Tar Sands:
The Most Destructive Project
on Earth

Environmental Defence just released a new report on the Alberta Oil Sands, calling it the most destructive project on Earth. DeSmogblog gleaned some facts from it:

-Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
-At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
-Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
-The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
-Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

www.desmogblog.com

Slavery in America: 90¢ an Hour & -20°F Below Zero

Colorado sheep-ranchers take advantage of immigrant workers in the Badlands of Wyoming

We had been on the road for hours, leaving the interstate and then digressing to smaller and smaller highways. Differing vistas of the Colorado landscape got wilder and more vacant the further north we drove. Driving through Maybell, we took a right and headed through Irish Canyon, on the road towards Rock Springs, Wyoming. Dropping down into Wyoming the sagebrush flats opened up on either side of the highway. Stretching into the distance and disappearing over the horizon, empty barren land devoid of anything but roads built by the gas companies and herds of sheep tended by imported slave labor.

With us on our journey were three Chilean men who had worked out here for anywhere from a year to three. Brought straight from their native land on work Visas, they had been promised food, clothing, shelter and a good paycheck to herd sheep on some of the roughest landscape in the west. Unfortunately for them, they did not receive adequate food, clothing, pay or medical attention. All they found was brutal winters with a constant wind that could cut to the bone and sweltering summer heat that would make a lizard pant.

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Click on image to enlarge...

What happens to your body if you stop smoking right now?

U.N. says world fisheries face collapse

Mankind has ramped up its exploitation of marine ecosystems in recent decades, bringing the population of their inhabitants close to collapse. Climate change, which will most likely disrupt ocean circulation, continue to raise ocean temperatures and intensify ocean acidification, is supplementing this insane venture.

UNEP reports on the likely scenarios. Corals are being bleached and killed in massive quantities. Plankton and other carbon-fixing species are suffering from heat redistribution and acidification, threatening the basis for marine food chains. Climate related stresses will be amplified by continuing run-off from industrial agriculture and the resulting anoxia, which produces huge “dead zones” in which no species can survive.

It’s all very depressing. Even more depressing is the proposed remedy: “Mobilizing Finance for the Climate Challenge.” Asking the prime human predators – financial institutions and the super-wealthy – to “green” the global economy. The madness continues.

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Atlanta's Drying Lesson

When news broke about a crippling drought that threatened Atlanta's water supply, information was confusing and hard to find. Enter Mickey Mellen, with a blog and some questions.

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Read an Excerpt from A New Earth

By Eckhart Tolle In his insightful look into humanity's ego-based thinking, Eckhart Tolle provides practical teachings for waking up to a new, enlightened mind-set. If you're seeking a more loving self and a more loving planet, A New Earth has the tools to begin your transformation.

Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering

of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?

The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers—Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known—were humanity's early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering was not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transform human behavior, except in a small minority of people.

Is humanity more ready now than at the time of those early teachers? Why should this be so? What can you do, if anything, to bring about or accelerate this inner shift? What is it that characterizes the old egoic state of consciousness, and by what signs is the new emerging consciousness recognized? These and other essential questions will be addressed in this book. More important, this book itself is a transformational device that has come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you...

www.oprah.com

The Ecological Side of Education in India

What’s the most effective way to teach people the value of water and other scarce resources in a world where they are becoming more and more precious? The solution: start young – or at least that’s what progressive, ecologically-minded institutions such as the Vagdevi Vilas at Munne Kolalu, near Bangalore, India, are trying to do. Other institutions such as the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, are also aiming to show the way toward a revolution in the way ecology and sustainability issues are addressed in education and local communities.

Begun three years ago, the school now has 2,300 students on an eight-acre property that performs as a laboratory for putting the school’s ecological education into action.

To begin with, the importance of water literacy and management is highlighted in many aspects of school life: the school prospectus contains a message about rainwater harvesting, quizzes and public speaking contests on ecological issues are organized. A rain storage tank was installed last year on the roof and fliers distributed to students’ homes, as the students took to the streets in a public rally for rainwater harvesting....

www.treehugger.com

Serbia: Stop attacks on human rights activists and on minorities

Amnesty International is calling on the Serbian authorities and specifically Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and President Boris Tadic to urgently condemn attacks on human rights activists and on ethnic minorities in the country.

"If the authorities fail to act now people’s lives may be put at risk as more protests against Kosovo's declaration of independence are being scheduled," warned Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“The Serbian authorities must strongly condemn any attempts to victimise members of Serbian society. They should ensure that any attacks on human rights activists and minorities...

www.amnesty.org

The next

green revolution

Europe may not like it, but genetic modification is transforming agriculture

FOR a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by biotechnology firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World Trade Organisation against national import bans in the European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson, boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. “We sit at a moment of history when GM technology...is a fact of life,” he said this week.

