.m.v. sociale controle en zelfbeschikking over energie, bossen, land en water. En natuurlijk moeten we de historische verantwoordelijkheid van de wereldwijde elite en het rijke noorden voor de veroorzaking van deze crisis erkennen. Gelijkheid tussen het noorden en het zuiden is essentieel.
Klimaatverandering heeft nu al invloed op mensen, in het bijzonder vrouwen, inheemse en van bos afhankelijke mensen, kleine boeren, gemarginaliseerde gemeenschappen en achterstandswijken, die ook oproepen tot actie op het gebied van klimaat en sociale rechtvaardigheid. Deze oproep is opgepikt door activisten en organisaties uit 21 landen, die samenkwamen in Kopenhagen in het weekend van 13-14 september 2008 om discussies te starten met oog op een mobilisatie tegen de 'UN Climate Conference' 2009 in Kopenhagen.
30 november 2009 is tevens de datum waarop tien jaar geleden de WTO (World Trade Organization) in Seattle werd stopgezet, wat de kracht van wereldwijd gecoördineerde sociale bewegingen toont.
We roepen alle mensen op de wereld op, om zich te mobiliseren en actie te ondernemen tegen de kernoorzaken van klimaatverandering en de verantwoordelijke hoofdpersonen, zowel in Kopenhagen als wereldwijd. Deze mobilisatie begint nu, tot aan de COP-15 top en verder. De mobilisaties in Kopenhagen en de rest van de wereld bevinden zich nog in het organisatorisch stadium. We hebben tijd om collectief te besluiten hoe deze mobilisaties er uit gaan zien en om beginnen te visualiseren hoe onze toekomst kan worden. Betrek jezelf hierbij!
Comments: 1
Posted by Admin on Friday 26 June 2009 - 16:10:40 |
Conspiracy Charges At Last
CLIMATE TODAY
June 12-182009
Conspiracy Charges At Last
- The twist of having the focus be on the conspiracy that has been going on for years is fascinating. We all pollute in our own ways, but certain major corporations have deliberately tried to, and continue to, fool the public. - Editor
Alaska's Soon-To-Be Climate Refugees Sue Energy Companies for Relocation
Kivalina, a small Inupiat village in northwestern Alaska, is being forced to relocate. Its 400 residents will shortly become some of the world's first climate refugees. And they're taking a rather novel route for paying for the move: They're suing a group of energy companies for creating a public nuisance and for conspiracy-that is, for funding research to "prove" there is no link between climate change and human activity. The case, Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., et al., went to court a couple weeks ago in California and could be enormously important. It is one of the first lawsuits tied to anthropogenic global warming that seeks to use conspiracy law to press for civil damages from trans-national corporations-in this case, up to $400 million, the upper-bound estimate for relocation costs. Kivalina is endangered because thinning sea ice and surging seas threaten its territorial integrity. Waves that were once blocked by sea ice lap and slam into the community's buildings regularly. It's not total non-sense that the companies that profited most from emitting carbon into the commons should have to pay for the consequences of their actions.
For the legal case- http://www.climatelaw.org/cases/country/us/kivalina/Kivalina%20Complaint.pdf
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090615/alaskas-soon-be-climate-refugees-sue-energy-companies-relocation
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Posted by Admin on Saturday 20 June 2009 - 00:01:52 |
The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid: Trailer February 2009
- The Age of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change, set in the future, which will have its world premiere in London on March 15th 2009 and then be released in UK cinemas on March 20th 2009, followed by other countries.
Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, Brassed Off) stars as a man living alone in the devasted world of 2055, looking back at archive footage from 2007 and asking: why didnt we stop climate change when we had the chance?
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Posted by Admin on Monday 15 June 2009 - 04:05:34 |
CREATING NEW JOBS WHAT CRISIS ????????
CREATING NEW JOBS, CUTTING CARBON EMISSIONS, AND REDUCING OIL IMPORTS BY INVESTING IN RENEWABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY
jobs
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Posted by Admin on Sunday 14 June 2009 - 20:35:25 |
Mammy and Pappy
Mammy and Pappy we speak 5 languages , we are engineers/llawyers/ doctors and full with cars , money and paper securities BUT why haven´t you done anything about REALITY , about pollution ,why are there no Trees , why is the Ocean empty, genetically manipulated food , why is it so cold/hot , what about wars , water and polar bears , tigers , Rainforest and all that other wonder...
Where is it then ......didn´t you have time , Then , There for what is really important ????
Why we still fight , why is the world still full with guns and bullets .
Why haven´t you come together and reunion , for once and all .Follow your Heart .
