It’s probably just, not merely, a dire measure taken by this blessed Earth and creation to protect what is hers, and shed some light on that which is ours, but that which is less than all the intelligence that has been in our hands to do with what we would, and did, from the dawn of creation. What, after all, looking back, would you have done? What did you do? And what were you capable of? Surely nothing as grandiose or magnificent as this. Surely nothing even close. ~ cjz
Global Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic tests human capacities
COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is a crisis that demands we come together now as a global community (not at 350ppm or after the next great flood, but now); when we are indiscriminately threatened – rich or poor, black or white, Middle Eastern or Asian or Mexican or American. Living on this large ship, Earth, has always been a process of grasping at straws. It’s just a question of how we respond to the severity and the immediacy of the need to help and care for each other that determines how successful we will be keeping the ship afloat and the passengers both safe and peaceful. It’s not a question of who’s got more money. It’s not a question of who has more bombs. It’s an elemental question of how much capacity we have to muster our compassion, sympathy, generosity, humanity. ~ cjzurcher
Why don’t we do something about it?
So the beekeeping INDUSTRY is suing the EPA for approving an INSECTICIDE that has been shown to be harmful to bees and has possibly resulted in the 40% decrease in bee colonies beekeepers across the country have reported between April 2018 and April 2019. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY????? And am I the only one who sees it? The government needs oversight so we can ensure they stop harming us!!!!
A 12-year-old reflects on the state of the world
“When will the madness and killing and destruction stop? I hear about places like Syria, Russia, Israel, Iraq and Iran. The U.S. When will it stop? I believe that no one wants another mushroom cloud to poison the Earth. I believe no one wants the poison, worse than Fukushima’s, which, in itself, is probably too much for this whole race (which includes everyone, by the way, whether they’re black or white or whatever color they are, we’re all part of the same race, so stop thinking you’re better than someone else because you look different than they do or just because they look different than you) but Fukushima may be too much for everything that is trying to live on this planet, which is the only planet they have to live on. After that, then what? You see what I’m saying? We struggle to turn toward beauty, but, when we do, we are met with ugliness. We need to banish the ugliness and work toward giving the human race what it needs to co-exist with everything else on the planet, before we destroy it all. Why is there endless fear of anihilation? I hear it day in and day out. On the news. On the radio. Television. Who profits from this and how is it possible that they are allowed to do it and that they are not stopped and replaced with something more …….. sustainable and ……… profitable ……… to all?”
Tesla to unveil its $35,000 ‘Model 3’ on March 31 | engadget
Tesla has long promised a $35,000 electric car is on the way, and in today’s earnings release (PDF) it announced that we’ll get to see the Model 3 on March 31st, ahead of it going on sale in “late 2017.” That’s in addition to the currently shipping Model S sedan (shown above) and Model X SUV, and the company recently confirmed it still expects to hit that $35k price target before applying electric vehicle incentives. Also, its battery building gigafactory — key to achieving that mass market price for the Model 3 — is up and running in Nevada, with Powerwall units produced there already in use by customers.
Satellite eye on Earth: November and December 2013 – in pictures | theguardian.com
Rare snowfall in the Middle East, a hybrid solar eclipse over Africa and smog cover stretching for hundreds of miles over China were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites
via Satellite eye on Earth: November and December 2013 – in pictures | Environment | theguardian.com.
Solar Powered Airplane Plans US Flight | Energy Manager Today
Swiss project Solar Impulse is planning to fly a solar powered aircraft across the United States in May.
The HB-SIA weighs about the same as a car but boasts a wingspan equal to to that of an Airbus A340. On May 1, the airplane is scheduled to fly from NASA’s Moffett Field in Silicon Valley, Calif., to New York City. It plans to make stops in Phoenix, Dallas and Washington, D.C., en route, reports Forbes.
The airplane features a carbon fiber structure and a propulsion chain and flight instrumentation designed specifically to save energy and to resist the hostile conditions facing the aircraft and its pilot at high altitudes.
For more on this story, visit: Solar Powered Airplane Plans US Flight | Energy Manager Today.
Why the fracking boom may actually be an economic bubble | Grist
Surprise, Surprise ….
Fracking proponents like to use an evocative economic metaphor in talking about their industry: boom. The natural gas boom. Drilling is exploding in North Dakota and Texas and Pennsylvania. Only figuratively so far, but who knows what the future holds.
The Post Carbon Institute, however, suggests in a new report [PDF] that another metaphor would be more apt: a bubble, like the bubbles of methane that seep into water wells and then burst.
