Image above: As the planet warms, more extreme conditions are imminent. As a result a series of enduring droughts in East Africa has already caused widespread deaths, malnutrition, and fueled the migration of refugees to Europe. Photo From original article and (https://www.flickr.com/photos/savethechildrenusa/5912004723/).
Our window of time to act on climate may be shrinking even faster than previously thought.
We may only have one year remaining before we lock in 1.5ºC of warming—the ideal goal outlined in the Paris climate agreement—after which we'll see catastrophic and irreversible climate shifts, many experts have warned.
That's under the most pessimistic calculations. According to the most optimistic prediction, we have four years to kick our carbon habit and avert 1.5º of warming.
And to limit warming to 2ºC—the limit agreed upon in the Paris climate accord—we have nine years to act under the most pessimistic scenario, and 23 years to act under the most optimistic.
"So far, there is no track record for reducing emissions globally," explained Fabian Löhe, spokesperson for MCC, in an email to Common Dreams. "Instead, greenhouse gas emissions have been rising at a faster pace during the last decade than previously—despite growing awareness and political action across the globe.
Once we have exhausted the carbon budget, every ton of CO2 that is released by cars, buildings, or industrial plants would need to be compensated for during the 21st century by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere again.
Generating such 'negative emissions' is even more challenging and we do not know today at which scale we might be able to do that."
Climate activists and environmentalists have also long warned of the potential negative consequences of geoengineering and other carbon capture schemes, as Common Dreams has reported.
"Hence, the clock shows that time is running out: it is not enough to act sometime in the future, but it is necessary to implement more ambitious climate policies already in the very short-term," Löhe added.
"Take all of the most difficult features of individual pathways to 2ºC—like fast and ambitious climate action in all countries of the world, the full availability of all required emissions reduction and carbon removal technologies, as well as aggressive energy demand reductions across the globe—the feasibility of which were so heatedly debated prior to Paris," Löhe said. "This gives you an idea of the challenge associated with the more ambitious 1.5°C goal."
That's according to the ticking carbon budget clock created by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). The clock's countdown now shows that only one year is left in the world's carbon budget before the planet heats up more than 1.5º over pre-industrial temperatures.
James Schlesinger once uttered one of those profound truths that explain a lot of what we see around us: it was: "people have only two modes of operation: complacency and panic."
So far, we have been in the "complacency" mode of operation in regard to climate change: it doesn't exist, if exist it is not a problem, if it is a problem, it is not our fault, and anyway doing something about it would be too expensive to be worth doing. But the latest temperature data are nothing but spine-chilling.
What are we seeing? Is this just a sort of a rebound from the so-called "pause"? Or something much more worrisome? We may be seeing something that portends a major switch in the climate system; an unexpected acceleration of the rate of change.
There are reasons to be worried, very worried: the CO2 emissions seem to have peaked, but that didn't generate a slowdown of the rate of increase of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. If nothing else, it is growing faster than ever. And then there is the ongoing methane spike and, as you know, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
What's happening? Nobody can say for sure, but these are not good symptoms; not at all. And that may be a good reason to switch to panic mode.
The problem is that societies; specifically in the form called "states" do not normally show much intelligence in their behavior, especially when they are in a state of panic. One of the reasons is that states are normally ruled by psychopaths whose attitude is based on a set of simple rules, mainly involving intimidation or violence, or both.
But it is not just a question of psychopaths in power; the whole society reacts to threats like a psychopath: with the emphasis on doing "something", without much concern about whether it is the right thing to do and what would the consequences could be. So, if climate starts to be perceived as a real and immediate threat, we may expect a reaction endowed with all the strategic finesse of a street brawl: "you hit me - I hit you."
A possible, counterintuitive, panic reaction might be of "doubling down" in the denial of the threat. That could lead to actions such as actively suppressing the diffusion of data and studies about climate; de-funding climate research, closing down climate research centers, marginalizing those who believe that climate is a problem; for instance classifying them among "terrorists."
All that is already happening in some degree and it may well become the next craze, in particular if the coming US elections will handle the presidency to an active climate denier. That would mean hard times for at least a few years for everyone who is trying to do something against climate change. And, perhaps, it would mean the total ruin of the Earth's ecosystem.
The other possibility is to switch all the way to the other extreme and fight climate change with the same methods used to fight terrorism; that is, bombing it into submission.
Of course, you cannot bomb the earth's climate into submission, but the idea of forcing the ecosystem to behave the way we want is the basic concept of "geoengineering".
In the world of environmentalism, geoengineering enjoys more or less the same reputation that Saddam Hussein enjoyed in the Western press in the 1990s. That's for good reasons: geoengineering is often a set of ideas that go from the dangerous to the impossible, all ringing of desperation.
For a good idea of how exactly desperate these ideas can be, just take a look at the results of a recent study on the idea of pumping huge amounts of seawater on top of the Antarctic ice sheet in order to prevent sea level rise. If it were a science fiction novel, you'd say it is too silly to be worth reading.
However, it may be appropriate to start familiarizing with the idea that geoengineering might be the next world craze. And, perhaps, it is better to take the risk of doing something that could go wrong than to do nothing, considering that we have been doing nothing so far.
