Posts filed under ‘The World’
Bravo — Los Angeles Bans Plastic Bags at Grocery Stores
I love this news. My town — Boulder, Colorado — is haggling over this as we speak so I love that a big city like L.A. says yes to banning plastic bags at grocery stores:
Photo: James Alamillo, playing the “Bag Monster” for Heal the Bay, gets into his role while he tries to work up the crowd at the rally before the LA City Council vote to ban plastic bags. (Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation Wednesday to adopt a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a major victory to clean-water advocates who sought to reduce the amount of trash clogging landfills, the region’s waterways and the ocean.
Egged on by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and an array of environmental groups, the City Council voted 13 to 1 to phase out plastic bags over the next 12 months at an estimated 7,500 stores. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote.
“Let’s get the message to Sacramento that it’s time to go statewide,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, who has focused on efforts to revitalize the Los Angeles River.
Council members quietly backed away from a more controversial plan to also ban use of paper grocery bags, which was first proposed by appointees of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
I’m for banning both plastic and paper bags but if I had to choose, I’d be fine with plastic.
The big controversy here is that, what with the economy, people shouldn’t be made to fork over 99¢ to buy reuseable bags but heck, I think the majority of people would be willing to do that. Even a good number of the folks who I see at the food bank bring their own bags. It’s called raising consciousness. I would no more pack my groceries in plastic bags at the grocery store than I would throw a soda pop can in the trash. Not to be all huffy about it but since we can recycle aluminum, no way does a pop can belong in the landfill. When we can use reuseable grocery bags, why use bags made of oil that take seven bazillion years to decompose?
Dinner at Camp David
I envisioned Camp David as being way more rustic than this:
President Barack Obama hosts a working dinner in Laurel Cabin during the G8 Summit at Camp David, Md., May 18, 2012.
(Via.)
Time to Go Back to Eating Freedom Fries
Uh oh, a Socialist was elected president of France today.
French President Sarkozy Admits Defeat in Presidential Bid
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has conceded defeat in France’s presidential elections, saying he called challenger Francois Hollande to wish him “good luck” as the country’s new leader.
Sarkozy thanked his supporters Sunday and said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.
He said “I take responsibility … for the defeat.”
Sarkozy faced voters’ anger over austerity Sunday in a presidential run-off expected to replace him with Socialist rival Francois Hollande, with far-reaching consequences for efforts to fight Europe’s debt crisis.
Get ready for the corporate American media to scare the bejesus out of us. As a matter of fact, CNN is airing a live version of its “CNN Money” show (3:00 0 4:00 p.m. ET) doing that very thing; asking how the fall of oh, say, the French economy (what a coincidence!) would affect the U.S.
And oh yeah, I guess we’re going to have to go back to eating freedom fries instead of French fries.
Happy Earth Day from NASA
Look at this gorgeous, high definition image of Earth that NASA released as an Earth Day present to us all.
(Image via NASA/Goddard)
Much larger version here.
Wow.
The ECB’s Klaus Masuch Can’t Say Why We the People are Bailing Out the Banks
Here is some truly amazing video. This is Irish journalist Vincent Browne (this is what real journalism looks like) confronting Klaus Masuch of the European Central Bank as to why the Irish people are bailing out the banks.
Browne asks: “You people are intervening into this society, causing huge damage by requiring us to make payments, not for the benefit of anybody in Ireland, but for the benefit of European financial institutions. Now, could you explain why the Irish people are inflicted with this burden?” Masuch’s answer? It’s breathtaking. At first there is silence, then he spews out 60 seconds of pure bullshit and then he literally fumbles around and can’t or won’t respond, claiming his line of bullshit was an answer.
Everyone in the world should see this because everyone in the world is paying for what the banks did.
It’s jaw-dropping; the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time. And oh to have more journalists like Vincent Browne.
(Via.)
“Welcome to the Epicenter of Global Warming”
I read an article in my local newspaper this morning about “catastrophic lake drainage” in Greenland:
In the summer of 2006, scientists who were studying lakes of pooled melt water on the surface of the ice sheet covering Greenland watched as the kilometer-thick ice beneath the lake cracked from bottom to top.
