Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[erik]

Australia's Stern review warns of runaway global warming

Carbon emissions are rising so fast that the world has no chance of hitting climate targets, says Australian economist

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk,
Monday October 27 2008 13.28 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/27/climate-change-australia

Carbon pollution levels are rising so fast that the world has no realistic chance of hitting ambitious climate targets set by Britain and the G8, an influential report to the Australian government has warned.

The report, from economist Ross Garnaut, says existing carbon goals, such as those in Britain's climate change bill, are based on out-of-date emissions figures, and are so ambitious that they could wreck attempts to agree a new global deal on global warming.

Garnaut says that nations must accept a greater amount of warming is inevitable, or risk a failure to agree that "would haunt humanity until the end of time."

The report, billed as the Australian Stern review, uses recent estimates of booming carbon emissions that were not included in last year's report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or the 2006 report from Sir Nicholas Stern on the economics of the problem.

Since 2000, the Garnaut report says, global carbon emissions from fossil fuel use have grown by 3% each year, as economies of developing countries including China have boomed. This compares to annual growth rates of 2% through the 1970s and 1980s, and just 1% in the 1990s.

The report, published today, predicts that carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise by more than 3% each year until 2030.

The worst case considered by the IPCC was that world carbon dioxide emissions would rise by 2.5% each year — a scenario often criticised as too pessimistic. Most government projections and discussions are based on the milder IPCC "median" scenario, which sets an annual growth rate of just 2%.

Garnaut says the recent spike in emissions reflects a "platinum age" for the world economy, with growth exceeding the "golden age" of the 1950s and 1960s. And he says the trend raises "serious questions" about suggested climate targets.

Britain and Europe are pushing for the world to agree to limit carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million (ppm), which they say could avoid dangerous climate change. The level is currently more than 380ppm, up from 280ppm before the industrial revolution, and rising by more than 2ppm each year.

The framework for such an agreement was established at UN negotiations in Bali last year, and will be discussed in Poland this December. Analysts say a new treaty must be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen, late next year, for it to enter into force in 2012, when the existing Kyoto protocol expires.

The Garnaut report says developed nations including Britain, the United States and Australia would have to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 5% each year over the next decade to hit the 450ppm target. Britain's climate change bill, the most ambitious of its kind in the world, calls for reductions of about 3% each year to 2050.

Garnaut, a professorial fellow in economics at Melbourne University, said: "Achieving the objective of 450ppm would require tighter constraints on emissions than now seem likely in the period to 2020 ... The only alternative would be to impose even tighter constraints on developing countries from 2013, and that does not appear to be realistic at this time."

The report adds: "The awful arithmetic means that exclusively focusing on a 450ppm outcome, at this moment, could end up providing another reason for not reaching an international agreement to reduce emissions. In the meantime, the cost of excessive focus on an unlikely goal could consign to history any opportunity to lock in an agreement for stabilising at 550ppm, a more modest, but still difficult, international outcome. An effective agreement around 550ppm would be vastly superior to continuation of business as usual."

Experts say that a 450ppm goal could limit temperature rise to 2C, while 550ppm would commit the world to 3C warming, which the IPCC warned would inflict drought and famine on hundreds of millions of people and devastate wildlife.

Friends of the Earth said: "A target of 550ppm of carbon dioxide is a recipe for disaster and even the lower target of 450ppm will mean we will face runaway climate change. The Arctic sea ice and Himalaya glaciers are already disappearing and the permafrost bomb is looming. We need much deeper cuts. Professor Garnaut has described strong targets as delusional, but he continues to feed a delusional policy debate that recognises the problem but doesn't want to implement the solution."

The report, which was released by the Australian government last month, comes after climate scientists criticised carbon targets as having no scientific basis and potentially leading to "dangerously misguided" policies.

Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows at the Tyndall centre for climate change research at Manchester University say global carbon emissions are rising so fast that they would need to peak by 2015 and then decrease by up to 6.5% each year for atmospheric CO2 levels to stabilise at 450ppm, which might limit temperature rise to 2C. Even a goal of 650ppm - way above most government projections - would need world emissions to peak in 2020 and then reduce 3% each year.

[erik]

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...

From Times Online
October 28, 2008
US says attack on village was 'warning to Syria'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5030766.ece

Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent

An unprecedented American airborne attack on a Syrian village was intended to send a warning to Damascus to take stronger action against Iraq-bound foreign jihadists operating on its soil.