Don't forget that there are also good forms of geoengineering, for instance the form called "biosphere regeneration." It is based on reforestation, fighting desertification, regenerative agriculture and the like.
Removing some CO2 from the atmosphere by transforming it into plants can't do too much damage, although it cannot be enough to solve the problem. But it may stimulate also other fields of action against climate change; from adaptation to switching to reneable energy. Maybe there is still hope..... maybe.
Image above: NASA Chart of temperature since 1880 show recent spike. Reports of a giant methane craters found in Siberia - bad sign for Earth's current climate. From original article.
Since coming to Australia almost two months ago I’ve heard about Clive Hamilton in the process of reporting just about every story I’ve done. Then I picked up his new book Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering and now I see what all the fuss is about.
In all of the debates over how to address climate change, climate engineering — or geoengineering — is among the most contentious. It involves large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate using grand technological interventions, such as fertilizing the oceans with iron to absorb carbon dioxide or releasing sulfur into the atmosphere to reduce radiation. While its proponents call geoengineering a silver bullet for our climate woes, its skeptics are far more critical. Joe Romm, for one, likens geoengineering to a dangerous course of chemotherapy and radiation to treat a condition curable through diet and exercise — or, in this case, emissions reduction.
According to the cover of Hamilton’s new book, “The potential risks are enormous. It is messing with nature on a scale we’ve never seen before, and it’s attracting a flood of interest from scientists, venture capitalists and oil companies.”
Hamilton is an Australian author and public intellectual. Until 2008 he was the Executive Director of The Australia Institute, a progressive think tank that he founded in 1993. Now he’s Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, a joint center of Charles Stuart University and the University of Melbourne.
His books include Requiem for a Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, Scorcher: The dirty truth about climate change and Growth Fetish amongst others.
Hamilton’s next book will be about the anthropocene — a new geologic era in which human activities have had a significant impact on the Earth’s ecosystems. He took some time to talk with me about this new era, the future of geoengineering and what it all means for humanity. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How has the environmental community responded to your book on geoengineering?
I remember back in late 1990s around Kyoto there was a great deal of resistance amongst environmentalists and climate activists, including myself, against any talk of adaptation. It was seen to be a capitulation to a kind of defeatism that we ought not to be talking about adaptation because that means that mitigation has failed. Eventually I think we all came around to view that some climate change is going to happen and therefore adaptation has to be considered. It’s better to have seat at the table, as it were, when adaptation is being discussed.
I think we’re in the same stage now with geoengineering. Most environmentalists don’t want to know about it. Most climate activists don’t want to talk about it. There is a sense that in doing so you are conceding that it could well be possible that geoengineering will be necessary because the world community will continue to fail, perhaps even more egregiously, at responding to scientific warnings.
But I wrote the book because I became aware in writing my previous book that the genie was out of the bottle: geoengineering was going to grow in importance. Therefore, climate campaigners and environmental groups sooner or later are going to have to engage in the issue. It’s a question of whether they start now or leave it for another five years, at which point the lobby backing geoengineering will be much more powerful and will have had an opportunity to frame it more inflexibly in the media and in broader public mind.
Did you come across any big surprises while writing the book?
There were a couple of big surprises. One was the extent of the geoengineering lobby and the links between the scientists and the investors. I developed a much stronger sense of the likelihood of a powerful geoengineering constituency emerging, which would — if it were not countered by a skeptical community of thinkers and campaigners — essentially take control of whole agenda. Plotting those links and laying them out was something that I go into quite a lot of detail over. At the same time it stimulated me to think about the military-industrial complex, the famous lobby group that help such sway in the U.S. in the middle of the 20th century.
One thing I noticed while doing this research and looking at scientists involved was the density of the linkages with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. So I investigated further and thought it’s really quite astonishing the extent to which many, if not most, prominent scientific researchers in geoengineering in the U.S. worked at Livermore or have close links with people there now or those who used to work there.
Then when I read Hugh Gusterson’s book on Livermore and it’s role in the cold war and nuclear weapons development, I started to think much more carefully about the type of mindset that is especially drawn to geoengineering as a technological response to global warming. I think it’s quite alarming in its implications. That lead me to further think about the geostrategic implications of climate engineering, which is something that’s received almost no attention, but we do know that people in the military and related strategic communities are starting to think about geoengineering and what it would mean for international relations and conflict.
What about the potential for financial gain?
A noble desire to save the world from climate change will attract less noble intentions. That’s just the way of the world. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Already we’re seeing it with Canadian oil sands billionaire Murray Edwards investing in geoengineering technologies.
I spend quite a bit of time talking about Bill Gates in the book. Earlier this year, I was talking about the scientific entrepreneurial lobby group that was emerging during a debate with Peter Singer (another Australian philosopher) and I mentioned Bill Gates. Singer said, “Well what’s wrong with Bill Gates? He’s well motivated. He does a lot of good charity work. If you’re going to have millionaires investing in geoengineering then Bill Gates would be one of the first.”
