MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
December 2, 2005
The Big Scoop Series #9: Going Through The Whole Gamut
Hello everyone!
You will find lots of global warming related material in this compilation plus some amazing details on the secret military program in space and much much more
As suggested in the Environmental Vigil For Global Warming Meeting in Montreal archived at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/MeditationFocus141.htm ... "Please also keep this upcoming important event in mind during your prayers and meditations so as to help foster significant progress during this meeting and decisive actions afterwards to mitigate climate change."
And of course there will be a new Meditation Focus (on Abundance) issued this Saturday night.
Feel free to share widely ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
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Worthy of Your Attention
Go Gratitude Experiment
http://www.givemethemasterkey.com
Recommended by Antares Antares@magickriver.com> who wrote: "A POWERFUL LINK! POSSIBLY LIFE CHANGING" - This is a MUST SEE indeed. ABSOLUTELY FANTABULOUSLY BRILLIANT! Several other subscribers recommended it as well... More on this below
Most credible compilation of facts on 9/11
http://www.911proof.com/
Lots of revealing articles
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/index.asp
CONTENTS
1. The Gratitude Wave
2. Dec 1st International Aids Day
3. Former CIA Agents Reveal Secrets of CIA in Free Google Documentary
4. Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream
5. Rallies Planned to Combat Global Warming
6. EU says will fulfil Kyoto target by 2010
7. Forests urged as new front in global warming fight
8. U.S. Environmental Stance Draws Heat
9. Bern researchers drill deep into climate history
10. World's seas rising twice as fast: study
11. Changing climate change
12. How Europe is choking itself - and the world
13. No one is immune from the effects of global warming
14. Why Kyoto will vanish into hot air
15. Warming plan not cool
16. Effects of global warming are already felt across the nation
17. Kyoto gets a rule book
18. Goss refuses to give Fitzgerald CIA leak damage assessment
19. UP IN THE AIR - Where is the Iraq war headed next?
20. Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations
21. Classified Advanced Antigravity Aerospace Craft Utilizing Back-engineered Extraterrestrial Technology
22. The Latest from Richard Boylan Email List
23. Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media
See also:
Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age (30 November 2005)
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398
The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age. The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. CLIP
Climate Change Major Environmental Challenge for Europe
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120105EA.shtml
The temperature on the European continent is rising a third faster than the global average, according to the EU's environmental agency. "Europe has not seen climate changes of this scale for 5,000 years," said Jacqueline McGlade, the agency's director.
Global Hot Air
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/120105EB.shtml
J. Bradford DeLong, former Assistant US Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration, exposes the Kyoto Protocol. He says, "In short, the Kyoto agreement meant lots of short-term pain for little long-run gain."
Iran and Russia sign $1 bln defense deal: reports (Dec 2)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051202/ts_nm/russia_iran_arms_dc
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran, media reported on Friday. Moscow is already at odds with the West over its nuclear ties with Tehran but has sought to use its warm relations with Iran to be recognized as a key mediator between the West and the Islamic Republic. U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, visiting Moscow, told Ekho Moskvy radio he had raised the issue of arms sales to Iran with Russia's Foreign Ministry. "For the past 25 years, in our opinion, Iran has supported terrorists in the Middle East, in the United States, and that is why we have very bad relations with them. You can understand why we do not support the sale of weapons to such a country," he said in comments simultaneously translated into Russian. The Vedomosti business daily cited military sources as saying Iran would buy 29 TOR-M1 systems designed to bring down aircraft and guided missiles at low altitudes. The paper, calling it the biggest sale of Russian defense hardware to Iran for about five years, said Moscow and Tehran had already signed the contract. Interfax news agency separately quoted a source as saying the deal, which would also include modernizing Iran's air force and supplying some patrol boats, was worth more than $1 billion. The move, likely to irritate Israel and the United States, could strain Moscow's efforts to broker a deal between Iran and European negotiators aimed at breaking a deadlock over Tehran's nuclear programme. Israel in particular is nervous about Iran's military potential after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in October that Israel should be "wiped off the map" -- comments condemned by Russia at the time. CLIP
Road deaths almost 400 times greater than those from international terrorism
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/bsj-rda112905.php
Deaths from international terrorism compared with road crash deaths in OECD countries - The death toll from car crashes in developed countries is almost 400 times greater than the number of deaths caused by international terrorism, reports a study in the latest issue of Injury Prevention. In 2001 as many people died every 26 days on US roads as died in the terrorist bombings of 9/11, the study shows.The authors compared the number of deaths from international terrorism and car crashes in the 29 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 1994 and 2003. They used the US State Department Counterterrorism Office database for deaths caused by international terrorist activity, and the OECD International Road Transport Accident Database for 2000 and 2001 for those caused by car crashes. For the 29 OECD countries, 33 acts of international terrorism occurred during the study period, accounting for 3064 deaths, excluding those of the perpetrators. The attacks all occurred in 10 of the OECD countries, with the highest number of fatal attacks in Turkey. The annual death rate from car crashes was around 390 times higher than the death toll from international terrorism. Among the 10 countries where people had died as a result of international terrorism, the ratio of road deaths to terrorist deaths ranged from 142 times greater in the US to over 55,000 times greater in Poland. Deaths from car crashes were equivalent to the impact of a 9/11 attack every nine day, for all the countries put together. The authors cite other evidence, suggesting that the number of Americans who avoided flying after 9/11 and were subsequently killed in car crashes was higher than the total number of passengers who died on the four 9/11 flights. The authors are at pains not to minimise the emotional, economic, and political impacts of terrorism. But they point out there is a huge difference in the scale of death between terrorism and car crashes. And the evidence to inform policy is also much greater for car crashes. "Policy makers need to consider these issues when allocating resources towards preventable interventions that can save lives from these two avoidable causes of mortality," they conclude.
The Long March of Dick Cheney (24 November 2005)
http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/11/24/cheney/index_np.html
For his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him - and he's not about to give it up. The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined. Richard Nixon is the model, but with modifications. In the Nixon administration, the president was the prime mover, present at the creation of his own options, attentive to detail, and conscious of their consequences. In the Cheney administration, the president is volatile but passive, firm but malleable, presiding but absent. Once his complicity has been arranged, a closely held "cabal" - as Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls it - wields control. CLIP
Possibly 100 Different Rebel Groups in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205K.shtml
The insurgency consists not of a few groups but of dozens, possibly as many as 100. And it is not, as often depicted, a coherent organization whose members dutifully carry out orders from above but a far-flung collection of smaller groups that often act on their own or come together for a single attack, the officials say.
2 More US Allies Departing Crumbling Coalition
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205L.shtml
Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home US troops
California voting summit shuts out voting reform advocates; Panels appear stacked with electronic voting proponents
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/California_voting_summit_shuts_out_voting_1201.html
A California summit on voting equipment, where many of the speakers had apparent conflicts of interests, barred entry to consumer groups calling for election reform. (...) "This smacks of Dick Cheney meeting with the energy companies and locking out opposing interests of environmental groups," Sherry Healy, a member of the California Election Protection Network steering committee.
Scientists: Too Many Fish Snared (November 30, 2005)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Fish-Kills.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Commercial fisheries in the U.S. kill a pound of fish for every four pounds intentionally caught, jeopardizing efforts to restore some struggling stocks, scientists said Wednesday. A tally of the nation's yearly unintentional ''bycatch'' -- unwanted fish that are caught and, in most cases, die before being thrown overboard -- was conducted by scientists Jennie Harrington, Andrew Rosenberg and Ransom Myers.Their peer-reviewed study, sponsored by the environmental group Oceana and published in the December issue of Fish and Fisheries magazine, found that 1.2 billion tons of fish annually are left for dead with every 4 billion tons caught in commercial nets. ''We can and should do better,'' said Rosenberg, dean of the University of New Hampshire's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and member of a federal commission that studied ocean policy. ''This sort of waste undermines efforts to recover those depleted resources. ''Most of the fish -- such as skates, monkfish, swordfish, tunas, sharks, salmon and halibut -- are snared by shrimpers' nets in the Gulf of Mexico or in the huge trawling nets some vessels use to reach the ocean floor. The Gulf's shrimpers, for example, catch 114,000 tons of shrimp a year but discard four times that weight in snappers, mackerel, Atlantic croaker, crabs and porgies. CLIP
Expert says bird flu has killed 300 people in China (24 November 2005)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn8371.html
A respected Japanese scientist, who works with the World Health Organization, says 300 people have died of H5N1 bird flu in China, including seven cases caused by human-to-human transmission.He says he was given the information in confidence by Chinese colleagues who have been threatened with arrest if they disclosed the extent of the problem.The allegations, which he revealed at a meeting in Germany, contrast sharply with China's official position. It reports three confirmed cases of H5N1 in people: a boy in Hunan province who recovered, and two women who died in Anhui province, the latest of which was announced on Thursday. There may be another probable case in Hunan.But Masato Tashiro, head of virology at Tokyo's National Institute of Infectious Disease - a WHO-collaborating centre for bird flu - told the meeting of virologists in Marburg, Germany, on 19 November that "we have been systematically deceived". His comments were reported in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.He told the stunned meeting, called to mark the retirement of a senior German virologist, that there have been "several dozen" outbreaks in people, 300 confirmed deaths and 3000 people placed in isolation with suspected cases. CLIP
Aspartame linked to increased cancer risk in rats (18 November 2005)
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051114/full/051114-15.html
Aspartame linked to increased cancer risk in ratsStudy contradicts previous findings on safety of sweetener. Charlotte SchubertItalian researchers are challenging the safety of aspartame, the low-calorie sweetener found in NutraSweet, diet sodas and thousands of other food products. Rats that have been fed the sweetener can develop cancer, the researchers report, even at doses below the recommended limits for people. The findings contradict most other studies, which have suggested that aspartame is safe. CLIP
Holographic-memory discs may put DVDs to shame (24 November 2005)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/dn8370.html
A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more data is set to go on sale in 2006. The disc stores information through the interference of light - a technique known as holographic memory. The discs, developed by InPhase Technologies, based in Colorado, US, hold 300 gigabytes of data and can be used to read and write data 10 times faster than a normal DVD. The company, along with Japanese partner Hitachi Maxell announced earlier in November that they would start selling the discs and compatible drives from the end of 2006. "Unlike other technologies, that record one data bit at a time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light," says Liz Murphy, of InPhase Technologies. "This enables transfer rates significantly higher than current optical storage devices." (...) Information can be recorded and retrieved so rapidly because many bits of data can be recorded and read in parallel.InPhase says the technique could theoretically be used to store up to 1.6 terabytes of data on the same size of disc and to read data at 120 megabits per second. This is 340 times the capacity of an ordinary DVD and 20 times the data rate. CLIP
Omega-News Collection 26. November 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1193868/
LAST MINUTE ADDITION
From: http://www.openhandweb.org/oneness_-_we_are_the_all_of_it
Oneness - we are the all of it.
