The story first appeared on InsideClimate News.

A pipeline that ruptured and leaked at least 80,000 gallons of oil into central Arkansas on Friday was transporting a heavy form of crude from the Canadian tar sands region, ExxonMobil told InsideClimate News. 

Local police said the line gushed oil for 45 minutes before being stopped,according to media reports.

Crude oil ran through a subdivision of Mayflower, Ark., about 20 miles north of Little Rock. Twenty-two homes were evacuated, but no one was hospitalized, Exxon spokesman Charlie Engelmann said on Saturday.

In an interview with InsideClimate News, Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said emergency crews prevented the oil from entering waterways. The judge issued an emergency declaration following the spill and is involved in coordinating clean-up efforts among federal, state and local agencies and Exxon.

The 20-inch Pegasus pipeline runs 858 miles from Patoka, Ill. to Nederland, Texas. Engelmann said the line was carrying Wabasca Heavy crude from western Canada when it ruptured.

Wabasca Heavy is a type of diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from Alberta's tar sands region, according to the Canadian Crude Quality Monitoring Program, an industry source that provides data on different types of Canadian oil.

Because dilbit contains bitumen—a type of crude oil that's heavier than most conventional crude oil—it can be harder to clean up when it spills into water. A2010 spill in Michigan, which released a million gallons of dilbit in the Kalamazoo River and has cost pipeline operator Enbridge more than $820 million, continues to challenge scientists and regulators as they work on removing submerged oil from the riverbed.

Dodson said emergency crews led a "monumentally successful" effort to prevent the Exxon spill from entering nearby Lake Conway, a popular recreational area. First responders set up earthen dams to contain the flow of oil, he said, and crews are working to shore up the protections as rains continue to fall and complicate the cleanup operations.

The size of the spill remains unclear. Dodson said the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated the spill at 84,000 gallons. The EPA and the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management did not return calls for comment.

According to a Saturday afternoon press release from Exxon, 189,000 gallons of oil and water have been recovered from the site so far, and it is prepared to clean up more than twice that amount.

Exxon's release said the company is "staging a response for over 10,000 barrels [420,000 gallons] to be conservative."

"They're absolutely going above and beyond" what's required, Dodson said. He praised Exxon, local, state and federal agencies for their "amazingly fast response." More than ten agencies responded to the spill within the hour, he said, and "everything fit together perfectly. It was such an efficient response."

According to Exxon, crews have deployed 2,000 feet of boom and 15 vacuum trucks. Dodson said the EPA and Exxon's contractor CTEH are monitoring air quality.

According to Exxon, crews have deployed 2,000 feet of boom and 15 vacuum trucks. Dodson said the EPA and Exxon's contractor CTEH are monitoring air quality.

The spill comes at an inopportune time for the industry, as it lobbies hard for approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline that would carry Canadian dilbit from the tar sand region to Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Obama administration must approve or reject the project because it crosses an international border. Last week, a train hauling Canadian oil derailed and leaked 30,000 gallons of crude in western Minnesota.

The solar era has begun: the industry is booming, prices are dropping, and solar energy at last seems poised to help topple the climate-altering dominance of fossil fuels. But bringing it to the masses won’t be as simple as just soaking up the sun..

To gain a better picture of the challenges to come—and of some possible solutions—electric companies and solar developers throughout the nation are watching Hawaii, which derives a larger fraction of its electricity from the sun than any other state. Homeowners and businesses have led the charge here, something that distinguishes Hawaii from other states at the forefront of solar, like Nevada and Arizona, which depend more heavily on large-scale installations.

The reasons for Hawaii’s solar boom are many. The Polynesians who inhabited the Hawaiian islands before the arrival of Europeans were entirely self-sufficient. But in 2010 it was a different picture: the state generated 86.1 percent of its electricity from imported petroleum. The high price tag on that energy, along with a heightened awareness of the islands’ isolation, has led the state to set an ambitious goal: to derive 40 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. It reached 13 percent in 2012.

Hawaii has roughly doubled its solar power capacity every year since 2007, and in 2012 installed more solar than in the last six years combined. It’s not hard to see what’s behind the solar frenzy: With the average electric bill stacking up to roughly $230 per month, Hawaii has the highest electricity rates in the nation by far—nearly twice as high as the second-most expensive state.

Solar has the potential to decrease a homeowner’s electric bill to zero, except for a monthly $18 service charge. Those kinds of savings, combined with federal and local tax credits, mean a Hawaiian homeowner can recoup the cost of a solar investment in just 3.1 years. Even if all the tax credits were removed, it would still take only 8.9 years for a Hawaii solar installation to pay for itself.

But so much solar has also created problems. Each island’s electric grid is isolated from the others, and therefore less stable than a typical mainland grid, particularly when unpredictable solar energy enters the picture. But solutions are beginning to emerge. Better energy storage systems and weather-prediction technology are being developed to stabilize those grids. Meanwhile, the Hawaii legislature is poised to reduce solar tax credits, which some say are too expensive. In short, Hawaii is solving problems today that other states may encounter tomorrow.

Hawaii’s high rate of solar adoption makes it a likely picture of California’s future, according to Elaine Sison-Lebrilla, renewable energy program manager at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The district is collaborating with the Hawaiian Electric Company to develop solutions to many of the obstacles it’s encountered.

“They’ll see these problems much sooner than us,” Sison-Lebrilla said, “and the hope is that there will be lessons learned from them and we’ll be prepared.”

“What about cloudy days?” That’s the perennial question for an industry striving to improve the efficiency of solar technology. But it’s too much power, not too little, that’s the problem in Hawaii.

“The system was not designed originally to have energy flowing two ways,” explained Peter Rosegg, spokesman for the Hawaiian Electric Company, or HECO, which provides electricity to 95 percent of the Hawaiian population. “Now all of a sudden you have rooftop solar and most of them are sending power back over these [lines] during much of the day because they’re producing more than they can use.”

Traditionally, a human operator at a centralized system operations center tracks power generation to ensure that it stays exactly equal to demand. But solar power generated by individual homes or businesses is invisible to these operators. This increases the risk of a sudden spike or drop-off in power, which can damage generation or transmission equipment—even home appliances—and cause outages and instability across the grid.

Ultimately, infrastructure upgrades—probably massive ones—will be essential. HECO and several solar industry and advocacy groups have developed a plan for rolling out these upgrades, which they presented to the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission for review in January. They recommend what they call a “proactive approach,” and advise utilities to prioritize grid upgrades in areas where they anticipate seeing the most demand for solar.

The technologies that will be used to redefine the grid are under development. Among these are “smart meters” that would make solar power generation visible to system operators. The Maui Smart Grid Projectwill be collecting data from smart meters it’s testing throughout 2013.

Short-term battery storage systems are further along, with experiments using 1-megawatt batteries now underway on three islands. Such batteries could store excess power to smooth out power spikes and lulls.

These batteries are expensive, but if they’re proven to work, Rosegg says it’s reasonable to expect demand to go up and prices to go down. And lower prices for a proven technology could pave the way for other grids around the country.

Hawaii is an ideal place to test these technologies: Unlike on the mainland, where power companies can draw electricity from surrounding areas if they run into problems, each island has its own grid that is unconnected to the others. That’s why Hawaii is in such a precarious situation in the first place, but it also makes the success or failure of any technology that’s being tested immediately visible.

Hawaii is doling out more solar tax credit dollars than ever, and now state legislators are seeking to reduce that spending. But some argue that the expenses have been overestimated, while the benefits have been overlooked.

But one solar industry leader, Mark Duda, contends that those projections were overestimated by more than $56 million, according to actual year-end figures. Duda is principal and founder of Oahu’s top solar company, RevoluSun, and president of the Hawaii PV Coalition.In September 2012, the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism projected that Hawaii would spend more than $173 million on tax credits for solar by year’s end—five times as much as in 2010.

It’s a staggering difference, and an important one, considering how closely the state legislature is watching these numbers. In the next month, the legislature is expected to vote on a measure that could gradually decrease the state’s 35 percent capped tax credit—which solar adopters receive in addition to a 30 percent federal tax credit.

How the tax credit should be handled is just one piece in a puzzle of controversies. Also on the table is a Department of Taxation administrative rule, effective January 1, which aimed to cut down on the widespread practice of claiming multiple tax credits for a single project.

Nonprofit law organization Earthjustice is now representing the Sierra Club in a lawsuit over the rule, pointing to past releases from the department that defend the practice it’s now trying to eradicate.

Such policy changes create uncertainty that hits the solar industry hard, said Isaac Moriwake, an Earthjustice attorney. “That’s the exact wrong message you want to send the market: ‘We support renewable energy. No, just kidding.’”

Cutting back on the tax credit may look like a sure way to save money in tough economic times, but Moriwake and others in the industry say uncertainty is the problem, not the tax credit.

Hawaii Solar Energy Association’s Executive Director Leslie Cole-Brooks says that when legislators worry about high tax credits, they’re overlooking a wealth of benefits and revenues.

Aside from the environmental benefits of clean energy, increased economic independence means that Hawaii’s energy prices won’t spike when oil prices do—which is what happened after the Japanese tsunami in 2011. Cole-Brooks also points to the increased income and sales tax revenues from local and mainland companies riding the solar wave. After all, the solar industry now lays claim to 26 percent of the state’s construction-related spending.

The economic benefits Hawaii is experiencing are promising for any state, at least according to a January 2013 report from the Blue Planet Foundation, a Hawaii nonprofit.

The report estimates that for every dollar spent in solar tax credits for residential installations, the state receives $1.97 in additional tax revenues. That number bumps to $2.67 for commercial installations. And the benefits don’t end there: over its lifetime, a 5.27-kilowatt residential system creates more than three jobs—and a remarkable 81 jobs are created over the lifetime of a 118-kW commercial system.

Despite these benefits, the Hawaii Solar Energy Association and Duda now support a gradual ramp-down of the tax credit. The association views this support as a compromise, but Duda says that in the context of Hawaii’s high energy prices, the credit is “unnecessarily generous.” His main goal is eliminating uncertainty in the solar industry, and for that Hawaii needs a stable tax policy.

Power companies have long been concerned about too much solar energy overloading the grid. Too much can pose a danger by suddenly powering lines which, during a power outage, utility employees don’t expect to be electrified. So for several years, Hawaii adhered to “The 15 Percent Rule,” which prohibits the owners of solar installations from producing more than 15 percent of the maximum energy demand in a given day.

Because of the 15 percent rule, some homeowners who wanted to install solar were required to undergo “interconnection studies” to test whether their installation would overload their part of the grid.

Rosegg says that 29 commercial and residential studies were required in 2012. It doesn’t sound like much, but the studies have raised a lot of controversy about whether the 15 percent rule is too strict—and with the help of that popular pressure, the rules are changing.

As Moriwake sees it, electric companies arrived at the 15 percent rule somewhat arbitrarily. He believes that percentage can be increased safely, while stimulating the industry along the way.

The Hawaiian Energy Company also refunded the cost of any studies conducted on systems 10 kW or smaller.That’s just what happened last year: Hawaii raised solar’s maximum allowable contribution to 75 percent of minimum daytime demand, or about 23 percent of maximum daily demand. Actual minimum demand generally occurs in the middle of the night when most people are sleeping, but there’s no risk of too much solar power at night, so minimum “daytime” demand is looked upon as a fairer approach.

The “proactive approach” proposal recommends increasing the allowance all the way to 100 percent of minimum demand. The Public Utilities Commission will need to review the report’s recommendations, but Moriwake hopes for a decision in the next several months.

California raised its limit to 100 percent of minimum last year without major problems, and if Hawaii, too, can handle that amount, it may encourage other states to skip overly cautious maximums that limit solar potential.

Hawaii’s weather is a lot more complex than the cloudless skies and unblinking sun most of us imagine. And with complex weather comes unpredictable solar power generation. That’s one reason many utilities hesitate to adopt solar.

“If you’ve ever been to Hawaii, their cloud cover comes in much more quickly and goes out and is a lot less predictable,” Sison-Lebrilla said. And it’s not all sunny: parts of Hawaii log some of the highest rainfall averages on Earth.

So to stabilize its grids in the face of unpredictable weather, Hawaii needs better weather prediction technologies—if utilities know when the sun will be shining and when it won’t, they can plan ahead and adjust for spikes or dips in solar power generation.

