The latest issue of Nature contained a paper by Daniel G. Boyce, Marlon R. Lewis & Boris Worm called Global phytoplankton decline over the past century. This research describes a planetary catastrophe which, on a scale of 1 to 10, ranks about 8.5 on the disaster scale. This post should be viewed as a follow-up to How We Wrecked The Oceans (DOTE, May 17, 2010).

Here's the Nature abstract—

In the oceans, ubiquitous microscopic phototrophs (phytoplankton) account for approximately half the production of organic matter on Earth. Analyses of satellite-derived phytoplankton concentration (available since 1979) have suggested decadal-scale fluctuations linked to climate forcing, but the length of this record is insufficient to resolve longer-term trends. Here we combine available ocean transparency measurements and in situ chlorophyll observations to estimate the time dependence of phytoplankton biomass at local, regional and global scales since 1899. We observe declines in eight out of ten ocean regions, and estimate a global rate of decline of ~1% of the global median per year. Our analyses further reveal interannual to decadal phytoplankton fluctuations superimposed on long-term trends. These fluctuations are strongly correlated with basin-scale climate indices, whereas long-term declining trends are related to increasing sea surface temperatures. We conclude that global phytoplankton concentration has declined over the past century; this decline will need to be considered in future studies of marine ecosystems, geochemical cycling, ocean circulation and fisheries.

Phytoplankton are microscopic photosynthesizers, which means that they use light energy from the sun and take in carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce oxygen. These tiny plants, along with cyanobacteria, do a lot of the work that keeps the biosphere stable. From the press release—

The findings contribute to a growing body of scientific evidence indicating that global warming is altering the fundamentals of marine ecosystems. Says co-author Marlon Lewis, "Climate-driven phytoplankton declines are another important dimension of global change in the oceans, which are already stressed by the effects of fishing and pollution. Better observational tools and scientific understanding are needed to enable accurate forecasts of the future health of the ocean." Explains co-author Boris Worm, "Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary life support system. They produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO2, and ultimately support all of our fisheries. An ocean with less phytoplankton will function differently, and this has to be accounted for in our management efforts."

Doing the math, the researchers estimate that an astonishing 40% of ocean's phytoplankton population has disappeared since 1950! The fewer microscopic plants there are living in the ocean surface waters, the less CO2 is drawn down from the atmosphere. Thus, the Earth's carbon cycle is being fundamentally altered, with uncertain but surely deleterious effects.

As the press release indicates, the researchers found that warmer surface waters caused by global warming are the main suspect in the decline—

The scientists report that most phytoplankton declines occurred in polar and tropical regions and in the open oceans where most phytoplankton production occurs. Rising sea surface temperatures were negatively correlated with phytoplankton growth over most of the globe, especially close to the equator. Phytoplankton need both sunlight and nutrients to grow; warm oceans are strongly stratified, which limits the amount of nutrients that are delivered from deeper waters to the surface ocean. Rising temperatures may contribute to making the tropical oceans even more stratified, leading to increasing nutrient limitation and phytoplankton declines. The scientists also found that large-scale climate fluctuations, such as the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), affect phytoplankton on a year-to-year basis, by changing short-term oceanographic conditions.

In other words, warmer oceans are not well mixed at the surface, with warmer water sitting atop colder deeper water. Photosynthesizers must live in the surface waters where there is access to sunlight, but do not get the nutrients from upwelling colder water required by their metabolism. So they die off.

It is clear that we have a disastrous positive feedback loop at work here, in which warmer surface water supports fewer phytoplankton, which then take up less CO2 from the atmosphere, which causes the surface water to warm some more due to the greenhouse effect, etc. In fact, one of the crazier geo-engineering solutions to global warming is to seed the ocean surface waters with iron filings to stimulate phytoplankton growth!

Up to this point, I have written up this disaster without much emotion. That's probably because it's so depressing. If this trend continues, we Earthlings are surely fucked. And maybe on relatively short time scales (a few decades). In fact, if we have indeed lost 40% of the phytoplankton in the oceans since 1950, I do not understand why we have not felt the terrible effects already. Perhaps the Earth's biosphere (primary productivity) and nutrient recycling (as with carbon) are more resilient than they appear. None of this is well understood, but our uncertainty cuts both ways.

I think there's a certain point—perhaps we have just now passed it—where all you can do is throw your hands up in the air and shout out what the fuck do we do now? Frankly, I hope this phytoplankton decline result is wrong, but I fear it is right.

As warming intensifies, scientists warn, the oxygen content of oceans across the planet could be more and more diminished, with serious consequences for the future of fish and other sea life.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is overshadowing another catastrophe that’s also unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico this summer: The oxygen dissolved in the Gulf waters is disappearing. In some places, the oxygen is getting so scarce that fish and other animals cannot survive. They can either leave the oxygen-free waters or die. The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium reported this week that this year’s so-called “dead zone” covers 7,722 square miles.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this summer’s dead zone is not a new phenomenon in the Gulf. It first appeared in the 1970s, and each summer it has returned, growing bigger as the years have passed. Its expansion reflects the rising level of fertilizers that farmers in the U.S. Midwest have spread across their fields. Rain carries much of that fertilizer into the Mississippi River, which then delivers it to the sea. Once the fertilizer reaches the Gulf, it spurs algae to grow, providing a feast for bacteria, which grow so fast they use up all the oxygen in their neighborhood. The same phenomenon is repeating itself along many coastlines around the world. This summer, a 377,000-square-kilometer (145,000-square-mile) dead zone appeared in the Baltic Sea. In 2008, scientists reported that new dead zones have been popping up at an alarming rate for the past 50 years. There are now more than 400 coastal dead zones around the world.

As serious as these dead zones are, however, they may be just a foreshadowing of a much more severe crisis to come. Agricultural runoff can only strip oxygen from the ocean around the mouths of fertilizer-rich rivers. But global warming has the potential to reduce the ocean’s oxygen content across the entire planet. Combined with acidification — another global impact of our carbon emissions — the loss of oxygen could have a major impact on marine life.

Scientists point to two reasons to expect a worldwide drop in ocean oxygen. One is the simple fact that as water gets warmer, it can hold less dissolved oxygen. The other reason is subtler. The entire ocean gets its oxygen from the surface — either from the atmosphere, or from photosynthesizing algae floating at the top of the sea. The oxygen then spreads to the deep ocean as the surface waters slowly sink.

Global warming is expected to reduce the mixing of the ocean by making surface seawater lighter. That’s because in a warmer world we can expect more rainfall and more melting of glaciers, icebergs, and ice sheets. Since freshwater is less dense than salt water, the water at the ocean’s surface will become lighter. The extra heat from the warming atmosphere will also make surface waters expand — and thus make them lighter still. The light surface water will be less likely to sink — and thus the deep ocean will get less oxygen. Instead, more of the oxygen will linger near the surface, where it will be used up by oxygen-breathing organisms.

The prospect that global warming could reduce the ocean’s oxygen has led some scientists to wonder if the predicted decline has already begun. It’s a maddeningly hard thing to determine, however. We can be very confident that humans have driven up the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because scientists have recorded a steady increase over the course of decades. The signal of human-produced carbon dioxide is stronger than the noise of nature’s ups and downs.

Fluctuations in oxygen levels, on the other hand, are a lot noisier. As ocean currents oscillate naturally, upwellings of deep-ocean water can deliver nutrients to coastal waters, triggering an explosion of growth and driving down oxygen levels. Volcanoes can alter oxygen levels, too, by creating a haze that blocks sunlight, thus temporarily cooling the ocean’s surface and allowing more oxygen to dissolve into the water.

In recent years some worrying signals have started to emerge from the noise. In 2006, for example, oxygen levels off the coast of Oregon dropped to record lows. Reefs that had been packed with rockfish and other animals suddenly became ecological ghost towns. Instead of agricultural run-off, studies on the Oregon dead zone suggest that global warming was partly responsible. Higher temperatures have reduced the oxygen in the ocean currents that deliver water to the Oregon coast.

It’s much harder for scientists to figure out what’s happening in the open ocean than along the coastlines, because the records are far spottier. But some recent studies have also offered cause for worry. In April, for example, Lothar Stramma of the University of Kiel and his colleagues published a study in Deep Sea Research in which they compared records of oxygen levels in the tropical ocean from two periods: from 1960 to 1974 and from 1990 to 2008. In some regions, the oxygen levels have gone up, the scientists found, but in most places they’ve gone down. In fact, the area of the global ocean without enough oxygen for animals to survive (less than 70 micromoles per kilogram to be exact) expanded by 4.5 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles). That’s an area about half the size of the United States.

Because the records of oxygen levels in the past are so incomplete, many scientists are calling for a push for more research. An international collaboration started in 1995, the Climate Variability and Predictability Repeat Hydrography Program — CLIVAR for short — is beginning to gather better data. But in the latest issue of Annual Review of Marine Science , Ralph Keeling of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues warn that the CLIVAR program may need 20 to 30 years to establish long-term trends of oxygen levels. To speed up the process, they call for a global network of floating sensors known as Argo to be brought into the effort. If scientists put oxygen sensors on a few hundred of the 3,000 Argo floats, Keeling and his colleagues predict that a clear pattern would emerge in as little as five years. Keeling and his colleagues believe that it’s urgent to speed up this research, because the deoxygenation of the oceans could have a major impact on marine life.

In order to project how global warming will alter oxygen in the oceans, climate scientists are developing a new generation of computer models. The models are still too crude to capture some important features of the real world, such as the way winds can change how deep water rises in upwellings. But the models are good enough to replicate some of the changes in oxygen levels that have already been recorded. And they all predict that the oxygen in the world’s oceans will drop; depending on the model, the next century will see a drop of between 1 and 7 percent.

That could be enough to have a profound effect on life in the ocean, according to Daniel Pauly, a fisheries biologist at the University of British Columbia. In his new book, Gasping Fish and Panting Squids: Oxygen, Temperature and the Growth of Water-Breathing Animals, Pauly argues that getting oxygen is the most important constraint on the growth of fishes and many other marine animals. That’s because it takes a lot of energy to extract oxygen from water, and the bigger animals get, the more energy they have to invest.

Pauly and his colleagues are working on computer models to project how global warming will affect the world’s fisheries. Many species of fishes will shift their ranges away from water that’s too warm for them. But this flight from heat may force them into regions of the ocean with low levels of oxygen, where their growth will be limited. Pauly and his colleagues predict that the drop in the ocean’s oxygen and pH levels will together reduce the world’s fish catch by 20 to 30 percent by 2050.

While fishes and other animals with high oxygen demands suffer, jellyfish may thrive. Jellyfish can tolerate lower oxygen levels than fish, in part because they can store reserves of the gas in their jelly. Free from competition and predators, jellyfish will be able to feast on the microscopic animals and protozoans that feed on algae. They may thus leave more food for bacteria, spurring a further drop in oxygen levels.

A drop in oxygen may also cause the ocean's bacteria to change. Bacteria that need oxygen will no longer be able to thrive in oxygen-free zones of the ocean. But these dead zones will foster the growth of many species of bacteria for whom oxygen is toxic. Some of these oxygen-hating microbes produce nitrogen compounds that are among the most potent greenhouse gases ever measured. In other words, a drop in oxygen levels could further intensify global warming.

Unless we find a way to rein in our carbon emissions very soon, a low-oxygen ocean may become an inescapable feature of our planet. A team of Danish researchers published a particularly sobering study last year. They wondered how long oxygen levels would drop if we could somehow reduce our carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2100. They determined that over the next few thousand years oxygen levels would continue to fall, until they declined by 30 percent. The oxygen would slowly return to the oceans, but even 100,000 years from now they will not have fully recovered. If they’re right, fish will be gasping and squid will be panting for a long time to come.

I’ll be 62 this month. Even if I live another 30 years, I won’t have to suffer much from the effects of global warming.

Some more uncomfortably hot days, a few more storms, perhaps more expenses for air conditioning. I’ll be gone before it gets too hot.

My children are in their late 20s. By the time they are ready to retire, they’ll be facing a different world for their “golden” years. Dangerously hot summers will be common across the southern U.S. Coastal cities in Louisiana and Florida will be flooded. Thousands of animal and plant species will be extinct, with huge dead zones in the oceans. Unless we act now, these disasters will then accelerate during the lives of my grandchildren.

Science can deliver uncomfortable truths. When Rachel Carson announced in Silent Spring in 1962 that DDT was killing wildlife, agriculture had to abandon one of its basic tools. She was relentlessly attacked by politicians and the chemical industry. It took years to overcome resistance to her truths. When Dr. Herbert Needleman discovered in the late 1970s that lead was harming children’s brains, politicians and industrialists selling leaded paint and gasoline fought to discredit him.

This crisis is much worse. Until recently, nobody knew that the unprecedented wealth of American society carried extreme dangers for our own future. Our modern lifestyles of consumption are slowly killing the planet. The truth of global warming and its long-term effects is scarier than vampires, aliens and Bret Favre’s retirement put together.

According to the latest issue of National Wildlife, “70 percent of all known plant species, 37 percent of all known freshwater fish species, 30 percent of all amphibians, 28 percent of all reptiles, 22 percent of all mammals, and 12 percent of all birds now face threats to their survival.”

Once again politicians, big industry and the professional deniers in the media say “Do nothing.” They rely on tortured logic, personal attacks and outright lies to argue that the world’s scientists are wrong. The so-called Climategate scandal is an example of their tactics. Some stolen e-mails were massaged by climate change deniers to “prove” that scientists were lying. Further investigation shows that these e-mails were embarrassing about the researchers’ tactics, but say nothing against the scientific facts of global warming.

A July 28 editorial laid out that uncomfortable truth, but you don’t see the deniers on TV or in local columns taking back their trumped-up charges.

The deniers have no credibility. They represent the same forces who have tried to prevent every attempt to protect our environment, which means to protect our health. They are afraid of the truth.

Do we as a society really care about anything but our own lives? Are we capable of seeing further into the future than tomorrow?

Global warming is not a party issue. Democrats and Republicans may not agree on the right means to reverse our production of greenhouse gases. But they must agree that it needs to be begun right away.

Hunters and farmers, bird watchers and truckers, rural and urban Americans will all suffer unless we act. Giant corporations will do nothing to change their methods unless they are forced to. Only government can stop global warming. Not just our government, either, but the world’s governments acting together. No amount of ideological posturing or flag-waving will help.

I’m sick of politicians who think only about their reelection, their campaign contributors and their pictures on TV, who put ideology above country. I don’t expect them to come up with brilliant solutions. I just want them to take seriously the job we elected them to do — to think of the future, to gather the best information, to do what’s best for all Americans, those alive today and those not yet born.

I want them to stop fiddling, while we burn up in this heat.

Mr. Hochstadt is professor of history at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and author of Sources of the Holocaust (Palgrave, 2004) and Shanghai-Geschichten: Die jüdische Flucht nach China (Berlin: Hentrich und Hentrich, 2007).

PDF Version

2010 is shaping up as the warmest in the instrumental record, as recorded by the National Climate Data Centre (NCDC ? the worlds largest active archive of weather data), NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), Hadley-Met/Climate Research Unit, Remote Sensing Satellite survey (RSS) and  Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU), and as shown by the plot (Figure 1) below http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html , http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_browse.html

According to NOAA (July 15, 2010): ( http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100715_globalstats.html )
? June, April to June, and Year-to-Date Global Temperatures are Warmest on Record Last month's combined global land and ocean surface temperature made it the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any April-June and January-June periods ? Worldwide average land surface temperature was the warmest on record for June and the April-June period, and the second warmest on record for the year-to-date (January-June) period, behind 2007 ?. The monthly analysis from NOAA is based on records going back to 1880?.

But you will not read about it in much of the media.

A string of extreme weather events monitored by NASA portrayed on http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/ tells the story, including:

1.  Last month saw the hottest temperature on record for Asia, with 53C in Pakistan. The mega-floods in this part of the world are the result of the increased capacity of the warming atmosphere to hold moisture, precipitated when the humid air masses rise above the Himalaya.

2.  Moscow has also been recording temperatures of 37.4 degrees C, the monthly anomaly will be a record of around +7.5 degrees C, with a death toll reaching 2000 people. Extreme temperatures, reaching 40 degrees C in Moscow, have set large parts of Russian forests and wheat belts on fire http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-wildfires-2010-8#more-first-just-294-miles-south-of-moscow-7   *

3.  Beijing had it hottest day on record earlier in the month, 40.6C. 

4.  Japan scored a 39.4C on 22nd July.

5.  Hundreds of maximum and minimum temperature records have been broken across the U.S. and Canada in the last two months. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records.php?ts=daily&elem=
maxt&month=7&day=26&year=2010&sts[]=US&submitted=Get+Records#recs ; http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2010/07/roasting-under-a-hot-summer-su.html

6.  Raging wildfires broke out July 29 just south of Los Angeles, CA, forcing mandatory evacuations and major firefighting response. http://www.businessinsider.com/big-breathtaking-photos-of-california-burning-2010-7#-5#ixzz0vseD4yf6

*  The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 chokes Moscow with smoke for a third day

Smoke from wildfires cause by the worst heat wave in Russia's history are choking Moscow for a third straight day today, bringing air pollution levels to three times the safe level and forcing cancellation of dozens of flights. However, air pollution is not quite as bad as it was yesterday, when carbon monoxide levels peaked at 6.5 times the safe level. Visibilities at Moscow's airport were higher today (500+ meters), but temperatures still hit 97°F (36°C). The past 26 days in a row have exceeded 30°C in Moscow, and there is no relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures near 100°F (37.8°C) for the majority of the coming week. As I reported in Friday's post , the number of deaths in Moscow in July 2010 was about 5,000 more than in July 2009, suggesting that the heat wave has been responsible for thousands of deaths in Moscow alone. I would expect that by the time the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 is over, the number of premature deaths caused by the heat wave will approach or exceed the 40,000 who died in the 2003 European Heat Wave. As seen in Figure 3, the Russian heat wave of 2010 is more intense and affects a wider region than the great 2003 European heat wave.




A comparison of August temperatures, the peak of the great European heat wave of 2003 (left) with July temperatures from the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 (right) reveals that this year's heat wave is more intense and covers a wider area of Europe. Image credit: NOAA/ESRL .