Submitted by Trin on 29 November, 2005
There never seems to be a dull moment during meditation... every day brings some new blessing, gift, or more often than not a reminder of that which we all inherently know anyway.
Today was quite saddening - yet ironically an abundant bringer of awareness of the connectedness of all things and then bliss. Ahhh!
I was busy thanking Mother Earth for the multitude of gifts she unwaiveringly showers us with, and saw visions of this divine beautiful Mother Earth shining before me. In this clear vision my body and everything which I am wrapped itself around mother earth and then melted right into it, becoming as one. This was an incredibly intense experience of oneness. The wrath and turmoil projected upon Mother Earth became 'ME'. I felt as if I was choking, being raped, drenched in toxic poison, beaten and bruised - cast down with the darkest energy - in fact smothered to death. I felt her primal scream as my own - the raging fires of hell - (hardly that which many would equate to a 'good' meditational experience! - yet I am filled with profound gratitude) and then I was consumed by blissful calm!!!! - all there was to do was forgive the ignorance of mankind - for we are truly all one, and as long as I see my brothers and sisters of this world as guilty - then so am I. We are all one - united at the core. Separation is just an illusion.
It seems that some of the most divine blessings, the brightest revelations are behind the darkest visions. I am truly thankful for the darkness in order that I can experience such divine light.
In Love and Light
Trin
See also Openhand: taking life to a whole new level at http://www.openhandweb.org/new_level
I found this through this note left in the ERN guestbook:
Great site. Abundant blessings and thanks for sharing! We'd also love to share a link from the Openhand site at http://www.openhandweb.org - Openhand is dedicated to unveiling the true self. Rather than struggling for things we think we want, by going inwards and continually questioning who and what we are, we peel back the layers of illusion in which we live until we discover divine inner peace.
More details about this unique form of meditation can be found at http://www.openhandweb.org/taxonomy/term/8
I also found this quite interesting...
From: http://www.openhandweb.org/expanding_consciousness
Expanding consciousness
Consciousness, our true selves, allows itself to be drawn into the ego or personality. It is replicating a universal process of spirit being drawn into matter in order to experience that which it is not. In ‘forgetting’ it’s true nature, spirit gets to taste the wonderful experience of returning to itself. That’s why many awakening people describe the sensations they feel as that of ‘coming home’ and the ‘unconditional love’ this entails...
In Openhand Meditation, through movement and breath work, we learn how to increase the awareness of the true self and identify more closely with it. We still get drawn into the ego but the practice ‘lights a beacon’ for us to find our way home again. Gradually we learn how to identify when we are our true selves and when we are in the ego. When you know the ego as what it is, you give no more energy to it and it dissipates. What you are left with is your true magical and limitless self.
At this point, we begin to experience magical lives. We begin to connect with universal consciousness - the place of all-knowing. We can draw on its wisdom through the vehicle of our intuition. Intuition is the quiet voice within. For most of us we cannot ‘hear’ it above the background noise of our thoughts and emotions. When we practise expanding our consciousness ‘upwards’ aided by quiet minds and emotions, we can tap into the source of all knowing and find answers to everyday situations in our life.
---
Discover various others gems through the messages left on the ERN guestbook at http://two.guestbook.de/gb.cgi?gid=456912&prot=ccbcsw
... such as the amazing lifetime work (numerous books, paintings, courses, and holistic educational program) of Rowena Pattee Kryder at http://stream-of-wisdom.com/index.html
Here is a brief excerpt;
"In order for there to be peace on Earth, it is essential that human beings recognize and embody certain universal principles: 1) Love is the primary force of the universe, 2) Harmony comes when two or more are gathered in appreciation of the wonder of the universe, 3) Responsibility comes with the empowerment process, 4) Peace results when humans feel, speak and act in accordance with the love of Prime Source (God), Nature and other human beings."
1.
From: "Doreen Agostino" isisconsulting@rogers.com>
Subject: The Gratitude Wave
Date: 29 Nov 2005
Dear Friends:
I am grateful and richly blessed because of all of you in my life, so today I invite you to participate in an exercise of the heart with me!
Go Gratitude is a worldwide experiment using the power of Gratitude to open all doors of possibility through focused attention, unique insight and use of a Master Key. Our goal is to connect one million people in 30 days to recognize the power of collective focus and shared experience.
As Dr. Hawkins states in his book “Power vs Force” http://www.veritaspub.com/
"One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of optimism and a willingness to be nonjudgmental of others will counterbalance the negativity of 90,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels.
Today is the official launch of Go Gratitude. I invite you to investigate this website today and join a Wave of Gratitude! We can and do make a difference in our world!!
If you can, take the time and watch the beautiful intro movie.
http://www.givemethemasterkey.com
Doreen Agostino
2.
From: "Maggie Erotokritou" surya@spidernet.com.cy>
Date: 1 Dec 2005
Subject: Dec 1st International Aids Day
Today is International Aids Day. Lets take a moment to think of all those around the world who are suffering from AIDS and need to receive medical help and support in whatever way is needed.
World Marks International AIDS Day
1 December 2005 -- Today is the 18th annual World AIDS Day, designed to highlight the global struggle against HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths.
In a message to mark the day, Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, said that in 2005, the number of people living with HIV reached its highest level ever -- an estimated 40.3 million people, nearly half of them women.
Piot said that with the world now 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, the lessons are clear: countries that make investments in HIV prevention, and the treatment and care of people with the disease, are able to reverse the spread of AIDS.
Piot called on all UN member countries to adhere to their commitments to prevent the spread of the disease.
In a report released last month, the UN said AIDS was continuing to spread in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia countries, and Iran. The report said an estimated 1.6 million people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are now living with HIV, most in Russia and Ukraine.
The United Nations has issued its annual report on the AIDS epidemic. Here are some of its findings:
a.. There are currently an estimated 40.3 million people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of those, 17.5 million are women and 2.3 million are children under the age of 15.
b.. There were an estimated 4.9 million new HIV infections in 2005, including 700,000 children under the age of 15.
c.. An estimated 3.1 million people, including 570,000 children, died of AIDS in 2005.
d.. According to the report, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS worldwide since the disease was recognized in 1981.
e.. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the number of HIV-positive people reached 1.6 million in 2005, up from 1.2 million in 2003. The bulk of people living with HIV in the region are in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. "Ukraine's epidemic continues to grow, with more new HIV infections occurring each year, while the Russian Federation has the biggest AIDS epidemic in all of Europe," the report states. A private Russian survey cited in the report found "no postive changes in sexual behaviour, with condom use decreasing slightly among people in their twenties."
f.. In Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have seen the most dramatic increases of HIV infections. In the Caucasus, the situation is described "relatively stable."
3.
From: Fred Burks wecare@wanttoknow.info>
Sent: November 30, 2005
Subject: Former CIA Agents Reveal Secrets of CIA in Free Google Documentary
This message is available on the Internet at http://www.WantToKnow.info/051130ciasecrets
"The CIA is a state-sponsored terrorists association. You don't look at people as human beings. They are nothing but pieces on the chessboard."
-- Verne Lyon, former CIA agent in documentary "Secrets of the CIA"
Dear friends,
"Secrets of the CIA" is a fascinating 45-minute Turner Home Entertainment documentary made available for free viewing by Google at the link below. Five former CIA agents describe how their initial pride and enthusiasm at serving their nation turned to anguish and remorse, as they realized that they were actually subverting democracy and killing innocent civilians all in the name "national security" and promoting foreign policy agendas.
A Notre Dame football star, an aerospace engineering senior at Iowa State, a pretty high school graduate, an Olympic shooting champion, and a young patriot all were recruited by the CIA at a young age. These five brave individuals risk retaliation in revealing the story of their gradual disillusionment and finally defection from the CIA, as they eventually became convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were serving neither democracy, nor the people of their country.
The shooting champion describes being put in charge of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala. The patriot relates his deep remorse for his direct responsibility in the deaths of numerous innocent people for which he can never make amends. The pretty high school graduate describes how her initial addiction to power and intrigue turned to disgust and horror. This powerful documentary is a rare and remarkable look at the results of unbridled secrecy and the lengths to which government will go to achieve questionable foreign policy goals.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info Team
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton
P.S. You can also order this documentary at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0780623681/103-9493734-2743005?v=glance
Secrets of the CIA is available for free viewing at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8085945499556832271&q=cia
Note: For some deeply inspiring stories to provide balance this disturbing information:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
See our archive of cover-up news articles at http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews
4.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1654803,00.html
Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream
· Slowing of current by a third in 12 years could bring more extreme weather
· Temperatures in Britain likely to drop by one degree in next decade
Ian Sample, science correspondent
December 1, 2005
The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today.
Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago.
The current, which drives the Gulf Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. The researchers found that the circulation has weakened by 6m tonnes of water a second. Previous expeditions to check the current flow in 1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998. The decline prompted the scientists to set up a £4.8m network of moored instruments in the Atlantic to monitor changes in the current continuously.
The network should also answer the pressing question of whether the significant weakening of the current is a short-term variation, or part of a more devastating long-term slowing of the flow.
