WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.
Brian Masse, a member of the Canadian Parliament, wants a bilateral agency to investigate the pile accumulating in Detroit.
Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.
And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.
The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.
The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.
“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.
An initial refining process known as coking, which releases the oil from the tarlike bitumen in the oil sands, also leaves the petroleum coke, of which Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled. Some is dumped in open-pit oil sands mines and tailing ponds in Alberta. Much is just piled up there.
Detroit’s pile will not be the only one. Canada’s efforts to sell more products derived from oil sands to the United States, which include transporting it through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, have pulled more coking south to American refineries, creating more waste product here.
Marathon Petroleum’s plant in Detroit processes 28,000 barrels a day of the oil sands bitumen.
Residents on both sides of the Detroit River are concerned that the coke mountain is both an environmental threat and an eyesore.
“Here’s a little bit of Alberta,” said Brian Masse, one of Windsor’s Parliament members. “For those that thought they were immune from the oil sands and the consequences of them, we’re now seeing up front and center that we’re not.”
Mr. Masse wants the International Joint Commission, the bilateral agency that governs the Great Lakes, to investigate the pile. Michigan’s state environmental regulatory agency has submitted a formal request to Detroit Bulk Storage, the company holding the material for Koch Carbon, to change its storage methods. Michigan politicians and environmental groups have also joined cause with Windsor residents. Paul Baltzer, a spokesman for Koch’s parent company, Koch Companies Public Sector, did not respond to questions about its storage or the ultimate destination of the petroleum coke.
Coke, which is mainly carbon, is an essential ingredient in steelmaking as well as producing the electrical anodes used to make aluminum.
While there is high demand from both those industries, the small grains and high sulfur content of this petroleum coke make it largely unusable for those purposes, said Kerry Satterthwaite, a petroleum coke analyst at Roskill Information Services, a commodities analysis company based in London.
“It is worse than a byproduct,” Ms. Satterthwaite said.“It’s a waste byproduct that is costly and inconvenient to store, but effectively costs nothing to produce.”
Murray Gray, the scientific director for the Center for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta, said that about two years ago, Alberta backed away from plans to use the petroleum coke as a fuel source, partly over concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions. Some of it is burned there, however, to power coking plants.
The Keystone XL pipeline will provide Gulf Coast refineries with a steady supply of diluted bitumen from the oil sands. The plants on the coast, like the coking refineries concentrated in California to deal with that state’s heavy crude oil, are positioned to ship the waste to China or Mexico, where it is burned as a fuel. California exports about 128,000 barrels of petroleum coke a day, mainly to China.
Tony McCallum, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, played down the impact of Keystone XL. “Most of the Canadian oil earmarked for the U.S. Gulf Coast is to replace declining heavy oil imports from Mexico and Venezuela that produces the same amount of petcoke, so it doesn’t create a new issue,” he wrote in an e-mail.
Much of the new coking investment has gone into refineries in the Midwest to allow them to take advantage of the oil sands. BP, the British energy company, is building what it describes as the second-largest coke refinery in Whiting, Ind. When completed, the unit will be able to process about 102,000 barrels of bitumen or other heavy oils a day.
And what about the leftover coke? The Environmental Protection Agency will no longer allow any new licenses permitting the burning of petroleum coke in the United States. But D. Mark Routt, a staff energy consultant at KBC Advanced Technologies in Houston, said that overseas companies saw it as a cheap alternative to low-grade coal. In China, it is used to generate electricity, adding to that country’s air-quality problems. There is also strong demand from India and Latin America for American petroleum coke, where it mainly fuels cement-making kilns.
“I’m not making a value statement, but it comes down to emission controls,” Mr. Routt said. “Other people don’t seem to have a problem, which is why it is going to Mexico, which is why it is going to China.”
“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” he said. One of the world’s largest dealers of petroleum coke is the Oxbow Corporation, which sells about 11 million tons of fuel-grade coke a year. It is owned by William I. Koch, a brother of David and Charles.
Lorne Stockman, who recently published a study on petroleum coke for the environmental group Oil Change International, says, “It’s really the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth,” he said.
Rhonda Anderson, an organizing representative of the Sierra Club in Detroit, said that the mountain’s rise took her group by surprise, but it had one benefit.
“Those piles kind of hit us upside to the head,” she said. “But it also triggered a kind of relationship between Canada and the United States that’s allowed us to work together.”
Up to 75 homes, a large apartment complex, a middle school and a nursing home suffered major damage in West, Texas. (photo: NBC36TV/Twitter)
What Do the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Al-Qaeda Have in Common?
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
04 May 13
Answer: Both aren’t above killing people to attain their goals.
n 2009, Congress considered a bill that would have strengthened safety standards at fertilizer plants like the one that recently exploded in West, Texas, killing dozens of first responders and leveling a nearby middle school and a nursing home 500 yards away. The 2009 safety regulations were staunchly opposed by the US Chamber of Commerce, multinational corporations’ lobbying arm in Washington. The lobby spent millions to defeat it and labeled it a “key vote” that year. Even though it passed the House, the bill died in the Senate before even getting a vote.
Had those new regulations passed, the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, could have been prevented. But even though the plant dealt in highly-explosive materials like ammonium nitrate, it was only inspected once in its entire history, in 1985. Corporate lobbies like the US Chamber of Commerce prioritize profits and stock prices above safety of the surrounding community, and vehemently oppose environmental and safety regulations in all instances by spending millions of dollars to influence Congress and support candidates who promise to deregulate anything and everything.
The only problem with deregulating environmental and safety laws for corporations is that it opens the floodgates for environmental disasters and fatal catastrophes. Corporations successfully lobbied to deregulate offshore oil drilling in 2002 and 2003, successfully gaining an exemption from the Bush administration on having to install acoustic switches that would activate blowout preventers on oil rigs. Oil companies have to abide by that law in every country where they drill, except for the United States. The acoustic switch shuts off oil blowouts at the source, plugging the well before the blowout becomes too large to contain.
Even though it would only cost an additional $500,000 to install, business groups opposed the idea of oil companies posting record profits that year having to pay an extra cost for even such a basic safety measure. Yet after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf Coast, BP has had to pay out billions of dollars in fines and settlements. Clearly, the business model of hyper-deregulation is costlier not only in terms of dollars spent, but in lives lost, habitats ruined, and entire economies upended.
The explosion in Boston was defined as a terrorist attack, as Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s actions were done with malicious intent and claimed 3 lives while seriously injuring hundreds of others. The two men selfishly chose to end the live of others to make whatever petty point they wanted to make. But the explosion in West, Texas, was also done with malicious intent.
Anyone with half a brain knows that it’s incredibly dangerous for a place that manufactures explosive materials to operate under safety standards that are decades out of date. The wanton deregulation that inevitably led to that explosion was also done with selfish intent, as the US Chamber of Commerce chose to allow corporations to make more money rather than keep the community safe from harm. By that definition the explosion in West, Texas, was also a terrorist attack.
Corporate terrorists should be pursued just as much as religious extremists who commit terrorist acts. And since the US Chamber of Commerce hasn’t released a statement apologizing to the community of West for their reckless behavior that led to the deaths of dozens, it can be said that they will continue to commit acts of terror for selfish economic gain until they’re indicted for their complicity in manslaughter, if not murder.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary “We’re Not Broke,” which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at carl@rsnorg.org, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
1 day ago – A young Saudi man faces being forcibly paralyzed as a punishment under … she did not have even a fraction of this money, meaning the court…
2 days ago – A Saudi Arabian court has ruled that a man should be paralysed as punishment for … but your IP address will be logged to prevent abuse of this feature. … Amnesty claims that the paralysis sentence would contravene the UN …
2 days ago – Saudi court orders criminal to be surgically paralyzed Add to . … A government-approved Saudi human rights group did not respond to requests …
1 day ago – A Saudi court has ordered that 24-year-old Ali Al-Khawahir be surgically paralyzed as … A decade later and he will now be paralyzed for life.
1 day ago – Surgical Paralysis Ordered in Saudi Arabia as Punishment for … Ali Al-Khawahir, 24, is awaiting court-ordered surgical paralysis in Saudi Arabia for an … and said the defendants did not have legal representation during court…
1 day ago – Unless he can quickly raise $270,000, a Saudi man will soon face court-ordered surgical paralysis from the waist down, Amnesty International …
1 day ago – Saudi Arabian court ‘orders man to be paralysed’ … has sentenced a man to be paralysed in retribution for causing the paralysis of a friend when he was fourteen years old. … John Kerry: US will ‘empower’ Syria opposition …
Saudi judge orders man surgically paralyzed to pay for childhood stabbing. By NY Daily News Latino | Published: 2013-04-04 19:47:21 UTC | Read more, click …
Question:What is the U.S. response to reports that a Saudi judge gave a court order for a prisoner to be surgically paralyzed?
Answer: If these reports are true, they would be incredibly disturbing. We expect the Saudi Government to respect international human rights norms. We regularly make this point as part of our bilateral dialogue.
The Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, the largest in the United States, ensures a bigger market for Saudi crude and a stronger global voice for the kingdom.
THE HAGUE (JTA) – Royal Dutch Shell declined to comment on reports that it will divest its stake in an Australian energy firm because of that firm’s investment in Israel’s gas fields.
According to the RTL Dutch television network, a spokesperson for Shell said on Wednesday that he had no comment on a report by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia which said Shell would likely dump its 23.1-percent stake in Australia’s Woodside Petroleum.
The report said Shell planned the move to avoid the risk of boycott by Arab countries following Woodside’s agreement to purchase a 30-percent interest in Israel’s Leviathan natural gas field. RTL reported that Shell’s stake in Woodside is worth more then $7 billion.
Last year, Shell said that involvement with Woodside was “incompatible” with Shell’s “long-term plans.”
Part of the promise of this power plant is its use of gasified coal; because the gasification process doesn’t burn the coal, it makes for far cleaner energy than a traditional coal-fired plant.
But another reason this plant — and a handful of similar plants — has such enormous potential is that it will capture some 90 percent of the facility’s already reduced carbon emissions. Some of those carbon emissions will be used to make fertilizer.
The rest will be sold to the oil industry, which will push it into the ground, as part of a process called enhanced oil recovery.
Let us count the potential benefits if plants like this became commonplace. Currently, some 40 percent of carbon emissions come from power plants. The carbon-capture process Summit will employ “is the only technology that can reduce CO2 emissions from existing, stationary sources by up to 90 percent,” said Judi Greenwald of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
To put it another way, this technology could be a climate-saver.
Second: Environmentalists could call off their war against the coal industry, thus saving tens of thousands of jobs, as climate-destroying coal-fired plants were replaced by clean coal gasification plants.
Third: Gas-fired power plants, which already emit 50 percent less carbon than coal-fired plants, could become even cleaner if they included the carbon-capture technology.
