“Kaid Benfield" - Cities safer than ever, and the more diverse the better

http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-07-08-cities-safer-than-ever-especially-diverse-ones

by Kaid Benfield

8 Jul 2011

Cross-posted from the National Resources Defense Council.

I wrote in May about a report by Richard Florida that city crime had dropped to its lowest rate in 40 years. Now there's more: Last week, Florida wrote another intriguing analysis of recent crime data for The Atlantic. Looking inside the numbers and at recent research, he shatters a number of popular myths: that crime is higher when economic times are hardest; that big cities and minority populations are incubators of crime; that immigration breeds crime.

None of these myths are supported by recent facts, according to Florida. Here's some of his latest report:

Almost three years into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, with massive unemployment and pessimism rife, America's crime rates are falling and no one -- not our pundits, policemen, or politicians, our professors or city planners -- can tell us why. As I wrote about here, there were 5.5 percent fewer murders, forcible rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults reported in 2010 than in 2009, according to the most recent edition of the FBI's Uniform Crime Report; property crimes fell by 2.8 percent over the same period and reported arsons dropped by 8.3 percent.

And the drop was steepest in America's biggest cities -- which are still popularly believed to be cauldrons of criminality. "While cities and suburbs alike are much safer today than in 1990," notes a recent report by the Brookings Institution, "central cities -- the big cities that make up the hubs of the 100 largest metro areas -- benefited the most from declining crime rates. Among suburban communities, older, higher-density suburbs saw crime drop at a faster pace than newer, lower-density, emerging, and exurban communities on the metropolitan fringe."

“Stephen Lacey” - Industrialized countries are now losing the clean energy race

http://www.grist.org/renewable-energy/2011-07-10-industrialized-countries-are-now-losing-the-clean-energy-race

by Stephen Lacey

10 Jul 2011

Slow and unsteady does not win the race. Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

For the first time ever, developing countries lead yearly investment in clean energy -- representing about $72 billion in spending in 2010, versus $70 billion in rich countries. So while U.S. lawmakers argue about efficiency standards in lightbulbs, the 800-pound dragon, China, is dominating. Meanwhile, Brazil, India, and various Middle Eastern countries are catching up.

The figures, which were put together by Bloomberg New Energy Finance for the U.N. Environment Program, show that total global investment grew by 30 percent in 2010 to $211 billion:

Click to read more ...

“Robert Lalasz” - Can Florida’s nature and people outrace sea-level rise?

http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-07-10-can-floridas-nature-and-people-outrace-sea-level-rise

by Robert Lalasz

10 Jul 2011

Cross-posted from Cool Green Science.

Want to know how climate change might affect a seashore near you? Look at what it's already done over the past 20 years to a stretch of the Florida Gulf Coast, according to a pathbreaking new study published in the journal Climatic Change.

Sea-level rise along the Waccasassa Bay area (90 miles north of Tampa) is already picking winners and losers in nature there -- and the losers include the habitat the iconic Florida black bear and the bald eagle depend upon. People up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast might soon suffer, too, if sea-level rise destroys the coastal wetlands that produce world-class sport fishing and protect cities from storm surges.

But will these losses continue? And what can anyone do about them? Laura Geselbracht, senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy and lead author of the study -- one of the first to test a sea-level-rise model using existing data from the past -- gives some answers below.

Click to read more ...

“Eric Margolis” - Banking Has Become Our State Religion

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/10

Published on Sunday, July 10, 2011 by Eric Margolis

by Eric Margolis

In 1922 Greek armies trying to conquer western Anatolia were routed by Turkey’s military leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Greeks were uprooted from Ionian coastal areas.After this debacle, Greek officers took three former prime ministers, a general and two other politicians who had led the Turkish-Greek War and shot them. Greeks cheered.

Many Greeks today must be wishing to see similar punishment inflicted on their politicians who were responsible for the nation’s bankruptcy and staggering $500 billion debt.

