Re: [Biofuel] Lokpal: Anna Hazare 'ready' to die for country as Team urges him to end fast
Anna Hazare's fast and his resolve to bring about a new legislation which is tough on corruption is a welcome sign in India and probably can set an example in other countries to have common man have a big say in policy formation. In India in last 65 odd years this is the first time Anna and his group has created lot of public discussion, street corner meetings and debates in media about the need to have a strong anti corruption legislation. This initiative has been 100% peacefull and will remain so. Yesterday night government passed a version of the anti corruption bill which is lacking lot of important points to really curtain corruption and important being complete independence for investigation agency from government (operational independnce). bringing sanity in public life is a perpetual effort and through Anna, India society will keep up the effort --- On Tue, 12/27/11, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] Lokpal: Anna Hazare 'ready' to die for country as Team urges him to end fast To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Date: Tuesday, December 27, 2011, 12:06 PM Anna Hazare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Hazare --0-- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Lokpal-Anna-Hazare-ready-to-die-for-country-as-Team-urges-him-to-end-fast/articleshow/11267217.cms Lokpal: Anna Hazare 'ready' to die for country as Team urges him to end fast PTI | Dec 27, 2011 MUMBAI - Anna Hazare on Tuesday said he will work for the betterment of the country as long as he is alive and won't mind dying to achieve his goal. Speaking at the MMRDA grounds here after starting his three-day fast demanding a strong Lokpal bill, Hazare said though he had fever, the people's support was motivating him to go on. I am not afraid of dying. I have decided that when I die it will be for the country and as long as I live I will work for the betterment of this country, Hazare said. Doctors have checked me. Earlier my temperature was fine but now it has increased. But seeing you all present here motivates me and my morale increases, he added. Hazare said he has been fighting corruption for the last 35 years and though he shunned his near and dear ones for the cause, eventually the whole country became his family. I've been fighting against corruption for the last five years and I own nothing. I only have a plate, a bed and some space inside a temple to sleep. I've not visited my family in the last 35 years. But now the whole country is my family, said Hazare. The activist arrived at the fast venue in Bandra-Kurla complex in suburban Mumbai after paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi at his statue at the Juhu beach. He reached the complex with a mass of people who joined him in a rally that started from the Juhu beach. However, alarmed by his ill health, prominent members of his team Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi appealed to him to end the hunger strike. He has fever, let us request him to stop his fast. Anna can continue his dharna, Bedi said addressing supporters at the MMRDA ground where Hazare was sitting on fast. The 74-year-old activist was suffering from viral infection and his personal assistant Suresh Pathare had been insisting that Hazare was well and he will be sitting on fast. Anna is unwell. Will you request Anna to withdraw his fast? Bedi asked the crowd, which responded with a loud Yes. However, Hazare, looking quite under the weather, waved his hand in a gesture of No. Kejriwal and another close aide Manish Sisodia also requested Hazare to end his fast. Hazare, who has been suffering from cold and mild fever for the past three days, reached the grounds at around 12:30 PM after a rally from the guest house where he was staying to the ground which took over two-and-half hours. He is a little weak as of now, but will be fit to fast from tomorrow. His blood pressure and other vital parameters are normal. He has got a little cough and cold but he is getting better, his doctor D G Pote had said yesterday. The activist has been under medication for the past three days, he said. With inputs from IANS. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111227/f0387749/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and
Re: [Biofuel] Grubs wreck India's dreams