If the current remains as weak as it is, temperatures in Britain are likely to drop by an average of 1C in the next decade, according to Harry Bryden at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton who led the study. "Models show that if it shuts down completely, 20 years later, the temperature is 4C to 6C degrees cooler over the UK and north-western Europe," Dr Bryden said.
Although climate records suggest that the current has ground to a halt in the distant past, the prospect of it shutting down entirely within the century are extremely low, according to climate modellers.
The current is essentially a huge oceanic conveyor belt that transports heat from equatorial regions towards the Arctic circle. Warm surface water coming up from the tropics gives off heat as it moves north until eventually, it cools so much in northern waters that it sinks and circulates back to the south. There it warms again, rises and heads back north. The constant sinking in the north and rising in the south drives the conveyor.
Global warming weakens the circulation because increased meltwater from Greenland and the Arctic icesheets along with greater river run-off from Russia pour into the northern Atlantic and make it less saline which in turn makes it harder for the cooler water to sink, in effect slowing down the engine that drives the current.
The researchers measured the strength of the current at a latitude of 25 degrees N and found that the volume of cold, deep water returning south had dropped by 30%. At the same time, they measured a 30% increase in the amount of surface water peeling off early from the main northward current, suggesting far less was continuing up to Britain and the rest of Europe. The report appears in the journal Nature today.
Disruption of the conveyor-belt current was the basis of the film The Day After Tomorrow, which depicted a world thrown into chaos by a sudden and dramatic drop in temperatures. That scenario was dismissed by researchers as fantasy, because climate models suggest that the current is unlikely to slow so suddenly.
Marec Srokosz of the National Oceanographic Centre said: "The most realistic part of the film is where the climatologists are talking to the politicians and the politicians are saying 'we can't do anything about it'."
Chris West, director of the UK climate impacts programme at Oxford University's centre for the environment, said: "The only way computer models have managed to simulate an entire shutdown of the current is to magic into existence millions of tonnes of fresh water and dump it in the Atlantic. It's not clear where that water could ever come from, even taking into account increased Greenland melting."
Uncertainties in climate change models mean that the overall impact on Britain of a slowing down in the current are hard to pin down. "We know that if the current slows down, it will lead to a drop in temperatures in Britain and northern Europe of a few degrees, but the effect isn't even over the seasons. Most of the cooling would be in the winter, so the biggest impact would be much colder winters," said Tim Osborn, of the University of East Anglia climatic research unit.
The final impact of any cooling effect will depend on whether it outweighs the global warming that, paradoxically, is driving it. According to climate modellers, the drop in temperature caused by a slowing of the Atlantic current will, in the long term, be swamped by a more general warming of the atmosphere.
"If this was happening in the absence of generally increasing temperatures, I would be concerned," said Dr Smith. Any cooling driven by a weakening of the Atlantic current would probably only slow warming rather than cancel it out all together. Even if a slowdown in the current put the brakes on warming over Britain and parts of Europe, the impact would be felt more extremely elsewhere, he said.
5.
From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051201/ap_on_re_us/protests_climate_change_1;_ylt=AidRgYSEbIjJYGaVsjtDPXRrAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Rallies Planned to Combat Global Warming
Dec 1, 2005
Activists demanding urgent action on global warming plan to take to the streets Saturday across the United States and beyond, with hybrid car parades, parties and marches.
The demonstrations are planned to coincide with a 10-day United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Montreal.
There, the Bush administration has been criticized for refusing to sign on to international agreements that cap industrial emissions. President Bush has called for an 18 percent reduction in the U.S. growth rate of greenhouse gases by 2012 and has committed $5 billion a year to science and technology to address global warming.
"This is not just an environmental issue; it's a survival issue," said Ted Glick, who heads a group called Climate Crisis Coalition.
The largest protests are expected to take place in Montreal on Saturday, but smaller actions are planned in more than 30 countries and in about 40 cities around the United States.
In Washington, drivers of hybrid cars plan to rally around the White House. In New Orleans, residents plan to hold a "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming" party in the French Quarter. Other events will be held from Boston to Los Angeles.
Scientists believe global warming will intensify storms, floods, heat waves and drought. They are studying whether climate change has already strengthened hurricanes, whose energy is drawn from warm ocean waters, or whether the Atlantic Basin and Gulf of Mexico are witnessing only a cyclical upsurge in intense storms.
A September survey of 800 registered voters by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University found that 79 percent favored stronger environmental standards, but only 22 percent said environmental concerns have played a major role in determining for whom they voted.
In focus groups, voters told pollsters they see the environment as a long-term problem that cannot compare in urgency to immediate concerns such as jobs, health care or taxes.
"Global warming is an issue that has a certain level of interest, but it's not as high on most people's radar screen as something that is more visible every day," said University of Minnesota history professor Roland Guyotte, who has studied protests in the U.S.
Environmental protests have had an effect in the past, he said. The Earth Day events of 1970, which involved an estimated 20 million demonstrators and thousands of schools and communities, helped lead to the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Protest organizers want Bush to sign on to the Kyoto Agreements, adopted in 1997 and ratified by 140 countries. The agreements call on the top 35 industrialized nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
The United States has refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and lacks restrictions on emissions by emerging economies such as China and India.
6.
From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051201/wl_nm/environment_eu_kyoto_dc_5;_ylt=Au_z3faLfpifWrCEpFpTVq5rAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
EU says will fulfil Kyoto target by 2010
Dec 1
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will meet its Kyoto Protocol obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, two years before the global environment treaty's final deadline, a report by the EU executive showed on Thursday.
The European Commission said projections indicated the 15 "old" EU member states would lower their combined emissions of gases that scientists say cause global warming to 9.3 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.
"This clearly fulfils the 8 percent reduction target from 1990 levels that the protocol requires the EU-15 to achieve during 2008-2012," the Commission said in a statement.
Kyoto has a binding agreement that requires the EU 15 to lower emissions as a whole.
The 10 newest EU members were not a part of the bloc at the time the agreement was thrashed out. Of those countries, only Malta and Cyprus do not have required reduction targets.
Emissions from the full 25-nation bloc would be cut by more than 11 percent from the 1990 level in 2010, the report said.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas warned states to keep working. Seventeen EU countries were projected to meet their emissions targets, while the others were "in the process of identifying further actions," the Commission said.
"We have already reduced our emissions despite healthy economic growth. But that does not mean we can be complacent," Dimas said in a statement.
Officials from the European Union, considered a leader in the fight against climate change, are meeting other nations in Montreal to discuss ways to battle global warming after 2012, when the first period covered by Kyoto ends.
The EU's landmark emissions trading system is the centerpiece of its strategy to cut greenhouse gases. It puts limits on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) big polluters, like power plants, can emit.
The Commission said the report's projections were based on measures to fight climate change already in place, some that were still in the works, and credits provided in Kyoto for investment in countries outside of the EU.
Under Kyoto, about 40 industrial states are trying to cut emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 to curb warming that may lead to rising sea levels, melting icecaps, and more powerful storms.
7.
From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051201/sc_nm/environment_climate_forests_dc_2;_ylt=Ao2x78V_h9eOsIhpHY8pon5rAlMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Forests urged as new front in global warming fight
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Dec 1
MONTREAL (Reuters) - Forest preservation should be the new front in the fight against global warming with Third World nations earning cash for protecting trees, tropical countries told a U.N. climate conference on Wednesday.
"The present state of affairs is untenable," Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica wrote in a proposal backed by seven other developing nations, complaining that they lacked incentives to slow logging or forest clearance for farming.
"Globally ... tropical deforestation is the second leading cause of climate change behind fossil fuel combustion," they said in the report to a 190-country climate meeting in Montreal from November 28-December 9.
Most efforts to curb global warming center on reining in emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars in industrial nations. But trees soak up carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, as they grow. They release it when they die and rot.
The report suggested that tropical nations that slow the rate of deforestation -- perhaps tracked from space by satellites -- might win cash incentives from rich nations to encourage better management and more tree plantings.
It estimated that deforestation, from the Amazon to Africa, represented losses of billions of dollars. Forests are home to half the species living on land and a key source of food, building materials and medicines for people.
LOST FORESTS
A net 7.3 million hectares (18.04 million acres) of forests -- the size of Panama or Sierra Leone -- was lost each year from 2000-2005, according to United Nations data.
The conference agreed to study the proposal and report back in a year's time. The proposal also had backing from Bolivia, the Central African Republic, Chile, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
Richard Kinley, acting head of the secretariat of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the reaction among delegations was "very positive."
"We'd be very interested in exploring it further," said Sarah Hendry, head of the British delegation. Britain holds the European Union's rotating presidency. Some delegates warned, however, that it was extremely hard to measure forest area.
The Montreal talks are also looking at ways to widen a U.N.-led fight against global warming to involve poor nations and the United States and Australia, the two main industrial nations outside the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.
Under Kyoto, about 40 industrial states are trying to cut emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 to curb warming that may cause catastrophic effects including more powerful storms, rising sea levels and more desertification.
8.
From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_re_ca/canada_climate_change_8;_ylt=AsQK03Lb1YmmH5WYR3tOcgzlWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
U.S. Environmental Stance Draws Heat
By BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer
Nov 29
MONTREAL - The United States came under renewed criticism Tuesday as thousands of environmentalists and international officials hammered out rules for a global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. comments that it would resist any binding commitment to curb global warming by capping industrial emissions infuriated environmentalists, who accused Washington of trying to derail the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
"When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International.
More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations.
The conference is the first meeting of the 140 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol since the agreement was adopted in 1997. It is aimed at setting agreements on emissions cuts planned after 2012, when the second phase of the protocol begins.
The Kyoto agreement targets carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases blamed for rising global temperatures and disrupted weather patterns. It calls on the top 35 industrialized nations to cut emissions to 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
The United States, the world's largest emitter of polluting gases, has refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and is flawed by the lack of restrictions on emissions by emerging economies such as China and India. President Bush called for an 18 percent reduction of U.S. greenhouse gases by 2012 and has committed $5 billion a year on science and technology to combat global warming.