Mr Ferguson, who is also the head of Britain's Food and Drink Federation, argues that because many large agricultural exporters have adopted GMOs, it is becoming expensive to avoid them. Copa-Cogeca, a farmers' lobby, this week warned that the rising cost of feed could wipe out Europe's livestock industry unless bans on GMOs are lifted. Meanwhile, European agriculture ministers failed to agree on whether to allow imports of GM maize and potatoes; the decision will now be made by the European Commission, which is likely to say yes...

www.economist.com

Can You Predict Happiness?

By Tiffany Sharples... If you think you can predict what you will like, think again. When people try to estimate how much they will enjoy a future experience, they are dependably wrong, according to research by Harvard psychologists — and the reason is something they call "attentional collapse." When we imagine future experiences, we tend to compare them with alternative experiences — experiences we've had in the past, or other experiences we might have before or after. But the fact is that none of those alternatives come into play once we're actually in the moment. That's what Daniel Gilbert, author and Harvard psychology professor, means by "attentional collapse": it's the idea that when we are actually having an engaging, encompassing experience, it acts like a black hole of imagination, sucking in all of our attention and making our preconceptions irrelevant.

The thought of a weekend office picnic, for example, sounds tedious compared with a trip to the spa, but fun compared with working overtime on a Sunday. But these comparisons have little bearing on our actual experience of the picnic because once we arrive and start chatting with colleagues or playing softball, the experience draws our attention away from the alternatives. "The kinds of comparisons we're making when we're imagining the future aren't the kinds we make when we get there," Gilbert says.

In his latest research, conducted in collaboration with social psychologist Carey Morewedge of Carnegie Mellon University and presented last weekend at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston, Gilbert bolsters the theory that our inability to predict enjoyment of our future experiences keeps us from accurately predicting what will make us happiest in the future overall...

www.time.com

internationalNETWORKnews.com

Moments from now...

for like minded people,
just like you.

McCain Scores Zero
Environmental Scorecard

Members of Congress who were seriously ill or died during their term did better than John McCain on the 2007 National Environmental Scorecard just released by the League of Conservation Voters...

solveclimate.com.nyud.net

TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT

On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse—the last one until Dec. 2010.

The Sun goes down. The Moon comes up. You go out and look at the sky. Observing the eclipse is that easy. Maximum eclipse, and maximum beauty, occurs at 10:26 pm EST (7:26 pm PST).

A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the shadow of Earth. You might expect the Moon to grow even more ashen than usual, but in fact it transforms into an orb of vivid red.

Why red? That is the color of Earth's shadow.

Consider the following: Most shadows we're familiar with are black or gray; step outside on a sunny day and look at your own. Earth's shadow is different because,
unlike you, Earth has an atmosphere. The delicate layer of dusty air surrounding our planet reddens and redirects the light of the sun, filling the dark behind Earth with a sunset-red glow. The exact tint--anything from bright orange to blood red is possible--depends on the unpredictable state of the atmosphere at the time of the eclipse. "Only the shadow knows," says astronomer Jack Horkheimer of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.
Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike.

While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality...

science.nasa.gov

BMO facing $12 billion costs

Canada’s BMO Financial will provide up to US$12.2bn, or about 3 per cent of its assets, in liquidity support for two structured investment vehicles that it is seeking to wind down. The group, centred on the Bank of Montreal, will take C$490m in pre-tax charges on its exposure to ACA, the monoline insurer, and other investments hit by credit market turbulence. The latest charges follow a C$680m loss last year on natural-gas trading.

The bank also announced the appointment of a new chief risk officer and shifted the chief executive of its investment banking division, Yvan Bourdeau, to vice-chairman. The charges are expected to lower earnings by 70 cents a share, or C$325m, for the first quarter ended January 31st...

www.ft.com

The Grand Old White Party Confronts Obama

Senator Obama’s televised victory oration celebrating his Chesapeake primary trifecta on Tuesday night was a mechanical rehash. No matter. When the networks cut from the 17,000-plus Obama fans cheering at a Wisconsin arena to John McCain’s victory tableau before a few hundred spectators in the Old Town district of Alexandria, Va., it was a rerun of what happened to Hillary Clinton the night she lost Iowa. Senator McCain, backed by a collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols, played the past to Mr. Obama’s here and now. Mr. McCain looked like a loser even though he, unlike Senator Clinton, had actually won.

But he has it even worse than Mrs. Clinton. What distinguished his posse from Mr. Obama’s throng was not just its age but its demographic monotony: all white and nearly all male. Such has been the inescapable Republican brand throughout this campaign, ever since David Letterman memorably pegged its lineup of presidential contenders last spring as “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”...

www.nytimes.com

Insight: The next crisis will be over food

By Gillian Tett

I used to think that the fastest way to become worried about markets was to stare into the bowels of a monoline. No longer. A few days ago, I happened to hear Goldman Sachs discuss the state of the global financial system with European clients.

