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8 Feb - The 'Patriots'

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Americans Are Learning Medicine the Cuban Way
The Bay Area is a hub for new doctors who want to practice family medicine and help the poor, yet had to leave the country to learn how to do it.

Breast cancer virtually eradicated with higher levels of vitamin D
In a gathering of vitamin D researchers recently held in Toronto, Dr. Cedric Garland delivered a blockbuster announcement: Breast cancer can be virtually “eradicated” by raising vitamin D levels.
Breast cancer is a disease so directly related to vitamin D deficiency that a woman’s risk of contracting the disease can be ‘virtually eradicated’ by elevating her vitamin D status to what vitamin D scientists consider to be natural blood levels.

Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage

FDA Invades Non-Commercial Amish Farm in PA

PASTEURIZATION: Pulling the Plug on Scientific Fallacies Undergirding Our Industrial Food and Drug Culture

The lessons of Iraq have been ignored: The target is now Iran
The US is escalating the military build-up in the Gulf, officials revealed this week, boosting its naval presence and supplying tens of billions of dollars' worth of new weapons systems to allied Arab states.

The target is of course Iran. Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain are all taking deliveries of Patriot missile batteries. In Saudi Arabia, Washington is sponsoring a 30,000-strong force to protect oil installations and ports. The UAE alone has bought 80 F16 fighters, and General Petraeus, the US commander, claims it could now "take out the entire Iranian airforce".


The US insists the growing militarisation is defensive, aimed at deterring Iran, calming Israel and reassuring its allies. But the shift of policy is clear enough. Last week Barack Obama warned that Iran would face "growing consequences" for failing to halt its nuclear programme, while linking it with North Korea – as George Bush did, in his "axis of evil" speech in 2002.

Germany's Unilateral Sanction against Itself and the Unspoken Moral of the Story
According to BGA President Anton F. Boerner, Germany could be the biggest loser of a unilateral sanction policy against Iran because it could lead to the loss of 10,000 German jobs, in mostly medium-sized German companies, many of them family-owned businesses which depend heavily on trade with Iran. 2 In other words, in a bizarre twist of political economy, Germany effectively will be unilaterally sanctioning itself.

Senate OKs Sanctions on Iran's Fuel Suppliers
( Note that fuel is a strategic military commodity - denial of which hinders defensive capacity )

Six thousand
More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says.

Bombshell! Forces Downplaying Canadian Afghan War Casualties
It's bad enough when we are forced into a war and must fight for our way of life and our very survival. In Afghanistan, we are fighting to support a fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai and his gang of warlords, opium merchants, bribe-takers and torturers. We've sacrificed the lives of 139 Canadians to an unworthy cause with unworthy allies.

Now, we find out that the wounded number far more than we were led to believe.

23 Jan - Quick Picks

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5 Good Reasons to Consider Living in a Yurt (Really)
Yurt? What's a yurt? It's a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure...with a long history.

An FDA Ban on Genetically-Engineered Milk is Twenty Years Overdue

Malaysia and China Sign US$11bn Power Deal That Involves the Displacement of 608,000 Borneo Natives

Sarawak Court Orders Oil Palm Company to Return Native Land
KUCHING, Sarawak, Malaysia, January 21, 2010 (ENS) -Sarawak's natives have won two important court cases over native land issues, their attorney announced this morning in the Sarawak state capital of Kuching on the island of Borneo. The cases had been filed by the natives against the government of Sarawak and an oil palm company that planned to establish an oil palm plantation on native lands

Veteran Journalist Predicts Industrial Crash, Says Sustainable Living Could Save Us

Supreme Court Rejects Michigan's Motion to Block Invasive Carp

Thirst for Oil Imperils South America's Most Biodiverse Wilderness
Yasuní National Park, located in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is the most biodiverse area in all of South America, a team of Ecuadorean, American, and European scientists concludes in the first major peer-reviewed study of life forms in the park, published today. But proposed oil development threatens to destroy one of the world's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas.

Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading
An FoE reports says 'cap and trade' carbonn markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency

IEER/PSR factsheet: Thorium Fuel: No Panacea for Nuclear Power. PDF 34.6KB

July 2009: Brief Virginia Tech paper showing nuclear power by far the most water-intensive means of producing electricity (page 8). PDF T
This has enormous implications because, as the report notes, 36 states face water shortages in the next 10 years.

Investigation of radioactive waste dispersal practices begins in Tennessee and moves across the country
The release of NIRS' report Out of Control - On Purpose: DOE’s Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products,
caused a flurry of media coverage, especially in Tennessee, one of the key locations examined in the report. Demetria Kalodimos of WSMV-TV in Nashville has run several investigative reports on the issue, and received an award for women in radio and TV for the coverage.

Fake Photos Helped Lead US to War in Iraq

AVAAZ Email - Haiti

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Thursday, January 14, 2010 4:27 PM
Subject: Cancel Haiti's debt


Dear friends,

Despite the earthquake, Haiti owes crushing debt payments to foreign lenders for "dictator debt" run up years ago. That money should be going to rescue and rebuild -- sign the petition to cancel Haiti's debt and Avaaz will deliver it to the IMF:

As families in Haiti dig through rubble for survivors, their government must send money overseas. Even in the wake of the earthquake, Haiti is paying off $600 million in unfair debt racked up years ago by corrupt governments and unscrupulous lenders.

After the 2004 tsunami, debt payments from countries like Sri Lanka were suspended to ensure that funds flowed to urgent priorities like food, water, and medicine. Haiti's crisis is no different -- it shouldn't be forced to send money out when it desperately needs resources flowing in.

At a moment like this, global financial institutions won't be able to ignore a worldwide outcry. Help lift a massive burden from Haiti's ability to rescue, recover, and rebuild -- let's raise a million voices for emergency debt relief for Haiti:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/haiti_no_more_debt

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was one of the world's poorest countries -- due, in part, to a legacy of unjust debt stretching back to France's demand for reparations after its 1804 revolution.

In recent years, the tremendous worldwide campaign for debt relief has shown the power of public pressure to support poor nations. But today, Haiti is scheduled to pay $10 million in 2010 to the IMF and Inter-American Development Bank -- and still more millions to specific lender countries.

Recovering from the earthquake will take years, even decades. As the headlines fade, donations will slow--but the burden of paying debts incurred by unelected governments will continue, unless we take this moment to make a change.

If we take action, we can achieve a permanent victory: the cancellation of Haiti's debt. Haitians are urgently appealing for all of our help. Our donations make a difference--and Avaaz members have given generously, donating more than $500,000 in the last day alone. But our voices as citizens are needed as well. Join the call for debt relief, and pass this message to those who feel the same:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/haiti_no_more_debt

As we watch the images on our televisions and computers, it's hard not to be overwhelmed. But if moments like this can trigger our consciences and move us to act in solidarity with those most affected, they can help us to move to a better world -- one where we move as one to address the man-made poverty and inequality that has left our brothers and sisters in Haiti so vulnerable to natural crises. There is not enough that we can do. But let's all do everything we can.

With hope in the face of tragedy,

Ben, Iain, Ricken, Alice, Sam, Milena, Paula, and the whole Avaaz team

PS: To donate to support Haiti, click here:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_haiti


SOURCES

Jubilee (debt campaigning group) information page on Haiti's debt:
http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee-act/haiti-debt-cancellation-resolution/resources-on-haitis-debt.html

"Cancel Haiti's Debt" - Foreign Policy blog
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/13/cancel_haitis_debt

"Haiti: the land where children eat mud" - history of Haiti's debt from The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6281614.ece


----
Want to support Avaaz? We're entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated online team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way -- donate here.


ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages! You can also follow Avaaz on Twitter!