Harlan Watson, chief climate control negotiator for the U.S. State Department, told a news conference that Washington would maintain its position of rejecting any calls for an international agreement that binds countries to emissions reductions after 2012.
Watson said the United States would continue voluntary efforts to curb global warming via science, technology and bilateral agreements with other nations. He said greenhouse gas emissions had gone down nearly 1 percent in Bush's first three years in office.
"We need to pursue our international efforts in a spirit of cooperation — not coercion — with a true sense of partnership," Watson said.
Watson told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that the Bush administration does not blame global warming or climate change for extreme weather — including the hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast states and much of the Caribbean and Yucatan Peninsula.
"There's a difference between climate and extreme weather," Watson said. "Our scientists continually tell us we cannot blame any single extreme event, attribute that to climate change."
This notion infuriates environmentalists, who point to myriad studies that they believe prove global warming is to blame for rising, warmer seas, melting Arctic glaciers and extreme weather conditions.
Environmentalists are pushing host Canada to round up industrialized nations for some sort of political agreement by the end of the conference which commits them to further goals and potential greenhouse gas cuts in the new phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which begins in 2013.
Canada's Environment Minister Stephane Dion said Monday that he would "welcome any idea" to get the United States on board.
"We cannot do without the Americans because they represent 25 percent of emissions, and an even greater percentage of the solution," he said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, said Tuesday he believed the United States would eventually come on board with mandatory emissions caps.
"I believe there will be a binding international agreement to succeed Kyoto when the Protocol expires in 2012 that will include all major economies," Blair said in a review of British energy policy.
_____
See also:
U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
http://unfccc.int
Airline, auto sectors ripe for carbon market: IEA (Nov 27)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051127/bs_afp/ieaenergymarkets_051127232433;_ylt=Aoibo2dTdMSkZ7nJKmllG7gMO7gF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
PARIS (AFP) - Rapidly rising pollution by the aviation industry, which is not covered by targets in the Kyoto protocol to combat global warming, could be slashed through inclusion in the EU carbon market, an International Energy Agency report suggests.ADVERTISEMENTThe co-author of the report, economist Richard Baron, commented: "The political pressure is very high on aviation and their emissions are rising very rapidly."The report argues that the auto industry could also be included in the pioneering pollution market and this would increase incentives for manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency.The proposals appeared in a document this week entitled "Act Locally, Trade Globally" outlining a range of market policies to reduce pollution emissions internationally and nationally. (...) The IEA report says: "Transport is a priority for climate policy, being responsible for a quarter of global CO2 emissions and the second-fastest growing source after power and heat generation."Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the aviation sector rose by 60.0 percent between 1990 and 2002 within the EU while total emissions fell by 3.0 percent.By 2030, aviation emissions would account for 25 percent of total emissions by Britain.This "startling potential growth" had led Britain to argue the case for inclusion of the aviation sector in the European carbon market by 2008.Inclusion of the aviation sector in the system could reduce emissions by 19 million tonnes of CO2 to 27 MtCO2 by 2012 with the majority of these reductions being bought from non-aviation sectors, according to one study cited by the report. (...) For road transport, the report outlines a range of policy options including a market among car manufacturers making them "responsible for the CO2 emissions of their products" by implementing a "cap and trade" system.Under this scheme, an overall limit on emissions in the sector is set and then tradeable allowances granted to producers according to the emissions of their fleet. Such a market could be linked to the current EU ETS.While acknowledging the need for complementary policies in areas such as urban planning and public transport to reduce transport emissions, the report says that such a market system would foster quicker technical improvements in new cars and benefit consumers by providing more fuel-efficient or zero-emission vehicles.The report also analyses various options for including the developing world in international emission trading schemes to cut greenhouse emissions."New types of emissions targets will allow countries that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol or have not adopted emissions targets yet to participate in international trading mechanisms," the report says.
Climate change fires young minds (Nov 24)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051125/sc_nm/environment_youth_dc_2;_ylt=AsbE65ZYbiQQSgwNj2ae5leaK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When politicians from around the world meet next week to talk about climate change, young people who will have to live with the consequences of their action or inaction will be nearby, ready to speak out.ADVERTISEMENTFrom as far afield as China, India and Brazil, young people will travel to Montreal, Canada to take part in the Beyond Kyoto - It's us! International Youth Summit -- being held just down the road from the United Nations talks on climate change."There is no issue that I think more threatens the future of our generation than global warming," said Billy Parish, 24, coordinator of Energy Action, a coalition of 30 environmental and social justice organizations in North America.Parish, who left university to dedicate his time to the environment, will help the international youth team, made up of around 100 young people from 26 countries, to draft a statement to the UN conference."I think there will be a strong call for immediate action," he said. "It will make the point that we are the people who will live with the consequences of the decisions that they make."Energy Action has also set up a Web site, www.itsgettinghotinhere.org, where young delegates will post blogs, video and pictures from Montreal.During the Cold War, worries about nuclear weapons often drove young people into politics in Western nations. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, climate change has replaced fears about "the bomb" to become a major concern for young people.He Gang, 24, a student at Peking University in China, does not remember much about the anti-nuclear demonstrations during the Cold War, but he will be in Montreal to act on what many of his peers see as their generation's big threat.Unlike the danger of swift destruction from a nuclear bomb, today's risk is a slow-burning one. CLIP
Oceans, greenhouse gases rising faster-reports (Nov 24)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051124/sc_nm/science_warming_dc_1;_ylt=AnwrALawBGacLwnSL_Tv8UPmWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ocean and so-called greenhouse gas levels are rising faster than they have for thousands of years, according to two reports published on Thursday that are likely to fuel debate on global warming.ADVERTISEMENTOne study found the Earth's ocean levels have risen twice as fast in the past 150 years, signaling the impact of human activity on temperatures worldwide, researchers said in the journal Science.Sea levels were rising by about 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) every year about 200 years ago and as far back as 5,000 years, geologists found from deep sediment samples from the New Jersey coastline. Since then, levels have risen by about 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) a year.While the planet has been in a warmer period, driving cars and other activities that create carbon dioxide are having a clear impact, the Rutgers University-led team said. "Half of the current rise ... was going on anyway. But that means half of what's going on is not background. It's human induced," said Kenneth Miller, a geology professor at the New Jersey-based school who led the 15-year effort. CLIP
Full Coverage: Climate Change
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/climate_change;_ylt=AqAnqnbsQmBsDYclLhYO3MdH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--
Compelling images
http://tinyurl.com/7e3dg
http://tinyurl.com/co5mm
http://tinyurl.com/a2lyj
9.
From: http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=106&sid=6266200&cKey=1132917322000
Bern researchers drill deep into climate history
November 25, 2005
Scientists from Bern University have found there is more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today than at any time during the past 650,000 years.
Drilling more than 3,200 metres into Antarctic ice, they have produced a major new study into greenhouse gases that may fuel global warming.
A previous ice-core sample had traced greenhouse gases back about 440,000 years. The new sample goes 210,000 years further back in time.
Working with researchers from other European countries, the team has been analysing tiny air bubbles preserved in the ice for millennia.
Extracting the air permits a direct measurement of the atmosphere at past points in time.
The drilling took place at a research camp called Dome Concordia in East Antarctica, where temperatures go down to minus 50 degrees Celsius.
The findings highlight how people are dramatically influencing the build-up of greenhouse gases.
The study, part of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, was published on Friday in the United States journal, Science.
Higher concentrations
"Today's concentrations of carbon dioxide are 27 per cent higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years," commented Thomas Stocker, a professor of climate and environmental physics at Bern University and lead researcher.
"Those of methane are 130 per cent higher," he added.
Sceptics sometimes dismiss the rise of greenhouse gases as part of a naturally fluctuating cycle but the new study disproves that theory.
Stocker said the rise was taking place at a speed that was "over a factor of a hundred faster than anything we are seeing in the natural cycles".
"It puts the present changes in context," he added.
A lengthening history of greenhouse concentrations should help climate specialists build better models about what the future might bring, Stocker said.
It might also give answers to such questions as how long ago humans started influencing greenhouse gas accumulations, and what impact other factors such as ocean currents play in the complexities of climate change.
---
See also:
World will not freeze again for 15,000 years (June 10, 2004)
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=106&sid=4992717
The next ice age is not due for at least 15,000 years, according to research published by a team of Swiss and European climatologists in the scientific journal, “Nature”. The findings are based on research conducted by drilling three kilometres below the surface of the ice in Antarctica. The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica) has been testing the ice in a bid to trace the pattern of global climate change over a period of thousands of years. Epica scientists claim that tests on the ice have allowed them to “go back 740,000 years in the past” and to discover that the world has had eight ice ages over the intervening centuries. It has been 12,000 years since the end of the last ice age. According to research conducted in Antarctica, we are currently living through one of the longest warm periods in 420,000 years. Those involved in the Epica project say that the mild climate will continue for another 15,000 years. (...) By studying past climate patterns, the team hopes to get a better idea of future trends and how atmospheric conditions will influence them. The team of scientists have already set themselves the task next winter of drilling a further 100 metres in one of the most hostile places on the planet to reach ice that is 900,000 to one million years old. Drilling is limited to just two months of the year, December and January, because the average annual temperatures are below -54 degrees Celsius.
2003 was hottest summer in 500 years (March 4, 2004)
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=106&sid=4764758
Greenhouse-gas levels highest for 650,000 years (24 November 2005)
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051121/full/051121-14.html
10.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/11/26/2003281785
World's seas rising twice as fast: study
AGENCIES, WASHINGTON AND PARIS
Nov 26, 2005
Sea levels around the world are rising twice as fast as they were 150 years ago because of human-induced global warming, US scientists say in a study released on Thursday.
Sea levels are now rising almost 2mm per year, compared to 1mm annually for the last several thousand years, a team of scientists at Rutgers University and other institutions said.
