Re: [Biofuel] Anti-nuclear madness doesn't jibe with concern about global warming
Actually, Porritt seems to see the need for a greater emphasis on local-scale power, though to what extent I can't tell (Perhaps this, in addition to nuclear's absolutely atrocious record in terms of safety and compliance and cost, is a factor in his opposition to nuclear.). Whereas Monbiot makes comments which are clearly and unabashedly in favor of the centralized, top-down paradigm; if only because he doesn't believe local-scale power can work. It's not clear to me what Porritt's exact position is, on nuclear, in terms of immediate decommissioning vs. eliminating future nuclear investments, for example. Monbiot, on the other hand, openly advocates for an expansion of nuclear capacity, and investment in GenIV technology. The GenIV stuff is very compelling, though there's a real dearth of detail out there. And I have to agree with Porritt on this; the track record for nuclear, on the part of the power companies and government both, is just so egregious, there's no way i could envision any new power generation without a very clear and detailed explanation of what they're selling, including on the engineering/installation level. In fact, they (or some of them) have already shot themselves in the foot--at least, where my having any confidence is concerned--by mis-portraying their 'product'. A repeat of the 1950s/60s/70s futuristic, space-age-style campaign, will only do us a disservice (I can hear the voice-over now, No-ho-ho [laughing affectionately], it's not magic. It just seems that way! [brightly] Because it's so advanced!) That said, insofar as a 'premature' decommissioning of reactors in the U.S., whether immediately or on an accelerated timeline, I just don't see that happening, short of another disaster 'on our soil'. There's plenty of people who don't like nuclear, but far fewer would define themselves as 'opposed' (opposed to what's already there, at least). There's a whole lot of other factors as well, which make for overcoming a huge amount of inertia. And, as you pointed out, it's not so clear that shutting down nuclear at this time would be the right thing to do. Re Porritt and solar, a little googling turned up nothing as to what his commercial activities are. From the looks of it, he has never wanted for financial means and his commercial involvement(s) could wery well be almost. . .recreational. He's had some pretty high level NGO-type appointments for a long time, which, if he takes them seriously, must demand a considerable amount of his time and energy. Also, he's apparently a big Z-Pop booster. Actually, DePop would be more accurate. On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Keith Addison ke...@journeytoforever.orgwrote: Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Monbiot can't be criticized for pointing out the complicated mess we're in. These are sticky issues indeed. Until we recognize, collectively, that a fundamental restructuring lies at the heart of it, we will forever find ourselves choosing whatever seems the least unpalatable. Agree. Lesser-evilism. Though I think many people do recognise that, more and more of them, and they're active. Enough of them? Wrong question, and doubting it is a lousy reason for not getting involved. It needs a phased approach, coordinated and integrated, a grand strategy, and a dogged focus, with a bit of pragmatism where approprate. Occupy is an interesting model, one of many - no leaders, no manifesto, nothing you can grab hold of or subvert, yet everyone knows what to do and why, it's adaptable and flexible, and it drives the MSM and TPTB suitably nuts. For instance, leave the existing nukes for now, perhaps even allow a few new gas-fired plants, focus all efforts on fighting coal and oil. Just an example, not a proposal. I firmly believe that all of the demos, protests, strikes, general outrage and rejection taking place all round the world are part of the same phenomenon, and it won't stop, we won't take no for an answer, we'll keep going until we've won, and then we'll win the peace too. It's not a sudden uprising, though it might look like it from the outside. It's been building for a long time, it has impetus and momentum, it's implacable. . . .In this case, I'm not so sure that he is wrong. It seems to depend somewhat on what time-scale you're looking at. In the shorter term, he might be right. New nukes are a total no-no, but how to set decommissioning existing nukes against building new coal and gas fired plants to replace them, as in Merkel's case? Japan, with all but two of its nukes shut down, has been doing what amounts to the same thing, with huge increases in fossil fuel imports - indeed China, of all countries, just told Japan to cut its carbon emissions. Is it better or worse to leave existing nukes in place and accept their emissions reductions (which are real, in current-account terms), in a time when any and every reduction is crucially important, as all agree it is,
Re: [Biofuel] Anti-nuclear madness doesn't jibe with concern about global warming
Do you have a link for the PASA conference presentation/keynote? On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Chip Mefford c...@well.com wrote: Ooops, Wrong presentation, But it's still directly germane. - Original Message - From: Chip Mefford c...@well.com To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org Sent: Sunday, December 2, 2012 9:19:37 AM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Anti-nuclear madness doesn't jibe with concern about global warming Good day all: At some point, I meant to transcribe some bits and pieces from this presentation from our annual conference last Feb at PASA (Pennsylvania Assoc for Sustainable Agriculture) due to it's relevance on asking the really tough questions that will stimulate the environment wherein we can start finding real answers. I've listened to this keynote about 6 times, and I've yet to fully 'get it' all yet, and you can hear a few of my hoots during it in places. :) Regardless, for those who are actually interested in the whole thing, here it is: http://vimeo.com/34530550 ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel -- ¡Ay, Pachamamita! ¡Eres la cosa más bonita! ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] The elephant in the room