For decades, Greece’s conservatives and Socialist parties alike bought votes by dishing out the very cushy, do-nothing government jobs, high pensions, and benefits that brought Greece to its knees. Call it state sponsored laziness.

In 2010, the second shoe of the 2008 US financial crisis hit Europe. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain came under financial attack, showing the alarming degree to which uncontrolled, run amok banks and money men had poisoned Europe’s economic waters by speculation and outright gambling.

Click to read more ...

“John Nichols” - As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/08-4

Published on Friday, July 8, 2011 by The Nation

by John Nichols

The big story out of Washington—and rightly so—is the debt-ceiling fight that President Obama seems to be coming very close to losing. If the president abandons his 2008 campaigvn promise to be an absolute defender of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he will have very little indeed to run on in 2012.

But that won't be what beats him.

Because the biggest story in America is a different one from the biggest story in Washington. Americans are not that into the debt-ceiling debate. Polling has suggested that less than a quarter of Americans are "closely following" the fight. Those numbers will rise a bit as the deadline gets closer and as the media hypes the issue.

The issue that Americans have been following closely, and will continue to follow straight through the 2012 election cycle, the issue that tops the polls on the list of concerns, is the jobs crisis. Americans are worried about unemployment and underemployment.

And on Friday they got a lot more worried.

Click to read more ...

“Donna Cassata” - House Passes $649B Defense Spending Bill

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/08-3

Published on Friday, July 8, 2011 by the Associated Press

by Donna Cassata

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday overwhelmingly passed a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Pentagon budget by $17 billion and covers the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The strong bipartisan vote was 336-87 and reflected lawmakers' intent to ensure national security, preserve defense jobs across the nation and avoid deep cuts while the country is at war.

While House Republican leaders slashed billions from all other government agencies, the Defense Department is the only one that will see a double-digit increase in its budget beginning Oct. 1.

Amid negotiations to cut spending and raise the nation's borrowing limit, the House rejected several amendments to cut the Pentagon budget, including a measure by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to halve the bill's increase in defense spending.

"We are at a time of austerity. We are at a time when the important programs, valid programs, are being cut back," Frank said.

Scoffing at the suggestion that "everything is on the table" in budget negotiations between the Obama administration and congressional leaders, Frank said, "The military budget is not on the table. The military is at the table, and it is eating everybody else's lunch."

Click to read more ...

“Nicholas Kusnetz” - Lawsuits Predicted as New York Towns Ponder Whether to Block Fracking

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/08-2

Published on Friday, July 8, 2011 by ProPublica

by Nicholas Kusnetz, ProPublica

New York environmental officials have released a blueprint for regulations that eventually would allow hydraulic fracturing to begin in most parts of the state—except for key watersheds and aquifers and on state land.

Drilling is still months away at the earliest, but talk has already begun about legal challenges from energy companies and landowners in the areas where high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, would be prohibited.

“I think some of the bans and setbacks are legally questionable,” said Tom West, an oil and gas attorney in Albany, N.Y., who represents a number of drilling companies in the state. “When they start putting areas off limits to drilling or production that raises a significant legal issue.”

West said the ban would deprive landowners and leaseholders of the right to develop their property.

Energy companies may be more likely to challenge the growing number of local bans. Over the last year, several New York towns have either issued local fracking bans or begun the process of doing so.

State law says only the Department of Environmental Conservation can regulate drilling. But towns are allowed to zone their own land, and many have been using zoning laws to try to keep fracking outside municipal limits.

Ithaca’s town supervisor Herb Engman said streams and a lake within town limits provide drinking water to more than 90,000 people in the area. He said the water deserves the same protections as those proposed for the watersheds for New York City and Syracuse, where drilling would be banned under the state’s blueprint.

Click to read more ...

“Mizuho Aoki and Takahiro Fukada” - Fukushima: Citizens' Radiation Fears Beyond Crisis Zone Mount

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/09-1

Published on Saturday, July 9, 2011 by The Japan Times

by Mizuho Aoki and Takahiro Fukada

Reiko Nakamura, a 37-year-old mother of three children, said she has been checking radiation levels outside her house in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, every day since she bought a dosimeter in May.