"The main thing that's changed since the 19th century and the beginning of modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil-fuel use and more greenhouse gases," said Rutgers professor Kenneth Miller, who led the study. "Our record therefore provides a new and reliable baseline to use in addressing global warming."
The findings, based on drilling studies in New Jersey along the Atlantic Coast of the US, are published in the Nov. 25 issue of the weekly US journal Science.
The study claims that ocean levels 100 million years ago and earlier were 150m to 200m lower than previously thought. It also questions whether any of the Earth's warmer areas were ever fully ice-free.
In a separate study published in the same issue, European researchers found that today's atmospheric carbon dioxide is at the highest level in 650,000 years.
Levels of carbon dioxide, the principal gas that drives global warming, are now 27 percent higher than at any point in the last 650,000 years, according to research into Antarctic ice cores published on Thursday.
The evidence comes from the world's deepest ice core, drilled at a site called Dome Concordia (Dome C) in East Antarctica by European scientists who battled blizzards and an average year-round temperature of minus 54oC and made a 1,000km trek to bring up supplies.
The core, extracted using a 10cm-wide drill bit in 3m sections, brought up ice that was deposited by snows up to 650,000 years ago, as determined by estimated layers of annual snowfall.
Analysis of carbon dioxide trapped in tiny bubbles in the ancient ice showed that at no point during this time frame did levels get anywhere close to today's CO2 concentrations of around 380 parts per million.
Today's rising CO2 concentrations are 27 percent higher than at the highest level seen over the 650,000-year time scale, according to the study, which also appears in Science.
The Dome C core, extracted by the 10-country European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA), outstrips by 210,000 years the previous record-holder, drilled at an Antarctic site called Vostok.
In the past five years, the average global temperature has risen by 0.2oC and this year is on course for being the hottest year on record.
11.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2005/11/26/2003281853
Changing climate change
While other forms of power generation have drawbacks, energy-efficient vehicles and carbon storage are technologies that could make a marked short-term difference
By Jeffrey Sachs
Nov 26, 2005
The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990, and this year is likely to be the warmest ever. This year, we've gotten a taste of the many kinds of dangers that lie ahead, more extreme hurricanes, massive droughts, forest fires, spreading infectious diseases and floods. The climate is changing, and more is yet to come.
The world's governments will meet in Montreal at the end of November to plot the next steps, including specific measures that the world could adopt if the administration of US President George W. Bush abandoned its willful neglect of this critical issue.
Climate change is equated with "global warming," but much more than warming is involved. The rising concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is leading to more extreme storms, higher-intensity hurricanes, rising ocean levels, melting glaciers and ice sheets, droughts, floods and other climate changes. Even the chemistry of the land and ocean is changing, with the ocean becoming more acidic -- thus threatening coral reefs -- as a result of higher carbon dioxide.
The specific patterns of change are not known precisely, but the risks of continuing on our current global course are widely appreciated. Yet the US has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which does little to change the long-term course of events on the planet, since it calls for only small steps up to the year 2012.
Under the terms of the UN treaty on climate change, the signatories -- virtually the whole world -- are to gather each year to discuss the treaty's implementation. The conference in Montreal -- the 11th such meeting -- should look beyond 2012, so that the world gets onto a safe and sustainable long-term climate path.
`The actions that are needed are difficult to introduce, because they go to the heart of the world's use of energy, particularly its use of fossil fuels.'
The actions that are needed are difficult to introduce, because they go to the heart of the world's use of energy, particularly its use of fossil fuels [coal, oil, and gas], which, when burned, release carbon dioxide -- the key source of rising greenhouse gases -- into the atmosphere. Yet the world economy depends on fossil fuels, and developing countries will need to use more, not less, of them as their economies grow. Even if the world runs out of oil and gas in the coming years, coal will prove to be plentiful, and solid coal can be converted at relatively low cost to liquid fuels for automobiles and other uses.
Unfortunately, clean, renewable energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as wind power and geothermal power, are not yet sufficient. Solar power can be produced on the required scale but is too expensive under current technologies. Nuclear power is relatively cheap, and could be plentiful, but poses huge dangers for increased proliferation of nuclear-weapons materials.
So, fossil fuels are plentiful, but harmful; renewable sources like wind are good for the climate but not plentiful. Solar power is plentiful but not cheap. Nuclear power is plentiful but not safe.
Improved technologies can offer a way out of this bind, but only if we think and act ahead. There are two main kinds of technologies that look most promising. The first is energy conservation through more fuel-efficient vehicles. New hybrid automobiles, pioneered by Toyota, use both gasoline and electric power to boost gasoline efficiency by approximately two-fold. A massive changeover to more fuel-efficient vehicles would make a big difference, especially as the numbers of vehicles on the road soars in China, India, and other developing countries.
The second big technology that could make a major difference is called "carbon capture and storage." The idea is to "capture" the carbon dioxide that is emitted in power plants and other big factories when fossil fuels are burned, thereby preventing it from entering the atmosphere. The captured carbon is then pumped into underground storage sites such as empty oil fields and other suitable locations.
All of the key aspects of the technology -- capturing the carbon dioxide, putting it into pipelines for shipment, and then depositing it underground -- have already been demonstrated, but they have not yet been tried, and proven, on a large scale. There is strong evidence, however, that it would not cost the world huge amounts to undertake large-scale carbon capture and storage.
The problem is timing. The changeover of the world's vehicles to hybrid and other efficient technologies will take decades, not years. So will the changeover of power plants to carbon capture and storage. If we procrastinate, the dangers posed by climate change will confront us as we talk, debate, and plan. The world needs to start acting soon -- very soon -- if it is to head off the major threats.
All major regions of the world will need to be involved. Today's developing countries are not yet major emitters of carbon dioxide, but with economic growth they will become so. Therefore, all countries, both developed and developing, need to do their part, with rich countries helping poor countries cover the financial costs of adjustment.
Plenty of carbon dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere as the world's climate negotiators fly to and from the Montreal meeting. Let's press our governments to make real progress when they meet; otherwise they will merely be adding to the problem.
Jeffrey Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
12.
From: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article330224.ece
How Europe is choking itself - and the world
Revealed: environmental cost of continent's consumption
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
30 November 2005
Europe's claim to the moral high ground over the environment has been comprehensively challenged in a devastating report on its failings in the battle against global warming and pollution. It says Europe is devouring the world's natural resources at twice the global rate.
Climate change on a scale unseen on the European continent for 5,000 years is now under way, according to the report, which warned yesterday that at current rates three quarters of Switzerland's glaciers will have melted by 2050.
Urban areas of Europe will double in size in just over a century, as life expectancy rises and more live alone. Increasing urban sprawl means that in 10 years, an open space in Europe three times the size of Luxembourg has been built on. Air travel is likely to double by 2030 and marine ecosystems, water resources and air quality are all threatened.
Though the European Environment Agency assessment praises many environmental initiatives, it makes it clear that much more needs to be done if a crisis is to be avoided.
Britain, while doing well in some areas, was criticised for the increase in the generation of municipal waste, just 14.5 per cent of which is recycled or composted as opposed to a target of 25 per cent.
But the document, a five-year assessment across 32 countries, concentrates on the threat from climate change. It points out that the four hottest years on record were 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004, and that 10 per cent of Alpine glaciers disappeared during summer 2003 alone.
Jacqueline McGlade, the agency's executive director, said: "Without effective action over several decades, global warming will see ice sheets melting in the north and the spread of deserts from the south. The continent's population could become concentrated in the centre."
She said the spread of tar and cement across former greenbelt areas was recreating many of the mistakes that led to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where wetlands were built over. "Even if we constrain global warming to the EU target of a 2C increase, we will be living in atmospheric conditions that human beings have never experienced. Deeper cuts in emissions are needed."
The report's authors believe that individual behaviour needs to change and urged reform of the taxation systems to ensure that polluters pay more.
The document highlights Europe's "ecological footprint", the estimated land area required to produce the resources each person consumes and to absorb the waste they produce. At five global hectares per person, the figure for the 25 EU member states is half of that for the US but larger than Japan and more than double the average for countries such as Brazil, China or India.
Tony Long, director of WWF's European policy office, said this illustrated the extent to which Europeans used more than their fair share of global resources. He argued: "Europe needs to learn to consume less, pollute less and tread more lightly on the planet. Perpetuating the inequality of living at the expense of some of the poorest countries in the world makes European environmental standards nothing to be proud about. This makes the EU's sustainable development strategy even more timely to get Europe back on track to sustainability."
The report points out that Europe's average temperature rose by 0.95C during the last century, higher than the global average of 0.7C. That continuing trend is expected to deliver a rise of between 2 and 6C this century.
Though the document says that in the short term the EU is "broadly on track to meet its Kyoto targets" to curb CO2, "its mid-term goal for 2020 - a 15 to 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels - will be more difficult to achieve".
That message was echoed by the European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, who last week described progress on Kyoto in the EU as good but " not enough".
The recommendation for more use of the tax system to discourage waste provoked a political row last night. The agency report called for a "a gradual shift of the tax base away from taxing 'good resources' such as investment and labour, towards taxing 'bad resources', such as pollution and inefficient use".
The European Commission vice-president, Margot Wallstrom, played down the prospects of an EU-wide initiative, arguing that one would be unlikely to win the backing of member states.
John Hontelez, secretary general of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a federation of European environmental organisations, said: "The commissioner's answer is unacceptable. The EEA report clearly shows that environmental tax reform is necessary to create realistic market price signals, triggering innovation with much-needed environmental benefits. Refusing to launch a major initiative to boost environmental fiscal reforms inside the EU is refusing leadership in environmental policies. This commission risks going into the record books as the worst one ever for the protection of public health, biodiversity and the planet."
UK
Britain remains off target on renewable energy, which accounts for only 3.6% of electricity needs, against the 10% promised by 2010. A mounting rubbish disposal problem is underlined by a 15 per cent hike in waste production in the past Þve years. Britain's butterflies such as the Wood White and the Grayling could soon join the large Tortoiseshell in becoming extinct. Loss of habitat means 45 per cent of Europe's butterflies are endangered.