Kevin like many others has a mind set that does not understand India (my point of View): 1) First he says that there are lot of middlemen who make lot of money. The truth is these middle men are part of the system. You will have to work inside the system to improve that rather than telling that middle men is causing the problem. Some ground level statistics to prove that middle men are not the real problem. About 90% of the Food related transactions are done in rural area and 50% of that transaction does not involve money exchange (it only involves product exchange). This data would prove the middle men even though they are there are not the real problem. India gets some portion of petrol from middle east for which they pay in dollars. In a way US is a middleman in the transaction. 2) The point about 40% food wasted is true. Hence the real solution is around that logistics improvement. Indian rural side has 50,000 weekly markets where people from all near by village come and trade their goods. Considering the above two facts instead of FDI in retail FDI in food storage and processing is the neccessity and which already has 100% FDI approved. FDI in retail is 500 billion and FDI in food storage and processing is 500 million bussiness. Probably this data will tell why is there is fight on FDI in retail. Moral of the story: If you provide a solution to any people or society or country which they do not want but which makes your business profitable is bound to fail. --- On Tue, 12/27/11, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Biofuel] Grubs wreck India's dreams To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Date: Tuesday, December 27, 2011, 12:06 PM http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20111227a2.html Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011 Grubs wreck India's dreams By KEVIN RAFFERTY Special to The Japan Times HONG KONG - My old friend Manmohan Singh has just suffered a devastating and very public defeat. Is it time for him to step down as India's prime minister and take a well-earned retirement after more than 40 years of top-level public service? Is it time for Singh and Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party coalition government to call elections in the hope that a new younger wave of politicians may emerge with fresh ideas to drag the ancient civilization of India to meet its 21st-century potential? These suggestions are prompted by the recent extraordinary political events, which saw Singh promise that India's massive retail market, worth close to $500 billion and expected to double to $1 trillion in the next five years, would be open to 100 percent foreign direct investment. Yet within days Singh reneged. The disastrous U-turn is worse than any damage to the retail sector or even the fear that, as one BBC commentator claimed, the message is that India was closing the door to all foreign investors. However, it does raise questions as to whether India's reform process has shuddered to a halt. The main damage is political: How could a government with a sufficient majority to push through any measures in Parliament have so misunderstood opposition from within its own ranks as well as from outside? How can any government which says one thing and then changes its mind so quickly be trusted on anything? The questions are about government and governance. Shopping mall mania has hit the suburbs of India's big cities hard. Huge sprawling glass palaces for leisure, with cinemas, cheap restaurants, including McDonald's, KFC, and clothing stores galore are springing up. In several places in Delhi, Mumbai and other metropolitan cities, the malls cast a lurid light on slums in their shadow. But India is proof that anecdotal journalism is unreliable. Overall, the modern sector of the retail business is somewhere between small and tiny, ranging from a high of 23 percent in the clothing and fashion business to 11 percent in furniture and furnishings to a miniscule 1 percent modern penetration in food and grocery items. Food still accounts for more than 40 percent of household spending. Crawford Market (now officially renamed Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai, though everyone still calls it Crawford, after Bombay's first municipal commissioner), in downtown Mumbai, offers a cornucopia of the wonders of India. The Norman-Flemish style building sells almost everything from cats, dogs, parrots endangered species of snakes, billowing wigs of human hair to spices and all sorts of food. If you slip and slither through the stench of the vegetables and meat to ask for eggs, they may still be hot and grubby from being freshly laid. Outside metropolitan India, markets sprawl in the open air with endless opportunities for spoiling and wastage. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, vice chairman of India's Planning Commission, estimated that 40 percent of India's food is spoiled even before it gets to market because of lack of village roads and wretched
Re: [Biofuel] Grubs wreck India's dreams
to the government, a senior job for economist and bureaucrat, not a politician. As finance minister, he rescued India from the brink of bankruptcy by opening the door to economic reforms. He remains an upright, highly moral and uncorrupt gentleman, probably capable of wielding the stiletto of bureaucracy, but a stranger to the criminal thuggery and corruption that is now part of India's democratic deficit. Until recently, Singh's political back was protected by Sonia Gandhi with her control of the Congress Party machine and funds. Gandhi, ominously, has not made the headlines since she came back from the US recently after treatment for cancer. The retail debacle suggests that Singh is tiring and it is time for Gandhi's son Rahul and his companions to prove their worth. But Rahul Gandhi, who is Congress general secretary has also been strangely silent. - Kevin Rafferty was executive editor of the Indian Express newspaper group. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111227/db13add0/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111228/8c4b3ea2/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] You Could Even Say It Glows: NRC Votes to Fast-Track a More Dangerous Nuclear Future
