Oops, We’re Doomed!

By Michael Collins

We don’t have a substantial cushion between today’s climate and dangerous warming. James E. Hanson

The head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James E. Hansen, announced the results of break through global warming research last week. The earth’s temperature is rising at a much quicker pace than previously anticipated according to research by the nation’s preeminent climate scientist. We have little time to reverse the trend. (Image)

An example of the dangerous pace of change is emerging on Russia’s Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf. Long-frozen permafrost is beginning to melt due to global warming. This threat was identified years ago due to the potential for highly toxic releases of heat-trapping methane gas. Recent changes are both a surprise and a cause for alarm. There is more methane gas released from the Russian cauldron “than the CH4 emissions estimate for the entire world ocean.” Methane is a “far more potent GHG [greenhouse gas] than CO2″ with a greater potential to cause “abrupt climate change.”

Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: The Escalation of BP’s Liability

Louisiana seafood distributor Dean Blanchard, with recently found oil taken from a nearby marsh. © Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera

By Dahr Jamail
Global Research

As oil, sickness and contamination persist, Gulf residents and lawyers file thousands of lawsuits against the oil giant.

“If you got caught humping another woman – [if] you’re both naked and caught in the act – you’d want BP to explain to your wife how it didn’t happen.”

This colorful analogy was proposed by Dean Blanchard, a seafood distributor on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to explain oil giant BP’s continuing machinations to evade liability in the aftermath of the April 2010 disaster.

Über-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President

The Koch Brothers, from “The Joker’s Wild” deck of cards by Greg Palast and Bob Grossman. Click here for all cards.

By Greg Palast
TruthOut

The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul “The Vulture” Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs—and why they need to buy the White House

NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research

MAP: Africom’s regional interests. Copyright Stratfor.com 2011

The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi’s Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to “protect innocent civilians.” In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China’s economic achilles heel, namely China’s strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world’s second largest importer of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.

Internal Combustion

By Robert C. Koehler

What entitlement! I hit the gas, power off to my destination. No one asks me whether the trip is serious or banal, necessary or foolish, conscious or impulsive. I just go, ripping up the miles as though they were daydreams. The engine purrs. My name is Everyman, and I have the power of gods.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not addicted or anything. I can get off oil whenever I want to. On the other hand, I may be willing to sacrifice 740,000 acres of pristine boreal forest in Northern Canada — part of one of the largest intact ecosystems left on the planet — along with, oh, 166 million birds, and all the remaining caribou inAlberta, before I do.

Tough call.

Understand the Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
Preface to the Second Edition

Barely a few weeks after the military coup in Chile on September 11, 1973, overthrowing the elected government of President Salvador Allende, the military Junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet ordered a hike in the price of bread from 11 to 40 escudos, a hefty overnight increase of 264%. This economic shock treatment had been designed by a group of economists called the “Chicago Boys”.

At the time of the military coup, I was teaching at the Institute of Economics of the Catholic University of Chile, which was a nest of Chicago trained economists, disciples of Milton Friedman. On that September 11, in the hours following the bombing of the Presidential Palace of La Moneda, the new military rulers imposed a 72-hour curfew. When the university reopened several days later, the “Chicago Boys” were rejoicing. Barely a week later, several of my colleagues at the Institute of Economics were appointed to key positions in the military government.

Libya-What Now?

By Brian Downing

After weeks of indecision, the NATO powers and a few Arab states have taken action against the Kadafi regime and its armed forces. NATO aircraft and missiles have devastated loyalist air defenses, troops concentrations, and supply convoys. Rebel forces have been heartened and have even made some counteroffensives out of their enclave in Benghazi. (Image)

NATO resolve is not strong, but an agreement today (March 24) will likely guarantee that the air campaign continues. Abandoning it now or reducing it to a no-fly zone only would be a severe embarrassment to the alliance and lead to lasting mistrust within it. Furthermore, it might leave Libya in a murderous stalemate or an unstable partition ever on the brink of renewed war.