To contact Avaaz, write to us via the webform at http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact. You can also call us at +1-888-922-8229 (US) or +55 21 2509 0368 (Brazil).

Inner Whispers for this week

A Message From VERONICA
Fear & Loathing in the Physical Realm
"To become part of the physical experience it is necessary to focus intensely upon the moment. A time line unfolds before you as you proceed upon creating a reality. The plans are in place but often a deviation occurs placing the energy in the path of alienation from the core energy from which they came. This occurrence is easily magnified and embellished by dramatic creations.

It is important to take notice of the embracement of drama and its ability to spiral into more complicated predicaments. It is at that point where the dread of continuance can cause severe depression and immobility. This overwhelming experience puts the souls of many in jeopardy due to the lack of movement in their energy.
To remedy this moment it is necessary to pause in the linear creation your are experiencing. Attempt to stop the unnecessary chatter in your head while focusing on a quite moment connection with your energy.
If it appears impossible, it is imperative to provide for yourself the silence. If you have the time to be miserable indeed you have the time to reconnect to your soul.
It's your choice. However, to continue in the turmoil will only result in more of what you find yourself in now.
Take the opportunity..... find the silence. It's quite alright to do it your own way. Just do it.
It's never going to be too late but the tardiness of your evolution will be noticed.... by you.
It is not required to be dissatisfied with your evolvement. It is not required to fear the moment. Fear can be conquered with mere eye to eye engagement. Fear will slink away by a mere glance of your internal energy. Yes it will.
Find the silent moment void of fear. Your distaste for the physical will recede and your eternal energy will emerge. Remember to keep linear chatter at bay. See what occurs."
--VERONICA
Dear VERONICA
Dear VERONICA,
f none of this is real, and we are only a dream.... then how are we of any value really? I just can't imagine that Source Energy needs all of this drama for its expansion?
Thank you,
Cynthia
Dear Cynthia,
Physical reality is a gift. A pristine moment created by your entity to participate in an evolutionary process. Drama is a creation of your linear self and its value escapes most of those involved in the linear.
Dramas are equally as valid and should not be dismissed out of hand. Your entity is focused on the experience whether or not you as a singular manifestation find value in it. Your entity finds all experience relevant and does not judge the drama you create to get to the end result.
All of it has value. You are seeing and judging but a small aspect of the big picture.
--VERONICA

9 Jan - News Picks

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Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says

1 "It's the sun" Solar activity has shown little to no long term trend since the 1950's. Consequently, any correlation between sun and climate ended in the 1970's when the modern global warming trend began.

2 "Climate's changed before" Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate's sensitivity to CO2.

3 "There is no consensus" That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organisations that study climate science. More specifically, 97% of climate scientists actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.

4 "It's cooling" Empirical measurements of the Earth's heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. Surface temperatures can show short term cooling when heat is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, which has a much greater heat capacity than the air.

5 "Models are unreliable" While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.

6 "Temp record is unreliable" Numerous studies into the effect of urban heat island effect and microsite influences find they have negligible effect on long term trends, particularly when averaged over large regions.

7 "It hasn't warmed since 1998" The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 - global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.

8 "Ice age predicted in the 70s" 1970's ice age predictions were predominantly media based with the majority of scientific papers predicting warming.

9 "We're heading into an ice age" The radiative forcing from CO2 increases greatly outstrips the forcing from solar activity, even if solar levels were to drop to Maunder Minimum levels.

10 "Antarctica is gaining ice" While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growing despite a strongly warming Southern Ocean.

11 "CO2 lags temperature" CO2 causes temperature rise AND warming causes CO2 outgassing from oceans. This feedback system is confirmed by the CO2 record. In the past, the amplifying effect of CO2 feedback enabled warming to spread across the globe and take the planet out of the ice age.

12 "Al Gore got it wrong" While there are minor errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the main truths presented - evidence to show mankind is causing global warming and its various impacts is consistent with peer reviewed science.

13 "Global warming is good" The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives.

14 "It's freaking cold!" Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2°C per decade. However, weather imposes it's own dramatic ups and downs over the long term trend. We expect to see record cold temperatures even during global warming. Nevertheless over the last decade, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows. This tendency towards hotter days is expected to increase as global warming continues into the 21st Century.

15 "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming" It is unclear whether global warming is increasing hurricane frequency but there is increasing evidence that warming increases hurricane intensity.

16 "Mars is warming" Martian climate is primarily driven by dust and albedo and there is little empirical evidence that Mars is showing long term warming.

17 "It's cosmic rays" While the link between cosmic rays and cloud cover is yet to be confirmed, more importantly, there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming.

18 "1934 - hottest year on record" 1934 is the hottest year on record in the USA which only comprises 2% of the globe. According to NASA temperature records, the hottest year on record globally is 2005.

19 "It's just a natural cycle" The 1500 year cycles, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger events, are localized to the northern hemisphere and accompanied with cooling in the southern hemisphere. In contrast, current global warming is occuring in both hemispheres and particularly throughout the world's oceans, indicating a significant energy imbalance.

20 "Current sea level rise is exaggerated" Sea levels are measured by a variety of methods that show close agreement - sediment cores, tidal gauges, satellite measurements. What they find is sea level rise has been steadily accelerating over the past century.

21 "Urban Heat Island effect exaggerates warming" While urban areas are undoubtedly warmer than surrounding rural areas, this has had little to no impact on warming trends.

22 "Hockey stick is broken" Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.

23 "Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle" Arctic sea ice has been retreating over the past 30 years. The rate of retreat is accelerating and in fact is exceeding most models' forecasts.

24 "Other planets are warming" Not all planets are warming - some are cooling. Of those that are warming, the reasons are largely known and are phenomenon unique to each planet.

25 "Greenland was green" The Greenland ice sheet has existed for at least 400,000 years. There may have been regions of Greenland that were 'greener' than today but this was not a global phenomenon.

26 "Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas" Water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and amplifies any warming caused by changes in atmospheric CO2. This positive feedback is why climate is so sensitive to CO2 warming. More...

27 "Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions" The CO2 that nature emits (from the ocean and vegetation) is balanced by natural absorptions (again by the ocean and vegetation). Therefore human emissions upset the natural balance, rising CO2 to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. In fact, human emit 26 gigatonnes of CO2 per year while CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by only 15 gigatonnes per year - much of human CO2 emissions is being absorbed by natural sinks.

28 "We're coming out of an ice age" The main driver of the warming from the Little Ice Age to 1940 was the warming sun with a small contribution from volcanic activity. However, solar activity leveled off after 1940 and the net influence from sun and volcano since 1940 has been slight cooling. Greenhouse gases have been the main contributor of warming since 1970.

29 "Oceans are cooling" Early estimates of ocean heat from the Argo showed a cooling bias due to pressure sensor issues. Recent estimates of ocean heat that take this bias into account show continued warming of the upper ocean. This is confirmed by independent estimates of ocean heat as well as more comprehensive measurements of ocean heat down to 2000 metres deep.

30 "It cooled mid-century" There are a number of forcings which affect climate (eg - stratospheric aerosols, solar variations). When all forcings are combined, they show good correlation to global temperature throughout the 20th century including the mid-century cooling period. However, for the last 35 years, the dominant forcing has been CO2.

31 "It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low" Early 20th century warming was in large part due to rising solar activity and relatively quiet volcanic activity. However, both factors have played little to no part in the warming since 1975. Solar activity has been steady since the 50's. Volcanoes have been relatively frequent and if anything, have exerted a cooling effect.

32 "Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use" Mount Kilimanjaro's shrinking glacier is complicated and not due to just global warming. However, this does not mean the Earth is not warming. There is ample evidence that Earth's average temperature has increased in the past 100 years and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence.

