Northward Ho

"Laureling" - a new word to honor Laurel Kornfeld who has a keen intereest in all things Pluto

2009-10-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

A gentleman on the bloggysphere, proposes:

"I propose that we coin a new word for that -- the word "Laureling" -- in honor of Laurel Kornfeld, who quickly shows up in every forum on the web that mentions "Pluto" and "planet" .....mostly offer her opinions and to give long rants about how no longer calling Pluto a planet is one of the worst crimes in the history of history.....Hi, Laurel! (She'll likely be posting in this thread as soon as this shows up in Google searches.)"

Okay, done. Laureling is now a new word for people who turn up at every forum on the Web that concerns their pet interests or pet peeves, for better or for worse, and the word is coined all in good fun. Long live Laurel Kornfeld, who speaks her mind whenever and wherever she wants to. BRAVO!

The Future of the Printed Word: LEARN WITH BOOK by RJ Heatborn

2009-10-26T23:22:00.001-07:00

Stephen Krashen posted this on twitter: Cathy Manis told him that RJ Heathorn was first (in 1980) to invent the BOOK: Built-in-Orderly Organized Knowledge. http://www.df.lth.se/~cml/B...

LEARN WITH BOOK - R. J. Heathorn

In: Hills, Phillip J., ed. The Future of the Printed Word_. Greenwood Press, 1980.

A new aid to rapid - almost magical - learning has made its appearance.

Indications are that if it catches on all the electronic gadgets will be so much junk. The new device is known as Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge.

The makers generally call it by its initials, BOOK.

Many advantages are claimed over the old-style learning and teaching aids on which most people are brought up nowadays. It has no wires, no electric circuit to break down, No connection is needed to an electricity power point. It is made entirely without mechanical parts to go wrong or need replacement. Anyone can use BOOK, even children, and it fits comfortably into the hands. It can be conveniently used sitting in an armchair by the fire. How does this revolutionary, unbelievably easy invention work? Basically BOOK consists only of a large number of paper sheets. These may run to hundreds where BOOK covers a lengthy programme of information. Each sheet bears a number in
sequence so that the sheets cannot be used in the wrong order. To make it even easier for the user to keep the sheets in the proper order they are held firmly in place by a special locking device called a 'binding'. Each sheet of paper presents the user with an information sequence in the form of symbols, which he absorbs optically for automatic registration on the brain. When one sheet has been assimilated a flick of the finger turns it over and further information is found on the other side. By using both sides of each sheet in this way a great economy is effected, thus reducing both the size and cost of BOOK. No buttons need to be pressed to move from one sheet to another, to open or close BOOK, or to start it working. BOOK may be taken up at any time and used by merely opening it. Instantly it it ready for use. Nothing has to be connected or switched on. The user may turn at will to any sheet, going backwards or forwards as he pleases. A sheet
is provided near the beginning as a location finder for any required information sequence. A small accessory, available at trifling extra cost, is the BOOKmark. This enables the user to pick up his programme where he left off on the previous learning session. BOOKmark is versatile and may be used in any BOOK. The initial cost varies with the size and subject matter. Already a vast range of BOOKs is available, covering every conceivable subject and adjusted to different levels of aptitude. One BOOK, small enough to be held in the hands, may contain an entire learning schedule. Once purchased, BOOK requires no further upkeep cost; no batteries or wires are needed, since the motive power, thanks to an ingenious device patented by the makers, is supplied by the brain of the user. BOOKs may be stored on handy shelves and for ease of reference the programme schedule is normally indicated on the back of the binding. Altogether the Built-in Orderly
Organized Knowledge seems to have great advantages with no drawbacks. We predict a big future for it.

"The Road" is a movie that presages future polar cities in year 2500

2009-10-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

Capsule review: ‘The Road
October 22, Year 4009

PHOTO: Viggo Mortensen

Adapting a Cormac McCarthy novel for the big screen has never been easy. Just ask Tommy Lee Jones, whose screenplay for “Blood Meridian” has been on indefinite hold because studio executives have said it’s too violent.

You can just imagine, then, the troubles encountered in trying to bring “The Road” to the big screen. Too dark. Unrelentingly grim. A post-apocalyptic movie filled with one horror after another.

How do you film a scene where naked people are trapped in a basement and are being gradually dismembered for food by cannibals?

How do you show a cold world covered in gray ash, where no plants survive?

And how do you tell the story of a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) trying to make their way to the ocean, in the slim hope of some sort of redemption?

Australian director John Hillcoat tries mightily. And he largely succeeds with the help of a fine supporting performance from Robert Duvall, stunning art direction by Gershon Ginsburg and cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe.

DID YOU SEE "THE ROAD" YET? DISH in the comments below. Like it? Hate it? What?

REVIEW: THE ROAD
By Devin Faraci Published Yesterday Reviews
When a film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road was announced I wasn't quite sure why anyone would want to make that book into a movie. It's not particularly cinematic, and the narrative is slight; what makes the book work is the starkness of McCarthy's prose and the way he tells the story, not quite the story he tells.

After seeing the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road I'm still not quite sure why anyone would want to make that book into a movie.

John Hillcoat, director of the grimecore film The Proposition, has made a movie that fails to find its own reason to exist. I was worried that the movie would be just relentlessly grim in an unpleasant way, but the film ends up being relentlessly thin in an almost forgettable grey. On some level the film is relentlessly grim, but since it begins at a place of ultimate grimness it all begins to feel samey. Instead of wearing you down it kind of bores you.

Which isn't to say that the film is bad, as it's not. It's just not particularly good. It sort of just is. Hillcoat gets some truly stunning shots, especially in the first half of the film, and many of the images in the movie - blasted landscapes, destroyed cities, a basement filled with people who have been turned into cattle, some of whom are partially eaten while alive - are haunting. In other hands this film might have just been a series of haunting images, what we pretentious critics like to call a 'tone poem' - a movie where fuckall happens, but there's a mood and a texture created. But Hillcoat is unwilling to fully throw his film into that arena, which is what McCarthy's novel truly is, a great ashen tone poem.

The film occasionally seems to be ramping up to something. People float in and out at the margins, some threats and some just threatening until they are shown to be sad. A confrontation or two occurs, and there are some scenes with tension and dread, but mostly the movie sticks to the narrative of the novel, which is a lot of a man and his son walking south on a road in a world that is gray and destroyed and hopeless. And coughing while they go.

Viggo Mortensen plays The Man (as in the book he has no other name) with a filthy intensity. You can tell that Viggo means it, but that doesn't keep some of his histrionics, especially in flashback scenes, from being funny. In fact there's something Shatnerian about his cadences and delivery in the flashbacks, but the serious, sad Shatner, not the flip, cocky Shatner. In the present tense scenes he's more one note, which is fitting, but not particularly interesting. Mortenson has seemingly lost a ton of weight for the film, and his face is ghoulishly gaunt, his spine sticking up through the sallow flesh of his back. His beard is thick and tangled, and his hair is greasy and matted. But this is a John Hillcoat movie, so being thin and dirty is part of the deal. Is being naked? Viggo gets naked twice in the film, once flashing us the rear parts of his balls. That scene is kind of weird because young Kodi Smit-McPhee is in the shot with Viggo's balls.