I made the point that yes, Bill Gates is now in philanthropic mode, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does praiseworthy work, but it’s not Bill Gates’ motives I’m worried about; it’s his worldview. That Silicon Valley, ‘we’ve-got-an-app-for-that’ kind of understanding. Joe Romm (Editor of Climate Progress) has been very critical of Gates for his dissing of renewable energy technology. Gates described solar energy as cute.
So Gates is drawn to big, new, shiny technological responses that clever people dream up. You know, brainstorming over pizza and coke. That’s where he comes from and that’s how he thinks. It’s one thing to think about computers and software that way, but it’s a completely different matter to think about the earth as a whole as in need of a snazzy new app that will solve the problem. I think that’s an extremely dangerous way to understand it for all sorts of reasons.
Perhaps the most important of which is that the climate change problem is not a technological one. It’s a social and political one. The more people focus on techno-fixes, the more they distract us from the real problems, which are the social and political difficulties of responding to climate change. We have the technology and have had it for many years. So arguing that the blockage is the absence of technology is extremely unhelpful and plays into the hands of the fossil fuel lobby.
In the book you say the slippery slope to a techno-fix promises a substitute for the slippery slope to revolution.
Revolutions take all different forms of course, from the industrial revolution to Tahrir Square to the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s, and it’s more along the lines of the latter that I was thinking of, and into which new forms of climate activism can feed. There’s often a sort of terror in environmental groups that if they do something radical or outrageous, they’ll alienate mom and dad in the suburbs.
But social movements that have radically changed the way our world works — think of the woman’s movement — have frequently started out being rancorous and difficult and attracting the derision of the conservative press and politicians. And indeed, mystifying and often alienating people living in the suburbs or high-rises. If people have to be shocked and outraged before they come around to seeing that some fundamental transformation is necessary, then so be it. I think that there’s a level of fear and complacency and unwillingness to shift to change on the part of our societies, and some kind of circuit breaker is necessary.
You talk about the acceptance of the “solution” of geoengineering even by people who don’t seem to think climate change is a problem in the first place.
That’s one of the, on the face of it, mystifying aspects of the geoengineering debate. Why conservative think tanks like The American Enterprise Institute, The Cato Institute and even The Heartland Institute, which have for years worked hard to deny climate science and block all measures to reduce carbon emissions, have come out in favor of geoengineering.
What it shows us is that the debate over climate change and the role of the deniers is not about the science. They want to make it about the science because that gives it an air of legitimacy, but it’s really about fundamental cultural and political values. So if geoengineering is the solution then they’re happy to concede that there’s a problem because geoengineering is a big, technological, macho, system-justifying response to climate change. And that’s the kind of response that fits with their political orientation.
How does the “American Way of Life” factor into all of this?
Already we’re seeing what authorities in the U.S. need to do in order to protect people from massive hurricanes and monster wildfires and frequent floods. As the effects of climate change become even more severe we’ll see nations like the U.S. that are in a position to adapt start spending billions of dollars dong so.
And of course, the more the climate deniers persuade politicians that hurricanes and wildfires aren’t due to climate change, the less responsive authorities are likely to be and the more people will die, in effect. Eventually it will be impossible to continue to pretend that mitigation is not the first best option. It might take five years, it might take ten, let’s hope it doesn’t take twenty.
The sort of tragedy of all this is that if the world had become serious ten or so years ago that cost would have been vastly smaller than it’s going to be. But you know that’s in a perfect world where human beings are rational and take reasonable measures to protect themselves from the warnings of scientists. But we now know that the enlightenment conception of human beings as rational creatures who assess the evidence and take measures to protect themselves from harm, that has now collapsed before us. We can no longer maintain that belief.
That feeds into this idea of the anthropocene and the ethical implications of living in a world with climate change.
I am writing a book about the anthropocene because it seems to me that when human beings become so powerful that they transform the fundamental cycles and processes that govern the evolution of the earth itself that we’re entering into an era, or we’ve reached an event, that’s as significant as the industrial revolution, or even the process of civilization itself.
It causes us to rethink pretty much everything. It certainly causes us to rethink what the relationship of human beings is to the planet, but in a harder way, what is a human being. The sort of modern conception of what a human being is is an isolated ego existing inside a body. And most of us think that’s just what we are. But in fact that’s a very recent and culturally specific understanding of what a human being is. And it’s the conception of a human being that’s consistent with an advanced consumer society.
Collectively though, we are the kind of creatures, like certain types of microbes, that can completely transform the nature of the planet on which we live. If this is so, then it causes us to rethink who we are and what the place of this strange, clever creature is on planet earth.
We can no longer think of the Earth as the passive and unresponsive backdrop to the human drama where we play out our parts in a kind of Shakespearean play and not worry about the backdrop. We now find that the backdrop, the stage scenery, has entered into the play and is disrupting the whole proceedings.
Something very profound has happened. Human history, which we think of as only being a few thousand years old and is the history of human actions, has converged with geologic history, which we always thought of as operating in a very distinct domain having nothing to do with us. But now we find that our history affects the history of the earth.
If there is no more human history distinct from earth history, then what does that mean? .