Solar forecasting aims to predict levels of sunlight and the level of solar power generation that will result. This requires predicting the cloud cover in specific areas, which the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research calls “one of the greatest challenges in meteorology.”

Developing solar forecasting tools is one of the primary goals of the collaboration between the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Hawaiian Electric Company, and they’ve already begun testing such technologies.

“We’ve put up a network of sensors in [the District’s] territory, and Hawaii has done that also,” Sison-Lebrilla said.

The Sacramento and Hawaii utilities aren’t the only organizations working on such a project, but Hawaii’s variety of microclimates could make data there more broadly applicable than if the test were conducted in a lower-penetration and more interconnected grid such as Sacramento’s.

Their research is already paying off on a national scale: The two utilities are now partners in a three-year effort, announced in February, to develop 36-hour forecasting for solar energy. The project is headed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Hawaii’s high demand for new solar installations is expected to slow down in 2013, but one thing is certain: solar is here to stay. All eyes are on the Aloha State as it overcomes these obstacles, one by one, to pave the way for solar nationwide.

Post Carbon Institute and Alternet have partnered to shed a powerful light on the true costs of our addiction to fossil fuels, starting with the Alberta tar sands

Every powerful photo is linked to three meaningful actions that you can take right now to fight back against tar sands mining. We need your help getting the word out; please take a look at the images, with your friends, colleagues and neighbors.

The mining of the Alberta tar sands is the biggest industrial project on earth and quite possibly the world's most environmentally destructive. The visuals are hard to stomach, but the story is an important one to tell. 

As conventional oil and gas, the energy industry must resort to unconventional resources that are more expensive, more technically challenging to access, and pose far greater risks to ecosystems and communities than ever before. The result is destruction on an unprecedented level.

The tar sands tale is told frame by frame, guiding us from the clear-cutting of pristine Boreal forest and creation of vast open-pit mines all the way to the pipelines that transport diluted bitumen across the continent. 

The connection between the astounding environmental destruction taking place in Canada and the debate over approval of the Keystone XL pipeline here in the US is clear. As the recent rupture of the Pegasus Pipeline in Arkansas makes abundantly clear, the transport of diluted bitumen from Alberta via pipelines to oil refineries thousands of miles away poses unacceptable environmental risks. 

As important, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a key litmus test for the Obama Administration and the country as a whole. And the rest of the world is watching. 

Although the Canadian tar sands contribute a small percentage of total global oil production and the Keystone XL Pipeline is just one of many contested fossil fuel projects in the world (in fact, First Nations and thousands of other Canadians are fighting an equally dangerous tar sands pipeline, the Northern Gateway Pipeline), this decision by President Obama is a keystone of a different kind - representing the kind of energy future we want for ourselves and our loved ones. 

For that reason, it's not mere hyperbole to say that this is a life and death decision. 

We're reaching out to you to speak up against the Keystone XL Pipeline by sharing these images with your friends, family, and neighbors, and by clicking on one of the calls to action associated with each image.  

Originally posted on EcoWatch.com

The practice of hydraulic horizontal fracturing or fracking to extract natural gas from the shale beds of the U.S. began, for all practical purposes, in 2007. Since that time, the production of natural gas within the nation has increased, gas extracted from shale beds more than making up for a decline in production from conventional sources.

And the industry has not been quiet about this growth. Hardly a day passes without some national media outlet expounding the benefits the nation will derive from this recent production “boom.” But just how real is this boom when compared with other developments within the energy industry—specifically the exponential growth of renewable energy?

Just the facts, ma’am

To be sure, there has been an increase in the production of domestic natural gas. As President Obama noted in his recent State of the Union address, production of natural gas within the U.S. has never been higher. But since 1971, when annual domestic production hit about 22,000,000 million cubic feet, natural gas production has remained fairly stable, hovering at around the 20,000,000 million cubic feet level.

In 2011, annual domestic natural gas production rose to 24,000,000 million cubic feet (growing by about 20 percent since 1995). An import fact often overlooked in discussions concerning this recent spike in production is that, while output has indeed increased, the number of gas wells needed to produce this gas has increased at a much greater rate (up about 180 percent over the same time period). 

Perhaps the real story in these numbers is that the amount of natural gas per well continues to decline. A sign of an industry past its peak, with declining reserves and lower productivity.

Where has the Real growth been?

While a 20 percent growth in production over a dozen years may be considered a “boom” by some, almost ignored in the national dialogue has been the recent growth of renewable energy. 

In 2012, renewable energy accounted for 55 percent of all the new domestic energy created in the U.S. For the first time in history, renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) has become the dominant electrical energy of choice within this nation.

Over the past ten years, wind energy capacity within the U.S. has grown by more than 960 percent. Last year wind  alone accounted for 42 percent of the total new U.S. electrical capacity installed, and wind energy capacity grew an astounding 22 percent in 2012 alone.

One reason for this remarkable growth can be found in the declining price of renewable energy installations. Since 2008, the price of commercial wind turbines has declined by nearly 30 percent. In 2011,  the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) published that wind power production costs had reached parity with the cost of producing electricity with coal (traditionally considered the cheapest source of electicity). And while the cost of wind power continues to decline, the cost of energy produced by coal continues to rise.

But what about Solar?

While the growth of wind energy capacity has been dramatic in recent years, it pales in comparison with its comparatively small renewable energy cousin—solar electric. 

For all practical purposes, the solar industry in the U.S. is only about ten years old. Prior to 2006, just a very few early adopters had deemed it practical to install relatively small and relatively expensive solar arrays. But in recent years, the price of solar energy has fallen dramatically, and as a result, the installation of photovoltaic (PV) systems has increased in an equally dramatic fashion.

The U.S. currently has about 6,500 megawatts of installed solar capacity, enough to power more than 1 million homes. This represents a growth in generating capacity of more than 1,200 percent in just five years. 

Once again, this exponential growth can be traced to declining prices. Over the past five years, the price of installed systems has been more than cut in half. And in recent years, declines in the cost of solar panels have resulted in even more dramatic price reductions.  From the third quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012, the average cost of an installed PV system dropped by 33 percent, and the average price of a solar panel declined by 58 percent.

Critics argue, however, that while renewable energy growth is indeed impressive, the numbers are quite small when compared with energy derived from fossil fuels. And they are, in fact, correct. In 2011, the U.S. consumed a staggering total of 79.02 quadrillion BTUs of energy. Of this amount, only about 11 percent was obtained from renewable sources (primarily hydro and biofuels, with only about 2 percent coming from wind and solar). 

However, exponential growth is a powerful force. Should the growth of wind and solar slow and  only double each year, within five years they would account for more than 50 percent of all the energy consumed within the U.S. While this dramatic growth rate seems highly unlikely, given production limitations and inherant barriers to market (hard to convert a natural gas power plant to solar just because it is a cheaper process)—should give one pause. The transition may take place much faster than most industry watchers imagine.

The Revolution is underway

Our society is poised to transform as renewable energy becomes the dominant source of power. How these transitions will manifest are anyone’s guess—but they will be massive and dramatic. To be sure, we as a nation have undergone such changes before. The automobile was, at first, a silly plaything for tinkerers and the wealthy. Mobile phones were status symbols, and nothing more. It was a certainty within the industry that they could never compete with the more efficient and ubiquitous land lines.

Yet our nation changed, despite the best efforts of the powerful railroads and Ma Bell. We are in the process of changing once again. 

So why all the fuss about a small bump in domestic natural gas and oil production? We need only look to politics and marketing. The fossil fuel industry is long-established, wealthy and well connected. By comparison, the renewable energy industry is a child. 

In a marketplace dominated by headline stories of visible failures such as Solendra, few Americans realize that (according to the Government Accountability Office) the electricity generated by fossil fuels receives $5 in federal subsidies for every $1 received by the renewable energy industry.

In a very real sense, the only reason the fossil fuel industry can now compete with renewable energy is because of government subsidies. 

My how the mighty have fallen. For more on this story, stay tuned to your local station …

Visit EcoWatch’s RENEWABLES page for more related news on this topic.

This article was published in partnership with  GlobalPossibilities.org.

More than 1,000 people took to the streets on an cold and foggy evening in San Francisco’s glitzy Pacific Heights neighborhood. Protesters carrying signs and chanting awaited the arrival of Obama’s motorcade, expected at a nearby fundraising event. The crowd’s message was a unified opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline currently under review by the Obama administration.

"The American people want President Obama to stand on the right side of history and take the real action he promised on climate change by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline," said Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO, one of the groups that helped to organize the event. "The only oil Americans will ever see from the pipeline that benefits foreign oil companies is the dirty tar sands crude that spills from it. Over 1,000 Obama volunteers, voters and donors turned out in San Francisco to remind our president that his legacy will be judged harshly if he approves Keystone XL. And we have over 50,000 more Americans from every state of the union willing to risk arrest in peaceful civil disobedience to stop him making the most catastrophic decision of his presidency."

CREDO was joined in organizing the event along with Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club and other groups. More than 53,000 people have recently signed a CREDO pledge to risk arrest in acts of civil disobedience if the Obama administration does approve the pipeline.  The Sierra Club is also currently organizing c ommunity town hall meetings across the country to urge to president to take decisive action on climate change.

“American families can’t wait any longer for real solutions to the climate crisis," said Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director. "Thousands of Sierra Club supporters, as well as millions of Americans nationwide, are looking for bold moves from the President to establish his legacy by reigning in the carbon pollution of dirty fossil fuels and moving our country to clean energy."

The protest in San Francisco comes less than a week after a pipeline spilled tar sands oil in Mayflower, Arkansas.

Within a week of the ExxonMobil tar sands oil pipeline burst in Mayflower, Arkansas, ExxonMobil was in charge of the clean-up, the U.S. government had established a no-fly zone over the area, some 40 residents were starting their second week of evacuation, ExxonMobil was threatening to arrest reporters trying to cover the spill, and several homeowners had filed a class action lawsuit seeking damages from the world's second-most-profitable corporation, which had helped keep the pipeline secret from terrorists.

Before March 29, even some people living next to ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipelinedidn't know it was there. All that changed abruptly around 2:45 pm that Good Friday afternoon, when a resident of the suburban subdivision reported a fresh rivulet of diluted Wabasca heavy crude oil from Canada snaking across the lawn, pooling around children's yard toys, filling gutters, and flowing on down the street, to the nearest storm drain.

(Horrendous slideshow here)

And it smelled! The smell carried for miles. Up close, prolonged exposure was potentially unhealthy, for lung, brain, peace of mind. Environmental responders monitored the air quality for days, but only some of the cleanup workers wore breathing masks.

The pipeline gushed for almost an hour before ExxonMobil had it shut down.

The cleanup began at once and continues. Local volunteers responded immediately to keep the spill from entering nearby Lake Conway, with apparent success so far. Rain hasn't helped. ExxonMobil has promised to be there till it's done. Local, state, and federal teams are also on site, but the situation remains fluid, as it were, with potential impacts possible from local to global.

Eight days into the Mayflower spill, here are some of the questions it raises and some of the current answers, subject to future refinement.

1. Why Didn't People Know They Were Living Near a Pipeline?

Excellent question. And if it gets to court as a real estate dispute, a judge may have to weigh the comparative negligence of a seller's failure to disclose against a buyer's failure to do due diligence.

But government decisions in recent years made due diligence more difficult. After September 11, 2001, fear of further terrorist attacks led to concern about the pipeline as a target. As the local KTHV television station reported, "details of its location were somewhat suppressed, but the information has become more public since then."

2. Is That Why There's a No-Fly Zone, Fear of Terrorists?

Probably not. The official Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) notice was effective shortly after 2 p.m. on April Fools Day and stated: "No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered" by the notice, which cited unnamed "hazards" and was effective "until further notice." The area covered is a circle with a 5-mile radius around the spill, up to an altitude of 1,000 feet.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on April 3 that relief aircraft in the no-fly zone would be "under the direction of Tom Suhrhoff," who turns out to be an ExxonMobil employee.

The same day, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford told Dow Jones that at least one helicopter was needed to move workers around and scout the area for further spills, and that helicopter (or helicopters) needed to be able to move about freely without needing to worry about other aircraft in the area.

A five-minute aerial video, shot by Adam Randall the same day the FAA put the no-fly zone order in place, shows some of the cleanup activities at the subdivision and in the surrounding wetlands, where the oil spread is measured in miles:

Rivulets of oil filled up ravines and trenches in the marshes near Mayflower. Black balls of crude rolled on top of the water, with the major portions of Lake Conway protected by floating partitions.