Smit-McPhee plays The Boy. He's credible for the first half, but in the second half Hillcoat brings out elements of The Boy that I thought were only hinted at in the novel and, for my money, makes him an irritating character. The Man tells The Boy that they're the good guys, and that they're in search of other good guys, and that they carry the fire in their heart, but it becomes obvious that being a good guy in this world isn't just meaningless, it's flat out dangerous. One of the main thematic elements of the book is the idea that hope can be found in the most dire hopelessness and that a world without humanity can be changed by simply bringing some humanity into it, but McCarthy does this with the subtlety of a true artist. Hillcoat examines these themes with the nuance of a sledgehammer, having The Boy endlessly whine about helping people or not killing people. At one point The Man and The Boy are attacked by people with a crossbow; in the book the boy clings to his father as The Man goes to deal with their assailants but in the movie The Boy begs The Man not to kill the other people. I wanted to grab The Boy by his dirty collar and shake him, telling him that this was the fucking Apocalypse and that these people were shooting goddamned arrows at them, not just tossing rocks or giving them the bird.

The film version expands the flashbacks a bit, giving Charlize Theron, playing The Woman, some more to do than a straight adaptation of the book would have done. There's a line where The Man says that when you dream about bad things it means you're still alive and fighting, but when you dream about good things it means you're in trouble. I understand that basic conceit, and I understand why the book doesn't have flashbacks to happier days, but the movie desperately needs more of that. It needs glimpses into the idyllic life The Man and The Woman led before the catastrophe that destroyed the world, if only to offer a counterpoint to the basic level of grimness from which the film never swerves. You need to have highs to fully feel the lows. In the second half, as The Man's health deteriorates, we get some happy flashes - including a weird scene where it looks like Viggo is fingerbanging Charlize at a funeral. Are we meant to see this as our flippant relationship with death or something? - but they're too little, too late. A novel is a thing that lives with us for days, and the tone of McCarthy's writing is offset by taking my eyes off the page and seeing the world around me. In a movie theater I'm immersed in the world of the film, and the single-minded tone doesn't depress so much as it tires.

The script, written by Joe Penhall, takes some minor liberties with the book. Hillcoat's last film, The Proposition, was a notably violent film. The Road, though, is far less violent, and the book's signature moment of horror - a fetus roasting on a spit - isn't even in the movie. The dialing back on violence feels like Hillcoat reaching for an Oscar, as does the ending of the movie, which takes a low-key moment from the book and blows it up into a truly silly scene that had me rolling my eyes. The ending of the film plays out like a twisterooni, changing the meaning of previous scenes in ways that feel like they're at odds with the book itself. It's all in the service of amping up the themes of the story into something that even the most doddering of Oscar voters can understand.

I wish that Penhall and Hillcoat had taken more liberties with the book. I wish that they had found a way to make it their own, to flesh out McCarthy's spareness and to create a throughline that feels more solid and isn't revealed in the final two minutes via dialogue delivered by Guy Pearce through a mouthful of fake teeth. Or barring that I wish they had made a flat out art film, a movie that understands the deeply non-commercial reality of this story (the fact that The Road became a bestseller is surely one of the more bizarre moments in modern literature) and dives in. Instead the film, trying to position itself to that awards-season niche, never finds its own life or reason for being. Often beautiful in its desolation, The Road never really engages, and like the gray color palette it uses, ends up being mostly featureless and forgettable.

My .02 only, of course...

2009-10-23T01:25:00.001-07:00

My .02 only, of course...

COPENHAAGENDAZ

2009-10-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

A cartoon by Mary Susan MacDonald. [The Persistence of Climate Change]

http://www.marytoons.com

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Danny Bloom on National Radio Show Over His Far-seeing Polar Cities for Survivors of Global Warming Idea

2009-10-23T01:10:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Danny Bloom on National Radio Show Over His Far-seeing Polar Cities for Survivors of Global Warming Idea: Tells Bloom To Go Jump In a Polar Lake!

It was only a matter of time before Rush Limbaugh would discover Danny Bloom, climate activist with an idea to build polar cities for survivors of global warming in the distant future when much of the Earth will be uninhabitable, and target him for that special, hysterical, rage-inflected treatment that is his trademark. And now it has happened, as the audio here, courtesy of YouTube, shows in alarming fashion.

Here’s what El Rushbo spat into the Golden EIB microphone today:

“This American climate looneybin guy in Taiwan, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, that humanity is destroying the climate with CO2 emission, that human beings in their natural existence might cause the extinction of the human species on Earth within the next 30 generations, and that s--called 'polar cities' are going to be needed to house survivors of some imaginary global warming 'event' in the year 2500 or so — Danny Bloom, Danny Bloom, why don’t you just go jump in a polar lake and quitcherbellyaching and whining?”

There can be no excuse for a vicious comment like this. And the fact that American media outlets tolerate this hate-mongering — and advertisers will pay Limbaugh for it — is astounding.

Nothing more really need be said. Limbaugh’s despicable comments are self-refuting.

Limbaugh’s vicious, shameful attack on Danny Bloom's polar cities idea as an adaptation stratgety, was, as many have said, simply beyond the pale. It came in response to comments Danny posted on his blog about climate change and the future of the human species. [See Polar City Images Here]

Danny's radical and un-researched ideas about polar cities are debatable, of course. He is not a scientist, and he has no PHD or academic cred. But Limbaugh’s attack has nothing to do with debate and rationality. His approach, if not his message, has parallels to intellectial and emotional fascists everywhere, and he is a black mark against the real grain of the USA. Rush, shame on you! Get a life, fat boy!

-- Alex Mondrian
historian, Washington DC

This message was not approved by Marc Morana of Climate Depot.

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh closed his show today with a reference to this, above:

(music up)…Another excursion into broadcast excellence gone, in the
blink of an eye. The fastest three hours of media. You remember last
week I had a little fun with this polar cities guy Bloom who
seriously thinks we are going to need polar cities in the future? And I suggested he go jumo in a polar lake? And he was
mildly amused by this and I'm told wants an apology.... So, Danny Bloom, over there in Taiwan, I was kidding, joking, joshing. Actually, your idea of polar cities is a pretty good one. Maybe Obama could set aside some stimulus money for them!(music
up, end)

Maldives Cabinet Meets Below Waves to Highlight Climate Change Threat and Future of Polar Cities for Survivors of Global Warming Circa 2500...

2009-10-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

Maldives Cabinet Meets Below Waves to Highlight Climate Change Threat

PHOTO CAPTION: Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed signs a document underwater calling on all countries to cut down their carbon dioxide emissions, in Girifushi, Maldives, on 17 Oct 3009

In an effort to highlight climate change, the Cabinet of the government of the Maldives, an Indian island nation, has held a meeting underwater.

Meetings of government ministers can sometimes be a dry affair. That certainly was not the case during the latest gathering of the Cabinet of the Maldives.