What has the atomic number of 16, and is liable, in the form of a compound, to be spritzed into the stratosphere by the mega-ton? You'd be right if you said sulfur. That's one of the interventions suggested by geo-engineers to reduce global warming, along with such initiatives as making biochar, "sequestering" CO2 under the earth, brightening clouds by spraying water upwards, and dumping iron powder in the sea. A sulfur compound injected into the middle atmosphere would mimic a massive volcanic eruption, which is known to reduce the mean surface temperature.
Geo-engineering is what humans could do after they've been unable to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases adequately or are afraid to try or feel that a reduction is not "cost-effective." Some advocates say we should keep geo-engineering in reserve in case of an emergency; while others urge us to do it pre-emptively, as an alternative to reducing the carbon emitted by tailpipes, smokestacks, and other industrial and vehicular sources.
A few years ago science writer Eli Kintisch produced Hack the Planet, a critique of geo-engineering, and now Clive Hamilton, in Earthmasters, brings the story up to date, with a special focus on ethics. In Australia, where he lives, Hamilton is branded as a public intellectual, which means he shares his extensive knowledge not only with his colleagues but with the educated public. A skeptic about humans, Hamilton called his prior book, Requiem for a Species, which devoted part of chapter 6 to geo-engineering, the subject of the entire new book.
Global warming has been on the agenda at least since 1988 when climate scientist James Hansen testified to a Congressional committee, and the next year when Bill McKibben gave us The End of Nature. That was about a quarter century ago. Most climate scientists prefer reducing the emission of greenhouse gases to any form of geo-engineering, but this isn't happening (except as a result of economic recession). Fossil fuel firms warn that reducing emissions might wreck the economy, depressing the standard of living. So the carbon builds up, and geo-engineering waits as the potential savior.
Why not just do it? Let's run through several difficulties.
First
By definition we don't know what unintended consequences would emerge if, for example, humans were to spray tons of a sulfur compound into the stratosphere. In medical terms, the cure might be disastrously worse than the disease. Serious engineers and financiers judged the chances were vanishingly low for an explosion of the Challenger, the near-collapse of the U.S. financial system, or the multiple problems at Fukushima Daiichi.
Second
Stopping some of the sun's radiation from reaching the earth would do nothing to reduce the acidification of the oceans, which like warming, is a product of carbon emissions.
Third
Once this sulfur shield were created, it would have to be renewed: while CO2 persists for centuries, the sulfur lasts only a few years. If after a while the spraying stopped for any reason, the global temperature would quickly rise, perhaps too quickly for the survival of some plants and animals.
Fourth
We have no international protocol specifying who can decide to spray the sulfur. If such a momentous decision could be negotiated, why not negotiate a reduction of emissions?
Fifth
To whom would nations complain if they felt disadvantaged by the results of sulfur spraying, who would judge their cases, what standards would apply, and who would pay damages? For example, what if there were a failure of monsoons and other rainfall needed for crops?
Sixth
Perhaps most seductive, if geo-engineering were done pre-emptively, a bridge to the development and introduction of sustainable energy as cheap as natural gas or coal, would it not simply replace what it was meant to introduce? Even if methods of cheap low-carbon energy were invented, they would still have to be built as the new infrastructure.
Seventh
Is geo-engineering not just the latest Promethean project, when what we need is systems that Hamilton calls "Soterian"? This is his verbal coinage from the name of Sotera, the Greek god of "safety, preservation, and deliverance from harm." President Nixon said the solution to any failures of technology is more technology. Hamilton argues that is the wrong path.
True, the fossil fuel companies did not say, "we'll push these substances on unsuspecting users who will crave them for immediate benefit, not looking to the future." Arguably they felt they were profiting by helping to build a civilization, by supplying coal, oil, and natural gas used in the steam engine, electric power plants, vehicles, furnaces, stoves, various industrial processes. The problem was, the vast immediate benefits brought a vast eventual flaw. It's hard to demonize the fuel suppliers without recognizing that all of us are their customers. They will defend their interests, fiercely. We need to recognize that our interests are now diverging sharply from those of the merchants of carbon.
This recognition comes at an awkward time. What's at risk is not only our customary sources of energy, but also our civic religion. Whatever spiritual beliefs some of us hold, almost everyone worships at the altar of "progress." (The motto of the state where I grew up is "Excelsior," or in the English, "ever upward.") We expect that we will be able to buy more tomorrow than today, that our descendents will be better off, in perpetuity.
It is as if we've made a decision, by default, to risk that the findings of climate science are just a bad dream, or that a cheap form of sustainable energy will be developed, or that we'll find a way to defeat the economic interests of the fossil fuel industries, or that geo-engineering will save us and not have unintended consequences worse than global warming. As a friend is fond of asking, what can possibly go wrong?
Note: After writing the prior draft of this article, then meant to be the final draft, I experienced the entire text disappearing in an instant during the upload, with no remaining version available. This unprecedented event astonished and angered me, until I paused to realize that the subject of the article involves a vastly worse loss, for many, than what had just occurred in my computer. The accidental disappearance of the familiar had, in a tiny way, a repairable way, reinforced the gravity of our situation.
SUBHEAD: Delusional thinking still is front and center in the thoughts of most people in Hawaii.