Voters get little to go on when it comes to nuclear issue http://www.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20121201a5.html Nuke power foe Kada open to reactor restarts http://www.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20121202a2.html --0-- http://www.japantimes.co.jp/print/ed20121201a1.html EDITORIAL The elephant in the room Despite the catastrophe at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the issue of nuclear power has been given lower priority in the runup to the Dec. 16 Lower House election. But the launch of a new party, Nippon Mirai no To (Japan Future Party), by Gov. Yukiko Kada of Shiga Prefecture, a veteran environmental studies scholar, will not only help deepen discussions on the subject but also offer a concrete option for voters who are concerned about the problems posed by nuclear power. The new party's main theme is graduation from nuclear power generation, meaning the eventual abolition of all of Japan's nuclear power reactors. More than 20 months have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster began. But some 160,000 local residents still cannot return to their homes for the foreseeable future, and decontamination of areas polluted by radioactive substances is making little progress. Fifty nuclear power plants are scattered across this quake-prone country and nuclear waste storages at individual plants do not have much room to store additional waste. In view of this situation, Ms. Kada has made a very significant statement: Pushing nuclear power generation only from the viewpoint of economic efficiency while forgetting the heavy responsibility for having polluted the earth with the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant not only deprives Japan of dignity as a nation but also is something that must not be condoned ethically. She proposed phasing out Japan's nuclear power plants by 2022 and called for the immediate shutdown of the Monju fast-breeder reactor, the core component of Japan's nuclear fuel cycle to produce new nuclear fuel from spent nuclear fuel. The People's Life First, a party with 48 Lower House members headed by former DPJ leader Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, and a small party led by veteran lawmaker Mr. Shizuka Kamei and Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura have decided to dissolve themselves to merge with Ms. Kada's new party. Three Lower House members of Midori no Kaze (Green Wind) will also join it. It is imperative that Nippon Mirai no To work out a concrete scenario and timeline for achieving its goals. It should include the development of renewable energy sources, promotion of power saving and ways to decrease import costs of natural gas for thermal power stations brought online to compensate for shuttered nuclear power plants. Additional goals should be to de-monopolize power transmission lines so that they can be used by smaller power-generation firms and to create new employment opportunities in communities hosting nuclear power plants. Other parties will likely bash the new party by accusing it of being populist or a one-issue party. It must overcome such bashing by developing convincing economic, social and diplomatic policies. It should resist temptation to attract voters through money-splashing measures. It also should distinguish itself from other parties - most of which are right-leaning - on the issue of the Constitution and oppose their calls for the revision of the war-renouncing Article 9 and for the exercise of the right to collective self-defense. The Japan Times: Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Whistleblower: Nuclear Regulators Suppress Facts, Break Law
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13059-whistleblower-nuclear-regulators-suppress-facts-break-law Whistleblower: Nuclear Regulators Suppress Facts, Break Law Friday, 30 November 2012 09:20 By William Boardman, FreePress | Report The likelihood was very low that an earthquake followed by a tsunami would destroy all four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, but in March 2011, that's what happened, and the accident has yet to be contained. Similarly, the likelihood may be low that an upstream dam will fail, unleashing a flood that will turn any of 34 vulnerable nuclear plants into an American Fukushima. But knowing that unlikely events sometimes happen nevertheless, the nuclear industry continues to answer the question of how much safety is enough by seeking to suppress or minimize what the public knows about the danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has known at least since 1996 that flooding danger from upstream dam failure was a more serious threat than the agency would publicly admit. The NRC failed from 1996 until 2011 to assess the threat even internally. In July 2011, the NRC staff completed a report finding that external flooding due to upstream dam failure poses a larger than expected risk to plants and public safety [emphasis added] but the NRC did not make the 41-page report public. Instead, the agency made much of another report, issued July 12, 2011 - Recommendations for Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21st Century, sub-titled The Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Accident. Hardly four months since the continuing accident began in Japan, the premature report had little to say about reactor flooding as a result of upstream dam failure, although an NRC newsrelease in March 2012 would try to suggest otherwise. Censored Report May Be Crime by NRC That 2012 news release accompanied a highly redacted version of the July 2011 report that had recommended a more formal investigation of the unexpectedly higher risks of upstream dam failure to nuclear plants and the public. In its release, the NRC said it had started a formal evaluation of potential generic safety implications for dam failures upstream including the effects of upstream dam failure on independent spent fuel storage installations. Six months later, in September 2012, The NRC's effort at bland public relations went controversial, when the report's lead author made a criminal complaint to the NRC's Inspector General, alleging Concealment of Significant Nuclear Safety Information by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In a letter dated September 14 and made public the same day, Richard Perkins, an engineer in the NRC's Division of Risk Analysis, wrote Inspector General Hubert Bell, describing it as a violation of law that the Commission: has intentionally mischaracterized relevant and noteworthy safety information as sensitive, security information in an effort to conceal the information from the public. This action occurred in anticipation of, in preparation for, and as part of the NRC's response to a Freedom of Information Act request for information concerning the generic issue investigation on Flooding of u.s. Nuclear Power Plants Following Upstream Dam Failure Portions of the publically released version of this report are redacted citing security sensitivities, however, the redacted information is of a general descriptive nature or is strictly relevant to the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, plant personnel, and members of the public. