Re: [Biofuel] Berries and Climate Change

[Thomas Irwin]

Hi Darryl,

Well it is an election year. No sense talking about real issues like
climate change. People might vote based on that issue. The big energy
companies wouldn't want that. If I recall the only issues permitted by the
MSM during an election year are gay rights/anti gay marriage,
abortion/overturning Roe vs Wade, and campaign finance reform. Sorry, no
other issues need apply. Besides are not Americans already doing their fair
share by cutting back something like 3 million gallons per day of gas
demand by getting layed off. Last time I looked something like 18 million
folks are cutting their use of fossil fuels by not being able to find a job
or are working part time. Some of the same folks are cutting back on
heating fuel by moving back home with Mom, Dad and sometimes Grand dad. Now
there is a heartwarming family issue we can all get behind. Each extra
person generates 100 watts of excess energy. They wouldn't need to facebook
Grandad if he's right down the hall.

Seriously though, no one is going to do anything about burning fossil fuels
because it means cutting your standard of living. Raise you hand if you
want to go from middle class to poor. I am fairly certain the rich are
staying put. The insurance companies know what's going on. How much does
flood insurance cost in hurricane prone areas if you can get it at all. I
tell my students that we now live between the flood and the drought. Both
of which will get worse as time progresses. The Chinese and the Indians are
moving forward. One Chinese factory that I have dealings with will build 9
gigawatts of solar panels this year with 3 gigawatts targeted for export. I
have heard that both are building Thorium reactors. Leadership on climate
and other issues will come from those two countries. We shipped the jobs
there but for to send the Unions,Oops! As long as we are on happy subjects,
was there enough nuclear material at Fukashima to poison all of the Pacific
ocean or only as far as Hawaii.

As we live in interesting times,

Tom Irwin

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:13 PM, Darryl McMahon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> It astonishes me to see the news items - even on our corporate
> television network (CTV) - of the multiple weather events (massive
> forest fires, tornadoes where they don't belong - let alone when,
> millions without electricity in the eastern U.S., record-setting high
> temperatures across the continent, flash floods, etc.), and nary a word
> about climate change.  I know we have discussed it here recently, but it
> still leaves me gobsmacked.  Seriously, our leaders and newswriters are
> that determined to not connect the dots?  (Nod to Bill McKibben).
>
> Anyway, it's hot enough here that I am changing up my usual schedule to
> play in the garden in the early morning coolness instead of my past
> practice to save this for my evening 'wind-down' time.
>
> My raspberries are gloriously out of control in the southern-most corner
> of the yard, having refused to accept my attempt to direct them to a
> more northern section.  They have ceded that territory to my equally
> gregarious (rescued years ago) maple tree, which provides welcome shade
> over the park bench I put out by the street for passers-by.
> (Originally, it was used by an elder couple every day as he walked as
> part of his therapy to recover from a stroke.  I don't see either of
> them anymore, but the tree and bench remain popular, especially on these
> hot days.)
>
> However, the raspberries are hitting maximum production a full 2 weeks
> earlier than I have come to expect in previous years.
>
> Local lawns are browning due to heat and lack of rain.  In my childhood,
> I can remember that happening on occasion in mid-August but never in
> July, let alone early July.
>
> I'm well behind schedule getting my basement-started tomatoes outdoors,
> but time remains a scarce resource.  Perhaps this weekend, if other
> priorities permit.  There always seem to be so many.
>
> Roberto, I miss your garden reports.  How goes it on the wet coast?
>
> Darryl
>
> --
> Darryl McMahon
> The Emperor's New Hydrogen Economy
> Runner-up, non-fiction - 2011 International Green Book Festival awards
> http://www.econogics.com/TENHE/
>
>
> ___
> Biofuel mailing list
> Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
> http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
>
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> 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/
>
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[Biofuel] Surprise: ExxonMobil will bid for Afghan oil play

[Keith Addison]

Surprise: ExxonMobil will bid for Afghan oil play

Posted By Steve LeVine  Sunday, July 1, 2012

ExxonMobil confirms that it has filed to bid on a group of 
Afghanistan oilfields containing an estimated 1 billion barrels of 
oil and gas, an instant validation of one of the riskiest resource 
plays on the planet. If the company's application proceeds, it could 
set up a battle of colossals, since the state-owned China National 
Petroleum Corp. and India's ONGC have also filed to bid, I have been 
told.