http://www.truth-out.org/you-could-even-say-it-glows-nrc-votes-fast-track-more-dangerous-nuclear-future/1324998985 You Could Even Say It Glows: NRC Votes to Fast-Track a More Dangerous Nuclear Future Friday 23 December 2011 by: Gregg Levine, Capitoilette | Report To paraphrase the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Merry Effin' Christmas. In a news dump that came a day early (because who really wants to dump on Christmas-Eve Eve?), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a pair of moves Thursday that could have significant consequences for America's nuclear industry-and all the people who have to live with it. First, the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design got the big thumbs up: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission unanimously approved a radical new reactor design on Thursday, clearing away a major obstacle for two utilities to begin construction on projects in South Carolina and Georgia. Whoa-let's stop it there for a sec. . . . A radical new reactor design? Somebody's being a good little scribe this Christmas. As previously discussed, there is nothing radical about the AP1000-it's a tweak on the generations-old pressurized water reactor design that theoretically would allow the core to avoid a meltdown in the event of a total loss of AC power. . . . Well, for 72 hours, anyway. After that, the manufacturer-in reality the Japanese owner of Westinghouse, Toshiba-says something about it taking only minimal operator effort to avert disaster. Keep in mind that the AP1000 was designed well before the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that started the ongoing Fukushima disaster, but this approval, of course, comes well after. Designers of the AP1000 assert that gravity and convection will serve to keep reactor cooling functioning even if systems are disabled as they were at Fukushima. That assertion is predicated on the storyline that the Daiichi plant's safety systems survived the massive quake, and only ran into trouble when the tsunami flooded and disabled the diesel backup generators that powered cooling systems for the reactors and the spent fuel pools. That is a capricious assertion for two very disturbing reasons: First, it is by no means established fact that Fukushima's cooling systems survived the earthquake undamaged. Reports from the Japanese government and TEPCO, Fukushima Daiichi's owner-operator, have gone back and forth on this matter. It would be naturally beneficial to nuclear advocates to go with the story that the quake did nothing to the reactor and its safety systems. But given the visible damage to the plant and the surrounding area, and given the profound leaking of cooling water that has continued seemingly unabated from the earliest days of the disaster, it is hard to believe all pipes, tubes, couplings, fittings, vents and valves-not to mention the containment vessels and tanks themselves-remained watertight after the massive temblor. Second, the earthquake worthiness of the AP1000, itself, has been officially questioned by senior NRC officials and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), the Ranking Member of the House committee charged with overseeing nuclear regulation: Just days before the earthquake in Japan, Rep. Markey wrote a letter to the NRC urging the Commission not to approve the Westinghouse AP1000 design until serious safety concerns were addressed. One of NRC's longest-serving staff, Dr. John Ma, had warned in NRC documents that the reactor's containment could shatter like a glass cup due to flaws in the design of the shield building if impacted by an earthquake or commercial aircraft. The shield building has the critical safety function of preventing damage to the reactor that could cause fuel meltdowns and radiation releases. Note, Dr. Ma has been with the NRC since its inception, and this was the first non-concurrence dissent of his career. The NRC acknowledged this concern and asked Westinghouse for a response. . . and the response was, essentially, nah-ah. A response that has now proven good enough for the agency tasked with assuring the safety of America's nuclear reactors. So, it theoretically would be great if the AP1000 were able to survive without melting down through three days without electrical power-though it should be noted that three days wouldn't have really saved Fukushima's bacon (even if it had remained intact) given the devastation to the region's infrastructure. But that semi-sunny selling point on the AP1000 assumes that there would still be a reactor containment building to cool. It is the kind of what could possibly go wrong assumption that has tripped up nuclear power generation in large and small ways throughout its history-and it is stunning that, especially in the wake of the Japanese crisis, this cavalier attitude continues. But perhaps it is not so surprising when we consider just why the AP1000 has such a novel/brittle containment building: it is supposedly cheaper to