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has engaged in an effort to mischaracterize the information as security sensitive in order to justify withholding it from public release using certain exemptions specified in the Freedom of Information Act. ... The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff may be motivated to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency. The redacted information includes discussion of, and excerpts from, NRC official agency records that show the NRC has been in possession of relevant, notable, and derogatory safety information for an extended period but failed to properly act on it. Concurrently, the NRC concealed the information from the public. The Inspector General has not yet acted on the complaint. Most Media Ignore Nuclear Safety Risks Huffington Post picked up the story immediately as did the Union of Concerned Scientists and a number of online news sites. The mainstream media showed little or no interest in a story about yet another example of the NRC lying to the public about the safety of nuclear power plants. Most news sources are funded by corporations and investors. Their goal is to drive people to advertisers while pushing the corporate agenda. NationofChange is a 501(c)3 organization funded almost 100% from its readers-you! Our only accountability is to the public.
[Biofuel] Senate Unanimously Passes New Round of Sanctions on Iran
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30-2 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams Senate Unanimously Passes New Round of Sanctions on Iran Sanctions badly hurting the poor, affecting food staples for Iranians - Common Dreams staff The Senate unanimously voted on Friday to approve a new round of economic sanctions on Iran. While touted as being tough on Iran, the sanctions are set to bring further misery to the country, especially the poor. The 94-0 vote passed on an amendment attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. The sanctions are portrayed by politicians, in the EU and Israel as well as the US, as an attempt at thwarting Iran's supposed nuclear weapons programs, but Iran has maintained its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes. By passing these additional measures ending sales to and transactions with Iranian sectors that support proliferation - energy, shipping, ship-building and port sectors as well as with anyone on our specially designed national list - we will send a message to Iran that they can't just try to wait us out, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who sponsored the amendment, said on Friday. Iran war hawk Sen. John McCain added on the Senate floor before the vote: The screws need to be tightened. The centrifuges are still spinning in Tehran. In a sign of further misery to come to the Iranian people with this newest round of sanctions, Reuters reported earlier this week on how the already-in-place sanctions were badly hurting the poor and turning some staples into luxuries, affecting food and medicines. Reuters reports: An increasingly shaky state apparatus will struggle to fill the gap often left by private companies, analysts say. If you are talking about the number of deals needed for a country of 75 million ... you do not have an organized overall strategy for finance, purchase and distribution. I do not think they can cope with the challenge, said Scott Lucas, a specialist in Iranian affairs at Birmingham University. Even if the sanctions were lifted, which is a huge if, the problems in the system are now so endemic I think they face real serious structural problems. [...] Nevertheless, many foreign foods are hard to find and high prices mean Iranians cannot always afford even basic items. [...] International trade sources say Iran is also having to grapple with a banking freeze, which has led to private traders cutting imports of staples such as grain and sugar. In addition, national security analyst Gareth Porter points out that the recent IAEA report on Iran's 20% low enriched uranium, cited by Menendez in his remarks on the floor Friday, was misleading and widely misinterpreted. Porter adds that Iran has been suggesting both publicly and privately throughout 2012 that it is open to an agreement under which it would halt all 20-percent enrichment and agree to other constraints on its enrichment program in return for relief from harsh economic sanctions now levied on the Iranian economy. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] 'Tipping Point': Obama Lawyer Talks About Ending 'Endless' US War
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30-9 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams 'Tipping Point': Obama Lawyer Talks About Ending 'Endless' US War Though he defends its worst worst practices and won't declare when 'tipping point' might be reached, comments by Pentagon attorney could spark renewed debate about timeframe of war against al Qaeda - Common Dreams staff If a global war declared by the world's sole military and economic superpower against a shadowy, fragmented, franchisable, and loosely-grouped band of erstwhile 'dangerous' but also 'ravaged' and 'largely dismantled' terror group was over, how would you know it? You wouldn't, of course, which is the reason that few ask and almost none, especially members of the US government or military, talk about anything that resembles the official end of what has long become known as the global war on terrorism, or GWOT. Today, however, at a speech given at Oxford University, Jeh Johnson, a Pentagon lawyer and one of President Obama's top legal advisors, spoke openly about what it might mean for the US government to declare an end to its