Daily Archives: 15/12/2011

POPULATION and the MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS.

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I saw an article some time before I got “absorbed” into the machinations of the Durban COP 17 negotiations. It detailed how over 100 MILION Chinese people had just been “classified” as “below the poverty line” WHEN CHINA RAISED THE POVERTY LINE THRESHOLD. It was RAISED to $1 per day FROM 50 cents per day. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/30/china-raises-rural-poverty-line

WHEN THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS WERE AGREED THE (then) POVERTY LINE WAS $1 p.d.

12 YEARS LATER THEY HAVE HAD A 25% PAY RISE !!!!!    That obviously pleases the statasticians who send these figures up to the U.N. in GLOWING reports. The common (misguded) claim that “trickle down economics” has lifted “BILLIONS” out of poverty is RUBBISH.

WESTERN INDUSTRIALISED SOCIETY LAMENTS the destruction of the middle class through debt and we are witness to (what we consider) “poverty”, 10 million people in Spain having to exist on $130 a week. Social Security is a disappearing phenomena in America. It would be healthy to ANALYSE what poverty MEANS.

THE GLOBAL POPULATION is at 7 BILLION. We now add 1 BILLION every 12 YEARS

THE ISSUE OF “POVERTY” IS RELEVANT AS “WEALTH”  is associated with good education leading to a certain level of ECONOMIC “PROSPERITY”. This is undisputed. What is disputed is the level of “POVERTY” which “really” exists.

This film is “an indicator” of progress towards the MDG’s

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George Papandreou and Democracy.

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AMY GOODMAN got a scoop when covering the Durban COP 17 when George Papandreou attended the talks. This interview the ex Greek P.M. talks of democracy in Greece, the referendum, the Occupy movement. He defines tax havens and globalisation as the biggest threat to democracy as they remove “power” from the nation. Very interesting to hear him speak after reading so much during the ongoing Euro crisis.

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Dr James Hansen.

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Jim Hansen has been researching climate science through Paleontology (ice core samples) since 1988. He heads NASA and is regarded as the leading climate scientist in the world. Not only has he authored many scientific papers and books, he has also taking off his white coat for the principals he advocates, and being arrested – most recently at the anti TAR SANDS Washington rally.

This panel discussion with associates explores climate “sensitivity”, or “at what speed the climate reacts to FORCINGS”. The “FORCINGS” in discussion are the 800 metric tonnes of CO2 -e PER SECOND that “civilization” pumps into the atmosphere.          70,000,000 ( seventy million ) tonnes  a day.                                              25,500,000,000 (25 billion metric tonnes per year)

An “unprecedented” amount of the same stuff that has caused ALL OTHER “NATURAL” ice ages and “interglacial” periods where sea levels are up to 100 metres HIGHER.

Dr Hansen REITERATES that a “safe climate” MUST be regarded as one with CO2 content of 350ppm. To reduce emissions to achieve that target, beginning in 2015, requires a reduction in emissions of 5% per annum. If it is left UNTIL 2020 (AS SOME SIGNATORIES TO THE “DURBAN PLATFORM” (i.e. USA) SUGGEST, the reduction in emissions to achieve 350ppm is 15% p.a. This requires the decarbonisation of the power generation sector – when France introduced nuclear power in the 70’s-80’s, their reduction in emissions was 4% per annum.

CLEARLY THE SOONER WE BEGIN THIS “RENEWABLE AGE” THE BETTER.

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Participants: James Hansen Director, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA;

Ken Caldeira Senior Scientist, Department of Global Ecology Carnegie Institute of Washington, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA;

Eelco Rohling Professor of Ocean and Climate Change, Southampton University, Southampton, United Kingdom.

“The Hero’s” – MICHAEL MANN

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The last post “outed” one of the villains of the COP 17 “peace”, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe. Now here is a hero, who has been the subject of Inhofe’s “witch hunts” for the last 8 years or so.

MICHAEL MANN,

Michael E. Mann (born December 28, 1965) is an American physicist and climatologist, currently director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He is best known as lead author of a number of articles on paleoclimatology and as one of the originators of a graph of temperature trends over the last thousand years, called the “hockey stick graph” because of its shape. The graph was highlighted in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, receiving both praise and criticism, and has been the subject of a long-running controversy. Mann is also known as a founding member of the RealClimate blog, to which he and a number of other scientists contribute, and is the co-author with Lee R. Kump of Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming (2008).

In November 2009, hackers obtained emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that had been exchanged by Mann and other climatologists and posted them online, triggering the Climatic Research Unit email controversy, dubbed “Climategate” by the media. Two reviews commissioned by Pennsylvania State University cleared Mann of allegations of ethical misconduct arising out of the content of the emails.

Here is a Ted Talk from Michael Mann where he calmly takes us through the trials of a scientist, 100% vindicated by the Berkley Report, part funded by the fossil fuel lobby (Koch Bros). This demonstrates the still VERY REAL problems in U.S. politics.

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Michael Mann gives a personal account of the “inquisitions” that scientific research has exposed him to through the “denial industry” and their paid political henchmen. Mann’s papers have been unanimously endorsed, including the “hockey stick graph”.