33 "There's no empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming" Direct observations find that CO2 is rising sharply due to human activity. Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat. This gives a line of empirical evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.

34 "Polar bears are increasing" While there is some uncertainty on current polar bear population trends, one thing is certain. No sea ice means no seals which means no polar bears. With Arctic sea ice retreating at an accelerating rate, the polar bear is at grave risk of extinction

35 "Glaciers are growing" While there are isolated cases of growing glaciers, the overwhelming trend in glaciers worldwide is retreat. In fact, the global melt rate has been accelerating since the mid-1970s.

36 "Climate sensitivity is low" Climate sensitivity can be calculated empirically by comparing past temperature change to natural forcings at the time. Various periods of Earth's past have been examined in this manner and find broad agreement of a climate sensitivity of around 3°C.

37 "Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming" There is growing empirical evidence that warming temperatures cause more intense hurricanes, heavier rainfalls and flooding, increased conditions for wildfires and dangerous heat waves.

38 "Satellites show no warming in the troposphere" Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropic data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program conclude the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors.

39 "The IPCC does not represent a scientific consensus" The IPCC lead authors are experts in their field, instructed to fairly represent the full range of the up-to-date, peer-reviewed literature. Consequently, the IPCC reports tend to be cautious in their conclusions. Comparisons to the most recent data consistently finds that climate change is occurring more rapidly and intensely than indicated by IPCC predictions.

40 "CO2 is not a pollutant" While there are ways in which CO2 is a pollutant (acidification of the ocean), it's primary impact is its greenhouse warming effect. While the greenhouse effect is a natural occurance, too much warming has severe negative impacts on agriculture, health and environment.

41 "CO2 effect is weak" An enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 has been confirmed by multiple lines of empirical evidence. Satellite measurements of infrared spectra over the past 40 years observe less energy escaping to space at the wavelengths associated with CO2. Surface measurements find more downward infrared radiation warming the planet's surface. This provides a direct, empirical causal link between CO2 and global warming.

42 "There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature" Even during a period of long term warming, there are short periods of cooling due to climate variability. Short term cooling over the last few years is largely due to a strong La Nina phase in the Pacific Ocean and a prolonged solar minimum.

43 "CO2 has been higher in the past" When CO2 levels were higher in the past, solar levels were also lower. The combined effect of sun and CO2 matches well with climate.

44 "If scientists can't predict weather, how can they predict long term climate?" Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change.

45 "Greenland is gaining ice" While the Greenland interior is in mass balance, the coastlines are losing ice. Overall Greenland is losing ice mass at an accelerating rate. From 2002 to 2009, the rate of ice mass loss doubled.

46 "Neptune is warming" Neptune's orbit is 164 years so observations (1950 to present day) span less than a third of a Neptunian year. Climate modelling of Neptune suggests its brightening is a seasonal response. Eg - Neptune's southern hemisphere is heading into summer.

47 "Jupiter is warming" Jupiter's climate change is due to shifts in internal turbulence fueled from an internal heat source - the planet radiates twice as much energy as it receives from the sun.

48 "CRU emails suggest climate conspiracy" While some of the private correspondance is not commendable, an informed examination of their "suggestive" emails reveal technical discussions using techniques well known in the peer reviewed literature. Focusing on a few suggestive emails merely serves to distract from the wealth of empirical evidence for man-made global warming.

49 "There's no tropospheric hot spot" Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropic data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program conclude the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors.

50 "Pluto is warming" Pluto's climate change over the last 14 years is likely a seasonal event. Pluto experiences drastic season changes due to an elliptical orbit (that takes 250 Earth years). Any Plutonian warming cannot be caused by solar variations as the sun has showed little to no long term trend over the past 50 years and sunlight at Pluto is 900 times weaker than it is at the Earth.

51 "It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation" PDO as an oscillation between positive and negative values shows no long term trend, while temperature shows a long term warming trend. When the PDO last switched to a cool phase, global temperatures were about 0.4C cooler than currently. The long term warming trend indicates the total energy in the Earth's climate system is increasing due to an energy imbalance.

52 "Greenland ice sheet is stable" Satellite gravity measurements show Greenland is losing ice mass at an accelerated rate, increasing its contribution to rising sea levels.

53 "It's the ocean" Oceans are warming across the globe. In fact, globally oceans are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 x 1021 Joules per year - equivalent to 127,000 nuclear plants (which have an average output of 1 gigawatt) pouring their energy directly into the world's oceans. This tells us the planet is in energy imbalance - more energy is coming in than radiating back out to space.

54 "The CO2 effect is saturated" If the CO2 effect was saturated, adding more CO2 should add no additional greenhouse effect. However, satellite and surface measurements observe an enhanced greenhouse effect at the wavelengths that CO2 absorb energy. This is empirical proof that the CO2 effect is not saturated.

55 "It's volcanoes (or lack thereof)" Volcanoes emit around 0.3 Gigatonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 26.4 Gigatonnes per year.

56 "Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming" Schulte's paper makes much of the fact that 48% of the papers they surveyed are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject anthropogenic global warming. The fact that so many studies on climate change don't bother to endorse the consensus position is significant because scientists have largely moved from what's causing global warming onto discussing details of the problem (eg - how fast, how soon, impacts, etc).

57 "Animals and plants can adapt to global warming" A large number of ancient mass extinction events have been strongly linked to global climate change. Because current climate change is so rapid, the way species typically adapt (eg - migration) is, in most cases, simply not be possible. Global change is simply too pervasive and occurring too rapidly.

58 "CO2 measurements are suspect" CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations scattered across 66 countries which all report the same rising trend.

59 "It's aerosols" The global dimming trend reversed around 1990 - 15 years after the global warming trend began in the mid 1970's.

60 "It's El Niño" The El Nino Southern Oscillation shows close correlation to global temperatures over the short term. However, it is unable to explain the long term warming trend over the past few decades.

61 "Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate" Atmospheric CO2 levels are rising by 15 gigatonnes per year. Humans are emitting 26 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Humans are dramatically altering the composition of our climate.

62 "It's land use" Correlations between warming and economic activity are most likely spurious. They don't take into account local forcing agents such as tropospheric ozone or black carbon. Correlations are likely over-estimated since grid boxes in both economic and climate data are not independent. Lastly, there is significant independent evidence for warming in the oceans, snow cover and sea ice extent changes. More...

63 "It's microsite influences" A comparison between the best rating weather stations and the entire temperature record show practically identical trends. This demonstrates that microsite influence has imparted little to no warming bias in the U.S. temperature record.

64 "It's methane" While methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there is over 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence the amount of warming methane contributes is 28% of the warming CO2 contributes.

65 "Medieval Warm Period was warmer" While the Medieval Warm Period saw unusually warm temperatures in some regions, globally the planet was cooler than current conditions.

66 "It's Solar Cycle Length" Updated solar cycle data since 1991 finds the agreement between solar cycles and temperature breaks down in the mid-70's. This confirms the many other studies that find solar variations cannot be causing recent global warming.

67 "Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed" An examination of the papers that critics claim refute the consensus are found to actually endorse the consensus or are review papers (eg - they don't offer any new research but merely review other papers). This led the original critic Benny Peisner to retract his criticism of Oreskes' study.

68 "Water levels correlate with sunspots" There seems to be evidence for a link between solar activity and water levels. However, more direct comparisons between solar activity and global temperature finds that as the sun grew hotter or cooler, Earth's climate followed it with a 10 year lag - presumably due to the dampening effect of the ocean. Also found was that the correlation between solar activity and global temperatures ended around 1975, hence recent warming must have some other cause than solar variations.