seemingly endless war against-what critics have sharply pointed out is a tactic-terrorism. In his presentation at Oxford, Johnson asked, Now that efforts by the U.S. military against al Qaeda are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: how will this conflict end? Though Johnson is an official spokesperson for the Defense Department and an aggressive defender of the controversial policies ensconced within the US war against al Qaeda, he also said that these policies would not, and should not, continue indefinitely. He said: I do believe that on the present course, there will come a tipping point - a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al Qaeda as we know it, the organization that our Congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed. At that point, we must be able to say to ourselves that our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict against al Qaeda and its associated forces; rather, a counterterrorism effort against individuals who are the scattered remnants of al Qaeda, or are parts of groups unaffiliated with al Qaeda, for which the law enforcement and intelligence resources of our government are principally responsible, in cooperation with the international community - with our military assets available in reserve to address continuing and imminent terrorist threats. At that point we will also need to face the question of what to do with any members of al Qaeda who still remain in U.S. military detention without a criminal conviction and sentence. In general, the military's authority to detain ends with the cessation of active hostilities. For this particular conflict, all I can say today is that we should look to conventional legal principles to supply the answer, and that both our Nations faced similar challenging questions after the cessation of hostilities in World War II, and our governments delayed the release of some Nazi German prisoners of war. As Reuters reports: The U.S. government points to the existence of an armed conflict as the legal underpinning of practices such as indefinite detention of the global militant group's members and allies. Johnson's remarks could ignite a global political debate with arguments from both the left and the right. The speech to the Oxford Union did not forecast when such a moment would arrive because, it said, al Qaeda and its affiliates in Yemen and elsewhere remain a danger. But Johnson tried to frame the discussion with what he called conventional legal principles rather than a new legal structure emerging from the September 11 attacks. And The Guardian adds: Washington's pursuit of suspected al-Qaida terrorists has been controversial, such as the use of UAVs - or drones - to launch attacks in countries such as Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The administration has been criticised by human rights groups and US academics who say the tactic enrages local populations and causes civilian deaths. It is also legally dubious, they argue. A fortnight ago the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, claimed America had decimated core al-Qaida and that the group was widely distributed, loosely knit and geographically dispersed. His remarks echoed those of Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, who is Barack Obama's nominee to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. She has been pilloried by Republicans for suggesting the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the death of US ambassador Christopher Stephen was spontaneous rather than planned. Such characterisations will put Washington under greater pressure to
[Biofuel] Sen. Sanders: Wall Street CEOs are the 'Faces of Class Warfare'
'Fix the Debt': How 1%ers Build a Mass Movement for Millionaires The Fixers: How Fix the Debt Won Over Wall Street and Built a Fiscal Cliff Army Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by New York Magazine http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/30-0 --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams Sen. Sanders: Wall Street CEOs are the 'Faces of Class Warfare' - Common Dreams staff Incredulous that Wall Street investment bankers and billionaire CEOs have descended on Washington in the midst of ongoing budget talks to tell Americans that they should lower their expectations when it comes to the security of their retirement and future health care, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Thursday to call out the audacity of corporate-minded millionaires and billionaires, calling them the new face of class warfare in the United States. I find it literally beyond comprehension, that we have folks from Wall Street who received huge bailouts from the people of our country-from working families in this country-because of the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior, which Wall Street did to drive us into this recession, and now these very same people are coming here to Congress to lecture us and the American people about how we have to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid while they enjoy huge salaries and retirement benefits. Sanders specifically called out CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, who has recently been making both the media rounds and consulting with lawmakers regarding the ongoing tax and budget debate in Washington during the current lame duck session. Blankfein, one of the highest paid executives on Wall Street and worth hundred of millions personally, made the comments about 'lowered expectations' in a recent evening news interview with CBS and said that average Americans should understand that the US simply can't afford to maintain programs like Social Security and Medicare. The facts of such sentiments, as many economists repeatedly point out, are false, but Sanders said that Blankfein delivered the familiar rightwing trope with all the sympathy for someone struggling to get by on $14,000-a-year retirement that you'd expect from a Wall Street banker paid $16 million last year. Blankfein is also a member of the CEO cabal that has come together under the banner 'Fix The Debt' to protect the historically low tax rates of the nation's wealthy elite while simultaneously calling for the slashing of social programs. As the Huffington Post reports: CEOs including Blankfein have been warning that the fiscal cliff could hurt business investment, hiring and the economy as a whole, and they have