Fourth: Using carbon emissions to recover previously ungettable oil has the potential to unlock vast untapped American reserves. Last year, ExxonMobil reported that enhanced oil recovery would allow it to extend the life of a single oil field in West Texas by 20 years.
Fifth: China. Too often, American environmentalists ignore the reality that the Chinese are far more concerned with economic growth than climate change. (And who can blame them? All they want is what we already have.) The Chinese are relentlessly building coal-fired power plants, which Western environmentalists couldn’t stop even if they tried. But if power plants like Summit’s — which will turn CO2 into profitable products — were to gain momentum, that would likely catch China’s attention. A reduction of carbon emissions from Chinese power plants would do far more to help reverse climate change than — dare I say it? — blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The Summit executive most closely associated with the Texas Clean Energy Project is Laura Miller. Her environmental credentials are unimpeachable. As the mayor of Dallas in 2006, Miller founded the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition to fight a plan by TXU Energy, a big power company, to build 11 new coal-fired plants. During a trip to Europe, she saw both coal gasification and carbon-capture technologies being used. When she left the mayor’s office, she signed up with Summit and became a passionate advocate of the Odessa plant.
Eric Redman, the president and chief executive of Summit Power, describes her as “the public face of the project.” (As a young man, by the way, Redman wrote one of the classic works about Congress, “The Dance of Legislation.” It’s still worth reading.)
So who could possibly be against coal gasification and carbon capture? Ratepayers, for one, mainly because carbon-capture technology is so expensive. In 2011, American Electric Power, or A.E.P., canceled a big carbon-capture project, in part because it was clear that state regulators were not going to allow the company to pass on the additional costs to its customers.
To help make the project economically viable, the Texas Clean Energy Project is getting a $450 million grant from the Department of Energy. (Absurdly, the Internal Revenue Service is requiring Summit to pay taxes on the federal grant, which means that a third of it will go right back to the government.) But if the plant proves successful — as I believe it will — and others replicate it, the costs will inevitably come down, and federal help won’t likely be needed.
And the other opponent? None other than Bill McKibben, Mr. “Stop Keystone” himself. When I e-mailed him to ask whether he supported carbon-capture for enhanced oil recovery, he replied that if carbon were sent back into the ground “the worst possible thing to do with it is to get more oil above ground.” He continued, “It’s time to keep oil in the earth, not to mention gas and coal.”
To me, at least, his answer suggests that his crusade has blinded him to the real problem. The enemy is not fossil fuels; it is the damage that is done because of the way we use fossil fuels.
If we can find a way to create clean energy from fossil fuels, then they can become (as they used to say) part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Thankfully, Laura Miller and Eric Redman understand that, even if Bill McKibben doesn’t.
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Laura Miller (born 1958) served as mayor of Dallas, Texas (U.S.) from 2002 through 2007. She did not run for re-election in the 2007 mayoral race. She was the third woman to serve as mayor of Dallas.
In 1998, Miller was elected to the Dallas City Council representing Oak Cliff and southwest Dallas. In 1998, Miller was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments which effectively eradicated the cancer.
In 2002, Miller was elected as Mayor of Dallas, replacing Ron Kirk who left the post to run for the United States Senate position vacated by retiring Texas Senator Phil Gramm.
She fought for and won approval of a strengthened smoking ban, an ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, a revamped public housing system, a $23 million homeless assistance center, major changes to the city’s Trinity River Corridor improvement plan and a taxpayer-funded downtown redevelopment effort.
She participated in an agreement between American Airlines, the City of Fort Worth, DFW Airport and Southwest Airlines to revise the federal flight restrictions at Love Field Airport, which involved: replacing geographic limitations on Love Field service with: flight caps determined by a limitation on the number of gates allowed at Love Field, restrictions on the rights of any new air carrier to service North Texas via any airport other than DFW Airport, and banning international commercial air travel at Love Field. The unique agreement and resulting oligopoly required an exemption from federal antitrust laws, which Miller also successfully helped obtain.
During her term, the Dallas Cowboys announced plans to build Cowboys Stadium and many citizens hoped it would be built in Dallas. The city and the Dallas Cowboys, however, failed to reach a deal and the stadium was built in Arlington.
She announced parade plans for the Dallas Mavericks championship in 2006, prior to the Mavericks losing four straight games and ultimately the NBA championship to the Miami Heat in six games.
Miller was succeeded in office by Republican Tom Leppert.
Laura Miller serves as Director of Projects, Texas,[3] for Summit Power Group, a Seattle-based developer of wind, solar and gas-fired power plants. Summit was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive a $350 million cost-sharing award to build the world’s first IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) clean-coal power plant located near Odessa, Texas. The low-emissions project, called the Texas Clean Energy Project, is projected to capture just under 3 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, which will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin.[4]
Miller’s other environmental accomplishments included the formation and co-leading (with former Houston mayor Bill White) of the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition, made up of 36 cities, counties and school districts in Texas that opposed the construction of 11 coal plants (which would have used older technology) by TXU, a Dallas-based energy company. Ultimately, TXU (now called Energy Future Holdings) officially suspended its plans to build eight of the eleven plants.[5] As a result of these efforts, Miller won a 2008 Climate Protection Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for this nationally-recognized effort,[6] which has been memorialized in a documentary film, produced and narrated by Robert Redford, and entitled “Fighting Goliath: The Texas Coal Wars.”
He is one of the Texas “Super-Lawyers” and was called one of the ten best legislators in Texas. They have two daughters, Alex and Lily, and a son, Max.
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Eric Redman, (born 1948, Palo Alto, California), is an a businessman with experience on Capitol Hill.
The book was initially published in 1973, with a second edition in 2001. Redman has also written for a variety of other publications such as the New York Times,[3] the Washington Post,[4][5] Open Spaces,[6] and others, and was once a Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone.[7] His article on the climate effects of soot, “A Dirty Little Secret,” appeared in the May–June 2005 issue of Legal Affairs.[
His interest in the effects of SOOT - which he called A Dirty Secret, are a give away when the issue is man caused Climate Change - it seems he was eager finding other reasons for global warming like the speakers for the Heartland Institute used to do. No, the issue is not that black particles of man caused soot are not a source of global warming, but that they are the reason to displace CO2 emissions as a suspect, are the reason for our comment.
Redman left the legal practice for business after specializing in public policy and energy law for more than 30 years. He is currently President of Summit Power Group Inc,[11][12] a Seattle-based developer of wind, solar, gas-fired, and carbon-capture power plants. Summit is currently developing the Texas Clean Energy Project in Odessa, Texas. That is obviously the reason of his present advocacy.
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Joseph “Joe” Nocera ( 1952 in Providence, Rhode Island) is a sterling American business journalist and author. He became a business columnist for The New York Times in April 2005. In March 2011, Nocera became a regular opinion columnist for The Times’ Op-Ed page, writing on Tuesdays and Saturdays.[2] Nocera is also a business commentator for NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon.
Prior to joining The New York Times, Nocera worked at Fortune from 1995 to 2005, in a variety of positions, finally as editorial director.
Nocera was the “Profit Motive” columnist at GQ from 1990 to 1995, and wrote the same column for Esquire from 1988 to 1990.
Mr. Nocera is a clear profit motive journalist with connections to Texas – we do not doubt his writing skills, but we wonder if the subject at hand got the full investigative scrutiny it deserves.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 16, 2013, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: A Real Carbon Solution.
President Obama used his weekly Saturday address to repeat his impassioned but vague call to take “meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this,” some gun control advocates said they hoped the shooting would be a catalyst for change.
“We genuinely believe that this one is different,” Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in an interview on Saturday. “It’s different because no decent human being can look at a tragedy like this and not be outraged by the fact that it can happen in our nation. And because this time, we’re really poised to harness that outrage and create a focused and sustained outcry for change.”
But supporters of gun control sounded similar notes after other recent mass shootings — including one early last year in Tucson in which six people were killed and Representative Gabrielle Giffords was wounded — only to see little or no action. And as governors condemned the Connecticut shooting and expressed sympathy for its victims, their statements, from Democrats and Republicans alike, were more likely to mention prayer than gun laws.
That same day, Ohio lawmakers passed a bill that would allow guns in cars at the Statehouse garage. Earlier in the week, a federal appeals court struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois. And Florida officials announced that they would soon issue their millionth concealed weapon and firearm license — or, as a state news release put it, the program would be “One Million Strong.”
Exception was in Colorado, which had started a debate on gun laws earlier in the week. Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, had said on Wednesday that he believed “the time is right” for state lawmakers to consider new gun restrictions.
Mr. Hickenlooper, who had appeared cool to the idea immediately after the shooting at a movie theater in Aurora that killed 12 people and wounded dozens, said he hoped lawmakers would take up the issue in the next legislative session, when Democrats will control both houses.
“After the shootings happened in Aurora in July, everyone was just so empty that it didn’t feel appropriate to start talking about racing right into the sometimes contentious arguments of appropriate gun control or inappropriate gun control, depending on which side of the fence you’re on,” Mr. Hickenlooper said Saturday. He added that he hoped lawmakers would examine issues like public access to assault weapons, magazines that hold a great deal of ammunition and armor-piercing bullets, and how the state can help the mentally ill and keep them from doing harm.
With gun control efforts seen as unlikely in Washington, where the Republicans who control the House oppose them, the next frontiers of the debate may be in states like Michigan, where the bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons in school is being weighed by Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican.
Don Wotruba, the deputy director of the Michigan Association of School Boards, said the group was calling on the governor to veto the bill. “Putting children in closer proximity with more guns is a risk that shouldn’t be taken,” he said in an interview.
The massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School has finally grabbed the Nation’s attention – something that Hurricane Sandy did not do.
The Republicans blame their loss in the Presidential elections on the Hurricane and we find no evidence that this was the case – but we say that had the elections been held today instead, they might have been wiped out – just a Sandy closer to home.
Today’s Sunday TV programs all dealt with the woman that collected guns and made them accessible to her sick-genius son.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on Meet the Press, said that he did put his money to work for candidates to Congress that were ready to take on the National Rifle Association. He explained that good laws and readiness to enforce them have reduced killings by guns in new York City to the point that it is now best in the country on the reduction of crime. He said it clearly – The Comforter in Chief is first The Commander in Chief and criticized the Preasident for not having put forward an actual plan to combat what is killing per year in the US more people then all the Vietnam War did in its time.
Bloomberg said that he decided to back President Obama only after he interviewed both – The President and Mr. Romney – and had the feeling that Obama knew what he has to do. But then, Obama did not go come up with a program to back up his rhetoric.
In New York City, if someone is found with a loaded concealed weapon – he gets an automatic 3.5 years.