The tender deadline was yesterday to file an expression of interest. 
Company spokesman Alan Jeffers told me that the filing is among 
Exxon's global search for new hydrocarbon opportunities. The filings 
are to be made official after a government meeting Wednesday at which 
applications will be vetted.

The Exxon filing is surprising because until now the Afghan natural 
resource play, while rich, has been perceived as highly speculative, 
a place for the most daring wildcatters, in addition to regional 
state-owned companies such as CNPC, which won the first Afghan oil 
tender last year. The reason is both security -- no one knows whether 
a 30- 40-year project would endure since Afghanistan has been at 
almost constant war for more than three decades -- and the lack of 
infrastructure. Namely, how do you get the oil and gas to the market? 
Majors of the scale of Exxon rarely pursue such ventures, preferring 
for wildcatters to prove them out, then seek to buy in with their 
deep pockets.


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[Biofuel] Libor Interest Rate Scandal: Crime of the Century

[Keith Addison]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/06-3

Published on Friday, July 6, 2012 by TruthDig.com

Libor Interest Rate Scandal: Crime of the Century

by Robert Scheer

Forget Bernie Madoff and Enron's Ken Lay-they were mere amateurs in 
financial crime. The current Libor interest rate scandal, involving 
hundreds of trillions in international derivatives trade, shows how 
the really big boys play. And these guys will most likely not do the 
time because their kind rewrites the law before committing the crime.

Modern international bankers form a class of thieves the likes of 
which the world has never before seen. Or, indeed, imagined. The 
scandal over Libor-short for London interbank offered rate-has 
resulted in a huge fine for Barclays Bank and threatens to ensnare 
some of the world's top financiers. It reveals that behind the 
world's financial edifice lies a reeking cesspool of unprecedented 
corruption. The modern-day robber barons pillage with a destructive 
abandon totally unfettered by law or conscience and on a scale that 
is almost impossible to comprehend.

How to explain a $450 million settlement for one bank whose defense, 
in a plea bargain worked out with regulators in London and 
Washington, is that every institution in their elite financial circle 
was doing it? Not just Barclays but JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and 
others are now being investigated on suspicion of manipulating the 
Libor rate, so critical to a $700 trillion derivatives market.

Caught as the proverbial deer in the headlights, Barclays Chairman 
Robert E. Diamond Jr. resigned this week and offered a plaintive 
defense to the British Parliament that he learned only recently that 
his bank was manipulating the index on which so large a part of 
international trade is based. That is plausible only if we assume he 
was paid $10 million a year to be deliberately ignorant. The Wall 
Street Journal had exposed this scandal fully four years ago but his 
bank continued to participate in it nonetheless. 

"Study Casts Doubt on Key Rate" was the headline on the May 29, 2008, 
investigative report, which concluded: "Major banks are contributing 
to the erratic behavior of a crucial global lending benchmark, a Wall 
Street Journal analysis shows." Even then, according to the report, 
it was known that the Libor rate was being manipulated "to act as if 
the banking system was doing better than it was at critical junctures 
in the financial crisis."

Fast-forward four years to Diamond's testimony before Parliament this 
week in which the CEO claimed his recent discovery of a pattern of 
interest manipulation by Barclays had made him "physically sick." Who 
was to blame? According to the executive, subordinates acting behind 
his back. 

The American-born banker, who has dual citizenship in the United 
States and Britain, is well versed in financial chicanery, having 
started by putting together derivatives packages at Credit Suisse 
First Boston back in 1996. He was compelled under parliamentary 
questioning Wednesday to admit that "I can't sit here and say no one 
in the industry [knew] about the problems with Libor. There was an 
issue out there and it should have been dealt with more broadly."

He couldn't deny widespread chicanery within his bank because, as in 
the collapse of Enron a decade ago, investigators had uncovered an 
email record of market manipulation so glaring that if the top 
executives were unaware, it was because they didn't want to know. 

As The New York Times editorialized: "The evidence, cited by the 
Justice Department-which Barclays agreed is 'true and accurate'-is 
damning. 'Always happy to help,' one employee wrote in an email after 
being asked to submit false information. 'If you know how to keep a 
secret, I'll bring you in on it,' wrote a Barclays trader to a trader 
at another bank, referring to their strategies for mutual gain. If 
that's not conspiracy and price-fixing, what is?"