69 "Solar cycles cause global warming" A full reading of Tung 2008 finds a distinct 11 year solar signal in the global temperature record. However, this 11 year cycle is superimposed over the long term global warming trend. In fact, the authors go on to estimate climate sensitivity from their findings, calculate a value between 2.3 to 4.1°C. This confirms the IPCC estimate of climate sensitivity.

70 "The sun is getting hotter" Various independent measurements of solar activity all confirm the sun has shown a slight cooling trend since 1978.

71 "It's albedo" The long term trend from albedo is that of cooling. In recent years, satellite measurements of albedo show little to no trend.

72 "CO2 is not the only driver of climate" While there are many drivers of climate, CO2 is the most dominant radiative forcing and is increasing faster than any other forcing.

73 "Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated" Observed sea levels are actually tracking at the upper range of the IPCC projections. When accelerating ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica are factored into sea level projections, the estimated sea level rise by 2100 is between 75cm to 2 metres.

74 "It's not happening" There are many lines of independent empirical evidence for global warming, from accelerated ice loss from the Arctic to Antarctica to the inexorable poleward migration of plant and animal species across the globe.

75 "Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming" Trenberth's views are clarified in the paper "An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy". We know the planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide but that surface temperature sometimes have short term cooling periods. This is due to internal variability and Trenberth was lamenting that our observation systems can't comprehensively track all the energy flow through the climate system.

76 "CO2 is not increasing" Currently, humans are emitting around 29 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. Around 43% remains in the atmosphere - this is called the 'airborne fraction'. The rest is absorbed by vegetation and the oceans. While there are questions over how much the airborne fraction is increasing, it is clear that the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing dramatically. Current CO2 levels are the highest in 15 million years.

77 "It's ozone" Multiple satellite measurements and ground-based observations have determined the ozone layer has stopped declining since 1995 while temperature trends continue upwards.

78 "It's satellite microwave transmissions" A generous estimate of the energy generated by satellites is around 1 million times too small to cause global warming.

79 "Global temperatures dropped sharply in 2007" 2007's dramatic cooling is driven by strong La Nina conditions which historically has caused similar drops in global temperature. It is also exacerbated by unusually low solar activity.

80 "Ice isn't melting" Ice mass loss is occuring at an accelerated rate in Greenland, Antarctica and globally from inland glaciers. Arctic sea ice is also falling at an accelerated rate. The exception to this ice loss is Antarctic sea ice which has been growing despite the warming Southern Ocean. This is due to local factors unique to the area.

81 "Tree ring proxies diverge from temperature after 1960" The divergence problem is a physical phenomenon - tree growth has slowed or declined in the last few decades, mostly in high northern latitudes. The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating its cause is anthropogenic. The cause is likely to be a combination of local and global factors such as warming-induced drought and global dimming. Tree-ring proxy reconstructions are reliable before 1960, tracking closely with the instrumental record and other independent proxies.

82 "It's CFCs" Models and direct observations find that CFCs only contribute a fraction of the warming supplied by other greenhouse gases.

© Copyright 2010 John Cook

I e-mailed this to Dr. John for his opinion.

Re: climategate

From: nepmak2000
Date: 2010-01-08 20:11
Quite interesting... for one thing: all discussed and argumented data. It is very obvious that climate data have been tampered with - the 'measurements' thus fail any scientific value, they became worthless!
It also became obvious recently that the 50 miles/90 km high "thermosphere" is cooling, which adds to the cooling drama that is underway. Having said so, John, bear well in mind, that I am not a 'warming-denier'. For the simple fact that the Sun has been burning at a larger scale (even as a size) since, say, 1976 until 25 October 2002, when he suddenly 'switched off'. There is no explanation for this behavior still, other than to say our Sun is a variable star, a Cepheid.
What concerns me though is that the Solar Flux at present grows about the predicted (corrected) curve for solar cycle 24, but not so the expected curve for sunspots. See here, top right 'Trendcharts'. What is believe (believe, not know) is a correlation with the trend prior to 1859, when at Sept 1 the infamous 'Carrington event' took place. Now see the Trendcharts for sunspots and note the sudden rise that for a few days occurred. If this continues we'll get a steeper curve than now predicted, if it falls back again (what I suspect) just under the line the assumption of a possible new Carr.Event seems to me not that far out. Between flux and spots is a connection and loss of energy must go parallel to the appearance of spots. It doesn't and I believe we might see a build-up of excess energy that will be released some day (soon).
Imagine what would happen..., computers, electric devices, car electronics, planes, satellites etc.


In Defence of ‘Heaven and Earth’

IN the following open letter to the President of the Australian Academy of Science, William Kininmonth explains that the science of climate change is ‘not settled’ and if the scientific community is to get to a position where it can confidently prediction future climate it will be necessary to both understand why and how the climate system has varied in the past, and to have a robust computer construct of the climate system. Given so far we have neither, the recent very public criticisms of Ian Plimer’s new book ’Heaven and Earth’ are not logical or consistent.

Climategate: You should be steamed

The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.

Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications.

But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people's endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel's report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.

Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS' true position.

What do the skeptics believe? First, they concur with the believers that the Earth has been warming since the end of a Little Ice Age around 1850. The cause of this warming is the question. Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic à la Al Gore.

Second, skeptics argue that CO2 is not a pollutant but vital for plant life. Numerous field experiments have confirmed that higher levels of CO2 are positive for agricultural productivity. Furthermore, carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas. More than 90 percent of the warming from greenhouse gases is caused by water vapor. If you are going to change the temperature of the globe, it must involve water vapor.

Third, and most important, skeptics believe that climate models are grossly overpredicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world.

The revelation of Climate­gate occurs at a time when the accuracy of the climate models is being seriously questioned. Over the last decade Earth's temperature has not warmed, yet every model (there are many) predicted a significant increase in global temperatures for that time period. If the climate models cannot get it right for the past 10 years, why should we trust them for the next century?


Pakistan’s missionary trucks


Justice Sacrificed: Quantity v. Quality
I ended up sitting in a court in Greene County, Georgia where I saw a public defender plead 48 people guilty in just over a day. He simply conveyed the prosecutor's offer with little inquiry into the circumstances or facts of most of his clients' cases. In court, it was obvious that defendants didn't understand what was happening to them. One woman stopped in the middle of pleading guilty and said that she didn't realize she had agreed to do jail time (her case was continued until she had time to talk to her lawyer.) Afterwards, I asked the judge, the prosecutor and the defense attorney how they thought things went. And they all said the same thing: fine. The defense attorney said one thing I will never forget: "Nobody could say that they didn't have their day in court."

What astonished me, and what made me want to write a book, is that smart, committed hard-working professionals could routinely act in ways that fell short of what it is people in their positions were supposed to be doing. And not even realize that anything is missing. Or that their behavior had devastating consequences for peoples' lives. This notion became the seed for what I now call "ordinary injustice": mistakes had become routine and the legal professionals could no longer see their role in them.

“BREAKING: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress …
… From Republican Minority In 2010″

Why was that tweet from The Onion so funny?

Because it’s so true.

Despite a Democratic president, a Democratic majority in the House, and 60 members of the Senate caucusing with the Democrats, the corporate lobbyists’ agenda continually prevails.

If you want to force that situation to “change”, if you’ll pardon the expression, read on.

Brent Budowsky is a former aide to a powerful senator and to a member of the House leadership. And that was back when Democrats kept a majority in Congress for many years. It was when Democrats, at least occasionally, passed legislation that benefited ordinary people. Brent knows the ins and outs of Congress and he knows politics.