The warning came as senior officials in Washington gave their clearest briefings yet on the purpose of the raid, despite the continued official silence from the Pentagon and State Department.

“You have to clean up the global threat that is in your backyard and if you don’t do that, we are left with no choice but to take these matters into our own hands,” one senior official told reporters on conditional of anonymity.

Officials said that Abu Ghadiyah, the Iraqi national targeted and allegedly killed in the attack, had run a network channelling foreign fighters, weapons and funds into Iraq since 2004.

Abu Ghadiyah, whose full name is Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidh, was appointed as al-Qaeda in Iraq’s commander for Syrian logistics by the organisation’s late founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He came from a family of smugglers in Anbar Province, Iraq.

“He ran one of the largest and most productive foreign fighter networks out of Syria and was directly responsible for hundreds of foreign fighters who killed thousands,” the official said. Syria has had plenty of opportunity to deal with the jihadist problem itself, he said but “eventually you can’t wait for guys like that to come back across the border and kill scores of Iraqis or worse, your own forces.”

The timing of the attack startled many, coming so soon after American praise for Syrian efforts to stemming the flow of jihadists over the border. While the number of foreign fighters crossing the border has fallen down to just 20 per month from 120 per month last year, analysts say Damascus has done little to stop money and weapons flowing into Iraq.

Intelligence officials in Washington, speaking anonymously, said the Central Intelligence Agency had hurriedly ordered the raid at the weekend after confirming Abu Ghadiyah’s location in the village of Sukkariyah in the Abu Kamal area.

Two dozen American commandos flew to Sukkariyah in four Black Hawk helicopters and disembarked, fighting a brief gun battle with Abu Ghadiyah and members of his cell. Officials said it was unclear whether Abu Ghadiyah had died on the battlefield or after being taken into American custody. A Syrian villager who witnessed the incident said he had seen two men taken away in the helicopters when the commandos flew off. Despite Syrian outrage and the threat of retaliation by Syrian troops, officials did not rule out mounting such a raid again.

“As targets present themselves and are identified…they become more and more at risk. Just like in Pakistan, there will be steps taken to deal with it,” a senior official said.

Similar justifications have been employed for the change in strategy along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with American troops using Afghanistan to launch both air and missile attacks on suspected Taleban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Washington’s patience with its allies in Islamabad waned amid growing evidence of Pakistan’s direct involvement in tefforist attacks such as the suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The CIA’s discovery of Pakistani intelligence service involvement sparked a furious diplomatic showdown in Islamabad earlier this year.

Much of what the US knows about the Syrian link comes from the intelligence gleaned from a raid on a suspected al-Qaeda house in Iraq house in Sinjar, on the Iraqi side of the border, in the summer of last year.

Documents there revealed names and details of more than 500 foreign fighters who had entered from Syria, and of at least 95 Syrian “co-ordinators” who helped channel the jihadists across the border. Many of them were from tribal families active in the smuggling trade who appeared to be motivated by money rather than ideological sympathy. The documents revealed Abu Kamal, the area of Sunday’s raid, as a key conduit point.

[erik]

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it, is a fool

A little update: lots of talk, nothing changes...

World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch

• Two planets need by 2030 at this rate, warns report
• Humans using 30% more resources than sustainable

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/climatechange-endangeredhabitats

Juliette Jowit
The Guardian,
Wednesday October 29 2008



The world is heading for an "ecological credit crunch" far worse than the current financial crisis because humans are over-using the natural resources of the planet, an international study warns today.

The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result, we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (£2.5tr) to $4.5tr every year - double the estimated losses made by the world's financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis - say the report's authors, led by the conservation group WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is based on a UN report which calculated the economic value of services provided by ecosystems destroyed annually, such as diminished rainfall for crops or reduced flood protection.

The problem is also getting worse as populations and consumption keep growing faster than technology finds new ways of expanding what can be produced from the natural world. This had led the report to predict that by 2030, if nothing changes, mankind would need two planets to sustain its lifestyle. "The recent downturn in the global economy is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means," says James Leape, WWF International's director general. "But the possibility of financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch."