3. How Big Was the Spill in Mayflower, Arkansas?

Probably nobody knows yet. ExxonMobil said it was providing equipment and manpower sufficient to deal with a spill of 10,000 barrels. ExxonMobil also said that was a "conservative" response to the spill, which they expect is smaller. ExxonMobil considers this a small spill.

Published estimates of the size of the spill range from 2,000 to 12,000 barrels. By April 5, USA Today was reporting the spill as "tens of thousands of barrels of heavy crude oil."

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration estimate is 3,500-5000 barrels. (A rough estimate based on the pipeline capacity of 90,000 barrels per day, with the pipeline gushing for an hour would produce a spill of about 3,750 barrels of Wabasca heavy crude tar sands oil.)

By the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a "major spill" is anything more than 249 barrels.

Regulators recently levied a fine of $1.7 million on ExxonMobil for a July 2011 spill in the Yellowstone River in Montana, where the amount of oil spilled was about 1,500 barrels.

4. What's the Worst That Can Happen from This Spill?

The biggest concern when the spill was first discovered was that the raw oil would reach Lake Conway, only a mile from the hole in the pipeline.

As an Arkansas state promotional website explains:

At 6,700-acres, Lake Conway is the largest man-made game and fish commission lake in the United States. Construction of the lake began in 1948, with its waters coming from the runoff of Stone Dam Creek, Gold Creek, Palarm Creek, Little Cypress Creek and Panther Creek. Its average depth is six feet, with a maximum depth of 18 feet. The lake is approximately eight miles long with 52 miles of shoreline.

The lake is separated from the pipeline by an Interstate highway (a source of daily pollution itself), and within a few days of the spill the oil had migrated under the highway past several sets of oil booms set out by ExxonMobil.

So far the spill has injured or killed 16 ducks, two turtles, and a muskrat.

5. Who Filed a Lawsuit? And on What Grounds?

Two residents of the polluted Northwoods subdivision, Kimla Greene and Kathryn Jane Roachell Chunn, filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Little Rock on April 5, seeking an unstated amount of damages on behalf of themselves and their neighbors, anyone living within 3,000 feet of the burst pipeline.

The suit seeks compensation for damage caused by the pipeline failure, including lost property values, environmental damage, and other harm, the value of which could reach several million dollars, if they win the case.

6. Who Decided Who Should Be Evacuated?

The Mayflower Incident Unified Command includes ExxonMobil, Faulkner County, the EPA, and the City of Mayflower. Local officials reportedly recommended the evacuation of 22 houses closest to the pipeline soon after the spill occurred. There seems to have been no resistance. ExxonMobil has promised to pay the expenses of the some 40 people evacuated. The City of Mayflower maintains a web site with details of the spill and response.

Residents may not be allowed to return to their homes for a month or more. So far they have filed about 140 claims with ExxonMobil.

7. Who Instituted What Amounts to Martial Law in the Subdivision?

Nobody, at least not officially. Some reporters have complained about the heavy-handed controls imposed by authorities, who have effectively closed off the spill zone as they see fit. Suzi Parker in Grist argued that ExxonMobil "has instituted something like martial law."

Lisa Song from Inside Climate News and Michael Hibblen of local public radio KUAR described similar encounters with the Faulkner County Sheriff's Department. Both recount the sheriff's deputies first denying them access to the site and herding them into a restricted area. Then, soon after, without explanation, the deputies ordered the reporters to leave within 10 seconds or face arrest for criminal trespass.

This use of county sheriff departments is a pattern in East Texas, where TransCanada is building the Keystone XL pipeline to carry more dilbit, tar sands oil, to Gulf coast refineries. In Texas the deputies under the control of TransCanada used pepper spray, physical violence, and forms of torture on protestors before arresting most of them. There have been no reported arrests in Arkansas.

8. What's the Difference Between Wabasca Heavy Crude and Tar Sands Oil?

Little or nothing.

If there's any significant difference, it's not widely known yet. It all comes from the same wide region of Canada, it's all bitumen, and it all has to be diluted to be moved by pipeline. What's in the pipeline is all diluted bitumen, or dilbit.

It's hard to find out what the dilutants (or diluents) are, which is probably important.

9. Where Does Wabasca Heavy Crude Oil Come From?

Wabasca Heavy comes from the tar sands region of Alberta, Canada. It moves primarily via Pembina and Rainbow pipelines to Edmonton and on to the pipeline nexus in Hardisty. From there it is distributed to destinations in Canada and the U.S.

One route takes Wabasca Heavy through the existing Keystone pipeline to Patoka, Illinois. There it transfers to ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline which takes it to Nederland, Texas, by way of Mayflower, Arkansas, about 25 miles north of Little Rock.

10. What Is this Pegasus Pipeline?

ExxonMobil owns and operates the Pegasus pipeline, a 20-inch diameter pipe that is 858 miles long and is mostly buried between Patoka, Illinois, and Nederland, Texas.

Pegasus was built in the 1940s, to bring refined oil north from Texas. In 2006, ExxonMobil reversed the direction of the pipeline's flow to carry Wabasca Heavy south. In 2009, ExxonMobil increased the carrying capacity of the pipeline by 50%, to 90,000 barrels per day. Published estimates of its carrying capacity range from 80,000 to 95,000 barrels per day.

An ExxonMobil press release announcing the expansion added that: "Operational enhancements, such as new leak detection technology, were also incorporated to support ExxonMobil Pipeline Company's primary focus on operating its pipelines in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

The federal class action lawsuit alleges that these changes – including reversing the flow and increasing the capacity – weakened the pipeline and contributed directly to its failure in Mayflower.

On April 3, CBS News reported – falsely – that the pipeline had "carried crude oil from Canada to Texas for decades." CBS did not mention tar sands, bitumen, or dilbit, treating the spill by omission as if it were not unusual.

In 2010, ExxonMobil was fined $26,200 by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration for failing to inspect the Pegasus pipeline as frequently as required by law.

The pipeline was last inspected in February 2013, but the results are not public.

11. So What Happens to the Wabasca Heavy in Nederland?

In Nederland, which is part of the greater Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area along the Gulf coast of Texas, Wabasca Heavy will leave the pipeline for processing at one of the many local refineries.

12. Does Diluted Bitumen/Dilbit Corrode Pipelines Faster Than Other Oil?

The answer is in dispute.

Environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) say dilbit corrosion is greater, based in part on the fact that pipelines carrying dilbit oil have spilled 3.6 times more oil than the U.S. average. A study by the Alberta government concluded that dilbit oil causes more pipeline failures than conventional oil. These arguments address somewhat different questions. The U.S. National Academies of Science has a committee studying the question, but it has so far been hampered by the unwillingness of pipeline companies to share sufficient data.

13. Has Dilbit Oil Ever Spilled Before?

Of course, although records are not comprehensive. The most notable diluted bitumen spill in recent history was in 2010, when an Enbridge owned-and-operated pipeline burst and dumped an unknown amount of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, polluting some 40 miles of river and wetlands.

The Kalamazoo River cleanup is now in its third year and has cost more than $800 million so far.

14. Who's the World's Most Profitable Corporation?

Gazprom, the Russian oil company, with almost $44.5 billion in annual profit, as reported in Fortune's Global 500 list (using 2011 data).

ExxonMobil is #2, with annual profits of $41 billion. This is good enough to rank ExxonMobil #1 among American corporations, way ahead of #2, Chevron, with annual profits of $26.9 billion.

Coming in third, at $32.2 billion a year, is the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The first "Tar Sands Oil Arkansas" (published April 7)discussed a number of questions raised by the ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline that burst in Mayflower, Arkansas, on March 29, pumping tar sands oil — technically Wabasca Heavy crude oil — into a residential neighborhood for almost an hour.

Among the questions touched on in that piece were protecting the pipeline from terrorists, residents suing ExxonMobil in federal court, the nature of Wabasca Heavy tar sands oil, some effects of the spill, and the "martial law" atmosphere described by reporters trying to look at the cleanup site.

As the second week of toxic air in Mayflower begins, here are more of the questions this disaster raises and some of the current answers, subject to future refinement. A reader writes:

1. What is the point of origin of the leak? In front of whose house? Why no image of the hole in the ground or in the pipe? Was it corrosion, a weld failure, sabotage by cutting or explosives, or WHAT? Do we have to wait for NTSB for answers? Are ExxonMobil and their execs too big to jail?

The point of origin appears to be in the woods, behind the houses, and underground. The absence of images is unexplained.

Corrosion or weld failure seem to be two likely possibilities for the cause of the leak.

As reported so far, the spill started quietly, with no one aware of the moment it started. It's not clear how long it took for someone to become aware, but not too long, presumably.

The circumstances known so far make sabotage (or inadvertence) by cutting, explosion, backhoe, bulldozer, or other means seem unlikely.

Several of the press releases issued by the Mayflower Incident Unified Command Joint Information Center over the past several days conclude with the statement: "The cause of the spill is under investigation."

Since ExxonMobil and its employees have not yet been convicted of committing a crime, it seems premature to consider jailing them.

2. Why were the pipeline and the residential subdivision built so close together?

Close is a relative term. There's no suggestion so far that the subdivision was built illegally, or didn't have the right permits, or interfered with the pipeline right of way, or anything like that.

Interestingly, though, the Arkansas Times interviewed a former ExxonMobil pipeline worker who raised questions about the company's commitment to safety.

The report continued:

He raised, too, a question mentioned here yesterday by another pipeline engineer about the wisdom of building new subdivisions over existing pipelines, as happened in Mayflower.

Considering the potential stress of building on top of a pipeline and the high pressure used when transporting heavy crude,É the developer of Northwoods should have worked with Exxon to reroute Pegasus around the neighborhood.

Other options, he said, include replacing the section of the pipeline with newer, stronger steel or burying it deeper under the ground. But ... pipeline companies have little incentive to take costly preventive action.

Even if they get a fine the fine will be a small fraction of the cost to correct a dangerous condition, he said.

3. Who Is the Mayflower Incident Unified Command?

The command's letterhead includes the logos for ExxonMobil, Faulkner County, the U.S. Environmental Protection Service (EPA), and the City of Mayflower, Arkansas.

It has been hard for reporters on the scene to learn much more. Even CBS News had to stay outside the yellow tape.

4. Hasn't ExxonMobil been forthcoming with information and documentation relating to the Pegasus pipeline rupture?

Well, no, not really.

As a result, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has issued a subpoena for relevant documents from ExxonMobil. The deadline for complying with the subpoena is April 10, almost two weeks after the spill. ExxonMobil has said it will comply.

5. Why isn't ExxonMobil more open, since we give them subsidies and tax breaks worth billions of dollars every year?

Don't start with that. This is about Mayflower, Arkansas. You can read about the tax shelter and subsidy thing somewhere else, such as American Progress.

6. But ExxonMobil does have to pay into the federally mandated fund for oil spill cleanups, right?

Yes and no. It's the "no" part that matters here.

With the Pegasus pipeline pumping Wabasca Heavy tar sands oil, ExxonMobil is not required to pay anything into the oil spill cleanup fund. Not a penny. Why? Because tar sands oil, according to the law written by Congress and interpreted by our tax collectors, is not oil. So its pumpers are exempt from contributing to the cleanup fund.

If it were more traditional, lighter crude oil in the pipeline, someone would be paying 8 cents per barrel into the oil-spill liability trust fund.

7. Isn't tar sands oil like Wabasca Heavy more difficult and more expensive to clean up than lighter traditional oils?

Yes.

8. Doesn't that make a difference?

Apparently not to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which administers the cleanup fund. In a 2011 decision, the IRS exempted tar sands oil, diluted bitumen, dilbit fron the 8 cents tax per barrel (42 gallons).

9. Why doesn't Congress do something about that?

Seriously?

10. Seriously.

Congressman Ed Markey, D-Mass, has tried.

11. After a week, has the tar sands oil been contained?

Probably not.

Arkansas Online reported on March 29, the day of the spill, without indicating the source of the information, that "Oil that spilled into waterways from a ruptured pipeline in Mayflower has been contained."

The report continued:

Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said blockades have been set up at two different locations along a waterway that flows into Lake Conway. Those blockades are preventing the contaminated water from passing.