Writing in The Hill, Brent is seriously worried about what may happen this November:

While Democrats surrender on a long list of major healthcare reforms supported by large majorities of independents, insurance and drug companies pour campaign cash into Republican coffers in states throughout the nation. The front page of The New York Times said it all, in bold ink, on Dec. 29: “Money pours to G.O.P.”

These gushing rivers of special-interest money are aimed at electing Republican governors and state legislators, who would dominate the great redistricting following the 2010 census, threatening Democratic members of the House and Senate in 2010, sounding a death knell for Democratic control of the House once the redistricting is done, if not sooner.

Those Who Misinterpret The Past Are Unable To Repeat It
FDR took dramatic action to benefit ordinary citizens, and achieved dramatic, tangible results. Obama has not, and has not.

Lawsuit: Goldman Sachs bonuses bigger than its earnings
A lawsuit filed against investment bank Goldman Sachs by a shareholder alleges that the company spent more money on corporate bonuses than it earned in 2008.

Iraqi archaeologists find ancient Sumerian settlement
The site, in the southern province of Dhi Qar, is in the desert near ancient Ur, the biblical birthplace of Abraham.

Censored News

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A few of the many other important stories at the Media Freedom Foundation and Dailycensored.com:911 Truth Thursday, December 31 2009

The Hyperrealilty of a Failing Corporate Media System
By Andrew Hobbs and Peter Phillips

Hyperreality is the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Corporate media, Fox in particular, offers news that creates a hyperreality of real world problems and issues. Consumers of corporate television news--especially those whose understandings are framed primarily from that medium alone--are embedded in a state of excited delirium and knowinglessness.

Corporate Media hasn't acted as a cohesive, protective "fourth estate" in several decades, instead gilding lilies such as the Iraq war, torture and the true extent of Hurricane Katrina's devastation. Contemporary corporate news is best seen in a post-modern context of hyperreality. The news from US networks is based on the presentations of partially factual stories framed inside socio-emotional story lines that juxtapose "evil" with patriotism and Christian fervor. There are multiple examples of this, but we will examine two distinct cases.

Inside the Military Media Industrial Complex: Impacts on Movements for Peace and Social Justice

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff

Among the most important corporate media censored news stories of the past decade, one must be that over one million people have died because of the United States military invasion and occupation of Iraq. This, of course, does not include the number of deaths from the first Gulf War nor the ensuing sanctions placed upon the country of Iraq that, combined, caused close to an additional one million Iraqi deaths. In the Iraq War, which began in March of 2003, over a million people have died violently primarily from US bombings and neighborhood patrols. These were deaths in excess of the normal civilian death rate under the prior government. Among US military leaders and policy elites, the issue of counting the dead was dismissed before the Iraqi invasion even began. In an interview with reporters in late March of 2002 US General Tommy Franks stated, "You know we don't do body counts." Fortunately, for those concerned about humanitarian costs of war and empire, others do.

Hope Fades for End of the American Empire under Obama
Peter Phillips - John Pilger writes a strong informational piece on the lies of Obama. As we start to see more of this from the current global dominance administration, hope fades for peace and the end of the American Empire

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a superstate called Oceania, whose language of war inverted lies that “passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’.”

Barack Obama is the leader of a contemporary Oceania. In two speeches at the close of the decade, the Nobel Peace Prize winner affirmed that peace was no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that “extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan” to “disorderly regions and diffuse enemies”. He called this “global security” and invited our gratitude. To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily: “We have no interest in occupying your country.”
( I believe him. PakAlert has been forthright about the remote control drones and air attacks - and the use of Depleted Uranium munitions to an unprecedented extent, poisoning the land permanently. )

One Day We'll All be Terrorists
by Chris Hedges
December 28, 2009
Truthdig.com
Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.

This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later. Radical activists in the environmental, globalization, anti-nuclear, sustainable agriculture and anarchist movements--who are already being placed by the state in special detention facilities with Muslims charged with terrorism--have discovered that his fate is their fate. Courageous groups have organized protests, including vigils outside the Manhattan detention facility. They can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org or www.freefahad.com. On Martin Luther King Day, this Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. EST, protesters will hold a large vigil in front of the MCC on 150 Park Row in Lower Manhattan to call for a return of our constitutional rights. Join them if you can.

The case against Hashmi, like most of the terrorist cases launched by the Bush administration, is appallingly weak and built on flimsy circumstantial evidence. This may be the reason the state has set up parallel legal and penal codes to railroad those it charges with links to terrorism. If it were a matter of evidence, activists like Hashmi, who is accused of facilitating the delivery of socks to al-Qaida, would probably never be brought to trial.

6 Jan - Our Chemical Environment

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War and Neurotoxins. Is War Making us Dumberer?

By Michael Crist for Alternet
 
Warmongers champion war as good for economies and technological growth. Yet we have not advanced away from the Stone Age technology of hydrocarbon burning. We use hydrocarbon burning as an excuse for more warfare.
With each new material revolution based on war, new batches of neurotoxins have been introduced into the environment. The accompanying refinement of copper and tin in the Bronze Age led to more heavy metals in the environment. Metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and antimony. Same in the Iron age, Age of Exploration, Industrial Age. Technology is not necessarily evil nor is mining. It has always been a problem of scale, appropriate cloistering or toxic wastes, and not letting them spread into environment. Sometimes the technology of war has directly caused poisonings. The refinement of lead could have contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire.
Advance in warfare was traditionally linked to advances in materials and materials extraction technology. It was done as quickly, efficiently, and cheaply as possible with little or no regard for toxic waste disposal.
In the United States of America’s current war-based economic system, the trend continues.
The Stone Age, the Bronze age, the Iron age, the age of Exploration, the Industrial age, the Space age the Computer age all have increased wanton pollution of man-made substances in the environment that would not have been there otherwise.
Heavy metals like Uranium and lead are used to make bullets. Organophosphates were invented as nerve gas. Organophosphates are still used both industrially and kept for military purposes as nerve gas in military depots. Poly chlorinated biphenyls were invented by munition companies to make shell casings for military purposes. The other heavy metal, mercury, is a by product of refining metal ore and used for industrial processes in making warheads.

“Neurotoxicity” is the capacity of chemical, biologic, or physical agents to cause adverse functional or structural change in the nervous system. I use the term “environmental neurotoxicity” to refer broadly to adverse neural responses to exposures to all external, extragenetic factors like occupational exposures, lifestyle factors, exposures to pharmaceuticals, foods, and radiation.
Since the advent of warfare there has not only been death from direct assault but also from the by products of war.
Leads contribution to the collapse of the Roman Empire, is an example of a neurotoxin that can effect an entire civilization.
Are the neurotoxins generated by industry and warfare possibly contributing to a general decline in mental health and the mental health of our leaders? Is neurotoxin induced illness making it harder to deal with the environmental, economic, and social problems we face in these interesting times?

We depend on hydrocarbons for fuel. To refine hydrocarbons, which are becoming scarce, we put even more lead, mercury, and arsenic into the oceans and air. Wars need a lot of jet fuel, hummer fuel, and boat fuel to keep going. It’s done at a vapid pace. The oil that goes to the major oil refineries from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East is of much poorer quality than it was say 25 years ago. Most of the oil imported from the Middle East and South America is sludgy, poor quality stuff, chalked full of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals. The areas with major oil refineries in the United States like Houston, The Texas Bay, Texas City, Loss Angeles, and Newark New Jersey have the most polluted waters in the world chalked full of arsenic, lead, heavy metals, Toluene, and mercury. The cancer rates in these areas are above the national average. You cannot swim in the Texas Bay without taking your life in your hands.

The air we breath still has remarkable levels of lead from Tetraethyl Lead. There are other byproducts of burning hydrocarbons for fuel like chlorinated hydrocarbons, and aromatic hydrocarbons in the air we breath that may lead to neurotoxicity.