been calling for cuts to the social safety net to avert it. Dozens of major CEOs, including Blankfein, are members of the CEO council of the campaign Fix the Debt, which calls for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and vague Social Security reform to address the deficit. More than 80 CEOs, including Blankfein, also signed a recent letter calling for deficit reduction. But as a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies aimed to show, the 'Fix the Debt' campaign, which has raised $60 million to lobby for a debt deal that would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly, is really just a Trojan horse designed to use an invented debt crisis to achieve long-held agenda goals. The CEOs involved in the group, including Blankfein, are trying to pass themselves off as noble leaders who are willing to compromise in order the save America from financial ruin, explain co-authors of the report Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson. But the reality is that these CEOs are leveraging the 'Fiscal Cliff' in order to push age old attempts to avoid paying taxes at the expense of those in need, they say. And, as Ezra Klein points out in a recent Bloomberg op-ed, the US has an 'austerity crisis' not a 'debt crisis'. Klein argues that employing the much-used term fiscal cliff mistates the nature of the financial and policy realities. Worse, he says, the term provides no hint of how to solve it. He says, I prefer the term 'austerity crisis,' which at least describes the real issue -- too much austerity, imposed too quickly. Called by its true name or not, the CEOs behind 'Fix the Debt'-with Lloyd Blankfein and Honeywell's David Cote leading the charge- are using the generated panic around the talks as a way to impose their own interests and have proven unafraid to speak boldly and use their fast resources to make their case. However, what Klinger and Anderson call 'leverage', Sanders simply called arrogance Thursday. Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system and now they come to Capitol Hill to
[Biofuel] Senate approves new sanctions for Iran energy, shipping
Turkey snubs US move on gas-for-gold Iran trade Turkish Economy Minister defies US preparations to ban gold trade with Iran, as the commodity has become de facto tool of payment for natural gas Turkey buys from the Islamic Republic ISTANBUL Saturday,December 1 2012 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-snubs-us-move-on-gas-for-gold-iran-trade.aspx?pageID=238nid=35712NewsCatID=344 --0-- http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/30/us-usa-iran-sanctions-vote-idUSBRE8AT0TR20121130 Senate approves new sanctions for Iran energy, shipping By Roberta Rampton and Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate resoundingly approved on Friday expanded sanctions on global trade with Iran's energy and shipping sectors, its latest effort to ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. The new package, which keeps in place exemptions for countries that have made significant cuts to their purchases of Iranian crude oil, would be the third round of sanctions in a year if passed into law. The existing sanctions have already hurt Iran's economy, but it is uncertain whether the additional measures will stop or slow Iran's nuclear program. Washington says Tehran is enriching uranium to levels that could be used in nuclear weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes. Senators voted 94-0 to make the new sanctions part of an annual defense policy bill. We must be clear to the Iranians that toughing it out and waiting it out is not an option, that it will only get worse, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said. Menendez, of New Jersey, co-authored the package with Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois and Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut. The measures would also restrict trade with Iran in precious metals, graphite, raw or semi-finished metals, such as aluminum and steel, metallurgical coal and software for integrating industrial processes in Iran's energy and shipping sectors. Insurance or reinsurance providers would be restricted from trade with Iran in energy, shipping and ship-building sectors. Further, the new sanctions include measures aimed at stopping the flow of gold from Turkey to Iran. WHITE HOUSE CONCERNED The Obama administration has not publicly commented on the proposals, but has privately raised concerns that it does not provide enough waiver flexibility, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin said those concerns may be addressed when the Senate and House of Representatives work out differences to finalize the massive defense bill. The House has approved its version of the bill, and both bodies will need to approve a final version before it is sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby group, endorsed the measures, which it said would close a loophole in existing laws. In an effort to circumvent international sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran, some purchasers of Iranian oil and natural gas have been using gold and other precious metals to pay for petroleum products, AIPAC leaders said in a letter to senators ahead of the vote, urging support for the bill. Israel says international sanctions against Iran are not working and is threatening to use military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Washington says all options are on the table in dealing with Iran, but sanctions and diplomacy should be given more time. Some experts expressed doubt on Friday that a fresh round of sanctions will prompt Iran to make concessions on the nuclear issue. Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst, said sanctions will not work without solid diplomacy to accompany them. It is a fallacy to believe there is some breaking point at which the regime in Tehran cries 'uncle' and makes major changes in policy even if it sees itself as getting nothing in return, Pillar said. Jeff Colgan, a professor at American University in Washington who studies the geopolitics of oil, said the expanded sanctions would represent a continuation of a cat-and-mouse game. The sanctions get placed, Iran tries to find ways around them, and the U.S. tries to close the loopholes. But so far, a dent in the (Iranian) economy has not resulted in a change in the nuclear program, Colgan said. The United Nations' nuclear chief said on Thursday his agency has made no progress in its year-long push to investigate whether Iran has worked on developing an atomic bomb. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Genetically Modified Seed Giant DuPont to Unleash Seed Police