A dam made of dirt, wood and other building materials has been erected in the initial ditch that contains a majority of the oil, with an additional blockade set up in two culverts connected to coves that allow water into Lake Conway.

The obstructions will prevent any oil from passing through for an extended period of time, possibly days, Dodson added.

12. If the oil was contained the first day, what's all the fuss about?

Early reports appear to have been overly optimistic.

There are more than 100 photographs on the web site for the EPA On Site Coordinator, from the period March 29-April 6. They show that the oil got into active waterways almost immediately on March 29. And at least some of the oil was also flowing on the ground and into the street, ending up going down a storm drain.

EPA image #78 shows "Sorbent boom in place at discharge point from neighborhood underneath Main Street" — four days after the spill, on April 2.

EPA image #90 shows "Containment boom installed in Lake Conway" on April 2.

13. Has tar sands oil reached Lake Conway or not?

ExxonMobil reportedly says it has not.

Grist.org reporter Suzi Parker says that Arkansas Attorney General McDaniel "reported Friday morning [April 5] that there is oil in Lake Conway despite ExxonMobil's assurances to the contrary."

The Grist report adds:

"Great efforts have been taken to limit the spread of the oil to only one area of Lake Conway, which is referred to as the Cove, but the Cove and Lake Conway are hydrologically connected and are therefore one body of water," Aaron Sadler, spokesman for McDaniel, told Grist.

Meanwhile, access to the site continues to be tightly policed. According to InsideClimate, ExxonMobil threatened reporter Lisa Song with arrest on Wednesday when she entered the command center looking for government officials.

14. So is it like martial law or a police state in Mayflower, or are these just more whiners and media frenzy whippers?

Hard to tell. Of course it could be both.

The restricted area is considerably smaller than the no-fly zone's 78 square miles.

It's not clear what happened to the press conference that was announced for April 6.

Here's the way the Arkansas Times saw it as of April 6:

Public accountability remains a pressing issue. The Faulkner County judge disclaimed responsibility in refusing an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette FOI request for county records related to cleanup activities. This is on top of police-state actions by Faulkner County officials to let Exxon Mobil set rules on public access to affected areas.

The secrecy is wrong. The delegation of authority to a private company is wrong. But Faulkner County officials are deeply in the thrall of the energy industry thanks to the Fayetteville shale play. Public interest takes a backseat.

15. But didn't Exxon Mobil just win a big time safety award?

Yes, indeed, it did.

The National Safety Council announced on April 3 that ExxonMobil had won the 2013 Green Cross for Safety, awarded at the annual fundraising dinner in Houston that night. The award was for ExxonMobile's "leadership and comprehensive commitment to safety excellence."

According to the National Safety Council press release:

ExxonMobil distinguished itself over a period of years for outstanding achievements in workplace safety, community service, environmental stewardship and responsible citizenship. It believes the best way to meet this commitment is through a capable, committed workforce as well as practices designed to enable safe, secure and environmentally responsible operations. ExxonMobil accomplishes this through clearly defined policies and practices, and with rigorously applied management systems designed to deliver expected results.

It remains steadfast in its goal that "Nobody Gets Hurt."

Past recipients of the Green Cross for Safety medal include the Dow Chemical Company, Schneider Electric North America, Exelon Nuclear, FirstGroup, Delta Air Lines, UPS, DuPont, Liberty Mutual Group, Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler, Kenny Construction Company, Ryder System Inc., Intel Corporation and AK Steel.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

On the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, EPA rated the adequacy of the State Department’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) as having “Insufficient Information.”

Yesterday was the last day to submit public comments to the State Department regarding the proposed pipeline that would transport 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil through the U.S. per day.

EPA’s Cynthia Giles, the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement, has submitted the agency’s public comment. They could have rated the adequacy of the impact statement three different ways: “Adequate,” “Insufficient Information,” or “Inadequate.” They rated it “Insufficient Information,” which means that they do not know enough to fully assess the environmental impacts of a tar sands pipeline traversing the continent.

Here are the reasons EPA said that State’s DEIS needs more work:

• Increased carbon pollution: EPA acknowledged the DEIS’s attempt to do a life-cycle analysis of the pipeline’s emissions, which found that emissions from oil sands crude would be 81 percent higher than regular crude, or an incremental increase of 18.7 million metric tons of CO2 per year. EPA noted that “If GHG intensity of oil sands crude is not reduced, over a 50 year period the additional CO2 from oil sands crude transported by the pipeline could be as much as 935 million metric tons.” These statistics are alarming, yet EPA’s analysis did not stop there.
• Not inevitable: Like other experts, EPA doubted State’s assurance that this tar sands oil would come out of the ground with the Keystone pipeline or without it:
  

  The market analysis and the conclusion that oil sands crude will find a way to market: With or without the Project is the central finding that supports the DSEIS’s conclusions regarding the Project’s potential GHG emissions impacts. Because the market analysis is so central to this key conclusion, we think it is important that it be as complete and accurate as possible.

  It then goes on to detail the ways in which this market analysis is incomplete: It uses outdated modeling, and the expense and infeasibility of rail shipping as an alternative to Keystone both need to be considered.

• Pipelines don’t pump themselves: EPA recommends that renewable energy be used to power the pumping stations along the pipeline, because otherwise the constructed pipeline itself will actively emit GhG emissions.
• Tar sands oil is particularly dirty to clean up: The EPA notes that diluted bitumen is very dense and sinks to the bottom of rivers and lakes. The 2010 Enbridge spill will require dredging, because normal cleanup methods do not suffice. The Keystone pipeline would be 36 inches in diameter — larger than the pipe that leaked 20,000 barrels of oil in the Enbridge spill. EPA notes that dilbit contains some very toxic materials “such as benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heavy metals” that “could cause long-term chronic toxicological impacts” to wildlife. EPA recommends including a seriously revamped and rethought response plan as conditions before any permit is issued to build a pipeline.
• Who needs drinking water?: Though Keystone’e proponents received praise for moving the original route away from the Sand Hills, it still crosses the Ogallala Aquifer. The EPA notes there is another way: “The alternative laid out in the DSEIS that would avoid the Ogallala Aquifer is the I-90 Corridor Alternative, which largely follows the path of existing pipelines.” There were additional alternatives that State’s EIS did not address, and EPA asked it to do so.

That does not sound like the a “no-brainer” that Keystone’s advocates have described. That sounds exactly like the nation’s top environmental cops on the beat responding to an assessment of a project made by a firm being paid by the pipeline’s owner.

The death toll from a garment building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh climbed to at least 200 Thursday, more than doubling initial reports, according to the Associated Press. The updated body count comes amid revelations that factory owners ignored police orders to evacuate the property, leaving more than 2,000 mostly female workers to perish in a ramshackle building.

As search crews combed through the rubble for survivors, NGOs and activists spoke out against Western corporations that push international manufacturers to cut costs at the expense of workers’ lives. According to the New York Times, activists discovered labels and documents in the wreckage from Walmart, the Spanish brand Mango, British chain Primark, Dutch retailer C & A, Benetton and Cato Fashions.

“What we're saying is that bargain-basement (clothing) is automatically leading towards these types of disasters,” John Hilary, head of War on Want, told Reuters.

“The front-line responsibility is the government’s, but the real power lies with Western brands and retailers, beginning with the biggest players: Walmart, H & M, Inditex, Gap and others,” Scott Nova, executive director of Workers Rights Consortium, told the Times.

Bangladesh is the second biggest clothing manufacturer after China, but rising wages in the latter country has pushed corporations to look elsewhere to cut costs. The minimum wage for Bangladesh the country is $37 a month. Times’ reporters Julfikar Ali Manik and Jim Yardley explain how Bangladesh’s miniscule wages have transformed the country into a global center for garment manufacturing.

Such low labor costs have attracted not just Walmart but almost every major global clothing company, including Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others. Bangladesh now has more than 5,000 garment factories, employing more than 3.2 million workers, many of them women, and advocates credit the industry for lifting people out of poverty, even with such low wages. Exports also provide a critical source of foreign exchange that helps the government offset the high costs of imported oil.

Just five months before the collapse in Dhaka, a fire in the nearby Tarzeen factory killed 112. That carnage compelled multinational corporations to pledge higher safety standards for their hired sweatshops.

“I made clothes for Walmart, Sean Combs, Disney along with others … and I’m here to ask them to pay the full and fair compensation to us and at the same time ensure factory safety in Bangladesh,” Sumi Abedin, a survivor from the Tarzeen factory fire, told Democracy Now Thursday through interpreter Kalpona Akter, who is also Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. Akter said none of the companies attended a meeting to discuss paying compensation to the fire’s victims and their families.

Corporations have been silent, cautious or completely dismissive of responsibility in the wake of the Dhaka disaster. A Walmart spokesperson told the Times that it’s looking to see if the company produced clothing in the collapsed factory. A spokesperson from Benetton denies any link.

Meanwhile, the corpses pile up while emergency workers continue to scout for survivors. The Associated Press reported a chilling account from Dhaka:

An Associated Press cameraman who went elsewhere into the rubble with rescue workers spoke briefly to a garment worker pinned face down in the darkness between concrete slabs and next to two corpses. Mohammad Altab pleaded for help, but they were unable to free him.

"Save us, brother. I beg you, brother. I want to live," Altab moaned. "It's so painful here ... I have two little children."

Another survivor, whose voice could be heard from deep in the rubble, wept as he called for help.

"We want to live, brother. It's hard to remain alive here. It would have been better to die than enduring such pain to live on. We want to live. Please save us," the man cried.

And disturbingly, while search crews pulled bodies out of factory rubble, victims sept and moaned and families mourned the deaths of their loved ones, Slate’s Matt Yglesias used the collapse in Dhaka, which he wrongly reported as a fire, to defend the premise that “Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That's OK.”

Steven Hsieh is an editorial assistant at AlterNet and writer based in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter @stevenjhsieh.

“This was like a dream come true,” said a radiant Sossi Mohamed Sadek, a Tunisian second year engineering student who was one of the hundreds of local volunteers at the World Social Forum in Tunis. “To see our university overflowing with over 50,000 people from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the United States, the Middle East—it was extraordinary. I came away with new ideas and new friends that will surely have a great impact on my life.”

Many Tunisians were thrilled to have hosted the eleventh World Social Forum, held from March 26-30, 2013. It marked the first time that the world’s largest global gathering of progressives—a gathering born in Brazil in 2001 out of the protests against corporate-dominated globalization—took place in an Arab nation. It came at a time when the world has been rocked by grassroots uprisings in the Arab world, but also increasing mobilizations to counter the climate crisis, and massive economic protests from southern Europe to “Occupy” groups in the United States to student movements from Quebec to Chile.

In recognition of the overarching danger of climate chaos, this was the first Social Forum to have a dedicated “Climate Space” with ongoing discussions about issues such as the need for food sovereignty, water justice and respect for the rights of indigenous and forest peoples. The climate sessions also denounced false solutions being put forward by many governments and corporations, including biofuels, GMO crops and geoengineering.

The debt/trade section of the Forum focused on ways to counter austerity measures, destructive free trade agreements and the onerous debts imposed by banks on both governments and individuals. Participants searched for alternatives to the undemocratic economic reforms being pushed by international lenders in countries such as Italy, Greece, and Cyprus, but also in Tunisia and Egypt, where the people are being asked to pay for debts incurred by previous dictators.

Interspersed throughout the forum’s hundreds of workshops, dozens of assemblies and street rallies were the challenges, contradictions and unresolved clashing visions since the early heady days of the Arab Spring.

One of the contradictions involves the role of women. The Arab Spring has spawned a new women’s movement in response to the rise of conservative religious governments in the region. According to Forum organizers, that’s why a women’s assembly was chosen to open the Forum. “The new regimes want constitutions to be more religious, and women all over the region are taking a stand against this,” said Hamouda Soubhi from Morocco. In the raucous, jam-packed women’s assembly, women cheered, chanted and applauded their sisters standing up to male oppression. “When we have situations like in Egypt where women are raped while attending demonstrations, we obviously have unfinished revolutions and need this kind of gathering to re-inspire us,” said a beaming, young Egyptian activist.