By Juan Wilson on 2 March 2011 for Island Breath - (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/03/hawaii-in-lala-land.html)Image above: Screen shot of a computer game in which you help young Summer with her job to make her picky clientele's vacation the most relaxing and comfortable they've ever had! From (http://www.flixya.com/blog/2398193/Club-Paradise-Game).
Yesterday I checked the headlines on the front page of Kauai's only daily paper, the Garden Island News. They told the story of our dysfunctional culture here in "paradise". Let's review the three top articles.
1) Poipu Beach Restoration
Story number one, with a color aerial photo, is titled: "Poipu Beach Restoration", with the subhead "County sand story moves forward".
The gist of the story is that the County of Kauai, the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Poipu Beach Foundation have come together, with almost a quarter of a million dollars, to study how to best place 6,000 cubic yards of sand to "restore" the pleasant, but disappearing beachfront at Poipu Beach Park.
Why there and not at another beach suffering from loss of sand? Tourist dollars! Poipu is where visitors have been told is the best place to wade, swim, snorkel, boogie board or surf. A billion dollars worth of resorts, timeshares, vacation rentals and condos have been built with more on the way dedicated to the mantra "Poipu No Ka Oi" (Poipu is the best!). Visitors sit cheek to jowl on towels and oil themselves on the ever receding sandspit that was Nu Kumoi Point and has been struggling since 2006 to be Nu Kumoi Island.
The sandy beach is pulling away from the point and quickly receding towards the parking lots behind. This is a natural phenomena. It is a geological certainty.
In general, erosion by runoff and ocean action chews away these islands until they pass into atolls and slip below the sea surface. Once vulcanism stops there is little to counter this inevitability but the growth of coral reefs. Needless to say the popularity of Poipu for snorkeling (as well as global warming accelerated by jet travel) has pulled the rug out from under coral reef building.
Kauai, is the oldest in the chain of inhabitable islands in the chain. Only the Big Island (the newest) is still growing. All the others are eroding into the Pacific. Kauai will be an atoll in a few more million years. Get over it!
The plan of spending the energy and money needed to keep Poipu's beaches intact and Nu Kumoi attached to the island is pathetically short sighted. That 6,000 yards of sand will drift away in a few years to be dispersed over what little remains of the living reefs that once thrived. It will kill two birds with one stone.
2) Hawaii Floats Ferry Proposal
This article by TGI editor Nathan Eagle has the subtitle "Hearing today on state run system". As we have stated several times on this blog, we are in favor of interisland ferries. We are not in favor of the Superferry (nicknamed by its operators intersate "H4") that moved cars at high-speed between islands at an average 6000 gallons of diesel per trip. And that is what the old-boy network on Oahu are digging out of the graveyard once again.
The legislature is "crafting" a bill to have the state lease, or buy, from the Maritime Administration the two vessels built to military specs and run at a loss until 2009. The state of Hawaii is already out $40 million on this deal. The buyback could be another $150 million (the cost of the boats). The outer islands have demonstrated they do not want the service that the Superferries provided. The desire for Superferry service comes from Oahu. Wouldn't you want to drive away from Oahu if you could?
What Hawaii does need is ferry service for freight and passengers that is energy efficient. The economy speed for a loaded Superferry is about 35 knots. I have been told by one large catamaran tour boat captain who has made crossings between Oahu and Kauai that in a winter sea swell speed and power is vital... 20- 25 knots.
Studies have shown that high speed travel (25 knots and above) is responsible for 50% of whale strikes. The Superferry was designed to cruise at 40 knots (and capable of 5o). The business model for the Superferry indicated it needed the higher speeds between islands to achieve the number of trips per day to cover operating costs. Of course this all goes up in smoke with $150 per barrel oil. As I write oil is over $100 a barrel and the Arab world is on fire politically.
If the state of Hawaii were interested in long term solutions, it should be looking into building large scale vessels in the style the Hawaiians used to move throughout the Pacific: large double hulled ships built by local craftsmen with local materials carrying sails (with a bio-diesel auxiliary).
3) State May Start Hawaiian Government
The lead-off on this Associated Press article is:
"Hawaii (the US federal state) could step in to grant native Hawaiians self-government rights after federal proposals to do so failed."
This would be funny if it were not so pathetic. Yes, it seems the Akaka Bill has failed. Now it seems the state entity is looking to cut a deal that will do what they hope the Akaka Bill would do... keep them in business.
The incentive offered by the state for Hawaiians to give up their ongoing sovereignty efforts would be to negotiate for their own land "ceded" by the U.S. takeover (and some U.S. wampum). The article goes on to say.
"Native Hawaiians are the last remaining indigenous people in the United States who haven't been allowed to establish their own government..."
Read "have not been subjected to a reservation nation". And we can count our lucky stars for that. Internationally recognized Hawaiian sovereignty is contingent on not cutting such a deal. How is the imposed state government going to determine who might be a "Native Hawaiian" and what might be negotiated with those selected. Poka Laenui, chairman of the native Hawaiian Convention said:
"The Legislature... is attempting to get into the act and trying to ... drive this process to essentially reflect the integrationist approach by repeating what the Akaka bill didn't do on the federal level."
