“Ted Nace” - Down with coal! The grassroots anti-coal movement goes global

http://www.grist.org/coal/2011-05-27-down-with-coal-the-grassroots-anti-coal-movement-goes-global

Ted Nace - 27 May 2011

The article was coauthored by Bob Burton (CoalSwarm, Australia), Christine Shearer (CoalSwarm, U.S.), Cynthia Ong (LEAP, Malaysia), Jamie Henn (350.org, U.S.), John Hepburn (Greenpeace, Australia), Joshua Frank (CoalSwarm, U.S.), Justin Guay (Sierra Club, U.S.), Kate Hoshour (International Accountability Project, U.S.), and Mark Wakeham (Environment Victoria, Australia).

In Thailand, 10,000 people call on their government to quit coal.Photo: Athit Perawongmetha of GreenpeaceIn the United States and Europe, the triple whammy of recession, cheap alternatives, and aggressive anti-coal campaigning has helped halt the expansion of coal use. Since 2004, plans to build more than 150 coal plants in the U.S. have been abandoned. In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a government agency that analyzes energy-related statistics, predicts continued stagnation or decline in coal-fired electricity generation in the U.S. and the European Union over the coming decades.

Facing resistance to its longstanding rule in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, King Coal has redoubled ambitions elsewhere. According to 2010 projections by the EIA, coal consumption in the non-OECD world will increase by 23 quadrillion BTUs between 2007 and 2020. That's roughly the equivalent of today's entire U.S. coal-mining and coal-power sector, or approximately a thousand coal-fired generators, each 300 megawatts (MW) in size, spewing toxic chemicals into the environments and lungs of surrounding communities, and an equal number of million-ton-per-year coal mines.

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“Earth Policy Institute” - Cancer is now the leading cause of death in China

http://www.grist.org/pollution/2011-05-25-cancer-now-leading-cause-of-death-in-china 

by Earth Policy Institute  - 27 May 2011

As China's pollution soars, so do rates of cancer. This post was written by Janet Larsen, director of research for the Earth Policy Institute. Additional resources at www.earth-policy.org.

Cancer is now the leading cause of death in China. Chinese Ministry of Health data implicate cancer in close to a quarter of all deaths countrywide. As is common with many countries as they industrialize, the usual plagues of poverty -- infectious diseases and high infant mortality -- have given way to diseases more often associated with affluence, such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

While this might be expected in China's richer cities, where bicycles are fast being traded in for cars and meat consumption is climbing, it also holds true in rural areas. In fact, reports from the countryside reveal a dangerous epidemic of "cancer villages" linked to pollution from some of the very industries propelling China's explosive economy. By pursuing economic growth above all else, China is sacrificing the health of its people, ultimately risking future prosperity.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in China. Deaths from this typically fatal disease have shot up nearly fivefold since the 1970s. In China's rapidly growing cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, where particulates in the air are often four times higher than in New York City, nearly 30 percent of cancer deaths are from lung cancer.

Dirty air is associated with not only a number of cancers, but also heart disease, stroke, and respiratory disease, which together account for over 80 percent of deaths countrywide. According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the burning of coal is responsible for 70 percent of the emissions of soot that clouds out the sun in so much of China; 85 percent of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain and smog; and 67 percent of nitrogen oxide, a precursor to harmful ground level ozone. Coal burning is also a major emitter of carcinogens and mercury, a potent neurotoxin. Coal ash, which contains radioactive material and heavy metals, including chromium, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury, is China's No. 1 source of solid industrial waste. The toxic ash that is not otherwise used in infrastructure or manufacturing is stored in impoundments, where it can be caught by air currents or leach contaminants into the groundwater.

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“Christopher Mims” - How the ‘Arab Spring’ makes massive solar in North Africa more likely

http://www.grist.org/list#item-2011-05-27-how-the-arab-spring-makes-the-massive-desertec-solar-project-in-

by Christopher Mims

27 May 2011

Desertec is a massive project to to build solar thermal plants in the deserts of North Africa -- you know, the same North Africa that had all the revolutions just now. But proponents are saying there’s no reason to put the project on hold just because of political unrest. In fact, they say, the economic benefits afforded by the Desertec plant might help the region in its shift towards democracy.

The plants would take advantage of the Sahara’s sunshine -- it gets so much that covering only 1 percent of its area in solar thermal plants could power the entire world -- and would be able to supply one-sixth of Europe’s electricity. Exporting to Europe would spur economic development, promoting the kind of stability the region requires, energy expert Kristen Westphal told Der Spiegel. 