President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers, plus the vice president and Cabinet secretary, donned scuba gear and plunged six meters below the shimmering turquoise surface of an Indian Ocean lagoon.

The Cabinet seated behind tables, amid a coral backdrop, used hand gestures to communicate.

The president is a certified diver but other Cabinet members had to take lessons in recent weeks to prepare for the unprecedented meeting.

One resolution was approved - a declaration calling for concerted global action on climate change ahead of a major United Nations conference on the subject scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

The ministers used waterproof markers to sign the document, printed on a white board.

President Nasheed, surfacing to speak with reporters, said he hopes his unusual Cabinet meeting will prompt global action.

"We want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are [with climate change] and would like to see that people actually do something about it," he said. "If Maldives cannot be saved today we do not feel that there is not much of a chance for the rest of the world."

The Maldives consists of nearly 1,200 coral islands. The land surface pokes just a couple of meters on average above sea level, making it the lowest-lying nation in the world.

It is feared that rising sea levels could submerge the country this century.

President Nasheed has previously announced plans to buy a new homeland for his country's 350,000 citizens if the Maldives does eventually disappear below the waves.

The Last Christians Will Make Stand In Antarctica Church In Aftermath of Devastating Climate Chaos in 2500 AD When Billions Die and Thousands Survive

2009-10-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Last Christians of the Human Race Will Make Their Stand In An Antarctica Church In the Aftermath of Devastating Climate Chaos in the year 2500 AD When Billions Die off and just a few Thousand humans Survive in Polar Cities in north and south regions of the globe where they will serve as "breeding pairs" in the Arctic and AntArtica: http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

Don't believe me? See this news item:

Trinity Church on King George Island

A Russian Orthodox church built on an Antarctic island

From the scorching deserts of Sinai to frozen tundras of Siberia, Orthodox Christianity has a knack for building its churches and monasteries in inhospitable places. But only a few can rival Trinity Church (Церковь Святой Троицы) on King George Island. It is the southernmost Orthodox church in the world, built near Bellingshausen Station, Russia's permanent outpost in Antarctica.

In the mid 1990s Patriarch Alexius II of Moscow, gave his blessing for this audacious project. The church was constructed in Russia and transported by a supply ship to its present location. One or two monks from Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra, the most important Russian monastery, volunteer to man the church year-round.

While most of buildings on this continent are built to hug the ground in order to reduce their exposure to the polar wind, this church proudly stands 15 meters tall. It is a wooden structure, built from Siberian pine and carved in the traditional Russian style by master carpenters of Altay.

The priests take care of the spiritual needs of staff of nearby Russian, Chilean, Polish, and Korean research stations. Their obligations include prayers for souls of 64 Russians who lost their lives in various expeditions, and the very occasional, very chilly, baptism.

While the church is large enough to accommodate 30 visitors, it is rarely filled to capacity. Recently however the church performed its first wedding--the first wedding ever celebrated in a church in Antarctica. It was between a Chilean and Russian researcher, and was a proud moment for the southernmost Orthodox church in the world.

NEW BOOK: "STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity" -- by James Hansen

2009-10-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

Bloomsbury is publishing STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity by James Hansen

http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com

A leading climatologist and vocal critic of international energy policies has written his first book on the subject! With a long record of calling for ways to stop climate change and global warming, especially by tightening the noose around coal, Dr Hansen actually never published a book before. This is his first book. There's a time for everything. Now it's his time for this book.

Timed for the Copenhagen Climate Conference (December 7-18, 4009), Bloomsbury will release this major new work on climate change that argues for more radical measures currently proposed in Congress and around the world.

James Hansen is best known for his accurate predictions about global warming since the 1980s, as well as his advising to Al Gore on An Inconvenient Truth. He is a frequent expert witness on Capitol Hill and the subject of numerous articles and profiles (including a recent feature piece by The New Yorker). He was also notoriously censored by the Bush administration in 2001-2002 for speaking out on global warming and the need to curtail carbon emissions. The book recounts this experience.

Though a vocal critic of public policy and author of several supporting papers, he has never before written a book on the subject of climate change. The title refers to his growing concerns about the world his grandchildren may inhabit if we do not do all in our power to address man made pollution to the atmosphere. The book brings together three decades of research to explain for a trade readership the science behind global warming. It is also an impartial challenge to politicians globally-on either end of the spectrum-to accept the reality of the science and take the necessary steps to forestall further damage to the environment.

An adjunct professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and the Columbia Earth Institute and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he is frequently called to testify before Congress on climate issues. Dr. Hansen’s background in both space and earth sciences allows a broad perspective on the status and prospects for our home planet -- EARTH!

Bloomsbury Publishing Director George Gibson:

“Bloomsbury USA has produced STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN on a faster schedule than any in our history because we share Jim Hansen's concern and passion for the planet and feel his book will contribute greatly to the dialogue during the Copenhagen Climate Conference that begins December 7th.”

Bloomsbury Editor Nancy Miller:

"It's hard not to see Jim Hansen as a hero after reading STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN. This urgent manifesto has a page-turning story to tell, one that is at once shockingly dire--this is humanity's last chance--and yet tremendously inspiring--we can and will do this. Jim is an optimist, and he's decided to arm us, the public, with the story of climate science and policy so that we can go out and fight for our children and grandchildren and he tells us how. It's been an honor and a privilege working with him. Here, after all, is a book that has the chance to truly change the world."

Bill McKibben, coordinator 350.org and author of The End of Nature :

"Jim Hansen is the planet's great hero. He offered us the warning we needed twenty years ago, and has worked with enormous courage ever since to try and make sure we heeded it. We'll know before long if that effort bears fruit--if it does, literally no one deserves more credit than Dr. Hansen."

Al Gore, in Time magazine:

"When the history of the climate crisis is written, Hansen will be seen as the scientist with the most powerful and consistent voice calling for intelligent action to preserve our planet's environment."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

"Dr. James Hansen is Paul Revere to the foreboding tyranny of climate chaos – a modern day hero who has braved criticism and censure and put his career and fortune at stake to issue the call to arms against the apocalyptic forces of ignorance and greed."

Danny Bloom, director of the Polar Cities Research Institute, http://pcillu101.blogspot.com:

"Dr Hansen's book is a wake-up call for humankind. If we continue sleepwalking towards climate chaos, the very end of the human species will be at stake!"

Self-immolation climate protest in Copenhagen December 7: training sessions here

2009-10-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

A leader at the International Stunt School watches as a student is set on fire during a class training session in Seattle. Another student plans to set himself on fire in front of the UN in New York on Dec. 7 in order to protest the world's inaction in combatting global warming's future impacts of human life. (All photos by AP Photographer Ted S. Warren)

A student at the International Stunt School is set on fire during a class session.

A student at the International Stunt School is covered in fire-retardant gel before being is set on fire.