From: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1570

Australia

It has been very warm across northern, north-western and some inland parts of Australia over recent weeks. We broke quite a few minimum temperature records- including Darwin, which broke its July minimum record by 1.5 degrees C.

Though most of what you would read about in the media is the manufactured CRU E-mail story, which tries to obfuscate climate science and cast doubt on the integrity of climate scientists. This is despite recent investigations showing climate scientists right, as stated:

?On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.? ? ''We did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.'' http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-climate-scientists-right-20100725-10qev.html .

The newspapers that gave greatest play to the allegations tended to give less attention to these findings. The columnists who gave greatest vent to their indignation have not made any revisions or corrections, let alone apologised to the scientists whose integrity they so sweepingly impugned.

Those who would like to see themselves as ?sceptics?, but commonly present climate plots which inexplicably depart in essential detail from original datasets measured by the worlds premier climate research organizations, as well as ignore the basic physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, would suggest the current extreme weather events are ?natural? and not to do with human Carbon emissions.

By contrast, consistent with the Stefan-Boltzmann and Krichhoff laws of infrared radiation  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff's_law_of_thermal_radiation ), these events manifest the increase in energy (temperature) levels of the atmosphere and oceans, consequent on the emissions of about 370 billion tons of carbon since 1750, currently at a rate of about 2 ppm per year, reaching 391 ppm, namely near 40 percent higher that during the last 10,000 years, when agricultural cultivation became possible thanks to stabilization of the Holocene climate.




Figure 1.  Global surface temperature anomalies
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/

Dr Andrew Glikson
Australian National University
Canberra, A.C.T. 0200

Affiliations:
Climate Change Institute /
School of Archaeology and Anthropology /
Planetary Research Institute /

E-mail:    (W)  Andrew.Glikson@anu.edu.au
               (H)  Geospec@iinet.net.au
mail:       P.O. Box 3698 Weston A.C.T. 2611

http://www.anu.edu.au/climatechange/content/author/Andrew%20Glikson
http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/people/visitors/glikson.asp
http://rses.anu.edu.au/highlights/view.php?article=10
http://rses.anu.edu.au/highlights/view.php?article=11
http://rses.anu.edu.au/highlights/view.php?article=12

Scientists warn that temperature rise of between 2C and 7C would cause ice to melt, resulting in 23ft rise in sea level

WASHINSTON - The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress Tuesday.

An enormous chunk of ice, roughly 97 square miles in size, has broken off the Petermann Glacier along the northwest coast of Greenland. (Photograph: Aqua/Modis/Nasa)
Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University

"Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet.

The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.

"What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done," he said.

Speaking by phone, Alley was addressing a briefing held by the House of Representatives committee on energy independence and global warming.

Greenland is losing ice mass at an increasing rate, dumping more icebergs into the ocean because of warming temperatures, he said.

The stark warning was underlined by the momentous break-up of one of Greenland's largest glaciers last week, which set a 100 sq mile chunk of ice drifting into the North Strait between Greenland and Canada.

The briefing also noted that the last six months had set new temperature records.

Robert Bindschadler, a research scientist at the University of Maryland, told the briefing: "While we don't believe it is possible to lose an ice sheet within a decade, we do believe it is possible to reach a tipping point in a few decades in which we would lose the ice sheet in a century."

The ice loss from the Petermann Glacier was the largest such event in nearly 50 years, although there have been regular and smaller "calvings".

Petermann spawned two smaller breakaways: one of 34 sq miles in 2001 and another of 10 sq miles in 2008.

Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science at the University of Delaware, who has been studying the Petermann glacier for several years, said he had been expecting such a break, although he did not anticipate its size.

He also argued that much remains unknown about the interaction between Arctic sea ice, sea level, and temperature rise.

Muenchow told the briefing that over the last seven years he had only received funding to measure ocean temperatures near the Petermann Glacier for a total of three days.

He was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic.

© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited

When "snowmageddon" buried the nation's capital in February, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Ok) cheered on his grandchildren in building an igloo on the Capitol grounds and couldn't have been prouder of them in mocking Al Gore. But even the grandchildren of Congress's "Climate Denier-in-Chief" are likely to change targets for their mockery and scorn as it becomes obvious how grandpa has risked their own future.

By every scientific measure greenhouse gases are heating the Earth rapidly and forcing us all to participate in a game of climate Russian roulette. In fact, Russia is one of this year's biggest losers. Temperatures 25 degrees hotter than normal, causing apocalyptic wildfires, have turned central and western Russia, including Moscow, into a ghoulish hell to rival J.R.R. Tolkien's Mordor. Death rates are double the norm from the heat and smoke, thousands have already died.

20 million Pakistanis are now homeless because of flooding from monsoon rains. Flooding in China has killed thousands. Desperation, starvation and diseases like cholera are inevitable. Crops in Russia, China and Pakistan and many other countries have been devastated, causing suspension of grain exports and price spikes. Millions who struggle to feed themselves in a normal climate will be unable to afford enough food to survive.

In many countries like the Sudan, Kenya and Bangladesh, millions of people have already become climate refugees, abandoning their homes and countries because sustaining life there is no longer possible. Climate disasters are mounting in on virtually every continent. Record breaking heat in our East and South, unprecedented flooding in Tennessee and Iowa, and a chronic, deepening drought in the Western US have given us just a taste of the misery other countries are now enduring.

This summer's events fit exactly the scientists' projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming. Notwithstanding the Kool Aid being broadcast at Fox News, even "snowmageddon" fits into the models of a human caused climate crisis.

Last year the lead article in the Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, written by 29 distinguished medical scientists called the climate consequences of the greenhouse gas phenomenon, "The biggest global health threat of the 21st century," and will "put the lives and well being of billions of people at increased risk." The report goes on to state that, "Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action. Less conservative climate scenarios are so catastrophic that adaptation might be unachievable." The authors said "what is needed now is a public health movement that frames the threat of the climate crisis for humankind as a health issue."

Note these words from the president of the World Medical Association. "Climate change represents an inevitable, massive threat to global health that will likely eclipse the major known pandemics as the leading cause of death and disease in the 21st century."

Many of the same politicians who supported preemptive war in Iraq either to protect ourselves or to save the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein don't believe in preemptive rescue of their fellow men from climate disaster. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney said if there was a one in a 100 chance Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, the invasion was worth it. So far, we've spent $2 trillion on that 1 in a 100 chance. Those same people seem to be unwilling to spend a fraction of that addressing what our best scientists say is a 98 in a 100 chance that CO2 is turning the climate into a global weapon of mass destruction.

A skeptical, but still qualified and honest investigation of climate science could lead one to challenge the scientific community's consensus on the odds of imminent disaster, but not defiantly dismiss it as an impossibility or a hoax. The "see no warming, hear no warming, speak no warming" posture can only come from ideological rigor mortis or ulterior motives.

With every passing day the deniers seem more and more absurdly detached from climate science, wallowing instead in climate witchcraft. Taunting them now might bring some satisfaction were it not for the fact that through their obstructionism they have grabbed the steering wheel of this country's energy policy which is rapidly becoming a ship not just of fools, but a ship of the selfish and cruel.

It's one thing to turn your back on the suffering of the masses half way across the world and rationalize that it is not your problem. But to listen to the scientists' warnings of the risk we are subjecting our own children and grandchildren to and proudly dismiss even the possibility, is criminal neglect of future generations.

Dr. Brian Moench is President of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. He can be reached at: drmoench@yahoo.com

Try to fit these facts together:

* According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.

* A "staggering" new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.

* Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.

* And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn't do less than they could have -- they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I've spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I'm a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund. We owe them a great debt, and not just for their hard work. We owe them a debt because they did everything the way you're supposed to: they wore nice clothes, lobbied tirelessly, and compromised at every turn.

By the time they were done, they had a bill that only capped carbon emissions from electric utilities (not factories or cars) and was so laden with gifts for industry that if you listened closely you could actually hear the oinking. They bent over backwards like Soviet gymnasts.  Senator John Kerry, the legislator they worked most closely with, issued this rallying cry as the final negotiations began: "We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further."

And even that was not enough.  They were left out to dry by everyone -- not just Reid, not just the Republicans. Even President Obama wouldn't lend a hand, investing not a penny of his political capital in the fight.

The result: total defeat, no moral victories.

Now What?

So now we know what we didn't before: making nice doesn't work. It was worth a try, and I'm completely serious when I say I'm grateful they made the effort, but it didn't even come close to working. So we better try something else.

Step one involves actually talking about global warming.  For years now, the accepted wisdom in the best green circles was: talk about anything else -- energy independence, oil security, beating the Chinese to renewable technology. I was at a session convened by the White House early in the Obama administration where some polling guru solemnly explained that "green jobs" polled better than "cutting carbon."

No, really?  In the end, though, all these focus-group favorites are secondary.  The task at hand is keeping the planet from melting. We need everyone -- beginning with the president -- to start explaining that basic fact at every turn.

It is the heat, and also the humidity.  Since warm air holds more water than cold, the atmosphere is about 5% moister than it was 40 years ago, which explains the freak downpours that seem to happen someplace on this continent every few days.

It is the carbon -- that's why the seas are turning acid, a point Obama could have made with ease while standing on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. "It's bad that it's black out there," he might have said, "but even if that oil had made it safely ashore and been burned in our cars, it would still be wrecking the oceans." Energy independence is nice, but you need a planet to be energy independent on.

Mysteriously enough, this seems to be a particularly hard point for smart people to grasp. Even in the wake of the disastrous Senate non-vote, the Nature Conservancy's climate expert told New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, "We have to take climate change out of the atmosphere, bring it down to earth, and show how it matters in people's everyday lives." Translation: ordinary average people can't possibly recognize the real stakes here, so let's put it in language they can understand, which is about their most immediate interests. It's both untrue, as I'll show below, and incredibly patronizing. It is, however, exactly what we've been doing for a decade and clearly, It Does Not Work.

Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we're going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don't actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run.  We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can't still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence. That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who's made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business.

Instead they should pay through the nose for that sewer, and here's the crucial thing: most of the money raised in the process should be returned directly to American pockets. The monthly check sent to Americans would help fortify us against the rise in energy costs, and we'd still be getting the price signal at the pump to stop driving that SUV and start insulating the house. We also need to make real federal investments in energy research and development, to help drive down the price of alternatives -- the Breakthrough Institute points out, quite rightly, that we're crazy to spend more of our tax dollars on research into new drone aircraft and Mars orbiters than we do on photovoltaics.

Yes, these things are politically hard, but they're not impossible. A politician who really cared could certainly use, say, the platform offered by the White House to sell a plan that taxed BP and actually gave the money to ordinary Americans. (So far they haven't even used the platform offered by the White House to reinstall the rooftop solar panels that Jimmy Carter put there in the 1970s and Ronald Reagan took down in his term.)

Asking for what you need doesn't mean you'll get all of it.  Compromise still happens. But as David Brower, the greatest environmentalist of the late twentieth century, explained amid the fight to save the Grand Canyon: "We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else propose the compromise. We thereupon work hard to coax it our way. We become a nucleus around which the strongest force can build and function."

Which leads to the third step in this process. If we're going to get any of this done, we're going to need a movement, the one thing we haven't had. For 20 years environmentalists have operated on the notion that we'd get action if we simply had scientists explain to politicians and CEOs that our current ways were ending the Holocene, the current geological epoch. That turns out, quite conclusively, not to work. We need to be able to explain that their current ways will end something they actually care about, i.e. their careers. And since we'll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion.

Movement Time

As Tom Friedman put it in a strong column the day after the Senate punt, the problem was that the public "never got mobilized." Is it possible to get people out in the streets demanding action about climate change? Last year, with almost no money, our scruffy little outfit, 350.org, managed to organize what Foreign Policy called  the "largest ever coordinated global rally of any kind" on any issue -- 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, 2,000 of them in the U.S.A.

People were rallying not just about climate change, but around a remarkably wonky scientific data point, 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which NASA's James Hansen and his colleagues have demonstrated is the most we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet "similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." Which, come to think of it, we do. And the "we," in this case, was not rich white folks. If you look at the 25,000 pictures in our Flickr account, you'll see that most of them were poor, black, brown, Asian, and young -- because that's what most of the world is. No need for vice-presidents of big conservation groups to patronize them: shrimpers in Louisiana and women in burqas and priests in Orthodox churches and slumdwellers in Mombasa turned out to be completely capable of understanding the threat to the future.

Those demonstrations were just a start (one we should have made long ago). We're following up in October -- on 10-10-10 -- with a Global Work Party. All around the country and the world people will be putting up solar panels and digging community gardens and laying out bike paths. Not because we can stop climate change one bike path at a time, but because we need to make a sharp political point to our leaders: we're getting to work, what about you?

We need to shame them, starting now. And we need everyone working together. This movement is starting to emerge on many fronts. In September, for instance, opponents of mountaintop removal are converging on DC to demand an end to the coal trade. That same month, Tim DeChristopher goes on trial in Salt Lake City for monkey-wrenching oil and gas auctions by submitting phony bids.  (Naomi Klein and Terry Tempest Williams have called for folks to gather at the courthouse.)

The big environmental groups are starting to wake up, too.  The Sierra Club has a dynamic new leader, Mike Brune, who's working hard with stalwarts like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. (Note to enviro groups: working together is fun and useful). Churches are getting involved, as well as mosques and synagogues. Kids are leading the fight, all over the world -- they have to live on this planet for another 70 years or so, and they have every right to be pissed off.

But no one will come out to fight for watered down and weak legislation.  That's not how it works. You don't get a movement unless you take the other two steps I've described.

And in any event it won't work overnight.  We're not going to get the Senate to act next week, or maybe even next year. It took a decade after the Montgomery bus boycott to get the Voting Rights Act. But if there hadn't been a movement, then the Voting Rights Act would have passed in... never. We may need to get arrested.  We definitely need art, and music, and disciplined, nonviolent, but very real anger.

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we've got. It's not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we're going to have to raise our voices.

Noam Chomsky is internationally recognized as one of America’s most critically engaged public intellectuals today. He spoke with Kathleen Wells, a political correspondent for Race-Talk, about Israel and its interplay with the United States.  

Kathleen Wells: I’m speaking with Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and renowned political activist and writer. He has written over 100 books on linguistics, human rights, economics, and politics. Thank you, Professor Chomsky, for taking the time to speak with me this afternoon.  

Noam Chomsky: Very pleased to be with you. 

KW: Speak to me about the relation between the United States and Israel. Specifically, address, as you have previously stated, how every crime, violation of international law, that Israel commits is done through the direct participation and authorization of the United States.

NC: That’s a ... as a descriptive statement, that is pretty close to accurate. I mean "all" is a very strong word but it is certainly generally true. And, in fact, the United States has overwhelmingly vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli crimes and atrocities, prevented the Security Council from calling on Israel to terminate aggression, and so on and so forth. The descriptive comment is not really controversial. There are interesting questions about why it’s true. There were also interesting questions about the sources of support for this position in the United States, which helps us explain why it is true. 

The history is reasonably clear. This was not the case up until 1967. In fact, before 1967, the relationships were not very different from relationships among other powers. There was sympathy and support for Israel, which has many, many sources, including the Christian Zionism, which is a very powerful force that precedes and is numerically far stronger than Jewish Zionism. But for somebody like, say, Harry Truman, raised in a deeply Christian tradition, it was just taken for granted that the Bible instructs us that God gave the land of Palestine to the Jews. So it is kind of like in his bones. And that’s true for a very large part of the American population, much more so than -- far more than any other country.  So that is one factor, and there are other factors. 

But the major change in relationships took place in 1967. Just take a look at USA aid to Israel. You can tell that right off. And in many other respects, it’s true, too. Similarly, the attitude towards Israel on the part of the intellectual community -- you know, media, commentary, journals, and so on -- that changed very sharply in 1967, from either lack of interest or sometimes even disdain, to almost passionate support. So what happened in 1967? 

Well, in 1967, Israel destroyed the source of secular Arab nationalism -- Nasser's Egypt -- which was considered a major threat and enemy by the West. It is worth remembering that there was a serious conflict at that time between the forces of radical Islamic fundamentalism, centered in Saudi Arabia -- where all the oil is -- and secular Arab nationalism, centered in Nasser's Egypt; in fact, the two countries were at war. They were fighting a kind of a proxy war in Yemen at that time. The United States and Britain were supporting the radical Islamic fundamentalism; in fact, they’ve rather consistently done that – supporting Saudi Arabia.  And Nasserite secular nationalism was considered a serious threat, because it was recognized that it might seek to take control of the immense resources of the region and use them for regional interest, rather than allow them to be centrally controlled and exploited by the United States and its allies. So that was a major issue.

Well, Israel effectively destroyed Nasserite secular nationalism and the whole Arab nationalist movement that was centered in it. That was considered a major contribution to U.S. geopolitical strategy and also to its Saudi Arabian ally. And, in fact, that's when attitudes toward Israel changed sharply and the U.S. support for Israel -- material, diplomatic, and other -- also increased sharply.  In 1970, there was another turning point. In 1970, the Jordanian army (Jordan was a strong, close U.S. ally) – the Jordanian dictatorship was essentially massacring Palestinians during what's the month that's called Black September.

And the U.S. was in favor of that; it supported that. It looked as though Syria might intervene to support the Palestinians against the attack by the Hashemite dictatorship. The U.S. didn't want that to happen. It regarded it as a threat to its Jordanian ally and also a broader threat, ultimately, to Saudi Arabia, the jewel in the crown. 

While the U.S. was mired in Southeast Asia at the time -- it was right at the time, a little after the Cambodia invasion and everything was blowing up -- the U.S. couldn't do a thing about it. So, it asked Israel to mobilize its very substantial military forces and threaten Syria so that Syria would withdraw. Well, Israel did it. Syria withdrew. That was another gift to U.S. power and, in fact, U.S. aid to Israel shot up very sharply -- maybe quadrupled or something like that -- right at that time. Now at that time, that was the time when the so-called Nixon Doctrine was formulated.