THE PRESIDENT HAS IN HIS POWER TO ACT UPON WHAT HE TELLS THE PEOPLE THAT HE INTENDS TO DO. HE FIRST HAS TO TELL THE PEOPLE WHAT HE WANTS TO DO, AND THEN DO IT THROUGH EXECUTIVE ORDERS. My feeling was that Mayor Bloomberg, now an Independent, is ready to take the argument on a ride to the White House in 2016. He has the money and made it clear in public that he has the readiness. While the NRA’s only reason for existence in 2012 was to try to unseat President Obama, Bloombeg sees them weakened now to the point that an Obama who is not up for reelection anymore, ought to push Members of Congress to fight as if the NRA has no power over them – and indeed it does not anymore.
David Frum, who worked for President G.W. Bush said that when he grew up in Canada nobody there understood the US interest in weapons. Recently 300,000 people bought guns in one day in the US. 31 Senators for the Gun-lobby refused to speak on the Sunday programs – so they are stiff scared finally! This at a time that there is evidence that 40% of the guns sold in the US are sold at gun-shows or via the internet – no documents of any kind needed.
What is needed? For a starter something like a drivers’ license that requires tests of health (specifically mental health), a test of skills, and a minimum age. Also, clear understanding of spacial exclusions – like schools.
We would like to see Senator John Kerry take over the leadership in Congress and the fight against folks like Senator John McCain.
For first horn – President Obama ought to nominate Susan Rice for the Secretary of State position and fight for her; forget the leveling off on the taxation of the rich. The specter of a Middle East Bazaar bargaining between positions saying that rich is an income of one million/year or a quarter million/year are just unseemly. We would say that a special extra gun-control security tax would be fitting the present need as a clear add-on. We would then suggest that a similar add-on would qualify for climate-change effects as well because of the delayed action of dealing with the subject. Rich should be defined at the $150,000 level and taxed higher as the income is higher. Running a State is indeed the responsibility of those that were privileged to get a higher income as they got were they are mainly not by wins at the lottery, but because of the sweat of the great majority – the “others” that make up more then 95% of the Nation. PRESIDENT OBAMA IS NOW IN THIS POTENTIALLY UNCOMPROMISING POSITION BECAUSE OF THE CONFLUENCE OF OPPORTUNITIES THAT SHOULD NOT BE MISSED - HIS CLEAR INDEPENDENCE OF NEED TO BOW TO HIS DETRACTORS, AND THE DISASTERS OF SANDY & SANDY.
We say it – A Civilization Lost: the Old Liberal Republican Party of the entire USA. We expect it to be rebuilt in a new image by those that the latest Republican Apparition left out.
MY college roommates and I used to grocery shop and cook together. The only food we seemed to agree on was corn, so we ate a lot of corn.
My mom would periodically call to warn me in a dire tone, “Do you know why the Incas are extinct?”
Her maize hazing left me with a deeply ingrained fear of being part of a civilization that was obliviously engaging in behavior that would lead to its extinction.
Too bad the Republican Party didn’t have my mom to keep it on its toes. Then it might not have gone all Apocalypto on us — becoming the first civilization in modern history to spiral the way of the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans.
The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys.
Just another vanishing tribe that fought the cultural and demographic tides of history.
Someday, it will be the subject of a National Geographic special, or a Mel Gibson movie, where archaeologists piece together who the lost tribe was, where it came from, and what happened to it. The experts will sift through the ruins of the Reagan Presidential Library, Dick Cheney’s shotgun casings, Orca poll monitoring hieroglyphics, remnants of triumphal rants by Dick Morris on Fox News, faded photos of Clint Eastwood and an empty chair, and scraps of ancient tape in which a tall, stiff man, his name long forgotten, gnashes his teeth about the 47 percent of moochers and the “gifts” they got.
Instead of smallpox, plagues, drought and Conquistadors, the Republican decline will be traced to a stubborn refusal to adapt to a world where poor people and sick people and black people and brown people and female people and gay people count.
As the historian Will Durant observed, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”
President Obama’s victory margin is expanding, as more votes are counted. He didn’t just beat Romney; he’s still beating him. But another sign of the old guard’s denial came on Friday, a month after the election, when the Romney campaign ebulliently announced that it raised $85.9 million in the final weeks of the campaign, making its fund-raising effort “the most successful in Republican Party history.”
Why is the Romney campaign still boasting? You can’t celebrate at a funeral. Go away and learn how to crunch data on the Internet.
Outside the Republican walled kingdom of denial and delusion, everyone else could see that the once clever and ruthless party was behaving in an obtuse and outmoded way that spelled doom.
The G.O.P. put up a candidate that no one liked or understood and ran a campaign that no one liked or understood — a campaign animated by the idea that indolent, grasping serfs must be kept down, even if it meant creating barriers to letting them vote.
Although Stuart Stevens, the Romney strategist, now claims that Mitt “captured the imagination of millions” and ran “with a natural grace,” there was very little chance that the awkward gazillionaire was ever going to be president. Yet strangely, Republicans are still gobsmacked by their loss, grasping at straws like Sandy as an excuse.
Some G.O.P. House members continue to try to wrestle the president over the fiscal cliff. Romney wanders in a daze, his hair not perfectly gelled. And his campaign advisers continue to express astonishment that a disastrous campaign, convention and candidate, as well as a lack of familiarity with what Stevens dismissively calls “whiz-bang turnout technologies,” could possibly lead to defeat.
Who would ever have thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would ever have thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would ever have thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would ever have thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?
Republicans know they’re in trouble when W. emerges as the moral voice of the party. The former president lectured the G.O.P. on Tuesday about being more “benevolent” toward immigrants.
As Eva Longoria supersedes Karl Rove as a power player, Republicans act as shellshocked as the Southern gentry overrun by Yankee carpetbaggers in “Gone with the Wind.” As the movie eulogized: “Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.”
Gun sales have burgeoned since the president’s re-election, with Black Friday weapons purchases setting records as the dead-enders rush to arm themselves.
But history will no doubt record that withering Republicans were finally wiped from the earth in 2016 when the relentless (and rested) Conquistadora Hillary marched in, General Bill on a horse behind her, and finished them off.
Having led the economy to near disaster in 2011, Republicans now want to do so again.
Party officials say that if they do not reach an acceptable deal with the White House this month, they will wait until the country reaches the debt ceiling early next year, then refuse to lift it until they get their way on cuts to spending and taxes, The Times reported on Wednesday.
The nation lost its AAA credit rating, stock values plunged, and the approval rating of Congress sank to historically low levels.
This is one of the worst imaginable ways to run a government, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is desperate to prevent it from recurring. As part of the administration’s initial fiscal offer last week, Mr. Geithner proposed a way to eliminate this threat, allowing the president to raise the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of Congress overruled him. This idea provoked immediate laughter in Republican offices in the Capitol.
“Congress is not going to give up this power,” House Speaker John Boehner said, as if the debt ceiling was enshrined in the Constitution. It’s not, of course; the limit is an unnecessary World War I era measure providing the illusion that Congress is carefully overseeing borrowing. What most people don’t know is that the limit does not affect future borrowing, but instead allows the Treasury to borrow to cover money Congress has already voted to spend. Republicans oversaw the tax cuts, war spending and recession that are the biggest components of the debt, but don’t want to take responsibility. Ending the ceiling would not in any way diminish the Congressional power of the purse.
Mr. Obama said firmly on Wednesday that he had no intention of playing the Republican debt ceiling game again. This time he might want to enlist the help of every American who holds federal, state or municipal bonds, investments that would be under threat in a debt crisis. If nothing else works, he should cite the 14th Amendment’s ban on questioning the public debt, and declare an end to the debt ceiling once and for all. The country can no longer tolerate government by brinkmanship and extortion. www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/opinio…
States should invest in public services and education, not subsidize big business by giving them billions a year in tax breaks.
An investigation by The Times found that state and local governments are giving out $80 billion a year in tax breaks and other subsidies in a foolhardy, shortsighted race to attract companies. That money could go a long way to improving education, transportation and other public services that would have a far better shot at promoting real economic growth.
With these giveaways, politicians and officials are trying to pick winners and losers, almost exclusively to the benefit of big corporations (aided by highly paid lobbyists) at the expense of small businesses. Though they promise that the subsidies are smart investments, far too often the jobs either don’t materialize or are short-lived, leaving the communities no better off.
Places like Texas and Ohio, state and local governments have lavished millions of dollars in tax breaks on corporate giants like Samsung and the Big Three automakers — even as they faced budget deficits and were forced to cut spending on critical services.
In one particularly egregious example in Pontiac, Mich., the State of Michigan gave $14 million in tax credits and a state pension fund guaranteed $18 million in bonds to a movie studio that created just 12 permanent jobs.
Local governments would be much better off investing tax dollars in education and public works that would deliver long-term benefits to both businesses and workers. California, for instance, is among the least generous of the larger states in doling out tax breaks. It gave out just $112 per capita compared with $759 in Texas, $672 in Michigan, and $210 in New York. Its experience leaves no doubt that investments made in public institutions like the University of California system can remain critically important to economic growth decades later.
The trouble with targeted incentives is that they are little more than transfers of wealth to a handful of powerful corporations from all other taxpayers, including other businesses. www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/opinio…
SEATTLE – In two weeks, adults in this state will no longer be arrested or incarcerated for something that nearly 30 million Americans did last year. For the first time since prohibition began 75 years ago, recreational marijuana use will be legal; the misery-inducing crusade to lock up thousands of ordinary people has at last been seen, by a majority of voters in this state and in Colorado, for what it is: a monumental failure.
That is, unless the Obama administration steps in with an injunction, as it has threatened to in the past, against common sense. For what stands between ending this absurd front in the dead-ender war on drugs and the status quo is the federal government. It could intervene, citing the supremacy of federal law that still classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug.
But it shouldn’t. Social revolutions in a democracy, especially ones that begin with voters, should not be lightly dismissed. Forget all the lame jokes about Cheetos and Cheech and Chong. In the two-and-a-half weeks since a pair of progressive Western states sent a message that arresting 853,000 people a year for marijuana offenses is an insult to a country built on individual freedom, a whiff of positive, even monumental change is in the air.
In Mexico, where about 60,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, political leaders are voicing cautious optimism that the tide could turn for the better. What happens when the United States, the largest consumer of drugs in the world, suddenly opts out of a black market that is the source of gangland death and corruption? That question, in small part, may now be answered.
Prosecutors in Washington and Colorado have announced they are dropping cases, effective immediately, against people for pot possession. I’ve heard from a couple of friends who are police officers, and guess what: they have a lot more to do than chase around recreational drug users.
Maine (ever-sensible Maine!) and Iowa, where the political soil is uniquely suited to good ideas, are looking to follow the Westerners. Within a few years, it seems likely that a dozen or more states will do so as well.
And for one more added measure of good karma, on Election Day, Representative Dan Lungren, nine-term Republican from California and a tired old drug warrior who backed some of the most draconian penalties against his fellow citizens, was ousted from office.