The U.S. Justice Department made a deal with Barclays, and although 
it may prosecute some individuals in the scam, it agreed not to go 
after the bank itself. "Such an agreement makes sense only if that 
cooperation will allow prosecutors to nail other banks that have been 
involved in setting the rates, including potential cases against 
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC ... ," the Times editorial said.

Both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were reported by The Wall Street 
Journal years ago to be suspected of rigging the Libor interest rate. 
The leaders of those banks, despite such media exposure, clearly 
remained confident enough to continue on their merry way.

The sad reality is that they will probably get away with it. The 
world of high finance is by design as obscure and opaque as the 
bankers and their political surrogates can make it, and even this 
most recent crack in their defense of deception will soon be made to 
go away.

© 2012 TruthDig.com

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist fo

[Biofuel] Climate Scientists Lament a Nation Stuck on the Wrong Debate

[Keith Addison]

Climate Scientists Lament a Nation Stuck on the Wrong Debate

Saturday, 07 July 2012 13:28

By Katherine Bagley, Inside Climate News | Report

The global warming debate in Congress, the states and on the campaign 
trail centers on two issues: Is Earth warming, and if so are humans 
to blame?

But ask most climate scientists, and they'll tell you that these are 
the only questions not in dispute. Climate change is a matter of how 
bad and by when, they'll say-not whether.

"Scientists are inherently skeptical," says Lonnie Thompson, a 
paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University, who has led studies of 
glaciers and ice sheets in 16 countries. "After enough evidence and 
observation, though, you have to start to accept findings. That is 
what happened with climate change. This wasn't a rash conclusion."

"There is not any serious debate about whether anthropogenic climate 
change is happening," says Daniel Sarewitz, co-director of the 
Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State 
University and a professor of science and society. "Scientists are 
certain about that, and it is unfortunate that the national debate is 
lagging so far behind."

The public and political discourse on global warming was framed by 
the 2007 report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(IPCC), which concluded that climate change is occurring and human 
activity is the cause. That seminal report, and the subsequent 
coverage and debate, split the country into two partisan camps, with 
Democrats generally accepting the scientific consensus and 
Republicans questioning or flat-out denying it.

Missing from the discussion is the perhaps surprising, and rising, 
view of many scientists-that the UN climate panel gravely 
underestimated the immediacy and danger of global warming.

The IPCC process itself is partly, though not entirely, to blame. "It 
takes seven years to produce an IPCC report," says Thompson, who is 
also an IPCC author. "By the time it is published, the science is 
already dated ... and the models being used aren't accurately 
assessing how rapidly these changes are taking place."

There are real-world implications at stake, Thompson says. "We are in 
for tougher scenarios than what are being relayed in the reports."

A Flawed IPCC Assumption

The IPCC, the world's leading scientific body on global warming, is 
charged by the UN with assessing research and releasing periodic 
reviews of climate risks, which governments often use to set targets 
for cutting carbon emissions. In 2007, the panel shared the Nobel 
Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore.

At the core of its assessments are IPCC "scenarios"-summaries of 
coming climatic conditions like global temperature and sea-level 
rise, which are based on a number of assumptions about future 
greenhouse gas emissions. One of those assumptions is that the world 
will make good on its carbon-cutting pledges.

Therein lies a key flaw, says John Reilly, co-director of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Joint Program on the 
Science and Policy of Global Change and an expert on climate economic 
models. Many nations have failed to take promised steps to slash 
global warming emissions, particularly China and the United States, 
the world's biggest polluters. Even in the European Union greenhouse 
gases are on the rise. Yet the IPCC doesn't account for this.

The result, says Reilly, is that emissions today are higher than what 
the IPCC predicted in 2007. The panel's middle-of-the-road scenarios, 
for example, estimate that the world would emit between 27 and 28 
billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2010. In reality, 30.6 
billion metric tons of CO2 were released that year, the latest 
figures available, says data from the International Energy Agency. 
While that may seem like a small difference to a lay person, climate 
experts say that small increases can steamroll into something much 
bigger.

What Newer Climate Models Show

In 2009, Reilly and his colleagues at MIT, along with researchers 
from Penn State, the Marine Biological Institute in Massachusetts and 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, decided to model forecasts 
for climate that assumed the world would continue with business as 
usual.

Their results, published in the June 2012 issue of Climatic Change 
and online last year, found that without major greenhouse gas cuts 
the median global temperature would increase by 5 degrees Celsius (9 
degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, compared to the IPCC's worst-case 
prediction of a 3.5 degree Celsius rise (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit).