Laenui opposes the bill because he says the Hawaiian Community not the State Legislature should determine the process for its future government.
There are several sovereignty efforts active in Hawaii. Each has it own virtues and vices. I believe the vices are largely due to the problems of being embedded in the culture of Western greed and consumerism. The state of Hawaii would do better to find a way to join the ongoing sovereignty movements than to undermine them with co-optation.
The way to go
As has been mentioned many times on this site: Our future health and welfare here in Hawaii requires us to seek self-reliance, resilience, de-centralization, and may I add, this must be done with a sense of realism. Without cheap oil, out here in the middle of the Pacific, our resources are few and our time will be short.
The March 1st headlines in our daily paper do not bode well for our ability to grasp reality and act on it.
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SUBHEAD: Geoengineering sparks international ban and first-ever congressional report. Meanwhile, recent video footage of chemtrails being laid above Kauai, without 'informed consent.'
A senior House Democrat from Tennessee issued the first congressional report on geoengineering Friday, just as delegates from 193 nations approved a ban on such research under a global biodiversity The debate over whether humans should explore ways to manipulate the climate has taken on increased urgency over the past year, as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming have encountered political roadblocks in the United States and elsewhere.
The measure adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recently concluded in Nagoya, Japan, states "that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small-scale scientific research studies" under controlled circumstances.
Although some scientists and environmentalists have called for geoengineering research as a precautionary measure against catastrophic global warming, activists hailed the moratorium as a way to keep individual actors from altering the climate. The prohibition does not apply to the United States, which has yet to ratify the convention. House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D) said his report was "in no way meant as an endorsement of climate engineering" but instead an effort to give "insight into where existing federal research capacities lie that could be leveraged for these activities."
"Climate engineering carries with it a tremendous range of uncertainties and possibilities, ethical and political concerns, and the potential for catastrophic side effects," Gordon said. "If we find ourselves passing an environmental tipping point, we will need to have done research to understand our options." The National Science Foundation is best positioned to take the lead on the matter, according to the 56-page report, which also identifies several other agencies that can play a key role.
In Japan, delegates to the convention warned that such study should be limited and not stray into actual scientific trials. Any private or public experimentation or adventurism intended to manipulate the planetary thermostat will be in violation of this carefully crafted U.N. consensus," said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American director of ETC Group, a grass-roots advocacy organization.
But Ken Caldeira, an environmental science professor at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology who testified before Gordon's panel last year, said countries need to "undertake studies on what we might do" in a climate crisis, given the current trajectory of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. "Nobody likes the idea of engineering Earth's climate," Caldeira wrote in an e-mail. "Unfortunately, at some point, our other options may be even more unpleasant."
SUBHEAD: United Nations climate concern morphs into chemtrail glee club.
By Randy Ananda on 9 December 2010 for Activist Post - (http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/un-climate-concern-morphs-into.html)Image above: Multiple contrails in sky at sunset. From (http://thewe.cc/weplanet/news/armed_force/terror_states/chemtrails_its_happening_again.htm).
In Cancun, Mexico, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is under pressure to overturn the UN ban on chemtrails. This would dissolve an agreement reached in October at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Japan. In that landmark decision, the 193-member CBD agreed by consensus to a moratorium on geoengineering projects and experiments.
The US has not agreed to it. Citing profits, the US further refuses to cut greenhouse gas emissions attributed to global warming, the purported concern of the United Nations. Instead, it seeks to expand its geoengineering projects for which hundreds of patents have already been filed. (See sampling below.)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) opened the Cancun conference last week by discussing geoengineering options that will be further explored in Peru later this year. Such environmental modification (ENMOD) programs include putting mirrors in space, iron seeding the oceans, planting genetically modified forests, and chemtrailing the skies. Of course, all of these activities are already well underway.
The next UN climate change assessment report, AR5, is due out in November of 2014. It will include geoengineering options, said Indian businessman and economist, Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC. In his introductory comments in Cancun, he stated, “The scope of the AR5 has also been expanded over and above previous reports, and would include, for instance, focused treatment of subjects like clouds and aerosols, geo-engineering options,” and the usual climate related issues.
Shady Science & Corporate Profits
The IPCC has been condemned for inflating temperature records and exaggerating estimates of glacial retreat. IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri has also been criticized for his “extensive interests in companies that stand to benefit from carbon trading,” and for using his position “to attract major funding to his own organization, The Energy and Resources Institute2 (TERI), known previously (and concurrently by some), as the Tata Energy Research Institute,” noted the Science and Public Policy Institute in an April 2010 investigative report entitled, “Dr Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC – No Fossil Fool.”
The Tata Group, “has a total market capitalization worldwide of some $77 billion, with major involvement in energy and energy-related industries, including carbon trading,” reports SPPI.