Based on her readings, she decides whether to open the windows or leave them shut tight.

Trying to protect her children from radioactive materials spewing from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Nakamura has been buying produce grown in west Japan since mid-March.

"I'm buying produce on the Internet. Also we've been drinking water delivered from Yakushima (in Kagoshima Prefecture)," said Nakamura, who was at a gathering organized by Setagaya Kodomo Mamoru Kai (The Group to Protect Children in Setagaya) in late June. Nearly 30 mothers discussed ways to prevent radiation exposure.

"I'm not bothered about us adults. But thinking of my children's future health, I've been taking protective measures based on experts' opinion that I thought was the most conservative," Nakamura said.

Click to read more ...

“Erik Wasson” - Liberal Senators Warn Obama Over Social Security Cuts in Any Debt Deal

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/09-3

Published on Saturday, July 9, 2011 by The Hill (Washington, DC)

Bernie Sanders promises to filibuster if White House proposes 'piece of crap'

by Erik Wasson

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) warned Friday that President Obama faces turmoil in the Senate and in his reelection campaign if he includes Social Security cuts in any debt-ceiling deal.

The senators said the White House has not communicated effectively to Senate Democrats and they and their rank-and-file colleagues are being frozen out of the process.

“I have talked to some of my colleagues, including some that you might not expect, who say if [White House officials] bring to the Senate a piece of crap that comes down heavy on working families and children and the elderly and they expect me to matter-of-factly vote for it, they'll have another thing coming,” Sanders said. He added that he would filibuster such a deal.

“I do worry that the White House is misreading the Senate and taking things for granted,” Whitehouse said. “There has not been enough communication to alleviate that potential misreading.”

Sanders wants Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to rule out any benefit cuts, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has done.

Click to read more ...

"John Vidal" - Geo-Engineering: Green vs Greed in the Race to Cool the Planet

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/10-1

Published on Sunday, July 10, 2011 by the Sunday Observer/UK

Critics fear that manipulating weather patterns could have a calamitous effect on poorer countries

by John Vidal

 

The alert on the Climate Ark website in January 2009 was marked urgent: "Take action: A rogue science ship is poised to carry out risky experimental fertilization of the Southern Ocean. This is likely [to be] the first of many coming attempts to begin geo-engineering the biosphere as a solution to climate change. The chemical cargo is likely to provoke a massive algal bloom big enough to be seen from outer space..."

The response was immediate and vitriolic: "You morons," fumed a woman from a Canadian university. "That isn't a rogue ship... it's one of the best marine science research groups in the world. You are no different than anti-science religious fanatics. You seek to keep the world ignorant. May you drown in your lies..."

Professor Peter Liss, then chair of Britain's Royal Society's global environment research committee and himself involved in research to see the effect of iron on phtyoplankton, stepped in: "The [intention] is to find out what role iron plays in marine biogeochemistry. In no way is it an attempt to geo-engineer the planet. Only by knowing the facts can you argue effectively against such geo-engineering proposals. Emotion and opinion will not win the argument; knowledge and understanding will."

Some hope. Geo-engineering – artificial efforts to mitigate global warming by manipulating weather patterns, oceans, currents, soils and atmosphere to reduce the amount of greenhouses gases – evokes ideological, political and financial passions. For those who have more or less given up on UN climate talks, it is, along with nuclear power, the only practical planetary way to avoid catastrophic climate change; for others, it is an irresponsible move into the unknown by the rich world that will inevitably have unintended consequences, most probably for the poorest.

But as attempts to get major economies to agree to reduce emissions through energy efficiency falter, so groups of scientists, universities and entrepreneurs are coming together, patenting ideas and pressing the case with governments and the UN to back experiments as the first step towards wide-scale deployment of a suite of technologies.

Click to read more ...