[Biofuel] No Time Left to Adapt to Melting Glaciers
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106312 PERU No Time Left to Adapt to Melting Glaciers By Stephen Leahy * UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dec 27, 2011 (Tierramérica) - The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study. Water flows from the region's melting glaciers have already peaked and are in decline, Michel Baraer, a glaciologist at Canada's McGill University, told Tierramérica. This is happening 20 to 30 years earlier than forecasted. Our study reveals that the glaciers feeding the Río Santa watershed are now too small to maintain past water flows. There will be less water, as much as 30 percent less during the dry season, said Baraer, lead author of the study Glacier Recession and Water Resources in Peru's Cordillera Blanca, published Dec. 22 in the Journal of Glaciology. When glaciers begin to shrink in size, they generate a transitory increase in runoff as they lose mass, the study notes. However, Baraer explained, the water flowing from a glacier eventually hits a plateau and from this point onwards there is a decrease in the discharge of melt water. The decline is permanent. There is no going back. Part of the South American Andes Mountain chain, the Cordillera Blanca is a series of snow-covered peaks running north to south, parallel to the Cordillera Negra, located further west. Between the two ranges lies the Callejón de Huaylas, through which the Río Santa runs, eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The tropical glaciers of the Andes Mountains are in rapid decline, losing 30 to 50 percent of their ice in the last 30 years, according to the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD). Most of the decline has been since 1976, IRD reported, due to rising temperatures in the region as a result of climate change. In Bolivia, the Chacaltaya glacier disappeared in 2009. Even in the colder regions of the Andes glaciers are in full retreat. Chile's Centre for Scientific Studies reported this month that the Jorge Montt Glacier in the vast Patagonian Ice Fields receded one entire km in just one year. Historically glacial retreat is extremely slow: one or two km per 100 years. Melting glaciers around the world present some of the strongest evidence that global climate change is underway, said Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, the world's foremost glaciologist. Thompson warns that without sharp reductions in the use of fossil fuels, the impacts of climate change could come faster and beyond what humanity can adapt to. Warmer temperatures not only melt ice but also have major effects on snowfall. As cool seasons become warmer and snow turns to rain, the amount and duration of snow packs decrease and the permanent snow line moves upslope, according to the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), an intergovernmental science organisation based in São José dos Campos, Brazil. These changes have significant effects on the seasonality of stream flows, increasing winter flow rates while the availability of water during the summer declines when water in streams and rivers comes mainly from snow and ice melt. In many High Andean tropical and subtropical valleys, spring and summer snow and glacier melt are critical for crops, livestock and human consumption. Several major Andean cities rely heavily on glacier and snow melt for their water supply, such as La Paz and Lima, with demand increasingly outstripping the supply, according to a 2010 IAI communiqué. The Cordillera Blanca has the most glaciers of any tropical mountain range in the world. In the 1930s glaciers covered up to 850 sq km of the region and now they cover less than 600 sq km, reports Baraer and the eight other study authors from McGill University, Ohio State University, the University of California, the IRD and the glaciology unit of the Peruvian National Water Authority. Most of the melt water from these glaciers drains into the Río Santa watershed. The researchers compared detailed water flow measurements from the 1950s to water flows in recent years, and determined that of the nine sub-watersheds of the Río Santa, seven have passed their peak water flow and are in decline, and almost all of the decline is during the dry summer months. Changes in precipitation and the effects of La Niña and El Niño were also assessed and were not responsible for the declines, Baraer said. Until now it was widely believed that such declines would take place 20 to 30 years from now, allowing time to adapt to a future with less water. Those years don't exist, said Baraer. The region is extremely dry, and the Callejón de Huaylas and especially the agriculturally important province of Carhuaz are completely dependent on water from the Río Santa to irrigate the extensive fruit and vegetable fields, he said. The Río Santa is also the main source