That’s led some to accuse Desertec of having a neocolonialist agenda -- Europeans using African land to produce energy for Europe. But the project will also mean a local source of renewable energy for North Africa and the Middle East, both of which have populations growing well in excess of other parts of the world. Having an energy source and an income source from Desertec could shore up new democracies, Westphal says.

Of course, that assumes that the project ever gets off the ground in the first place. Given its enormous price tag ($566 billion) and the challenges of building a trans-oceanic transmission infrastructure, it seems just as likely that the falling price of solar panels would mean utilities would seek renewables closer to home.

“Tim Karr” - AT&T Wants to Give You an 80s Makeover

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/28-3

Published on Saturday, May 28, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Tim Karr

If you were around in the 80s, you might be experiencing a horrible flashback right about now.

No, it’s not because legwarmers and spandex are in style again. It’s because AT&T, that monopoly that once lorded over your rotary phone, has resurfaced with a scheme to rule your mobile phone as well.

Back in the 80s, AT&T’s power was near absolute. That’s why antitrust authorities stepped in to break up the monopoly and protect the American people against abuse.

Now, with AT&T’s planned $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile, we’re reaching the danger point again. And this time control over one of the most vital forms of communication is at stake.

If regulators allow AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, we would be left with a wireless market that is far more consolidated than the markets for oil, banking, automobiles and air travel.

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“Jim Hightower” - A Little Less Corporate Political Corruption

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/29-1

Published on Sunday, May 29, 2011 by OtherWords

Obama is thinking about issuing an executive order that would mitigate some of the damage done to our democracy by the Supreme Court's dastardly Citizens United edict.

by Jim Hightower

Come on, Obama, do it. Stand up, stand tall, stand firm. Yes, you can!

President Barack Obama is thinking about issuing an executive order that would mitigate some of the damage done to our democracy by the Supreme Court's dastardly Citizens United edict, which unleashes unlimited amounts of secret corporate cash to pervert America's elections.

Obama's idea is simply to require that those corporations trying to get federal contracts disclose all of their campaign donations for the previous two years, including money they launder through such front groups as the Chamber of Commerce.

This approach says to those giants who are sucking up billions of our tax dollars for endless war, the privatization of public services, etc.: You're still free to shove trainloads of your shareholders' money into congressional and presidential races, but — hey, just tell the public how much you're giving and to whom.

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“Robert Naiman” - Egypt Opens Rafah Crossing: This Is What Democracy Looks Like

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/29

Published on Sunday, May 29, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Robert Naiman

There was a slogan on the streets of Seattle: "This is what democracy looks like." You can't love democracy and denigrate protest, because protest is part of democracy. It's a package deal.

Likewise, you can't claim solidarity with Egyptian protesters when they take down a dictator, but act horrified that the resulting government in Egypt, more accountable to Egyptian public opinion, is more engaged in supporting Palestinian rights. It's a package deal.

On Saturday, at long last, the Egyptian government "permanently opened" the Egypt-Gaza passenger crossing at Rafah. A big part of the credit for this long-awaited development belongs to Tahrir. It was the Tahrir uprising that brought about an Egyptian government more accountable to public opinion, and it was inevitable that an Egyptian government more accountable to public opinion would open Rafah, because public opinion in Egypt bitterly opposed Egyptian participation in the blockade on Gaza.

In addition, opening Rafah was a provision of the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation accord brokered by the Egyptian government - an achievement facilitated by the fact that the post-Tahrir Egyptian government was more flexible in the negotiations with Hamas that led to the accord.

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"Johann Hari" - A Turning-Point We Miss at Our Peril

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-turningpoint-we-miss-at-our-peril-2288915.html

We have the choice of burning all the oil left and hacking down all the remaining rainforests - or saving humanity

by Johann Hari

Sometimes, there are hinge-points in human history – moments when we have to choose between an exuberant descent into lunacy, and a still, sober voice offering us a sane way out. Usually, we can only see them when we look back from a distance. In 1793, the great democrat Thomas Paine said the French Revolution shouldn't betray its principles by killing the King, because it would trigger an orgy of blood-letting that would eventually drown them all. They threw him in jail. In 1919, the great economist John Maynard Keynes said the European powers shouldn't humiliate Germany, because it would catalyse extreme nationalism and produce another world war. They ignored him. In 1953, a handful of US President Dwight Eisenhower's advisers urged him not to destroy Iranian democracy and kidnap its Prime Minister, because it would have a reactionary ripple effect that lasted decades. He refused to listen.