In this article I will concentrate neurotoxins generated as a result of war and neurotoxins in the environment which are indirectly related to war, but have origins and significance in war: Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls, Uranium, Heavy Metals, Organophosphates.

Poly Chlorinated Biphenyl

PCBs are poly-chlorinated-biphenyls used in electrical transformers. They are used to make bombs to this day. They were invented to make bombs They were used to make Agent Orange. They are still used to make insecticides. They are used as electrical insulators in our electric grid. Poly chlorinated biphenyl are of measurable toxic levels in many populated areas in the United States.
PCBs were originally used to manufacture shell casings:
1865-First PCB-like chemical discovered; a
by-product of coal tar
1881 – First PCBs synthesized.1914 -Enough PCBs had already escaped into the
environment to leave measurable amounts in the feathers of birds held in museums
today.
1927 -PCBs were first manufactured commercially
by the Anniston Ordnance Company, in Anniston, Alabama. The
Anniston Plantâ legacy began in 1915 when Theodore Swann founded the company to
manufacture six-inch explosive shell cases for the U.S. Army.

PCBs are organic molecules that concentrate in fat tissue and cross the blood-brain-barrier easily. They are known carcinogens. They were precursors for agent-orange. They cause malfunction in the development of the brains in of fetuses, neonates, and children. Poly chlorinated biphenyl neurotoxicity may also contribute to the increases of Alzeimer’s disease we have seen in the United States recently.

Uranium

Uranium particulates are discharged in a major way in the war in Afghanistan. Like lead Depleted Uranium makes bullets and warheads heavier. Depleted Uranium makes warheads easier to project and more deadly.

Depleted Uranium is used in bullets and munitions now. It is heavy like lead. It also acts like lead in the body. It is neurotoxic like lead and concentrates itself in the bones like lead.
Uranium is easily breathed when it is aerosolized. The process of aeorsolization involves exploding bullets, rockets or shells launched at enemy targets.
Epidemiological studies and toxicological tests on laboratory animals point to it as being immunotoxic, teratogenic,and neurotoxic, with carcinogenic. A 2005 report by epidemiologists concluded: “The human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of neurological birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to Aerosolized Uranium.”
Early studies of depleted uranium aerosol exposure assumed that uranium combustion product particles would quickly settle out of the air
and thus could not affect populations more than a few kilometers from target areas. That such particles, if inhaled, would remain undissolved in the lung for a great length of time and thus could be detected in urine was not taken into consideration. Burning uranium droplets violently produces a gaseous vapor comprising about half of the uranium ions in their original mass.
Uranium ion contamination from uranium oxides and particles has been detected in the residue of Depleted Uranium munitions fires. They are omnipresent in Afghanistan now in the water, air, in highly concentrated areas of warfare.

A Silent Pandemic From Neurotoxins

Millions of children worldwide may have suffered brain damage as a direct result of war related and industrial pollution.
Environmental neurotoxins, such as organophosphates, lead, methyl mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and Uranium are widely disseminated in a child’s environment. Exposures to environmental neurotoxins, during both fetal development and early childhood, have been associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Many recognized environmental neurotoxins were discovered only after environmental contamination led to local outbreaks of newly identified diseases. Emerging evidence links even lower-level exposures to environmental neurotoxins with behavioral problems, prematurity, and intellectual deficits
An explosive report from Great Britain talks of a “silent pandemic” of neurodevelopmental disorders caused by toxic chemicals spilling into the environment.
They include conditions such as autism, attention deficit disorder, mental retardation and cerebral palsy. All are common and can result in lifelong disability, but their causes are largely unknown.
“And because optimal brain function depends on the integrity of the organ, even limited damage may have serious consequences. Even if substantial documentation on their toxicity is available, most chemicals are not regulated to protect the developing brain. Only a few substances, such as lead and mercury, are controlled with the purpose of protecting children.
Five substances for which sufficient toxicity evidence exist were examined in detail – lead, methylmercury, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and toluene. In each case, the dangers came to light the same way.
First, there was a recognition of high dosage toxicity in adults, and records of isolated episodes of poisoning among children. This was followed by a growing body of epidemiological evidence that lower levels of exposure in children led to neurobehavioral defects.
Pinning down the effects of industrial chemical pollution is extremely difficult because they may not produce symptoms for several years or even decades, said the scientists. This was why the pandemic is “silent”. The damage caused by individual toxic chemicals is not obviously apparent in available health statistics.
But the extent of the sub-clinical risk to large populations is illustrated by the legacy of lead. Virtually all children born in industrialized countries between 1960 and 1980 must have been exposed to lead from gasoline, said the researchers. Based on what is known about the toxic effects of lead, this may have reduced exceptional IQ scores of above 130 by more than half, and increased the number of scores less than 70.
Other results of lead exposure included shortened attention span, slowed motor coordination and heightened aggressiveness. In later life, early damage from lead can increase the risk of Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Today, it is estimated that lead poisoning in children costs the US economy $A55 billion each year. One in six children is thought to have some kind of developmental disability, usually involving the nervous system.
Developing brains are much more susceptible to toxic chemicals than those of adults, pointed out the scientists. Interference with complex changes taking place in the developing brain can have permanent consequences. And research had shown that this vulnerable period lasts from the fetal stage of life through infancy and childhood to adolescence.
Writing in the online version of The Lancet medical journal, the scientists conclude: “The combined evidence suggests that neurodevelopmental disorders caused by war chemicals has created a silent pandemic in modern society.

CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENTS

Organophosphates were invented as nerve gas. Known neurotoxins that were developed for war or are still discharged directly as a result of war, for insecticides, and as industrial contaminant.Chemical warfare is the use of toxic chemicals to kill and incapacitate the enemy. The Greeks used choking clouds of sulfur dioxide gas caused by burning sulfur and pitch during the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens (413-404 B.C.) Modern chemical warfare began in 1915 when the Germans released chlorine gas on Allied troops at Ypres, Belgium, during World War I. After the initial use of chlorine, various other gases were developed and used
In general, the World War I war gases caused death if the victim was exposed to high enough doses, but their most significant contribution to warfare was their effect on dispersing unprotected troops as they ran from the areas of highest concentration. Because most of the early war gases were strongly irritating, their use always caused confusion and disorder among troop concentrations. The actual number of deaths due to chemical warfare agents during World War I was fairly small. This was probably due to technical problems of delivering the toxic chemical so as to produce consistently a lethal concentration exactly where the enemy troops were located. In addition, gas masks were quickly issued to troops of all belligerent nations. These gas masks offered sufficient protection to prevent death from exposures except in cases where wounded troops could not put on their masks as the toxic cloud approached.
After World War I, most nations agreed to never use toxic chemicals in warfare — yet development of these agents continued. In its war with Ethiopia in 1938, Italy used both nerve gases and mustard gas. During World War II, the Germans developed Tabun and Sarin two nerve gases that are anticholinesterase poisons. Their discovery led to our present-day phosphate ester insecticides such as Parathion and Malathion. Throughout World War II, war gases were available but were never used.
Recently, in the 1980s, chemical agents were used in the Iran-Iraq war against both troops and civilians. Against civilians, chemical warfare agents are especially devastating because civilians are not only untrained and uninformed about the effects of these chemicals, but are unprepared to protect themselves. Modern concern regarding chemical warfare agents centers on protecting civilians, especially against terrorist attacks using weapons of this sort.Today the organophosphates originally invented for nerve gas are used through out the world as insecticides. This has been a fairly benign use of many of them. The stronger ones have been shown to cause in neurotoxicity isolated populations.