And what struck me most forcefully from this analysis – aside from the usual, horrific litany of bank woes – was just how much trouble is quietly brewing in corners of the commodities world.

Never mind that oil prices are high; that problem is already well known and gallons of ink have been spilt debating that, along with the pressures in metals and mineral spheres.

Instead, what is really catching the attention of Goldman Sachs now is the outlook for agricultural prices. Or as Jeff Currie, head of commodities research at the US bank, says with disarming cheer: “We think we could go into crisis mode in many commodities sectors in the next 12 to 18 months . . . and I would argue that agriculture is key here.”...

www.ft.com

Leading thinkers identify greatest

challenges facing humanity

Reversing the effects of ageing, reprogramming genes to prevent diseases and producing clean energy are some of the biggest challenges for the next 50 years, according to a group of leading experts.

The pace of advances in technology means the rate of progress will be 30 times faster in the next half century than in the past 50 years, futurologists believe — and that opens up the prospect of innovation in many fields.

Better understanding of our genes could lead to more personalised medicines and longer, healthier lives; communication technology should get faster and cheaper; and we will hopefully find more environmentally sustainable ways of living.

The 18-strong team of scientists, entrepreneurs and thinkers was convened by the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) to identify problems for technology in the 21st century that, if solved, would change the world. The group included biologist Craig Venter, inventor Dean Kamen, Google co-founder Larry Page and Harvard University professor of international development Calestous Juma.

They presented their report and list of challenges today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston.

Quality of life

The NAE group focused on four areas: sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living. "As the population grows and its needs and desires expand, the problem of sustaining civilisation's continuing advancement, while still improving the quality of life, looms more immediate," they wrote in their report....

www.guardian.co.uk

Bottled water 'is immoral'

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking, according to a government adviser.

"We have to make people think that it's unfashionable just as we have with smoking. We need a similar campaign to convince people that this is wrong," said Tim Lang, the Government's naural resources commissioner.

	Bottled water generates upto 600 times more CO2 than tap water

Phil Woolas, the environment minister, added that the amount of money spent on mineral water "borders on being morally unacceptable".

Their comments come as new research shows that drinking a bottle of water has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometre. Conservation groups and water providers have started a campaign against the £2 billion industry.

A BBC Panorama documentary, "Bottled Water: Who Needs It?", to be broadcast tomorrow says that in terms of production, a litre bottle of Evian or Volvic generates up to 600 times more CO2 than a litre of tap water.

Citibank blocks investors from removing money

There were a few real estate related funds in the UK that took similar actions last month. As much as the big financial companies would like us to believe they're OK, this is alarming. This is not that different from a traditional run on the bank.

Citigroup has barred investors in one of its hedge funds from withdrawing their money, and a new leveraged fund lost 52 percent in its first three months, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The largest U.S. bank suspended redemptions in CSO Partners, a fund specializing in corporate debt, after investors tried to pull more than 30 percent of its roughly $500 million of assets, the newspaper said. Citigroup injected $100 million to stabilize the fund, which lost 10.9 percent last year, the newspaper said.

March 3, 2008

The Meaford Hall Galleries present the perfect backdrop for a stunning display of quilts by the Friendship Circle Quilters. The walls are alive with such varied works of art - there is some very tangible texture and depth to some of the pieces, and styles included are classic, contemporary, geometrical and picture perfect art pieces.

The display of almost 40 quilts both large and small will be available for viewing until March 4. In the collection are works by each individual artist in the group of about 20 quilters. Included in the exhibit are hand-quilted, pieced, appliquéd, and machine quilted works from artisans aged 50 to 90 who reside in Meaford and the surrounding countryside. All quilts are brand new, with most being available for sale.

Location: The Galleries
Contact: Box Office
Phone: 1.877.538.0463

www.meafordhall.ca

March 15, 2008

Times:7:30pm - 9:30pm

Second City comes to the Meaford Hall with a hilarious review of the best of the past 50 years! This show is combined with brand new sketches and of course a healthy serving of fresh improvised comedy, guaranteed to stir up giggles and laughter galore! Presented by the Meaford Hall & Culture Foundation.