The study found that the Arctic would warm up to three times as much 
as was foreseen by the IPCC. There would also be more severe extreme 
weather events and greater ocean warming, sea-level rise and ocean 
acidification.

"The IPCC suite of scenarios provide ... a bit too rosy of a 
picture,"

[Biofuel] Burying the Story Along with the Body: Anthony Shadid and The New York Times

[Keith Addison]

Burying the Story Along with the Body: Anthony Shadid and The New York Times

Saturday, 07 July 2012 12:12

By Alison Weir, Counterpunch | Op-Ed

Anthony Shadid was an astounding journalist.

By 43 he was legendary for his courage and lyrical, powerful 
reporting. He had received the Pulitzer Prize twice for his moving 
reports from the middle of the Iraq war and had built, as the 
Washington Post noted, "one of the most storied careers in modern 
American journalism."

He had reported from the chaos of war zones and had survived multiple 
crises. In Libya he had been kidnapped, beaten, and held for six 
days. In Palestine he had survived an Israeli bullet fired at him 
from 25 feet away.

"They were looking to kill me," Anthony said afterward. The bullet 
passed through his left shoulder, sheared off part of a vertebra, and 
exploded out his right shoulder. An inch difference would have left 
him paralyzed, a little further, dead.

But he survived, continued his evocative reports, and didn't plan on 
getting killed. He had a wife and two young children, and used his 
experience to gauge what he could do and what was too foolishly risky 
to undertake.

Until his final trip.

His death in Syria on February 16, 2012 sent shock waves through 
newsrooms around the country. Numerous articles described his 
bravery, brilliance, and elegiac prose.

The Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most prolific and poetic 
correspondents to cover the Middle East" and compared him to World 
War II's Ernie Pyle.

New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger stated about their star 
reporter: "Anthony was one of our generation's finest reporters. He 
was also an exceptionally kind and generous human being."

The Washington Post, where he had previously worked, called him "one 
of the most incisive and honored foreign correspondents of his 
generation."

Even the White House mourned his loss. The press secretary read a 
statement on Air Force One and added his own comment: "Anthony Shadid 
was one of the best, perhaps the finest, foreign correspondent 
working today."

But it turns out that his death wasn't all that it seemed, and the 
newspapers and individuals who praised Anthony Shadid so lavishly are 
now ignoring what seems to have been his final request.

On June 23rd, explosive new information suddenly and unexpectedly 
came out halfway through a calm, thoughtful speech by Anthony's close 
cousin, Dr. Edward Shadid of Oklahoma City. In an acceptance speech 
on behalf of the family at a banquet honoring Anthony, his cousin 
quietly described an awful scenario:

Just 11 months after Anthony's deeply traumatic kidnapping, for which 
he received no counseling or treatment for possible PTSD, The New 
York Times insisted that Anthony illegally infiltrate Syria in a 
poorly planned, dangerously risky operation. His editors overruled 
Anthony's objections and failed to provide equipment he had 
requested. When he then died of what his cousin suspects was a heart 
attack, the Times put out an inaccurate story that obscured the 
newspaper's role in his death, while proclaiming him a hero and 
basking in the reflected glory.

Worst of all, Anthony's cousin said, the subsequent narrative from 
former executive Bill Keller and others that "great journalists" 
always go into danger, "that's what they do," was setting up future 
journalists to take excessive, possibly lethal risks.

Dr. Shadid pointed out, "There is an inherent inequality of 
bargaining power between journalists and their editors. Commitment 
and a history of bravery can be exploited by editors and management, 
who are under their own pressure to meet production goals and achieve 
awards."

During his speech at the annual American-Arab Anti-Discrimination 
Committee Convention in Washington DC and in interviews afterward, 
Anthony's cousin gave new details about the incident, some of them 
differing significantly from the story given by the New York Times.

Dr. Shadid, who is a medical doctor and city councilman in Oklahoma 
City, revealed that a security advisor working for the Times had 
originally analyzed the newspaper's plan for getting Anthony into 
Syria. The advisor determined it was too dangerous, and forbade him 
from going. Yet, six weeks later, after CNN had gained access, Times 
editors sent Anthony into the area, even though the security 
situation had grown worse in that time.

Anthony's colleagues expressed surprise that his editors insisted he 
enter Syria, Dr. Shadid said, because Anthony had appeared on Syrian 
television and was a "wanted man."

