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.

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Storm surge barriers: A lesson U.S. needs to learn from Europe? – CBS News

For the last 30 years, the Thames Flood Barrier, a high-tech barrier that is raised and lowered almost like the gates to a medieval castle, has been protecting the heart of London from the kind of catastrophic storm surge that hit New York last week.

Andy Batchelor helps keeps the vast concrete and steel structure in London operational — always with one eye on the weather. With his decades of experience, he could see the trouble headed New York’s way. Batchelor said, “I spend half my life looking at the weather and to see the three weather systems coming in to — what happened in New York, I was absolutely amazed to what on earth that was going to give.”

For more on this story, visit: Storm surge barriers: A lesson U.S. needs to learn from Europe? – CBS News.

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U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious

U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious - CBS News

Pollsters and pundits in the United States may be hedging their bets, but a bookie in Britain is paying out even before the presidential race is over. Paddy Power, Europe’s largest book-maker and one of the big “bet shop” chains in Britain where they’ll bet on anything has decided that President Obama has already won reelection, and is handing over cash to those who placed bets on him.

For more on this story, visit: U.K. bookie declares Obama victorious – CBS News.

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After Sandy, communities mobilize a new kind of disaster relief

I’m not sure when I realized that we were in the middle of a full-blown disaster. Maybe it was when I saw the outline of a National Guard soldier hanging off the side of a hummer on a blackened strip of Rockaway Boulevard. Perhaps it was when I received a panicky email from an assemblyman’s office saying that “ppl are starving in Broad Channel.” I’m sure the comparisons to Hurricane Katrina and September 11 helped speed the realization. All I know for sure is that by Thursday, when widespread gas shortages swept New York City and out-of-staters began offering to donate bio-diesel trucks, I understood that we were organizing in the midst of a crisis.

For more on this story, visit: After Sandy, communities mobilize a new kind of disaster relief / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.

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Amazing long-exposure photos of Hong Kong in motion

There are 7 million people in Hong Kong, one of the densest and fastest-paced cities in the world. Photographer Brian Yen, in a series of long-exposure shots, captures the overwhelming velocity of it all, a blur of motion and light. Yen kindly granted me permission to reproduce his photos here, along with this note about the thinking behind them.

I think of my self similar to an archeologist. I’m an excavator of existence, dusting off the un-interesting bits to reveal the gem underneath. I hope those who view my photos, would be inspired to do a little dusting of their own and find joy where it once was dirt.

For more on this story, visit: Amazing long-exposure photos of Hong Kong in motion.

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Connecticut Poets Tap State’s Heart, Vitality

Connecticut poets tap state’s heart, vitality

Though it may not be the first thing we associate with Connecticut, poetry has been a vital part of our lives in for more than 200 years. It has inspired us or warned us, and on many occasions it has sharpened our thoughts or warmed our hearts. One of Connecticut’s 19th-century poets, James Abraham Hillhouse of New Haven, claimed in a talk he gave in 1836 that poetry offered an antidote to America’s addiction to “Politics and the Love of Money.”

Hillhouse’s teacher, Yale College President Timothy Dwight, offered sage advice in his long poem “Greenfield Hill”: “Hire not, for what yourselves can do; / Nor, ’till to-morrow’s light, delay, / What might as well be done to-day.” Other poets of the post-Revolutionary era celebrated the new nation in glowing patriotic verse, and through their words shaped the spirit of an emerging country. Joel Barlow’s comic “The Hasty Pudding,” a poem in praise of what we call mush or polenta (depending on where we eat it), was extremely popular.

For more on this story, visit: Connecticut Poets Tap State’s Heart, Vitality – Hartford Courant.

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What Does Romney’s Campaign of Lies Say About Our Country?

By Dave Johnson, Campaign for America’s Future | News Analysis

Last week Mitt Romney delivered possibly the most dishonest presidential campaign speech in American history. It contains lie after lie, distortion after distortion, and trick after trick. The fact that a person capable of giving such a speech has reached this level suggests that it may be too late to salvage the country. Our institutions may be corrupted beyond repair.

For more on this story, visit: What Does Romney’s Campaign of Lies Say About Our Country?.

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How Fox News Created a New Culture of Idiots

 

The following is an excerpt from  “Assholes: A Theory”  by Aaron James. Reprinted with permission from Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc.

… Assholes largely share a thick sense of moral entitlement. Just as hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, late 19th and early 20th century businessmen like Cecil Rhodes, Albert Beveridge and John D. Rockefeller all felt a need to invoke entitlement on a cosmic scale, in effect sensing that something might be majorly amiss. In stark contrast with the grandiose reasoning of the era of colonialism, the asshole in more recent modern life often requires little or no pretext of larger cause for the special privileges he feels entitled to enjoy.