But there remains the big question of how President Obama will handle the cannabis spring. So far, he and Attorney General Eric Holder have been silent. I take that as a good sign, and certainly a departure from the hard-line position they took when California voters were considering legalization a few years ago. But if they need additional nudging, here are three reasons to let reason stand:
Hypocrisy. Popular culture and the sports-industrial complex would collapse without all the legal drugs that promise to extend erections, reduce inhibitions and keep people awake all night. I’m talking to you, Viagra, alcohol and high-potency energy drinks. Worse, perhaps, is the $25 billion nutritional supplement industry, offerings pills that make exaggerated health claims and steroid-based hormones that can have significant bad consequences. The corporate cartels behind these products get away with minimal regulation because of powerful backers like Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.
In two years through 2011, more than 2,200 serious illnesses, including 33 fatalities, were reported by consumers of nutritional supplements. Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths and 92 serious medical events from Five Hour Energy. And how many people died of marijuana ingestion? Of course, just because well-marketed, potentially hazardous potions are legal is no argument to bring pot onto retail shelves. But it’s hard to make a case for fairness when one person’s method of relaxation is cause for arrest while another’s lands him on a Monday night football ad.
Tax and regulate. Already, 18 states and the District of Columbia allow medical use of marijuana. This chaotic and unregulated system has resulted in price-gouging, phony prescriptions and outright scams. No wonder the pot dispensaries have opposed legalization — it could put them out of business.
Washington State officials estimate that taxation and regulation of licensed marijuana retail stores will generate $532 million in new revenue every year. Expand that number nationwide, and then also add into the mix all the wasted billions now spent investigating and prosecuting marijuana cases.
With pot out of the black market, states can have a serious discussion about use and abuse. The model is the campaign against drunk driving, which has made tremendous strides and saved countless lives at a time when alcohol is easier to get than ever before. Education, without one-sided moralizing, works.
Lead:
That’s what transformative presidents do. From his years as a community organizer — and a young man whose own recreational drug use could have made him just another number in lockup — Obama knows well that racial minorities are disproportionately jailed for these crimes. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 25 percent of its prisoners — and about 500,000 of them are behind bars for drug offenses. On cost alone — up to $60,000 a year, to taxpayers, per prisoner — this is unsustainable.
Obama is uniquely suited to make the argument for change. On this issue, he’ll have support from the libertarian right and the humanitarian left. The question is not the backing — it’s whether the president will have the backbone.
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And The New York Times Editorial Of Today:
Editorial
An Ineffective Way to Fight Crime.
Published: November 22, 2012
More than a year has passed since Commissioner Raymond Kelly of the New York Police Department issued a memorandum ordering officers to follow a 1977 state law that bars them from arresting people with small amounts of marijuana unless the drug is being publicly displayed. Even so, a lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society in June and pending in state court makes the case that the police are still arresting people illegally in clear violation of both the commissioner’s directive and the state law. More than 50,000 possession arrests were made last year.
{For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.}
Law enforcement officers have often described these arrests as a way of reining in criminals whose other, more serious activities present a danger to the public. But state statistics show that of the nearly 12,000 teenagers arrested last year, nearly 94 percent had no prior convictions and nearly half had never been arrested.
Now a new study by Human Rights Watch further debunks the main premise of New York City’s “broken windows” law enforcement campaign, which holds that clamping down on small offenses like simple marijuana possession prevents serious crime and gets hard-core criminals off the streets.
The study tracked about 30,000 people arrested for marijuana possession in 2003-4 — none of whom had prior convictions — for periods of six-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half years. The study found that about only 1,000 of them had a subsequent violent felony conviction. Some had misdemeanor or felony drug convictions, but more than 90 percent of the study group had no felony convictions whatsoever. The report concluded that the Police Department was sweeping “large numbers of people into New York City’s criminal justice system — particularly young people of color — who do not subsequently engage in violent crime.” This wastes millions of dollars and unfairly puts people through the criminal system.
In 1990, fewer than 1,000 people were arrested for minor possession. The 1977 law was intended to stop police officers from jailing young people for tiny amounts of marijuana and to allow prosecutors to focus on more serious crimes. It made possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana a violation and punishable by a $100 fine for the first offense. To discourage open use of the drug, however, lawmakers made public display a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail and a fine of $500.
In the past decade, civil rights lawyers have complained that police officers were arresting and charging people with public display of the drug, even though officers had found the contraband while rifling people’s pockets or after tricking them into exposing it.
Those arrested for minor possession — even if their cases are eventually dismissed — can endure grave collateral consequences. They can lose job opportunities, access to housing and can be turned away when applying for military service.
About 80 percent of those arrested are black or Hispanic. This has led the legal scholars Amanda Geller and Jeffrey Fagan to label the city’s marijuana campaign “a racial tax” because it takes a heavy toll on minorities, while bringing little or nothing in the way of crime reduction.
The Legislature could go a long way toward ending unfair prosecutions by adopting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposalNOT to make public display of a small amount of marijuana a violation, unless the person was smoking the drug in public. {the editorial has omitted the word NOT seemingly by mistake}
Three years ago, the court signaled that part of the law may no longer be needed, and the law’s challengers said the re-election of the nation’s first black president is proof that the nation has moved beyond the racial divisions that gave rise to efforts to protect the integrity of elections in the South.
The law “is stuck in a Jim Crow-era time warp,” said Edward P. Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a small legal foundation that helped organize the suit.
Civil rights leaders, on the other hand, pointed to the role the law played in the recent election, with courts relying on it to block voter identification requirements and cutbacks on early voting.
“In the midst of the recent assault on voter access, the Voting Rights Act is playing a pivotal role beating back discriminatory voting measures,” said Debo P. Adegbile, the acting president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the law, expected by June, could reshape how elections are conducted.
The case concerns Section 5 of the law, which requires many state and local governments, mostly in the South, to obtain permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes that affect voting. Critics of the law call the preclearance requirement a unique federal intrusion on state sovereignty and a badge of shame for the affected jurisdictions that is no longer justified.
The preclearance requirement, originally set to expire in five years, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1966 as a rational response to the often flagrantly lawless conduct of some Southern officials then.
Congress has repeatedly extended the requirement: for 5 years in 1970, 7 years in 1975, and 25 years in 1982. Congress renewed the act in 2006 after holding extensive hearings on the persistence of racial discrimination at the polls, again extending the preclearance requirement for 25 years.
But it made no changes to the list of jurisdictions covered by Section 5, relying instead on a formula based on historical practices and voting data from elections held decades ago. It applies to nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and to scores of counties and municipalities in other states.
Should the court rule that Congress was not entitled to rely on outdated data to decide which jurisdictions should be covered, lawmakers could in theory go back to the drawing board and re-enact the law using fresher information. In practice, given the political realities, a decision striking down the coverage formula would probably amount to the end of Section 5.
In May, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge to the law filed by Shelby County, Ala. Judge David S. Tatel, writing for the majority, acknowledged that “the extraordinary federalism costs imposed by Section 5 raise substantial constitutional concerns,” and he added that the record compiled by Congress to justify the law’s renewal was “by no means unambiguous.”
“But Congress drew reasonable conclusions from the extensive evidence it gathered,” he went on. The constitutional amendments ratified after the Civil War, he said, “entrust Congress with ensuring that the right to vote — surely among the most important guarantees of political liberty in the Constitution — is not abridged on account of race. In this context, we owe much deference to the considered judgment of the people’s elected representatives.”
The dissenting member of the panel, Judge Stephen F. Williams, surveyed recent evidence concerning registration and turnout, the election of black officials, the use of federal election observers and suits under another part of the law.
Some of that evidence, he said, “suggests that the coverage formula completely lacks any rational connection to current levels of voter discrimination,” while other evidence indicates that the formula, “though not completely perverse, is a remarkably bad fit with Congress’s concerns.”
“Given the drastic remedy imposed on covered jurisdictions by Section 5,” he wrote, “I do not believe that such equivocal evidence can sustain the scheme.”
The Supreme Court has already once considered the constitutionality of the 2006 extension of the law in a 2009 decision, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. But it avoided answering the central question, and it seemed to give Congress an opportunity to make adjustments. Congress did not respond.
At the argument of the 2009 case, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy questioned whether the distinctions drawn in the 2006 law reflect contemporary realities.
“Congress has made a finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less than the sovereign dignity of Ohio,” Justice Kennedy said. “The sovereignty of Alabama is less than the sovereign dignity of Michigan. And the governments in one are to be trusted less than the governments in the other.”
“No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act,” he added. “The question is whether or not it should be continued with this differentiation between the states. And that is for Congress to show.”
In the end, the court, in an 8-to-1 decision, ducked the central question and ruled instead on a narrow statutory ground, saying the utility district in Austin, Tex., that had challenged the constitutionality of the law might be eligible to “bail out” from being covered by it. Still, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, was skeptical about the continued need for Section 5.
“The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable,” he wrote. But “things have changed in the South.
“Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity,” he wrote. “Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.
“The statute’s coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old,” he added,“and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions.”
Having said all of that, and acknowledging that the court’s alternative ruling had stretched the text of the statute, Chief Justice Roberts said the court should avoid deciding hard constitutional questions when it could. “Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today,” he wrote.
On Friday, in agreeing to hear the case, Shelby County v. Holder, No. 12-96, the court indicated that it is prepared to provide an answer to the question it left open three years ago.
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The New York Times Editorial
A Supreme Test on the Right to Vote
Published: November 9, 2012
The Supreme Court decided on Friday to review Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has been crucial in combating efforts to disenfranchise minority voters. The justices should uphold the validity of the section, which requires nine states and parts of several others with deep histories of racial discrimination to get permission from the Justice Department or a federal court before making any changes to their voting rules.
The case, Shelby County v. Holder, was brought by an Alabama county, which contends that Section 5 intrudes unconstitutionally on the sovereign authority of states and that federal review of proposed voting changes, once needed to end legal segregation, is no longer required.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just this year, Republican efforts to block the votes of minorities and the poor — which were rejected again and again by federal judges relying on the Voting Rights Act, including Section 5 — have made that utterly clear.
Judge John Bates of Federal District Court in the District of Columbia, rejected Shelby County’s challenge last year, noting that Congress, in renewing the section in 2006, found that “40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination.”
In May, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld his ruling, saying that discrimination in voting is “one of the gravest evils that Congress can seek to redress” and that Congress’s painstaking research in its renewal of Section 5 (22 hearings and 15,000 pages of evidence) “deserves judicial deference.”
In another voting rights case in 2009, the Supreme Court said there were “serious constitutional questions” about whether Section 5 meets a current need. That comment left some legal experts with the impression that the court came close to striking down the provision. But the justices did not do so in that case, and they have even less reason to in this case. Overt discrimination clearly persists and remains pernicious in places like Shelby County.
EVERYBODY IN Israel knows this story. When Levy Eshkol was Prime Minister, his assistants rushed up to him in panic: “Levy, there is a drought!”
“In Texas?” Eshkol asked anxiously.
“No, in Israel!” they said.
