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What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia
April 9, 2009 Climate scientists say Australia -- beset by prolonged drought and deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito-borne fevers in the north, widespread wildlife decline, economic collapse in agriculture and killer heat waves -- epitomizes the "accelerated climate crisis" that global warming models have forecast. The cost to Australia from climate change is going to be greater than for any developed country.
173 people who died in February during the nation's worst-ever wildfires, and 200 more who died from heat and warped train tracks like spaghetti the week before. Cities experienced four days of temperatures at 110 degrees or higher with little humidity, and 100-mph winds. In areas where fires hit, temperatures reached 120.
Farmers who once grew 60% of the nation's produce are walking off their land. The small growers haven't got the money to replant. They haven't got the time to wait five years for a return. The machinery they have is not salable. They have thrown their arms up and walked away. They are broken people." Australia is witnessing the collapse of its agricultural sector and the nation's ability to feed itself.
Most of the country is in the grip of the worst drought in more than a century. Every capital in Australia's eight states and territories is operating under considerable water restrictions. Australia ns in the south would see water as heaven-sent; in the north, it's a curse. The north part of the country is beset with twin epidemics of malaria and a dangerous form of hemorrhagic dengue fever, from mosquitoes that breed in the standing water. Such diseases are expected to become more common in the tropics with climate change. The Great Barrier Reef and the Tropical Rainforest Reserve, are withering under climate extremes. Higher ocean temperatures are bleaching expanses of coral and affecting fish and plant species. The continent's biodiversity is at risk
Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and relies on it for 80% of its electricity. That helps make Australia and its 21 million people the world's highest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases in the industrialized world.
Obama looks at climate engineering
Apr 8 AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
http://www.breitbar
Over 1 million Iraqis have been killed, over 5 million Iraqi children are now orphans, and over 3 millions husbands and wives are now widowers or widows.
April 11, 2009 : In the wake of the Boumediene ruling, the U.S. Government wanted to
preserve the power to abduct people from around the world and bring
them to American prisons without having to provide them any due
process. So, instead of bringing them to our Guantanamo prison camp
(where, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, they were entitled to habeas
hearings), the Bush administration would instead simply send them to
our prison camp in Bagram, Afghanistan, and then argue that because
they were flown to Bagram rather than Guantanamo, they had no rights
of any kind and Boudemiene didn't apply to them. The Bush DOJ treated
the Boumediene ruling, grounded in our most basic constitutional
guarantees, as though it was some sort of a silly game -- fly your
abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights,
but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with
no judicial process. Put another way, you just close Guantanamo, move
it to Afghanistan, and -- presto -- all constitutional obligations
disappear.
Last month, a federal judge emphatically rejected the Bush/Obama
position and held that the rationale of Boudemiene applies every bit
as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo.
"The Obama administration said
Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some
military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking
their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not
backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism
suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight. . .
http://www.salon.
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April 11, 2009 : CHINA'S exports fell for a fifth month in March,17.1 per cent. In February, shipments fell by a record 25.7 per cent, leaving a trade surplus of $A 25.8 billion.
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April 7, 2009
Wait for the crash of US commercial real estate, which analysts think will happen by autumn this year. Shops are closing down and there's no one to rent them. Companies are retrenching and freeing up a lot of office space or closing down entirely and vacating even more precious office space with no one to rent it again. Huge skyscrapers are becoming ghost-scrapers. All this expensive commercial real estate is mortgaged to the hilt. With no rental income coming in, the loans against them will become difficult to service and there will be fearsome default.
If he has got it right, next year will come to be known as 'The Collapse of 2010' for that is when the USA will disintegrate into six separate entities. Those six entities, says Prof Panarin, are The California Republic, The Central North American Republic, Atlantic America, The Texas Republic, Hawaii and Alaska going back to Russia.
With millions of Chinese living on America's eastern seaboard (The People's Daily's circulation there alone is over five million) The California Republic, Prof Panarin thinks, will either be part of China or come under Chinese influence. The Central North American Republic will be part of Canada or under Canadian influence, Atlantic America may join the European Union, The Texas Republic will be part of Mexico or under Mexican influence and Hawaii will go either to Japan or China.
When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the Union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow.
http://www.kunstler
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The Global Financial Crisis: How bad will it get?
April 13th, 2009: The second largest rate of fall in consumer prices in recorded history was in November of last year. So there's all sorts of signals that this could be a worse crisis than the Great Depression.
Attenborough warns on population
The broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron of a group seeking to cut the growth in human population.
On joining the Optimum Population Trust, Sir David said growth in human numbers was "frightening"
Sir David has been increasingly vocal about the need to reduce the number of people on Earth to protect wildlife.
The Trust, which accuses governments and green groups of observing a taboo on the topic, say they are delighted to have Sir David as a patron.
Fraught area
Sir David, one of the BBC's longest-standing presenters, has been making documentaries on the natural world and conservation for more than half a century.
In a statement issued by the Optimum Population Trust he is quoted as saying: "I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more."
The Trust, which was founded in 1991, campaigns for the UK population to decrease voluntarily by not less than 0.25% a year.
It has launched a "Stop at Two" online pledge to encourage couples to limit their family's size.
Other patrons include Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, and Dame Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall institute.
http://groups.
http://www.optimump
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