There are many things that environmentalists have said over the years. The 2 most consistently one is that there are too many people on this planet and the other is that we will pay a price for befouling our planet. This has led some to talk about the possibility of a human “die back”. Is this what the beginning of one might look like?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/01/is_this_a_pandemic_being_born_china_pigs_virus

Here’s how it would happen. Children playing along an urban river bank would spot hundreds of grotesque, bloated pig carcasses bobbing downstream. Hundreds of miles away, angry citizens would protest the rising stench from piles of dead ducks and swans, their rotting bodies collecting by the thousands along river banks. And three unrelated individuals would stagger into three different hospitals, gasping for air. Two would quickly die of severe pneumonia and the third would lay in critical condition in an intensive care unit for many days. Government officials would announce that a previously unknown virus had sickened three people, at least, and killed two of them. And while the world was left to wonder how the pigs, ducks, swans, and people might be connected, the World Health Organization would release deliberately terse statements, offering little insight.

It reads like a movie plot — I should know, as I was a consultant for Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. But the facts delineated are all true, and have transpired over the last six weeks in China. The events could, indeed, be unrelated, and the new virus, a form of influenza denoted as H7N9, may have already run its course, infecting just three people and killing two.

Or this could be how pandemics begin.

On March 10, residents of China’s powerhouse metropolis, Shanghai, noticed some dead pigs floating among garbage flotsam in the city’s Huangpu River. The vile carcasses appeared in Shanghai’s most important tributary of the mighty Yangtze, a 71-mile river that is edged by the Bund, the city’s main tourist area, and serves as the primary source of drinking water and ferry travel for the 23 million residents of the metropolis and its millions of visitors. The vision of a few dead pigs on the surface of the Huangpu was every bit as jarring for local Chinese as porcine carcasses would be for French strolling the Seine, Londoners along the Thames, or New Yorkers looking from the Brooklyn Bridge down on the East River.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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What the planet can expect in the future and humans should be prepared for. A pulse starts some where when it is either cooler or warmer than the rest of the world. This temperature variant then pulses around the world until splat, it strikes a particular area with an unknown effect. Fire here, drought there, and a flood occasionally.

http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/201816/weather-extremes-atmospheric-waves-and-climate-change

Weather Extremes: Atmospheric Waves And Climate Change

Authored by:

Joseph Romm

By Vladimir Petoukhov and Stefan Rahmstorf, via The Conversation

The northern hemisphere has experienced a spate of extreme weather in recent times. In 2012 there were destructive heat waves in the U.S. and southern Europe, accompanied by floods in China. This followed a heat wave in the U.S. in 2011 and one in Russia in 2010, coinciding with the unprecedented Pakistan flood — and the list doesn’t stop there.

Now we believe we have detected a common physical cause hidden behind all these individual events: Each time one of these extremes struck, a strong wave train had developed in the atmosphere, circling the globe in mid-latitudes. These so-called planetary waves are well-known and a normal part of atmospheric flow. What is not normal is that the usually moving waves ground to a halt and were greatly amplified during the extreme events.

Looking into the physics behind this, we found it is due to a resonance phenomenon. Under special conditions, the atmosphere can start to resonate like a bell. The wind patterns form a regular wave train, with six, seven or eight peaks and troughs going once around the globe (see graph). This is what we propose in a study published this week together with our colleagues of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Planetary waves

Normally, an important part of the global air motion in the mid-latitudes of the Earth takes the form of waves wandering around the planet, oscillating irregularly between the tropical and polar regions. So when they swing northward, these waves suck warm air from the tropics to Europe, Russia, or the US; and when they swing southward, they do the same thing with cold air from the Arctic. This is a well-known feature of our planet’s atmospheric circulation system

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Most Christians (and many other end of the Earth religions) assume that humans will be here when it happens. I got my doubts about that. The way we are treating the Earth we may be extinct in 50 years. Very few species make it for a couple million years let alone the billions we have to go but if we were smart we would be saving the nukes for the end.

http://www.energy-net.org/NONUKES.HTM

Why a Nuclear Free World is Important

We are now facing an energy crossroad as a culture. Everyone was effected by the price of gas that peaked during the summer of 2008. The world has fallen into a consumer trap where a growing number of people around the world are using finite oil resources to drive to work. The energy it takes to drive a car is like having 700 human slaves pushing that vehicle for a few cents per hour. The era of oil is rapidly coming to an end as the entire planet hunts down the last accessible oil reserves. At the same time, the burning of fossil fuels is polluting the air and water. There is a global shift to move away from oil driven cars. This means electric cars or better, redesigning our communities so we work close to home.