“Then it doesn’t matter,” Eshkol assured them. “We can always get all the wheat we need from the Americans.”
That was some 50 years ago. Since than, nothing much has changed. The elections in the US in 11 days are more important to us than our own elections in three months.
I HAD to stay awake till 3 am again to watch the final presidential debate live. I was afraid that I would doze off, but I did not. On the contrary.
When two chess players are engaged in a game, there is often a person – we call him a “kibitzer” – standing behind one of them, trying to give him unsolicited advice. During the debates, I do the same. In my imagination, I stand behind Barack Obama and think about the right answer to Romney, before Obama himself opens his mouth.
I must admit that on some occasions during this debate, his answers were much better than mine. For example, I did not think up a stinging reply to Romney’s contention that the US now has less warships then it had a hundred years ago. Obama’s dry reply – that the US army now has fewer horses, too – was sheer genius. The more so since he could not have prepared it. Who could have foreseen such a dumb remark?
Also, when Romney slammed Obama for skipping Israel on his first Middle East tour as president. How to counter such a factual challenge – especially with thousands of Jewish pensioners in Florida listening to every word?
Obama hit the right note. Remarking that Romney had visited with an entourage of donors and fund-raisers (without naming Sheldon Adelson and the other Jewish donors), he reminded us that as a candidate he went instead to Yad Vashem, to see for himself the evil done to the Jews. Touche.
On a few occasions, I thought I had a better answer. For example, when Romney tried to explain away his comment that Russia was the most important “geo-political foe” of the US, I would have reacted with “Excuse my ignorance, governor, but what does ‘geo-political’ mean?” In his context, it was a highfalutin but meaningless phrase.
(“Geo-politics” is not just a juxtaposition of geography and politics. It is a world-view propagated by the German professor Hans Haushofer and others and adopted by Adolf Hitler as a rationale for his plan to create Lebensraum for Germans by annihilating or driving out the population of Eastern Europe.)
I would have talked much more about the wars, Nixon’s Vietnam, the two Bushes’ Iraq, the second Bush’s Afghanistan. I noticed that Obama did not mention that he had been against the Iraq war right from the beginning. He must have been advised not to.
ONE DID not have to be an expert to notice that Romney did not present original ideas of his own. He parroted Obama’s positions, changing a few words here and there.
Earlier in the campaign, during the primaries, it did not look like that. Clamoring for the votes of the right-wing base, he was about to bomb Iran, provoke China, battle Islamists of all shades, perhaps resurrect Osama Bin Laden in order to kill him again. Nothing of the sort this time. Only a meek “I agree with the President”.
Why? Because he was told that the American people had had enough of the Bush Wars. They don’t want any more. Not in Afghanistan, and certainly not in Iran. Wars cost a lot of money. And people even get killed.
Perhaps Romney decided in advance that it was enough for him to avoid looking like an ignoramus on foreign affairs, since the main battleground was in the economic sphere, where he can hope to look more convincing than Obama. So he played it safe. “I agree with the President…”
THE WHOLE concept of a presidential debate on foreign affairs is, of course, nonsensical. World affairs are far too complicated, the nuances far too subtle, to be dealt with in this rough way. It would be like performing a kidney operation with an ax.
One could easily get the impression that the world is an American golf course, in which the US can knock the peoples around like balls, and the only question is which player has the more skill and selects the best club. The will of the peoples themselves is quite irrelevant. What are the feelings of the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the Egyptians? Who cares?!
I am not sure that most of the American viewers could find Tunis on the map. So it makes no sense to argue about the forces at work there, make distinctions between Salafists and Muslim Brothers, preferring these or those. All in four minutes.
For Romney, obviously, all Muslims are the same. Islamophobia is the order of the day, and Romney openly pandered to it. As I have pointed out before, Islamophobia is nothing but the fashionable modern cousin of good old anti-Semitism, seeping from the same sewers of the collective unconscious, exploiting the same old prejudices, transferring to the Muslims all the hatred once directed towards the Jews.
Many Jews, of course, especially the elderly in the nursing homes in warm Florida, are relieved to see the Goyim turn on other victims. And since the new victims happen also to be the foes of beloved Israel, all the better. Romney clearly believed that pouring his bile on “Islamists” was the easiest way to garner Jewish votes.
Trying hard to look tougher than Obama, Romney did, after all, come up with an original idea: provide the Syrian insurgents with “heavy arms”. What does that mean? Artillery? Drones? Missiles? And if so, to whom? To the Good Guys, of course. And take care that they do not fall into the hands of the Bad Guys.
What a brilliant idea. But please, who are the Good Guys and who the Baddies? Nobody else seems to know. Least of all the CIA or the Mossad. Dozens of Syrian factions are at work – regional, confessional, ideological. All want to kill Assad. So who will get the cannons?
All this made any serious discussion about the Middle East, now a region of infinite variations and nuances, quite impossible. Obama, who knows a lot more about our problems than his adversary, found it wise to play the simpleton and utter nothing but the most fatuous platitudes. Anything else – for example a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, God forbid, could have offended the dear inhabitants of the one old people’s home which may change the outcome in Florida.
ANY SERIOUS Arab or Israeli should have been insulted by the way our region was treated in this debate by the two men, one of whom will soon be our lord and master.
Israel was mentioned in the debate 34 times – 33 times more than Europe, 30 times more than Latin America, five times more than Afghanistan, four times more than China. Only Iran was mentioned more often – 45 times – but in the context of the danger it poses to Israel.
Israel is our most important ally in the region (or in the world?) We shall defend it to the hilt. We shall provide it with all the arms it needs (plus those it doesn’t need).
Wonderful. Just wonderful. But which Israel, exactly? The Israel of the endless occupation? Of the unlimited expansion of settlements? Of the total denial of Palestinian rights? Of the rain of new anti-democratic laws?
Or a different, liberal and democratic Israel, an Israel of equality for all its citizens, an Israel that pursues peace and recognizes Palestinian statehood?
But not only what was parroted was interesting, but also what was left unsaid. No automatic backing of an Israeli attack on Iran. No war on Iran at all, until hell freezes over. No repetition of Romney’s earlier declaration that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No pardon for the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
And, most importantly: no effort at all to use the immense potential power of the US and its European allies to bring about Israel-Palestine peace, by imposing the Two-State solution that everybody agrees is the only viable settlement. No mention of the Arab peace initiative still offered by 23 Arab countries, Islamists and all.
China, the new emerging world power, was treated with something close to disdain. They must be told how to behave. They must do this or that, stop manipulating their currency, send the jobs back to America.
But why should the Chinese take any notice when China controls the US national debt? No matter, they’ll have to do what America wants. Washington locuta, causa finita. (“Rome has spoken, the case is closed,” as Catholics used to say, way back before the sex scandals.)
UNSERIOUS AS the debate was, it showed up a very serious problem.
The French used to say that war is too serious to leave to the generals. World politics are certainly too serious to leave to the politicians. Politicians are elected by the people – and the people have no idea.
It was obvious that both contenders avoided any specifics that would have demanded even the slightest knowledge from the listeners. 1.5 billion plus Muslims were considered to fall into just two categories – “moderates” and “Islamists”. Israel is one bloc, no differentiation. What do viewers know about 3000 years of Persian civilization? True, Romney knew – rather surprisingly – what or where Mali is. Most viewers surely didn’t.
Yet these very same viewers must now finally decide who will be the leader of the world’s greatest military power, with a huge impact on everyone else.
Winston Churchill memorably described democracy as “the worst form of government, except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
This is the first article that reaches us from PERSPECTIVES GmbH, Zurich, and it seems intended to save UNFCCC in the Post-Rio atmosphere when we see the UN reach out to novel ways of dealing with CO2 emissions. These new attempts do not call for decisions by consensus that were easily defeated by a feisty Saudi representative.
The simple fact that future generations of Saudis could benefit from a Saudi cooperation with those that tried to decrease the Global use of oil by inserting an oil use decrease for the common good, was anathema to the present robbers of the Saudi National resource – also to the corporations in the US and elsewhere that do business with them.
Will a budding middle class change the Gulf States as it is changing the Financial BRICs? Will there be young Princes that are ready to join global progressive thinking and be patriotic at the same time? If so, Perspectives might become the greatest Madison Avenue PR company, and it is good they put their office in Zurich.
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The Changing Role of the Gulf OPEC States in the UNFCCC – new paper in Climate Policy Perspectives series -
in the run-up to COP 18 in Doha, Axel Michaelowa and Mari Luomi put a spotlight on climate policy of the Gulf states: Given surging domestic energy consumption that is increasingly threatening oil and gas export revenues, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are initiating multiple experiments to improve energy efficiency and introduce renewable energy.
Cautious signals of a more constructive engagement of the Gulf Cooperation Council states in the international climate policy regime are emerging.
The resulting opportunities for constructive and innovative dialogues should not be wasted.
Climate diplomacy should try to strengthen the position of those groups that support new domestic energy policies. Technical support for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) pilot projects by the EU and other progressive countries in the climate regime could serve as a catalyst for creating sustained synergies between new energy and climate policies in the Gulf region.
Download the paper “From Climate Antagonists to Low-Carbon Protagonists? The Changing Role of the Gulf OPEC States in the UNFCCC” at
The World Energy Forum, which is being held for the first time outside UN Headquarters in New York, seeks to bring together world leaders, international organizations, financial institutions and other stakeholders to discuss progress towards cleaner, safer and more sustainable energy as well as how to achieve universal access to modern energy services. As 2012 has been designated as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, one of the main objectives of the Forum is to chart a roadmap for a sustainable energy mix that can fuel global economic and social development.
dates: 22-24 October 2012 location: Dubai (Dubai), United Arab Emirates contact: World Energy Forum Administration
Energy issues were front and center at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, starting right with the candidates’ first set of answers. But that wasn’t good news for climate hawks.
Climate change got not a single mention — partly the fault of moderator Candy Crowley. After the debate, Crowley said on CNN that one of the town-hall audience members had wanted to ask a climate question, but she didn’t call on that person.
Of course, the candidates still could have mentioned climate change during their discussions about energy, and they didn’t. Instead, President Obama and Mitt Romney both reiterated their all-too-familiar talking points — Obama talking about an “all of the above” energy policy and putting some emphasis on a clean energy future, Romney talking about an “all of the above” energy policy and putting a lot of emphasis on the dirty fuels of the past.
Romney took some knocks from fact-checkers for his energy statements. Romney also took some knocks straight from Obama — but, depressingly, most of them consisted of the president defending fossil-fuel development.
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Gas prices:
In an exchange over gas prices, Romney said that when Obama took office, gasoline was selling for about $1.86 a gallon and now it’s at $4.00 a gallon. As analysts have pointed out over and over again, that low price in January 2009 was an anomaly because the economy was in free fall and had sent demand plummeting.
That gave Obama a lead-in for one of his best lines of the night:
It’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.