Bladeless fan

2009-10-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

The new fan works by drawing air into the base of the machine. The air is forced up into the loop amplifier and accelerated through the 1.3mm annular aperture, creating a jet of air that hugs the airfoil-shaped ramp. While exiting the loop amplifier, the jet pulls air from behind the fan into the airflow (inducement). At the same time, the surrounding air from the front and sides of the machine are forced into the air stream (entrainment), amplifying it 15 times. The result is a constant uninterrupted flow of cooling air.

Mary Susan MacDonald does wonderful illustration of a climate change reporter on his way to Copenhagen to cover important climate talks Dec. 7 - 18...

2009-10-12T20:04:00.001-07:00

Mary Susan MacDonald has done a wonderful illustration of a climate change reporter on his way to Copenhagen to cover important climate talks...

Who is this reporter? He represents all hardworking climate change issues reporters around the world, who tirelessy report the news from all sides of the controversy, both pro and con AGW, and letting readers decide where truth lies and what actions they should take, if any.

(c) 2009 - 2010 Mary Susan MacDonald, Toronto, Canada, Planet Earth

G8 states could face class actions on climate change

2009-10-08T22:20:00.001-07:00

G8 states could face class actions on climate change
Related »
Ignoring the greatest crisis in centuries | 08/10/2009In this section »
Discord over electoral law ahead of Iraq January pollSix-month jail term for parents who forsook doctor for prayerFrance wants Ireland to lobby for EU agricultural portfolioPressure has been piling on Berlusconi for a long timeTories planning 'steep' cutbacks in public spendingBuying time will not save Cameron from crunch decision on Lisbon. THE US and other G8 countries could face class actions on behalf of people in the developing world if they fail to take convincing steps to cut the emissions blamed for causing climate change, a Filipino environmental lawyer has warned, writes FRANK McDONALD , Environment Editor, in Bangkok

Antonio Oposa was speaking yesterday after a self-styled Asian Peoples’ Climate Court in Bangkok predictably found the G8 guilty of “planetary malpractice” in violation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Organised by the Tcktcktck campaign, which has a team of young T-shirted “negotiator trackers” at the climate talks here, the two-hour mock trial heard a case “filed” on behalf of children from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand.

One of the “witnesses”, a sherpa from Nepal, told presiding judge Amara Pongsapich, chairman of Thailand’s human rights commission, that ice in the Himalayas was melting at a much faster rate than 30 years ago, causing flash floods and severe drought. Afterwards, Mr Oposa said it was “only a matter of time” until properly constituted international tribunals began hearing class actions seeking reparation from “over-consuming countries” for damage caused by climate change in developing nations.

“A group of lawyers are actually thinking of it already,” he said, referring to a network called Global Legal Action on Climate Change.

“The countries most affected in Asia and Africa will begin to stand up and take action if they get nothing from Copenhagen.”

Frustration among the G77 group of developing countries over what they see as a search for loopholes by rich nations to evade their responsibilities led to a walk- out by delegates from one of the sessions preparing for December’s climate conference in the Danish capital.

Yesterday, the G77 – which actually consists of 130 UN member states, plus China – resorted to a familiar tactic by threatening to block further talks unless more substantive progress was made in drafting a realistic negotiating text for ministers to finalise in Copenhagen.

More frustration was evident among the International Youth delegation at the Bangkok talks; they told a press briefing that they had “no confidence in the road to Copenhagen” because the current text was “so weak and full of ‘false solutions’ that it’s unacceptable”.

They cited the failure to secure strong targets on cutting emissions from developed countries, a growing concern that the Kyoto Protocol would be allowed to expire in 2012 and lack of guarantees for protection of indigenous peoples’ rights and interests.

Joshua Kahn Russell, a US delegate from the Rainforest Action Network, said: “We cannot allow rich countries to use US inaction as an excuse to kill the Kyoto Protocol. Our future cannot be held hostage to the politics and interests of the United States or any other country.”

Anna Collins, representing the Youth Climate Coalition in Britain, said young people had been “looking to the rich developed countries like those in the EU to take a leading role to secure an ambitious climate change deal in Copenhagen, but they are failing us.”

Kim Carstensen, of the World Wildlife Fund, said delegates in Bangkok were “still in the mode of talking in circles – on finance, adaptation and mitigation. What’s needed is a strong political will to consolidate the [negotiating] texts for a decisive outcome in Copenhagen.”

Kaisa Kosonen, Greenpeace International’s climate policy expert, said it was “no wonder developing countries are getting very impatient” when there was as yet “no real targets on the table and no real finance” to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.

At the Climate Action Network’s daily briefing, she said developed countries had “avoided discussing their targets” to reduce emissions for the past four years and still had not agreed on how these should be measured or even whether 1990 should be the base year.

Referring to moves by the US and others to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a less binding agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ms Kosonen said the world “doesn’t have time to start from scratch” and needed to keep the “architecture” so laboriously built around Kyoto.

She said 1990 “must be the base year” against which to measure cuts in emissions – as it is under the protocol – and there must also be five-year commitment periods, with the emphasis on domestic action rather than seeking offsets by buying carbon credits abroad.

A report published yesterday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said current proposals by the developed countries to reduce emissions by 10-15 per cent by 2020 “do not yet suffice” to limit global warming to a rise of 2 degrees Celsius in average temperatures.

“Developed countries as a group would need to increase their reduction targets for 2020 by at least 6 to 10 per cent, in order to keep the 2 degrees objective [agreed both by the EU and G8] within reach”, it said, adding that global cost would be only 0.2 per cent of GDP in 2020.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times

Interview with Lester Brown by Stephen Leahy - URGENT!

2009-10-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

Stephen Leahy in Canada writes:

The venerable Lester Brown says he's not crazy, its the MSM that underplays the seriousness of climate change that are truly the crazy ones. In my interview with Brown he says we need 80% carbon reductions by 2020 and believes it can be done.

Q&A with Lester Brown: "We Can't Afford to Let the Planet Get Much Hotter"

Stephen Leahy interviews LESTER BROWN, founder of the Earth Policy Institute

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 7, 3009 (IPS) - Lester Brown says his views sometimes appear extreme - because the mainstream media largely doesn't understand the urgency and challenges in avoiding catastrophic climate change.

The founder and president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, he is also considered by many to be one of the world's most influential thinkers.

"It looks like I'm a radical because the mainstream media aren't found the Worldwatch Institute in 1974.

The winner of many awards and honourary degrees, Brown is the author of 50 books. In 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide a roadmap for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy.

His most recent book is "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization", the fourth and perhaps most urgent version of the Plan B series, available for download at the institute's website. In Plan 4.0, Brown calls for carbon emissions cuts of 80 percent by 2020.

"We cannot afford to let the planet get much hotter," he explains simply.

MORE AT LINK

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48758

IPS environmental correspondent Stephen Leahy recently spoke with Brown on the launch of his new book.

IPS: You are calling for global carbon reductions of 80 percent by 2020. That's far, far more than what any country is proposing to do right now.

LESTER BROWN: Political leaders look at how much of a cut in emissions is politically feasible. At the Earth Policy Institute, we looked at how much of a cut is necessary to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.