France
Nuclear power has lowered emissions but the transport sector keeps pumping out greenhouse gases. France has to tackle mounting energy consumption and poor waste management.
Germany
Climate change in Europe is predicted to cause more extreme weather, such as heavy rain leading to an increased risk of flooding. The densely populated flood plains of central Europe - in particular Germany - are especially vulnerable to flooding.
Spain
Spain and Portugal suffered one of the worst droughts on record this year, with far-reaching economic consequences. The three hottest years on record in Europe were the past three - 2002, 2003 and 2004.
Finland
Despite its wealth and investment in renewable energy, sparsely populated Finland is among Europe's worst offenders on greenhouse gases, up nearly 10 per cent since 1990.
Switzerland
Global warming is melting the snow caps. Ten per cent of Alpine glaciers disappeared during the summer of 2003 and at current rates, three-quarters of Swiss glaciers will have melted by 2050.
Italy
Like much of southern Europe, Italy's coming crisis is drought. Recent summers highlight the urgent need to improve irrigation in agriculture, to reduce the demand on the water supply.
'Green-friendly' US cuts a lonely figure at UN summit
The Bush administration - widely condemned for its refusal to support the Kyoto treaty - has claimed it is doing more than most nations to protect the Earth's atmosphere.
At the UN Climate Control Conference in Montreal, US officials claimed that emissions of greenhouse gases have been cut by 0.8 per cent since George Bush came to office in 2001. "With regard to what the US is doing on climate change, the actions we have taken are next to none in the world," said Harlan Watson, senior climate negotiator for the US Department of State.
He said the US spends more than US$5bn (£3bn) a year on climate change research and technology, and that President Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases by 18 per cent by the year 2012.
Environmentalists said the US was simply trying undermine the conference. Bill Hare of Greenpeace International said the lack of US commitment to mandatory greenhouse gas reductions was the biggest complaint among conference delegates. "When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," he said.
Andrew Buncombe)
13.
From: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article330225.ece
No one is immune from the effects of global warming
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
30 November 2005
Europeans can be forgiven for thinking they will be cushioned from the worst impacts of climate change. It is indeed true that the richer developed nations of the North are not going to suffer in the same way as the poorer countries of the South, where drought, famine and severe coastal flooding are expected to cause incalculable damage and misery. But none of us in this global village of the 21st century is going to be immune from the effects of climate change. This is the basic message of the European Environment Agency, whose latest report says that changes to the continent's climate that have been experienced to date have not been matched in the past several thousand years.
It was the summer of 2003 that woke up many of us to what climate change really meant. Until then it was common to hear northern Europeans opining that global warming was something to be welcomed. It would mean balmy Mediterranean evenings, vineyards in Yorkshire and no need to go to Spain in summer.
But 2003 changed all that. For the three months of June, July and August, temperatures soared to the highest on record, averaging 3.8C higher than average. Night-time temperatures were particularly exceptional, giving no respite for those with heart problems or respiratory ailments. Some 50,000 Europeans died of the heat. Forest fires raged across much of Spain, France and Italy, many rivers ran dry and crops in these countries failed.
A scientific assessment of that summer concluded that the high temperatures could not be due simply to natural extremes in the climate. There could be only one explanation - the summer of 2003 was triggered by global warming caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Environment Agency points out that Europeans value their physical environment. Some 70 per cent of the continent's citizens want their politicians to given as much weight to legislation affecting the environment as they do to the economy and social policies.
It is this deep-rooted concern that has provided the political framework for important environmental legislation, which has over the past 30 years seen many improvements, from cleaner air and water to reforestation of the land.
Yet as the latest assessment from the European agency makes clear, we still have a long way to go. Europeans are helping to consuming the world's natural resources in an unsustainable manner. Global warming is making matters worse. We should all now think about how we can change our lives for the common good.
14.
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1895038,00.html
Why Kyoto will vanish into hot air
By Bronwen Maddox
November 29, 2005
THE United Nations conference that began yesterday in Montreal and will stretch on for nearly two weeks will fail in its aim: to devise a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
That does not matter; in fact, it is the best outcome. Kyoto has been an extraordinary piece of work. A treaty that its most important signatories have found impossible to meet, and which has changed behaviour very little, has still become a resonant global symbol.
The best way forward now is not a "successor" to Kyoto, which covers the years until 2012. Another treaty that attempted to set fixed targets for cutting emisssions could be economically very damaging — in the unlikely event that countries ever reached agreement.
The better answer is in the plethora of bargains between a handful of rich and poor countries, which some are already exploring. It is also in the development of new technology to combat global warming, and in deals to spread these quickly to poorer countries.
Some of these new suggestions for life after Kyoto have come from the US, China and India, which all found Kyoto unpalatable. For just that reason, they are more valuable than son-of-Kyoto would be. It is no surprise that European Union countries became so enamoured of the Kyoto Protocol, which finally came into force in February this year.
They have found its targets fortuitously easy to meet. For them, the treaty coincided with a revolution in energy supply.
Kyoto set the EU a target of cutting "greenhouse gases" by 8 per cent from 1990 levels by the period 2008 to 2012. Members divided up the reductions between themselves; some could see that they would find big cuts easier than others. They are slightly off course, but not by so much that they think they have surrendered the moral high ground.
The figures tell the political story. In 2003 Britain’s emission of greenhouse gases was 13 per cent down on 1990 levels, slightly ahead of its EU-appointed target of 12.5 per cent.
Of course, emissions are likely to rise between now and 2008. Britain is also missing the Government’s own target of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010. All the same, these drops have been made possible by the shift from coal-fired power stations to gas in the early 1990s.
Germany, similarly, is almost in line with its Kyoto targets, with an 18 per cent drop in 2003, on its target of 21 per cent. France is down by nearly 2 per cent, ahead of its target of no change. True, many smaller EU countries are not doing so well. But many of the new eastern members show sharp drops well ahead of target, because of the closure of old industries.
Those "achievements" of the EU have made Kyoto an irresistible tool with which to berate others, notably the US. But extending Kyoto would be difficult for the EU too.
The EU would be well advised to look more sympathetically on the new proposals coming out of the US, Britain and the conference hosts, Canada.
These include "intensity targets" — cuts in emissions per dollar of economic output. They are more attractive than Kyoto to poor countries as well as to the US. So are proposals for rich countries to invest in technology to filter out emissions and to share it with developing countries. Other suggestions include sector targets, which would set emissions standards for some of the biggest industries, such as steel and cars.
Under most of these systems of new, flexible targets, it might still be possible to set up markets in pollution, in which countries or industries could trade the right to release emissions.
Any agreement to curb greenhouse gases is worth little if the US, China and India do not sign up. Kyoto failed in that basic requirement.
For all the rhetorical mileage which some European countries have found in Kyoto, at the US’s expense, their own "success" — such as it is — is due to a quirk of history rather than to selfdiscipline or the powers of their leaders.
That gloating is no basis on which to move forward.
15.
From: http://www.ajc.com/tuesday/content/epaper/editions/tuesday/opinion_34b85f7af67c806c1050.html
Warming plan not cool
Bush wrong to oppose tough deterrents to the rise in greenhouse gases now that he admits problem is real
November 29, 2005
After years of denial, President Bush recently conceded that human activities are contributing to global warming. Given the release of study after study confirming man-made climate change, even someone as stubborn as the president had no choice but to admit the obvious.
Just last week, a team of European scientists who have been studying ice core samples taken from deep beneath Antarctica published research that confirmed that levels of planet-heating "greenhouse gases" are about 30 percent higher today than at any other time in the last 650,000 years.
The 2-mile-long ice core was drilled from ancient glaciers and ice sheets. It contained layers of fallen snow and frozen air bubbles that provide a time capsule of the Earth's chemistry dating back hundreds of thousands of years. The studies show above-normal levels of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases coinciding with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
Since that period in history, coal-fired power plants and tailpipe exhausts from gasoline-powered cars have become the main sources of man-made greenhouse gases that trap heat close to the planet's surface. The proliferation of these gases is raising worldwide temperatures at a rate that is "over a factor of a hundred faster than anything we're seeing in the natural cycle," one of the researchers noted. "It puts the present changes in context."
Those changes include the melting of glaciers, rising ocean temperatures and otherwise inexplicable disruptions of seasonal animal migrations. If temperatures continue to rise, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Yet even though the president is now on record as stating that "I recognize the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem," the White House still opposes mandatory curbs on industrial carbon dioxide emissions and other forward-looking measures adopted by our allies.
That's a morally and economically indefensible position for the United States, which accounts for 4 percent of the world's population but produces 25 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Much like the Antarctic ice core samples, our nation's response to global warming remains hopelessly frozen and stuck in the past.
16.
From: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=adf03a81-a3ee-4657-8ed1-dab96e4276af
Effects of global warming are already felt across the nation
From melting ice floes in the North to drought and flooding on prairies, nothing is 'normal'
WILLIAM MARSDEN, the Gazette
November 30, 2005
Insect infestations, forest fires, floods and drought reflect the devastating impact global warming is already having on the vast Canadian landscape, according to experts from all 10 provinces and two territories.
Probably the most striking changes are occurring in the far North, where melting ice and permafrost are destroying roads and buildings as well as harming animal and plant life.
"We're seeing more landslides, mudslides than ever before," said Robert Collins, energy resources analyst for the Yukon Energy, Mines and Resources Department.
Like other territories and provinces, Yukon has a booth at the UN Climate Change Conference that displays the impact of global warming on the local environment. One picture shows the side of a mountain stripped away by a landslide.
Forests are also feeling the effect of global warming. "In 2004, we burned twice the average (area of) forests through fires and 10 times what was burned the year earlier," Collins said.
He said insect infestations are killing Yukon's forests because the deep cold that once regularly killed larvae no longer freezes the southern part of the territory.
The dead trees are contributing to the frequency and breadth of forest fires, Collins said.