A part of the Nixon Doctrine was that the U.S., of course, has to control Middle-East oil resources -- that goes much farther back -- but it will do so through local, regional allies, what were called “cops on the beat” by Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense. So there will be local cops on the beat, which will protect the Arab dictatorships from their own populations or any external threat. And then, of course, “police headquarters” is in Washington. Well, the local cops on the beat at the time were Iran, then under the Shah, a U.S. ally; Turkey; to an extent, Pakistan; and Israel was added to that group. It was another cop on the beat. It was one of the local gendarmes that was sometimes called the periphery strategy: non-Arab states protecting the Arab dictatorships from any threat, primarily the threat of what was called radical nationalism -- independent nationalism -- meaning taking over the armed resources for their own purposes.

Well, that structure remained through the 1970s. In 1979, Iran was lost because of the overthrow of the Shah and pretty soon the Khomeini dictatorship -- clerical dictatorship -- and the U.S. once tried to overthrow that and supported Iraq's invasion of Iran, and so on. But, anyway, that “cop” [Iran] was lost and Israel's position became even stronger in the structure that remained. Furthermore, by that time, Israel was performing secondary services to the United States elsewhere in the world. It's worth recalling that especially through the '80s Congress, under public pressure, was imposing constraints on Reagan's support for vicious and brutal dictatorships. The governments around the world -- say Guatemala -- the U.S. could not provide direct aid to Guatemala, because -- which was massacring people in some areas in a genocidal fashion up in the highlands -- Congress blocked it.  Congress was also passing sanctions against aid to South-Africa, which the Reagan administration was strongly supporting South Africa and continued to do so right through the 1980s.

This was under the framework of the war on terror that Reagan had declared. The African National Congress -- Mandela’s ANC -- was designated as one of the more notorious terrorist groups in the world as late as 1988. [So] that it [could] support South-African apartheid and the Guatemalan murderous dictatorship and other murderous regimes, Reagan needed a kind of network of terrorist states to help out, to evade the congressional and other limitations, and he turned to, at that time, Taiwan, but, in particular, Israel. Britain helped out. And that was another major service. And so it continued.   

KW: I want to come up to today, because I only have 30 minutes.   

NC: So, it basically continues. I mean, if we go right up till this moment ... simply ask, where are the strongest sources of support for Israeli actions?  Well, pick the newspapers. By far the most rabid pro-Israel newspaper in the country is the Wall Street Journal. That's the journal of the business community, and it reflects the support of the business world for Israel, which is quite strong. There's a lot of high-tech investment in Israel. [Our] military industry is very close to Israeli military industry. There's a whole network of interactions. Intel, for example, is building its next facility for construct development of the next generation of chips in Israel. But, altogether, the relations are very tight, very intimate, quite natural. And it's not surprising that the main business journal in the country would be supporting Israeli expansion and power. Take a look at the two political parties. Most Jewish money goes to Democrats and most Jews vote Democratic. But the Republican Party is much more strongly supportive of Israeli power and atrocities than the Democrats are. Then again, I think that reflects their closer relations to the business world and to the military system.  There is, of course, also a Jewish lobby – an Israeli lobby -- AIPAC, which is a very influential lobby. And so there are many... and there's Christian Zionism, which is a huge element. Well, you know, all of these combined to provide a background for U.S. support for Israel, and they're facing virtually no opposition. Who's calling for support of the Palestinians?  

KW: Exactly, and so when you hear statements being made that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and yet you see the occupation and the blockade on Gaza, the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, what shall one think about this fact?

NC: First, let's ask about being the only democracy in the region. First of all, it’s not true. There were free elections in Palestine in January 2006. There were free elections in Palestine, carefully monitored, recognized to be free. The victor was Hamas, okay, centered in the Gaza Strip. Israel and the United States instantly, within days, undertook perfectly public policies to try to punish the Palestinians for voting the wrong way in a free election. I mean, it couldn’t have been... you couldn't see a more dramatic illustration of hatred and contempt for democracy unless it comes out the right way.    

A year later, July 2007, the U.S. and Israel, together with the Palestinian authority, tried to carry out a military coup to overthrow the elected government. Well, it failed. Hamas won and drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip. Now, here, that's described as a demonstration of Hamas terror or something. What they did was preempt and block a U.S.-backed military coup to overthrow the democratically elected government.   

KW: What do you say to the fact that Hamas is listed on the United States State Department terrorist list? So they're characterized as terrorist?  

NC: Yeah, they are. Because they do things we don't like. The terrorist list has been a historic joke, in fact, a sick joke. So take a look at the history of the terrorist list. Up until 1982, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- was on the terrorist list. 

In 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the terrorist list. Why? Because they were moving to support Iraq, and, in fact, the Reagan administration and, in fact, the first Bush administration strongly supported Iraq right through its worst – Saddam, right through his worst atrocities. In fact, they tried to ... they succeeded, in fact, in preventing even criticism of condemnation of the worst atrocities, like the Halabja massacre -- and others. So they removed Iraq from the terrorist list because they wanted to support one of the worst monsters and terrorists in the region, namely Saddam Hussein.

And since there was an empty position on the terrorist list, they had to fill it, so they added Cuba. Cuba's probably the target of more terrorism than any country in the world, back from the Kennedy years. Right? In fact, just at that time, there had been a rash of major terrorist acts against Cuba. So Cuba was added to the terrorist list to replace Saddam Hussein, who was removed because the U.S. wanted to support him.  Now, you take a look through the terrorist list, yeah, that's the way it is. So, for example, Hezbollah is on the terrorist list. Well, you know, probably it's carried out terrorist acts, but by the standards of the U.S. and Israel, they're barely visible. The main reason why Hezbollah is on the terrorist list is because it resisted Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon and, in fact, drove Israel out of Southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation -- that's called terrorism. In fact, Lebanon has a national holiday, May 25th, which is called Liberation Day. That's the national holiday in Lebanon commemorating, celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in year 2000, and largely under Hezbollah attack.  

KW: How would you characterize Hezbollah and Hamas?

NC: Hezbollah happens to be the major political grouping in Lebanon. It's the Hezbollah-based coalition, handily won the last election in the year 2009. Now you know it's not a perfect election, but it's one of the ... by the standards of U.S.-backed dictatorships it was an amazing election, and they won it. They didn't happen to win the largest number of representatives because of the way the confessional system works, but they won the popular vote by about the same amount that Obama had won.   So they're the main political grouping in the country. They largely -- almost completely -- control southern Lebanon. They're a national Lebanese organization. They've ... they're charged with some terrorist acts outside of Lebanon, maybe correctly. But again, if the charges ... we take all the charges and weigh them against U.S./Israeli violence, aggression, and terror, they don't even count. But that's basically what they are.  As far as Israel's concerned, Hezbollah‘s position is they don't recognize Israel. 

They don't ... they... but they say their position is, well, they'll accept any agreement with Israel that the Palestinians accept; we're a Lebanese organization. What about Hamas? Hamas is a ... its background is it's an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization, which would be a major competitor in Egypt's elections, if Egypt permitted democratic elections, which it won't.  The Egyptian dictatorship -- which the U.S. strongly backs, Obama personally strongly backs -- doesn't permit anything remotely like elections and is very brutal and harsh. But they don't ... they hate the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas is an offshoot. In its early days, Israel supported Hamas as a weapon against the secular PLO. Later, when Hamas really crystallized, became a significant organization, Israel turned against them, and it became bitterly opposed to them in January 2006, as the U.S. did, when they won a free election.

That was intolerable and they had to be overthrown. Hamas's position is that as a political party it does not recognize Israel, but that doesn't mean much: the Democratic Party doesn't recognize countries either. It says that their position is that they’re willing to accept a two-state settlement in accordance with the international consensus, which the U.S. and Israel have blocked for 35 years. So they say, "Yes, we'll accept that, but we don't want to recognize Israel." Well, okay, that's their position. Are they a nice organization? No. I wouldn't ... I certainly wouldn't want to live under their clerical rule.

But compared with organizations and states that the United States strongly supports, they don't stand out as particularly harsh, say Egypt, for example.   

KW: So respond to those who defend Israel's policy and state that Israel is surrounded by enemies. Their Arab neighbors -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Ahmadinejad in Iran -- they pose a threat to Israel. They want to see Israel's destruction, and they feel like these Arab countries are an imminent threat to Israel. Give me your thoughts on those who defend Israel's policies.   

NC: Well, the truth of the matter is that Israel and the United States, which act in tandem, are a tremendous threat mainly to the Palestinians. In fact, while we're discussing the potential threat to Israel that might exist, the United States and Israel are crushing and destroying the Palestinians. That's the live reality.  Now what about the threat? Well, yeah, there's a potential threat, and Israel and the United States are substantially responsible for it. I mean, if the U.S. and Israel would accept the overwhelming international consensus on a political settlement, that would very sharply reduce the threat.  But Israel and the U.S. prefer Israeli expansion to diplomatic settlement and, therefore, are blocking that settlement -- they're alone. I mean, Europe, the non-aligned countries -- the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic States, which includes Iran -- have all accepted the international consensus on the two-state settlement. I mean, there are details to be worked out, but the basic structure is clear. For 35 years, the U.S. and Israel have been blocking it. There are a few rare and temporary exceptions, but that's basically the story. I don't have time to run through all the details here.   

KW: But what's the rationale?  

NC: The rationale‘s very simple.   

KW: Exactly. 

NC: They prefer expansion to security. That's been explicitly true since 1971. I think the most fateful decision that Israel and the U.S. made in this regard was in February 1971 when President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace settlement -- full peace settlement; no conditions -- nothing for the Palestinians, in return for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, and, in fact, he cared only about Sinai.  Jordan made the same proposal a year later with regard to the West Bank.  Israel had to decide, at that point, whether to accept security -- which would certainly have followed from the withdrawal from the conflict of the major Arab military forces, primarily Egypt, secondly Jordan -- whether to accept security or to insist on expansion.  Now expansion at that time was mostly into the Sinai. Israel was developing plans for substantial expansion into the Egyptian Sinai, including a major city, Yamit, supposedly a million people, a lot of settlements, and so on. And that was a very clear choice: do we choose expansion or security? They chose expansion.  The crucial question is what would the United States do? Well, there was an internal bureaucratic battle in the U.S., and Henry Kissinger won out. He was in favor of what he called “stalemate.” A stalemate meant no negotiations, just force.

So the U.S. and Israel proceeded with expansion. Sadat, for the next... he made gesture after... move after move for the next year or two to try to convince the U.S. to accept the political settlement. It was disregarded. He kept threatening war if Israel continued to develop the northeast Sinai.  It was dismissed. Then came the October 1973 war, which was a very close thing for Israel, the worst moment in its history. Well, at that point, Kissinger and the Israeli leaders recognized they can't simply dismiss Egypt, and they moved slowly toward the Camp David Settlement in 1978, which pretty much accepted what Sadat had offered in 1971 -- a diplomatic catastrophe. Meanwhile, Israel has continued its expansion, by then mostly into the West Bank, and the U.S. was supporting it all the way, and so it continues.  So, sure, if Israel continues to settle in the occupied territories -- illegally, incidentally, as Israel recognized in 1967 (it's all illegal; they recognized it) -- it's undermining the possibilities for the viable existence of any small Palestinian entity. And as long as the United States and Israel continue with that, yes, there will be insecurity.   

Read the rest of the interview on Race Talk.

Gas extraction, made possible by hydraulic fracturing (or fracking for short), pumps dangerous toxins into our drinking water.

Seems like everyone is singing the praises of Natural Gas, our newest greenest most homegrown and secure source of American Energy. NOT!  "Clean Natural" Gas is neither. Gas extraction, made possible by hydraulic fracturing (or fracking for short) has to sit right beside Deep Sea Drilling, Mountain Top Removal, and Dirty Tar Sands Oil in the pantheon of insane ways to get our carbon fix.

Did you know that Halliburton (yes that Halliburton) pantented fracking: a process that mixes millions of gallons of precious fresh water with a proprietary cocktail of toxics, injects it through our drinking water table, and into the ground at a pressure that will fracture rock? Did you know that when Dick Cheney (yes that Dick) was the VP he fracked the EPA to make sure that this insanity would be exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act?

Stand Up, New York!

Fracking has brought the gas rush to New York. Some of the biggest and dirtiest names in Big Oil are coming to frack you. And they will not be gentle with New York's world class water features.

You can expect the same dirty drilling that has poisoned the water in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Ohio. Who will be at risk? Everyone downstream. Including the drinking water of tens of million in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

On the morning of May 5, 2010, nobody could say for sure how much fluid had leaked from the 650,000-gallon disposal pit near a natural gas drill pad in Shippen Township, Penn. -- not the employees on site; not the farmers who own the property; not the DEP rep who came to investigate.

But there were signs of trouble: Vegetation had died in a 30’ by 40’ patch of pasture nearby. A “wet area” of indeterminate toxicity had crept out about 200 feet, its puddles shimmering with an oily iridescence. And the cattle: 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves were all found near water containing the heavy metal strontium. Strontium is preferentially deposited in cows’ bones at varying levels depending on things like age and growth rates. Since slaughtering 28 cattle on mere suspicion can devastate a farmer financially, nobody knows what, if anything, the cows ingested. They're now sitting in quarantine.

The Shippen Township incident isn’t the first time hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas extraction technique that involves shooting water, sand and a mix of chemicals into the ground to release gas, has been blamed for livestock damage. But for farmers in the northeast whose land sits atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation, it is a wake-up call – an event that raises questions about fracking’s compatibility with food production.

“I’ve already heard from a couple of customers that they’re concerned about the location of a drill site near my farm – in terms of the quality and safety of my food,” said Greg Swartz, a farmer in Pennsylvania’s Upper Delaware River Valley. Swartz, who sells all his products locally, fears that leaked fracking fluid could seep into his soil, bioaccumulate in his plants and cost him his organic certification. “There very well may be a point where I am not comfortable selling vegetables from the farm anymore because I’m concerned about water and air contamination issues,” he said.

Air contamination – specifically the production of ozone – is what worries Ken Jaffe, another farmer in Meredith, NY. When excess methane gas, coupled with volatile compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene, are released into the air in a process the gas industry calls “venting,” it can inhibit lung function and wreak havoc on plant life. In Sublette County, WY, fracking has been blamed for ozone levels that are comparable to those in Los Angeles.

Without healthy pasture, Jaffe said, his cows won’t grow. Which means his beef won’t sell. “The economics of my operation are in part based on how many animals I can graze per acre and get them to grow fat,” he told me. “And if I have less grass and less protein and less clover, then I have a problem.”

Over the past two years, horizontal hydraulic fracturing has garnered a lot of attention. Advocates of the practice believe the staggeringly high amounts of gas it makes accessible could serve as a “cleaner-burning” bridge between fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. But critics blame fracking for a whole range of problems -- house explosions, flammable drinking water, chronic sickness, crop failure and air contamination, to name a few. In 2005, the Bush administration introduced the Energy Policy Act, which exempted hydraulic fracturing from several key environmental regulations, including parts of the Clean Water Act and CERCLA (Superfund). Since then, drilling operations (along with corresponding environmental problems) have begun to extend like spiderwebs across states like Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

For all their concerns, farmers like Swartz and Jaffe comprise only one side of a larger debate over drilling. Leasing one’s land, after all, carries the promise of a comfortable retirement -- sometimes even millions of dollars. And with milk prices making small-scale dairy operations harder and harder to maintain, many farmers are looking for the light at the end of the pipeline.

Some have found it. According to one Penn State study, Pennsylvania made a $2.95 billion profit from drilling in 2008 alone; the state also gained 53,000 new jobs. And in the Windsor/Deposit area of New York, 300 property owners have signed a lease with XTO Energy that covers 37,000 acres and is worth $90 million (notably, the lease contains a provision that indemnifies drillers against damage to livestock). Though New York is still waiting on its Department of Environmental Conservation for the go-ahead to start horizontal drilling, much of the state’s topography has already been carved, cordoned and auctioned off to eager gas companies.

“The way things are now financially, it would be hard to turn [leasing] down,” said Richard Dirie, a dairy farmer near Youngsville, NY. “Farming is definitely a physical occupation. You definitely reach an age where -- I don’t care if you want to do it or not -- you just can’t do it anymore.”

Dirie has not yet leased his land. But at 59, he’s not sure he would reject an offer if it came his way. “I keep saying, ‘I hope they don’t come and talk to me.’ That way I don’t have to make a decision, you know?”

Gas drilling raises a lot of questions for farmers short on options. Is it worth the risk to retire comfortably? What are the implications for future use of the land? Perhaps most importantly: How does fracking affect crops, livestock and, by extension, the people who consume them? Answers are scarce.

“There’s a lot going on out there and we don’t know most of it,” Swartz said.

The Knowledge Vacuum

It’s with good reason that Jaffe describes fracking’s relationship to food as “a knowledge vacuum.” Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture can’t say for sure whether or not any cows in the state came into contact with fracking fluid before the Shippen Township incident in May. Nor can it guarantee similar things won’t happen in the future. “We hope that this is the exception rather than the rule,” said spokesman Justin Fleming. “We hope that this is an extraordinarily rare occurrence.”

A representative for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service -- the organization in charge of testing milk and meat for chemicals – neglected to comment on whether or not heavy metals like the strontium found in Shippen Township were considered “adulterated” under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. He also did not immediately comment on whether naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMS) -- known to surface after a well has been fractured – fall under the act’s clause banning meat from being “intentionally subjected to radiation.”

Scientists, too, are grappling for information. Though there exists an increasingly comprehensive catalog of knowledge about water problems related to fracking, little work has been done to determine how the practice affects animals and crops.

“I see very little research being done on cows,” said Theo Colborn, founder of the non-profit Endocrine Disruption Exchange. Because animal testing with many chemicals known to be involved in fracking has historically failed to deal with instances of a) limited exposure and b) prolonged exposure, no one really knows what the potential health effects are – for cows or humans.

“It’s very difficult to deal with this problem,” Colborn said. “Who has the money? Who can perform the tests?”

Certainly not the federal EPA. Earlier this year, it announced plans to launch a two-year study of hydraulic fracturing’s effects on water. According to an EPA spokesperson, no part of that study will deal with plants or animals.