Tickets $30

Location: The Opera House
Contact: Box Office
Phone: 1.877.538.0463
Email: ticket@meaford.ca

www.meafordhall.ca

The Canadian Aboriginal Youth Science Initiative is designed to find creative means to promote science and technology to Aboriginal children while at the same time allowing them to understand how their unique perspective on our environment can be integrated into S and T disciplines. Workshops to remote locations, exhange program opportunities, professional development for northern teachers, and curriculum consultation are just a few of the ways CAYSI is helping to inspire an interest in science and technology amongst Canadian aboriginal students...

www.elephantthoughts.com

Good to see my brother Jeff Malloy getting international recognition on CNN
click on link at bottom of post...

"I find it interesting that Canadians' and Americans' view of O.J. is so different. Just because he got away with killing two people doesn't mean he did this home invasion. Please let justice take its course". That's from Jeff Malloy in Collingwood, Ontario Canada.

Possible Attorney General Candidate; O.J. Simpson's Latest Legal Hassle; Protestors Against Iraq War on Capital Hill; Madeleine McCann Family Announce Ad Campaign

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mukasey has gotten high marks from some liberals over the course of his career. Well in any case, the nominee is expected to be announced this coming week. Let's get more from our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Jeffrey, I know you've worked with him, you know him well here. What is the appeal of Mukasey? I understand he has got an extensive legal background, but also perhaps also as a figure to -- a consensus figure, bring both sides together. JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Michael Mukasey would be the choice of a weakened President Bush. He is a consensus candidate; he is widely respected in the New York legal community. Senator Chuck Schumer has had very nice things to say about him, which, earlier in the Bush administration would have meant the kiss of death for his nomination for anything, but this is a president who is having trouble getting things and people through the United States Senate, and Michael Mukasey, unless something comes up that no one expects, will be the kind of candidate who can get through the U.S. Senate. MALVEAUX: Jeffrey, it's interesting that you mentioned Chuck Schumer as being one of those people that has signed on and he actually was on a list of people handed to the president who said would be acceptable. In speaking with the president and so many others over the last couple weeks, it seemed like he was really itching for a fight here, and one of those people that he was put on the list was Ted Olson (ph), the solicitor general, a much more contentious figure. TOOBIN: Ted Olson has a magnificent reputation as a lawyer and uniformly praised job as solicitor general in President Bush's first term. But he is a person with a much higher political profile. He argued Bush v. Gore successfully. He was involved in anti-Clinton activities during the 1990s. And even though he has impeccable legal credentials, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate said simply there is no way that the Senate will confirm him, and the president decided not to pick a fight...

transcripts.cnn.com

Turning physics on its ear...

Has college dropout done the impossible and
created a perpetual motion machine?

Thane Heins is nervous and hopeful. It's Jan. 24, a Thursday afternoon, and in four days the Ottawa-area native will travel to Boston where he'll demonstrate an invention that appears – though he doesn't dare say it – to operate as a perpetual motion machine.

The audience, esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Markus Zahn, could either deflate Heins' heretical claims or add momentum to a 20-year obsession that has broken up his marriage and lost him custody of his two young daughters...

www.thestar.com

Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki

Didn't mean it literally says scientist's spokesperson

Prominent scientist David Suzuki says that people should look for a way to hold politicians who ignore climate change science legally responsible

David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.

At a Montreal conference last Thursday, the prominent scientist, broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient exhorted a packed house of 600 to hold politicians legally accountable for what he called an intergenerational crime. Though a spokesman said yesterday the call for imprisonment was not meant to be taken literally, Dr. Suzuki reportedly made similar remarks in an address at the University of Toronto last month.

The proposal has lit up many conservative blogs since it was first reported by the McGill Daily on Monday.

Addressing the McGill Business Conference on Sustainability, hosted by the Faculty of Management, Dr. Suzuki's wide-ranging speech warned against favouring the economy to the detriment of the ecology -- the tarsands in Northern Alberta being his prime example.

"You have lived your entire lives in a completely unsustainable period," he told students and fans. "You all think growth and [climate] change is normal. It's not."...

www.nationalpost.com

Obama Well Positioned for Stretch Run

To the shock of no one, the results of Super Tuesday on the Democratic side were inconclusive. With the exception of Connecticut there were no big surprises. Clinton hung on to Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California, helped in part by early voting that took place prior to Obama’s recent surge. That he kept himself in the game and within a hundred delegates of Clinton has to be viewed as a victory by Obama’s campaign. With his superior fund raising - Obama raised nearly a million a day last month, more than twice that of Clinton - and ability to spend time in individual states, gaining face time with voters the turf seems to be shifting towards Obama. The longer the contest grinds on, the better positioned Obama becomes and one reason why his aids were claiming victory last night. Perhaps the evenings only real loser was Ted Kennedy whose endorsement was not enough to help Obama win his home state of Massachusetts or California where he campaigned vigorously for the candidate.

Our unsung hero's are the good people who keep our roads clear and safe during the winter months. It's a stressful job, I would think. Thanks, you do a great job...