PCI presents the argument in its most basic form at ShaleBubble.org.
For more on this story, visit: Why the fracking boom may actually be an economic bubble | Grist.
Ash Wednesday 2013: A Good Day to be Arrested as an Advocate for God’s Creation
Ash Wednesday is a day of conscience, repentance and conviction; a day when we take stock of our personal lives – and of our life together on the planet; a day when we confess our self-indulgent appetites, our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our obsession with consumption of every kind. It is a day of profound, private self-examination, and yet it also includes a public witness – an ashen cross on our forehead to remind ourselves, and the world, who we are and whose we are. On Ash Wednesday, Christians acknowledge that we are accountable to the God who gave us life and who entrusted the earth to our care.
That we have not done a good job with that trust is news to no one. In his Second Inaugural Address, President Obama declared, “We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.” And he went on to say that our generation must respond “to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”
Because our generation is facing an unprecedented challenge – a challenge of our own making – repentance is essential if we are to find a way forward.
Ash Wednesday is a good day to be arrested because civil disobedience is a form of repentance. It was repentance of the sin of slavery that prompted Henry David Thoreau to lay out the principles of civil disobedience in the mid-nineteenth century. One hundred years later, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and hundreds of others engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience to prompt this nation to repent of the sin of racism and segregation.
Our generation must now repent of the sin of wrecking God’s creation. Our decades of science denial have now been exchanged for widespread recognition of the community-crushing effects of climate disruption, whether by way of wildfires, droughts, or superstorms.
These are the conditions in which the conscience of a nation can be born.
The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal is Minister and President of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the largest Protestant denomination in the Commonwealth. A climate activist, he provides national leadership in that area for the United Church of Christ.
For more on this story, visit: Ash Wednesday 2013: A Good Day to be Arrested as an Advocate for God’s Creation.
Soybean Farmer Takes Monsanto to Supreme Court
A single 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer in rural southwestern Indiana is taking on the multibillion dollar agricultural giant Monsanto over the issue of who controls the rights to seeds planted in the ground.
When confronted with the David vs. Goliath nature of his battle, Vernon Hugh Bowman told The Guardian: “I really don’t consider it as David and Goliath. I don’t think of it in those terms. I think of it in terms of right and wrong.”
For more on this story, visit: Soybean Farmer Takes Monsanto to Supreme Court – Truthdig.
Eyewitness: Ghoramara island, India
A rise in sea levels has washed away more than 50% of Ghoramara island since the 1980s, prompting two-thirds of its population to leave. Daesung Lee has been selected as a finalist in the professional contemporary issues category of the 2013 Sony world photography awards for her images of islanders
For more on this story, visit: Eyewitness: Ghoramara island, India | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Wenonah Hauter: Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America
The Executive Director of Food and Water Watch tells GRITtv’s Laura Flanders why voting with our forks won’t beat food company consolidation and why we need new federal anti-trust regulation and a stronger democracy too. Hauter’s book, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, is just out from The New Press.
For more on this story, visit: Wenonah Hauter: Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America | Common Dreams.
Utah climate activists infiltrate a truly unconventional energy summit
Earlier this month, during the opening session of the 2013 Utah Energy Development Summit, two activists with Utah Tar Sands Resistance took to the stage in order to present Utah Gov. Gary Herbert — the host of the summit — with a very special award: Polluter of the Year. After commandeering the microphone, the presenters called upon “Dirty Herby” to accept the rather dubious distinction. After all, they argued, Herbert is working to grab more than 30 million acres of federal public lands in order to open them up to private fossil fuel development, which includes the first tar sands strip mine in the U.S.
Despite his dedication to the energy industry, Herbert was apparently late to his own summit and thus unable to physically accept the award. Instead, he tweeted: “Utah is committed to protecting our beautiful environment, so we want only RESPONSIBLE energy development.”
For more on this story, visit: Utah climate activists infiltrate a truly unconventional energy summit / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.
Obama to the Left? Most of this country is numb to the power of rhetoric!
If there was one consistent media message about the Obama inauguration ceremony, it was the idea that he was announcing a clear shift to the left. But coverage failed to provide much background on the president’s actual policies, which would have challenged that impression.
The inclusion of climate change was treated as a particularly big deal, given that inaugural addresses seldom dwell on policy. “Speech Gives Climate Goals Center Stage” read one headline in the next day’s New York Times (1/22/13). But that story, and much of the media commentary on his climate comments, failed to even mention the Keystone XL pipeline, currently under State Department review.