We come from the Future like Merlin to tell you , Change it then now ..PLEASE
Thank you ....we Love you ....
If Your Love towards us , your childern , flesh and blood , is real , open hearted , please do not ignore this call , ...stop the killing , stop the pollution ....it is more important than driving us to school and feeding us with supermarketfood ...........simple good food , and some good books ....teach us ...please
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Posted by Admin on Wednesday 14 January 2009 - 11:21:24 |
PLANTING TREES AND MANAGING SOILS TO SEQUESTER CARBON
Earthpolicy.org
Lester R. Brown
As of 2007, the shrinking forests in the tropical regions were releasing 2.2 billion tons of carbon per year. Meanwhile, expanding forests in the temperate regions were absorbing 0.7 billion tons of carbon annually. On balance, a net of some 1.5 billion tons of carbon were being released into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming.
The tropical deforestation in Asia is driven primarily by the fast-growing demand for timber. In Latin America, by contrast, it is the growing demand for soybeans and beef that is deforesting the Amazon. In Africa, it is mostly the gathering of fuelwood and the clearing of new land for agriculture as existing cropland is degraded and abandoned. Two countries, Indonesia and Brazil, account for more than half of all deforestation. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also high on the list, is a failing state, making forest management difficult.
Included in the Plan B blueprint to stabilize climate are plans to end net deforestation worldwide and to sequester carbon through a variety of tree planting initiatives and the adoption of improved agricultural land management practices. Today, because the earth’s forests are shrinking, they are a major source of CO2. The goal is to expand the earth’s tree cover, growing more trees to soak up CO2.
Although banning deforestation may seem farfetched, environmental reasons have pushed three countries--Thailand, the Philippines, and China--to implement complete or partial bans on logging. All three bans were imposed following devastating floods and mudslides resulting from the loss of forest cover. After suffering record losses from several weeks of nonstop flooding in the Yangtze River basin, Beijing noted that when forest policy was viewed not through the eyes of the individual logger but through those of society as a whole, it simply did not make economic sense to continue deforesting. The flood control service of trees standing, they said, was three times as valuable as the timber from trees cut. With this in mind, Beijing then took the unusual step of paying the loggers to become tree planters--to reforest instead of deforest.
Other countries cutting down large areas of trees will also face the environmental effects of deforestation, including flooding. If Brazil’s Amazon rainforest continues to shrink, it may also continue to dry out, becoming vulnerable to fire. If the Amazon rainforest disappears, it would be replaced largely by desert and scrub forestland. The capacity of the rainforest to cycle water to the interior, including to the agricultural areas to the south, would be lost. At this point, a fast-unfolding local environmental calamity would become an economic disaster, and because the burning Amazon would release billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere, it would accelerate global warming.
Just as national concerns about the effects of continuing deforestation eventually eclipsed local interests, now global interests are beginning to eclipse national ones as deforestation has become a major driver of global warming. Deforestation is no longer just a matter of local flooding, but also rising seas worldwide and the many other effects of climate change. Nature has just raised the ante on protecting forests.
Reaching a goal of zero net deforestation will require reducing the pressures to deforest that come from population growth, rising affluence, the construction of ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries, and the fast-growing use of paper. Protecting the earth’s forests means halting population growth as soon as possible, and, for the earth’s affluent residents who are responsible for the growing demand for beef and soybeans that is deforesting the Amazon basin, it means moving down the food chain. A successful deforestation ban may require a ban on the construction of additional biodiesel refineries and ethanol distilleries.
Against this backdrop of growing concern about the forest-climate relationship, a leading Swedish energy firm, Vattenfall, has examined the large-scale potential for foresting wasteland to sequester carbon dioxide. They begin by noting that there are 1.86 billion hectares of degraded land in the world--land that was once forestland, cropland, or grassland--and that half of this, or 930 million hectares, has a decent chance of being profitably reclaimed. Some 840 million hectares of this total are in the tropical regions, where reclamation would mean much higher rates of carbon sequestration.
Vattenfall estimates that the maximum technical potential of these 930 million hectares is to absorb roughly 21.6 billion tons of CO2 per year. If, as part of a global climate stabilization strategy, carbon sequestration were valued at $210 per ton of carbon, the company believes that 18 percent of this technical potential could be realized. If so, this would mean planting 171 million hectares of land to trees. This area--larger than that planted to grain in India--would sequester 3.5 billion tons of CO2 per year, or over 950 million tons of carbon. The total cost of sequestering carbon at $210 per ton would be $200 billion. Spread over a decade, this would mean investing $20 billion a year to give climate stabilization a large and potentially decisive boost. This global forestation plan to remove atmospheric CO2, most of it put there by industrial countries, would be funded by them. An independent body would be set up to administer, fund, and monitor the vast tree planting initiative.