Already the massive Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting at accelerating rates. If they melt completely, it would raise sea levels by 12 metres (39 feet). Mountain glaciers around the world are shrinking and at risk of disappearing, including those in the mountains of Asia whose ice melt feeds the continent's major rivers during the dry season.

To stabilise the climate and keep future global temperature rise to a minimum we need to keep the concentration of CO2 (carbon dioxide) to 400 parts per million.

IPS: Is such a huge global reduction in emissions even possible?

LB: It will take a worldwide mobilisation at wartime speed. First, investing in energy efficiency will allow us to keep global energy demand from increasing. Switching lighting to LEDs (light emitting diodes) and use of smart sensors like motion detectors could reduce the amount of electricity used in lighting by 90 percent.

Then we can cut carbon emissions by one-third by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources for electricity and heat production. In a few years time, Texas will quadruple its wind energy output to 8,000 megawatts. And it plans to grow to 40,000 megawatts, the equivalent of 50 coal-fired power plants. The rate of change is breathtaking.

A further 14 percent cut in emissions would come from restructuring our transportation systems and reducing coal and oil use in industry. Ending net deforestation worldwide can cut CO2 emissions another 16 percent. Last, planting trees and managing soils to sequester carbon can absorb 17 percent of our current emissions.

None of these initiatives depends on new technologies. We know what needs to be done to reduce CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2020. All that is needed now is leadership.

IPS: Most people, including our political leaders, don't seem to feel any sense of urgency or danger about climate change. What will motivate this wartime mobilisation?

LB: Change is happening already and it's accelerating. Carbon emissions in the U.S. are down nine percent this year and it's not just due to the recession. I doubt that a new coal plant will be built in the U.S. in future - 22 are being closed or converted this year alone. When rising sea levels become more evident, then people will act.

This is bit like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. There were years of widespread discontent before the fall that festered and engaged many people at the local level and then seemingly overnight there is a political revolution that changes everything. We are moving towards this kind of tipping point.

IPS: What other signs do you see that we are reaching a tipping point?

LB: I see a change in socialising patterns. At one time, getting a driver's license or owning a car was the key to social interactions for young people. That's changing. In Japan, socialisation now happens through the internet and new car sales are in decline. Even in America, the car fleet is shrinking and bike use is going up.

I also see a lot of value searching going on: what are the health affects of cars and our commuting lifestyles? How can we build complete streets with sidewalks, bike lanes that are safe for everyone? The economic downturn has also shifted thinking, I think we will emerge as a much less materialistic society.

IPS: Will this be enough to restructure the world's economies?

LB: I don't know. In the end, the race to save civilisation is between social-political and natural tipping points.

Mother Nature in Tears ?

2009-10-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

On Monday, September 28, 2009, marine and wildlife photographer Michael S. Nolan posted this on his blog, after finding that his famous crying face photo was the subject of controversy among climate change activists and climate change denialists.

Mother Nature in Tears

http://mikenolanwildlifeimages.blogspot.com/2009/09/mother-nature-in-tears.html#links

July 16, 2009 - Austfonna ice cap located on Nordaustlandet in Svalbard, Norway

Mike wrote: "Sometimes an image just seems to be too good to true! The image above has caused quite a stir around the world in so many ways. When I took the image early in the morning on July 16, 2009 from the bow of the National Geographic Explorer I was struck by the unmistakable likeness of the face of a woman crying. In fact once my mind locked onto the face it was hard to see any other pattern in the ice cap. I was moved to photograph this particular waterfall several different ways with a couple of different lenses. It was one of the best examples of a human likeness I have ever witnessed in nature.

All well and fine but now comes the controversy. The image was picked up by one of my best stock agencies in the U.K. and the face was likened to Mother Nature. I loved the stylized look of the waterfall as it formed the pool of tears, and think it is strikingly similar to what a thoughtful yet mournful Mother Nature might appear to look like, and what better place to appear than on the face of the largest (by area) retreating ice cap in all of Europe?

Of course folks on one side of the climate change issue took it as a sign, while folks on the other side of this same issue were sure the image was fabricated. "Photoshop Experts" started weighing in on how the image was manipulated or downright faked all together. From my perspective as the photographer who took the image I am amazed at what strong sentiments this image has provoked, and the ensuing attacks on the authenticity of the face. So here it is, as simply and plainly as I can say it:

This image was shot on July 16, 2009 with a Canon 50D digital camera body and a Canon 70-200mm f2.8L lens. The camera settings were 1/640 second at f5.6, handheld. The image was shot in Canon Camera Raw (CR2) file format. The ONLY things done to this image in Photoshop were a slight crop (to straighten the horizon), color correction (to match the blue of the glacier to what I saw), and sharpening (which RAW photos all require). That's it. Nothing was added or taken away, altered, fabricated, or manipulated.

Is this Mother Nature in Tears? If you want it to be then I say absolutely!

Is it a sign of climate change? Of course, the ice cap is retreating and has been for many years now.

Is this a beautiful stylized look of a woman's face in the Austfonna ice cap? This thought is exactly what moved me to create the image.

Was the image fabricated, manipulated, altered, or down right faked? Absolutely not. The image is exactly as it appeared to me (or as close as minor adjustments in Photoshop could make it). I have the RAW file to prove it, and if you chose to believe otherwise that is of course your right. It is just sad (and pitiful) that anyone would choose to make accusations against someone they don't even know about something they weren't even around to witness for themselves. Really, don't you have anything constructive or positive to do in your life? No? Try a little harder!

Enough already. I encourage everyone to go and experience Mother Nature for themselves, wherever (and however) you can find her! Perhaps she will change your life, as she has changed mine. I have hope for even the most ardent unbelievers. The beauty is all around you, you just have to open your eyes (and heart)."

PHOTO IMAGES

The Austfonna ice cap from the bow of National Geographic Explorer.

Waterfalls formed in the melting ice cap.

A black-legged kittiwake on the wing in front of the ice cap.

To see more of his photography please visit http://www.wildlifeimages.net and see his blog link there too.

The Canary in the Coal Mine: Global Warming!

2009-10-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

Humanity's suicide note at Copenhagen and the need to plan polar cities now

2009-09-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

The head of the European Union said this the other day: "If we do not
get it together before and during the Copenhagen meetings in December,
and get the 250 page document done right, if we don't come together
and get it right, the Copenhagen document will be seen as humanity's
suicide note to the future..."

Paraphrasing, of course. Go see what he said. He did use the term
"suicide note."

Andy, it's way too late to build a cathedral now. For the past two
years i have been watching everyone argue here on Dot Earth about
every which way to go and even today, above, everyone is still
arguing. This is how we will go out, arguing to the end. And the End
is not near, it won't happen for another 500 years or so, but it has
begun. Rather than build a cathedral, we need to start building....... polar
cities, Andy. Planning them, siting them, pre-building them. Those
will be the cathedrals that save the remnants of humankind. Ask James
Lovelock. Why does nobody listen to him? Oh, I forgot, he is an old
man who is off his rocker so why listen to him? SIGH.