A good moment for Obama — inasmuch as a president touting increased gasoline demand can be good.
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Oil drilling:
The candidates got into a spat over oil drilling on public lands. Romney said “oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production was down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands, and in federal waters.” When Obama tried to respond, Romney reverted to prep-school bully mode and interrupted over and over, but Obama finally got this out:
Here’s what happened. You had a whole bunch of oil companies who had leases on public lands that they weren’t using. So what we said was you can’t just sit on this for 10, 20, 30 years, decide when you want to drill, when you want to produce, when it’s most profitable for you. These are public lands. So if you want to drill on public lands, you use it or you lose it. And so what we did was take away those leases. And we are now reletting them so that we can actually make a profit.
Fact-checking site PolitiFact says that Romney’s 14 percent figure, which refers to the change between 2010 and 2011, is “cherry-picked,” and that the drop-off can be largely blamed on the BP oil disaster.
“From a statistical standpoint, to take one year out of three — one year is not indicative of a trend,” [said Jay Hakes, former head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration].
So we pulled the numbers from when George W. Bush was in office — January 2001 to January 2009 — as well as from when Obama was in office. …
• From 2004-08, well into Bush’s tenure, oil production on federal lands and waters fell in four of five years, for a net decrease of 16.8 percent.
• From 2009-11, the Obama years, oil production rose two of three years, for a net increase of 10.6 percent. [emphasis mine]
So that’s a win for Obama — inasmuch as a president bragging about increasing oil drilling is a win worth winning.
———–
Coal:
At another point, Romney questioned Obama’s commitment to fossil fuels, saying the president “has not been Mr. Oil, or Mr. Gas, or Mr. Coal.” Obama couldn’t let that stand. He said it was Romney who has not been loyal enough to coal.
[W]hen I hear Gov. Romney say he’s a big coal guy, I mean, keep in mind, when — Governor, when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, “This plant kills,” and took great pride in shutting it down.
Again, a hit for Obama — inasmuch as a president claiming to be the bigger friend to the coal industry is a hit worth hitting.
———–
Keystone XL:
Romney said, once again, that he really, really wants to build the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline:
We’re going to bring that pipeline in from Canada. How in the world the president said no to that pipeline? I will never know.
Obama responded:
And with respect to this pipeline that Governor Romney keeps on talking about, we’ve — we’ve built enough pipeline to wrap around the entire earth once.
So, I’m all for pipelines. I’m all for oil production.
Nice line about pipelines wrapping around the globe. But Obama really is all for pipelines and oil production. He had to be forced by mass protest to delay a decision on the northern half of Keystone, and he enthusiastically approved the southern half.
So another point for Obama — inasmuch as … oh, you get the point.
——————
Wind power:
Finally, on the subject of wind power, Obama got a hit on Romney that didn’t involve defending filthy fuels.
[O]n wind energy, when Governor Romney says “these are imaginary jobs.” When you’ve got thousands of people right now in Iowa, right now in Colorado, who are working, creating wind power with good-paying manufacturing jobs, and the Republican senator in that — in Iowa is all for it, providing tax breaks to help this work and Governor Romney says, “I’m opposed. I’d get rid of it.”
Romney responded, “I don’t have a policy of stopping wind jobs in Iowa and that — they’re not phantom jobs. They’re real jobs.”
But Romney did call the clean energy economy “imaginary” in a March 2012 op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch: “In place of real energy, Obama has focused on an imaginary world where government-subsidized windmills and solar panels could power the economy.”
And Romney does oppose a key wind tax credit that’s due to expire at the end of the year — a tax credit that Republicans from wind-power states, including Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, support. If it’s allowed to expire, it could wipe out 37,000 jobs.
—————-
The bottom line:
Obama did talk during the debate about building a clean energy economy: “we’ve got to make sure we’re building the energy source of the future, not just thinking about next year, but 10 years from now, 20 years from now. That’s why we’ve invested in solar and wind and biofuels, energy-efficient cars.”
But in today’s political climate, Obama just doesn’t believe he can turn his back on fossil fuels and still win the election. It’s not even clear that he wants to turn his back on fossil fuels.
————–
Meanwhile, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who does repudiate dirty energy, got arrested Tuesday when she tried to enter the debate site.
WHEN
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
WHERE
1615 L Street, NW, Suite 250
Washington, DC 20036 Map of location
The Council of the Americas for a public discussion with the Brazilian Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha.
The wealth effect, raised expectations of a growing middle class, changing demographics, and the poverty alleviation focus of the Rousseff administration have all converged within Brazil’s health sector to amplify existing challenges while also creating new opportunities.
Minister Padilha will discuss the state of health care in Brazil with an emphasis on the goals and objectives of the Rousseff administration’s efforts over the short and medium terms.
Yesterday, after receiving the latest update about Isaac from the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, and the National Hurricane Center, President Obama spoke from the Diplomatic Room about the steps his administration is taking to prepare for the storm:
Yesterday I approved a disaster declaration for the state of Louisiana so they can get the help that they need right away, particularly around some of the evacuations that are taking place. And right now, we already have response teams and supplies ready to help communities in the expected path of the storm.
The storm, now a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall on the Gulf Coast last night.
Late last night, as Hurricane Isaac made landfall along the Gulf Coast, FEMA provided another update about the ongoing efforts from federal officials to respond to the storm.
Earlier in the day, FEMA Adminstrator Craig Fugate and National Hurricane Center Director Dr. Rick Knabb briefed President Obama on the expected track for the hurricane and the preparations underway to provide relief efforts.
The President has already signed emergency declarations for the states of Mississippi and Louisiana in order to ensure local leaders get the support they need.
Before Isaac made landfall, FEMA dispatched four Incident Management Assistance Teams to emergency operations centers in Gulf states and positioned two Mobile Emergency Response Support teams and additional resources in locations nearby the areas expected to be affected by the storm.
FEMA also has supply distribution centers in Georgia and Texas and has established additional supply sites Mississippi and Louisiana. Federal officials have also deployed an urban search and rescue team to Louisiana, and additional support teams are ready to deploy as needed and requested.
For those currently in the path of the storm, FEMA has provided some useful safety information:
Driving through a flooded area can be extremely hazardous. Almost half of all flash flood deaths happen in vehicles. When in your car, look out for flooding in low lying areas, at bridges, and at highway dips. As little as six inches of water may cause you to lose control of your vehicle. Remember – turn around, don’t drown.
The National Weather Service is the official source for weather information and severe weather watches and warnings, so follow your forecast at www.weather.gov/ on your computer ormobile.weather.gov/ on your phone.
Rain and storm surge may make flooding possible. Here are the definitions of the types of advisories officials may issue:
Flood Watch: Flooding is possible. Tune in to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
Flood Warning: Flooding is occurring or will occur soon; if local officials give notice to evacuate, do so immediately.
Flash Flood Watch: Rapid rises on streams and rivers are possible. Be prepared to move to higher ground; listen to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
Flash Flood Warning: Rapid rises on streams and rivers are occurring; seek higher ground on foot immediately.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is urging everyone to make food safety a part of their preparation efforts:
Store food on shelves that will be safely out of the way of contaminated water in case of flooding.
Group food together in the freezer — this helps the food stay cold longer.
Have coolers on hand to keep refrigerator food cold if the power will be out for more than 4 hours.
Finally, if the high winds and rain from Isaac cause the power to go out, remember these tips:
Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible.
A refrigerator will keep food cold for about 4 hours if you keep the door closed.
A full freezer will keep its temperature for about 48 hours (24 hours if half-full).
In sun-drenched land, Israel’s solar power industry stifled by government bureaucracy
By Associated Press, Published: August 28, 2012.
KVUTZAT YAVNE, Israel — Israel has developed some of the world’s most advanced solar energy equipment and enjoys a nearly endless supply of sunshine, but when it comes to deploying large-scale solar technology at home, the country remains in the dark ages.
{ SustainabiliTank.info comment – Though Israel is at the head of the pack technology-wise, and active in its position business-wise outside the country, when it comes to review activities inside Israel, it is basically a government imposed desert in the Netanyahu years. So far from the understanding Ben Gurion had on these topics.
If you read this in the United States, think of Netanyahu’s Israel when imagining a Romney Administration in the United States – same government prejudices leading to same government inaction that feels like retardiness!!}
Solar power provides just a tiny percentage of Israel’s energy needs, leaving it far behind colder, cloudier counterparts in Europe. Israeli solar companies, frustrated by government bureaucracy, have taken their expertise abroad.
Fifty years ago, Israel was at the front of the pack, with simple solar water heaters on top of its apartment buildings. They’re still there, but little else has moved forward.
Advanced solar power has come to the tiny community of Kvutzat Yavneh, but its small scale is more an example of what can be done than what has been done.
Nestled in grape vines and pomegranate trees in south-central Israel, the 16 glimmering installations, each of them four meters (14 feet) tall, are an odd sight in this traditional collective farm, which also features a pickling factory and a barn.
The solar panels provide the community with nearly all of its hot water, and the electricity they generate is sold to Israel’s main energy provider, the Israel Electric Corp.
Miriam Schlusselberg, a secretary at the kibbutz, said the 320 residents are “very excited” to get solar power in their backyard. But she also acknowledged that solar energy on a large scale “is not going to develop on its own unless people start investing in it.”
The field in Kvutzat Yavne, built by the Israeli company ZenithSolar Ltd. in 2009, has a maximum capacity of about a quarter of a megawatt of combined thermal and electric power. That’s not even a dent in Israel’s overall capacity of some 12,000 megawatts.
“This is, unfortunately for us, our only project in Israel,” said Roy Segev, co-founder of ZenithSolar. “I think there was a poor policy from the Israeli government. It was a total neglect of the possibility to create a big industry in Israel.”
Segev said there has not been enough government investment in solar manufacturing or startup companies. He pointed out that industry leaders such as Germany and Italy have outpaced Israel in solar development, despite having fewer sunny days and less powerful sunrays. The Germans, for instance, generate nearly 12 times as much solar power per capita as their Israeli counterparts, according to official statistics from both countries.
Israel has a solar capacity — the amount of energy it could continuously generate in ideal conditions — of 212 megawatts, most of which comes from rooftop installations, according to the electric company. That accounts for less than 2 percent of the nationwide capacity and falls well short of the country’s 2014 goal of 1,480 megawatts from solar sources.
As a result, “no one in the international community is going to take Israel seriously going forward,” said Jon Cohen, CEO of the Arava Power Co. “The natural resource exists, the real national need exist — it’s really a mystery why (solar) is being blocked.”
Cohen spearheaded Israel’s first major commercial solar project, the Ketura Sun plant. The 5-megawatt facility is in the Negev desert, an arid, sparsely populated wedge of land that makes up the southern two-thirds of Israel. The area enjoys around 330 sunny days a year, making it an ideal site for solar power.
But no more large-scale projects have launched since Ketura Sun began operating in June 2011.