Most of the 11.6 billion gallons of water held in the lake were swallowed within 90 minutes. The lake was totally dry in less than a day.
Since a scientific paper was published on the disappearing lake in 2008, researchers have known that the seasonal lakes that form on the ice are capable of “catastrophic drainage.” Now, a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado shows that the frequency of lakes being swallowed up by the underlying ice sheet nearly triples in warm years compared with cold years.
Here’s another article about the same study:
Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
[...]
During summer, meltwater pools into lakes on the ice sheet’s surface. When the water pressure gets high enough, the ice fractures beneath the lake, forming a vertical drainpipe, and “a huge burst of water quickly pulses through to the bed of the ice sheet,” Colgan said.
My interest was piqued and I went looking for a video of “catastrophic lake drainage.” I found lots of diagrams but no videos per se though I did come across this amazing video of water rushing down a “moulins,” which helped me visualize how the Greenland Ice Sheet could indeed slide out to sea, riding on a bed of ice water. I thought I’d share:
The U.S. Regresses While the World Moves Ahead
Ah yes, the world moves on into the future. This happened in India while the United States spent its time taking rights away from women and talking about how many members of the communist party are in the House of Representatives.
Just 14 months ago, the Indian state of Gujarat announced that it was building a $2.3-billion solar park — the largest photovoltaic power station the world has seen so far.
Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, revealed this Thursday via Twitter than the solar park had been switched on.
(Photo via CleanTechnica.com)
(Via.)
(Look closely at the upper left hand corner of the photo. I think that’s a gigantic wind turbine.)
So, again, while we were taking ourselves back to the 1950s, India was building the largest solar farm on the planet.
USA! USA! USA!
Oh Canada, I Was Counting On You
I used to think of Canada as an open, progressive, forward-looking, nonviolent society who might shine a light that countries like the United States could follow in their darkest hour, but not anymore.
Want a preview of what Republicans want to do to the U.S.? Take a look at what Stephen Harper, the conservative prime minister of Canada is doing:
Scientific research, monitoring and partnerships are disappearing from Environment Canada’s budget as part of a multimillion-dollar reduction in spending. Here is a partial list of cuts confirmed by the federal government.
– Emergency disaster response: spending cut by $3.78 million per year. So what if lives are lost?
– United Nations Environment Programme Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS)/water. Saves $851,000 per year. Water quality? That’s a trivial thing to worry about, huh?
Ugh. It will take me forever to synthesize this; I want to put it up but I’m also making dinner.
So here’s the depressing article.
I’ve got to find the time to post about all the governments that are turning against the interests of their people. It’s happening everywhere. The thousand or five thousand or ten thousand humans who control the planet are consolidating their power, repressing their people, and as a result, we and the animals and the birds and the fish and the trees and the flowers and the oceans are going to suffer and, in the end, die.
They’re united (call me a conspiracy theorist if you want). They want it all. They don’t care about We the People. All they care about is
Morning Photo
I have got to get my rear in gear and get myself to China. I want to see this China, the ancient, lovely, serene China before it’s bulldozed and replaced by tacky tract homes.
What a beautiful scene.
Photo: Kevin Kelly
We are surrounded by amazing rice terraces, another classic image from China. These terraces require an immense amount of hand-work to maintain their form and function. They erode quickly without constant patching up. And farming rice on them takes yet more work — much more than growing rice on large farms. These terraces took a thousand years to create; but I predict they will be gone — overgrown and disintegrating — in 100 years. No one will want to keep them up, unless the government simply pays them as a tourist attraction. I hope they do since these structures are stunning.
Following James Cameron’s Attempt to Reach the Mariana Trench
After years of preparation and days of uncooperative weather conditions, James Cameron, at approximately 2 p.m. ET (4 a.m., local time), began descending solo to Earth’s deepest, and perhaps most alien, realm, according to members of the National Geographic expedition.