And yet, there is significant anecdotal evidence that suggests fracking can seriously compromise food. In April 2009, 19 head of cattle dropped dead after ingesting an unknown substance near a gas drilling rig in northern Louisiana. Seven months before that, a tomato farmer in Avella, Penn. reported a series of problems with the water and soil on his property after drilling started: he found arsenic levels 2,600 times what is recommended, as well as dangerously high levels of benzene and naphthalene – all known fracking components. And in May 2009, one farmer in Clearview, Penn. told Reuters he thought that gas drilling operations had killed four of his cows.

Occurrences like these aren’t just limited to the eastern U.S. In Colorado, a veterinarian named Elizabeth Chandler has documented numerous fertility problems in livestock near active drill sites, including false pregnancy, smaller litters and stillbirths in goats; reduced birth rates in hogs; and delayed heat cycles in dogs.

In another case, Rick Roles, a resident of Rifle, Colorado, reported that his horses became sterile after three disposal pits were installed near his home. Like those in Chandler’s study, Roles’ goats began yielding fewer offspring and producing more stillbirths. Roles himself suffered from swelling of the hands, numbness and body pain – symptoms, he said, that subsided when he stopped eating vegetables from his garden and drinking his goats’ milk.

Actual scientific studies are few and far between, but what’s out there paints a pretty damning picture. One, titled “Livestock Poisoning from Oil Field Drilling Fluids, Muds and Additives,” appeared in the journal Veterinary & Human Toxicology in 1991. It examined seven instances where oil and gas wells had poisoned and/or killed livestock. In one such case, green liquid was found leaking from a tank near a gas well site. The study’s authors found 13 dead cows, whose “postmortem blood was chocolate-brown in color.” Poisoning cases involving carbon disulfide, turpentine, toluene, xylene, ethylene, and complex solvent mixtures “are frequently encountered,” the study concluded.

Another study, this one conducted in Alberta, Canada in 2001, investigated the effects of gas flaring on the reproductive systems of cattle near active gas and oil fields. Its conclusions: “One of the most consistent associations in the analysis was between exposure to sour gas flaring facilities [as opposed to “sweet” ones, which contain more aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic hydrocarbons and carbon particles] and an increased risk of stillbirth. In 3 of the 4 years studied, cumulative exposure to sour flares was associated with an increased risk of stillbirth.”

'Rare Cases'

When questioned about fracking and food, America’s Natural Gas Alliance, an organization composed of the nation’s leading gas production and exploration companies, neglected to get into any specifics. Instead, it offered this response:

“In rare cases where incidents have occurred, companies have worked with the appropriate regulatory authority to identify, contain and correct the issue, and to implement measures to ensure they don’t recur. ANGA member companies understand and respect people’s concerns about the safety of their water and air, and we are committed to engaging in dialogue with community members, policymakers and stakeholders to talk about the safety of natural gas production and the opportunities natural gas offers communities across our country.”

Environmental groups have a markedly different perspective on the issue. “There’s a lot of violations that happen out there that are never documented,” said Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper.

When we talked, Gillingham took out an enormous aerial photo of a drill rig. One disposal pit was surrounded by gray blotches of moisture: leaked fracking fluid. “The stuff that’s coming up – this stuff is getting into the environment,” he said, pointing at the blotches. “You’ve got heavy metals and normally occurring radioactive materials, all of which bioaccumulate in a grazer. That stuff is coming up in the grass where the grass is growing.”

So what sorts of concerns should people have about eating animals that have themselves ingested xylene, benzene, heavy metals, radioactive material? Gillingham, like so many farmers, federal officials and industry reps, can’t say for sure.

“It’s a serious issue in terms of potential contamination getting to market and nobody knowing about it,” he said. “It’s an important piece of research that needs to be done.”

Angry about the greedy financial speculation that wrecked the economy? Got a deficit headache? Anxious about where the money will come from for long overdue investments in energy independence that will create good jobs in the new economy?

How do we spell relief? Try F.S.T. – which stands for Financial Speculation Tax.

A financial speculation tax is a modest levy on financial transactions such as the purchase and sale of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and swaps. England and Taiwan have such taxes on securities that encourage productive investment and discourage reckless trading behavior.

Leaders in the U.S. Congress have introduced a proposal to collect a penny on every four dollars of financial transactions, a fraction of what people pay in broker fees. This FST would exempt retirement funds and the first $100,000 of individual investment transactions. So it would target the fast-buck flippers, the same financial gamblers who crashed the economy through reckless speculation.

The financial speculation tax would raise an estimated $177 billion a year –which makes it the potentially biggest revenue raiser on the table right now.

The deficit hawks should be thrilled about a financial speculation tax. Last week, President Obama issued a directive to federal agencies to propose ways to cut their budgets by 5 percent. The Sustainable Defense Task Force identified $960 billion over ten years in wasteful military spending that could be eliminated without compromising national security. Combine that military savings with a financial speculation tax and we have key components to a new budget and spending plan.

As President Obama heads to Toronto on June 26th for the Summit of the G-20 leaders, he’s going to find lots of other presidents asking about the F.S.T. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have renewed calls for a financial speculation tax.

President Obama will argue in support of his bank tax proposal which will raise an estimated $9 billion a year. The G-20 leaders may also debate a proposal from the International Monetary Fund to institute a “financial activities tax” on profits and employee compensation of all financial institutions. We estimate such a tax would raise $28 billion a year in the U.S.

Yet given our national revenue challenges, why wouldn’t we consider the biggest potential revenue raiser, a financial speculation tax? According to a new report that I co-authored, Taxing the Wall Street Casino a financial speculation tax will raise 20 times as much as President Obama’s proposed bank levy and six times as much as the IMF’s proposed Financial Activities Tax.

A financial speculation tax would have tremendous benefits. It would discourage the short-term investment outlook that lay at the heart of the financial crisis. And it would encourage a healthier marketplace in real goods and services. “We have lost the distinction between real investment in the real economy and short-term speculation,” said John Fullerton, a former JP Morgan Managing Director. “A financial transactions tax should, at the margin, shift investment horizons out to longer holding periods by making high turnover trading strategies marginally less profitable.”

Other leaders from business and finance have stepped up to talk about the value of a financial speculation tax. Wealth for the Common Good has initiated a campaign of business leaders and investors who support the tax. John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Mutual Fund, supports the tax as “a way to slow the rampant speculation that has created such havoc in our financial markets, but also for its revenue-raising potential in this time of staggering government deficits.”

Obviously what stands in the way of implementing such a common sense proposal is the powerful banking and finance lobby, the same interest group that tried to block and is now trying to water down financial reform. But while Wall Street lobby groups have formidable political and economic clout, a growing global “people power” campaign behind financial speculation taxes has a good chance of winning.

BP has been implicated in bribery, overthrowing governments, plunder and money laundering, plus having established one of the worst safety records in the industry.

Gosh, how quickly things turn. One day, you're a strutting peacock -- the next day, you're just another gasping, oil-covered bird.

In early April, BP was strutting about in full corporate splendor, showing off the $9 billion in profits that it had soaked up in just the first three months of this year. It was also basking in a corporate re-imaging campaign, depicting itself as a clean-energy pioneer and declaring that BP now stood for "Beyond Petroleum."

Since its Gulf of Mexico well blew out on April 20, however, BP has proven to be beyond belief. The wider and deeper that this catastrophe spreads, the more we discover just how oily this giant is.

From the time it was known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and set out to grab and control the rich petroleum reserves owned by what is now Iran, BP has been a recidivist global criminal. In the past three decades, it grew huge by swallowing such competitors as Standard Oil of Ohio, Amoco and Arco. Along the way, it has been implicated in bribery, overthrowing governments, plunder and money laundering, plus having established one of the worst safety and environmental records in an industry that is notoriously reckless on both counts.

And now, its rap sheet grows almost daily. In fact, the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that the oil giant's current catastrophic mess should come as no surprise, for it has a long and sorry record of causing calamities. In the last three years, the center says, an astonishing "97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors" came at BP facilities. These included 760 violations rated as "egregious" and "willful." In contrast, the oil company with the second-worst record had only eight such citations.

While its CEO, Tony Hayward, claims that its gulf blowout was simply a tragic accident that no one could've foreseen, internal corporate documents reveal that BP itself had been struggling for nearly a year with its inability to get this well under control. Also, it had been willfully violating its own safety policies and had flat out lied to regulators about its ability to cope with what's delicately called a major "petroleum release" in the Gulf of Mexico.

"What the hell did we do to deserve this?" Hayward asked shortly after his faulty well exploded. Excuse us, Tony, but you're not the victim here -- and this disaster is not the work of fate. Rather, the deadly gusher in the gulf is a direct product of BP's reckless pursuit of profits. You waltzed around environmental protections, deliberately avoided installing relatively cheap safety equipment, and cavalierly lied about the likelihood of disaster and your ability to cope with it.

"It wasn't our accident," the CEO later declared, as oil was spreading. Wow, Tony, in one four-word sentence, you told two lies. First, BP owns the well, and it is your mess. Second, the mess was not an "accident," but the inevitable result of hubris and greed flowing straight from BP's executive suite.

"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean," Hayward told the media, trying to sidestep the fact that BP's mess was fast becoming America's worst oil calamity. Indeed, Tony coolly explained that the amount of oil spewing from the well "is tiny in relation to the total water volume." This flabbergasting comment came only two weeks before it was revealed that the amount of gushing oil was 19 times more than BP had been claiming.

Eleven oil workers are dead, thousands of Gulf Coast people have had their livelihoods devastated and unfathomable damage is being done to the gulf ecology. Imagine how the authorities would be treating the offender if BP were a person. It would've been put behind bars long ago -- if not on death row.

Bad as the Gulf may be, a damaged Arctic will take far more time to heal. Do we want to risk it?

Bear with me.  I’ll get to the oil.  But first you have to understand where I’ve been and where you undoubtedly won’t go, but Shell’s drilling rigs surely will -- unless someone stops them.

Over the last decade, I’ve come to know Arctic Alaska about as intimately as a photographer can. I’ve been there many times, starting with the 14 months I spent back in 2001-2002 crisscrossing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- 4,000 miles in all seasons by foot, raft, kayak, and snowmobile, regularly accompanied by Inupiat hunter and conservationist Robert Thompson from Kaktovik, a community of about 300 on the Arctic coast, or with Gwich’in hunters and conservationists Charlie Swaney and Jimmy John from Arctic Village, a community of about 150 residents on the south side of the Brooks Range Mountains.

In the winter of 2002, Robert and I camped for 29 days at the Canning River delta along the Beaufort Sea coast to observe a polar bear den. It’s hard even to describe the world we encountered.  Only four calm days out of that near-month.  The rest of the time a blizzard blew steadily, its winds reaching a top speed of 65 miles per hour, while the temperature hovered in the minus-40-degree range, bringing the wind-chill factor down to something you’ll never hear on your local weather report: around minus 110 degrees.

If that’s too cold for you, believe me, it was way too cold for someone who grew up in Kolkata, India, even if we did observe the bear and her two cubs playing outside the den.

During the summer months, you probably can’t imagine the difficulty I had sleeping on the Alaskan Arctic tundra.  The sun is up 24 hours a day and a cacophony of calls from more than 180 species of birds converging there to nest and rear their young never ceases, day or “night.” Those birds come from all 49 other American states and six continents. And what they conduct in those brief months is a planetary celebration on an unimaginably epic scale, one that connects the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to just about every other place on Earth.

When you hear the clicking sound of the hooves of the tens of thousands of caribou that also congregate on this great Arctic coastal plain to give birth to their young -- some not far from where my tent was set up -- you know that you are in a place that is a global resource and does not deserve to be despoiled.

Millions of Americans have come to know the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, even if at a distance, thanks to the massive media attention it got when the Bush administration indicated that one of its top energy priorities was to open it up to oil and gas development. Thanks to the efforts of environmental organizations, the Gwich’in Steering Committee, and activists from around the country, George W. Bush fortunately failed in his attempt to turn the refuge into an industrial wasteland.

While significant numbers of Americans have indeed come to care for the Arctic Refuge, they know very little about the Alaskan Arctic Ocean regions -- the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea (which the refuge abuts).

I came to know these near-shore coastal areas better years later and discovered what the local Inupiats had known for millennia: these two Arctic seas are verdant ecological habitats for remarkable numbers of marine species, including endangered Bowhead whales and threatened polar bears, Beluga whales, walruses, various kinds of seals, and numerous species of fish and birds, not to mention the vast range of “non-charismatic” marine creatures we can’t see right down to the krill -- tiny shrimp-like marine invertebrates -- that provide the food that makes much of this life possible.

The Kasegaluk lagoon, which I spent much time documenting as a photographer, along the Chukchi Sea is one of the most important coastal treasures of the entire circumpolar north. It is 125 miles long and only separated from the sea by a thin stretch of barrier islands.  Five icy rivers drain into the lagoon, creating a nutrient-rich habitat for a host of species. An estimated 4,000 Beluga whales are known to calve along its southern edge, and more than 2,000 spotted seals use the barrier islands as haul-out places in late summer, while 40,000 Black Brant goose use its northern reaches as feeding grounds in fall.

In July 2006, during a late evening walk, wildlife biologist Robert Suydam and I even spotted a couple of yellow wagtails -- not imposing whales, but tiny songbirds.  Still, the sight moved me.  “Did you know,” I told my companion, “that some of them migrate to the Arctic from my home, India?”

Can Oil Be Cleaned Up under Arctic Ice?

Unfortunately, as you've already guessed, I’m not here just to tell you about the glories -- and extremity -- of the Alaskan Arctic, which happens to be the most biologically diverse quadrant of the entire circumpolar north.  I’m writing this piece because of the oil, because under all that life and beauty in the melting Arctic there’s something our industrial civilization wants, something oil companies have had their eyes on for a long time now.

If you’ve been following the increasing  ecological devastation unfolding before our collective eyes in the Gulf of Mexico since BP’s rented Deepwater Horizon exploratory drilling rig went up in flames (and then under the waves), then you should know about -- and protest -- Shell Oil’s plan to begin exploratory oil drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas this summer.

On March 31st, standing in front of an F-18 "Green Hornet" fighter jet and a large American flag at Andrews Air Force Base, President Obama announced a new energy proposal, which would open up vast expanses of America’s coastlines, including the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, to oil and gas development. Then, on May 13th, the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed a victory to Shell Oil.  It rejected the claims of a group of environmental organizations and Native Inupiat communities that had sued Shell and the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to stop exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic seas.

Fortunately, Shell still needs air quality permits from the Environmental Protection Agency as well as final authorization from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar before the company can send its 514-foot drilling ship, Frontier Discoverer, north this summer to drill three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort Sea. Given what should by now be obvious to all about the dangers of such deep-water drilling, even in far less extreme climates, let’s hope they don’t get either the permits or the authorization.

On May 14th, I called Robert Thompson, the current board chair of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL). “I’m very stressed right now,” he told me. “We’ve been watching the development of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf on television. We’re praying for the animals and people there. We don’t want Shell to be drilling in our Arctic waters this summer.”

As it happened, I was there when, in August 2006, Shell’s first small ship arrived in the Beaufort Sea. Robert’s wife Jane caught it in her binoculars from her living-room window and I photographed it as it was scoping out the sea bottom in a near-shore area just outside Kaktovik.  Its job was to prepare the way for a larger seismic ship due later that month.

Since then, Robert has been asking one simple question: If there were a Gulf-like disaster, could spilled oil in the Arctic Ocean actually be cleaned up?

He’s asked it in numerous venues -- at Shell’s Annual General Meeting in The Hague in 2008, for instance, and at the Arctic Frontiers Conference in Tromsø, Norway, that same year. At Tromsø, Larry Persily -- then associate director of the Washington office of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and since December 2009, the federal natural gas pipeline coordinator in the Obama administration -- gave a 20-minute talk on the role oil revenue plays in Alaska’s economy.

During the question-and-answer period afterwards, Robert typically asked: “Can oil be cleaned up in the Arctic Ocean? And if you can’t answer yes, or if it can’t be cleaned up, why are you involved in leasing this land? And I’d also like to know if there are any studies on oil toxicity in the Arctic Ocean, and how long will it take for oil there to break down to where it’s not harmful to our marine environment?”

Persily responded: “I think everyone agrees that there is no good way to clean up oil from a spill in broken sea ice. I have not read anyone disagreeing with that statement, so you’re correct on that. As far as why the federal government and the state government want to lease offshore, I’m not prepared to answer that.  They’re not my leases, to be real honest with everyone.”

A month after that conference, Shell paid an unprecedented $2.1 billion to the MMS for oil leases in the Chukchi Sea. In October and December 2009, MMS approved Shell’s plan to drill five exploratory wells. In the permit it issued, the MMS concluded that a large spill was “too remote and speculative an occurrence” to warrant analysis, even though the agency acknowledged that such a spill could have devastating consequences in the Arctic Ocean’s icy waters and could be difficult to clean up.

It would be an irony of sorts if the only thing that stood between the Obama administration and an Arctic disaster-in-the-making was BP’s present catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

The First Oil Rush in Arctic Waters

This isn’t the first time that America’s Arctic seas have been exploited for oil.  If you want to know more, check out John Bockstoce’s book, Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic. Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, commercial whalers regularly ventured into those seas to kill Bowhead whales for whale oil, used as illuminant in lamps and as candle wax.  It was also the finest lubricating oil then available for watches, clocks, chronometers, and other machinery. Later, after petroleum was discovered, whale baleen became a useful material for making women’s corsets.

In 1848, when the first New England whaling ship arrived in Alaska, an estimated 30,000 Bowhead whales lived in those Arctic seas. Just two years later, there were 200 American whaling vessels plying those waters and they had already harvested 1,700 Bowheads.

Within 50 years, an estimated 20,000 Bowhead whales had been slaughtered. By 1921, commercial whaling of Bowheads ended as whale oil was no longer needed and the worldwide population of Bowheads had, in any case, declined to about 3,000 -- with the very survival of the species in question.

Afterwards, the Bowhead population began to bounce back.  Today, more than 10,000 Bowheads and more than 60,000 Beluga whales migrate through the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The Bowhead is believed to be perhaps the longest-lived mammal.  It is now categorized as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and receives additional protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.  It would, of course, be unforgivably ironic if, having barely outlived the first Arctic oil rush, the species were to fall victim to the second.