“We thought we’d be raising the pioneer flag,” Cohen said, pointing out that his company fought for four years to get the necessary approvals and permits for the field. “We were hoping we’d have more to show on the ground promptly, and here we are a year later, and we haven’t gone far.”
There are some signs of change.
In March, Ashalim Sun PV, a U.S.-Israeli consortium, won a government tender to construct three major solar power plants in the Negev that will provide a combined 250 megawatts of power. The plant is not expected to open until 2015 at the earliest.
Cohen has 10 projects in the works that envisage producing a total of 100 megawatts when completed. Three are still awaiting government approval, a situation he described as “tense and endless.”
Smadar Bat-Adam, chief of staff for Israel’s Energy and Water Resources Ministry, acknowledged that red tape has been an issue. “We are trying to solve the bureaucratic problems,” she said.
Bat-Adam said the overambitious 2014 target was set several years ago, before Israel had substantial solar infrastructure or regulation. While that may not be reached, she said Israel is on track to reach its 2020 benchmark of generating 10 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources.
“When it comes to infrastructure projects, it always takes time,” she said.
Currently Israel gets most of its power from burning imported fossil fuels, but there is interest in developing alternative sources such as wind and solar. Israel is also rapidly developing natural gas reserves off its Mediterranean coast.
Recognizing solar power’s potential, the Israeli government set up a “feed-in tariff” incentive in 2008, agreeing to pay developers higher-than-retail prices for solar energy fed back into the grid.
Because the government does not want to overpay, it has repeatedly adjusted the tariff as solar equipment has gotten cheaper. As a result, many large projects are on hold, awaiting a firm price.
Many analysts and industry professionals believe this uncertainty has hindered investment.
“The sad reality is that we’ve raised quite a lot from Israeli investors, and we are taking this money and investing it overseas because the industries are more consistent,” said Nimrod Goor, a founding managing partner at Helios Energy Investments LP, an Israel-based infrastructure equity fund.
The situation has made some experts skeptical of Israel’s commitment to harvesting its ample sunlight.
Uri Marinov, an environmental management professor at the Inter-Disciplinary Center in Herzliya and a former director of the Israeli Environment Ministry, said decision makers are making “big, big mistakes” through unnecessary regulations.
“Anyone who wants to build a solar field should be able to do it,” he said.
Israel is still a leader in solar research and development. Segev teamed up with the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to produce a little household system that reflects concentrated sunlight onto a receiver, producing electricity with roughly two times the efficiency of standard panels. Segev hopes the new model, named the Z10, will find a market in homes throughout Israel.
One of the Z10’s advantages? “It doesn’t need any government support or intervention to set it up,” Segev said.
In a recent post here, I described an event that I produced in Syracuse, New York, which brought together disparate anti-fracking groups for a screening of Josh Fox’s documentary film Gasland. As one would expect, among the readers who posted here there was a strong level of both support for the event (and any anti-fracking advocacy) and critiques of our effort, typically from gas industry functionaries or labor that supports hydraulic fracturing on behalf of jobs.
Many pro-fracking people posted attacks on Fox and his film, going so far as to state, in no uncertain terms, that his film has been widely and undeniably dismissed for lacking in accurate facts, science and history. I contacted Fox, by email, and asked him to provide me with more information to address the “deniers” who have debunked his assertions.
Josh Fox forwarded to me a detailed response that included the following links:
1- This 2009 piece from ProPublica that refers to a Garfield County, Colorado, study that contradicts certain gas industry assertions about methane in drinking water.
2- This 2011 report from Scientific American that describes significant aquifer contamination from fracking fluids in Wyoming.
3- A 2011 New York Times article that refers to the potential “first crack in the armor” of Rex Tillerson’s claims about fracking-related contamination.
4- This article from Food and Water Watch in April of 2012.
5- And this article from a March, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.
I’ve got more if you want it.
I am quite certain that not many minds will be changed here. There are those who believe natural gas is abundant and readily accessible through fracking, that it will create lots of good paying jobs and will contribute to America’s energy independence.
Then there are those who believe that fracking is actually the energy industry’s most recent opportunity to do to Americans what these companies have been doing to other, economically impoverished and less politically sophisticated peoples all over the globe: to promise them some economic benefit, deliver a pittance in actual compensation, desecrate their environment and then split and leave them the bill.
Unfortunately, in this case, it’s not like Shell in Nigeria or Chevron in Ecuador. It’s here. In New York State and Pennsylvania and many other areas. And when the gas companies are done blasting and pumping and contaminating, after they’ve put the gas on the open market and sold it and the workers head home to Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, who do you think they’ll hand the bill to for the clean up of that mess? Who will be asked to provide water for cooking, cleaning and drinking for all of those affected?
Gas companies, like LNG, will make huge profits. And what will you get?
Well said. The energy industry and idiots will always deny anything said about conservation and/or contamination. Our consumption based economy punishes us for using less with higher prices.
Our local water company is wanting a huge rate increase because consumption has gone down. I can only hope that they don’t end up selling it to the energy companies for fracking, causing a shortage and forcing farmers to compete for water like they’ve had to do in some parts of the country.
Thank you Mr. Baldwin. Isn’t is so much better to not hold political office so that you can be free to speak the Truth?! What I want to know is why does an ad for an oil and natural gas company that operates in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, keep showing up on my google page advertising Tax Free Investment in oil and gas wells? Why is that investment tax free? It’s called BreitlingOiland Gas.com. It seems so funny (in that I get a perverse pleasure in black humor) that they boast of “experience in the field since 2004″ as if 8 years experience adds up to much. Then I read an article (which disappears after 1 day) on Yahoo about the massive sink hole that just appeared suddenly in Louisiana. Their rightwing Gov. Jindal and cohorts want to blame it on the nearby abandoned salt mine and compel the salt mine company to drill a hole to investigate. Like it really makes sense to build a hole right near a massive hole. Meanwhile I learn from reading through the thousands of comments underneath that the region is “pocked with pumpers” (small exploratory wells) and I read various speculations about the likelihood that the sinkhole is related to fracking. Now finally, I am reading something logical that might resemble the Truth. If we wring the earth dry like a sponge, the earth will collapse in on itself. Fracking just helps us race ever faster to our own destruction.
For Ryan and Obama, More Than the Usual Rivalry - While it is not uncommon for a presidential candidate to know his opponent’s No. 2 better, the history between President Obama and Paul Ryan sets up an especially intriguing showdown.
Both Sides Focus on the Republican Ticket’s New Face – Mitt Romney sought to capitalize on conservative enthusiasm for his vice-presidential choice without having to defend all of Representative Paul D. Ryan’s positions.
By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL BARBARO
============================
THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-EDS:
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Bold to Mitt’s Bland – What Paul Ryan can give Mitt Romney is a tutorial in political myth-making.
Let the Real Debate Begin – With Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket, Americans can have a much needed discussion about the size and role of the federal government.
Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan – Paul D. Ryan’s talk of shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to “job creators” will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.
Excuse me, folks, but the weather is trying to tell us something. Listen carefully, and you can almost hear a parched, raspy voice whispering: “What part of ‘hottest month ever’ do you people not understand?”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, July was indeed the hottest month in the contiguous United States since record-keeping began more than a century ago. That distinction was previously held by July 1936, which came at the height of the Dust Bowl calamity that devastated the American heartland.
The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees — a full 3.3 degrees warmer than the 20th-century norm for July. This follows the warmest 12-month period ever recorded in the United States, and it continues a long-term trend that is obvious to all except those who stubbornly close their eyes: Of the 10 hottest years on record, nine have occurred since 2000.
Hansen wrote that when he testified before Congress in 1988 and painted a “grim picture” of the consequences of climate change, he was actually being too optimistic. His projections of how rapidly temperatures would rise were accurate, he wrote, but he “failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.”
Yes, scientists are finally asserting a direct connection between long-term climate trends and short-term weather events. This was always a convenient dodge for climate-change deniers. There might be a warming trend over decades or centuries, they would say, but no specific heat wave, hurricane or hailstorm could definitively be attributed to climate change.
“To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change,” Hansen wrote. “The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change.”
Hansen went on: “The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.”
If you won the lottery yesterday, feel free to stop reading. If you didn’t, stick with me a bit longer.
The other escape hatch for deniers is the question of why the Earth’s atmosphere is warming. Yes, there may be climate change, this argument goes, but we know there have been ice ages in the past and other big temperature variations. What we’re witnessing is due to natural processes — perhaps some long-term cycle we are too feeble to comprehend. You can’t prove that human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels, is to blame.
A Gallup poll last year found that this view — essentially, “You can’t pin it on our SUVs” — has been gaining traction in this country, even as it has become discredited elsewhere. Between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of U.S. adults who believed human activity contributed to warming declined from 60 percent to 48 percent.
I wrote a column last fall when University of California at Berkeley physicist Richard Muller, one of the leading skeptics on climate change, reversed field and announced that his own careful research indicated that the atmosphere is, indeed, warming rapidly. Last week, Muller announced in the New York Times: “I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”
Muller, who heads the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, wrote that he and his team tried correlating the observed warming with phenomena such as solar activity and volcanic eruptions. “By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide,” he wrote.
The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising because of human activity — the burning of fossil fuels. The more we burn, Muller wrote, the faster the atmosphere will warm.
And the crazier the weather will get.
We can’t do anything about the greenhouse gases we’ve already spewed into the atmosphere, but we can minimize the damage we do in the future. We can launch a serious initiative to develop and deploy alternative sources of energy. We can decide what kind of environment we leave to our grandchildren.
I’d like to hear President Obama and Mitt Romney talk about the future of the planet. What about you?
WE EMPHASIZE THIS: WE LIKE TO HEAR FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER MITT ROMNEY – WHAT DO THEY INTEND TO DO ABOUT THIS MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY ON PLANET EARTH?
THE FINANCIAL TIMES – FRONT PAGE – August 10, 2012 – sharing the page with the London Olympics.
The paper’s “Dons” surely understand the Olympics issues but we fail to find in the following articles the true understanding, or perhaps even honesty, of HUNGER AND THE ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURE POLICY or ENERGY and SUSTAINABILITY POLICY.
WE SEE IN THESE ARTICLES RATHER THE UNEXPLORED REALITY THAT ARAB OIL EXPORTERS OWN THE UN SECRETARIAT PERSONNEL AND THAT VIA THE STUMBLING G-77 THEY MAKE UN POLICY – disregard here please the fact that China, India, and France are mentioned in those articles..
China’s dominance in the games has a resonance far beyond sport.
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This is very bad and does not go down to the understanding of price supports of agricultural commodities that is based on the subsidization of non-production and the intentional control of the amounts of the commodity that is released to the market.
Further, there is a need to look at fossil fuel energy and sustainability and climate change issues. These are not mentioned in the main article that makes it feel as if the UN officials intended here to step in on the Romney side in the US ongoing election campaigns.