Aside from the Vattenfall forestation idea, there are already many tree planting initiatives under way that are driven by a range of concerns, from climate change to desert expansion, to soil conservation, to making cities more habitable. In late 2006, the U.N. Environment Programme, inspired by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, announced plans for a worldwide effort to plant 1 billion trees in one year to fight climate change. This initial target was easily exceeded and by mid-2008, more than 2 billion trees had been planted in more than 150 countries. The new goal is to have 7 billion trees planted by the end of 2009--just over one tree for every person on the planet.
A number of agricultural practices can also increase the carbon stored as organic matter in soils. Farming practices that reduce soil erosion and raise cropland productivity usually also lead to higher carbon content in the soil. Among these are shifting from conventional tillage to minimum-till and no-till, the more extensive use of cover crops, the return of all livestock and poultry manure to the land, expansion of irrigated area, a return to more mixed crop-livestock farming, and the forestation of marginal farmlands.
Rattan Lal, a Senior Agronomist with the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University, has calculated the range of potential carbon sequestration for each of many practices, such as those just cited. For example, expanding the use of cover crops to protect soil during the off-season can store from 68 million to 338 million tons of carbon worldwide each year. Calculating the total carbon sequestration for the practices he cites shows a potential for sequestering 400 million tons of carbon each year at the low end, and 1.2 billion tons of carbon per year at the more optimistic high end. For our carbon budget we are assuming, perhaps conservatively, that 600 million tons of carbon can be sequestered as a result of adopting these carbon-sensitive farming and land management practices.
Ending net deforestation and sequestering carbon as described above will put us on the path to the Plan B climate stabilization goal of cutting net carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. To see how raising energy efficiency and harnessing renewable sources of energy complete the picture, see Earth Policy Institute’s carbon cutting blueprint at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/80by2020.htm.
# # #
Adapted from Chapter 8, “Restoring the Earth ,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 30 December 2008 - 23:38:10 |
Save the Orangutans -STOP BIODIESEL
Orangutans vs. CO2 Offsets
The Orangutans of Borneo: Stop the biodiesel subsidies, stop the slaughter.
Stop the biodiesel subsidies, stop the slaughterIt’s appalling that the European environmentalists allowed biodiesel subsidies. The idea we can burn our biosphere in the tanks of our cars, and that this is somehow better than using petroleum, is the death knell to tropical forests. In turn this is the cause of droughts due to loss of transpiration, extreme weather because tropical deforestation undermines the monsoon circulation, and even global warming both due to the thermal impact of hotter open land vs. cooler reflective cloud cover that forms over tropical forests, and the CO2 impact of removing perennial uptake as well as the massive one-time release of CO2 when the forest is removed. Tropical deforestation has more to do with climate change than burning petroleum.
Despite this strong likelyhood, if not fact, Europeans have patted themselves on the back for their biofuel subsidies, and created a world market for biodiesel that had scarcely existed. And now the genie is out of the bottle, and the last forests are burning away.
To fix the problem at this point, Europeans will have to impose punative import tarifs on any and all biodiesel, and redirect the full force of funds that had been subsidizing biodiesel, using them instead to purchase, protect and reestablish tropical rainforests. Five million square miles of tropical rainforest have been lost, and less than three million remain. Millions of square miles of rainforest must be restored, in order to avert anthropogenically induced disruptive climate change.
Orangutans are the latest victims of rainforest destruction for biofuel. Nobody should be surprised that as politically correct biofuel is subsidized, not only tropical deforestation occurs (causing climate change), but consequences also include massive destruction of biodiversity and prolific specicide. As reported on MSNBC’s report “Orangutans Squeezed by Biofuel Boom,” tropical deforestation is rampaging faster than ever. According to the report: “Encouraged by government tax breaks, many of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates as well as foreign companies are investing millions in expanding plantations and refining facilities on Borneo, which has one of the richest ecosystems in the world and is one of the only remaining homes of the orangutans.”
As we’ve repeatedly warned, biofuel is not sustainable. A human being, running on calories (products of sun, water and plants), only consumes caloric energy at a rate of about 100 watts. Our cars require on average about 25 kilowatts to operate. That is to say, meeting the nutritional requirements of billions of people literally require 250 times less farmland than meeting the fuel requirements of billions of cars and industrial machinery. That is the energy reality, and small wonder rainforests are toast. Read “Reforesting vs. Biofuel.”