Thirty years ago, energy and environmental activists warned Americans about this coming crisis but were drowned out by the energy industry and the media’s failure to be honest with the public. In 1992, one half of the world’s Nobel Laureates signed onto a call that the world had 20 years to deal with our growing global energy and population crisis. That call was ignored by America’s leaders and the media. Some experts say we only have a few years to keep from being bankrupted by energy costs and global carrying capacity collapses.

The nuclear power industry has been claiming that it can rescue us from climate change and the coming energy crisis. Wrong! The arguments from this failed industry should not be trusted and in fact, represent a disastrous misuse of economic resources at such a critical moment. Their last experiment in Science Fiction has left the world neck deep in deadly wastes and economic boondoggles.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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It is true. They are waving the flag of surrender. But more importantly, this is a really cool organization that I have never heard of. I am changing that today.

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/the-nuclear-retreat/2012/8/2/general-electrics-immelt-down-on-nukes.html

General Electric’s Immelt down on nukes

August 2, 2012

The latest confession of the nuclear retreat comes in the interview by Financial Times with none other than General Electric’s Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt. “It’s hard to justify nuclear, really hard,” said Immelt. He joins John “I’m the nuclear guy” Rowe, CEO of Chicago-based electricity giant Exelon Nuclear, who admitted this year that new nuclear power plants were “utterly uneconomical.”

These latest remarks come as no surprise given the atomic industry’s decades’ old penchant for economic failure going back to what Forbes Magazine described in 1985 as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”  More egregious is how power executives can ignore the constant and many warning signs. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investment and Fitch Financial Services have been saying for years that risky new reactor construction likely turns to financially toxic assets. Where were Immelt and Rowe when CitiBank called nuclear power the “corporate killer”?  In fact, they were among the corporate heads vying for tens of billions dollars in federal taxpayer “loans” approved by Congress for ludicrously expensive new reactor construction

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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Pro  Nuke people always ignore the long chain that leads up to the first Nuclear reaction, including mining the dangerous ore and the tremendous construction costs. This chain may negate at least several years of their contention that Nuclear Power is “carbon free”. They also never discuss the after chain. Which includes both the disposal of the waste from the reactor but eventually the cost of decommissioning the reactors themselves. I think that Yucca Mountain was a perfect response to that, but I am alone on that one. This piece also mentions the distructive economic system that these reactors would perpetuate, which is disgusting. BUT the larger picture is that nuclear reactors are totally unnecessary. I have included here only the Monthly Review’s preface.

http://monthlyreview.org/2011/02/01/on-nuclear-power

On Nuclear Power

Response to John W. Farley’s ‘Our Last Chance to Save Humanity’

Southern California Federation of Scientists and John W. Farley

Monthly Review has long been on record as opposed to the expansion of nuclear energy.1 Most recently, some of the dangers of nuclear power, both in its present form and with continuing new technological developments, were spelled out by Robert D. Furber, James C. Warf, and Sheldon C. Plotkin of the Southern California Federation of Scientists, in their article on “The Future of Nuclear Power” (MR, February 2008).

Nevertheless, we recognize that many scientists, including climatologist James Hansen and our friend, physicist John W. Farley, now see a place for nuclear energy as a kind of last resort, given the dire planetary threat raised by the burning of fossil fuels—made even more dire by the current shift toward even dirtier, more carbon-emitting fossil fuels, such as lower grades of coal, oil from tar sands, and shale oil. If nuclear power presents great dangers to the human population and the earth, it also cannot be denied that the continuation of “business as usual” with respect to carbon emissions will lead to eventual social, economic, and ecological collapse, threatening civilization and most species, including our own. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that some are looking at nuclear energy as a lesser, or more remote, evil. Moreover, the prospect, though still at the theoretical/experimental stage, of revolutionary developments in nuclear power technology, namely Generation IV plants, which could greatly increase the efficiency of nuclear fuel use, reducing the nuclear waste generated, is also changing the nature of the controversy for some.

Yet, in our view, none of this alters the essential nature of the problem: the crossing of planetary boundaries by an economic system that, as long as it exists, must continually produce more and more goods, and thus degrade the environment. In this context, a turn to nuclear energy as a solution is both myopic and a Faustian bargain. The development of alternative energy sources coupled with conservation, in the context of radical transformations in social relations, constitutes the only real, long-term solution.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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It always amazes me that the nuclear power business is just a beard for nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a thing of the past, but no one can admit it. Thus the amazing charges in this case. What about the lax security measures. That is where the prosecution should start.

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/21/muzzling-an-anti-nuke-trial-defense/

Muzzling an Anti-Nuke Trial Defense

By John LaForge

Three disarmament radicals who snuck into the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex last summer are preparing for their February 2013 trial, and face the prospect that any mention of nuclear weapons will be forbidden.

Y-12 is the 811-acre site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that’s been building H-bombs and contaminating workers and the environment since 1943. On July 28, Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed snipped through fences and walked up to the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility building. They unfurled banners, spray-painted the building with phrases such as “Woe to the empire of blood,” poured blood, prayed and broke bread.