TCP or TriCreyl Phosphate

An organophosphate byproduct that most people do not know about is TCP. TCP is an industrial product found in many paint products from Canada. It is called Tri-Cresyl-Phosphate. It may account for increases in Multiple Sleurosis and or neurological disorders in the US. It is a direct neurotoxin that covalently bonds to nerve endings and causes permanent neuropathies.

TCP is known to have neurotoxicity. It is of “toxicological importance” and has been responsible for many deaths. The most serious incident arose in the 1920s when TCP was used as an adulterant for Jamaican ginger. TCP’s mechanism of action is similar to other organophosphates in that it can inhibit the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, leading to a buildup of acetylcholine in the synaptic space. This can lead to hyperactivity in cholinergic neurons in the brain and at neuromuscular junctions in the peripheral nervous system resulting in apoptosis of those cell-types. This is the reason for paralysis and other irreversible neurological problems seen in the “Gingerjake” syndromes during prohibition, when TCP was added to gingerjake moonshine.

Example of How a Neurotoxin Could have Led to the Decline of a the Roman Empire

 
The ancient Romans used lead for making water pipes, cooking utensils, water tanks and storage vessels. Lead water pipes were used in most major cities in the empire. Wine was cheap in ancient Rome and Athens and it was contaminated with lead from as many as 14 sources during its preparation. Lead was used as part of the preservative and as a flavor enhancer. Even the Christian sacramental cups of that era were the kind that were made of lead or leaded bronze common at the time.
Apathy and gluttony have been associated with the decline of the Roman Empire. It may have been the lead in food, water and wine which caused the apathy. Musonius, a Roman writing in the first century A.D., observed that masters were weaker, less healthy and less able to endure labor than the servant class. Those who grew up in the country were stronger than those who grew up in the city. Those who ate plain food were likely to live longer and have less of the diseases associated, by hindsight, with lead poisoning. These were “gouts,” “dropsies” and colics.” This is as close as anyone got to discovering chronic lead poisoning in the Roman Empire and leaving a record of the hypothesis.
The rich received more than their share of lead poisoning because they could afford more of the sources of lead contamination. When soft water sits in lead pipes, it leaches the lead from the pipes. In ancient Rome, the rich controlled most of the public water outlets. The first drawn water of the morning, which had been sitting over night absorbing lead, was a privilege of the rich. The evidence suggests that the offspring of parents with lead poisoning were more likely to be underachievers and had a high infant mortality rate. Chronic lead poisoning persistently destroyed the Roman aristocracy, thus creating a scarcity of good management. Old aristocratic families died out only to be replaced by others who suffered the same fate. Nriagu concludes that lead contamination was a major cause of the decline of the Roman Empire.
The ancient Romans used lead for making water pipes, cooking utensils, water tanks and storage vessels. Lead water pipes were used in most major cities in the empire. Wine was cheap in ancient Rome and Athens and it was contaminated with lead from as many as 14 sources during its preparation. Lead was used as part of the preservative and as a flavor enhancer. Even the Christian sacramental cups of that era were the kind that were made of lead or leaded bronze common at the time.
 
There has been an increase in neurotoxins since advent of materials technology for war and empire growth.
Neurotoxins from war and industry could be effecting society like it did roman society
We are now controlled by an oligarchy that is like the Moorlocks from HG Wells “The Time Machine.” This oligarchy is cannibalizing the rest of us and contributing to poisoning us.
Our economy is faltering. We are running out of oil. There is a need to be a new frontier developed. There is a need for benign energy technology to be developed. There is a need to clean the pollution that is approaching irreversibly destructive levels. A new emphasis on space travel could relieve world population pressure, promote development of more benign energy technology, mine the moon for He3 for fusion technology and instead of investing in infrastructure to create a healthy economy, jobs, create healthy energy alternatives, decent healthcare. A space program could be created to grow space exploration to expand a new frontier for human progress. We have awesome technology that does not have to be used for poisoning and killing. Our captains of industry are dead set on death and destruction. It is like they have become demented from the very neurotoxic environment the have created.
 
 
 Some patterns of generalized neurotoxicity maybe noted from observable neurological phenomenon like Alzheimer’s disease
 
More direct documentation of possible increase in neurotoxicity in the general population maybe seen with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is linked to neurotoxins as well as genetic factors. But even some of these genetic factors maybe linked to mutations from man-made toxins.
One in eight Americans who are 65 years old or older has Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2008 Facts and Figures Report (www.alz.org). By 2030, due to the aging of our population, that number will have doubled to one in four. There’s no cure, and no certain evidence that the current medications: Aricept, Exelon, Razadyne and Namenda, which are said to slow the course of the disease, really work. Recent studies pitting Aricept, in combination with vitamin E, against a placebo have had disappointing results.
The costs, financial and emotional, of treating and caring for an Alzheimer’s patient are astronomical. Today, the amount of time lost to American businesses by workers being forced to become caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s is estimated at 8.4 billion hours a year. The monetary value of this unpaid labor — often taking place in the caregivers home varies by state, from the lowest, Alaska, at a little above $100,000 a year, to the highest, California, at about $10 billion.

 Mirror Neurons

Recently scientist discovered a complex network of fragile neurons in the brain. It is called the mirror neuron system. It is how chimpanzees and we learn to imitate and learn empathy. It is a delicate and advanced system in neuro-evolution. These neurons are highly susceptible to neurotoxins.
Mirror neurons are a new set of neurons were discovered recently which have to do with empathy and violence. Without them people tend to be more violent because their empathy capabilities are impaired.
Many inmates and psychopaths have been shown to have depletion in mirror neurons in their brains. Many CEOs or Captains of Industry fail the Hartman Value test. These people probably have psychopathic tendencies. There is something wrong with their ability to empathize. How else could one explain their willingness to be involved in fruitless wars, while making exorbitant salaries. In a study done by the VA Many Veterans have been shown to come home from war with a depletion in motor neuron systems.
There are more people in prison and jail than ever before in the United States as compared to other countries in the world. Could these neurotoxins and war be leading to decreases in mirror neurons in our brains that help with our empathy systems and help us live in peace?


mike crist
January 6, 2010 at 12:30 am

TOXIC DUST FROM ROADS TRAVELS INTO HOMES
A widely used type of asphalt sealant derived from coal tar appears to be making its way into the house dust of homes nationwide, according to new research. Young children may actually be playing on coal-tar-sealed driveways and playgrounds, potentially raising their exposure to harmful chemicals.

Toxic compounds in the sealants are used to create an even, deep black pavement surface. And coal tar contains a high proportion of PAHs, with levels about 1,000 times higher than in the alternative, asphalt-based sealant.

C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists
The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change.
They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.

DIY Jet Almost Ready to Fly
The SubSonex is a small, single-seat jet designed to provide high performance in an airplane that fits in your garage. The company’s only performed ground testing, so it doesn’t have any official performance figures yet. But Schaible expects the SubSonex to cruise at more than 240 mph and climb at well over 2,000 feet per minute.
The company is well-known for making fun to fly airplanes that are relatively inexpensive and it didn’t want to sacrifice that when building a jet.

“It always hinged on an affordable engine of high enough quality,” Schaible says.


Last month Sonex tested an engine it thinks fits the bill perfectly. The tiny jet engine is a Czech-made PBS-TJ100. It’s a single stage turbine producing around 240 pounds of thrust. It was designed as an auxiliary power unit and for use in drones. But in recent years the light weight power plant has caught the attention of several aviation tinkerers who have been attaching it to gliders and other small airplanes.

For Sonex, it came down to the engine’s simplicity.

“We really like the TJ100, it’s a plug-and-play solution,” says Schaible.