This clash between Islamists and secularists in the Arab world was present throughout the Forum. Plastered on the walls was the photo of Chokri Belaid, a Tunisian lawyer, Marxist, and leader of the leftist Popular Front who was murdered in February. Many Tunisian leftists used the Forum to denounce the new government run by the Ennahda party. But government supporters insisted that Ennahda is a moderate, tolerant Islamist party and felt that the secular vision was overrepresented at the Forum. At one of the closing assemblies, a government supporter encouraged forum goers to talk directly to Ennahda members instead of simply talking about them.

But it was the conflict in Syria that really spilled over into the forum in an ugly way, with supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shouting down and beating up opposition supporters—even women. Rumor had it that the Assad government purposely sent provocateurs to the forum. The atmosphere was so explosive that a group wanting to discuss nonviolent alternatives in Syria felt compelled to leave campus and meet instead in a downtown hotel.

Other conflicts highlighted at the forum were the Palestinian struggle and the lesser-known 37-year-old liberation struggle of the people of Western Sahara, now occupied by Morocco. There were several confrontations at the Forum on this issue as well, when Moroccan government supporters—at workshops and on stage at a plenary—attempted to shout down (and on one occasion punch) the independence activists.

Given the life-and-death struggles in the region, coupled with government infiltrators and agitators, organizers were proud that they managed to calm tensions internally, without ever having to call the police, and that no one was seriously hurt.

At one of the closing gatherings, participants were asked to evaluate the forum. Many of the criticisms were about poor planning and logistics: 20 percent of the hundreds of workshops never took place; locations were hard to find and there were scores of last minute room changes; nothing started on time; translation equipment rarely worked; speakers spoke too long, leaving no time for discussion.

Some complained that for a forum that is supposed to pose alternatives, the sessions are old-fashioned “talking heads” instead of interactive. US environmental activist William Kramer said, “I’m used to more participatory processes, not just presentations. For me, it was really the spaces between events where I learned the most.” Some of the younger folks, including US participants from the Occupy movement, created their own democratic space to have an open dialogue with Tunisians.

Other criticisms were about lack of concrete solutions. The larger assemblies often turned into simply denunciations of corporations, governments and capitalism.  “If slogans could win,” said one participant, “the left would be in power. Chanting ‘smash capitalism’ might make us feel good, but it doesn’t provide a path forward.”

Others wanted more global actions to emerge from the summit, not simply statements. Past forums have led to critical global actions, such as the February 15, 2002 global day of protests against the pending US invasion of Iraq, or joint campaigns to stop international free trade agreements. At this forum, groups working on different issues came up with new networks and joint campaigns—for example, the anti-drone workshop was attended by people from 15 countries who decided to form a global anti-drones network—but there was no call for a particular global action coming from the Forum as a whole.

When asked if the forums should continue, there was unanimous support. “Where else could we possibly come together like this and inspire each other to create another world?” said Eyad Bilad, a Tunisian student. Evoking the name of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire, triggering the events that led to the Arab Spring, he added, “For all those who have died struggling for justice, we must continue to learn from each other how to build a world that does not respond to the greed of dictators, bankers or corporations, but to the needs of simple people like Mohamed Bouazizi.”

Tom Engelhardt (?The 12th Anniversary of American Cowardice What You Don't Know Can Hurt You.? Information Clearing House: 3.28.2013), co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of many publications including The United States of Fear offers a penetrating insight to the US war culture:

It's true that, last week, few in Congress  cared to discuss , no less memorialize, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  Nonetheless, two anniversaries of American disasters and crimes abroad -- the ?mission accomplished?  debacle  of 2003 and the  45th anniversary  of the My Lai massacre -- were at least noted in passing in our world.  ?..Or what about celebrating the 12th anniversary of Congress's  Authorization for Use of Military Force , the joint resolution that a panicked and cowed body passed on September 14, 2001?  It wasn't a declaration of war -- there was no one to declare war on -- but an open-ended grant to the president of the unfettered power to use ?all necessary and appropriate force? in what would become a never-ending (and  still expanding ) ?Global War on Terror.

Still, in our post-9/11 world, there are so many other anniversaries from hell whose silver linings don't get noticed.  Take this April.  It will be the ninth anniversary of the widespread release of the now infamous photos of torture, abuse, and humiliation from Abu Ghraib.  In case you've forgotten, that was Saddam Hussein's old prison where the U.S. military taught the fallen Iraqi dictator a trick or two about the destruction of human beings.  Shouldn't there be an anniversary of some note there?  I mean, how many cultures have turned  dog collars  (and the  dogs  that go with them),  thumbs-up signs  over dead bodies, and a  mockery  of the crucified Christ into  screensavers ?

Wars and aggressions kill people and do not produce peace and harmony but resentment and degeneration. History illustrates when a nation or its leaders challenge the limits of the Laws of God and approach near the end of their lifespan, insanity takes-over common sense and they tend to ignore warnings and reject all voices of reason. Most of the conscientiously responsible Western scholars and political intellectuals are getting increasingly concerned, not to identify their interests with the minority ruling elite of the United States and Britain as these war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair and their role in large scale massacres of the civilians and using uranium powered missile for destruction of human habitats in Fulljah, Iraq, and killings of civilians by drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University - a distinguish scholar of Western-Islamic civilizations (author of Unholy War and What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam), makes a candid observation: ?in many parts of the Muslim world the war against global terrorism has come to be viewed as a war against Islam and Muslims. The image of America has become that of a neo-imperial power that has sought to redraw the map of the Middle East and the Muslim world, influenced by an unholy alliance of neoconservatives and the militant Christian right.?

Once again, humanity appears to have been pushed back to the shameful annals of the European Dark Ages. In search of new animosity, few utopian scholars wanted to distract the humanity after the end of the Cold War to keep the liberal democracy working and ensure electoral voters active participation. In early 90's, Samuel Huntington reinvented and re-ignited the old cliché - ?a clash of civilizations? between the West and Islam - a new age of confrontation between the predominantly technologically advanced culture of the West and the subdued interdependent societal religious culture of the Muslim world. The powerful mass media and the official policy makers throughout the West, fuel the insane imagery that the Arabs and Muslims are ?fundamentalists? and ?terrorists.? Every day, the corporate run media outlets organize massive propaganda campaign alleging Al-Qaeda involvement virtually in all conflict situations across the Middle East, West Africa and Asia and elsewhere. The facts remain unchallenged that al-Qaeda was planned and created by the CIA and they know well it does not exist anymore as an active body of political activists pursuing any strategic goals against the Western highly sophisticated war machines, be it in Afghanistan , Pakistan or other locations.

Analyzing the contemporary global affairs, the image of a single most World Power is fixed and unquestionable, be it fair or foul. The net outcome shows the manufactured imagery of Muslims as the alleged terrorists and the sole inheritor of the 21 st century political ideology. With massive corporate sponsorships and the Western mass media collaborative alliances, Islamic civilization is the only targeted client of this emerging business. What about the Arabs and Muslims, have they done anything to challenge the absurdity of the so called ?war on terrorism? and to safeguard their political interests and human survivability?

There are no educated, conscientious or publicly chosen leaders in the Arab- Muslim world except the recent President Morsi of Egypt and political leaders in Tunisia . The authoritarian ruling elite are the outcome of neo-colonialism. There are no Muslim institutions to provide honest analyses on the global political affairs or reflect on the possible remedies. Throughout the Arab-Muslim world, there is not a single established university teaching global peace, security and conflict management - the institutions dealing with the present and envisioning the future that the Western nations are built upon for change and development. Leaderless Muslim masses appear desperate to look for a visionary and intelligent leader to offer some consolence and intellectual security. Not so, in the Arabs or Muslim countries, leaders live in palaces, not with people. All the leaders are pre-screened by the CIA and the World Bank before taking a shape and form to move into a palace. Accordingly, Saddam Hussein, Shah of Iran, General Musharaf, Zardari and Karzai fit into that facilitated image and governance.

The neo-colonial rulers have helped the Colonial Masters to make the Muslim masses helpless victim of their warmongering and inhuman atrocities being carried out at Gutanamo Bay , Abu Ghraib Prison, and Massacre at Fullajah, Haditah, Bughdad, Kandhar, South-North Waziristan-Pakistan and elsewhere. There is no Sultan Salahuddin Ayoubi that the European would fear for centuries to come, there are no Sultan Babyar and Sheikh Izzuddin to give blowing defeats to Halaqu Khan - the Mongol warlord, and no Allama Iqbal or Ali Shariati to awake the sleeping folks and guide the believers to success.

If there were educated and intelligent leaders in the Muslim world, one could reason the unreason. But the oil exporting Arab leaders operate from a position of political weakness, not strength to play any useful role in international politics. They have built palaces over moving sand, not institutions to educate and protect the interest of the Muslim Ummah. Imagine the dichotomy of the living history, the Christian Crusaders came, ransacked and killed 170, 000 Muslims just in one day to occupy Jerusalem . Despite assurances of peace and religious sanctity, the Crusaders moved horses in blood-flown streets to capture Jerusalem . When Sultan Salahuddin Ayoubi reconquered Jerusalem , the visionary leader allowed and escorted all the Christian Crusaders to safety with human dignity, honor and material wealth. History shall describe a corporate world run by greed and animalistic savagery, preoccupied to influence and control the destinies of the living human beings under the guise of economic feasibility and market interests.

Zbigniew Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard, 1997), former Security Advisor to President Carter, makes an historical reference: ?American primacy and its geostrategic imperatives describe American priorities as the economic subjugation of the Soviet Union and the control of Central Asia and the Middle East .? With the continued wars of aggressions in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan , the international institutions overwhelmingly controlled and managed by the Western Powers have become irrelevant to the 21 st century needs of the global humanity. Across the Western world, masses vigorously oppose the on-going deadly wars in Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan . In wars people are killed, leaders are not. None of the Western leaders have ever fought a war on the real front. Simply put, there are politicians lacking reason and honesty of purpose, and are engaged in time killing discussions. The continued wars serve the interest of the corporate establishments and the Western economies. The image of deliberately dismantled system of global governance is meant to appease the economically influential and politically smart Western elite. Hitler and Mussolini were Europeans, not Arabs or Muslims, and they did not rule alone on their own, as there were millions to cheer them up and support their leadership egos with galvanized news media alignment of the time, and their personal ideologies as law and order of the day. At the initial stages of the 21 st century, the replica is exactly the same from the pages of history, only the names and titles have been changed and adjusted ? a small minority of ?sick puppies' are determined to occupy the oil and gas resources and to wipe out the Arabs and Islamic civilization under the guise of terrorism.

Changing the names of Hitler and Mussolini, now historian and prosecutors responsible for conducting the war crimes will mention Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair and many more. Britain knows what it lost, cannot regain in colonial history, but the American empire has yet to learn the hard lessons. It is more fearful that soon it could be replaced by China in combination of another economically viable power or group of nations from the emerging rival economies of Asia . Professor John Esposito (Unholy War and What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam) . provides us the History Lessons in a rational context:

?An important lesson of history is that rulers and nations do rise and fall. Unforeseen circumstances can bring up unanticipated change. Few expected the breakup of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe to occur when they did ??now is the time for those in all walks of life (political, economic, military, media and academic) who wish to see a new order not to be silenced but to speak out, organize, vote and be willing when necessary to make sacrifices in promoting a new global order.?

On the 10 th anniversary of the Iraqi genocide, there were no statements issued by the Obama administration or apologies by British politicians. Even the BBC broadcast simply offered visual facts and commentaries but no remorse for the dreadful crimes against the living mankind. Tom Ingelhardt (?The 12th Anniversary of American Cowardice What You Don't Know Can Hurt You.? Information Clearing House: 3.28.2013), sums up the paradox of contemporary global affairs - how the history will judge the warmongers by their actions or claims:

?We should already know more than enough to be horrified by the state of our American world.  It should disturb us deeply that a government of, by, and for the war-makers, intelligence operatives, bureaucrats, privatizing mercenary corporations, surveillers, torturers, and assassins is thriving in Washington.  As for the people -- that's us -- in these last years, we largely weren't there, even as the very idea of a government of, by, and for us bit the dust, and our leaders felt increasingly unconstrained when committing acts of shame in our name. So perhaps the last overlooked anniversary of these years might be the 12th anniversary of American cowardice.  You can choose the exact date yourself; anytime this fall will do.  At that moment, Americans should feel free to celebrate a time when, for our ?safety,? and in a state of anger and paralyzing fear , we gave up the democratic ghost.?

?Among the many truths in that still-to-be-written secret history of our American world would be this: we the people have no idea just how, in these years, we've hurt ourselves.?