If all goes to plan, within two hours of his submersible’s launch, the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker should become the first human to reach the Mariana Trench’s Challenger Deep alone—and the only one to explore it in depth, in person.
I’m following it on Twitter. Here’s the latest:
Fingers everything continues to go well.
(The guy’s got major guts.)
An Orangutan Named Green Dies of a Broken Heart
I’ve been reading about this 47 minute documentary for several days now. It’s about deforestation in Indonesia as experienced by an orangutan named Green whose world — the forest she lives in — is entirely destroyed. In the end she dies.
I haven’t been able to watch it yet but I will eventually. I feel a moral obligation to do so insofar as I’m a human being and human beings are responsible for what’s happening there.
There is no narration. As a matter of fact, no words are spoken at all.
I thought I’d post it FYI. I’ll post again after I’ve had the strength to watch it.
(Via.)
Early April Fool’s Joke?
Holy cow:
Mitt Romney, mired in a frustrating slog toward the presidential nomination, has directed his top advisers to launch a multi-pronged effort to unite the Republican Party as the primaries draw to a close.
While Romney’s public activities are geared almost entirely toward winning the nomination, his campaign is on a private mission aimed beyond spring. Senior aides and surrogates — hoping to seize a moment when even some unfriendly Republicans are beginning to see Romney as inevitable — have spent the past several weeks making calls and visits to conservative leaders and activists who have resisted Romney’s candidacy.
[...]
Among those being courted is Richard Land, a longtime leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. As a practice, Land said, he does not endorse political candidates, but he is considered a powerful barometer of the evangelical community.
Land said that after a private dinner with Romney last year at Acadiana, a Washington restaurant, Romney’s advisers have been in regular touch. Land said he recently told them that Romney could win over recalcitrant conservatives by picking Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) as his vice presidential running mate and previewing a few Cabinet selections: Santorum as attorney general, Gingrich as ambassador to the United Nations and John Bolton as secretary of state.
Can you imagine Rick Santorum as attorney general? We’d have prayer in schools and women not only wouldn’t have access to birth control, they wouldn’t be allowed to wear pants anymore. And Gingrich as ambassador to the United Nations? I don’t know if his humongous ego would fit in the building. And pair him with John Bolton as secretary of state and they’d end up pissing off the entire world and starting who knows how many new wars.
What a nightmare.
Thinking of Japan
My thoughts go out to the people of Japan on the anniversary of the horrible earthquake and tsunami there on March 11, 2011.
Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon
Memo to the Narcissistic United States: There’s a Whole Wide World Out There
My Tweet of the Day:
Have you noticed how we here in the United States hear virtually nothing on a daily basis about what’s going on outside our border?
Get to Know Joseph Kony (Kony 2012)
UPDATED below.
Until I watched this now-viral (1,845,000 views in two days), devastating video about the world’s #1 war criminal, Joseph Kony, I didn’t know who Joseph Kony was. (Thanks American “news” media.)
Now I do and now I’m fighting mad. We’ve got to get him.
(Via.)
UPDATE (@6:29 p.m. ET March 8, 2012)
Over the last several days, much has been written about this video and about the video’s producer, Invisible Children. I get the controversy but I agree with the last paragraph of this “Viewpoint” post from Think Progress:
So, instead of continuing to debate the strengths and weakness of the Kony2012 video, or attack Invisible Children for their lack of financial transparency, let’s figure out how to turn this momentum into a constructive opportunity that can result in smart policies that will have a positive, real-time impact in the affected areas of central Africa. Let’s harness this energy and turn it into something productive that ensures we’re telling the right stories, inspiring well-informed advocacy, and working together across governments, academia, grassroots activists, and local populations to help bring this chapter of the LRA — and the impact in affected areas — to a close.
G-8 Summit Moved From Chicago to Camp David — Out of Fear of Protests?
In what I suspect is a reaction to the potential for huge demonstrations,
The G-8 economic summit will be held at Camp David, not in Chicago as had been scheduled.
The White House announced the change in the following statement:
“In May, the United States looks forward to hosting the G-8 and NATO Summits. To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the president is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues.