Our love for wildlife and wilderness is undiminished by our contention that over-emphasis on endangered species is strangling the economic growth of American cities. If it isn’t enough that biofueled tropical deforestation is the real cause of catastrophic climate change, then perhaps the impending doom of the Orangutans and other species and ecosystems might move environmentalists at last. Stop the subsidies, stop the slaughter.
Source: http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2007/10/27/orangutans-vs-co2-offsets/
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Posted by Admin on Monday 21 July 2008 - 02:37:02 |
Release of "Time for Plan B: Cutting Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2020"
SOURCE : EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE
TELECONFERENCE: Thursday, June 26th, 11:00 AM EST
CUTTING CO2 EMISSIONS 80% BY 2020 TO AVOID DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE
WASHINGTON, DC -- With Washington grasping at short-sighted and dirty energy policies such as domestic offshore drilling, environmental analyst and author Lester Brown will hold a telephone briefing on Thursday, June 26th to present an alternative blueprint to cut carbon emissions enough to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change -- 80 percent by 2020.
Brown, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient, says we do not need to go beyond ice melting to see that civilization is in trouble. While political leaders who recognize the need to cut carbon emissions to address global warming ask what is politically feasible, the Earth Policy Institute asks what is necessary. How much and how fast do we have to cut carbon emissions to save the Greenland ice sheet or the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, whose ice melt irrigates the wheat and rice fields of China and India during the dry season?
By systematically raising energy efficiency throughout the world economy, by largely replacing fossil fuels with wind, solar, and geothermal energy for electricity and heating, by restructuring transport systems, and by planting billions of trees, we can stabilize climate. This alternative to business as usual, aka "Plan B," also frees us from dependence on imported oil.
"We need to mobilize at wartime speed," said Brown. "Cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 will not be easy, but it may be the key to saving civilization."
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Posted by Admin on Tuesday 24 June 2008 - 13:12:08 |
In the wheel of time
In the wheel of time by Paulo Coehlo I had proposed to publish here, once a year, texts by Carlos Castañeda, an anthropologist who influenced my generation with his tales of meetings with Mexican sorcerers. For lack of space, I have not done so since 2004. Today I woke up thinking: Castañeda, despite all his critics and all his work that later on seemed so disorderly to me, should not be forgotten. So here we present some of his reflections.
Intention is the important thing: for the old sorcerers of Mexico, intention (intento) is a force that intervenes in all aspects of time and space. To be able to use and manipulate this force calls for impeccable behavior. A warrior’s final goal is to be able to lift his head above the rut where he is confined, look around him, and change what he wants. To do so he needs to have discipline and pay attention all the time.
Nothing is easy: nothing in this world is given as a present: everything has to be learned with a great deal of effort. A man who seeks knowledge must have the same behavior as a soldier going to war: absolutely attentive, afraid, respectful and utterly confident. If he follows these recommendations, he may lose the odd battle but he will never cry over his fate.
Fear is natural: fear of the freedom that knowledge brings us is absolutely natural; however, no matter how terrible the apprenticeship may be, it is worse to live without wisdom.
Irritation is unnecessary: becoming irritated with others means giving them the power to interfere in our lives. It is imperative to overcome this feeling. By no means should the acts of others distract us from our only alternative in life: coming in touch with the infinite.
The end is an ally: when things begin to get confused, a warrior thinks about his death and immediately his spirit returns to him. Death is everywhere. Think of the headlights of a car following us along a winding road; sometimes we lose sight of it, sometimes it appears to be too close, sometimes the headlights go out. But this imaginary car never stops (and one day catches up with us). The very idea of death gives men the necessary detachment to go ahead despite all their tribulations. A man who knows that death is approaching every day tries everything, but without feeling anxiety.
The present is unique: a warrior knows how to wait, because he knows what he is waiting for. And while he waits, he wants nothing, and in this way anything he receives – however small – is a blessing. The common man worries too much about loving others, or being loved by them. A warrior knows what he wants - that is all in his life and that is where he concentrates all his energy. The common man spends the present acting as winner or loser, and depending on the results he becomes persecutor or victim. The warrior, on the other hand, worries only about his acts, which will lead him to the objective he has traced for himself.
Intention is transparent: intention (intento) is not a thought, nor an object, nor a desire. It is what makes a man triumph in his objectives and lifts him up from the ground even when he has delivered himself up to defeat. Intention is stronger than man.
It is always the last battle: the warrior’s spirit does not complain about anything, because he was not born to win or lose. He was born to fight, and each battle is the last that he is waging on the face of the Earth. That is why the warrior always leaves his spirit free, and when he gives himself to combat, knowing that his intention is transparent, he laughs and enjoys himself.
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/warrioroflight/28.05.2008/issue-n%C2%B0173-in-the-wheel-of-time/
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