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution, and comparative Western-Islamic cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest one: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Academic Publishing , Germany , May 2012)

The Danish capital is moving rapidly toward a zero-carbon future, as it erects wind farms, transforms its citywide heating systems, promotes energy efficiency, and lures more people out of their cars and onto public transportation and bikes

Wikimedia Commons
The Middelgrunden wind farm in Copenhagen Harbor.

Among the first sights to greet visitors to Denmark on the descent to Copenhagen’s airport is a sweeping arc of wind turbines rising from the harbor. From the airport, passengers can board an automatic Metro line that hustles them to the city center in just 15 minutes, crossing the path of the City Circle Line, a subway project that will place 85 percent of Copenhageners within 650 yards of a Metro station when the line opens in 2018.

Everywhere, visitors are greeted by streams of bicyclists; 36 percent of trips to work or school in the Danish capital are made by bike, and more than 20,000 cyclists enter the city center at peak hours, filling Copenhagen’s 249 miles of cycle tracks. Less visible are state-of-the-art facilities where waste heat from power plants is used to keep buildings warm via the world’s largest district heating network, or where waters from the city harbor are deployed to cool department stores, office buildings, hotels, and data centers.

These innovations are just a prelude to what is planned in the coming years, all designed to make Copenhagen the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. Acting on a City Council plan approved last August, Copenhagen intends to replace coal with biomass, to add more wind and solar electricity to the grid, to upgrade energy-guzzling buildings, and to lure even more residents onto bikes and public transit.

“Copenhageners like the ambition, they like being part of the idea of going green for the whole city,” Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen said in an interview with Yale Environment 360. “Our focus as a city, as citizens, is all about livability.” The mayor said that city residents are putting their own money into the low-carbon drive, noting that half of the turbines in the harbor wind farm, known as Middelgrunden, were funded by individual Copenhagen shareholders.

Clearly, Copenhagen’s plans face significant challenges, especially since city planners expect Copenhagen to add more than 100,000 residents by 2025. But at stake is the notion that a growing, modern city with more than a half-million inhabitants can systematically wring carbon from its economy. The battle to slow climate change will be won or lost in cities, which are responsible for more than 70 percent of global CO2 emissions and two-thirds of worldwide energy consumption.

Copenhagen has already made major progress, reducing its emissions by 21 percent from 2005 to 2011. The city currently emits about 2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, and earlier initiatives were on target to reduce emissions to 1.16 million tons by 2025. The new plan approved last year will slash CO2 emissions even further, to about 400,000 tons by 2025. More time will be needed to wean private cars from fossil fuels. So Copenhagen plans to add at least 100 wind turbines to the grid over the next dozen years, and wind electricity not used in the city will be exported to other parts of Denmark to offset Copenhagen’s remaining several hundred thousand tons of transportation emissions.

Nearly three-quarters of the emissions reductions identified in the 2025 plan will come by transitioning to less carbon-intensive ways of producing heat and electricity. The goal is a diverse but complementary clean energy supply: biomass, wind, geothermal, and solar. “The Danish energy system is very much a systems solution – it’s not power as one, and heat as one — it’s integrated,” Jørgen Abildgaard, Executive Climate Project Director for the city of Copenhagen, says. Wind turbines now supply 30 percent of Denmark’s electricity, and under a national energy plan passed last year that share is set to rise to 50 percent by 2020.

Though not as visible as Copenhagen’s bicyclists and wind turbines, its heating and cooling infrastructure is playing a key role in slashing CO2 emissions. One of Copenhagen’s most innovative infrastructure projects is the Adelgade cooling plant, sheltered within the brick-clad shell of a retired power plant in the historic city center. Opened in June 2010, the plant is the hub of the country’s first district cooling network and a model of climate-conscious engineering.

The Adelgade plant draws cool seawater from an intake pipe located near the picturesque Nyhavn Canal and then delivers the chilled water through insulated pipes to buildings; the pipes are located below ground in the same tunnels in which steam is distributed via Copenhagen’s district heating network. Thomas Grinde, an engineer with Copenhagen Energy — a private firm owned by the city — took me on a tour of the plant. He said that every degree Celsius saved by pre-cooling with seawater saves 15 percent on electricity at the site’s absorption chillers. The city estimates that district cooling reduces carbon emissions by nearly 70 percent and electricity consumption by 80 percent compared to conventional air-conditioning.

From the cooling plant, Grinde drove me south to the Amager power station complex, which sprawls across a spit of land jutting into Copenhagen Harbor. There, a pilot project supplies geothermal heat directly into the district heating system. In March, construction began nearby on a clean-burning waste-to-energy plant that will provide electricity and heating to 150,000 households. According to Mayor Jensen, half of Copenhagen’s indoor heating comes from combusting waste.

The two major combined heat and power (CHP) stations that serve Copenhagen, Amager and Avedøre, largely burn coal. But because waste heat from the stations is sent to the district heating system, they operate at around 90 percent efficiency, compared to around 40 percent for conventional coal-fired power plants. Rather than use furnaces or boilers located in individual buildings for heating, Copenhagen delivers hot water or steam to radiators via a network of pipes covering 98 percent of the city.

Under the climate plan, district heating is to be carbon neutral by 2025. The Amager and Avedøre plants, which today burn a limited amount of biomass imported from Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic countries, will replace coal entirely with wood chips and straw certified as sustainable by the Danish Energy Association.

Copenhagen’s pursuit of carbon neutrality also rests on its ability to meet demanding energy efficiency and transportation goals. Commercial and residential buildings are to reduce electricity consumption by 20 percent and 10 percent respectively, and total heat consumption is to fall by 20 percent by 2025.

In an interview, Bo Normander, director of the Worldwatch Institute’s Europe office and a Copenhagen City Council member, noted that new buildings in Copenhagen must now be constructed to Denmark’s Low Energy Class ratings; the 2020 standard calls for near net-zero energy buildings.

It will be considerably harder to achieve energy savings in existing buildings. More than 70 percent of Copenhagen’s buildings were constructed before the introduction of Denmark’s energy efficiency standards, and a major hurdle is the so-called landlord-tenant dilemma, since many Copenhageners rent and neither tenants nor landlords have a strong financial interest in retrofitting buildings to make them more efficient.

“Most of the people here rent,” Marianna Lubanski, executive director of the Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster, told me. “If I own a building, and I have 10 people living there, and I invest a lot of money in energy savings, my tenants will get the savings, not me. We need new ways to share the costs and gains of energy efficiency... Copenhagen can’t succeed with their plan if they don’t find a way.”

She said she would like to see an ESCO (energy service company) market launch in Denmark, where private firms take on the risk of guaranteeing energy savings and in return are paid a fee by landlords or tenants.

Another key component of becoming a net zero-carbon city is further reducing the use of cars. Bo Normander, like many Copenhageners, does not own a car and bikes to work. “It’s the most convenient, quickest, and healthiest way to get around,” he said.

Newcomers to Copenhagen quickly learn the same, as did I. Within a few weeks of starting a job in Copenhagen, in 2008, I abandoned the Metro for a bike, which became my year-round way of getting around, no matter the weather. Weekday mornings, I pedaled along the perimeter of the cemetery where Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard rest, girding myself for the merge into the horde of bicycle commuters racing along Nørrbrogade, Copenhagen’s busiest bike corridor, toward the city center. It was exhilarating and invigorating, and easily the fastest way to my office. Why would anyone own a car here? I often wondered.

The question is even more relevant today. Intent on reducing transportation’s share of the total city emissions, currently 22 percent, Copenhagen is expanding its cycling and public transit infrastructure to attract even more users. The improvements include “green wave” traffic signals set to the speed of oncoming bikes, angled footrests that enable cyclists to rest without dismounting at intersections, and an additional 44 miles of cycle tracks — paved paths separated from cars and pedestrians by curbs. To entice suburban commuters to abandon cars for bikes, Copenhagen is partnering with neighboring cities to add wider, smoother, better-lit cycle tracks. In April 2012, the first so-called “bike superhighway,” an 11-mile link connecting Albertslund with Copenhagen, opened. Two more are under construction and a total of 26 are planned, Normander said. By 2025, the city wants 75 percent of trips to be made by foot, bike, or public transit.

The city will also invest in alternative fuels. Abildgaard said Copenhagen is looking to convert its bus fleet to models powered by hybrid drives running on biogas. The city projects that 20 percent to 30 percent of all cars and small trucks, and 30 percent to 40 percent of all heavy vehicles, will run on electricity, hydrogen, biogas, or bioethanol by 2025. By 2015, 85 percent of the city’s fleet of 1,000 small vehicles will run on electricity, hydrogen, or biofuels, officials say.

What will all this cost? Direct city investment in the 2025 Climate Plan is estimated to be $472 million through 2025. Add private funds and total investment could hit $4.78 billion over the same period, Copenhagen officials say. “We can see that we have to invest a lot of money to reach the target,” Mayor Jensen told me. “But we can see also that we can create a lot of new jobs with that huge investment. Copenhagen can be a green laboratory for developing and testing new green solutions.”

Normander was upfront about the challenges. He will be watching to see, for instance, if the Avedøre and Amager power plants can sustainably source enough biomass. And he worries that as Copenhagen adds 1,000 residents per month, traffic will increase, even though the city lacks room for additional cars.

“It’s a very ambitious plan,” he said. “But it’s also something we can do.”

Justin Gerdes is an independent journalist specializing in energy issues who is based in Concord, California. His work has appeared at Forbes.com, Motherjones.com, GreenBiz.com, and Chinadialogue. From October 2008 to December 2009, he worked as an editor and writer for Monday Morning, a publishing house and think tank based in Copenhagen. The reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Press Initiative.

print http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/breaking-news/world/world-climate-change-goal-risk-emissions-surge-un-20130413

[2] Apr. 12, 2013 , ?World climate change goal at risk as emissions surge-UN?,

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/04/12/climate-targets-idINL5N0CZ24620130412?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=401

The global community is informed, mature and vigilant, and no single nation can dare to use weapons of mass destruction unilaterally and defy the dire consequences of self annihilation and destruction. American leadership knows it well too. So what is this all fuss about? What is this nonsense of nuclear weapons development in Iran ? Imagine, if the Shah, the absolute king of Iran was alive and buying the weapons from the US , would America move to strangle Iran ? No, certainly NOT. The dead Shah was a fraternal friend during the time of seven America Presidents. Isn't this another myth of the continued bogus War on Terrorism raged on the false pretext of the WMD in Iraq ? Paul Craig Roberts ( ?the Next War on Washington 's Agenda.? PaulCraigRoberts.org    01/12/2012 ), has offered a rational context to the current problem:

?We, as Americans, need to ask ourselves what all this is about? Why is our government so provocative toward Islam , Russia , China , Iran ? What purpose, whose purpose is being served? Certainly not ours ... Where do we go from here? If not to nuclear destruction, Americans must wake up.?

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany , May 2012)

Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the U.S. intelligence community, the earth is already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, you’re on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity has never before experienced.

Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change -- are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict. Just what this tsunami of disaster will look like may, as yet, be hard to discern, but experts warn of “water wars” over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring prices for life’s basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence), and the breakdown of social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia, and other areas of the underdeveloped South, but in time all regions of the planet will be affected.

To appreciate the power of this encroaching catastrophe, it’s necessary to examine each of the forces that are combining to produce this future cataclysm.

Resource Shortages and Resource Wars

Start with one simple given: the prospect of future scarcities of vital natural resources, including energy, water, land, food, and critical minerals. This in itself would guarantee social unrest, geopolitical friction, and war.

It is important to note that absolute scarcity doesn’t have to be on the horizon in any given resource category for this scenario to kick in. A lack of adequate supplies to meet the needs of a growing, ever more urbanized and industrialized global population is enough. Given the wave of extinctions that scientists are recording, some resources -- particular species of fish, animals, and trees, for example -- will become less abundant in the decades to come, and may even disappear altogether. But key materials for modern civilization like oil, uranium, and copper will simply prove harder and more costly to acquire, leading to supply bottlenecks and periodic shortages.