For more on this story, visit: How Fox News Created a New Culture of Idiots | Alternet.

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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.

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Bill McKibben on Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change: “If There Was Ever a Wake-up Call, This Is It”

Much of the East Coast is shut down today as residents prepare for Hurricane Sandy, a massive storm that could impact up to 50 million people from the Carolinas to Boston. The storm has already killed 66 people in the Caribbean, where it battered Haiti and Cuba. “This thing is stitched together from elements natural and unnatural, and it seems poised to cause real havoc,” says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. New York and other cities have shut down schools and transit systems. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been evacuated. Millions could lose power over the next day. Meteorologists say Sandy could be the largest storm ever to hit the U.S. mainland. The megastorm comes at a time when President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have refused to make climate change an issue on the campaign trail. For the first time since 1984, climate change was never addressed during a presidential debate. “It’s really important that everybody, even those who aren’t in the kind of path of this storm, reflect about what it means that in the warmest year in U.S. history, … in a year when we saw, essentially, summer sea ice in the Arctic just vanish before our eyes, what it means that we’re now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude,” McKibben says. “If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it.” We’re also joined by climate scientist Greg Jones from Southern Oregon University.

For more on this story, visit: Bill McKibben on Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change: “If There Was Ever a Wake-up Call, This Is It”.

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Silences Louder Than Their Words: Effective Economic Policies Neither Candidate Advocates

By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed

Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama even mentions six alternative economic policies that, deployed together, would reduce unemployment, increase workers’ real earnings and decrease the federal deficit.

This presidential election arrives five years into a severe economic crisis that both Republican and Democratic policies failed to end. The latest unemployment rate (7.8 percent) is not even halfway back to the 2007 level of 5 percent, from the crisis high of 10 percent. Jobs have not recovered, but corporate profits and the stock market did, thanks to huge government bailouts. Average real weekly earnings of most workers fell 2.4 percent from October, 2010, to the present – during what business, media and political leaders enjoyed calling a “modest recovery.” That 2.4 percent real wage drop means that workers lost the equivalent of six days’ wages (one week and one day) per year between late 2010 and now. Income and wealth inequalities thus deepened further across the crisis. No end of these developments is in sight.

For more on this story, visit: Silences Louder Than Their Words: Effective Economic Policies Neither Candidate Advocates | TruthOut.

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The Most Unbelievable but Real Pictures of Sandy’s Destruction

With all the fake photos going around and all the unbelievable damage, it’s hard to decipher the real from the Photoshopped. But last night’s storm brought in incredible floods and massive power outages to the East Coast, which you can read all about in our live Sandy coverage. Some of the waters have subsided, but millions are still without power in the country. Thanks to Instagram, Twitter, and the Associated Press and Reuters photo services, we get an idea of how bad things got last night.

 

The East Village is underwater in this photo from last night.

For more on this story, visit: The Most Unbelievable but Real Pictures of Sandy’s Destruction – National – The Atlantic Wire.

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The Yes Men: A Child’s Guide to Enjoying Hurricane Sandy

By  : Using humor and disruptive action to help take our democracy back

Unfortunately, some things can get in the way of the fun, excitement, and group bonding experiences. So here are a few guidelines to making sure you and your parents enjoy the big storm, as well as the many more likely to be coming your way by the time you’re grown up.

1. Don’t listen to anything that connects this storm to anything else

Unfortunately, as soon as a monster storm comes heading our way, you’ll hear people talk about “climate change.” That can totally ruin the fun, because climate change also means: crop failures, droughts, rising food prices, famines, conflicts, and insect-borne diseases migrating to where there’s no resistance. Those things in turn mean the deaths of 1000 children like you every day, and warnings from the UN that last summer’s crazy temperature records could end up hurting tens of millions of people in the coming months. So don’t listen to the UN, or to scientists, or to anything other than the weather channel, network television, or the pronouncements of the president and his challenger. Knowing that the cool storm you’re in the midst of is part of a pattern of global mass murder can be a big bummer.

For more on this story, visit: The Yes Men: A Child’s Guide to Enjoying Hurricane Sandy.

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Chris Hedges: Why I’m Voting Green

The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.

For more on this story, visit: Chris Hedges: Why I’m Voting Green – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

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Proposing a Vision of a New Earth

The following article is based on a presentation by Share The World’s Resources for the World Public Forum ‘Dialogue of Civilisations’ 10th Anniversary Conference, Rhodes, October 2012:

by Rajesh Makwana

The earth’s ecological problems stem largely from our collective failure to share. That might seem like an overly simplistic statement, but it is now increasingly evident that only by sharing the world’s resources more equitably and sustainably will we be able to address both the ecological and social crisis we face as a global community.