Inupiat communities have been hunting Bowheads for more than two millennia for subsistence food. In recent decades, the International Whaling Commission has approved an annual quota of 67 whales for nine Inupiat villages in Alaska. This subsistence harvest is deemed ecologically sustainable and not detrimental to the recovery of the population.

My first experience of a Bowhead hunt in Kaktovik was in September 2001.  After the whale was brought ashore, everyone -- from infants to elders -- gathered around the creature to offer a prayer to the creator, and thank the whale for giving itself up to, and providing needed food for, the community. The muktuk (whale skin and blubber) was then shared among community members in three formal celebrations over the year to come -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Naluqatuk (a June whaling feast), two of which I attended.

In 2007, with writer Peter Matthiessen I visited Point Hope and Point Lay, two Inupiat communities of about 1,000 inhabitants on the Chukchi Sea coast. Point Hope is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. At Point Lay, we accompanied Bill and Marie Tracey on a 17-hour boat ride during a Beluga whale hunt. After the whales were beached, four generations gathered in a circle to offer prayer and thanks to the whales. In other words, for such Alaskan Inupiat communities whales are far more than food on the table.  Their cultural and spiritual identity is inextricably linked to the whales and the sea.  If Shell’s vessels head north, the question is: How long will these communities survive?

And it’s not just whales and the communities that live off them that are at stake.  Oil drilling, even at a distance, has already taken a toll in the Arctic.  After all, the survival of several Arctic species, including polar bears, walruses, seals, and sea birds, is seriously threatened by the widespread melting of sea ice, the result of climate change (caused, of course, by the use of fossil fuels).

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In addition, millions of birds use the near-shore Arctic waters, barrier islands, coastal lagoons, and river deltas for nesting and rearing their young in spring, and for feeding in summer before they start migrating to their southern wintering grounds. When the Arctic wind blows in one direction, nutrient-rich fresh water from the rivers is pushed out into the ocean; when it blows in the other direction, saltwater from the sea enters the lagoon. This mixing of fresh and saltwater creates a nutrient-rich near-shore ecological habitat for birds, many species of fish, and several species of seals.

All this is my way of saying that if oil drilling begins in the Arctic seas and anything goes wrong, the nature of the disaster in the calving, nesting, and spawning grounds of so many creatures would be hard to grasp.

Don’t Let Shell’s Drilling Ship Head North

With the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico ongoing, scientists are beginning to worry about hurricane season.  It officially begins on June 1st and doesn’t officially end until November 30th.  Any significant storm entering the Gulf would, of course, only exacerbate the disaster, moving oil all over the place, while hindering clean-up operations. Now, think about the Arctic Ocean, where blizzards and storms aren’t seasonal events, but an all-year-round reality and -- thanks (many scientists believe) to the effects of climate change -- their intensity is actually on the rise. Even in summer, they can blow in at 80 miles per hour, bringing any oil spill on the high seas very quickly into ecologically rich coastal areas.

On May 5th, Native Village of Point Hope and REDOIL joined 14 environmental organizations in sending a letter to Interior Secretary Salazar.  In light of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it urges him to reconsider his decision to allow Shell to proceed with its drilling plan. That same week, Secretary Salazar did finally order a halt to all new offshore drilling projects and asked Shell to explain how it could improve its ability to prevent a spill -- and, if one happens, to respond to it effectively in the Arctic.

On May 18th, Shell responded publicly that it would employ a pre-made dome to contain any leaking well and deploy chemical dispersants underwater at the source of any oil leak. From what I gather, both methods have been attempted by BP in the Gulf of Mexico.  The dome has so far failed, developing hydrates and becoming unusable before ever being placed over the leak. Scientists now believe that those toxic chemical dispersants have resulted in significant ecological devastation to coral reefs and could be dangerous to other sea life. None of this bodes well for the Arctic.

There is, I’m beginning to realize, another crisis we have to face in the Gulf, the Arctic, and elsewhere: How do we talk about -- and show -- what we can’t see? Yes, via video, we can see the gushing oil at the source of BP’s well a mile below the surface of the water, and thanks to TV and newspapers we can sometimes see (or read about) oil-slicked dead birds, dead sea turtles, and dead dolphins washing up on coastlines.

But what about all the other aspects of life under water that we can’t see, that won’t simply wash up on some beach, that in terms of our daily lives might as well be on Mars?  What’s happening to the incredible diversity of marine life inhabiting that mile-deep water, and what cumulative impact will all that still-spilling oil have on it, on the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly -- in ways we may not yet be able to imagine -- on our lives?

These are questions that desperately need to be asked and answered before we allow oil ships to head north and drilling to spread to America’s Arctic Ocean. Keep in mind that there, unlike in the temperate and tropical oceans where things grow relatively fast, everything grows very slowly.  On the other hand, toxins left behind from oil spills will take far longer to break down in the frigid climate. Bad as the Gulf may be, a damaged Arctic will take far more time to heal.

Whatever we can’t see, what we already can see on the front pages of our newspapers and in the TV news should be more than enough to convince us not to take seriously the safety claims of giant oil companies desperate to drill under some of the worst conditions imaginable.  Send those drill rigs into Arctic waters and, sooner or later, you know just what you’ll get.

If the remaining permits are approved for Shell in the coming weeks, the Frontier Discoverer will be in the Chukchi Sea less than six weeks later.

President Obama and Secretary Salazar should stop this folly now.  It’s important for them to listen to those who really know what’s at stake, the environmental groups and human rights organizations of the indigenous Inupiat communities.  It’s time to put a stop to Shell’s drilling plan in America’s Arctic Ocean for this summer -- and all the summers to come.

In order to justify the Tribal Invasion, which to many experts is the root cause of problems of people of Jammu and Kashmir, some pro Pakistan writers and agents of the Pakistani establishment claim that the Tribal Invasion was the result of mass killings of Muslims in Jammu. According to these claims they went there to help Muslims. Let us analyse that in light of historic evidence.

No doubt Muslims were killed in tens of thousands in Jammu province, but the Tribal Invasion had no link with that mass killing. Those who managed the Tribal Invasion tried to link it with the Jammu Massacre after the planned invasion proved disastrous.

Apart from the Valley and some other parts of the State, the whole of Sub Continent was suffering from communal violence at that time. Tens of thousands of non Muslim migrants entered Jammu from Sialkot and other parts of Pakistan and aggravated the situation there. The Muslims in Jammu were targeted and killed. This started in the third week of August 1947.

The Tribal Invasion started on 22 October 1947. If those who planned the Tribal Invasion sincerely wanted to help Muslims of Jammu, why did they remain quiet for nearly two months? Why didn’t they send Tribesmen and other armed men towards Jammu from Sialkot which is about 28 miles from there; or from the side of Bhimber – Kot Jaimel? Instead they sent the Tribesmen via Muzaaffarbad which has vast Muslim majority and had no direct link with Jammu.

Between third week of August 1947 and second week of October the government of Pakistan remained quiet as they didn’t want to annoy the Maharaja. Plight of Jammu Muslims was not their big concern, as territory of Kashmir was much closer to their hearts.

Until second week of October the government of Pakistan assumed that the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir would join Pakistan. When the Maharaja indicated that he wanted to remain independent the government of Pakistan decided to punish him and dethrone him.

It was because of this they sent the Tribesmen to Muzaffarabad even though there was no communal violence there; and Muslims were in majority there. They knew the road to Kashmiri capitol went through Muzaffarabad. They almost succeeded in their plan to get Kashmir; but the Tribesmen let them down who wasted three valuable days in killing, looting and raping in Baramula.

Jammu massacres were tragic and shameful in which Muslims were hunted and killed, and this must be condemned; but it would be historically wrong to link the Tribal Invasion with that. The Tribal Invasion was an attempt of Pakistan to conquer Kashmir and to punish the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir for disobeying the whims of the Pakistani rulers.

Was Kashmir given to Pakistan?

Some Pakistanis and pro Pakistan Kashmiris claim that Kashmir was given to Pakistan in 1947, and India with its superior force invaded Kashmir. All this is wrong. No one gave Kashmir to Pakistan. No one had this right to give Kashmir to Pakistan.

It was a desire of Pakistani rulers that Kashmir should become part of Pakistan. We have many desires and not all of them come true. My desire is to have an oil well in my village, but this is only a desire and it won’t come true; even if it did, Pakistani rulers will take over and expel me from there and take all the benefits as they did with Mangla Dam.

After 15 August 1947 the State of Jammu and Kashmir was independent. It had bilateral agreement with Pakistan, known as Standstill Agreement; and Kashmir was in a process to finalise a similar agreement with India.

Pakistan in clear breach of this Agreement stopped all the essential items like food, petrol etc going to Kashmir in the second week of October; and on 22 October Pakistan sent its armed officers and Tribesmen to conquer Kashmir. It resulted in killings of thousands of innocent people and rapes of our mothers and daughters.

The Maharaja of Kashmir was not expecting this breach of agreement and panicked. He asked help from India. India urged the Maharaja to sign an Instrument of Accession which was signed and accepted as ‘provisional’.

To us, the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir is disputed. However, the arrival of the Indian army in Kashmir, no matter how much we dislike it and condemn it because of human rights abuses, was a result of an agreement between the ruler of Kashmir and India. But the Pakistan army and the tribesmen moved in to the Kashmir territory without any agreement; and they continue to remain there.

Right of self determination or right of accession

Many people, either innocently or by design, try to confuse the Right of self determination with right of accession. The UN gave people of Jammu and Kashmir a right of self determination in its Resolution of 13 August 1948, which on request of Pakistan, was changed to right of accession to either India or Pakistan in the next resolution passed on 5th January 1949.

When people demand implementation of the UN resolutions, assuming that they will get right of self determination, in actual fact, they demand the right of accession which was given to them in the UN Resolution of 5th January 1949. Pakistani policy makers laugh at our innocence and urge us Kashmiris to keep on demanding this, as it goes in favour of Pakistan.

This controversy has been going on for decades now, as to who is responsible for non implementation of the UN Resolutions. Pakistani propaganda in this regard has been very effective, and a lot of Pakistanis and Kashmiris believe it was India who created obstacles in implementation of the UN Resolutions. Historic facts, however, do not support this contention.

In short, the UNCIP resolution of 13 August 1948 had three parts to it, namely a cease - fire, withdrawal of Pakistani troops and irregulars present inside the State. Once the UN was satisfied that the Pakistan has withdrawn, India had to withdraw a ‘bulk’ of her forces from the State. The third stage was a plebiscite.

First stage was completed with the cease fire on 1st January 1949. In the second stage, Pakistan had to withdraw her regular and irregular forces from Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan, followed by a withdrawal of ‘bulk’ of the Indian forces. Only after completion of the second stage as explained in the UN Resolution, the third stage could be started?

To date Pakistan has not vacated these areas as demanded by the UN Resolution; but cleverly stated that India is not abiding by the Resolutions. Many Pakistanis and Kashmiris argue that even if Pakistan had vacated these areas India still would not have held the plebiscite. Here we are dealing with facts and not assumptions. It is difficult to give a definitive reply to this hypothetical situation - we cannot say with certainty that India would have held plebiscite or not.

Apart from that some religious extremists and agents of Pakistan try to confuse people by saying that because of the Two Nations Theory Kashmir should have become part of Pakistan. This is not true. The British Raj in India consisted of two units: British India and the Princely India. British India was directly ruled by the British through the Governor General, and the Princes were ruled indirectly by treaties.

The Two Nations Theory was applicable to the British India and not to the Princely States. There is ample evidence to prove this point, even Mohammed Ali Jinnah agreed with this. The Instrument of Accession was designed for the Princely States. Vast majority of the Princely States either willingly or by pressure joined India and some joined Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir was among those States which did not join either India or Pakistan, hence became independent.

Some agents of the Pakistani establishment, while defaming me accuse me that I am ‘satisfied’ with the ‘accession’ to India. This is nothing else but a white lie, which these agents and foot soldiers of agencies use in order to hide their nefarious designs on Kashmir.

All my written work and speeches are available on my blog and on blogs of many other people; and all of that is compiled and regularly published. I challenge all the critics to find one speech of mine or one article which gives slightest inclination that I am satisfied with the ‘accession’ with India. I have always called the ‘accession’ as ‘provisional’ and promoted unification and independence of the entire State. Anyone who is satisfied with the accession does not fight for unification and independence of the entire State; and I have done that throughout my life.

Writer is Director Diplomatic Committee of Kashmir National Party, political analyst and author of many books and booklets. Also he is Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs.Email:drshabirchoudhry@gmail.com
To view other articles see my blog: www.drshabirchoudhry.blogspot.com

*CLAIM: I believe humans are destabilizing the Earth's crust & predisposing the Earth to earthquakes & a shift in the Earth's orbit-- as a result of Oil drilling, Nuclear bomb testing, Mining, Dams, Ground Injections of Waste Products, Skyscrapers & other human destructive activities in the Earth's outer land mass. As an example, I believe humans are converting the relatively low seismic Gulf of Mexico to a seismic geologic location ? due to Oil drilling.  I am not a geologist; I am not a seismologist; I am not a volcanologist.  But, I am concerned Homo Sapien technological activities in the Earth's crust are putting locations such as the Gulf of Mexico at great risk for seismic events i.e. Earthquakes & other geologic events.

*WARNING by INDIADAILY.COM: Indiadaily.com states: ?Uncontrolled drilling of (the) Earth's crust ? will cause major problems. The Earth's crust is brittle ?According to a computer model, if these drilling projects below the ocean & ? on the continental crust are continued, it will cause ? complete destruction of the crust?. ?Some experts believe that (the) earth's crust weakening experiments should be ? monitored by the United Nations?. (1) If humans destroy the Earth's crust & expose or breach the mantle, What unknown risks do we face? ? Do we risk increased Earthquakes &/or Volcanic activity? Do we risk a shift in the Earth's axis? Do we risk a tilt in the Earth's axis?

*RAPE METAPHOR: Humans are raping the Earth. Rape is about Power, control & domination of another entity. Homo Sapiens are Penetrating, drilling, mining, blasting, damming, extracting & bombing the Earth's outer land mass -- As a sexual predator rapes it's victim & then leaves the victim for dead. & The Earth is hurting.

*BULLFIGHTING METAPHOR: Another metaphor to describe what humans are doing to the Earth is Bullfighting symbolism. Humans are goring the Earth's crust like a Matador spears a Bull to death during a Spanish Bullfight.

*HOMO SAPIEN AGENDA: Why are humans destroying the planet Earth's crust? In my opinion these human acts of exploitation of the Earth's outer land mass are due to:

#1. Human Overpopulation.

#2. Excessive Consumption of Natural resources.

#3. The human addiction to War & Military activities.

Homo Sapiens have excessive Self-interest & addictions to pleasure that drive human Overpopulation, the super-Consumption & depletion of natural resources and the creation of Pollution & waste ? At the expense of other Animals, Trees & the Earth. Also, the Homo Sapien desire for wars consumes significant resources including Oil. Humans lack: Compassion, proactive behavior & impulse control for the Earth due to Greedy, glutinous & carnal drives for Oil, coal, dams & nuclear bomb testing.

*EVIDENCE of Human Destabilization of the Earth's crust by: Nuclear Bombs, Oil-Well Drilling, Coal Mines, Natural Gas Production, Dams & Reservoirs, Skyscrapers, etc.: While many Anthropocene (2) discussions in the media are focused on Human destruction of the Biosphere (3) i.e. the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere (oceans) & the living organic Lithosphere (4) ? What about destructive human activities in the less sensational more inorganic solid component of the Earth's Crust? [Note: Synonym of Earthquake: Temblor (5), seismic activity or tremor. (6)] The Key Sections of this paper are: I. Nuclear Bomb Testing & Earthquakes, II. The 2004 Indonesian Earthquake, III. Oil & Gas Drilling & Earthquakes, IV. Coal Mining & Earthquakes, V. Dams, Reservoirs & Earthquakes, VI. Injection of Toxic Waste Products Underground, VII. Military Testing, VIII. Skyscrapers, IX. Miscellaneous Topics, X. Discussion.

*DEFINITION:

*THE EARTH'S CRUST: The Earth's Crust is the outermost layer of the Earth & it ranges from 5-70 km in depth. The thin parts are the oceanic crust (5-10 km) ? The thicker crust is the continental crust. [en.wikipedia.org: The Structure of the Earth.]

*?The crust thickness averages about 18 miles under the continents, but is only about 3 miles under the oceans. (The ocean's floor) is light & brittle & can break. ? It is where most earthquakes originate?. (7)

I. NUCLEAR BOMB TESTING & EARTHQUAKES:

*Whiteford studied earthquakes before nuclear testing & after nuclear testing: ?In the fifty years before testing, large earthquakes of more that 5.8 occurred at an average rate of 68 per year. With the advent of testing the rate rose ?suddenly & dramatically' to an average of 127 a year. The earthquake rate has almost doubled? as a result of nuclear bomb testing. Some studies warn that ?Nuclear tests are weakening the earth's crust triggering earthquakes & causing the earth's pole to shift?. Shigeyoshi Matsumae, President of Tokai Univ. Department of Aerospace Science states: ?Earthquakes & fluctuations of the earth's axis are related in a direct cause-and-effect to testing of nuclear devices?. ?In 1991, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation published Whiteford's findings in an article called: ?Is Nuclear Testing Triggering Earthquakes & Volcanic Activity?'?

(8)

*NUCLEAR WEAPONS & VOLCANIC ACTIVITY: Babst & Krieger state: ?In the early 1980's, the world had it's greatest volcanic activity in 70 years ? At this time, many nuclear tests were being carried out by the U.S. & U.S.S.R.?. (9)

II. THE INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE OF 2004:

*MILITARY TESTING & EARTHQUAKES: On 12/26/4 , a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami & it killed more that 300,000 people. ?For some, the finger of blame doesn't point squarely at nature but at top secret Military testing in the waters of the Indian Ocean . The Egyptian weekly magazine Al-Osboa claimed that (this earthquake) ?was possibly' caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which ?Israeli & American nuclear experts participated?. (10)

*NUCLEAR TESTING: Are humans causing earthquakes, volcanic activity & changes in the Earth's axis due to nuclear testing? Should nuclear agencies, governments & nuclear corporations conducting nuclear testing be held accountable for the negative effects of these tests on the planet Earth?