Now they face felony charges that carry a maximum of $500,000 in fines and 15 years in prison. Additionally, in what looks like an attempt to scare them into pleading guilty now, federal prosecutors have mentioned bringing two heavier charges, including sabotage “during wartime,” which together carry up to 50 years imprisonmen

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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OK, I tried to load the video here and failed again. Totally. But there are enough links below to get you to the video which is really cool. It is a video that shows the location of all the “known” nuclear bomb tests up to 1998. Now, that does mean ALL the tests because it does not show the Israeli test off South Africa nor does it include the Korean attempts. Still it is so much like a War Games screen and it is real. Also very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyGnq7d4MLg

http://youtu.be/gyGnq7d4MLg

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Yet when I go to the SJ-Rs Website I can not find the article to share with you. That is a really really bad mistake by a paper that is on its last legs. These guys claim that their digital Product is as good as their print Product, but guess what maybe not. Anyway here is the home page. You go there see if you can find it.

http://www.sj-r.com/

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In the mean time here is an article that I could find discussing or should I say disgusting the issue. This is a real brazen attempt by vested interests to keep a wind farm out of the State Capital. I do not know whether it is the Republican parties hatred of the topic of man caused global warming in general or because of oil and gas interests in the Capital but this is the stupidist thing the County Board has ever done. There are wind farms all over this state and Sangamon County is the only one that has to have “special” zoning codes for them. This after the City Council of Springfield, at no ones request, placed height restrictions on personal wind turbines so as to render them ineffective. This county is completely gross.

http://www.sj-r.com/local/x871170515/County-board-to-debate-new-wind-turbine-proposal

The Sangamon County Board has scheduled a special meeting Monday to look at changes to county wind turbine rules that would increase the minimum distance between a turbine and a house.

The board imposed a moratorium on wind turbines in January so it could revamp its zoning rules. The turbines use wind energy to generate electricity.

The county now requires a large wind turbine to be at least 1,000 feet or three times the diameter of the rotors, whichever is greater, from a house. The setback from the property line must be at least 1,200 feet.

While no wind farm proposals are before the county board, Springfield Project Development, a joint development between American Wind Energy Management and Oak Creek Energy Systems, is planning a wind farm in western Sangamon County.

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I would say, go there and read like I usually do but. More tomorrow.

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These type organizations when founded (1987) were founded for “the long haul”. The belief was then that Humans might damage the Earth but not destroy it. Well here we are,  when it looks like that Humans may kill off themselves and maybe permanently in some respects changing the Earth, and these organizations sort of plod on. They need to pick up the pace. While I understand the desire to do good work in the 3rd world. They may want to back down the 1st world countries first.

http://www.conservation.org/Pages/default.aspx

Two Conservation International Leaders Honored by World’s Top Conservationists

Jeju, South Korea – Conservation International’s long time President, Dr. Russell Mittermeier, a world-renowned  primatologist, herpetologist and conservationist, was granted Honorary Membership today by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest international environmental organization. The award was presented at the World Conservation Congress taking place this week in South Korea, on the recommendation of the IUCN Council to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to conservation.

“Russ Mittermeier is an innovative, proactive and scientifically informed conservationist,” declared IUCN on its website.  “A renowned primatologist and herpetologist, he has undertaken extensive field work and made major contributions to the conservation of the fauna of Madagascar, the fauna of South America (especially in Brazil and the Guianas), primates in general, and freshwater turtles worldwide.”

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go there and read. More tomorrow.

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The U.N does a whole lot of good. It does not balance out the bad that humans do to each other and to the planet. Not even close, but they are trying. Again in third world countries no less.

http://www.unep.org/

Afghanistan, UNEP Launch USD $6 Million Initiative to Help Communities Adapt to Effects of Climate Change

Bamyan, Afghanistan, 11 October 2012 – The Government of Afghanistan, through its National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), has launched a USD $6 million climate change initiative, the first of its kind in the country’s history.

This landmark scheme – to be implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and funded mainly by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – aims to help communities that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as drought, and to build the capacity of Afghan institutions to address climate change risk.

“The Government of Afghanistan is showing a remarkable commitment to working with communities for a landscape approach to dealing with climate change in the country,” said Michael Keating, UN Afghanistan Resident Coordinator, speaking from Bamyan in the Central Highlands, some 200km west of Kabul.

“We also welcome the opportunity to help Afghan institutions better deal with shocks and hazards, and increase resilience at a decentralized level,” he added.

UNEP identified Afghanistan as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, because of the potential impacts and its current limited capacity to react to these impacts. Climate change adaptation is especially important in developing nations, since those countries are predicted to bear the brunt of climate change effects. The overarching goal is to reduce the vulnerability of biological systems to these impacts.

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