Another of those seemingly small moments with a long echo is happening now. A marginalised voice is offering us a warning, and an inspiring way to save ourselves – yet this alternative seems to be passing unheard in the night. It is coming from the people of Ecuador, led by their President, Rafael Correa, and it would begin to deal with two converging crises.

In the four billion years since life on Earth began, there have been five times when there was a sudden mass extinction of life-forms. The last time was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were killed, probably by a meteor. But now the world's scientists agree that the sixth mass extinction is at hand. Humans have accelerated the rate of species extinction by a factor of at least 100, and the great Harvard biologist EO Wilson warns that it could reach a factor of 10,000 within the next 20 years. We are doing this largely by stripping species of their habitats. We are destroying the planet's biodiversity, and so we are making the natural chains that keep us alive much more vulnerable to collapse. This time, we are the meteor.

At the same time, we are dramatically warming the atmosphere. I know it has become terribly passé to listen to virtually all the world's scientists, but I remember the collapsing glaciers I saw in the Arctic, the drying-out I saw in Darfur, and the rising salt water I saw in Bangladesh. 2010 was the joint-hottest year ever recorded, according to Nasa. The best scientific prediction is that we are now on course for a 3ft rise in global sea levels this century. That means goodbye London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai. Doubt it if you want, but the US National Academy of Sciences – the most distinguished scientific body in the world – just found that 97 per cent of scientific experts agree with the evidence.

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“Muriel Kane” - Judge strikes down ban on corporate campaign donations

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/27/judge-strikes-down-ban-on-corporate-campaign-donations/

By Muriel Kane

Friday, May 27th, 2011

A federal judge has struck down a 1905 law which prevented corporations from making direct donations to political campaigns. Although the case is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court, there is already speculation that it could completely upend a campaign funding system already in disarray as a result of last year's Citizens United decision.

According to the New York Times, the decision arose out of the criminal trial of two Virginia businessmen accused of illegally using using company funds to reimburse their employees for making $186,600 in donations to Hillary Clinton in 2006 and 2008.

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“Michelle Chen” - Women Rise to the Challenge in the Arab Spring

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/27-0

Published on Friday, May 27, 2011 by Ms. Magazine Blog

by Michelle Chen

The scene would have had most Americans readjusting their television sets—or their preconceived notions about Arab society. In the April sun, throngs of protesters washed over the streets of the southern Yemeni city Taiz, most clad head-to-toe in black, their eyes steely with determination. The crowd was festooned with bright baseball caps and signs bearing English slogans such as, “We want a new Yemen without Saleh” in seeming defiance both of the autocratic regime and of society’s expectations.

It was only a few months ago that demonstrations exploded across the Maghreb and the Middle East. If you trace the sweep of the revolutionary contagion, a trendline emerges: The seedbed of the revolt, Tunisia, may have lacked democracy but was fairly advanced in providing equal rights for women. The next domino to fall, Egypt, could not have toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak without the support of  women activists who took the helm at Tahrir Square. And now Yemen, a relatively conservative and impoverished country, has seen women gathering in a groundswell of resistance–paralleled by increasingly tense uprisings in Syria and Libya.

The BBC recently reported on one of the figureheads of the Yemeni uprising, Tawakul Karman, a former stay-at-home mother whose political passion was galvanized when her husband became a political prisoner:

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“Gar Alperovitz” - The New-Economy Movement

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/27-5

Published on Friday, May 27, 2011 by The Nation

by Gar Alperovitz

The idea that we need a “new economy”—that the entire economic system must be radically restructured if critical social and environmental goals are to be met—runs directly counter to the American creed that capitalism as we know it is the best, and only possible, option. Over the past few decades, however, a deepening sense of the profound ecological challenges facing the planet and growing despair at the inability of traditional politics to address economic failings have fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation by activists, economists and socially minded business leaders. Most of the projects, ideas and research efforts have gained traction slowly and with little notice. But in the wake of the financial crisis, they have proliferated and earned a surprising amount of support—and not only among the usual suspects on the left. As the threat of a global climate crisis grows increasingly dire and the nation sinks deeper into an economic slump for which conventional wisdom offers no adequate remedies, more and more Americans are coming to realize that it is time to begin defining, demanding and organizing to build a new-economy movement.

That the term “new economy” has begun to explode into public use in diverse areas may be an indication that the movement has reached a critical stage of development—and a sign that the domination of traditional thinking may be starting to weaken. Although precisely what “changing the system” means is a matter of considerable debate, certain key points are clear: the movement seeks an economy that is increasingly green and socially responsible, and one that is based on rethinking the nature of ownership and the growth paradigm that guides conventional policies.

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