*CASCADE of ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS: SEISMIC TESTS of the OCEAN FLOOR for OIL & GAS, WHALE & DOLPHIN BEACHINGS & EARTHQUAKES:

?On 11/28/4 , Reuters reported that during a 3 day span 169 whales & dolphins beached themselves in Tasmania ?. Bob Brown, a senator in the Australian Parliament, said ?Sound Bombing' or seismic tests of ocean floors to test for Oil & gas had been recently carried out near the sites of the Tasmanian beachings??

?These (sound waves) are known to affect whales & dolphins, whose acute hearing & use of sonar is very sensitive?. ?

?On 12/24/4 , there was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake more than 800 km southeast of Tasmania near New Zealand .? ?

?Interestingly, the locations of the whale beachings over the previous 30 days correlates with the same general area struck by the 8.1 Australian earthquake. The seismic testing also took place in the same area. Then 2 days after the Australian tectonic plate shifted, the 9.0 earthquake shook the coast of Indonesia ?. (11)

*CONCLUSION: The Earth & it's animals & ecosystems are suffering due to Homo Sapien greed for Oil & gas and our addiction to consumer goods.

III. OIL-WELL DRILLING & EARTHQUAKES: e.g. the Gulf of Mexico .

*THE BRITISH PETROLEUM GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL: The British Petroleum oil drilling rig fire & oil spill was originally called an ?Incident? by the U.S. government ? The truth is that this man-made disaster is a major catastrophic event for the Gulf of Mexico & the world.

*THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION's Response to the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Shannon Jones in her Gulf Oil Spill article states: ?The response of the Obama administration to the (BP Gulf of Mexico) disaster is indicative of it's prostration before the powerful corporate & financial interests it serves?. ?Following the oil rig explosion the Obama administration remained Silent & indifferent?. ?The White House continued it's silence as the scale of the disaster widened, continuing it's calls for expanded offshore drilling?. Downplaying the significance of the unfolding environmental catastrophe, (President Obama) merely called the oil spill an ?Incident'?. (12)

*SAFETY EXEMPTIONS: The U.S. exempted British Petroleum from Safety Study: ?The ( U.S. ) Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico (Oil) drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact study. ?. Three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely?. (13)

*RESPONSIBILITY: Who is Responsible for this Environmental Catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico ? British Petroleum, Halliburton, Trans Ocean & Cameron International are responsible for the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the destruction of Gulf of Mexico ecosystems near Louisiana, the damage to the fishing industry and the killing of birds & animals including dolphins & pelicans -- & the risk for a Seismic event in the Gulf of Mexico. I feel BP, Halliburton, TransOcean & Cameron International failed to apply the Precautionary Principle in their Deepwater Horizon Oil well operation in the Gulf of Mexico ? especially with respect to safety measures such as the Blowout Preventer. (14) (15)

* GULF of MEXICO OIL RIGS : Number of Violations of the Earth's crust in the Gulf of Mexico : ?The number of U.S. (oil rigs) in the Gulf (of Mexico ) is roughly 4,000?. (16) *DEEPEST OIL WELL: The Depth of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Well: The Deepwater Horizon was ?The deepest oil & gas well ever drilled with a vertical depth of 35,050 feet (10,680 m)? (about 6.6 Miles). (17)

*OIL WELLS CAUSE EARTHQUAKES: ?Pumping out underground crude contracts the rock in oil reservoirs & sets up large pressure changes over short distances?. (18) Segall states: ?Seismicity is correlated in space & time with production from some oil & gas fields?. (19)

*HUMAN-TRIGGERED EARTHQUAKES IN SEISMICALLY INACTIVE AREAS: ?The rate of seismicity in the Gulf of Mexico is relatively low?. (20) Klose states: ?Human-triggered earthquakes are particularly dangerous ? if they occur in seismically inactive areas?. (21) Question: If a human-induced earthquake occurs in a low seismicity area such as the Gulf of Mexico , will such an earthquake be as ?dangerous? as Klose warns?

* GULF of MEXICO 2006 EARTHQUAKE: In 2006 a ?Magnitude 6.0 temblor, centered ? southeast of New Orleans , Louisiana , occurred. ?Powerful earthquakes are rare but not unheard of in the Southeast U.S. ? Most earthquakes take place near the edges of the tectonic plates ?The recent Gulf of Mexico earthquake ? occurred in the middle of a plate?. (22) Question: Was this rare 2006 Gulf of Mexico earthquake related to oil drilling in the Gulf?

*GULF of MEXICO POLLUTION: Secondary Effects of Damage to the Gulf of Mexico's Earth's Crust: The Gulf of Mexico is becoming a Toilet, a Sewer of man-made pollution from: The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, Debris from land sources (including waste disposal facilities, waste water treatment plants & post-storm runoff from urban & agricultural sites) (23), Tanker debris & chemical pollutants (24), Mississippi River run-off including Dead zones & Red tide algae blooms (25), (26), etc.. Also, University studies identify: ?Flame retardant materials in ? (the) Gulf of Mexico ? & ?Human & animal feces in the Gulf of Mexico ?. (27)

* HAITI EARTHQUAKE: Was the Haiti Earthquake near the Port-au-Prince of January 12, 2010 with a magnitude of about 7 (28) -- affected by Oil drilling in the Gulf of Gonave ?

*CONCLUSION: Humans are penetrating the Gulf of Mexico with oil wells to satisfy modern society's addiction to fossil fuels ? While at the same time Homo Sapiens are putting the Gulf of Mexico at risk for earthquakes & polluting this ecosystem.

*NATURAL GAS-INDUCED EARTHQUAKES:

*Klose states ?Three of the biggest human-caused earthquakes of all time ? were a trio that occurred in Uzbekistan 's Gazli natural gas field between 1976 & 1984?. (29)

IV. COAL MINE-INDUCED EARTHQUAKES:

*?Klose has identified more than 200 human-caused temblors, mostly in the past 60 years. ?They were rare before World War II' (Klose) said. ?Most were caused by mining'?. (30)

?The most powerful earthquake in Australian history (1989) magnitude 5.6 ? was caused by human beings!? ?That quake was triggered by changes in tectonic forces caused by 200 years of under ground coal mining, according to a study by Christian D. Klose of Columbia University 's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades , New York ?. ?'Klose has indentified more than 200 human-caused trembles, mostly in the past 60 years. ?There were rare before World War II'? (Klose) said. Klose states ??Most were caused by mining ? but nearly one-third came from reservoir construction. Oil & gas production can also trigger earthquakes'?. (31)

*OTHER MINING ACTIVITIES & EARTHQUAKES: Lendman quotes Klose as stating: ?Mining activites disturb the ? stress in the upper continental crust & can trigger earthquakes?; Lendman goes on to cite past examples of human-induced earthquakes including: Potash mining, copper mining & ore mining. (32)

V. RESERVOIR-INDUCED EARTHQUAKES:

*The Koyna Dam & the Koyna Reservoir in India were built & filled with water in 1962 & 1963, respectively. In 1967 ?An earthquake with an approx. magnitude of 7.0 shook the region in & around the dam?. ?The area was believed to be seismically stable prior to this event. Most experts are convinced that this earthquake was reservoir-induced. The concept of a reservoir-induced (or dam-induced) earthquake is that the enormous pressure of the water behind the dam actually causes shifting in the underlying earth, eventually leading to increased seismicity?. (33)

* Hoover Dam: ?Perhaps the most famous example (of Reservoir Loading & Earthquakes) in the United States is that of Hoover Dam. Hundreds of earthquakes occurred as the water level rose. ? The level of seismicity ? fluctuated in direct response to (the) water level. ? The largest (shock) was about magnitude 5 ? The area had no record of being seismically active?. (34)

*Regarding China 's Zipingpu Dam & the subsequent earthquake in 2008, Lendman quotes Science magazine as stating: ?The added weight (affected the) fault, weakening it & increased the stress tending to rupture (it). The effect was 25 times that of a year's worth of natural stress loading from tectonic motions. When the fault did finally rupture, it moved just the way the reservoir loading had encouraged it to (move)?. (35)

VI. INJECTION of WASTE PRODUCTS INTO THE GROUND & EARTHQUAKES:

*Lendman states: In 1961, ?(the Army) injected ?Napalm toxic waste into the earth's crust (in the Rocky Mountains ) ? (that) likely trigger(ed) regional earthquakes?. Lendman quotes seismologist Dave Wolney as stating: If you are doing deep well injection, you are altering the stress on the underlying rocks & at some point, (it) will be relieved by generating an earthquake?. (36)

*CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE & STORAGE & Climate Change Management: ?During the 1950's, it was discovered that injection of fluids (into the earth) at high pressures could cause small-to-medium sized earthquakes. ? Guidelines have been developed to prevent injection-induced microseismicity. Now, regulatory agencies limit injection rates & pressures to avoid unintentional hydrofracturing. Microseismic monitoring is often done (during a project) to establish operational parameters for injection. Carbon dioxide storage projects would operate under similar guidelines (to minimize the risk of earthquakes). (37)

VII. U.S. MILITARY HAARP TESTING: Although the HAARP program involves primarily the atmosphere with secondary effects on the Earth's crust, it is another illustration of potential man-made earthquakes that can cause damage to the Earth. ?A number of independent researchers have warned? that the Military's HAARP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) ?Operation has a secret agenda including weather modification, mind control, hi-tech military experiments & the triggering of earthquakes?. (38)

VIII. LARGE BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION:

*Lendman states regarding Ravilious' UK Guardian article titled: ?Skyscraper May Cause Earthquakes?: The Taipei #101 (building) in Taiwan , the world's tallest building weighing 700,000 tons: ?The building's stress may have reopened an ancient fault. Before it's construction, the Taipei basin was very stable ? Thereafter, ?The number of earthquakes increased?. (39), (40).

IX. MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS:

*THE LINK BETWEEN EARTHQUAKES & VOLCANIC ACTIVITY:

?New evidence showing that very large earthquakes can trigger an increase in activity at nearby volcanoes ? has been uncovered by Oxford University scientists?. (41)

*VOLCANIC ACTIVITY & VIOLATIONS of THE EARTH'S CRUST: Question: If Volcanic activity is defined as: ?An opening or rupture in (the Earth's) surface or crust, (through) which ? hot magma, ash & gases ? escape? (42)? & Volcanoes & Earthquakes are strongly related (43) -- & There is proof of human-induced earthquakes [Material presented in this paper.] --Then why wouldn't Oil drilling or other violations of the Earth's crust predispose the Earth not only to Earthquakes, but also to increased Volcanic activity ? Or other yet unknown disasters?

*CHILEAN EARTHQUAKE in 2010 & the SHIFT IN the EARTH'S AXIS:

Although there is no evidence that the Chilean earthquake was human-induced, this earthquake demonstrates the potential of earthquakes to cause tsunamis & to affect the earth's orbit.

*?The 8.8 earthquake in ( Chile ) ? has caused considerable changes throughout the world. No only was there a tsunami some 6,700 miles away on the other side of the ocean, but the force of the earthquake ? caused the earth to shift 3 inches off her axis?. (44)

-- ?Which will shorten our day by a little over 1 microsecond?. (45) Note: ?The climate & weather patterns are determined by the earth's tilt & not rotation. The quake didn't knock the earth off it's current tilt?. (46)

*GLOBAL WARMING & TILT OF THE EARTH'S AXIS: While global warming generally involves the atmosphere, it's effects upon the ice sheets of the Earth's crust classifies it as a relevant topic for discussion in this paper. ?Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say that global warming could actually alter the tilt of our planet's axis due to instability from (& redistribution of the Earth's weight from) melting ice sheets?. (47)

*THE HUMAN EGO: The goal of the Kola Superdeep Borehole was ?To drill as deep as possible into the Earth's crust? -- about 7 & ½ miles deep into the Earth. It is the deepest hole ever drilled -- & For what purpose? The human Ego? (48)

*NUMBER OF TOTAL PENETRATIONS OF THE EARTH'S CRUST: Due to All Human Exploitative Activities: It is difficult to quantify the total number of all human destructive events in the Earth's outer land mass. Here is a sample of numbers of exploitations of the Earth's crust: U.S. Oil wells in 2006: over 500,000; Chinese large Dams: over 22,000; France: 160 underground Nuclear tests; China : 22 underground nuclear tests; India : 6 underground nuclear tests; Pakistan : 6 underground nuclear tests. (49), (50), (51)

X. DISCUSSION:

*PENETRATING, DRILLING, MINING, EXTRACTING & BOMBING: Given the increasing Human population, the demand for Natural resources such as Oil & Technology ? Humans are destroying the Earth's crust. As we keep penetrating, drilling, mining, extracting & bombing the Earth's crust, I believe that humans are weakening the Earth's outer land mass. Also, nuclear bomb explosions underground & in the oceans are weakening the Earth's crust.

*EARTHQUAKE & VOLCANIC RISK: As we weaken the Earth's crust, we are increasing the risk of earthquakes & secondarily volcanic activity.

*THE EARTH'S AXIS: These earthquakes then have a potential to cause a shift in the Earth's axis. Climate change is also affecting the make-up of the Earth's crust & hence the tilt of the Earth's axis.

*CONSENT: We all give our consent to the Governments & Corporations to abuse the Earth. We are all responsible for this Rape of the Earth. But, the masses of people also have the power to withdraw their consent for this Violence to the Earth.

*VIOLATION of the Earth's Crust below a Sacred NATIVE AMERICAN Site: The Black Hills of South Dakota are a sacred site for the Lakota Nation -- & yet the Black Hills are being exploited for ?Scientific purposes? deep below the Earth's surface in the old Homestake gold mine. ?Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab(oratory) ? -- A place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter?. One person states regarding this Black Hills scientific laboratory: (It) ?Tickles us pink?. (52) Are the Native Americans ?Tickled pink? about this scientific project located about a mile below one of their religious sites? Are U.S. scientists placing a higher value on science & dark matter than on Respecting the Earth's crust & a sacred Native American site at Black Hills ?

CONCLUSION:

*THE HUMAN EGO: We are Not a wise species as our Homo Sapien name suggests. Rather we are Homo Violent. We humans do Not live in harmony with the Earth ? Rather we Homo Sapiens are separate from the Earth.  We are enemies of the Earth. We are predators. We seek to Dominate, conquer & destroy: the Earth, the Native Americans, the Tibetan people, the Mustangs, the Eagles, the Dolphins, the Trees, etc.. We lust for Power & Control.  Why?  The HUMAN EGO -- It is a very dangerous thing.  & I Apologize to the Universe for the Human Ego out to the 10K-1 Galaxy.

Namaste. Salaam. Shalom. Shanti. Peace.

Thank you. Respectfully, Mary Hamer, M.D.

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52. www.nydailynews.com: Dark Matter Research Excites Scientists. By Dirk Lammers. 6/24/9 .

Poetry For Palestine
To the American people who support Israel and its wars

Dear friends

I am writing this letter to you because of the devastation that is caused by your government in our lands, and because of the immanent threat to world peace that I see your government pushing for, again.

The way things are moving now, I foresee great danger, and terrible risk to peace and security to the whole world.

I am writing to you because I care very much about humanity and I love our planet, with all its inhabitants.

I am writing to you because I believe in civilised dialogues, where people can express themselves freely, without being patronized, silenced, ridiculed, imprisoned or even killed for their beliefs.

I am writing to you to build bridges not walls, and to take you on a short journey so you may see things from our perspective.

I am writing to you for the purpose of advancing more realistic and humanistic understanding and for trying together to achieve a more tolerant and peaceful world.

I see systematic efforts by most of your media pundits, to work endlessly at dehumanizing Muslims and their faith, and I see that as pre-emptive justification for more military attacks against more innocent civilians, aiming at our total destruction.

When a group of people (Muslims in this case) are seen as intrinsically evil, and when their faith and beliefs are portrayed as violent, malicious, and aggressive, then, anything done to those people is acceptable and defensible.

Without talking to one another, and without trying sincerely to put extra effort to understand the other, we will all be losers, and we’ll be driving our beautiful world towards catastrophe and devastation… that breaks my heart, as a mother, and as a human being.

Is it too much to ask “to open our hearts and our minds and listen to what the other has to say” ?

Can we learn something from little children; where prejudice and bigotry are non-existent ?

Words in your media are used and manipulated to imply deceptive meanings, so you are kept in a state of constant fear, watching over your shoulders in panic from "Islamist monsters bent on invading and destroying you", never mind how absurd and ridiculous such allegations in reality are.

The zionist-controlled media has hijacked our language, and vocabulary and disfigured our religion

They drilled in people’s heads that:

Islam is terror

Jihad is holy war

Fatwa is death penalty

Muslim women are the manifestation of oppression, uneducated, forced into wearing the veil, and enslaved by their men.

Muslim men are fanatics, cruel, sadistic wife beaters

Muslim children are terrorists in the making

When a c rime is committed, the criminal is a criminal, but when a Muslim commits a crime, even a petty one, he is immediately labelled a "Muslim criminal" irrespective the fact that his faith opposes such crimes. A Muslim criminal committing a crime becomes "a Muslim terrorist", and he committed the crime because he is a Muslim and his faith teaches evil!

If only Americans could understand that what is published in US medias and blogs, is not the truth, but as much a lie as when your bankers all told you could borrow almost limitless and never suffer any economic consequences.

The hard facts about Islam and Muslims, are different, and the vast majority of Muslims would not fit to this ugly stereotype.

Islam is peace: the root of the word Islam is Salam, which is one of the Holy Names of God. Salam is Arabic for Peace. The meaning of the word Islam is beautiful as Islam is Arabic for bring into Peace.

The word Salam is used for greeting others. Saying "as'Salam alaikum" to someone means "Peace be upon you!"

When a Muslim greets another person with "Peace be upon you," the greeter is in fact proclaiming a contract of Peace with the other person. Hence, if the greeter has non-peaceful intentions towards the other person, he would be engaging in hypocrisy, which is one of the Major Sins in Islam!

“When a (courteous) greeting is offered you, meet it with a greeting still more courteous, or (at least) of equal courtesy. God takes careful account of all things” Quran (4:86)

Jihad is an Arabic word that means the endeavour to do your best to make this world a better one:

Any effort to help achieve that is called jihad, or struggle, going to school to learn is a form of jihad, being a mother rearing children is jihad, spreading knowledge through teaching or writing is jihad, treating patients is jihad, looking after sick parents is jihad, also defending yourself when attacked is jihad, and struggling against oppression is jihad.