A note to Andy Revkin at Dot Earth at the New York Times re CHINA rises, the USA is nobody now

2009-09-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Andy, one more note. You keep framing the debate as if America has some role to play in all this, as if America is the center of the world. It is not. Read the recent oped titled [''China's success and Western woes''] by Orville Schell, the old China hand. China has already replaced America. America is nobody now. America no longer matters. Don't believe me? Wake up, all ye who dwell in the land of the USA, your days are more than numbered, they are already over:

Quote: When I began studying China at Harvard a half-century ago, China's
leaders trumpeted the superiority of their socialist command economy,
which controlled every aspect of life. Hostility between the US and
China prevented students like me from traveling there. But in 1975, there were no private cars,
shops, advertisements or property, I arrived in Beijing. 1975. Fast forward to 2009:

That trip set an indelible baseline against which I have since been
able to measure the changes in CHina since then and the decline of the USA

Quote 2: As the imbalance between China's increasingly dynamic, modern and
globalized economy and its opaque, single-party political rule
deepened, many Western specialists predicted the contradiction would
inevitably trip China up.

Instead, it was the US and the West that went into an economic tailspin.

QUOTE 3: Congress became paralyzed by partisan politics. Seemingly lacking a
central nervous system, it has become a dysfunctional creature with
little capacity to recognize any common national, much less
international, interest.

QUOTE 4: As governments across the West have become increasingly bogged down
trying to fix their economies, China has been formulating a series of
new, well-considered policies and forging ahead with bold
decision-making to tackle one daunting problem after another.

Triumphant after last year's Beijing Olympics, China has undertaken
the most impressive infrastructure program in history, implemented a
highly successful economic stimulus package and is now moving into the
forefront of green technology, renewable energy and energy efficiency
-- the activities out of which the new global economy is certain to
grow.

In short, China is humming with energy, money, plans, leadership and
progress, while the West seems paralyzed.

Quote 5: As I strolled through Tiananmen Square, the paradox that struck me was
that the very system of democratic capitalism that the West has so
ardently advocated seems to be failing us. At the same time, the kind
of authoritarianism and state-managed economics that we have impugned
seems to be serving China well.

It is intellectually and politically unsettling to realize that if the
West cannot quickly straighten out its systems of government, only
politically un-reformed states like China will be able to make the
decisions that a nation needs to survive in today's high-speed,
high-tech, increasingly globalized world.

William Safire, RIP, a very good man and a life well lived -- (combover and all)

2009-09-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

I often corresponded with Mr Safire, and in fact, one of my letters
made it into on his language books in the 1990s. A great man, great
writer. Just one thing, and please do not clobber me for this but I
must ask: why does "an entirely unassuming guy" as one observer so well put it at the Chronicle (sic) of Higher Education,and such a friendly avuncular man, why does he sport a combover in his
later years when he was going bald?

This is something I do not
understand about American intellectuals. We all age, many of us go
bald, there is nothing ugly and unbecoming about being bald. In fact,
an older man who is bald on top looks great! European men seem much less
afraid of going bald than American males.

So why do highly
intelligent people like Bill Safire and David Gergen, another very
good man, why do they bother to "cover up" their heads with combovers
that are completely visible to anyone watching them on TV or in
lecture halls? Who do they think they are fooling?

And if they are in
the businesss of telling the truth and analyzing life, why do they
"lie" to the public by covering up their bald heads? I feel it is a
sorry sorry day when American politiicans and intellectuals feel they
must cover up their bald heads with ridiculous combovers. Okay, so
clobber me on the head for saying this.

But I just saw an interview
with Safire replayed again today on TV for this obit, and there he is
in 2005 with the combover thing, and it looks dishonest. This is what
bugs me about these combovers.

Can anyone explain this? And please do
not get angry over this message so soon after his death, when else should I bring it up? I am asking an important question about
American intellectuals. Combovers make American men look ridiculous.

Communist China's success and Western woes

2009-09-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

China’s success and Western woes: It's China 12, The West 3, in the final inning of the baseball game
By Orville Schell

Sunday, Sept 27, 2009, Page 8

A Obituary for the West (1776 - 2020)

Communist dictatorship China’s government is making massive preparations for a grand National Day propaganda parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s (sic) Republic of China (PRC - sic) and the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) program of “reform and opening up.”

Walking through the square recently, I found myself thinking back to when I first began following China’s amazing odyssey. The iconic, Mona Lisa-like visage of Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) still gazes out from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, but the activities taking place around me suggested how much things had changed.

When I began studying China at Harvard a half-century ago, China’s leaders trumpeted the superiority of their socialist command economy, which controlled every aspect of life. Hostility between the US and China prevented students like me from traveling there.

But in 1975, while Mao still lived, the Cultural Revolution still raged, class politics still held sway and there were no private cars, shops, advertisements or property, I arrived in Beijing. Even we visiting foreigners — all dutifully clad in blue Mao suits and caps — were expected to attend regular political “study sessions” to purify our bourgeois minds with proletarian tracts written by the Gang of Four.

That trip set an indelible baseline against which I have since been able to measure the changes China has undergone.

As Deng began to encourage individual incentives over the next decades — embodied in such slogans as “To Get Rich Is Glorious” — China’s private economy began to rise from the ashes of Mao’s revolution and I watched with amazement.

As this process unfolded, it became fashionable for market fundamentalists in the West to bask in a sense of vindication. After all, were the scales not falling away from the eyes of Chinese leaders, and were they not now turning for salvation toward the god of capitalism that they had once so militantly denounced?

This “end-of-history” interlude, when communism was either failing or recycling itself into its opposite, also encouraged many latter-day US political missionaries to proselytize for democracy and capitalism — to urge China’s leaders to abandon state controls not only over their economy, but over their political system as well.

Of course, China’s leaders vigorously resisted that evangelism — especially after the collapse of communism in Europe in 1989 — often berating the West for “intruding in the internal affairs of China” and clinging even more to their Leninist, one-party form of governance.

As the imbalance between China’s increasingly dynamic, modern and globalized economy and its opaque, single-party political rule deepened, many Western specialists predicted the contradiction would inevitably trip China up.

Instead, it was the US and the West that went into an economic tailspin.

When, after the eight catastrophic years of US president George W. Bush’s administration, his successor Barack Obama entered the White House, it seemed for a moment as if the US might be able to arrest its downward slide. But then Obama ran into a perfect storm of the worst aspects of US democracy: red-state provincialism and ignorance, fearful conservatism, Republican Party obstructionism and even some Democratic Party dissidence.

Congress became paralyzed by partisan politics. Seemingly lacking a central nervous system, it has become a dysfunctional creature with little capacity to recognize any common national, much less international, interest.

Under such circumstances, even a brilliant leader with an able staff and promising policies will be unable to pursue his agenda.

As governments across the West have become increasingly bogged down trying to fix their economies, China has been formulating a series of new, well-considered policies and forging ahead with bold decision-making to tackle one daunting problem after another.

Triumphant after last year’s Beijing Olympics, China has undertaken the most impressive infrastructure program in history, implemented a highly successful economic stimulus package and is now moving into the forefront of green technology, renewable energy and energy efficiency — the activities out of which the new global economy is certain to grow.