The report continues: "We have only one planet. Its capacity to support a thriving diversity of species, humans included, is large but fundamentally limited. When human demand on this capacity exceeds what is available - when we surpass ecological limits - we erode the health of the Earth's living systems. Ultimately this loss threatens human well-being." Speaking yesterday in London, the report's authors also called for politicians to mount a huge international response in line with the multibillion-dollar rescue plan for the economy. "They now need to turn their collective action to a far more pressing concern and that's the survival of all life on planet Earth," said Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the president of WWF International.

Sir David King, the British government's former chief scientific adviser, said: "We all need to agree that there's a crisis of understanding, that we're removing the planet's biodiverse resources at a rate which is as fast if not faster than the world's last great extinction."

At the heart of the Living Planet report is an index of the health of the world's natural systems, produced by the Zoological Society of London and based on 5,000 populations of more than 1,600 species, and on an "ecological footprint" of human demands for goods and services.

For the first time the report also contains detailed information on the "water footprint" of every country, and claims 50 countries are already experiencing "moderate to severe water stress on a year-round basis". It also shows that 27 countries are "importing" more than half the water they consume - in the form of water used to produce goods from wheat to cotton - including the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands.

Based on figures from 2005, the index indicates global biodiversity has declined by nearly a third since 1970. Breakdowns of the overall figure show the tropical species index fell by half and the temperate index remained stable but at historically low levels. Divided up another way, indices for terrestrial, freshwater and marine species, and for tropical forests, drylands and grasslands all showed significant declines. Of the main geographic regions, only the Nearctic zone around the Arctic sea and covering much of North America showed no overall change.

Over the same period the ecological footprint of the human population has nearly doubled, says the report.

At that rate humans would need two planets to provide for their wants in the 2030s, two decades earlier than the previous Living Planet report forecast just two years ago. This figure is "conservative" as it does not include the risk of a sudden shock or "feedback loop" such as an acceleration of climate change, says the report. But it warns: "The longer that overshoot persists, the greater the pressure on ecological services, increasing the risk of ecosystem collapse, with potentially permanent losses of productivity."

In the 1960s most countries lived within their ecological resources. But the latest figures show that today three-quarters of the world's population live in countries which consume more than they can replenish.

Addressing concerns that national boundaries are an artificial way of dividing up the world's resources, Leape says: "It's another way of reminding ourselves we're living beyond our means."

The US and China account for more than two-fifths of the planet's ecological footprint, with 21% each.

A person's footprint ranges vastly across the globe, from eight or more "global hectares" (20 acres or more) for the biggest consumers in the United Arab Emirates, the US, Kuwait and Denmark, to half a hectare in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Afghanistan and Malawi. The global average consumption was 2.7 hectares a person, compared with a notional sustainable capacity of 2.1 hectares.

The UK, with an average footprint of about 5.5 hectares, ranks 15th in the world, just below Uruguay and the Czech Republic, and ahead of Finland and Belgium.

[nichi]

Unrelated to any of the most recent posts, I want to share I've had a strong inspiration in the past couple of weeks to send to/wish/pray for/visualize/otherwise petition the higher powers-who-be, or the highest energetic, cosmic forces, to blanket Obama in wisdom, strength, fortitude, and peace. May he have the best possible counsel.

I see possibilities, and great tests for him. May he succeed --- may all of us succeed.

~fwiw

[tangerine dream]

Unrelated to any of the most recent posts, I want to share I've had a strong inspiration in the past couple of weeks to send to/wish/pray for/visualize/otherwise petition the higher powers-who-be, or the highest energetic, cosmic forces, to blanket Obama in wisdom, strength, fortitude, and peace. May he have the best possible counsel.

I see possibilities, and great tests for him. May he succeed --- may all of us succeed.

~fwiw

Perhaps you'd like to join in the Monthly Global Meditation coming up on the first of the Month.   Wisdom, and peace and love could be sent to the rest of the world as well.   

(I know this isn't really a Soma 'thing', but your post reminded me...so I mentioned)

[Jahn]

Four Winds Society [mailto:fourwinds@thefourwinds.com]
Date: den 28 oktober 2008 22:45
Till: jamir
Subject: Conference Call Reminder, Wednesday October 29th
 
 
The Mayan Prophecies speak of the time on or around November 11th, 2008 as a time of great emergence, of moving into the “Sixth Day”. This new day will be a very fruitful time in preparation for the great galactic alignment of 2012. We are currently in the very darkest hour of the night before the breaking of the dawn. We must be vigilant and attentive without engaging the world with drama. Now is the time to heal ourselves and our culture, to reevaluate and reexamine all belief structures, to cull what needs to be shifted and to allow ourselves to be renewed and reborn with this approaching new day.