The night before Anthony left for the area, he spoke to Times editors 
over the phone in a conversation that included "screaming and 
slamming down the phone," his cousin related.

When Anthony objected to the planned operation and the physical 
demands of the journey, Times Foreign Edit

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[Kirk McLoren]

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You learn from your mistakes...Today I hope not to learn_too_ much. 
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Re: [Biofuel] Straight Talking: The Syrian Cauldron

[bmolloy]

I think it was St John Irvine who said: "Unless you have entered the dance
you mistake the event." In other words if you don't know the history of this
conflict you might think it a Johnny-come-lately event. Indeed not, nor the
slaughter in Iraq, Libya, the ongoing obscenity of Afghanistan, the Arab
Spring and and the final target, Iran.
It was cooked up as a master strategy in Israel some thirty years ago. What
you are seeing are the puppets at the end of a very concealed string.  

See below:



If you find Oded Yinon's plan of serious interest (to many people it is just
ho hum conspiracy theory) go to Israel Shahak for further background. 

Regards to all,
Bob.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of
Keith Addison
Sent: Saturday, 7 July 2012 8:09 a.m.
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Subject: [Biofuel] Straight Talking: The Syrian Cauldron

Turkey supports terrorists killing Syrians: President Assad Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad says Turkey supports terrorists who commit atrocities
against the people in Syria, urging Ankara to stop meddling in his country's
internal affairs.
Wed Jul 4, 2012


--0--

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31766.htm

Straight Talking: The Syrian Cauldron

By Jeremy Salt

Ankara - Tension between Turkey and Syria along their border is edging
closer to flashpoint. Last week a Turkish air force jet was shot down after
violating Syrian air space. The Syrian government said the plane was hit
while inside Syrian air space. Turkey says it had already left Syrian air
space and was hit in international air space.

What the plane was doing inside Syrian air space is another matter. 
Turkey's President, Abdullah Gul, said it had 'strayed' off course. 
Other accounts suggest that it was there to 'light up' Syria's radar system
or test its missile defences. Turkey immediately sent troops and armor to
the border and invoked Article 4 of the NATO Charter, calling for
consultation with its partners in the alliance. They immediately endorsed
the Turkish version. Hillary Clinton called the shooting down of the plane
'brazen' while William Hague thought it was 'outrageous', words, one cannot
help noting, that they have never used to describe the missile attacks by
their armed forces that have killed civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yemen, Somalia and Libya. 
Another 'incident' might lead to Turkey invoking Article 5, the common
defence article of the NATO Charter, which regards an attack on one member
as an attack on all. War between Syria and Turkey would then become war
between Syria and all NATO members, leading in turn to confrontation between
the NATO/Gulf state bloc on one hand and Russia, China, Iran and their
allies on the other.

There is nothing accidental or unwilled about what is happening in Syria.
The government in Damascus has been deliberately locked into a cycle of
violence fed from the outside by the self-styled 'Friends of Syria'. Both
sides are implicated in the killing of civilians yet the mainstream media
has created a narrative in which virtually all the killing is the work of
the army or the 'regime loyalists' known as the shabiha.

'Activists' routinely blame every murder, bombing and act of sabotage on the
government even when the victims have been Baath loyalists (as was the
professor murdered by armed men in her home on the outskirts of Homs in late
June, along with her three children and parents). The suffering of families
whose menfolk have been killed after taking up arms against the government
is reported in the media but not the suffering of families who have lost
members to the armed groups. The jury remains out on the Hula massacre.
While the UN Human Rights Council says in its latest report that 'many' of
the killings 'may' 
have been the work of regime loyalists, other evidence points to the
massacre having been the handiwork of jihadis, reportedly including the
Faruq Brigade of the so-called Free Syrian Army. As the Human Rights Council
admits that it has no conclusive evidence as to who was behind this massacre
it might have been more responsible for it say nothing unless and until it
did have such evidence.

This unbalanced narrative feeds into the war strategies being framed by the
'Friends of Syria'. These 'friends' insist that the armed campaign they are
sponsoring is directed against the government and not the people. What 'the
people' - by any measure the majority of Syrians - want is hard to gauge
amidst such chaos but evidence suggests they see these 'friends' as their
enemies. The referendum in February and the elections in May were hardly
perfect but remain the clearest indications yet of general support amongst
Syrians for a political solution to the crisis gripping their country.
Outside the enclaves dominated by the armed groups, the people are strongly
opposed to these groups and their