| Total bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (so far) | |
| $100,000: | Amount the Bush administration spends per minute in Iraq. |
| 53%: | Percentage of Americans who believe the administration “deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.†|
(via ThinkProgress)
The UK government has just published a book that synthesizes all of the scientific findings presented at the 2005 Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change†conference. Entitled “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Changeâ€, the book examines the real threat of global warming due to humanity and its future impacts. It focuses on three crucial questions:
1. For different levels of climate change what are the key impacts, for different regions and sectors, and for the world as a whole?
2. What would such levels of climate change imply in terms of greenhouse gas stabilisation concentrations and emission pathways required to achieve such levels?
3. What technological options are there for achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gases at different stabilisation concentrations in the atmosphere, taking into account costs and uncertainties?
Here is a short summary from Treehugger:
Currently, the atmosphere contains about 380 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas linked closest to climate change and the principal concern of scientists, compared to levels before the industrial revolution of about 275ppm. The European Union adopted a previous target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two degrees Celsius, which, according to the book, might be too high — enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Above two degrees, says the report, the risks increase “very substantially”, with “potentially large numbers of extinctions” and “major increases in hunger and water shortage risks… particularly in developing countries”. The book concludes, therefore, that in order to have a good chance of achieving the EU’s two-degree target, levels need to be stabilized below 450 ppm.
In the foreword, Prime Minister Tony Blair writes: “It is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and economic growth from a world population that has increased six-fold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable.”
The book is free and available for download. For more information on what you can personally do, check out Green-E and TerraPass.
During Bush’s last State of the Union, he discussed our need to remove our dependence on foreign oil:
Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology…
Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. (Applause.)
Apparently, what he said is not what he meant. From KR:
One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally.
…
“This was purely an example,” Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.
What? Bush lie?
For those of you who were unable to watch Bush’s State of the Union last Tuesday, our president was thrown off base when a large portion of congress applauded his statement on social security: “Congress did not act last year on my proposal.†From Think Progress:
When President Bush first launched his campaign to privatize Social Security last year, just 39 percent of Americans approved of how he was handling the issue. A year later, that number has dropped to 35 percent.
The sentiments of the majority of Americans was voiced last night when President Bush brought up his privatization plans. Bush’s statement that “Congress did not act last year on my proposal†was met with rousing, unexpected applause that clearly unnerved Bush.
At the same time when Exxon Mobile is asking to be relieved of their $5 billion in damages for the 1989 Valdez oil spill, they just recorded the highest quarterly profit ever for a public company. Remember how it was supposed to be a bad quarter because of those pesky little hurricanes? Apparently, price gouging paid off. Check out those numbers:
$116 Million Per Day
$4.9 Million Per Hour
$1,347.37 Per Second
I wish I could make that kinda cash. Of course, I don’t wish that I was an unjust self-centered corporation. Check out ExxposeExxon.com for more info. (via ThinkProgress)
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
…
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
…
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be “dire consequences” if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Other employees at NASA have been privy to attempts to silence Hansen:
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. “the most liberal” media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was “to make the president look good” and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch’s priority.
And from Larry Travis, an astronomer and Dr. Hansen’s deputy at Goddard:
Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy’s office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.
I believe that global warming is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, threat facing the world today. If we really do care about the future of our planet, the human race, and society, we will do everything we can do preserve our home environment. To think that this administration is silencing researchers and their data about the damage their policies cause is disgusting. Not only is it a breach of the first amendment, it puts all of us and our children at danger.
If you’re interested in fighting back against this regime, I recommend checking out green-e. It’s a great way to begin reducing emissions and begin taking a proactive approach towards stopping global warming.
You can’t win a war without an army.
From the Associated Press:
Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.
This is true investigative journalism.
From Glenn Greenwald:
In June, 2002, Republican Sen. Michael DeWine of Ohio introduced legislation (S. 2659) which would have eliminated the exact barrier to FISA which Gen. Hayden yesterday said is what necessitated the Administration bypassing FISA. Specifically, DeWine’s legislation proposed: to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to modify the standard of proof for issuance of orders regarding non-United States persons from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. . . .In other words, DeWine’s bill, had it become law, would have eliminated the “probable cause” barrier (at least for non-U.S. persons) which the Administration is now pointing to as the reason why it had to circumvent FISA
General Hayden is going around touting that the “probable cause†barrier necessitated that the administration skirt FISA and the law. As it turns out, a Democratic tried to give them that power in 2002 and they declined it in an official statement saying the Patriot Act had given them enough power:
One simple but important change that Congress made was to lengthen the time period for us to bring to court applications in support of Attorney General-authorized emergency FISAs. This modification has allowed us to make full and effective use of FISA’s pre-existing emergency provisions to ensure that the government acts swiftly to respond to terrorist threats. Again, we are grateful for the tools Congress provided us last fall for the fight against terrorism. Thank you.
Even the WaPo has picked this up.
And then they tried to cover it up. The company is denying the allegations even though they come from Halliburton employees. From the WaPo:
Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn’t get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, disputes the allegations about water problems at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi, even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails.
Water expert, Ben Carter, even resigned last April when Halliburton officials refused to take any action to inform the camp population. From his incident report:
It is my opinion that the water source is without question contaminated with numerous micro-organisms, including Coliform bacteria. There is little doubt that raw sewage is routinely dumped upstream of intake much less than the required 2 mile distance.
Therefore, it is my conclusion that chlorination of our water tanks while certainly beneficial is not sufficient protection from parasitic exposure.
It’s good to know our troops are being taken care of, especially by the company that’s making our Vice President tens of millions of dollars.
Besides lowering test score requirements and increasing re-enlistment bonuses by $30,000, the army is increasing the top age for new recruits from 35 to 42 years of age after substantially missing their recruiting goals last year.