Any action that one undertakes in order to bring good to mankind is jihad

Life with all its ups and downs is a jihad

The highest form of Jihad, however, is the inner Jihad, which is the Major Jihad that means the never ending inner struggle against one’s arrogance, greed, and selfishness in order to achieve the Generous Temperaments.

The Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, declared "Verily I was sent to this World to define (and live by) the Generous Temperament."

According to him, the codes of Generous Temperament (makarem elakhlaq) are seven:

“Pardoning those who have oppressed you

Giving to those who have deprived you

Connecting with those who have shunned you

Benefiting those who have abused you

Counselling those who have deceived you

Forgiving those who have maligned you

Forbearing with those who have angered you.”

Contrary to common beliefs, the concept of holy war does NOT exist in Islam; it is a European concept from the days of the crusaders, and has absolutely no equivalent in Islam, it does however in the minds of the new crusaders as it seems from so many video clip we have seen, of your hypocrite politicians and zionist "evangelists", and in the sick minds of those who invaded our lands and murdered our people.

To translate the concept of Holy War into Arabic is almost impossible. It would sound something like “Harb Muqaddassah” which does not exist in Arabic, even the concept of it is unheard of, never used in spoken or written language, as it is too contrary to Islamic principles and values !

How misleading and dishonest is the translation and misconception of jihad as a holy war then!

By writing this, all I am doing is reclaiming my language back.

Fatwa is nothing but an expression of an opinion by an informed person:

Being what it is, it is not for any one to enforce their “fatwa” / opinion upon anyone.

There is no hierarchy system, no priesthood, no church institution, and no clergy in Islam; and that is something totally misunderstood, and rarely ever mentioned.

Any Muslim is entitled to make his/ her opinion from their understanding of the Qur’anic text.

If those opinions are expressed by some knowledgeable person, they are called “fatwa”.

All this falsification, distortion, and misrepresentation of Islam (deliberate or not) if not addressed and sorted out urgently, logically and with open-mindedness and compassion, then our world is doomed!

Being a Muslim woman and knowing exactly what Islam teaches, I feel dismayed and heartbroken at the image that you are made to believe as a true representation of us and of our faith

Now, if I come to you and say: “well, no in fact Islam teach this or does not teach that” would you take my word for it?

Of course not, so, I “quote” some of the specific teachings in order to reflect-precisely- the position of Islam, from the most authentic source to Muslims: the Qur’an.

Democracy and Freedom of choice:

“No compulsion in religion or ideology” (2:256).

“Say: O you that reject Faith! I worship not that which you worship, and you do not worship that which I worship... To you be your Way, and to me mine”. (109:1-6)

“We showed him the Way: whether he be grateful or ungrateful (rests on his will)”. (76:3)

“Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity”. (3:104)

"And their affairs are (conducted) through consultation among themselves." (42:38)

“If any one does a righteous deed, it ensures to the benefit of his own soul; if he does evil, it works against (his own soul). In the end will you (all) be brought back to your Lord”. (45; 15)

Relations with others:

'O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honoured of you in God’s sight is the greatest of you in righteousness. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware'. (49.13)

“And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours: verily in that are Signs for those who know”.(30-22)

Women’s’ issues

“Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has Faith, verily, to him will We give a new Life, a life that is good and pure and We will bestow on such their reward according to the best of their actions”. (16-97)

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey God and His Messenger. On them will God pour His mercy: for God is Exalted in power, Wise”. (9:71)

“If any do deeds of righteousness, be they male or female - and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them”. (3-124)

“Then shall anyone who has done an atom's weight of good, see it! And anyone who has done an atom's weight of evil, shall see it”. (99:7-8)

“It is He who created you from a single soul, and made its mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her (in love)”. (7:189)

“And among His Signs is this: He created for you mates from among yourselves that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He plants love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who reflect. 30-21

“For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for truthful men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in Charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God’s praise; for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward”. (33:35)

War and peace:

The general rule is:

Fighting is only allowed in case of self-defence, against Aggression (odwan) or Persecution (fitnah).

'You may fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not initiate aggression. God does not love transgressors.' (2.190)

"O believers, be you guardians of justice, witness for God. Let not a group's hostility to you cause you to deviate from justice; be equitable - that is nearer to being God-conscious." (5:8)

“To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight back), because they are wronged; and verily, God is most powerful for their aid; (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,-(for no cause) except that they say, our Lord is God”. (22:39-40)

“God commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and antagonism: He advices you, that ye may be reminded.” (16-90)

"No soul shall be made to bear the burden (liability) of another." (35:18)

“But show them forgiveness, and say "Peace!" and soon shall they know!” (43; 89)

“The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto (in degree): but if a person forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from God; for (God) loveth not those who are wrong-doers”. (42:40)

'If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in God for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things.' (8.61)

“But God does call to the Home of Peace” (10-25)

“Ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the desires (of your hearts), lest ye swerve, and if ye distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that ye do. Thus, have We made of you a nation justly balanced, that ye might be witnesses over the nations, and the Messenger a witness over yourselves” (2-143)

“Show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant.” (7:199)

“It may well be that God will bring about love (and friendship) between you and those with whom you are now at odds.” (60:7)

“Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel evil with what is best: if you do so, he who is your enemy will become a close friend.” (41.34)

**********************

I am only a mother, and I am also a person who detests violence, war, weapons, killings…etc

I am sick to death with war and violence

And I wish what I have seen and what my people had seen on nobody.

Centuries of imperialism, and illiteracy followed by the brutal uprooting of a whole nation from their homeland in order to give it away to people from other parts of the world just because of their Jewish-ness, and to free the European’s mind of the guilt of the holocaust (which we –Muslims and Palestinians- had nothing to do with, but ended up having to pay the price for Europe’s crimes)

Year after year, decade after decade of injustice towards the Palestinians, accompanied by unequivocal support from USA and Europe to the Zionist entity, led the Muslims to resent the hypocritical policies of the Western world.

This blind support of the Zionists was/ is perceived by Muslims as an act of aggression and grave injustice.

Yet those fundamental basic facts are not represented to you, what you led to believe is that Muslims hate your freedom, your democracy, they are jealous of your way of life, and they hate peace… what a load of nonsense!!!

Muslims feel oppressed and persecuted by YOUR government, its unjust policies, its unconditional support of the terrorist zionist regime and its criminal wars and aggression

They feel that justice had been denied to them, and that they have been constantly under attack.

Exposed to so much injustice and oppression it is only natural that people would have resentments and would look for ways to liberate themselves from oppression and modern slavery, which is precisely the case in many Muslim countries nowadays.

And instead of trying to right the wrongs you’ve done over decades of oppression and injustice, what do you do?

You go yet again and attack more Muslim countries; you bomb Afghanistan and Iraq reducing them to rubble! And go on to threaten Iran with nukes!

You kill over a million more!

And what is more ridiculous is that you are doing so whilst claiming that you’re doing it for the sake of liberating us from our backwardness, ignorance, and our fanatics…

What are you thinking? Do you think we are idiots?

We are sick to death with your interference in our lands, and our countries

We are sick to death with your domination and your attitude of superiority towards us and the rest of the world.

We are sick to death of you trying to impose on us your ways, your thinking, your problems and your solutions.

Imperialism has no room in the future of our world, and most certainly, that must include thought imperialism.

WE WANT TO BE FREE

We want to be free in our homelands

We want to be able to exercise our rights to choose our representatives and our governments

We want our human rights that enable live peacefully and with dignity with no threat of bombing or ethnic cleansing

We want our right to go home and not to live forever as refugees

We want our right to believe in God or not to believe if we so wish to

We want our right to be equal human beings with equal value to our lives

We want to be free to solve the ills of our societies in our own ways not by copy-pasting your experiences and your solutions.

It’s not good enough to try to justify the horrors that you’ve inflected and still inflecting upon us, by dehumanizing us and belittling our faith. Period

Where to go from there?

Yes indeed, where to go from there?

Is there a way out?

As an optimist, yes of course there is always a way out:

To begin with, you must start with opening your hearts and minds to see us as equal human beings, worthy of life, love, and freedom.

Remove your prejudice against us, and with sincere efforts open dialogues with us, not to tell us what should we do or how should we think, or whom to elect as our leaders, but to listen to us as your equals in humanity. A dialogue is a two way system.

It’s also good to start educating yourselves a bit more about us, not taking your information from Hollywood but from us and our authentic sources.

We have so much to tell you, so much to share, so much good we can offer you and the world.

And that is not exaggeration; that is simply the truth. Because we are humans just like you. We all have so much to offer the world.

May I give some suggestion towards a solution?

Why not end your occupation of our lands?

Why not stop supporting those puppet regime and dictators your successive governments have forces upon Arabs for the sake of "Nation Building" which is the most heinous word one can imagine, and why not continuing by accepting our FREELY elected representatives, whom we chose through democracy ?

Why not visit and even come and live in Muslim countries without your army uniform, and without offering your bombs and missiles as gifts?

Why not drop your arms and come to us with open arms rather than coming carrying machine guns and riding offensive tanks?

Instead of pushing like crazy towards Armageddon; why not gently, lovingly, tenderly and with compassion, why not embrace a world of justice, tolerance and respect, as Jesus “peace be upon him” would’ve done if he was alive today?

Why not attentively listen to each other? Why not dream and work for a more peaceful world built upon diversity and richness of multiplicity, a world where humanity is celebrated and variety is rejoiced, a world where all are respected, where all are free to think, to believe, and to live their own way without infringing on each other, or imposing our ways upon each other?

As of now, the world already can see that the American dream is a nightmare, your s-elected and corrupt governments have made your country the most loathed country, and they have robbed you exactly as they robbed those "Arabs out there"

If you look more vigilantly, more attentively, and closer to home, you will find the REAL terrorist worthy of your alarm and disgust, are the ones amongst your midst, ruling your country, robbing your resources, thriving on your poverty, rejoicing your misery.

So why not transform this mad nightmare and ideologically driven devastation, back into a dream…. a reality?

Who is there?

Oh human

Can’t you see!

I am precisely like you

I don’t like being humiliated

I am no one’s doormat

I’m person in my own right

When I was born

I was born innocent

Happy and free

And I want to live

A normal life

With dignity

Wouldn’t you?

I realise there is a dawn

Waiting to be born

And that… after hardship… passes away

Ease will come to life… very soon

But… they’ve inflected so much

Pain and cruelty

Upon this little girl

And upon her homeland

The world is watching

Eyes open wide

In bewilderment

And disbelief

“What we are watching

Is a fiction movie

It’s not really true”

While in exile

Puzzled… I agonize

Wiping tears off my saddened face

Searching around

Any one there?

Looking up… into sky

Did You hear my cries?

Did You witness the crime?

Suddenly

Knock… knock

A gentle tap

 

Yes, coming

Who is there?

Hope is here

Smiling at my heart

Standing by my door

I am a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee living in exile for over 42 years. I was forced to leave my homeland, Palestine at the age of seven during the six-day war. I am a mathematician by profession. I started writing about three years ago when my friends insisted I should write about my memories, experiences, and feelings as a Palestinian. I did… but it all came out -for some strange reason- sounding -as I am told- like poetry! So I self published two books (I Believe in Miracles, and Palestine, The True Story. Write to me at: nahidaexiledpalestinian@gmail.com

The blame-game theory is still a red herring distracting us from the environmental disaster's prime suspect: All of us.

After considering laughably titled solutions like the top hat (a containment dome), the junk shot (a pressurized blast of golf balls and shredded tires) and worse, British Petroleum has proven one thing above all else: When the fossil fool hits the fan, it simply has no plan.

The fact that BP was allowed to drill along the shores of the United States in spite of its unwillingness to plan and prepare for accidents is only stunning to those haven't been paying attention to the feverish pace of deregulation since the rapacious Reagan conservatives took global culture by blitzkrieg. It certainly isn't surprising to anyone who has been paying even slight attention to BP, which boasts a decorated resume of spills and screw-ups.

According to recent revelations, a blowout preventer that could have halted the Deepwater Horizon clustergush failed a crucial pressure test hours before the April 20 explosion, and was never tested by the government engineer who approved BP's drilling operation. Those kinds of safety lapses are standard operating procedure, an oil industry whistleblower told the Huffington Post, saying he routinely witnessed 100 such shortcuts on BP rigs and others throughout 18 years of service in the sector. The fallback plan, a relief well, won't be finished until after the summer, by which there will be little reason left to live in New Orleans. Great. 

But if you've been railing for decades against the fossil fuel sector for everything from deliberately removing safeguards that could have prevented what will likely end up being the worst U.S. oil disaster in history to its lethal emissions that could, in the extreme, end up warming planet Earth to the point that human habitation is an impossibility, well, this is all old, sad news. 

Cold Oil Turkey 

"While this is a horrible disaster, it occurs to me that Americans cannot accept the fact that getting oil out of the earth is dirty, difficult, hazardous work, with great risks for society," said James Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and Geography of Nowhere. "We don't want to know about it, as long as we can drive comfortably to the strip mall, enjoy NPR and an iced beverage. When something happens to prick our bubble of unreality, we're indignant." 

The counter-argument to Kunstler's hard-eged realism -- which is thankfully gaining steam every day the Deepwater Horizon disaster gushes hundreds of thousands, if not a million, gallons of crude into the Gulf -- is that further regulation and safety enforcement could put at least a partial stop to the fossil foolishness. Which means legally proving that BP, Halliburton and Transocean deliberately obviated what safety requirements existed so that the United States can conduct criminal proceedings which could then levy heftier damages than $75 million cap on liability under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which itself was hastily enacted by Congress under President George H.W. Bush shortly after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.

It also means exacting deeper regulation on the nation's compromised Minerals Management Service, which the Department of the Interior is considering splitting into two separate agencies. From taking drugs and having sex with energy company reps to being exempted from delivering detailed environmental analyses, the MMS is a controversy-soaked frat house. And its parent agency at Interior is the same hot mess. It's obvious that, when it comes to America's oil regime, the lunatics are drilling the asylum into the bedrock. So it's probably no surprise that neither agency returned several calls for comment. 

But add it up and it's one hell of a cleanup for a country with an unceasing appetite for hyperconsumption but little stomach for hard work. Which is why the blame-game theory, while it makes for good theater and hopefully better punitive damages, is still a red herring distracting us from the environmental disaster's prime suspect: All of us.

"BP, Haliburton and Transocean will all be financially punished for this, and they, along with other oil companies, will say, 'Screw you, America, we're moving our operations to Angola,'" added Kunstler. "All of this shucking and jiving over blame is a Chinese fire drill concealing the fact that we are all complicit in this disaster, and refuse to even consider changing our underlying behavior." 

But this is what most junkies do, when the drugs start to wear off and run out: Keep tapping that vein. A new Associated Press/GfK poll on the spill released in mid-May supports that madness. While 42 percent of respondents felt that the Obama administration is properly prosecuting the spill, even more, 50 percent to be exact, are cool with further coastal drilling for oil and gas. In spite of all that has happened, they'd rather drill for what's left of our domestic oil supply than prepare, plan and proselytize for our inevitable post-oil future. Itinerant laziness is the true culprit in this spill. BP, MMS and other alphabet nightmares are monsters of our own consumptive creation. 

"In the most general terms, I think the answer to drilling problems is better regulation and taxes to fund cleanup efforts," explained Mother Jones and Washington Monthly journalist Kevin Drum, who like Kunstler is a peak oil theorist. "Because the plain fact is that drilling is going to happen one way or another, as long as we're addicted to oil. And the answer to that is unrelated to drilling at all." 

When it comes to killing addiction, the first stage is always acknowledging one. Optimistic estimations of peak oil theory explain that global supply will start dwindling in 2020, a clear-sighted metaphor if there ever was one. Even without factoring in the always reliable underestimation that leads to disasters like Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, that's only a decade to get our heads and engines together. In other words, a light-speed snapshot of time compared to the insane workload. 

"The administration needs to take this opportunity to explain the multiple hidden costs to our addiction to fossil fuels," argued Center for American Progress climate analyst Joseph Romm, the author of Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions. "As we're finding out with Goldman Sachs, you just can't let the industry regulate itself. But ultimately we have to get off the addiction. If the administration doesn't help us do that, it will be an incomprehensible missed opportunity." 

"We need a serious carbon tax and serious climate legislation to reduce our reliance," said Drum. "I care a lot more about that than I do about the specific issues related to oil rig safety." 

Infinite Step Recovery 

The prospects for such serious campaigns against carbon are practically dead in the water, just like the collateral damage washing up in Louisiana and elsewhere in the Gulf. The current climate legislation drafted by senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman is a capitulation to the fossil fuel industry, offering concessions like increased offshore drilling and a doubtlessly unregulated cap-and-trade derivatives market in exchange for greenhouse gas limits. This mind-numbing arrogance and collusion between the energy sector and rich nations is precisely what led to the failure of last year's climate summit in Copenhagen, according to ex-World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern, who crunched the numbers in 2006 and decided that doing nothing about global warming would end up costing the world around $5 trillion dollars and rising.

The prospects for this year's retreat in Cancun similarly suck. The Obama administration's special climate envoy Todd Stern admitted in May that the United States will probably have no climate bill in place by the time it gets to Mexico. Factor in robust public support for further coastal drilling in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and it becomes clear that the political will to change our energy game is weak.  

But the political capital to be reaped by anger over the spill is strong. On May 13, senators Barbara Boxer, Ron Wyden, Dianne Feinstein, Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell and Jeff Merkley introduced legislation to ban offshore oil drilling along the West Coast. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew support for a drilling operation off the coast of Santa Barbara. On the other side of the country, Florida representative Corrine Brown has proposed similar legislation, while governor Charlie Crist has suggested a possible constitutional amendment mandating the same. 