The articles do not put forward the notion that hunger you fight on the local level in the developing countries – not by buying grains from the highly industrialized world. Are we seeing here blind intervention of The Financial Times with its tremendous human resources, on the side of big business fighting true government interests? For us, people who held the FT in high esteem – this series of articles represent a real low in the FT credibility. The articles on agriculture are just very one-sided even if they had possibly only the intent of shedding light on some, but un-named, parts of the UN. What is the meaning of “UN urges US to” – What part of the UN? Was it the UN Secretary-General who said above? Was it some country-appointed functionary positioned at the UN? Was it the Rome based Food organization? Perhaps the Vienna based OPEC? Whom does the New York based journalist quote here?
The world is braced for a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis as the worst US drought in 50 years pushes up the prices of staple commodities.
———————-
Let us start with:
August 8, 2012
Moment of truth for US grain
By Gregory Meyer in New York
Hundreds of hedge fund managers, commodity merchants, government officials and farmers will have one thing on their mind when they turn on their computers on Friday: US grain statistics.
The release of this specialised report from the US Department of Agriculture has acquired huge market significance this year as the worst drought in half a century shrivels crops in America’s farm belt. It will influence trading for days and weeks to come as well as possible government decisions on biofuels and feed exports.
However, the drought will test the department’s Herculean data-collection efforts. The risk of sharp revisions as the growing season advances in the world’s biggest grain exporter raises the prospect of further volatility in food commodities markets, where corn prices have hit record highs of more than $8 a bushel.
Friday’s USDA crop production report will contain this season’s first national surveys of domestic corn and soyabean fields. Both crops have suffered the worst in the drought. “It’s clearly the most important report of the year thus far,” says Gary Blumenthal, chief executive of consultancy World Perspectives and a former USDA official.
Extreme heat and dryness have prevented many stalks from forming grain. Last month the USDA lowered its average corn yield estimate to 146 bushels per acre from 166 and cut the production estimate by nearly 2bn bushels, or 12 per cent.
The department’s July yield estimate was based on trends over the past two decades, adjusted for the drought. Friday’s report will be based on both a survey of farmers and visits to fields, in theory making it more accurate.
In the farmer survey, the USDA national agricultural statistics service contacts 27,000 growers to ask about acreage and their assessment of final yields.
The second survey, known as the “objective yield survey,” aims to filter out biases inherent to questioning farmers. For corn, the department’s surveyors walk nearly 2,000 plots in 10 states from August to November, counting and measuring ears and sending mature samples to a laboratory.
A panel in Washington then reviews both surveys and produces the yield and production estimates for corn and soyabeans.
If the government again cuts the corn estimate sharply on Friday, prices could hit new records. “We’re aware of the scrutiny everyone’s putting on these numbers this year,” says Joseph Prusacki, director of the USDA statistics division.
Mr Prusacki declined to give any indication of the impending corn yield number. Analysts polled by Reuters expect 127.3 bushels per acre, though the wide dispersion of forecasts suggests no one is sure. “Anything below market expectation will blow the top off the corn market,” Mr Blumenthal says.
This year’s drought could increase the challenge of getting the numbers right.
Scott Irwin, economist at the University of Illinois, points out the drought raises doubts about how many of the estimated 96.4m acres planted with corn will actually be harvested. Yields are calculated per harvested acre.
Furthermore, corn kernels may be fewer and smaller, requiring more to fill a bushel and straining formulas for calculating the productivity of an ear. “There’s enormous uncertainty,” says Prof Irwin. “It’s really hard for USDA right now.”
The USDA has a mixed record estimating corn yields in a drought. In 1983, the final tally was 19 per cent below the August estimate. But in 1988 – comparable in devastation to this year – the final yield was 8 per cent higher.
The crop production estimates feed into a separate report on Friday on agricultural supply and demand. If the estimated corn crop falls sharply, analysts will have to cut demand forecasts for sectors such as livestock feed or ethanol to avoid suggesting that grain stocks would run out.
“They are going to have their hands full with this one,” says Bill Tierney, chief economist at AgResource and a former USDA grain analyst.
Mr Prusacki says the agency cannot predict how future factors such as weather will shape the final harvest. “We follow the same procedures regardless of the conditions. They capture how things are now. Things may change as we move forward,” he says.
The drought has made surveying corn slightly easier for surveyors in one respect. A quarter of the US corn crop is now almost ready for harvest, compared with 7 per cent on average at this time of year.
As a result, surveyors “would have to do less proxy work and more direct observation,” says Nick Kouchoukos of Lanworth, an agricultural forecaster. “That said, they’re probably going to see some of the ugliest-looking corn in decades.”
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The problem with the above is that the grain speculators never give a thought of the possibility to put more land to work. As the world export markets are all in the US, Europe, and Brazil, all regions that run agriculture policies that limit production – this in programs intended to INCREASE prices and do not mind at all occasional shortages, this clearly allows economists to work only on the basis of data of grains produced.
Our argument for years was to make ethanol from CORN THAT WAS NOT PRODUCED AND APPLY TO THE ETHANOL THE SUBSIDIES THAT WILL NOT HAVE TO BE SPENT ON NON-PRODUCTION. Figuratively I personally did testify in Congressional hearings that I present them with ethanol made from corn that was not grown for food and in the process use funds that were not spent.
This in effects negates all that hair rising UN attitude that says the wolf of hunger is at the door. What I say is that the wolf of hunger is a construct by economists that call him to life. When the subject is ethanol that replaces petroleum, above is rather an effort to keep the corn product out of the fuel tank – this in support of dependence on the addiction to oil.
Above article is nevertheless good in the parts where it raises the issue of what is a bushel? Why simply not sell the produce by tons of kernels in order to calculate the economic value as fuel feedstock?
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From the above to the UN directives to the US. WHAT WAS THAT?
UN urges US to cut ethanol production.
By Javier Blas in London and Gregory Meyer in New York
The UN has called for an immediate suspension of government-mandated US ethanol production, adding to pressure on Barack Obama to address the food-versus-fuel debate in the run-up to presidential elections.
Most US ethanol is made from corn.The dispute over ethanol promotion pits states such as Iowa that benefit from higher corn prices – and in some cases are swing states in the election – against livestock-raising states such as Texas that are helped by lower corn prices.
The UN intervention will be seized upon by state governors, lawmakers and the meat and livestock industry, who have expressed alarm at surging prices for corn. Members of the Group of 20 leading economies – including France, India and China – have already expressed concern about the US ethanol policy.
“An immediate, temporary suspension of that [ethanol] mandate would give some respite to the market and allow more of the crop to be channelled towards food and feed uses,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times.
However, some analysts argue such a suspension could have a lower impact on food prices than expected. Even disregarding the mandate, US refiners need billions of gallons of ethanol to meet environmental specifications for their gasoline. Moreover, ethanol is now a huge component of global energy supplies and the suspension of the mandate could push up oil prices.
Tom Vilsack, US agriculture secretary, raised doubts about the impact of waiving the ethanol mandate, arguing that the US biofuel industry had reduced petrol prices and created jobs. In addition, high corn prices were already curbing ethanol production, he said. Adjusting the mandate “may not do what some people think it will do”, he told the Financial Times in an interview.
Mr Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, also cited “fairly high” thresholds for a waiver, including serious economic harm to a region. “It’s not going to be an easy decision, clearly, but I think you have to look at this thing more broadly than some have looked at it,” he said.
Amid worries about a food shortage this year, Mr Graziano da Silva said the situation was “precarious” but was not yet a crisis. He added: “Risks are high and the wrong responses to the current situation could create” a crisis.
Corn prices surged on Thursday within striking distance of their all-time record as traders bet that the US Department of Agriculture will reveal a huge drop in the country’s crop production in a report on Friday. As America exports nearly half the world’s corn, a third of the world’s soyabeans and up to a fifth of the world’s wheat, changes in US supply have a significant impact on global agricultural markets.
“With world prices of cereals rising, the competition between the food, feed and fuel sectors for crops … is likely to intensify,” Mr Graziano da Silva said.
A coalition of beef, pork, chicken and dairy producers petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency last month to waive the ethanol mandate in response to rising corn prices. US lawmakers in the House and Senate, many representing states with large poultry and livestock operations, have also lobbied the EPA.
Officials and lobbyists said several governors planned to join lawmakers next week petitioning the EPA, triggering a 90-day legal process that will force the Obama administration to rule whether to waive the ethanol mandate.
The EPA in 2008 denied a waiver request from the state of Texas, the nation’s biggest cattle producer. But hostility towards corn-made ethanol has grown since then and US lawmakers have already cut billion of dollars in subsidies to the sector.
From: Maggie L. Fox, Climate Reality info@climatereality.com
Dear Pincas,
It’s hot. It’s too hot! For many of us, it’s one of the hottest summers ever. 2012 is so far the hottest year on record in the United States. It’s WAY too hot to ignore the role of manmade climate change.
Yet climate deniers continue spreading the same tired falsehoods we’ve heard over and over again. But, we’re fighting back and connecting the dots to show that climate change is happening now. And we need your help.
Last week, we took our “I’m Too Hot” campaign into Austin, Texas — where the temperature shot past 100 degrees each day and it was impossible to ignore the heat. We talked to the people we met about how the climate crisis is affecting their lives. We invited them to post messages on Twitter or Facebook using our “I’m Too Hot!” hashtag. Along with sharing some of our ice cream accompanied by climate messages, people in Austin were connecting the dots and sharing the truth about climate change.
This campaign was a success. We helped spark an urgent and necessary conversation about the reality of our changing climate. And now, with your help, we want to take our “I’m Too Hot!” campaign to more cities where the temperatures are soaring.
The best way to engage people is to make the connection to what they experience every day — to bring the connections home. So we’ve created a simple, innovative campaign with a serious purpose: Helping more and more people understand how climate change impacts their everyday lives.
In Austin, one person after another told us that while they’re used to hot summers in Texas, this year is exceptional – and worrisome. As word of mouth spread, more and more people came up to us carrying on the conversation about climate change.
And the conversation spread online. Thousands of people posted to their social networks about the reality of climate change in their communities. That is leading to thousands more people who are sharing the truth about climate change and the need for us to take action without delay.
Climate change isn’t something that could happen in the future. It’s happening now, today. Globally, 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000. This fact is sobering. It’s absolutely essential for all of us to grasp the reality of climate change and share the need for action with others.
And that means we need to continue our “I’m Too Hot!” campaign beyond Austin to other cities experiencing extreme heat across America.
n 2009, Congress 
Reuters / Lucas Jackson
The world is braced for a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis as the worst US drought in 50 years pushes up the prices of staple commodities.
Our local water company is wanting a huge rate increase because consumption has gone down. I can only hope that they don’t end up selling it to the energy companies for fracking, causing a shortage and forcing farmers to compete for water like they’ve had to do in some parts of the country.