[...]
Chicago police estimated that 2,000 to 10,000 demonstrators were expected to show up for the overlapping G-8 and NATO summits. At least two major demonstrations were already planned for downtown during the summit, and organizers said they wanted to send crowds of marchers down Michigan Avenue in the middle of the day.
Some people involved in the planning of the summits in Chicago were stunned by the news and said they had no advanced warning of the change in plans.
If I’m right, congrats to We the People. Fear of protests is a good thing.
About the U.N. Establishing a Global World Order
There are people out there who think programs that encourage bicycling are being orchestrated by the United Nations
Photo: Wikipedia
in an alleged secret long-term plan to establish a one-world government.
Pretty funny when we see that while citizens in Syria are being massacred by the hundreds by their own government, sadly, the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council can’t agree on what to do about it.
A U.N. Security Council effort to end the violence in Syria ended in acrimony and a veto by Russia and China on Saturday, hours after the Syrian military attacked the ravaged city of Homs in what opposition leaders described as the bloodiest government assault in the nearly 11-month-old uprising.
[...]
The Security Council voted, 13-2, in favor of a resolution backing an Arab League peace plan for Syria, which calls for Assad to cede power to his vice president and a unity government to lead Syria to democratic elections. But passage was blocked by Russia and China, which opposed what they saw as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
Haiti: Two Years After the Quake, the 99% and the 1%
Yesterday (January 12, 2012) marked the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti.
USAToday put together a slideshow marking the anniversary. Here it is: For Haitian Earthquake Victims, Recovery is Very Slow.
This is the first photo in the series:
Photo: Dieu Nalio Chery, AP
Foreign Policy magazine put a slideshow together too. Here it is: Haiti’s One Percent.
This is the first photo in that series:
Photo: Paolo Woods/Institute
There are no words.
China Jails Human Rights Campaigner Who Called it a Dictatorship
China just confirmed to the world that the human rights campaigner who called it a dictatorship was right:
A Sichuan Province court sentenced one of China’s most prominent human rights campaigners to nine years in prison on Friday for writing essays that called the nation’s Communist Party a dictatorship and an “enemy of democracy.”
Bingo. Way to go China.
Kim Jong-il Literally Kept His People in the Dark
North Korean premiere, Kim Jong-il literally kept his people in the dark. (That would be North Korea outlined, below.)
(Via.)
North Koreans Crying Hysterically Over the Death of Kim Jong-il
Check out this video from North Korean state television.
(Via.)
I wonder if North Koreans who don’t cry over the death of Kim Jong-il risk torture or imprisonment, or worse.
“We Exist!” — Memo From the 99% to the 1%
I love the thought of this chant:
Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in Moscow on Saturday shouting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Vladimir Putin first became president 12 years ago.
Image: AFP/Getty
The crowd overflowed from a central city square, forcing stragglers to climb trees or watch from the opposite riverbank. “We exist!” they chanted. “We exist!” Opposition leaders understood that for a moment they, not the Kremlin, were dictating the political agenda, and seemed intent on leveraging it, promising to gather an even larger crowd again on Dec. 24.
The 1% likes to think we (the 99%) don’t exist (until we exercise our power in one way or another, at which point they pull out all the stops to crush us). They want us to shut up and go away but we do EXIST so goddamn get used to it.
Japanese Tsunami Debris Arrives on West Coast
Only 100 million tons to go:
Large black floats are the first remnants of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami to begin washing up on the American coastline.
The debris traveled 4,500 miles on Pacific Ocean currents, pushed by wind and water, to reach the beaches of Neah Bay in far northwestern Washington state 280 days after the Japanese disaster.
[...]
One float, the size of a 55-gallon drum, was found in Washington two weeks ago, another was reportedly discovered in Vancouver, Canada.
Scientists predict, “100 million tons could be here in just one year.”
That’s going to be interesting.
Slap Your Face Quotes from the Durban Climate Change Conference
I haven’t put up any posts about the climate change conference that took place over the last two weeks in Durban, South Africa because because, well, because of a general sense of outrage overload and a feeling that nothing would get done there.