Libyan Revolution Enters Critical Phase – the Battle for Tripoli

France grants official recognition to rebel Libyan National Council Mar 10
Official from French president’s office says France will send ambassador to Benghazi and receive Libyan envoy in Paris; announcement follows meet between Sarkozy and officials from Libyan National Council.
Battles rage over Libyan cities Mar 10 08:03 GMT
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi pound Az-Zawiyah and Ras Lanuf as world debates imposition of a no-fly zone.
New air raids hit Libyan oil city Mar 9 23:37 GMT
Strategic city of Ras Lanuf comes under heavy shelling by government forces, with reports of deaths and injuries. Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have launched new air raids on the oil city of Ras Lanuf and are closing in on the western town of Az Zawiyah. See video at article
Founding statement of the Interim Transitional National Council
The Council emphasised that the most important role is the one played by the youth. They were the base of foundation of the revolution and the focal power for the Libyan to reach where they stand today to be able to demand the termination of the dictatorial regime. 7:40pm March 9 The Libyan regime has offered a nearly $500,000 bounty for the capture of the chairman of the opposition National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, according to state TV.
Arab Countries May Back No-Fly Zone for Libya Within Days, Ambassador Says Mar 9 12:01 EST
The Arab League feels a “sense of urgency” over violence in Libya and may call this week for a no-fly zone to shield civilians and rebels from further attacks by Muammar Qaddafi’s forces, the Arab League’s ambassador in Washington said.
Libya oil tanks seen as ‘time bomb’ Mar 9 11:02 GMT
Desperate Gaddafi might hit oil facilities in an attempt to fend off encroaching rebels, sparking a human catastrophe.

William Engdahl, *Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century*

Globalization and de-industrialization were the opening moves of the trap- privatization is the trap closing on our necks.  Of course the rest of the world has been experiencing all this for a long time; but we are no longer the minor beneficiaries of American Imperialism, we have become the next course in its move to devour the world.- Claudia

Find the book at: Amazon Review of: Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century (Paperback) by Reg Little

William Engdahl’s latest book is another awesome exploration and explanation of the boldness and failings of Anglo-American global strategy over most of the past century and a half. Engdahl recalls in his introduction a statement from the 1970’s attributed to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a protégé of the powerful Rockefeller circles, in which he declared, “If you control the oil, you control entire nations; if you control the food, you control the people; if you control the money, you control the entire world.”

Global group sues BP for Gulf of Mexico spill under Ecuador’s Rights of Nature clause

Historic Moment in the defence of the Rights of Nature

Quito, Ecuador:  On Nov. 26, a historic case was filed by an international coalition of defenders of nature’s rights at the Constitutional court of Ecuador against BP and its crimes against nature.  Ecuador recognises the rights of nature in its current constitution adopted in 2008. The rights of nature are universal. This provides the fundamental basis for this legal case.

The case was brought with regard to the massive environmental disaster caused when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010.  That incident exposed BP’s drive to maximise profit with total disregard of nature and its rights. The company constantly lied with regard to the scale of the disaster and toped this up by using unusually high amounts of toxic chemical dispersants to cover up the spill. This disaster was not limited to the Gulf Coast but has wider reach through the movement of water as well as atmospheric pollutions.

Keep It in the Ground

Destroying the Amazon for profit

By Elissa Dennis
Dollars & Sense

In the far eastern reaches of Ecuador, in the Amazon basin rain forest, lies a land of incredible beauty and biological diversity. More than 2,200 varieties of trees reach for the sky, providing a habitat for more species of birds, bats, insects, frogs, and fish than can be found almost anywhere else in the world. Indigenous Waorani people have made the land their home for millennia, including the last two tribes living in voluntary isolation in the country. The land was established as Yasuní National Park in 1979, and recognized as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1989.

Underneath this landscape lies a different type of natural resource: petroleum. Since 1972, oil has been Ecuador’s primary export, representing 57% of the country’s exports in 2008; oil revenues comprised on average 26% of the government’s revenue between 2000 and 2007. More than 1.1 billion barrels of heavy crude oil have been extracted from Yasuní, about one quarter of the nation’s production to date.