Oil -- the single most important commodity in the international economy -- provides an apt example. Although global oil supplies may actually grow in the coming decades, many experts doubt that they can be expanded sufficiently to meet the needs of a rising global middle class that is, for instance, expected to buy millions of new cars in the near future. In its 2011 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency claimed that an anticipated global oil demand of 104 million barrels per day in 2035 will be satisfied. This, the report suggested, would be thanks in large part to additional supplies of “unconventional oil” (Canadian tar sands, shale oil, and so on), as well as 55 million barrels of new oil from fields “yet to be found” and “yet to be developed.”

However, many analysts scoff at this optimistic assessment, arguing that rising production costs (for energy that will be ever more difficult and costly to extract), environmental opposition, warfare, corruption, and other impediments will make it extremely difficult to achieve increases of this magnitude. In other words, even if production manages for a time to top the 2010 level of 87 million barrels per day, the goal of 104 million barrels will never be reached and the world’s major consumers will face virtual, if not absolute, scarcity.

Water provides another potent example. On an annual basis, the supply of drinking water provided by natural precipitation remains more or less constant: about 40,000 cubic kilometers. But much of this precipitation lands on Greenland, Antarctica, Siberia, and inner Amazonia where there are very few people, so the supply available to major concentrations of humanity is often surprisingly limited. In many regions with high population levels, water supplies are already relatively sparse. This is especially true of North Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, where the demand for water continues to grow as a result of rising populations, urbanization, and the emergence of new water-intensive industries. The result, even when the supply remains constant, is an environment of increasing scarcity.

Wherever you look, the picture is roughly the same: supplies of critical resources may be rising or falling, but rarely do they appear to be outpacing demand, producing a sense of widespread and systemic scarcity. However generated, a perception of scarcity -- or imminent scarcity -- regularly leads to anxiety, resentment, hostility, and contentiousness. This pattern is very well understood, and has been evident throughout human history.

In his book Constant Battles, for example, Steven LeBlanc, director of collections for Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, notes that many ancient civilizations experienced higher levels of warfare when faced with resource shortages brought about by population growth, crop failures, or persistent drought. Jared Diamond, author of the bestseller Collapse, has detected a similar pattern in Mayan civilization and the Anasazi culture of New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon. More recently, concern over adequate food for the home population was a significant factor in Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and Germany’s invasions of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941, according to Lizzie Collingham, author of The Taste of War.

Although the global supply of most basic commodities has grown enormously since the end of World War II, analysts see the persistence of resource-related conflict in areas where materials remain scarce or there is anxiety about the future reliability of supplies. Many experts believe, for example, that the fighting in Darfur and other war-ravaged areas of North Africa has been driven, at least in part, by competition among desert tribes for access to scarce water supplies, exacerbated in some cases by rising population levels.

“In Darfur,” says a 2009 report from the U.N. Environment Programme on the role of natural resources in the conflict, “recurrent drought, increasing demographic pressures, and political marginalization are among the forces that have pushed the region into a spiral of lawlessness and violence that has led to 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than two million people since 2003.”

Anxiety over future supplies is often also a factor in conflicts that break out over access to oil or control of contested undersea reserves of oil and natural gas. In 1979, for instance, when the Islamic revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Washington began to fear that someday it might be denied access to Persian Gulf oil. At that point, President Jimmy Carter promptly announced what came to be called the Carter Doctrine. In his 1980 State of the Union Address, Carter affirmed that any move to impede the flow of oil from the Gulf would be viewed as a threat to America’s “vital interests” and would be repelled by “any means necessary, including military force.”

In 1990, this principle was invoked by President George H.W. Bush to justify intervention in the first Persian Gulf War, just as his son would use it, in part, to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Today, it remains the basis for U.S. plans to employ force to stop the Iranians from closing the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean through which about 35% of the world’s seaborne oil commerce passes.

Recently, a set of resource conflicts have been rising toward the boiling point between China and its neighbors in Southeast Asia when it comes to control of offshore oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea. Although the resulting naval clashes have yet to result in a loss of life, a strong possibility of military escalation exists. A similar situation has also arisen in the East China Sea, where China and Japan are jousting for control over similarly valuable undersea reserves. Meanwhile, in the South Atlantic Ocean, Argentina and Britain are once again squabbling over the Falkland Islands (called Las Malvinas by the Argentinians) because oil has been discovered in surrounding waters.

By all accounts, resource-driven potential conflicts like these will only multiply in the years ahead as demand rises, supplies dwindle, and more of what remains will be found in disputed areas. In a 2012 study titled Resources Futures, the respected British think-tank Chatham House expressed particular concern about possible resource wars over water, especially in areas like the Nile and Jordan River basins where several groups or countries must share the same river for the majority of their water supplies and few possess the wherewithal to develop alternatives. “Against this backdrop of tight supplies and competition, issues related to water rights, prices, and pollution are becoming contentious,” the report noted. “In areas with limited capacity to govern shared resources, balance competing demands, and mobilize new investments, tensions over water may erupt into more open confrontations.”

Heading for a Resource-Shock World

Tensions like these would be destined to grow by themselves because in so many areas supplies of key resources will not be able to keep up with demand. As it happens, though, they are not “by themselves.” On this planet, a second major force has entered the equation in a significant way. With the growing reality of climate change, everything becomes a lot more terrifying.

Normally, when we consider the impact of climate change, we think primarily about the environment -- the melting Arctic ice cap or Greenland ice shield, rising global sea levels, intensifying storms, expanding deserts, and endangered or disappearing species like the polar bear. But a growing number of experts are coming to realize that the most potent effects of climate change will be experienced by humans directly through the impairment or wholesale destruction of habitats upon which we rely for food production, industrial activities, or simply to live. Essentially, climate change will wreak its havoc on us by constraining our access to the basics of life: vital resources that include food, water, land, and energy. This will be devastating to human life, even as it significantly increases the danger of resource conflicts of all sorts erupting.

We already know enough about the future effects of climate change to predict the following with reasonable confidence:

* Rising sea levels will in the next half-century erase many coastal areas, destroying large cities, critical infrastructure (including roads, railroads, ports, airports, pipelines, refineries, and power plants), and prime agricultural land.

* Diminished rainfall and prolonged droughts will turn once-verdant croplands into dust bowls, reducing food output and turning millions into “climate refugees.”

* More severe storms and intense heat waves will kill crops, trigger forest fires, cause floods, and destroy critical infrastructure.

No one can predict how much food, land, water, and energy will be lost as a result of this onslaught (and other climate-change effects that are harder to predict or even possibly imagine), but the cumulative effect will undoubtedly be staggering. In Resources Futures, Chatham House offers a particularly dire warning when it comes to the threat of diminished precipitation to rain-fed agriculture. “By 2020,” the report says, “yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%” in some areas. The highest rates of loss are expected to be in Africa, where reliance on rain-fed farming is greatest, but agriculture in China, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia is also likely to be severely affected.

Heat waves, droughts, and other effects of climate change will also reduce the flow of many vital rivers, diminishing water supplies for irrigation, hydro-electricity power facilities, and nuclear reactors (which need massive amounts of water for cooling purposes). The melting of glaciers, especially in the Andes in Latin America and the Himalayas in South Asia, will also rob communities and cities of crucial water supplies. An expected increase in the frequency of hurricanes and typhoons will pose a growing threat to offshore oil rigs, coastal refineries, transmission lines, and other components of the global energy system.

The melting of the Arctic ice cap will open that region to oil and gas exploration, but an increase in iceberg activity will make all efforts to exploit that region’s energy supplies perilous and exceedingly costly. Longer growing seasons in the north, especially Siberia and Canada’s northern provinces, might compensate to some degree for the desiccation of croplands in more southerly latitudes. However, moving the global agricultural system (and the world’s farmers) northward from abandoned farmlands in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, India, China, Argentina, and Australia would be a daunting prospect.

It is safe to assume that climate change, especially when combined with growing supply shortages, will result in a significant reduction in the planet’s vital resources, augmenting the kinds of pressures that have historically led to conflict, even under better circumstances. In this way, according to the Chatham House report, climate change is best understood as a “threat multiplier... a key factor exacerbating existing resource vulnerability” in states already prone to such disorders.

Like other experts on the subject, Chatham House’s analysts claim, for example, that climate change will reduce crop output in many areas, sending global food prices soaring and triggering unrest among those already pushed to the limit under existing conditions. “Increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as droughts, heat waves, and floods, will also result in much larger and frequent local harvest shocks around the world… These shocks will affect global food prices whenever key centers of agricultural production area are hit -- further amplifying global food price volatility.” This, in turn, will increase the likelihood of civil unrest.

When, for instance, a brutal heat wave decimated Russia’s wheat crop during the summer of 2010, the global price of wheat (and so of that staple of life, bread) began an inexorable upward climb, reaching particularly high levels in North Africa and the Middle East. With local governments unwilling or unable to help desperate populations, anger over impossible-to-afford food merged with resentment toward autocratic regimes to trigger the massive popular outburst we know as the Arab Spring.

Many such explosions are likely in the future, Chatham House suggests, if current trends continue as climate change and resource scarcity meld into a single reality in our world. A single provocative question from that group should haunt us all: “Are we on the cusp of a new world order dominated by struggles over access to affordable resources?”

For the U.S. intelligence community, which appears to have been influenced by the report, the response was blunt. In March, for the first time, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper listed “competition and scarcity involving natural resources” as a national security threat on a par with global terrorism, cyberwar, and nuclear proliferation.

“Many countries important to the United States are vulnerable to natural resource shocks that degrade economic development, frustrate attempts to democratize, raise the risk of regime-threatening instability, and aggravate regional tensions,” he wrote in his prepared statement for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Extreme weather events (floods, droughts, heat waves) will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism.”

There was a new phrase embedded in his comments: “resource shocks.” It catches something of the world we’re barreling toward, and the language is striking for an intelligence community that, like the government it serves, has largely played down or ignored the dangers of climate change. For the first time, senior government analysts may be coming to appreciate what energy experts, resource analysts, and scientists have long been warning about: the unbridled consumption of the world’s natural resources, combined with the advent of extreme climate change, could produce a global explosion of human chaos and conflict. We are now heading directly into a resource-shock world.

Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left, just published in paperback by Picador. A documentary movie based on his book Blood and Oil can be previewed and ordered at www.bloodandoilmovie.com. You can follow Klare on Facebook by clicking here.

- la bonté de l’homme est une flamme qu’on peut cacher mais qu’on ne peut pas éteindre (Nelson MANDELA, cité dans un long chemin vers la liberté.)

- Les droits humains doivent être tenus pour sacrés. Mention d'Emmanuel KANT, dans son projet de paix perpétuelle.

- Une société qui prive les jeunes d’espoir ne peut prétendre à la durabilité et l’on ne peut pas y bâtir une culture des droits humains. (Exprimé par Daisaku IKEDA, dans sa proposition pour la paix du 26 janvier 2013.)

- La non-violence, n’est pas synonyme de passivité. Les gens doivent être solidaires et lutter pour la dignité humaine. Paroles de Aung San Suu KYL, dans ma Birmanie.

- Personne, n’est assez insensé pour préférer la guerre à la paix ; en temps de paix, les fils ensevelissent leurs pères ; en temps de guerre les pères ensevelissent leurs fils. Propos tenus par Hérodote - Histoires 1

- Qui vit en paix avec lui-même, vit en paix avec l’univers, affirma Marc Aurèle dans pensées pour moi-même.

- La grande majorité des peuples déteste la guerre et appelle la paix à grands cris majorité des peuples. Texte d’ERASME dans son plaidoyer pour la paix.

- il ne faut pas se contenter de faire des pas qui mèneront un jour au but, mais chaque pas doit-être un but et être considéré en lui-même comme un pas. Johan Wolfgang GOETHE-conversations avec Eckermann-Editions Gallimard 1988, p. 63

- Aujourd’hui instaurer une culture de paix est devenu l’affaire de tous. Il est vital de s’en convaincre car l’avenir sera pacifique ou ne sera pas. Propos de Federico MAYOR, ancien Directeur général de l’UNESCO, publiés dans la paix demain.

- La non-violence est la loi de notre espèce, comme la violence est la loi de la brute (…) La dignité de l’homme exige d’obéir à une loi supérieure : à la force de l’esprit. Cité par le Mahatma GANDHI, dans la voie de la non-violence.

- Un être humain….perd aussi sa propre dignité, s'il ne respecte pas la dignité des autres. Propos tenus par le grand historien britannique du XXe siècle :Arnold J. TOYNBEE, dans l'ouvrage "Choisis la vie"

- the kindness of the man is a flame which one can hide but that one cannot extinguish (Nelson Mandela, quoted in a long way towards freedom.)