Tata is also linked to India’s war on tribes. Ongoing corporate ecoterrorism and land grabs led world-renowned author Arundhati Roy to agitate on behalf of indigenous peoples, demanding freedom for the people of Kashmir’s disputed territory. Last week, Delhi filed charges against her for defense of tribes characterizing it as “waging war against the state.” Corporate dominance was slowed, however, when a ‘real Avatar tribe’ won a stunning victory over mining giant, Vedanta Resources, last August. (See the 11-minute, award-winning film, “Mine: Story of a Sacred Mountain.”)It bears repeating that the man connected to Tata, Mr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairs the IPCC which advises the UN on climate actions.Global governance on geoengineering has a history of profiteering. See, e.g., Chief sponsor of landmark climate manipulation conference maintains close financial ties to controversial geo-engineering company, by Joe Romm, Climate Progress, 18 Mar 2010. For a partial list of patents for stratospheric aerial spraying programs from 1917 thru mid-2003, see “CASE ORANGE: Contrail Science, Its Impact on Climate and Weather Manipulation Programs Conducted by the United States and Its Allies,” in which researchers revealed that “the proposed scenario by the IPCC in 2001 is identical to the claims” in Hughes Aircraft’s 1991 patent. Hughes was acquired by Raytheon, a major defense contractor, in 1997.
Delivery systems aren’t the only types of patents related to chemtrails. Aluminum is part of thevarious metal-chemical cocktails sprayed and is , therefore representing a serious threat to normal agriculture. For over thirteen years, biotech scientists have researchedaluminum resistant genes in plants, finally isolating one in 2007. Today, a “new generation of genetically engineered crop research” seeks to develop aluminum-resistance in commercial crops.
Environmental watchdog ETC Group* notes in its 56-page report, “Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering,” that, “there is a complex web of connections between big capital and the global technofixers, comprised of researchers, multinational corporations and small start-ups, the military establishment and respected think tanks, policy makers and politicians. The non-profit institutions that promote geoengineering are well connected with the private sector.”
On December 6th, energy and environmental ministers from around the world began meeting to discuss a “balanced package of decisions.” Louise Gray at The Telegraph advises, “It is generally agreed that a global deal to cut emissions is unlikely.”
Instead, these UN meetings on climate change appear to be more about protecting pollutive industry practices and promoting another environmentally toxic industry: geoengineering. It would almost be laughable except for the homicidal and ecocidal affect of such plans.
*Blogger Cassandra Anderson recently noted that the ETC Group is partly funded by the Ford Foundation, “known for supporting depopulation.” So far, ETC has adamantly opposed geoengineering, as well as genetic engineering, both suspected depopulation tools. However, ETC also denies current ENMOD activities, saying “there is no actual deployment to govern.”
Confronting the ‘futuristic’ branding of geoengineering,” mass perception management and the ETC Group are explored in more detail.
By Randy Ananda on 9 December 2010 for Activist Post -
(http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/confronting-futuristic-branding-of.html)
Lately, we’ve seen a massive marketing make-over of environmental modification (ENMOD) programs. What has been a clandestine and hostile military application now is promoted as a “futuristic” solution to corporate pollution. Debunking mass media’s mischaracterization of geoengineering as “futuristic” is in order. Below we take a closer look at those organizations planting such disinformation and offer sources on the harmful effects of geoengineering.
Here is a sampling of quotes from mainstream media on the use of geoengineering:
NYTimes in 2006: “In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming…. Their proposals were relegated to the fringes of climate science.”
AP: “Crutzen, who wrote a 2006 scientific article that sparked interest in geoengineering…”
Slate Magazine, Sept. 23, 2010: “Global climate engineering is untested and untestable…. the discipline does not yet exist; it is at best geoscientific speculation.”
James Cascio (author of Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering) on October 15, 2010: “It does not yet appear that anyone has started to develop actual geoengineering tools…”
Reuters: “None of this … will go forward without ample opportunity for the public to comment.”
Freakonomics: “… a ‘Future Tense Event’ called, Geoengineering: The Horrifying Idea Whose Time Has Come…”
NYTimes Nov. 2010 “…novel approaches to limiting global warming.”
In addition to mass media, environmental organizations also promote the idea that geoengineering is brand new.
In a companion piece, “UN Climate Concern Morphs into Chemtrail Glee Club,” Cassandra Anderson was recognized for recently noting that environmental watchdog and geoengineering opponent, ETC Group, is partly funded by the Ford Foundation, which she characterizes as being “known for supporting depopulation.”
Not only has ETC adamantly opposed geoengineering, but also genetic engineering, both suspected depopulation tools. ETC does subscribe to anthropogenic global warming, and believes that geoengineering is being used to halt legislation or treaties that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In its 56-page report, “Geopiracy: The Case Against Geoengineering,” ETC warns (p.18):
For those who previously doubted (or still do) the science of anthropogenic global warming, the geoengineering approach shifts the discussion from reducing emissions to an end-of-pipe solution. Once geoengineering is an option, there is no longer a need to bicker about who put the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (or ask them to stop).
Whether or not AGW is real, under a geoengineering scheme, corporate polluters can continue polluting. And this is precisely where climate change skeptics are being led, ETC warns. One high profile climate skeptic, Julian Morris of the International Policy Network, told the BBC in 2008:
Diverting money into controlling carbon emissions and away from geoengineering is probably morally irresponsible.