"There are also changes in the water temperatures that affects the fish, and fish are vulnerable to diseases that you find in warmer water," he added.
He said that for the first time, Yukon has seen funnel clouds that cause tornadoes.
Kik Shappa, a carver and hunter living in Griese Fiord, the northernmost settlement in the Canadian Arctic, said hunters face danger because of the melting ice cap.
"The weather is really unpredictable and the ice freezes much later and breaks up earlier," he said, adding there are more incidents of hunters falling through the ice.
He said animal migrations have altered because of changes in vegetation.
Manitoba is facing "multiple impacts and they extend pretty much through the entire province," said Rob Altemeyer, a member of Manitoba's legislative assembly.
One costly problem has been to re-engineer and to rebuild the northern transportation system because its foundation of ice is unreliable and the underlying permafrost is melting.
Altemeyer said the province "stands a very good risk of losing its polar bear population permanently because the ice floes on which the bears hunt seals are no longer coming close to shore. They are having trouble finding any place to eat."
Manitoba has had huge extremes in weather in the south and middle of the province, he noted.
"We have had both the driest conditions on record and the wettest conditions on record in the last six years," Altemeyer said. "We have had phenomenal drought and in this last year we have had phenomenal problems with flooding. We haven't seen 'normal' in quite a while on the Prairies."
If the climate models are accurate, he said, Manitoba stands to lose a lot of its boreal forest, which covers one-third to one-quarter of the province.
"The boreal forest is on peat moss that contains enormous quantities of methane," Altemeyer noted. "If the forest can't survive, then the methane is exposed to sunlight, which melts the permafrost and the methane gets released out of the peat bog. "Methane is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide."
Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes are experiencing warmer weather and higher river and ocean levels - all of which affect shorelines, farming and animal life.
If there's a bright side, it could be in British Columbia. Its computerized climate model shows that under present-day trends, by 2080 the province could be a garden of pecans, olives, sugar cane, oranges, lemons and cotton. It also shows, however, that many people in Alberta and Saskatchewan will be living in a desert.
wmarsden@thegazette.canwest.com
17.
From: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/12/01/marrakesh051201.html
Kyoto gets a rule book
01 Dec 2005
Delegates have approved a rule book for the Kyoto Protocol at a United Nations climate change conference in Montreal.
• INDEPTH: Kyoto at http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/kyoto/
Rules defining how Kyoto will proceed were outlined in the Marrakech Accords in 2001, and adopting them was a major achievement of the Montreal conference, according to delegates.
"This is a victory for the citizens of the world," Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said Wednesday.
The accord gives teeth to the Kyoto Protocol, making it "one of the most powerful treaties ever negotiated by any multilateral body," said Steve Sawyer, an expert on climate and energy policy for Greenpeace International told CBC.ca.
The rules spell out how emissions will be reported and verified, and give industrial nations credit if they help developing countries produce clean energy.
They also set out the terms for emissions trading, which means countries that produce too much greenhouse gas can buy credits from those that are under their limit.
"You go to a carbon broker and you say, 'I want to buy a hundred megatons of carbon. Can you find partners to offer me that?' And the carbon brokers will go around, just like they're shopping for money or a car," said delegate Bill Hare, a member of Greenpeace International.
Greenpeace has historically opposed carbon trading, preferring that nations work at reducing domestic emissions first. But the group says it has recognized carbon trading is the only way for Kyoto to move ahead, and will allow countries like Japan, Canada and Australia to meet emissions-reduction targets.
Countries that have signed on to Kyoto are committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by an average of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States has refused to sign the protocol, saying it would pursue reductions on its own.
The decision on the new rules was nearly unanimous. Only Saudi Arabia refused to support the protocol without an amendment.
Hare said he believed Saudi Arabia wanted to block the full implementation of Kyoto because it would negatively impact the country's lucrative oil industry.
18.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://tomflocco.com/fs/GossRefusesToGive.htm
Goss refuses to give Fitzgerald CIA leak damage assessment
November 26
Topic: -- "I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false." Revelation 2:2 Goss refuses to give Fitzgerald CIA leak damage assessment
Pentagon's Wolfowitz and Fife espionage evidence before grand jury George Tenet granted partial immunity to testify against White House CIA: Plame outed to disrupt probe into Israeli attempt to plant WMD Probe of 10+ legislators, high officials tied to drugs and 9-11 finance before jury
by Tom Flocco
WASHINGTON-November 26, 2005-TomFlocco.com-CIA Director Porter Goss is refusing to give special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a subpoenaed damage assessment report written by former CIA Director George Tenet detailing how many American operatives were murdered and the full extent of harm to U.S. national security which resulted from the Bush administration leak exposing Valerie Plame Wilson as a deep cover operative, according to intelligence officials.
U.S. intelligence agents say Goss and the White House are obstructing justice by failing to cooperate with Fitzgerald's grand jury while claiming that Americans are not entitled to see the contents of Tenet's report for "national security" reasons.
In an interview with TomFlocco.com, national security expert Thomas Heneghan said American intelligence officials have evidence that Tenet took a $38 million dollar bribe to resign so the White House could blame the 9-11 attacks on faulty CIA intelligence.
Heneghan said Tenet and his family are currently being protected by U.S. intelligence, while also revealing that Fitzgerald has granted the former CIA Director transactional immunity in exchange for his testimony against the White House.
The evidence of Tenet's bribe was discovered by federal investigators who said the money was laundered through Volks Bank in Basil, Switzerland which also has links to deceased Bush family associate Leonard Millman and his former controversial partner, "Indian Casino" Jack Abramoff, according to Heneghan.
The intelligence whistleblower told us that evidence implicating former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Fife for violations of the Federal Espionage Act under U.S. Code Title 18, Section 793 is currently before Fitzgerald's grand jury.
"Wolfowitz and Fife are agents of a foreign government, operating in the Bush administration to create spin as members of the secret White House Iraq Group," said Heneghan, adding "they violated elements of the Espionage Act and bypassed the CIA in passing national security information to Israel."
The assertions raise serious questions as to why the House and Senate are continuing to fail the American people by permitting spies to operate in the Pentagon, why President Bush would appoint agents of a foreign government to the Defense Department with access to military secrets, mission planning and technology-but also whether Congress is obstructing justice and condoning treason by the White House.
Plame team discovered attempt to plant WMD in Iraq
Heneghan told TomFlocco.com that Valerie Plame's CIA group used the cover of Brewster-Jennings Energy Company "to investigate the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) issue in Iraq and how Turkey could have been used as an invasion pivot point using troops coming from the north and south that may have prevented the insurgency if they swept through quickly-and the firefights would have been prevented at the Baghdad airport, where many Americans lost their lives."
Plame and her team discovered and interdicted an attempt to plant WMD by Mossad agents, masking themselves as Israeli military officers working unofficially in Baghdad with the United States Military Central Command and known as the J2X Joint Intelligence Liaison, according to the federal whistleblower.
Heneghan's intelligence sources also revealed that "former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was in command and control of the failed operation attempting to plant the WMD," adding, "this was kept secret for the purpose of 'discovering' the weapons in order to justify the war."
"The October, 2002 smuggling operation involving VX nerve gas and aluminum tubes may have traveled through the black market from provinces outside the Russian Federation and linked to rogue intelligence operative Gary Best, and then into Bosnia or Kosovo-but more likely Bosnia-and then into Turkey before being intercepted by Valerie Plame's team; and this information is in the Tenet damage assessment report," said Heneghan.
The Pakistan Daily Times reported that retired Navy Lt. Commander and 28 year Defense Department veteran Nelda Rogers, another Pentagon whistleblower, said "the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to 'plant' WMDs inside the country."
It is not known whether the Fitzgerald grand jury has subpoenaed testimony from the former U.S. Navy officer, who said "the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by 'friendly fire.' "
These and other revelations raise more questions regarding why House and Senate members are not subpoenaed by Fitzgerald to publicly testify as to why they are obstructing justice by permitting the White House to commit treason against the American people.
Obstruction of justice and perjury
There is evidence that CIA Director Goss conspired with Vice President Cheney, and Republican senators, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) and a Roberts staffer to leak the CIA "black site" foreign torture prisons story to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Robert Woodward.
The leak was used for a November 2 story by Dana Priest in an attempt to obstruct justice by "an end-run to discredit the CIA and the Fitzgerald grand jury investigation," according to news reports and U.S. intelligence, said Heneghan.
Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) reportedly blew the whistle on the obstruction, telling CNN "this subject was discussed at a Republican senators-only luncheon last Tuesday, the day before the story ran in the Washington Post," adding "a lot of it came out of that room last Tuesday.He [Cheney] was up here last week .and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper."
Heneghan said "Robert Woodward could be indicted for obstruction of justice in this matter," alleging that Goss originally leaked the secret information to Republican senators who then passed the story to Woodward and Priest in violation of senate ethics rules at the least according to Lott's prediction.
Woodward's admitted knowledge of Valerie Plame's covert identity since June-July, 2003 raises additional obstruction of justice questions since the Post editor has for two years been publicly casting doubt on Fitzgerald's probe as insignificant and unimportant.
Woodward concealed his conflict of interest until last week regarding his role as a key player and possible focal point in the alleged obstruction of justice in the Plame case.
Reports reveal evidence that either Woodward or Post reporter Walter Pincus is not telling the truth, since Pincus and Post reporter Glenn Kessler have been questioned in the Plame investigation; and Woodward claimed to have told Pincus about Plame's covert CIA status, to which Pincus replied, "Are you kidding, I certainly would have remembered that."
Since Fitzgerald just found out about Woodward's central role in the Plame case, it is obvious that Pincus never told the prosecutor about Woodward's claim when Pincus testified before the grand jury, allegedly revealing that one of the two is not telling the truth.
In a startling revelation, Heneghan said "There are U.S. intelligence files and field reports which identify Bob Woodward as a deep cover member of the Office of Naval Intelligence with links to the Israeli Mossad," adding, "there are also serious questions as to why Woodward was the first to obtain the CIA-Valerie Plame leak story and what role it played in his book which attempted to portray Bush as an 'in-command' leader."