If we do not complete this process of purification and healing, the breaking down of old structures, this breaking down will happen at the literal and physical level. The year 2008 is the “shakedown year”. We must bring our power and attention to examine what no longer serves us. We must be dismembered and walk with ethics in the world. The prophecies foretell that the individuals who take this leap will rise out of the creative juices of the rich, dark mother earth and flourish.

In this upcoming conference call, Dr. Alberto Villoldo will discuss how we can break free of our fight or flight instincts, hold firm to our values and move courageously forward into a time of unfettered possibility - into the dawn of new thinking.

Please join us:
Wednesday, October 29th
Call will be held at 5:00 pm MDT (Utah, USA)
To Listen dial (616) 883-8400
Enter Access Code: 429628572#
Long Distance charges will apply

Check your local time: www.timeanddate.com

This call will be recorded and available for download
on our website within 48 hours of the conference.
Link to our Conference Call Archive page >

________________________________________
   

The Four Winds Society | PO Box 680675 | Park City | UT | 84068

[erik]

I wonder how the decision will be made on whether to break down the physical world or not. If it means that majority of humans must be on board, I'd guess there's little chance of averting the cataclysm.

[tangerine dream]

Four Winds Society [mailto:fourwinds@thefourwinds.com]


Please join us:
Wednesday, October 29th
Call will be held at 5:00 pm MDT (Utah, USA)
To Listen dial (616) 883-8400
Enter Access Code: 429628572#

Thanks Jamir,

[nichi]

I wonder how the decision will be made on whether to break down the physical world or not. If it means that majority of humans must be on board, I'd guess there's little chance of averting the cataclysm.

Well then, we must find a way to go down laughing!   

[erik]

Why exactly laughing?

[nichi]

Why exactly laughing?

Exactly laughing because I'm not going to live my last days in utter terror.

It's maya, anyway.

The wheel turns one way, and disaster is at hand.
It shifts another, and the day is saved.
There is no certainty.

So I feel obliged to enjoy myself as much as possible -- to grab every moment of gusto I can.
Laughter oils the wheels, for me.
Laughter and singing.

[erik]

How about that?

RAND Lobbies Pentagon: Start War To Save U.S. Economy


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b55_1225399574

EXCLUSIVE: Shocking proposal urges military leaders to attack major foreign power
Paul Joseph Watson & Yihan Dai
Thursday, October 30, 2008

According to reports out of top Chinese mainstream news outlets, the RAND Corporation recently presented a shocking proposal to the Pentagon in which it lobbied for a war to be started with a major foreign power in an attempt to stimulate the American eco More..nomy and prevent a recession.

A fierce debate has now ensued in China about who that foreign power may be, with China itself as well as Russia and even Japan suspected to be the targets of aggression.

The reports cite French media news sources as having uncovered the proposal, in which RAND suggested that the $700 billion dollars that has been earmarked to bailout Wall Street and failing banks instead be used to finance a new war which would in turn re-invigorate the flagging stock markets.

The RAND Corporation is a notoriously powerful NGO with deep ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex as well as interlocking connections with the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations.
Current directors of RAND include Frank Charles Carlucci III, former Defense Secretary and Deputy Director of the CIA, Ronald L. Olson, Council on Foreign Relations luminary and former Secretary of Labor, and Carl Bildt, top Bilderberg member and former Swedish Prime Minister.

Carlucci was chairman of the Carlyle Group from 1989-2005 and oversaw gargantuan profits the defense contractor made in the aftermath of 9/11 following the invasion of Afghanistan. The Carlyle Group has also received investment money from the Bin Laden family.

Reportedly, the RAND proposal brazenly urged that a new war could be launched to benefit the economy, but stressed that the target country would have to be a major influential power, and not a smaller country on the scale of Afghanistan or Iraq.

The reports have prompted a surge of public debate and tension in China about the possibility that a new global conflict is on the horizon.