I’ve been peeking in on it and now though and now that the conference has ended, I’m reading some summaries that pretty much confirm what I feared. Like this one from CommonDreams. (This is the second half of an article you can read in its entirety at the link above.)
Chris Huhne hailed the conclusion of the talks as “a triumph of European co-operation”.
I’m thinking we need worldwide cooperation, not just European cooperation.
“We have taken a significant step forward. This will give business confidence and stop us locking in a whole generation of high-carbon technology,” he said.
I’m sick beyond belief of thinking about giving “business confidence.” How about we give the planet and We the People confidence once and for all already?
But Martin Khor, director of the intergovernmental South Center in Geneva, said poor countries would be obliged to cut emissions proportionally more than the rich. “It’s like the starving will be made to give up half their small amount of food but the rich just a bit,” he said.
The powerful countries shit on the little ones.
Green groups said the ambition shown by countries to reduce emissions was paltry. “Negotiators have sent a clear message to the world’s hungry: let them eat carbon,” said Celine Charveriat, director of campaigns and advocacy for Oxfam.
When will the rich and powerful countries come to grips with the fact that we’re all in this together?
“Governments must immediately turn their attention to raising the ambition of their emissions cuts targets and filling the Green Climate Fund. Unless countries ratchet up their emissions cuts urgently we could still be in store for a 10-year timeout on the action we need to stay under two degrees [of temperature increase].”
Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo said: “The chance of averting catastrophic climate change is slipping through our hands with every passing year that nations fail to agree on a rescue plan for the planet.”
“This will force governments to admit their current pledges to cut emissions are not enough to achieve 2C rise and will have to be strengthened,” said Michael Jacobs, of the Grantham climate research institute of climate change.
Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: “Delaying real action till 2020 is a crime of global proportions.
“This means the world is on track to a 4C temperature rise, a death sentence for Africa, small island states and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. The richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.“
I have friends and neighbors who have babies. Babies as in cherubic 7-week-olds and enthusiastic 2-year-olds. When I look at them I wonder what kind of world they will live in when they’re 30 or 40 or 60. I think it will be awful.
The Isolated United States of America
Check out the cover of the December 12, 2011 issue of TIME magazine:
Larger version here.
What made TIME decide Americans aren’t interested in, or don’t need to know about, the “Brave New Burma?”
Filed under: Dumbed Down.
George W. Bush Found Guilty of “Crimes Against Peace”
I haven’t watched any “liberal media” today but I’m sure this is the top story and that it’s being repeated every ten or 15 minutes:
A tribunal in Malaysia, spearheaded by that nation’s former Prime Minister, yesterday found George Bush and Tony Blair guilty of “crimes against peace” and other war crimes for their 2003 aggressive attack on Iraq, as well as fabricating pretexts used to justify the attack. The seven-member Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal — which featured an American law professor as one of its chief prosecutors — has no formal enforcement power, but was modeled after a 1967 tribunal in Sweden and Denmark that found the U.S. guilty of a war of aggression in Vietnam, and, even more so, after the U.S.-led Nuremberg Tribunal held after World War II. Just as the U.S. steadfastly ignored the 1967 tribunal on Vietnam, Bush and Blair both ignored the summons sent to them and thus were tried in absentia.
The tribunal ruled that Bush and Blair’s name should be entered in a register of war criminals, urged that they be recognized as such under the Rome Statute, and will also petition the International Criminal Court to proceed with binding charges.
“Chemical Warfare” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Right Now
Look at these horrible tweets being sent by Sharif Kouddous from Cairo’s Tahrir Square right now (4:27 p.m. ET):
The people of Egypt are rallying because though they ousted Mubarak, the army is still in charge and they don’t want that. They want democratic elections. And this is what they get.
Oh, and a note regarding Rick Perry: At the Republican “debate” in Iowa on Saturday night, Rick Perry said, if elected, he would end civilian control of the U.S. military. What’s happening in Egypt is what happens when the military is out of civilian hands. It’s called a military dictatorship.