Supreme Court to Hear Case of Human Genes Under Corporate Control Plaintiffs fight patents on two genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30- --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30-7 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams Genetically Modified Seed Giant DuPont to Unleash Seed Police DuPont will use seed security firm to monitor if farmers have saved Roundup Ready soybeans - Common Dreams staff Agricultural behemoth and genetically modified seed maker Dupont is preparing to send out former police officers as soybean police to enforce its seed patents. As Monsanto has done in the past, DuPont will be looking for evidence that farmers have saved and replanted its Roundup Ready soybean seeds, a practice that violates that company's contract. Bloomberg reports that Dupont has hired Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Agro Protection International to do the policing, a company which conducts farm visits to determine appropriate usage of seeds and to create deterrence of illegally using their client's products, the company explains. Critics see the move as more evidence of corporate control over agriculture. Farmers are never going to get cheap access to these genetically engineered varieties, Bloomberg quotes Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University's Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, as saying. The biotech industry has trumped the legitimate economic interests of the farmer again by raising the ante on intellectual property. And the Des Moines Register quotes George Nayor, who sued Monsanto in 1999 over use of genetically modified seeds. It's the same thing that Monsanto has been doing. A few people want to control all of agriculture, Nayor said of DuPont's policing. The Des Moines Register explains why DuPont is now following the path of Monsanto in seed-policing: Monsanto has sued to protect its Roundup Ready trait, which is widely licensed to DuPont Pioneer and other seed companies. The seed's DNA genetics have been modified to enable the soybean plant to thrive after Monsanto's Roundup herbicide has been applied. But the patent for Roundup Ready expires next year. DuPont Pioneer and other seed companies are thus left on their own to enforce other biotechnology or breeding patents that may be in a single soybean plant. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Two Years of Cablegate and Bradley Manning Still Awaits Trial
Treated Like 'a Caged Animal': Manning Breaks Silence in WikiLeaks Hearing By RT November 30, 2012 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33183.htm Activists Demand Replacement of Federal Judge in Hacker Case, Citing Conflict of Interest Friday, 30 November 2012 13:34 http://truth-out.org/news/item/13074-activists-demand-replacement-of-federal-judge-in-hacker-case-citing-conflict-of-interest --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/30-5 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Wikileaks Two Years of Cablegate and Bradley Manning Still Awaits Trial by Julian Assange Thursday, November 29th, Bradley Manning testified for the first time since his arrest two and a half years ago in Baghdad. Today also marks the two-year anniversary of the first front pages around the world from Cablegate, an archive of 251,287 U.S. State Department diplomatic cables -- messages sent between the State Department and its embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions around the world. In collaboration with a network of more than 100 press outlets we revealed the full spectrum of techniques used by the United States to exert itself around the world. The young intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was detained as an alleged source. WikiLeaks came under attack, with American politicians and right-wing pundits calling for all of us to be designated as terrorists, some even calling for my assassination and the kidnapping of our staff. Speaking on Meet The Press, Vice President Joe Biden referred to me as a high-tech terrorist, while Senator Joe Lieberman demanded that we be prosecuted under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Department of Justice spokesperson Dean Boyd admitted as recently as July 2012 that the Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks is ongoing, and the Pentagon renewed its threats against us on September 28th, declaring our work an ongoing crime. As a result, I have been granted political asylum and now live in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, surrounded by armed police while the FBI portion of the whole of government investigation against us, according to court testimony, had reached 42,135 pages as of December last year. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks released European Commission documents showing that Senator Lieberman and Congressman Peter T. King directly influenced decisions by PayPal, Visa and MasterCard to block donations to WikiLeaks, which has blocked 95 percent of our donors since December of 2010. Last week the European Parliament expressed its will that the Commission should prevent the arbitrary blockade of WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning, who is alleged to be a source of the cables, started testifying on Thursday about his pre-trial treatment, which UN Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez said was at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the Convention against Torture. Captain William Hoctor, the government psychiatrist with 24 years of experience who evaluated Manning at Quantico base in Virginia, testified that brig commanders had ignored his recommendations for Manning's detention, something he had not even experienced in his work at Guantánamo bay prison. Bradley Manning has been detained without trial for 921 days. This is the longest pre-trial detention of a U.S. military soldier since at least the Vietnam War. U.S. military law says the maximum is 120 days. The material that Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked has highlighted astonishing examples of U.S. subversion of the democratic process around the