The principle of sharing has always formed the basis of social relationships in societies across the world. We all know from personal experience that sharing is central to family and community life, and the importance of sharing is also a key component of many of the world’s religions.

Moreover, it is becoming apparent through a growing body of anthropological and biological evidence that human beings are naturally predisposed to cooperate and share in order to improve our collective wellbeing and maximise our chances of survival.

For more on this story, visit: Proposing a Vision of a New Earth | Common Dreams.

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Day of the Dead Parade • Carnaval del Día de los Muertos, 4 p.m.-midnight Saturday, Oct. 27

Day of the Dead Parade • Carnaval del Día de los Muertos

Live Salsa & Cumbia Dance Party • Fiesta con conjuntos de salsa y cumbia

Saturday, October 27, 4 pm – midnight

Bregamos Community Theater, 491 Blatchley Ave, New Haven

A community parade through the streets of Fair Haven, followed by a dance party… Celebrating the immigrants rights struggle and the 5th year anniversary of the New Haven ID card… Free admission, and donations will be accepted at the door… Featuring giant puppets, masks and lanterns made by the community… Music by Sabor Tropical and Chavos de Fuego!

Un desfile por el barrio de Fair Haven, y después una fiesta… celebrando la lucha por los derechos de los inmigrantes y el 5o aniversario de la tarjeta de identidad de New Haven… Entrada gratuita, se aceptan donativos… Habrá títeres gigantes, máscara y faroles hecho por la comunidad… Tocarán los conjuntos Sabor Tropical y Chavos de Fuego.

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We need all kinds of volunteers on the day of the parade. Contact:
Se buscan voluntarios para ayudarnos el día del carnaval. Llame a:
John Jairo (203) 606-3484
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Wesleyan students protest need-blind policy change at the university in Middletown

Student outcry against recent changes in Wesleyan University’s need-blind admissions policy have reached a fever pitch after a group of roughly 50 protestors stormed the sidelines during the university’s homecoming football game on Saturday.

The debate surrounding the issue resulted in two alleged confrontations with President Michael Roth over the weekend both prior to and directly following the demonstration. One case involved a group of students and the other a reporter from liberal news program, Democracy Now!. Concerns over the need-blind policy spilled over into the annual Parents’ Assembly with Roth the following day.

For more on this story, visit: Students protest need-blind policy change – The Middletown Press : Serving Middletown, CT.

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Helping Republicans Find Real Voter Fraud in America

The real electoral fraud being perpetrated across our country is the GOP’s frantic claim that hordes of ineligible Democrats are voting illegally. It just isn’t true.

Sugar Land, Texas, is the hometown of Catherine Engelbrecht, a tea party zealot, who founded an outfit called True the Vote, which has run a nationwide witch-hunt to find and indict those imaginary hordes of Democrats casting illegal ballots.

No luck there. But rather than charging pell-mell across the country, she could have sniffed out a real fraud case right under her nose.

Bruce Fleming, running for county commissioner in Engelbrecht’s very own precinct, turns out to be a serial violator of voter integrity laws. In 2006, 2008 and 2010, he voted in person in Sugar Land, then voted again by mail in Yardley, Pa., where he owns a home.

But he’s a Republican, and Engelbrecht’s fraud squad wasn’t looking for those.

For more on this story, visit: Helping Republicans Find Real Voter Fraud in America | Common Dreams.

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U.S. Accuses Bank of America of a ‘Brazen’ Mortgage Fraud | NYTimes.com

Five years after the housing market crumbled, government officials are still trying to assign blame for the problems that fueled the mortgage boom and bust.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors in New York took aim at Bank of America. They accused it of carrying out a scheme, started by its Countrywide Financial unit, that defrauded government-backed mortgage agencies by churning out loans at a rapid pace without proper controls. In a civil suit, prosecutors seek to collect at least $1 billion in penalties from the bank as compensation for the behavior that they say forced taxpayers to guarantee billions in bad loans.

For more on this story, visit: U.S. Accuses Bank of America of a ‘Brazen’ Mortgage Fraud – NYTimes.com.

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Romney continues to back Mourdock in spite of Senate hopeful’s rape remarks | The Guardian

Mitt Romney’s campaign has refused to withdraw his support from Richard Mourdock, the Republican Senate candidate in Indiana who claimed that pregnancies from rape are “something that God intended to happen.”

Both Mourdock and Romney’s campaign said that an advert Romney recorded endorsing Mourdock’s Senate bid would not be pulled.

For more on this story, visit: Romney continues to back Mourdock in spite of Senate hopeful’s rape remarks | World news | The Guardian.

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