The Preamble; Fix it or Nix It?

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth’s crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polish policies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.

What went wrong with Obama

By Numerian posted by Michael Collins

One of the fictions propagated in American history courses – of the order of Washington throwing a dollar coin across the Potomac – is the theory that America always comes up with brilliant leaders at a time of crisis. Witness Washington himself, and Lincoln, Wilson, or Franklin Roosevelt (Republicans will throw in Reagan for balance). This was supposed to have something to do with the genius of the Constitution and the American political system’s ability to surface political talent.

A time of crisis is certainly upon the US, and the entire globe for that matter. The financial system is ratcheting itself down step by step into a total, catastrophic collapse, bringing default and ruin to over-leveraged borrowers everywhere. The global economy’s dependence on petroleum is more and more seen as a point of extreme fragility which could, like the corrupt financial order, bring economic growth to a complete halt. The nations of the world cannot agree what to do about global warming, and this failure alone seems to show we are incapable of setting aside personal gain for the common good, even when the survival of so many species (including our own) is at stake.

BP: Texas Tea or Gulf Coast Coffee

By Betsy L. Angert

For more than a century, in unison, the planet’s population proclaimed, thankfully petroleum flows. Oil powers our machines. The refined product has helped us manufacture massive quantities of clothing, aluminum sheet, and photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. “Plastics.” As was professed in a popular film decades ago, “There’s a great future in plastics.” Presently, and in the past, BP understood this and much more. The company’s Executives knew petroleum could and would provide endless profits, power, and a perpetual presence.

The world as crack house

BUZZ THIS

By Michael Collins

Crack house: “A place “where people make, deal and smoke crack cocaine. This could be a house, an apartment, or a shack to name a few…” Urban Dictionary

The G-20 and big oil treat the earth as though it were a crack house. They set up shop, trash the premises, without regard to the surroundings — all for the purpose of creating and selling a substance that people simply can’t do without.

Mother Earth to Billions, We Have a Problem

By Betsy L. Angert

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Americans acknowledge there is a problem. Petroleum pours out from a broken pipe. Thousands of barrels of fuel flow freely through the Gulf of Mexico, just as they have for more than a month. Plants, animals, and people are affected. People express distress. Millions are dismayed. What can BP do? Indeed what can any company or citizens do? Most call upon the President. Mister Obama, the electorate pleads, please, protect us. These same citizens ignore that the protection we need is from ourselves. Our present circumstances are a reflection of our past. Many Americans have forgotten an earlier time, when another of this country’s Chief Executives attempted to avoid the nightmare we experience today.

Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?

By Ezili Danto
OpenSalon

Did the mining of Haiti’s riches since 2004 GW Bush regime change cause the earthquake? Listen to Ezili Dantò on mining Haiti’s riches and concern for environmental degradation by the foreign companies. (Read the transcript with reference links.)

“The idea that human activity can cause seismic activity is widely accepted in the scientific community …the connection between oil production and earthquakes dates back to at least the 1920s, when geologists in South Texas noted faulting near the Goose Creek oil field…A 1967 human-triggered earthquake in western India linked to the Koyna Dam registered a 7.0 earthquake.”

Since the earthquake, I’ve had occasion to ponder, like many others, about what may have caused this heretofore-unknown natural disaster in Haiti? 

The Devil’s Excrement: Can oil-rich countries avoid the resource curse?

By Moisés Naim

Oil is a curse. Natural gas, copper, and diamonds are also bad for a country’s health. Hence, an insight that is as powerful as it is counterintuitive: Poor but resource-rich countries tend to be underdeveloped not despite their hydrocarbon and mineral riches butbecause of their resource wealth. One way or another, oil — or gold or zinc — makes you poor. This fact is hard to believe, and exceptions such as Norway and the United States are often used to argue that oil and prosperity can indeed go together.