"There are also intelligence files indicating that Woodward's retired boss and former Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradlee is closely linked to the Mossad and knows the true story of President Kennedy's assassination," said Heneghan.
U.S. legislators, public officials linked to drug money and 9-11 finance
In a related issue, intelligence sources say a probe of about 10 federal legislators and high government officials linked to drug money laundering through the Middle and Far East and the finance of the September 11 attacks is currently before the Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury.
The investigation of well-known American public officials is also reportedly tied to a Washington appeals court cover-up by three Republican judges and Justice Department attorneys involved in the obstruction of justice and gagging of former FBI contract linguist Sibel Edmonds. http://www.tomflocco.co/fs/FBILinguist.htm
When we asked how many Americans were named in the intelligence intercepts and linked to drug money laundering or 9-11 finance that she translated, Edmonds told TomFlocco.com, "There is direct evidence involving no more than ten American names that I recognized," further revealing that "some are heads of government agencies or politicians-but I don't want to go any further than that," attempting to stay within the guidelines of her court gag order.
Edmonds said, "Nobody is looking at the Department of Defense aspect of the whole 911 cover-up. The FBI is citing two reasons for my gag order: to protect 'sensitive' diplomatic relations and to protect foreign U.S. business relationships."
Heneghan told us "there is a major split developing in the United States media-the ones that want to tell the truth and the ones that do not," causing more questions to be raised about implied obstruction of justice within all levels of American news groups.
19.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051205fa_fact
UP IN THE AIR
Where is the Iraq war headed next?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-12-05
Posted 2005-11-28
In recent weeks, there has been widespread speculation that President George W. Bush, confronted by diminishing approval ratings and dissent within his own party, will begin pulling American troops out of Iraq next year. The Administration's best-case scenario is that the parliamentary election scheduled for December 15th will produce a coalition government that will join the Administration in calling for a withdrawal to begin in the spring. By then, the White House hopes, the new government will be capable of handling the insurgency. In a speech on November 19th, Bush repeated the latest Administration catchphrase: "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." He added, "When our commanders on the ground tell me that Iraqi forces can defend their freedom, our troops will come home with the honor they have earned." One sign of the political pressure on the Administration to prepare for a withdrawal came last week, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News that the current level of American troops would not have to be maintained "for very much longer," because the Iraqis were getting better at fighting the insurgency.
A high-level Pentagon war planner told me, however, that he has seen scant indication that the President would authorize a significant pullout of American troops if he believed that it would impede the war against the insurgency. There are several proposals currently under review by the White House and the Pentagon; the most ambitious calls for American combat forces to be reduced from a hundred and fifty-five thousand troops to fewer than eighty thousand by next fall, with all American forces officially designated "combat" to be pulled out of the area by the summer of 2008. In terms of implementation, the planner said, "the drawdown plans that I'm familiar with are condition-based, event-driven, and not in a specific time frame"-that is, they depend on the ability of a new Iraqi government to defeat the insurgency. (A Pentagon spokesman said that the Administration had not made any decisions and had "no plan to leave, only a plan to complete the mission.")
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President's public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.
"We're not planning to diminish the war," Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me. Clawson's views often mirror the thinking of the men and women around Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "We just want to change the mix of the forces doing the fighting-Iraqi infantry with American support and greater use of airpower. The rule now is to commit Iraqi forces into combat only in places where they are sure to win. The pace of commitment, and withdrawal, depends on their success in the battlefield."
He continued, "We want to draw down our forces, but the President is prepared to tough this one out. There is a very deep feeling on his part that the issue of Iraq was settled by the American people at the polling places in 2004." The war against the insurgency "may end up being a nasty and murderous civil war in Iraq, but we and our allies would still win," he said. "As long as the Kurds and the Shiites stay on our side, we're set to go. There's no sense that the world is caving in. We're in the middle of a seven-year slog in Iraq, and eighty per cent of the Iraqis are receptive to our message."
One Pentagon adviser told me, "There are always contingency plans, but why withdraw and take a chance? I don't think the President will go for it"-until the insurgency is broken. "He's not going to back off. This is bigger than domestic politics."
Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.
Bush's closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush's first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President's religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that "God put me here" to deal with the war on terror. The President's belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that "he's the man," the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his re-election as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.
The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: "I said to the President, 'We're not winning the war.' And he asked, 'Are we losing?' I said, 'Not yet.' " The President, he said, "appeared displeased" with that answer.
"I tried to tell him," the former senior official said. "And he couldn't hear it."
There are grave concerns within the military about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain two or three more years of combat in Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, a specialist on military issues at the Brookings Institution, told me, "The people in the institutional Army feel they don't have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even participating in the debate. They're planning on staying the course until 2009. I can't believe the Army thinks that it will happen, because there's no sustained drive to increase the size of the regular Army." O'Hanlon noted that "if the President decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency levels."
Many of the military's most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don't want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has "so terrified the generals that they know they won't go public," a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that "things were fucked up." But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.
One person with whom the Pentagon's top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer "from what I call battle fatigue" in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as "the common enemy" in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House's claims-that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers "haven't captured any in this latest activity"-the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. "So this idea that they're coming in from outside, we still think there's only seven per cent."
Murtha's call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House's resolve. Administration officials "are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy-both on substance and politically," the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha's speech, Bush said, "The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they're not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I'm going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch."
"The President is more determined than ever to stay the course," the former defense official said. "He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.' " He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove! and Vice-President Cheney. "They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway," the former defense official said. Bush's public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. "Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House," the former official said, "but Bush has no idea."
Within the military, the prospect of using airpower as a substitute for American troops on the ground has caused great unease. For one thing, Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection. "Will the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of your own sect and blame someone else?" another senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon asked. "Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?"
CLIP
Robert Pape, a political-science professor at the University of Chicago, who has written widely on American airpower, and who taught for three years at the Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies, in Alabama, predicted that the air war "will get very ugly" if targeting is turned over to the Iraqis. This would be especially true, he said, if the Iraqis continued to operate as the U.S. Army and Marines have done-plowing through Sunni strongholds on search-and-destroy missions.
CLIP
Even American bombing on behalf of an improved, well-trained Iraqi Army would not necessarily be any more successful against the insurgency. "It's not going to work," said Andrew Brookes, the former director of airpower studies at the Royal Air Force's advanced staff college, who is now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London. "Can you put a lid on the insurgency with bombing?" Brookes said. "No. You can concentrate in one area, but the guys will spring up in another town." The inevitable reliance on Iraqi ground troops' targeting would also create conflicts. "I don't see your guys dancing to the tune of someone else," Brookes said. He added that he and many other experts "don't believe that airpower is a solution to the problems inside Iraq at all. Replacing boots on the ground with airpower didn't work in Vietnam, did it?"
CLIP
Meanwhile, as the debate over troop reductions continues, the covert war in Iraq has expanded in recent months to Syria. A composite American Special Forces team, known as an S.M.U., for "special-mission unit," has been ordered, under stringent cover, to target suspected supporters of the Iraqi insurgency across the border. (The Pentagon had no comment.) "It's a powder keg," the Pentagon consultant said of the tactic. "But, if we hit an insurgent network in Iraq without hitting the guys in Syria who are part of it, the guys in Syria would get away. When you're fighting an insurgency, you have to strike everywhere-and at once."
20.
From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20051124/bs_prweb/prweb314382_1
Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations
November 24, 2005
(PRWEB) - OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.”
By “ETs,” Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth.
On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."
Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."
Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."
Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."
Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today."
Three Non-governmental organizations took Hellyer’s words to heart, and approached Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to hold public hearings on a possible ET presence, and what Canada should do. The Canadian Senate, which is an appointed body, has held objective, well-regarded hearings and issued reports on controversial issues such as same-sex marriage and medical marijuana,
On October 20, 2005, the Institute for Cooperation in Space requested Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, Senator, Chair of The Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Hon. Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations.”
The Non-governmental organizations seeking Parliament hearings include Canada-based Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, which organized the University of Toronto Symposium at which Mr. Hellyer spoke.
The Disclosure Project, a U.S.– based organization that has assembled high level military-intelligence witnesses of a possible ET presence, is also one of the organizations seeking Canadian Parliament hearings.
Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director headed a proposed 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who himself has publicly reported a 1969 Close Encounter of the First Kind with a UFO, filed the original request for Canadian Parliament hearings.
The Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, presented by the organizations to a Senate Committee panel hearing in Winnipeg, Canada, on March 10, 2005, proposes that the Government of Canada undertake a Decade of Contact.
The proposed Decade of Contact is “a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial society’s full cultural, political, social, legal, and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth.”
Canada has a long history of opposing the basing of weapons in Outer Space. On September 22, 2004 Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin declared to the U.N. General Assembly,” "Space is our final frontier. It has always captured our imagination. What a tragedy it would be if space became one big weapons arsenal and the scene of a new arms race.
Martin stated, "In 1967, the United Nations agreed that weapons of mass
destruction must not be based in space. The time has come to extend this ban to all weapons..."
In May, 2003, speaking before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Lloyd Axworthy, stated “Washington's offer to Canada is not an invitation to join America under a protective shield, but it presents a global security doctrine that violates Canadian values on many levels."
Axworthy concluded, “There should be an uncompromising commitment to preventing the placement of weapons in space.”
On February 24, 2005, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made official Canada's decision not to take part in the U.S government’s Ballistic Missile Defence program.
Paul Hellyer, who now seeks Canadian Parliament hearings on relations with ETs, on May 15, 2003, stated in Toronto’s Globe & Mail newspaper, “Canada should accept the long-standing invitation of U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to launch a conference to seek approval of an international treaty to ban weapons in space. That would be a positive Canadian contribution toward a more peaceful world.”
In early November 2005, the Canadian Senate wrote ICIS, indicating the Senate Committee could not hold hearings on ETs in 2005, because of their already crowded schedule.
“That does not deter us,” one spokesperson for the Non-governmental organizations said, “We are going