OSU - Production of biofuel from forests will increase greenhouse emissions

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/osu-pob102011.php

Oregon State University, October 23, 2011

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The largest and most comprehensive study yet done on the effect of biofuel production from West Coast forests has concluded that an emphasis on bioenergy would increase carbon dioxide emissions from these forests at least 14 percent, if the efficiency of such operations is optimal.

The findings are contrary to assumptions and some previous studies that suggest biofuels from this source would be carbon-neutral or even reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In this research, that wasn't true in any scenario.

The study was published today in Nature Climate Change, by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and other institutions in Germany and France. It was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Science Daily - Cooling the Warming Debate: Major New Analysis Confirms That Global Warming Is Real

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111021144716.htm

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2011) — Global warming is real, according to a major study released Oct. 20. Despite issues raised by climate change skeptics, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study finds reliable evidence of a rise in the average world land temperature of approximately 1°C since the mid-1950s.

Analyzing temperature data from 15 sources, in some cases going as far back as 1800, the Berkeley Earth study directly addressed scientific concerns raised by skeptics, including the urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias.

On the basis of its analysis, according to Berkeley Earth's founder and scientific director, Professor Richard A. Muller, the group concluded that earlier studies based on more limited data by teams in the United States and Britain had accurately estimated the extent of land surface warming.

"Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the U.S. and the U.K.," Muller said. "This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change skeptics did not seriously affect their conclusions."

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Harvey Wasserman - Where Occupy and No Nukes Merge and Win!!!

Published on Monday, October 24, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/24-5

by Harvey Wasserman

The global upheaval that is the Occupy Movement is hopefully in the process of changing---and saving---the world. 

Through the astonishing power of creative non-violence, it has the magic and moxie to defeat the failing forces of corporate greed. 

A long-term agenda seems to be emerging: social justice, racial and gender equality, ecological survival, true democracy, an end to war, and so much more. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power," said Jimi Hendrix, "the world will know peace." 

Such a moment must come now in the nick of time, as the corporate ways of greed and violence pitch us to the precipice of self-extinction. 

At that edge sits a sinister technology, a poisoned cancerous power that continues to harm us all even as 3 of its cores melt and spew at Fukushima. 

Atomic energy, the so-called "Peaceful Atom", has failed on all fronts. 

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ENS - Girls' Behavior Problems Linked to Prenatal Bisphenol A Exposure

Published on Monday, October 24, 2011 by Environmental News Service (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2011/2011-10-24-01.html

BOSTON - Exposure in the womb to bisphenol A, a chemical used to make plastic containers and to line cans of food, is associated with behavior and emotional problems in young girls, new research has shown for the first time.

The study was led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center, and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

BPA is found in many consumer products, including canned food linings, polycarbonate plastics, dental sealants, and some cash register receipts made from thermal paper.

Most people living in industrialized nations are exposed to BPA. The chemical has been shown to interfere with normal development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in people.

In a 2009 study, researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health showed that drinking from clear plastic polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA.

In this study, published today in an advance online edition of the journal "Pediatrics," lead author Joe Braun, research fellow in environmental health at HSPH, and his colleagues found that gestational BPA exposure was associated with more behavioral problems at age three, especially in girls.

The researchers collected data from 244 mothers and their three-year-old children in the Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment Study, conducted in the Cincinnati area.

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Lucas Whitefield - Fukushima: Towards the Formation of a Radioactive Graveyard in the Pacific Ocean?

Japanese Officials & Experts Late Decision to Expand Testing Around Fukushima Daiichi By Lucas Whitefield Hixson
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27220
No one wants to think about the massive aqueous deposition of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean, that much is now clear. By September estimates of released contamination had risen to over  3,500 terabecquerels of cesium-137 released into the sea directly from the plant between March 11 and the end of May. Another 10,000 terabecquerels of cesium fell into the ocean after escaping from the reactors in the form of steam. Initially reports had quieted concerns by stating that the materials would be diluted so vastly that the radioactivity would not be able to accumulate, and would not affect the environment.  The experts claimed they would track the deposition and floating radioactive debris field making its way on a trans-Pacific trip to the United States. Apparently, the experts in Japan didn't get the message.  The Japanese regularly tested the seawater only for 'popular' Iodine and Cesium isotopes instead of all known fission-produced radioactive materials, for the first 3 months after the disaster.  By March 31st, radioactive contamination concentration was 4,385 times the legal limit, up from 3,355 times on Tuesday, according to Kyodo. In response, the government had pledged to increase radiation monitoring on land and by sea and to consider increasing the evacuation zone — however time has shown little action would follow these vows.

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Leonard Pitts - World's Eyes are on Occupy Movement

Published on Sunday, October 23, 2011 by the Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/19/2460420/worlds-eyes-on-occupy-movement.html

by Leonard Pitts Jr.

"You say you want a revolution?"
— The Beatles

By one measure at least, the movement that began with Occupy Wall Street is already bigger than the Tea Party ever was.

According to a report in the Washington Post, Occupy rallies were held in more than 900 cities around the country and across the globe last weekend. The Tea Party is big, but it is not known to have had an impact in Barcelona, London, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Brussels, Munich, Rome, Sydney, Manila, Lisbon, Paris and Zurich.