world, systematic evasion of accountability for atrocities and killings, and many other abuses. Our archive of State Department cables have appeared in tens of thousands of articles, books and scholarly works, illustrating the nature of U.S. foreign policy and the instruments of U.S. national power. On the two-year anniversary of the start of Cablegate, I want to highlight some of the stories that have emerged. A War of Terror The United States' War on Terror has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, inflamed sectarian violence, and made a mockery of international law. Victims and their families struggle to have their stories acknowledged, and the U.S.' systematic avoidance of accountability for war crimes implicitly denies their right to be considered human beings. Moreover, as the U.S. increasingly relies on clandestine military operations conducted outside the scrutiny of government oversight, the execution of this expanding War on Terror becomes increasingly uncoupled from the democratic process. While President Obama had promised the American people in 2008 that he would end the Iraq War, U.S. troops were only withdrawn when information from a cable revived international scrutiny of abuse occurring in Iraq, resulting in a refusal to grant continued immunity to U.S. troops in 2012 or beyond. In 2007 the U.S. embassy in Baghdad obtained a copy of the Iraqi
[Biofuel] Climate Change Is Happening Now - A Carbon Price Must Follow
Climate Experts To World: Act Boldly Now, or Pay Severely Later There is still time to avert worst impacts of climate change, but that means serious action and less talk Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30-3 It's Not Just That Corporations Are Ignoring Global Warming, They Are Profiting From It Friday, 30 November 2012 http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17666-it-s-not-just-that-corporations-are-ignoring-global-warming-they-are-profiting-from-it Doha climate talks deadlocked December 3 2012 http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/doha-climate-talks-deadlocked-1.1434990 --0-- http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/30 Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by The Guardian/UK Climate Change Is Happening Now - A Carbon Price Must Follow The extreme weather events of 2012 are what we have been warning of for 25 years, but the answer is plain to see by James Hansen Will our short attention span be the end of us? Just a month after the second storm of a century in two years, the media moves on to the latest scandal with barely a retrospective glance at the implications of the extreme climate anomalies we have seen. Hurricane Sandy was not just a storm. It was a stark illustration of the power that climate change can deliver - today - to our doorsteps. Ask the homeowners along the New Jersey and New York shores still homeless. Ask the local governments struggling weeks later to turn on power to their cold, darkened towns and cities. Ask the entire north-east coast, reeling from a catastrophe whose cost is estimated at $50bn and rising. (I am not brave enough to ask those who've lost husbands or wives, children or grandparents). I bring up these facts sadly, as one who has urged us to heed the scientific evidence on climate change for the past 25 years. The science is clear: climate change is here, now. Superstorm Sandy is not the first storm, and certainly won't be the last. Still, it is hard for us as individual human beings to connect the dots. That's where observation, data and scientific analysis help us see. No credible scientist disputes that we have warmed our climate by almost 1.5C over land areas in the past century, most of that in the past 30 years. As my colleagues and I demonstrated in a peer-reviewed study published this summer, climate extremes are already occurring much more frequently in the world we have warmed through our reliance on fossil fuels. Our analysis showed that extreme summer heat anomalies used to be infrequent: covering only 0.1-0.2% of the globe in any given summer during the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. During the past decade, as the average global temperature rose, such extremes have covered 10% of the land. Extreme temperatures deliver more than heat. The water cycle is especially sensitive to rising temperatures. Increased heat speeds up evaporation, causing more extreme droughts, like the $5bn (and counting) drought in Texas and Oklahoma. It is linked to an expanding wildfire season and an increase by several fold in the frequency of large fires in the American west. The heat also leads to more extreme sea surface temperatures - a key culprit behind Sandy's devastating force. The latent heat in atmospheric water vapor is the fuel that powers tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hurricanes. Stepping up evaporation with warmer temperatures is like stepping on the gas: More energy-rich vapor condenses into water drops, releasing more latent heat as it does so, causing more powerful storms, increased rainfall and more extreme flooding. This is not a matter of belief. This is high-school science class. The chances of getting a late October hurricane in New York without the help of global warming are extremely small. In that sense, you can blame Sandy on global warming. Sandy was the strongest recorded storm, measured by barometric pressure, to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, eclipsing the hurricane of 1938. But this fixation on determining the blame for a particular storm, or disputing the causal link between climate change and this or that storm, is misguided. A better path forward means listening to the growing chorus - Sandy, extreme droughts and wildfires, intense rainstorms, record-breaking melting of Arctic sea ice - and taking action. Think of it like taking out an insurance policy for the planet. We can fix this. The answer is a price on carbon. We must make the price of fossil fuels honest, reflecting their cost to society including the economic devastation wrought by storms like Sandy, the toll on farmland and ecosystems, as well as priceless human lives. Whether that price takes the shape of a carbon tax, as some in Washington are now willing to discuss, or a carbon fee, as I have advocated, a price on carbon lets the market find the most effective ways to phase out our reliance on
[Biofuel] Why Are Cows Tails Dropping Off?