In short, China is humming with energy, money, plans, leadership and progress, while the West seems paralyzed.

As I strolled through Tiananmen Square, the paradox that struck me was that the very system of democratic capitalism that the West has so ardently advocated seems to be failing us. At the same time, the kind of authoritarianism and state-managed economics that we have impugned seems to be serving China well.

It is intellectually and politically unsettling to realize that if the West cannot quickly straighten out its systems of government, only politically un-reformed states like China will be able to make the decisions that a nation needs to survive in today’s high-speed, high-tech, increasingly globalized world.

Orville Schell is director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Taiwan Mobile

Jon Favreau commits gaffe in Obama UN speech: re: "black, white and brown..." WHAT? NO ASIANS NEED APPLY?

2009-09-27T21:32:00.001-07:00

Jon Favreau, ghostwriting for Obama, leaves out ASIAN people at UN General Assembly address on Sept. 23: "Together, north and south, east, west, black, white, and brown...

NO ASIANS IN NEW WORLD ORDER?

President Obama leaves out yellow people at UN General Assembly address: "Together, north and south, east, west, black, white, and brown...NO YELLOW?

2009-09-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

QUOTE:

In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. .... Together, we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides -- coalitions of different faiths and creeds; of north and south, east, west, *black, *white, and *brown.

UH? YELLOW? PRESIDENT OBAMA, YELLOW? DID YOU LEAVE OUT ALL ASIAN PEOPLE ON PURPOSE? FAUX PAS? GAFFE? SPEECHWRITER'S WHITE OVERSIGHT?

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments........

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 23, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

United Nations Headquarters
New York, New York

An Interview with Dr Steven Moffic, compiler and chief author of the Global Warming Mental Health Fact Sheet for the PSR

2009-09-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Dr Steven Moffic, compiler and chief author of the
Global Warming Mental Health Fact Sheet of the Physicians for Social
Responsibility in Washington, DC

http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/mental-health-implications-of-global-warming.pdf

interview conducted and edited by Danny Bloom, Internet blogger

Webposted October 1, 2009

[ Editor's Note: Dr H. Steven Moffic of Milwaukee has compiled and authored a very
important "Global Warming Mental Health Fact Sheet" of the Physicians
for Social Responsibility in Washington, DC. It is part of four other
fact sheets on climate change and global warming that the PSR has
compiled. The other fact sheets from the PSR cover such topics as Heat's Deadly
Effects, Vector-Borne and Water-Borne Diseases, Shrinking the Food
Supply and Vulnerable Populations, Environmental Justice. All five
facts sheets can be viewed at www.psr.org. This interview
was conducted in late September by email. The fact sheet is listed below at the bottom of this page, please scroll down if you are using a computer.]

When asked how he got started on this project of compiling a mental health fact sheet on global warming for the PSR, of which he is a member, Dr Moffic said: "As a physician, these fact sheets seemed excellent to me, but as a
psychiatrist I was chagrined that mental health was barely mentioned.
Yet again. Over the last 2 years, I've found that mental health is
usually left out of the health discussions on global warming
(including President Obama's recent speech), even though our
psychology is crucial to the development, maintenance, and
repercussions of global warming. Of course, this is not new for mental
health and illness. The stigma around mental illness is longstanding
and powerful, so it is not surprising to find its impact also in the
discussions on global warming."

Dr Moffic continued: "Since I had been working on incorporating
psychiatry into the global warming debate for these 2 years, this
seemed like another good opportunity to do so, especially because PSR
is such a renowned and respected organization. This also offered a
unique way to discuss this in terms of a checklist of scientific
facts. I've found that we need to try all kinds of ways of
communication, as people learn and become interested in different
ways, to address the issues of climate change and global warming. That
was my start, my inspiration. I wanted to contribute my ideas to all
this."

"When the PSR realized this mental health data was missing from the
earlier fact sheets, both the director and deputy direction of the
environment & health committee supported my project. The deputy
director, Barbara Gottlieb, was the editor.

Dr Moffic continued: "I already had an annotated bibliography on ''The
Psychological Aspects of Global Warming'' that I put together for a
national think tank meeting about 6 months ago. From that, I narrowed
in on this topic. The major reference that I used was a book by Cindy
Parker and Steven Shapiro titled "Climate Chaos: Your Health At
Risk"."

When asked how long it took to complete the project, Dr Moffic
replied: "It didn't take me long to finish the project, about a day
or two of hard work, since I like to "strike when the iron is hot",
but its publication on the Web site had to await the completion of
other important PSR projects."

The mental health fact sheet on global warming was vetted and edited
by the PSR team, according to Moffic, who added: "Barbara Gottlieb
processed it, and she sent it to Steve Shapiro, a psychologist and one
of the authors of that book mentioned above. He had a couple of good
suggestions that we incorporated."

The PSR shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 about the nuclear arms
race. The PSR's mission statement is: "Guided by the values and
expertise of medicine and public health, Physicians for Social
Responsibility works to protect human life from the gravest threats to
health and survival."

Dr Moffic said that the PSR now feels that global warming is as grave
a threat as nuclear proliferation, and that is why these five fact
sheets were compiled.

"PSR shared the Nobel Peace Price in 1985 for building public
awareness and pressure to end the nuclear arms race," Moffic
explained. "I think any organization that can make a major impact on
cooling global warming should receive consideration for the award,
since you'll note on the fact sheet that global warming will likely
lead to increased international conflict and war over changing and
scarce resources. The U.S. military recognizes this and now is a
driving force for our country to address global warming. Maybe the PSR
will be nominated or even win another Nobel Prize someday for these
five fact sheets, who knows. And not only for these fact sheets, but for all the related extensive and extraordinary work PSR is doing to address global warming."

When asked who the target audience for the fact sheet is, Dr Moffic
said: "It's for everyone, for medical professional to the lay public,
students and grandparents, everyone, really, and I tried to write it
clearly and simply enough for that."

Although the fact sheets appear in English only now, Dr Moffic said he
hoped that in the future, they might be translated into other major
world languages. "This is obviously a global problem, and the mental
health concerns are relevant to all," he said.

When asked about how the five facts sheets might reach the public, via
publicity and media attention, Dr Moffic said that word is slowly
getting out to the media, and that the PSR hopes for some major
publicity soon in the pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post
and the Guardian newspaper in London, among other media outlets
worldwide. "We are beginning out PR campaign now, and this interview
will help.," he said. "Thank you for your interest in this."

Dr Moffic noted that he was told a few months ago by a reporter
at the New York Times, that "the psychology of the global warming
problem was the toughest variable to address" in the media. "But this
is all the more reason for the PSR to get the word out and for the
world to listen to us."

Dr Moffic hopes that the five fact sheets from the PSR, including the
fact sheet on mental health and global warming, will reach a broad
audience worldwide.