It is hard to fathom how meaningful action on climate change would be possible if Keystone were approved, but the White House has not spoken out in opposition to the pipeline (Nation.com, 1/22/13). Leaving out Obama’s most important upcoming climate policy decision when covering his climate agenda is a media failure.
For more on this story, visit: Obama to the Left? — FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.
Living on Earth: New York Times to Close Its Environmental Desk
Some people read ideological motives into this decision to close the environmental desk, and I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think this is one element of a much bigger picture, and the bigger picture is that newsrooms are contracting. It’s a fact. When newsrooms contract, specialized coverage often suffers. And it’s not just environmental coverage that suffers. Science coverage is suffering, health coverage, some specialized business coverage…all of that specialized storytelling is at risk. It’s a real danger to democracy, I really feel that it is. So this is just one element of a much bigger story.
For more on this story, visit: Living on Earth: New York Times to Close Its Environmental Desk.
The Cancer Cash Cycle: The Causes of Cancer and Ill Health. GMOs seem to play a role.
Prior to undertaking his recent study into the health impacts of GMOs and incurring the wrath of the GMO sector for his findings, Gilles-Eric Seralini, professor of molecular biology at the University of Caen in France, said it was absurd that only three months of testing allowed GM corn to be approved in over a dozen nations. Upon reviewing Monsanto’s raw data, he and his team found, among other problems, liver damage and physiological changes into a pre-diabetic condition among the rats which had eaten Monsanto’s GM corn. And that’s just from three months of eating such food. His new study was over a two year period.
The incidence of cancer is escalating and is expected to double by 2050, and it’s a global issue.
… The incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has increased by nearly 100 per cent in the US over the last few decades, and brain cancer by about 80 to 90 per cent. Breast cancer has gone up by about 60 to 65 per cent. Testicular cancer – particularly in men between the ages of 28 and 35 – has gone up by nearly 300 percent.
For more on this story, visit: The Cancer Cash Cycle: The Causes of Cancer and Ill Health | Global Research.
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Time Is Not on Our Side
Physics doesn’t understand that rapid action on climate change threatens the most lucrative business on Earth, the fossil fuel industry. It’s implacable. It takes the carbon dioxide we produce and translates it into heat, which means into melting ice and rising oceans and gathering storms. And unlike other problems, the less you do, the worse it gets. Do nothing and you soon have a nightmare on your hands.
For more on this story, visit: Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Time Is Not on Our Side | TomDispatch.
DECEMBER 2012 – next issue: February 2013
At 24 kilometres in length, the Great Aletsch Glacier between Valais and the Bernese Oberland is the largest glacier in Europe. It has lost almost 30 % of its volume since the 1970s. Experts expect it to melt completely before the end of this century.
For more on this story, visit: SWISS REVIEW – EN.
A Quest to Document Earth’s Disappearing Glaciers: e360 Gallery
For the past six years, photographer James Balog has deployed dozens of time-lapse cameras around the world to chronicle one of the starkest examples of global warming — melting glaciers. In a photo gallery and interview with Yale Environment 360, Balog displays his work and discusses his passion to capture these vanishing landscapes.
The extraordinarily rapid retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier is captured in this photograph. In the 1980s, ice filled this valley up to the dark vegetation line. But since then more than 1,200 vertical feet of ice have melted, exposing the dun-colored rock once covered by the glacier. The Columbia Glacier has retreated 10 miles over the past two decades. Photo courtesy of James Balog
For more on this story, visit: A Quest to Document Earth’s Disappearing Glaciers: e360 Gallery.
Climate Change & Historic Superstorm Sandy: 70+ Dead, Streets Submerged, Millions Without Power
Superstorm Sandy has pounded the East Coast, bringing massive flooding and damage that’s left at least 16 people dead in the United States, killed more than 60 in the Carribean, and left more than seven million without power from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Parts of New York City were submerged under water as high as 13 feet, flooding a number of subway stations and causing blackouts. Sandy made landfall in New Jersey Monday night near Atlantic City after being downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone. But it still brought hurricane-force winds and rain, making it one of the largest storms the United States has ever seen. A snowstorm swept inland dropping heaving snowfall across Appalachia and shutting down large sections of the interstate in West Virginia and Maryland. Estimates of the damage so far have reached as high as $20 billion. Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman broadcasts from the road in Salt Lake City, working with our team in New York City, under blackout conditions, to bring you updates and analysis on the storm’s damage, its potential risks for East Coast nuclear facilities, and its connection to global warming. We’re joined by Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground.
For more on this story, visit: Climate Change & Historic Superstorm Sandy: 70+ Dead, Streets Submerged, Millions Without Power.