The normally complex parts of a jet aircraft engine are contained within the engine package. The controller unit and pumps are built right into the motor and the small throttle quadrant contains all of the electronics needed for the start sequence.

Air Force Association pushes CF-18 replacement
The Air Force Association of Canada is pressing the government to proceed as soon as possible on a replacement for the CF-18 fighter, David Pugliese reports. The Next Generation Fighter program, expected to cost as much as $10 billion, is intended to procure about 65 aircraft to replace the CF-18 in the 2018-2023 period. DND sources tell Defence Watch that the Harper government, currently dealing with finding ways to deal with a $55 billion deficit, is not looking at moving quickly on a defence procurement program that could cost as much as $10 billion over the long-term.
“They are pre-occupied these days with other fiscal priorities."

5 Jan - Media

Guardian
South America: Media has become a political battleground
From Argentina to Venezuela, governments have identified the media as a political obstacle
Television networks, radio stations and newspapers have become political battlegrounds pitting media owners and journalists against governments in South America.
Charismatic presidents in the Andean states, and in Argentina, have identified the media as a principal obstacle to their efforts to transform the region.
The subjects of clashes range from Caribbean slums, where journalists are accused of exaggerating crime, to icy Patagonian resorts, where they are accused of confecting corruption scandals.
[URL=http://www.closingbigger.net/2009/09/social-media-south-america-latin-america/South America's media war started, and remains most intense, in Venezuela. When Hugo Chávez swept to power a decade ago, promising to oust discredited elites, the media feted him. But they turned with a vengeance and backed a coup that briefly ousted him in 2002.

Chávez struck back: he expanded the state's media empire and cowed private broadcasters. This year he shut dozens of radio stations and said Globovisión, the last critical TV voice, would follow. It promoted his assassination, he said, and hyped murder rates in the slums.

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, described the media as his "greatest enemy"and denounced journalists as "corrupt, mediocre, shameless". He sent police to seize two TV stations in a debt dispute and promised to shake up the awarding of radio and television frequencies.

Colombia ostensibly has a free press despite insurgencies by narco-trafficking leftist guerrillas. But big private media groups are controlled by a few rich families and muffle criticism of President Álvaro Uribe, an ally of the US.

In Argentina, President Cristina Kirchner won a bitter battle against Grupo Clarín, one of Latin America's biggest media conglomerates, by opening the airwaves to new players. Clarín,which also lost its contract to broadcast championship football, said the president was punishing critical news coverage, including stories about the first couple's alleged dodgy land deals in Patagonia. Analysts said Kirchner had a political agenda but that broadcast reform was overdue.

How Iran's opposition inverts old slogans
Iranians are marking University Student Day, traditionally an anti-US event
that commemorates the killing of three students in 1953. Opposition
supporters are expected to try to hijack official protests by chanting their
own anti-government slogans.
Olivia Cornes navigates some of the opposition chants heard in Iran
since June's disputed presidential elections, with the help of
BBCPersian.com and protesters themselves.

Iran faces 'significant new sanctions', US warns
Iran is already subject to UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, which the West suspects is for military purposes.

12 Dec - A few Care2 picks

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Why is the USA in Afghanistan?

Trafficking Of Native Women is widespread
Three decades ago, the relatives of an eleven-year-old Native girl in Minnesota forced her to have sex with a man in exchange for alcohol. The story was not front-page news. It was not the subject of a feature-length film with a happy ending. No one intervened. But when she turned eighteen, the police started paying attention. She was arrested and convicted over twenty times for prostitution. Her parents’ addiction became her own, and she entered treatment dozens of times.

At an early age, the girl became one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Native American children and women forced into prostitution in Minnesota, falling under the radar of social services, the community, and the media.

A Policy of Annihilation
The Civil War brought the concept of “total war” into the American system of warfare, with the actions of Union Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan authoring the basic textbook that the rest of the world was to copy and expand upon for the last one-hundred and fifty years. Destroying your enemy's will to fight, so that abject, unconditional surrender of the enemy is the sole objective of your military, began to embed itself into the minds of the American military as war's real goal.

DNA study sheds new light on horse evolution
Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution - the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.

Reintroduced ferrets face poison threat
While Canadian wildlife officials were celebrating last week's "historic" reintroduction of the extirpated black-footed ferret to a southern Saskatchewan park, U.S. environmentalists were launching a lawsuit targeting 10 states — including Montana, which forms the Canadian park's southern boundary — where commercial prairie-dog poisons such as "Kaput" are blamed for also killing the pest's chief predator: the critically endangered ferret.

Bizarrely, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which collaborated with Parks Canada, the World Wildlife Fund and the Calgary and Toronto zoos in raising the 34 ferrets released last week in Saskatchewan — is at odds with its fellow federal body, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, over American farmers' use of the poisons to rid their fields of prairie dogs.

The burrowing rodent is the primary food source of the black-footed ferret, a member of the weasel family that was presumed extinct in North America from the 1950s to 1981, when a small group of the animals was discovered in Wyoming.

4 Dec - Following the Trail Sequel | More Climategate

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Dr. John v. Kampen has made a post about Climategate which includes a video.

Prof. Ian Plimer - The Missing Science... a final word on the nonsense about climate change

Climate related sciences have a huge problem. 'ClimateGate', the hacking of a database from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the UK, exposing thousands of e-mails from academics full of recommendations to falsify data and to use 'tricks' to keep the honey pot going for those who had jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon, the biggest political rip-off attempt ever made in human history, has taken the world by surprise. The scandal in which even the UNO is involved throws a deep dark shadow over other sciences as well. How trustworthy are outcomes of sciences, often written in unclear jargon and mathematical abacadabra, if at all exposed? Do I need to refer to the assumed swine-flu "pandemia" (with only several dozens quasi-related deaths worldwide), the accompanying political inoculation hysteria as well as old 'trick' of scare-mongering, to start us doubting and asking questions?! Prof. Ian R. Plimer, wants to clean up the climate mess in his book "Heaven and Earth: Global Warming — The Missing Science" by giving the full facts, not only the 'atmospheric ones'. The latter being part and parcel of the incredible climate hoax. Whether he succeeds in it, depends on studying his all related themes encompassing, 500 pages long work. It is a bestseller already.

More Dr. John in Comments

Backtracking from Opit's LinkFest! on Blogger to
1 Dec - The Fight for Head Room

University in climate flap details inquiry reach
Outside reviewer named, will eye e-mails for data 'manipulation'
The British university at the center of what climate skeptics are calling "Climategate" on Thursday named an outside reviewer and detailed what would be investigated.

The University of East Anglia said Sir Muir Russell, until recently vice-chancellor at the University of Glasgow, will investigate whether scientists at its prestigious Climate Research Unit fudged data on global warming.

Hundreds of e-mails and other data stolen from university computers and then leaked online late last month have been seized upon by skeptics as proof that scientists conspired to hide evidence that global warming was not as strong as generally believed.

Climate talk collapse better for planet: NASA's Hansen The planet would be better off if the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change talks ended in collapse, according to a leading U.S. scientist who helped alert the world to dangers of global warming.

Any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed, said James Hansen, that it would be better for future generations if we were to start again from scratch.

"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told the Guardian newspaper.

"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means."

On Wednesday China and other big developing nations rejected core targets for a climate deal proposed by the Danish hosts in a draft text, such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

MIT Team Asks: Is Increase in Greenhouse Gas Part of Natural Cycle?
A team of MIT scientists recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels -the first increase in ten years. What baffles the team is that this data contradicts theories stating humans are the primary source of increase in greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. Since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, however, it is probable that this may be part of a natural cycle - and not the direct result of man's contributions

More On The Climategate Source Code



East Anglia Confirmed Emails from the Climate Research Unit - Searchable