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13058-why-are-cows-tails-dropping-off Why Are Cows Tails Dropping Off? Friday, 30 November 2012 09:20 By Elizabeth Royte, The Nation | Report In a Brooklyn winery on a sultry July evening, an elegant crowd sips rosé and nibbles trout plucked from the gin-clear streams of upstate New York. The diners are here, with their checkbooks, to support a group called Chefs for the Marcellus, which works to protect the foodshed upon which hundreds of regional farm-to-fork restaurants depend. The foodshed is coincident with the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that arcs northeast from West Virginia through Pennsylvania and into New York State. As everyone invited here knows, the region is both agriculturally and energy rich, with vast quantities of natural gas sequestered deep below its fertile fields and forests. In Pennsylvania, the oil and gas industry is already on a tear-drilling thousands of feet into ancient seabeds, then repeatedly fracturing (or fracking) these wells with millions of gallons of highly pressurized, chemically laced water, which shatters the surrounding shale and releases fossil fuels. New York, meanwhile, is on its own natural-resource tear, with hundreds of newly opened breweries, wineries, organic dairies and pastured livestock operations-all of them capitalizing on the metropolitan area's hunger to localize its diet. But there's growing evidence that these two impulses, toward energy and food independence, may be at odds with each other. Tonight's guests have heard about residential drinking wells tainted by fracking fluids in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Colorado. They've read about lingering rashes, nosebleeds and respiratory trauma in oil-patch communities, which are mostly rural, undeveloped, and lacking in political influence and economic prospects. The trout nibblers in the winery sympathize with the suffering of those communities. But their main concern tonight is a more insidious matter: the potential for drilling and fracking operations to contaminate our food. The early evidence from heavily fracked regions, especially from ranchers, is not reassuring. Jacki Schilke and her sixty cattle live in the top left corner of North Dakota, a windswept, golden-hued landscape in the heart of the Bakken Shale. Schilke's neighbors love her black Angus beef, but she's no longer sharing or eating it-not since fracking began on thirty-two oil and gas wells within three miles of her 160-acre ranch and five of her cows dropped dead. Schilke herself is in poor health. A handsome 53-year-old with a faded blond ponytail and direct blue eyes, she often feels lightheaded when she ventures outside. She limps and has chronic pain in her lungs, as well as rashes that have lingered for a year. Once, a visit to the barn ended with respiratory distress and a trip to the emergency room. Schilke also has back pain linked with overworked kidneys, and on some mornings she urinates a stream of blood. Ambient air testing by a certified environmental consultant detected elevated levels of benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene and xylene-compounds associated with drilling and fracking, and also with cancers, birth defects and organ damage. Her well tested high for sulfates, chromium, chloride and strontium; her blood tested positive for acetone, plus the heavy metals arsenic (linked with skin lesions, cancers and cardiovascular disease) and germanium (linked with muscle weakness and skin rashes). Both she and her husband, who works in oilfield services, have recently lost crowns and fillings from their teeth; tooth loss is associated with radiation poisoning and high selenium levels, also found in the Schilkes' water. State health and agriculture officials acknowledged Schilke's air and water tests but told her she had nothing to worry about. Her doctors, however, diagnosed her with neurotoxic damage and constricted airways. I realized that this place is killing me and my cattle, Schilke says. She began using inhalers and a nebulizer, switched to bottled water, and quit eating her own beef and the vegetables from her garden. (Schilke sells her cattle only to buyers who will finish raising them outside the shale area, where she presumes that any chemical contamination will clear after a few months.) My health improved, Schilke says, but I thought, 'Oh my God, what are we doing to this land?' Schilke's story reminds us that farmers need clean water, clean air and clean soil to produce healthful food. But as the largest private landholders in shale areas across the nation, farmers are disproportionately being approached by energy companies eager to extract oil and gas from beneath their properties. Already, some are regretting it. Earlier this year, Michelle Bamberger, an Ithaca veterinarian, and Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell's College of Veterinary