Granted, that observation is deceptive in one sense: it quantifies breadth, but not depth. That is to say, while the Occupy movement has spread broadly, there is as yet little evidence of its ability to seize political power and use it to execute the movement's agenda. Say what you will about the Tea Party — a straight line if ever there was one — but give it credit for moving quickly to translate its angst into political capital with which it impacted the 2010 midterms and presidential politics to this very day.

The Occupy movement, by contrast, remains what several people have called it: a primal scream.

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"Mike Ludwig" - US Military Paid $1.1 Trillion to Contractors That Defrauded the Government

US Military Paid $1.1 Trillion to Contractors That Defrauded the Government

Thursday 20 October 2011

by: Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report

http://www.truth-out.org/us-military-paid-11-trillion-contractors-defrauded-government/1319140017

The Pentagon has paid $1.1 trillion to hundreds of defense contractors and their parent companies that have defrauded the government over the past ten years, according to a Department of Defense report released Thursday.

More than 300 contractors [3] involved in civil and criminal fraud cases that resulted in judgments of $1 million or more during the last decade were paid a total of $573.7 billion by the US military, including $398 billion that was paid to contractors after judgments for fraud. When awards to parent companies are included, the Pentagon awarded $1.1 trillion to the top 37 companies that defrauded the US military since 2000.

Raytheon [4], for example, spent nearly $4 million to settle a civil case with the government in 2002 and $2.5 million to settle a case in 2000. Since the cases were settled, the Pentagon has awarded Raytheon's aircraft and engineering divisions a total of $1.8 billion.

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Laura Rance - Research Shows Organics are No Longer Marginal

Published on Saturday, October 22, 2011 by the Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/research-shows-organics-are-no-longer-marginal-132370223.html

by Laura Rance

Organic farmers and their customers have had to put up with a lot of crap from their fellow producers over the years.

The labels are one thing, such as "crunchy granola set" or "hippie dippies" or "organic freaks."

But by far, the biggest insult was simply being dismissed as inefficient and ineffective when it comes to the serious question of how to best feed the world's growing population.

The mainstream industry and research establishment have long written off organic agriculture because of the widely held belief it can't keep up to the productivity of conventional systems. And a few years ago that was right.

The reason organic foods could command a hefty premium in the marketplace, and why some argued they were only accessible to the wealthy elite, was yields have tended to be lower.

Critics could justifiably claim that to feed the world using organic agriculture, more of the earth's surface would have to be converted to crops, and that would be bad for the environment.

For example, a recent report CropLife Canada financed concluded that without pesticides, fertilizers and biotechnology, Canada would need another 37 million acres of cropland -- the equivalent of the total annual cropped area of Saskatchewan, or four times that of Ontario -- to produce the same amount of food.

The report says crop-protection products, fertilizer and biotechnology advancements add a whopping $7.9 billion to the Canadian economy.

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Jonathan Steele - The Iraq War is Finally Over. And It Marks a Complete Neocon Defeat

Published on Sunday, October 23, 2011 by the Sunday Observer/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/23/us-withdrawal-iraq-defeat-bush-neocons

Thanks to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest enemy, Tehran's influence in Iraq is stronger than America's

by Jonathan Steele

The Iraq war is over. Buried by the news from Libya, Barack Obama announced late on Friday that all US troops will leave Iraq by 31 December.

The president put a brave face on it, claiming he was fulfilling an election promise to end the war, though he had actually been supporting the Pentagon's effort to make a deal with Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep US bases and several thousand troops there indefinitely.

The talks broke down because Moqtada al-Sadr's members of parliament and other Iraqi nationalists insisted that US troops be subject to Iraqi law. In every country where they are based the US insists on legal immunity and refuses to let troops be tried by foreigners. In Iraq the issue is especially sensitive after numerous US murders of civilians and the Abu Ghraib scandal in which Iraqi prisoners were sexually humiliated. In almost every case where US courts tried US troops, soldiers were acquitted or received relatively brief prison sentences.

The final troop withdrawal marks a complete defeat for Bush's Iraq project. The neocons' grand plan to use the 2003 invasion to turn the country into a secure pro-western democracy and a garrison for US bases that could put pressure on Syria and Iran lies in tatters.

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Simon Johnson - Occupy the Mortgage Lenders

By Simon Johnson

http://www.nationofchange.org/occupy-mortgage-lenders-1319290830

Participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement are right to argue that the big banks have never properly been investigated for the mortgage origination, aggregation, and securitization behavior that was central to the financial crisis – and to the loss of more than eight million jobs. But, thanks to the efforts of New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, and others, serious discussion has started in the United States about an out-of court mortgage settlement between state attorney generals and prominent financial-sector firms.

Talks among state officials, the Obama administration, and the banks are currently focused on reported abuses in servicing mortgages, foreclosing on homes, and evicting their residents. But leading banks are also accused of illegal behavior – inducing people to borrow, for example, by deceiving them about the interest rate that would actually be paid, while misrepresenting the resulting mortgage-backed securities to investors.

If these charges are true, the bank executives involved may fear that civil lawsuits would uncover evidence that could be used in criminal prosecutions. In that case, their interest would naturally lie in seeking – as they now are – to keep that evidence from ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.

"Follow Project Syndicate on Facebook or Twitter. For more from Simon Johnson, click here."

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