China’s biggest media outlet, Sohu.com, speculated that the target of the new war would probably be China or Russia, but that it could also be Iran or another middle eastern country. Japan was also mentioned as a potential target for the reason that Japan holds the most U.S. debt.

North Korea was considered as a target but ruled out because the scale of such a war would not be large enough for RAND’s requirements.

The reported RAND proposal dovetails with recent comments made by Joe Biden, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright and others, concerning the “guarantee” that Barack Obama will face a major “international crisis” soon after taking office.

It also arrives following a warning from Michael Bayer, chairman of a key Pentagon advisory panel, who echoed the statement that the next administration will face an international crisis within months of taking office.

One would hope that good people, or at least sane people who don’t wish to start a global nuclear war, will oppose the RAND proposal, such as top the military generals who threatened to quit if Bush ordered an attack on Iran. Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, quit in March last year as a result of his opposition to Bush administration policy on Iran.

[Michael]

As I said in another post, just returned from watching this film on the play Titanic. Others there said the play was far superior to the movie, aside from the audio-visuals.

It was revealing to me about myself, how uncomfortable I felt during the second act, which as all after they had hit the iceberg. They stood around talking and moaning about whose fault it was or about being left behind or whatever. I have been aware of this event for a long time, and the issue of why people didn't rip the ship apart to make rafts etc. Instead they stood there singing and crying while it sank - I experience great anxiety at that kind of wasted opportunity in an emergency.

When there really is no way out, I become very calm - I am not afraid of dying. Quite the contrary. But I can't stand the thought of throwing away precious opportunities out of lack of keenness and awareness, or simple lack of spunk.

Friday night I went to dinner with two friends who had just returned from a year's holiday living in Paris, on long service leave. Wandering aimlessly (in my view) about the streets, eating good French food and sucking up the ambience. These people are very intelligent, academics in Sociology and Philosophy, and yet they are completely oblivious to the impending doom. So they squander their precious time in some romantic dream-scape, while the ship is sinking.

There is the Economic meltdown, which very likely could turn into a world depression. In front of the environmental meltdown, which most likely will result in a global catastrophe. But these are only the many faces of Death, which is silently stalking us, right now as we post blithely on this forum.

How long will it be before one of us dies? We have know each other for many years now, so the odds must be building - who will it be?

What are we doing that will make us feel our precious time is not wasted in fantasy?

The economy and the environment are only tricks we use to help us wake up - the real groper in the dark will not be avoided.

On the Titanic, they had about 1 to 2 hours - an eternity, and a split second.... just like the remainder of our life.

[nichi]

How long will it be before one of us dies? We have know each other for many years now, so the odds must be building - who will it be?

It won't be for any of us to say, will it?
It's good to not be in the romantic dreamscape, but pretending to be on the committee of the grim reaper is the other extreme. 

I mean, to view events like the 2004 tsunami, katrina, the financial meltdown, the global meltdown, etc, with sporting interest seems like some macabre act of vampirism. It's beyond stalking ... there's something in it which says "f-k you", to me.  In other words, it feels more diabolical than helpful, to me.

Why does it feel diabolical to me? Because there are those here who feel so "certain" and "right" about the doom-prediction. Do those of you who feel so sure ever consider that your own projections into the matter intensify and feed the possibility of your accuracy?

But then again, I'm perhaps in a more dangerous area than most of the folks here -- below sea level, on the coast, privy to hurricanes, an excellent "ground zero" per military interests, downwind from D.C. and NYC. So maybe I don't have the same luxury others here seem to have, and don't really find it all that sporting to assess "Who?" it will be. It's too close to home, perhaps.

I don't expect my "emotional" reaction to count for anything there, but as the bets go on increasingly, here, I feel like mounting the sacrificial slab myself, just to end the suspense. Then everyone can diabolically analyze that!

A loss is a loss .... this ain't Las Vegas.

[nichi]

But these are only the many faces of Death, which is silently stalking us, right now as we post blithely on this forum.

Who's blithe?

What are we doing that will make us feel our precious time is not wasted in fantasy?

I suppose you'll laugh, but what I was doing was posting on this forum! Connecting internationally, to spread and extend some reaching hand of ethereal hope or at least awareness, thereby increasing the sense of a global kind of unity. So fool me, eh? The thing you're calling "blithe" and "fantasy"-ridden were my very efforts to create a different reality.

And if that didn't work, then I would die a little better for the connection.