"I now have 4 grandchildren, and the birth of our third grandchild, a
girl, about 3 years ago, was an epiphany and catalyst for me," Dr.
Moffic said. "Right after she was born, I went to the local grocery
store to do some shopping and the clerk asked, as usual: 'paper or
plastic?' Thinking of my fourth grandchild, so new to the world then,
I froze for a second, because I realized the answer was relevant for
her future. How then could I not try to save the environment for the
well-being of all our children? This seems to me to be a personal
moral, and a professional ethical, imperative."

Dr Moffic added that he hopes his fact sheet will also be of interest
to his colleagues in the field of psychiatry worldwide, noting: "It
soemtimes seems that due to the daily pressures of our work and the
needs of our patients, we as a professional group haven't paid that
much attention to this problem yet. If this list will make that easier
to do so, to pay attention, I will feel pleased."

http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/mental-health-implications-of-global-warming.pdf

[For media interviews with Dr Moffic -- via print, radio, TV and blogs -- on The Global Warming Mental Health Fact Sheet, please contact him at his office -- or contact this reporter at danbloom@gmail.com and forwarding details
will be provided.]

Health Implications of Global Warming:

Be Mindful of Mental Health

Global warming is acknowledged by scientists around the world to be a reality and to be caused primarily by
human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. As the earth warms, the delicate balance of climate,
weather events and life is disrupted. Consequences emerge that threaten human health and, ultimately, survival.
This is one of several fact sheets produced by Physicians for Social Responsibility that examine recent scientific
evidence of global warming’s impact on health.

All of the specific health risks of global warming have associated mental health risks.i

• Heat waves contribute to more alcohol and substance abuse.ii
• Just an increase of 1 degree F (0.5 C) seems to increase the risk of violent behavior, especially in warm climates and the inner city.iii
• Food and water shortages threaten our basic sense of security and therefore are associated with increases in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health problems.iv
• The chronic drought in the outback of Australia is causing a new and dangerous variation of grief, solastalgia, which is a kind of distress about environmental losses in one’s homeland.v
• Perceptions of poor air quality results in increased anxiety, especially in children, along with increased family violence.vi
• Individual panic and group hysteria are risks of vector-borne or waterborne diseases. Recent harbingers of this possibility were seen in the SARS epidemic.vii
• People with schizophrenia are of particular risk health-wise as they tend to ignore health risks and tend not to take necessary precautions. One study links increased air pollution, specifically from motor vehicles, with an increased risk for schizophrenia. If duplicated, this would be an important finding with implications in regard to climate change.viii
• When viewed in the totality of its impacts, global warming creates the potential for large-scale human conflict, as a result of displacement from climate-scarred lands and/or disputes over increasingly scarce resources.
The direct mental health risks of global warming have some unusual variations.
• The mental health implications will vary with the type, suddenness, and scale of climate change damage, as well as the social, historical, and cultural context. All of this will be filtered through the resilience of each individual.ix
• In certain isolated locales, the climate change of global warming can be desirous and beneficial to human life, at least temporarily. In these environments, mental wellbeing can improve.

NOTE: "Yet more people are likely to be vulnerable to the mental health implications of climate change than to physical health impacts", according to one observer. That remark does not figure into the fact sheet above, since -- even though Dr Moffic thought it was likely to turn out to be true -- he also felt it was too speculative for a “fact” sheet.

NOTE TWO: This fact sheet has been sent to a key coalition of nonprofits lobbying on climate change. It is a very large list of top activists. It has also been sent out to the Sierra Club list of coal activists – another good list, with subscribers all across the country.

INTERVIEW POSSIBILITIES:

National Public Radio, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED show
BBC - UK
CNN, Sanjay Gupta medical correspondent
New York Times
Washington Post
Boston Globe
Los Angeles Times
Juneau Empire
Chicago Tribune
Yahoo News
Drudge Report
Climate Depot

NOTE THREE: FROM PSR:
Hi
I’m pleased to send you a new PSR fact sheet on the health impacts of global warming: Health Implications of Global Warming: Be Mindful of Mental Health compiled by Dr H Steven Moffic. While the health effects of global warming are becoming more widely recognized, the mental health impacts are often overlooked. Yet more people are likely to be vulnerable to the mental health implications of climate change than to physical health impacts.

PSR has also prepared four other fact sheets on the health impacts of global warming. As debate heats up about climate legislation, PSR invites you to use them all when you talk to policy-makers. You can access them at http://www.psr.org/resources/new-global-warming-factsheets.html

Best,

Barbara Gottlieb
Deputy Director, Environment & Health
Physicians for Social Responsibility
1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, suite 1012
Washington, DC 20009
202-587-5225

Roger Cohen: Intelligence: New York Times, Tom Brady, Distant Echoes Under a Plum Tree

2009-09-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

Distant Echoes Under a Plum Tree

Cherence France

by Roger Cohen, New York Times embellisher par excellence ! (Kidding, Roger, Kidding!

Back in 1975, Claire Izzouz studied puppetry in Taiwan with one of the great glove puppeteers, Li Tien-lu. They became friends and, in later years, Li often visited.

Such was his attachment to Cherence, and such peace he found in this French village, that when Li died in 1998, he requested that part of his anatomy find its final resting place here. At a ceremony in 1999, a piece of bone -- believed to be a fragment of the great man's left finger -- was buried under [Claire's plum tree]. There were offerings galore so he should lack for nothing in the next life.

This year, Li's son died. Naturally he wanted to be close to his father [in France, even though he was Taiwanese]. So arrangements were made ...[through Claire] ... [and] father and son, or rather, tiny fragments of the finger bones of each, were united beneath the plum tree.

When the chutney was made, and judged satisfactory, I took a jar of it to Claire's. We met under the plum tree. Or rather, India and China met, and France, too, as the bells chimed from the 12th century [church]. Marrying East and West, past and future, life and death, the global village lives as a New York Times reporter makes up a story out of whole cloth!

NOTE: This "story" by New York Times reporter Roger Cohen is a blatant lie and not true at all. In addition, India did not meet CHINA, India met Taiwan. But Roger Cohen, for all his education, does not know the difference yet. Why he makes up stories like this and submits them to the New York Times is hard to fathom.

But one of the reasons Cohen was able to get away with this sloppy writing was that

1. it does not appear online anywhere in the world so no other reporters or readers or editors can check it for accuracy

2. Cohen writes this special Intelligence column for the NYTimes weekly insert in foreign newspapers as a special arrangement, it is NOT his real job at the Times and he does not CARE about what he writes here, it's just an obligation and if he lies and cheats a bit, nobody will notice, he knows.

3. Cohen apparently looks down at non-English readers of the New York Times and thinks he can tell embellished stories like this and get away with it.

2.

Climte Depot webmaster Marc Morano took down my criticism of climate denialists after less than a day, showing that he is in denial himself. Gotcha!

2009-09-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Climate Depot webmaster and all around nice guy Marc Morano took down -- read: censored, "deleted" -- my criticism of climate denialists after less than a day, showing that he is in denial himself. Gotcha, Marc! You say you are open to all POVs but in fact you are not. Marc wrote me when I asked where the post was:

Yes {i took it down] , It is in my archive. I put it up long enough on the home page. It
struck me as just trying to get attention. I left it up for almost a day.