Yet the Obama administration is openly supporting not an outright ban on offshore drilling, but Kerry and Leiberman's weak-kneed concessions. Their bill does include provisions that allow states to ban operations within 75 miles of their coastlines, as well as a sweetener that allows them to siphon off larger revenue from those operations. But they should already have that anyway. And the Deepwater Horizon clustergush occurred over 40 miles offshore; Kerry and Lieberman's bill would have bought the Gulf coast a few extra days before it was soaked in oil. Plus, fisheries and other natural environments utterly necessary to the economic and civic health of the entire country aren't strictly on the coastline; some are miles offshore, closer to the rigs than you or I. 

Take a look at what the Department of the Interior calls "President Obama's comprehensive energy plan for the country," and it's clear that we're in for much more, not less, offshore drilling. The color-coded graphics tell it all: Exploration and production plans to cruise northeastward up from the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico to its Eastern region and up into the South and mid-Atlantic. Same goes for the comparatively oily Alaskan region. According to the World Wildlife Fund, Shell Oil starts  drilling in Alaska's cold Chuchki and Beaufort seas starting in July. 

"The Arctic region is, in nearly every respect, the exact opposite of the temperate conditions of the Gulf of Mexico,” said WWF president and CEO Carter Roberts. “Technology simply does not exist to clean up a spill in Arctic waters. And, unlike the Gulf with its robust response apparatus close at hand, the Coast Guard lacks the capacity to adequately respond to a spill in the Arctic." 

While the West Coast is currently off-limits, the Interior reminds, especially given the new legislation from Boxer and company, it's just a matter of diminishing supply until we start tapping that vein. If not for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, we might already have. But with public support and White House support fully behind further offshore drilling, and the paranoid specters of foreign terrorism rearing their fear-inducing heads up in Times Square and Arizona, it's probably going to be a long time before the United States does anything substantial about the Deepwater Horizon incident, much less greater oil exploration or even climate change.  

But one thing is most likely certain: We won't be ready as a nation to mandate change until the peak oil gong rings in 2020, or earlier. And by then, it could be too late. 

"Big Oil has obviously funded major disinformation campaigns to mislead the public about the threat of global warming, and the worst-case scenarios for a spill," Romm said. "But at some point, the painful reality of warming will be so clear that we will be desperate and start to do things differently. But what we need to do first and foremost is pass a climate and clean-energy bill. That is our top priority: Get off the unsafe dirty fuels of the 20th century and get on the safe fuels of the 21st century like wind and solar, which never run out."

Like me, many women could discover that a childfree life offers meaningful experiences that balance the loss of mothering, and theirs could be a great gift to a beleaguered planet.

It was Mother's Day, and the staff of the independent-living community where my mother resides had arranged a nice luncheon, with roses for all the mothers. When a cherubic child with golden ringlets pressed a flower into my hand, and I politely refused it, she became confused. No wonder, since it was assumed by everyone, that of course all adult women in attendance were mothers

At fifty-something I am an adult, but not a mother. And though some will gasp in horror, I consider that to be my greatest achievement as a conservationist, although finding the first saw-whet owl ever reported in my part of Virginia ranks pretty high, too.

For millennia, the relentless ticking of a woman's biological clock has equated her entire life with only one purpose: childbearing. And for my gender, menopause has always largely meant the end of meaning.

I've lived through that transition now, without despair or Prozac. And I'm not alone. Today large numbers of married women are choosing not to have children, if only because more opportunities are being offered to more women than ever before. It was my good fortune to come of age with such choices, and to find a husband who honored them.

It always seemed to me that childbearing was a quick way out of a hard hunt - providing instant meaning to life. I wanted to search for purpose elsewhere. Plus, when I first read the ingredients on jars of industrial baby food - this was long before "organic" was even a gleam in Gerber's eye - I couldn't imagine inflicting that stuff on an infant.

Which brings me to the state of the world.

Although few journalists cover this angle, almost every environmental disaster is caused by overpopulation - but not the kind many assume. It's not the black and brown babies of the developing world that most threaten our planet, but our own desire for stuff - a hunger for iPods and starter castles.

American consumption, and the global pollution associated with supplying it, is unsurpassed. It takes a Third World village to use all the resources that a single American consumes and, often, wastes every day. So even though the birthrate in America is historically low, curbing it further would be a good place to begin when trying to save the world. I am pleased to do my part.

But what about the joys that children bring? Isn't there a basic biological drive to reproduce? And aren't children our future, after all?

The only sadness occasionally seeping from my childfree decision is not having grandchildren - which my mother would have loved. Now and then, I've also wondered if my husband would have enjoyed life more with children, but I doubt it.

As for the future, I'm more concerned about the precarious outlook for saw-whet owls than the human race, which far outnumbers owls and has all the advantages. And I grieve for the generations of all living creatures that will suffer from our toxic legacy.

Meanwhile, a few fundamentalist preachers have noticed the childfree trend and condemned it because marriage, they say, is only for procreation. Others question whether the Lord really wants the world to have 9 billion people, many dying as babies because clean air, water, and enough food are only available to those able to afford them.

It seems to me that the encouragement of childfree couples is crucial to saving the planet.

A childfree life celebrates humanity's most profound conquest of nature: not the engineering of dams or genes, but control of conception. Give every woman that choice, and the world will change.

Like me, many women could discover that a childfree life offers meaningful experiences that balance the loss of mothering, and theirs could be a great gift to a beleaguered planet.

 

When Morales invited "social movements and Mother Earth's defenders" to a new kind of climate summit, it was an attempt to build a base of power behind the right to survive.

It was 11 am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom, marshaling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats, handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicolored ponchos. All came into play to make his main point: to fight climate change, "we need to recover the values of the indigenous people."

Yet wealthy countries have little interest in learning these lessons and are instead pushing through a plan that at its best would raise average global temperatures 2 degrees Celsius. "That would mean the melting of the Andean and Himalayan glaciers," Morales told the thousands gathered in the stadium, part of the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. What he didn't have to say is that the Bolivian people, no matter how sustainably they choose to live, have no power to save their glaciers.

Bolivia's climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all, you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness.

It's little wonder. Bolivia is in the midst of a dramatic political transformation, one that has nationalized key industries and elevated the voices of indigenous peoples as never before. But when it comes to Bolivia's most pressing, existential crisis -- the fact that its glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply in two major cities -- Bolivians are powerless to do anything to change their fate on their own.

That's because the actions causing the melting are taking place not in Bolivia but on the highways and in the industrial zones of heavily industrialized countries. In Copenhagen, leaders of endangered nations like Bolivia and Tuvalu argued passionately for the kind of deep emissions cuts that could avert catastrophe. They were politely told that the political will in the North just wasn't there. More than that, the United States made clear that it didn't need small countries like Bolivia to be part of a climate solution. It would negotiate a deal with other heavy emitters behind closed doors, and the rest of the world would be informed of the results and invited to sign on, which is precisely what happened with the Copenhagen Accord. When Bolivia and Ecuador refused to rubber-stamp the accord, the U.S. government cut their climate aid by $3 million and $2.5 million, respectively. "It's not a free-rider process," explained U.S. climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing. (Anyone wondering why activists from the global South reject the idea of "climate aid" and are instead demanding repayment of "climate debts" has their answer here.) Pershing's message was chilling: if you are poor, you don't have the right to prioritize your own survival.

When Morales invited "social movements and Mother Earth's defenders ... scientists, academics, lawyers and governments" to come to Cochabamba for a new kind of climate summit, it was a revolt against this experience of helplessness, an attempt to build a base of power behind the right to survive.

The Bolivian government got the ball rolling by proposing four big ideas: that nature should be granted rights that protect ecosystems from annihilation (a "Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights"); that those who violate those rights and other international environmental agreements should face legal consequences (a "Climate Justice Tribunal"); that poor countries should receive various forms of compensation for a crisis they are facing but had little role in creating ("Climate Debt"); and that there should be a mechanism for people around the world to express their views on these topics ("World People's Referendum on Climate Change").

The next stage was to invite global civil society to hash out the details. Seventeen working groups were struck, and after weeks of online discussion, they met for a week in Cochabamba with the goal of presenting their final recommendations at the summit's end. The process is fascinating but far from perfect (for instance, as Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center pointed out, the working group on the referendum apparently spent more time arguing about adding a question on abolishing capitalism than on discussing how in the world you run a global referendum). Yet Bolivia's enthusiastic commitment to participatory democracy may well prove the summit's most important contribution.

That's because, after the Copenhagen debacle, an exceedingly dangerous talking point went viral: the real culprit of the breakdown was democracy itself. The UN process, giving equal votes to 192 countries, was simply too unwieldybetter to find the solutions in small groups. Even trusted environmental voices like James Lovelock fell prey: "I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war," he told the Guardian recently. "It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while." But in reality, it is such small groupings--like the invitation-only club that rammed through the Copenhagen Accord--that have caused us to lose ground, weakening already inadequate existing agreements. By contrast, the climate change policy brought to Copenhagen by Bolivia was drafted by social movements through a participatory process, and the end result was the most transformative and radical vision so far.

With the Cochabamba summit, Bolivia is trying to take what it has accomplished at the national level and globalize it, inviting the world to participate in drafting a joint climate agenda ahead of the next UN climate gathering, in Cancún. In the words of Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solón, "The only thing that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy."

If he is right, the Bolivian process might save not just our warming planet but our failing democracies as well. Not a bad deal at all.

Major gains for caribou and conservation in the Boreal Forest.

Greenpeace lauds historic new pact to save Canada’s Boreal Forest.

After years of campaigning for protection of the Boreal Forest, we're happy to announce one of the biggest, most ambitious conservation agreements ever. With the co-operation of major logging companies, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement begins with a three-year planning period to identify 72 million hectares of new conservation areas, an area larger twice the size of Germany, while immediately establishing a moratorium on 28 million hectares of critical woodland caribou habitat. There is still a lot of work to do, but this landmark agreement promises vast new protected areas across Canada's Boreal Forest.

The Agreement, announced by environmental groups and FPAC at news conferences in Toronto and Montreal, covers 72 million hectares of Boreal Forest, a massive sweep of forest twice the size of Germany that stretches almost from coast to coast. Included in the agreement is an immediate moratorium on logging in 28 million hectares, covering virtually all the critical habitat of the threatened woodland caribou.

“This is our best chance to save woodland caribou, permanently protect vast areas of the Boreal Forest and put in place sustainable forestry practices,” said Richard Brooks, Greenpeace forest campaign coordinator at the news conference. “The interest of the marketplace and public has been critical in this agreement. We have a lot of work to do together to make this agreement successful and we are committed to make it happen.”

The goals of the 90-page Agreement include commitments to developing joint proposals for networks of protected areas, especially areas of intact forest, joint proposals for the recovery of species at risk, including woodland caribou, the development of world-leading practices in forest management and harvesting.

In addition, when the Agreement the FPAC companies will have established their leadership on conservation issues and will be able to operate in a more certain business environment. As a result, the forest industry in Canada will be stronger, forest communities will have a better economic future and Canadian forest products will have a stronger position in global markets.

“The importance of this Agreement cannot be overstated,” said Avrim Lazar, President and CEO of FPAC at the news conference. “FPAC member companies and their ENGO counterparts have turned the old paradigm on its head. Together we have identified a more intelligent, productive way to manage economic and environmental challenges in the boreal that will reassure global buyers of our products’ sustainability. It’s gratifying to see nearly a decade of industry transformation and hard work greening our operations, is culminating in a process that will set a forestry standard that will be the envy of the world,”

As part of the Agreement, Greenpeace, along with ForestEthics and Canopy, two other groups involved, have immediately suspended their “Do-Not-Buy” and divestment campaigns against the FPAC companies.

Greenpeace played a leading role in developing the agreement which includes a three-year timeline for completing conservation planning across the whole 72-million-hectare area.

In addition to the work of environmental groups, the Pew Environment Group and the Ivey Foundation have played an important role in supporting negotiations.

The Agreement also includes commitments to continue work already under way to involve First Nations in implementation. The role of First Nations is considered essential to full implementation.

Go to Boreal Resources for a complete set of documents on the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. Media can download high resolution photos at http://www.greenpeace.ca/gallery. For Video b-roll, please contact aube.giroux@greenpeace.org

The climate justice movement has taken up two enormous concerns: How to address ecological catastrophe and how to develop a new global economic model.

In the Bolivian village of Tiquipaya, just outside of Cochabamba, 15,000 people from 125 countries gathered for the People’s World Conference on Climate Change, which Bolivian President Evo Morales organized after the failed Copenhagen climate talks. Under a beaming sun, indigenous groups dedicated the conference to Pachamama (Mother Earth in the native Quechua), dancing, singing and playing traditional instruments like charangos and zampoñas, as rainbow-checkered flags of the Andean indigenous peoples waved.

From the podium, President Morales clarified the reason for gathering: “Either capitalism lives or Mother Earth lives.” Morales criticized capitalism: "The main cause of climate change is capitalism. As people who inhabit Mother Earth, we have the right to say that the cause is capitalism, to protest limitless growth. Capitalism is the source of the problem. More than 800 million people live on less than $2 a day. Until we change the capitalist system, our measures to address climate change are limited.”

The conference brought indigenous groups and climate justice action networks together with government delegates and several heads of state from 70 countries. There were 17 working groups and panels, which drafted in a final declaration that the Bolivian government has pledged to present to the UNFCCC’s COP 16 talks in Cancun at the end of the year.

Working groups were to hash out concerns on topics such as agriculture and food sovereignty, financing and technology transfer, the dangers of the carbon market, the impact of climate change on indigenous people and how it produces climate refugees, among others.

Expressing frustration with the non-democratic manner in which the Copenhagen Accord was drawn up, Morales underscored that it was a backroom deal between five countries -- the U.S., China, India, South Africa and Brazil.

Criticism of the UN was evident at the opening ceremony: when Alicia Barcena, representative of UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, attempted to give her speech, she was booed.

Morales underscored that the Copenhagen Accord ran counter to and disrespected the UNFCCC process, which stipulates transparency in protocol drafting and consensus in decision-making. It ignored the progress of the UN’s two working groups -- AWG-KP and AWG-LCA -- responsible for drafting an agreement extending the Kyoto Protocol.

Numerous countries from groupings such as the G77 (130 nations), the Alliance of Small Island States (42 countries) and the Least Developed Countries (49 nations) echoed his criticism at the recent preparatory UNFCCC meeting in Bonn, Germany.

Bolivia’s lead climate negotiator Angelica Navarro described what happened in Copenhagen: “That is not democracy. That is not the UN. For months, we were discussing our proposals with other countries. They did not listen. What we want in Bolivia is a true and participatory democracy, a grassroots democracy. If the governments do not come up with a plan for climate change, the people have to lead with a plan."

The conference sought to establish a balance of power by bringing together governmental representatives and climate justice groups from around the world.

Navarro echoed Morales’ criticism of free market solutions to global warming, saying, “You cannot create a climate market to solve climate change. You have to address the structural causes. These causes are not only to be measured in terms of greenhouse gases. They are trade, finances and economy.”

As an alternative, Morales has called for a “communitarian socialism” that would equally distribute resources and re-establish harmony between humans and nature. He outlined his plan to achieve this balance:

1. Reparations from rich countries to poor and low-lying nations, to assist them with adaptations to climate change;
2. The creation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal, modeled on the UN’s International Court of Justice;
3. The development and transfer of technology by developed nations to developing countries; and
4. A Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, modeled on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Additionally, Morales called for borders to be opened to climate refugees.

In many ways, the conference was a success.

Some working groups reached agreements, which, if taken to the COP 16 and recognized, could be pivotal in shifting climate change policy. The forest working group starkly rejected the UN program REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). REDD is a shell game, using market mechanisms to offset carbon emissions, which allows for speculation and for companies to get around actual carbon reductions.

“REDD is branded as a friendly forest conservation program, yet it is backed by big polluters and climate profiteers. We cannot solve this crisis without addressing the root cause: a fossil fuel economy that disregards the rights of Mother Earth,” said Alberto Saldamando, legal counsel for the International Indian Treaty Council.

Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), added that “REDD is a predatory program that pretends to save forests and the climate, while backhandedly selling out forests out from under our indigenous people."

Others reached decisions outside of the working groups. Climate Justice Action (CJA) and Via Campesina left the action strategy working group the first day. To some extent, as CJA organizer Tadzio Mueller explained, “Networking is better done outside of working groups.” CJA met with various organizations -- such as 350.org, Jubilee South and Via Campesina -- outside of the PWCCC working group structure, in order to plan a series of actions for October 2010.

Even if the concluding statements developed by the working groups are not recognized by the UN, the conference gave climate justice movements the opportunity to meet, discuss and hash out differences, and reach consensus on pivotal issues related to climate change, preserving and building momentum in organizing, be it locally, regionally or internationally, be it around specific issues outside of the UN process or in preparation for the COP 16.

Yet there is also dissent. Despite Morales’ recent work on climate change -- calling for April 22 to be recognized as Earth Day by the UN, and creating this forum -- within Bolivia, various groups argue that there is a discrepancy between the president's rhetoric for Mother Earth and his policy of mineral extraction, where revenues from natural gas help to keep the poorest country in South America flush.

An 18th unofficial working group (Mesa 18) argued that its criticisms had been excluded from the conference, emphasizing the contradiction in Morales’ stance and environmental degradation brought about by mining, oil and gas extraction.

Conamaq, one of the groups within Mesa 18, called attention to environmental degradation of mining practices at San Cristobal. On the border between Bolivia and Chile, activists blocked roads and railway lines. Although the mine is owned by a Japanese company, Sumitomo Corporation, protests this week have sought to call attention to the Bolivian government’s responsibility in attending to environmental pollution. The silver and lead mines are wasting and contaminating local waters supplies.

In nearby salt flats, Sumitomo is also vying for the right to extract lithium, a key ingredient in the batteries used in cell phones, laptops and electric cars. Bolivia contains the largest lithium reserves in the world, which will become increasingly valuable as transportation shifts away from fossil fuels and to alternative energy sources.

The conference closed on Thursday, April 22, in conjunction with Earth Day. In the morning, various heads of state and government delegates met with representatives of organizations and civil society. In the afternoon, leaders met in the coliseum to present the conference’s declaration.

It was consistently underscored at the conference that it is not enough to address only the symptoms of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions; one must go to the source of the problem -- the economic system that commodifies every aspect of our lives. In this way, the climate justice movement has taken up not one, but two, enormous concerns: how to address ecological catastrophe and how to develop a new global economic model.