- The human rights must be held for crowned. Mention of Emmanuel KANT, in his project of perpetual peace.

- A company which deprives the young people of hope cannot claim with durability and one cannot build a culture of the human rights there. (Expressed by Daisaku IKEDA, in its proposal for the peace of January 26th, 2013.)

- Non-violence, is not synonymous with passivity. People must be interdependent and fight for human dignity. Words of Aung San Suu KYL, in my Burma.

- Nobody, is enough foolish to prefer the war with peace; in times of peace, the sons bury their fathers; in time of war the fathers bury their sons. Remarks made by Hérodote - Stories 1

- Which lives in peace with itself, lives in peace with the universe, affirmed Marcus Aurelius in thoughts for myself.

- The large majority of the people hates the war and calls peace with great cries majority of the people. Text of ERASME in its plea for peace.

- one should not be satisfied to take steps which will lead one day to the goal, but each step must-being a goal and being considered in itself as a step. Johan Wolfgang GOETHE-conversations with Eckermann-Editions Gallimard 1988, p. 63

- Today to found a culture of peace became the business of all. It is vital to be convinced some because the future will be peaceful or will not be. Matter of Federico MAYOR, former Chief executive officer of UNESCO, published in peace tomorrow.

- Non-violence is the law of our species, as violence is the law of rough (…) The dignity of the man requires to obey a higher law: by the strength of the spirit. City by Mahatma GANDHI, in the way of non-violence.

- A human being….also its own dignity loses, if it does not respect the dignity of the others. Remarks made by the large British historian of the 20th century:Arnold J. TOYNBEE, in the work “Selected life”

(1) Le cannibalisme de « survie » ou du fait des malades mentaux n’est pas mis en doute. Voir à ce propos, Jacques Lecomte, LA BONTE HUMAINE, Odile Jacob, 2012, p.208

(2) Il traduit, par exemple, le terme yanomami waiteri par « féroce » alors qu’il signifierait « ne pas se soumettre ».

(3) LA BONTE HUMAINE p.198

La dévalorisation est, en fait, un moyen d’avilir l’autre afin de justifier de pratiques inhumaines. Comme le dit Claude Lévi-Strauss : « le barbare, c’est d’abord l’homme qui croit à la barbarie(4) ». Si certains sont cannibales, alors on n’aura pas de scrupules à les réduire en esclavage. S’ils ont des comportements condamnables, alors on pourra plus facilement en faire des bêtes de somme…. C’est la fonction du bouc émissaire : l’animal, sur lequel, le jour du Pardon, le prêtre du Temple de Jérusalem chargeait les péchés d’Israël. Les juifs et les chrétiens du IIe siècle sont aussi accusés de cannibalisme par les Romains. Plus tard, ce sont des chrétiens qui accusent les juifs de cannibalisme et de pratiquer le meurtre rituel d’enfants chrétiens, etc. Nous croyons facilement que les autres peuvent être déviants, mais avons du mal à croire que certains nous considèrent comme tels. Pourtant, lorsque Tanzaniens ou Mélanésiens ont rencontré pour la première fois des Européens, ils en eurent peur, car ils croyaient qu’ils étaient cannibales (5) ….

Les peuples pacifiques sont présents sur les cinq continents, mais ils ont été largement ignorés par des anthropologues avides de sensation. La sociologue américaine Elise Boulding, pionnière des études en matière de culture de paix, définit celle-ci comme une culture « qui promeut la diversité et qui gère avec créativité les conflits et les différences propres à chaque société, parce qu’aucun être humain n’est semblable à un autre (6) ».

Elle distingue ainsi conflit et violence, cette dernière étant la « souffrance intentionnelle infligée, pour ses propres fins, à autrui (7) ».

Il n’y a pas de société sans conflits, mais il peut y en avoir sans violence. La violence ne résout pas les problèmes, elle les envenime.

Ces peuples promeuvent des valeurs permettant de prévenir les conflits : égalité, contrôle de soi, non-violence (considérée comme une force), évitement (une personne voire la population entière, se déplacera si un conflit risque de dégénérer), négociation (présentation d’excuses, échanges de dons), médiation (lors de celle-ci, la réconciliation est considérée comme plus importante que de savoir qui a raison), éducation ouverte (essentielle dans la transmission).

(4) RACE ET HISTOIRE (1952) Gallimard, 1987, p.22

(5) Cf. William Arens, cité par J. Lecomte, p.214

(6) E. Boulding et D.IKEDA , INTO FULL FLOWER, MAKING PEACE CULTURES HAPPEN,

Dialogue Path Press, p.95

(7) CULTURES OF PEACE, THE HIDDEN SIDE OF HISTORY, Syracuse University Press 2000, p.89

De nombreuses cultures défendent ces valeurs : Tasaday, des Philippines (ils n’ont pas de mots pour la colère, le meurtre ou la guerre) ; Ifalik du nord de l’Australie : !Kung, de Namibie et du Bostwana ; Zatopec, du Mexique ; Semai, de Malaisie (8) …

Le sociologue Johan Van der Dennen recense ainsi jusqu’à 520 peuples chez lesquels la guerre est absente ou défensive.

Un exemple significatif est la Ligue des Iroquois qui, pendant plus de trois siècles (de 1450 à 1777), rassemblait cinq, puis six nations d’Indiens d’Amérique du Nord. Cette ligue a permis d’éliminer la guerre entre ses membres. Les Iroquois ont codifié leurs principes, fondés sur la négociation et la consultation, dans une Grande Loi de paix, ébauche de Constitution pacifique et démocratique.

Dans son dialogue avec Elise Boulding, Daisaku Ikeda dit à leur propos : « les femmes avaient un pouvoir considérable dans la tradition iroquoise. Elles choisissaient les chefs de clans et pouvaient au besoin les révoquer (9) ». Ceci explique peut-être cela ….

La paix est source de prospérité. Comme l’a bien montré le scientifique américain Jared Diamond, ce sont les conflits répétés, la perte de partenaires commerciaux ou la dégradation environnementale qui provoquent le déclin voire la disparition des sociétés (10).

(8) LA BONTE HUMAINE p. 216-218

(9) INTO FULL FLOWER, p.53

(10) EFFONDREMENT, Gallimard, 2006

(1) http://nswas.org

(2) Bruno Hussar, nswas.org

Le village manque aussi du soutien gouvernemental notamment d’ordre financier pour les infrastructures publiques. Il dépend en grande partie des dons d’associations amies.

Fondé sur une éthique de coexistence, Neve Shalom - Wahat as Salam fonctionne sur des liens de collaboration à tous les niveaux : éducatif, social, religieux et politique (Israéliens et Arabes se relaient aux fonctions de responsabilité). Démonstration réussie du passage d’une culture de conflits en une culture de compréhension mutuelle, le village a reçu le prix Niwano de la paix (33) en 1993.

Né en Egypte dans une famille juive non pratiquante, Bruno Hussar (1911-1996) fait d’abord ses études au Caire avant d’intégrer une école parisienne d’où il sort ingénieur. Il se convertit alors au christianisme et entre dans l’Ordre des Prêcheurs. Envoyé en Israël en raison de ses origines juives, il fonde un centre dominicain d’étude du Judaïsme à Jérusalem. Il obtient la citoyenneté israélienne en 1966. Son désir d’établir des ponts entre les hommes l’amène à la création de Neve shalom – Wahat as Salam en 1970.

(3) Attribué tous les ans par la Fondation Niwano (fondation japonaise d’inspiration bouddhiste) à une personnalité ou à un groupe travaillant à la compréhension mutuelle entre différentes cultures et religions.

(1) The cannibalism of “survival” or the mentally ills is not questioned. See on this subject, Jacques Lecomte, HUMAN KINDNESS, Odile Jacob, 2012, p.208

(2) It translates, for example, the term yanomami waiteri by “wild” whereas it would mean “not to be subjected”.

(3) HUMAN KINDNESS p.198

The devalorization is, in fact, a means of degrading the other in order to justify inhuman practices. Like Claude Lévi-Strauss says it: “the barbarian, it is initially the man who believes in cruelty (4)”. So some are cannibals, then one will not have scruples to reduce them in slavery. If they have condemnable behaviors, then one will be able more easily to make beasts of burden of them…. It is the function of the scapegoat: the animal, on which, the day of Forgiveness, the priest of the Temple of Jerusalem charged the sins with Israel. The Jews and the Christians of the 2rd century are also accused of cannibalism by the Romans. Later, they are Christians who show the Jews of cannibalism and to practice the ritual murder Christian children, etc We believes easily that the others can be deviating, but has difficulty believing that some regard us as such. However, when Tanzanians or Melanesian met for the first time of Europeans, they were afraid of it, because they believed that they were cannibals (5)….

The peaceful people are present on the five continents, but they were largely ignored by avid anthropologists of feeling. The American sociologist Elects Boulding, pionnière of the studies as regards culture of peace, defines this one as a culture “which promotes diversity and which manages with creativity the specific conflicts and differences to each company, because no human being is similar to another (6)”.

She distinguishes thus conflict and violence, the latter being the “inflicted intentional suffering, for her own ends, with others (7)”.

There is no company without conflicts, but there can be without violence. Violence does not solve the problems, it poisons them.

These people promote values allowing to prevent the conflicts: equality, self-control, non-violence (regarded as a force), avoidance (person even population whole, will move if a conflict is likely to degenerate), negotiation (presentation of excuses, exchanges of gifts), mediation (at the time of this one, the reconciliation is regarded as more important than to know which is right), open education (essential in the transmission).

(4) RACE AND HISTORY (1952) Gallimard, 1987, p.22

(5) Cf William Arens, quoted by J. Lecomte, p.214

(6) E. Boulding and D.IKEDA, INTO FULL FLOWER, MAKING PEACE CULTURES HAPPEN,

Dialogue Path Press, p.95

(7) CULTURES OF PEACE, THE HIDDEN SIDE OF HISTORY, Syracuse University Close 2000, p.89

Many cultures defend these values: Tasaday, of Philippines (they do not have words for anger, the murder or the war); Ifalik of the north of Australia: !Kung, of Namibia and Bostwana; Zatopec, of Mexico; Sowed, of Malaysia (8)…

The sociologist Johan Van der Dennen counts thus to 520 people among whom the war is absent or defensive.

A significant example is the League of the Iroquois one which, during more than three centuries (of 1450 to 1777), gathered five, then six nations of Indians of North America. This league made it possible to eliminate the war between its members. The Iroquois ones codified their principles, based on the negotiation and the consultation, in a Great Law of peace, outline of peaceful and democratic Constitution.

In its dialog with Elects Boulding, Daisaku Ikeda says about them: “the women had a considerable power in the Iroquois tradition. They chose the chiefs of clans and could with the need to revoke them (9)”. Perhaps This explains that….

Peace is source of prosperity. As indeed showed it the American scientist Jared Diamond, in fact the repeated conflicts, the loss of business partners or the environmental degradation cause the decline even the disappearance of the companies (10).

(8) HUMAN KINDNESS p. 216-218

(9) INTO FULL FLOWER, p.53

(10) COLLAPSE, Gallimard, 2006

(1) http://nswas.org

(2) Bruno Hussar, nswas.org

The village misses also governmental support in particular of a financial nature for the public infrastructures. It depends mainly on the gifts of friendly associations.

Based on an ethics of coexistence, Firn Shalom - Wahat ace Salam functions on bonds of collaboration on all the levels: educational, social, religious and political (Israelis and Arabs take turns with the functions of responsibility). Successful Demonstration of the passage of a culture of conflicts in a culture of mutuel understanding, the village received the Niwano prize of peace (33) in 1993.

Born in Egypt in a Jewish family not practising, Bruno Hussar (1911-1996) initially made his studies in Cairo before integrating a Parisian school from where it leaves engineer. He converts then with Christianity and enters the Order of the Preachers. Sent in Israel because of its Jewish origins, it founds a Dominican center of study of the Judaism in Jerusalem. It obtains the Israeli citizenship in 1966. Its desire to establish bridges between the men the pleasing one with the creation of Firn shalom - Wahat ace Salam in 1970.

(3) Allotted every year by the Foundation Niwano (Japanese foundation of Buddhist inspiration) to a personality or a group working with the mutuel understanding between various cultures and religions.