Of course, more than two options exist. A third might be imposing a ban on all ecocidal activities. But, those who oppose both geoengineering and genetic engineering do need to remain wary of any group that supports environmentally destructive practices – including the business-as-usual corporate exploitation of the planet.
To its discredit, ETC denies the existence of current ENMOD programs (p.42):
One of the reasons the geoengineering debate has focused on research governance is that the technology itself is largely theoretical (there is no actual deployment to govern). [emphasis added]
In recent years there has been a decline in the support for weather modification research, and a tendency to move directly into operational projects.
And, of course, we have numerous books, films, websites and articles from citizens and experts documenting the existence of such programs.
ETC also absurdly states (p. 41) that:
Geoengineering is still too contested a field for most big corporate investors, and for many an open association with geoengineering would be a public relations liability.
Global repugnance over genetically modified foods hasn’t hampered investment in or expansion of the biotech industry. Increasing cancer rates, environmental degradation and public condemnation hasn’t slowed the chemical industry. That statement seems to be thrown in to support the idea that no one is currently engaged in geoengineering. It’s so bizarre, in fact, that ETC contradicts itself in that same report (a page earlier), with a statement that makes sense:
Those who would have the technical, scientific and financial resources to carry out geoengineering schemes [are] …. well-capitalized governments and corporations.
Also, researchers have uncovered patents held by the US military, as well as huge defense contractors like Hughes Aircraft and Raytheon (which later absorbed Hughes). Somehow, they do not perceive that a ‘public relations liability’ is at issue when enormous profits or military dominance are at stake. As stated in Chemtrail Glee Club:
Delivery systems aren’t the only types of patents related to chemtrails. Aluminum is part of the various metal-chemical cocktails sprayed and is highly toxic to plants, therefore representing a serious threat to normal agriculture. For over thirteen years, biotech scientists have researchedaluminum resistant genes in plants, finally isolating one in 2007. Today, a ‘new generation of genetically engineered crop research’ seeks to develop aluminum-resistance in commercial crops.
Whether ETC Group is one ‘voice of controlled opposition’ or merely has a blind spot when it comes to the extensive history of ENMOD is unknown. Much of what they publish is useful information. Some of it is contradictory, and the notion that we’re not currently being chemtrailed is outright absurd.
I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water, though. It’s likely that a wealth of accurate information can be found in Cascio’s book, Hacking the Earth, even though he also denies that the “tools” exist.
What is obvious is that a major perception management scheme is underway across the political spectrum from climate change skeptics to AGW devotees. Instead of framing ENMOD as a military attack, we’re now discussing it in terms of climate change — a sticking point among populists, some who buy into it and some who don’t.
Over a Century of Cloud Seeding
Though governments, mass media and dubiously-funded organizations still portray geoengineering as futuristic, a wealth of evidence exists that governments and private entities have engaged in the practice for over a century. See, e.g., the sources listed in my July 2010 piece, Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails.
One historian cited, James Fleming, traced military funding of weather modification experiments back to the 1840s. That’s 170 years ago. Small scale rainmaking was successful enough that in 1915, the city of San Diego offered Charles Hatfield an outrageous sum of $10,000 to end their drought. He did, to disastrous effect.
Fleming discounts the ENMOD programs developed during and after World War II, as if technology leapt backwards for several decades until 2003, which is the date he gives to the latest phase of weather modification. He wants us to ignore computers, and all the other advances in science that impact on weather. But, beginning with and immediately following WWII, that is where the bulk of evidence for geoengineering exists, continuing (as reported by mainstream media) for the next 35 years until the UN banned hostile ENMOD programs in 1976.
Then, we have a relative media blackout on the issue until the new millennium. Chemtrail citing increases exponentially after 2000, which coincides with the timeline suggested in a US Dept. of Defense report entitled, “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” (reproduced at Federation of American Scientists):
2000 Introduce ionic mirrors, with a sharp increase from 2008;
2000-2025 Use chemicals for atmospheric seeding by civilian (as well as military) aviation;
2004 Create smart clouds thru nanotechnology, with exponential increase after 2010;
2005 Introduce ‘carbon black dust’.
‘Carbon black dust’ may be the topic of this 2007 observation in the Gulf Coast of Florida. A vacationer noticed “black beams” in the sky and snapped several photos, describing the behavior of the beam.
According to “Owning the Weather,” carbon black dust is deployed via jet over large bodies of water “upwind from coastlines with onshore flow” to “enhance rainfall on the mesoscale, generate cirrus clouds, and enhance cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds.” The supporting study cited is from 1976.
Sources on Health Effects of Geoengineering
The environmental and health effects induced by geoengineering remain of grave concern. Numerous researchers have sounded the alarm, including Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri, author of The Uterine Crisis. In Heavy Metals Poisoning, Brain Injury, and Clandestine Weather Modification Programs, she cites several qualified researchers. She also reports that:
For more than 10 years, researcher Clifford Carnicom has been valiantly and systematically reporting on the various detrimental aspects of these aerosols and what they are doing to our entire environment, as well as our blood.” [See www.carnicom.com andwww.carnicominstitute.org.]
• Randy Ananda’s work has appeared in several online and print publications. She holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from The Ohio State University’s School of Agriculture.
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