"Seed Daily"-Radical overhaul of farming could be 'game-changer' for global food security

According to the authors of new research released at the World Water Week in Stockholm, a radical transformation in the way farming and natural systems interact could simultaneously boost food production and protect the environment-two goals that often have been at odds.

The authors warn, however, that the world must act quickly if the goal is to save the Earth's main breadbasket areas-where resources are so depleted the situation threatens to decimate global supplies of fresh water and cripple agricultural systems worldwide.

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"Terra Daily"-Time to begin anticipating and adapting to climate change

Despite the uncertainties surrounding climate change, it is time to start developing effective strategies that will keep the nation's transportation systems and other critical infrastructure running in the face of the adverse impacts that seem increasingly likely to occur.

This consensus emerged from a two-day leadership summit that brought together major stakeholders from the $1 trillion-plus freight transportation sector with climate change researchers to discuss the issue for the first time.

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"Washington's Blog"-The Next Scientific Frontier: Sun-Earth Interactions

Quantum computing, nanotechnology and genetic engineering are exciting fields. But understanding the interaction between the Sun and Earth is at least as important as a scientific frontier.

The Sun Affects Clouds and Ozone, Which In Turn Affect Climate

For example, one of the world's most prestigious science labs has just demonstrated that cosmic rays affect cloud formation - which in turn affects climate - on Earth. Because the sun's output directly determines the amount of cosmic rays which reach the Earth, the sun is an important driver of the Earth's climate.

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"Max Blumenthal & Joseph Dana" - Israel's Exclusive Revolution

In early July 2011, radical left-wing activists in Israel organized a Facebook event titled, "The Week of Rage" as a spontaneous demonstration against the skyrocketing price of rent and basic consumer goods. Also prominent in the activists' list of grievances were anti-democratic proposals of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that were designed to stifle dissent against the occupation and Israel's repression of its own Palestinian citizens. The protests were characteristically theatrical, with demonstrators attacking the Likud Party headquarters with cottage cheese, a staple commodity that had become unaffordable for most. Enthusiastic as they were, the demonstrations were sparsely attended. 

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"Bruce Levine" - 3 Things That Must Happen for Us To Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy

Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.”  

The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness. It is the two other requirements that can empower, energize, and activate Team Democracy— a team that is currently at the bottom of the standings in the American Political League. 

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Phil Radford: Koch Industries Lobbying Puts Over 4 Million Americans in Danger

Published on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by Greenpeace

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/koch-industries-lobbying-puts-over-100-millio/blog/36476/

by Phil Radford

Recent Greenpeace analysis of lobbying disclosure records reveals that since 2005, Koch Industries has hired more lobbyists than Dow and Dupont to fight legislation that could protect over 100 million Americans from what national security experts say is a catastrophic risk from the bulk storage of poison gasses at dangerous chemical facilities such as oil refineries, chemical manufacturing facilities, and water treatment plants. Koch lobbyists even outnumber those at trade associations including the Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute. Only the American Chemistry Council deployed more.

In 2010 Koch Industries and the billionaire brothers who run it were first exposed as a major funder of front groups spreading denial of global warming in a Greenpeace report, which sparked an expose in the New Yorker. Since then, the brothers have been further exposed as a key backer of efforts to roll back environmental, labor, and health protections at the state and federal levels. Through enormous campaign contributions, an army of lobbyists, and funding of think tanks and front groups, David and Charles Koch push their agenda of a world in which their company can operate without regard for the risks they pose to communities, workers, or our environment.

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Boris Kagarlitsky: The World’s Largest Pyramid Scheme

by BORIS KAGARLITSKY

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/23/the-worlds-largest-pyramid-scheme/

The United States managed to avert a default, and that is good news. But the partisan battle in Congress sent the stock market plunging, and the decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the country’s credit rating has made matters far worse.

Party ambitions alone did not cause the bitter standoff in Congress. At stake is not just the size of the national debt or state expenditures but the entire social and political structure of the United States.

Democrats have traditionally championed social welfare programs, while Republicans put more emphasis on private business and the free market. So why do most working people in the Midwest vote Republican and members of the New York financial elite vote Democrat?

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Ralph Nader: Verizon, From Wireless to Shameless

by RALPH NADER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/23/verizon-from-wireless-to-shameless/

It was only a matter of time before the “pull down” NAFTA and WTO trade agreements on U.S. wages and jobs would be followed by “pull down” contract demands by U.S. corporations on their unionized workers toward levels of non-unionized laborers.

The most recent illustration of this three-decade reversal of nearly a century of American economic advances for employees is the numerous demands by Verizon

Here are just a few of the concessions the new Verizon CEO, Lowell McAdam, is insisting upon:

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"Kristina Hubbard" - The President and Seed

Kristina Hubbard
Daily Yonder, 24 August 2011
http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-president-and-seed/2011/08/23/3490

*"The crops that we grow are the basis of our civilization," Todd Leake said. "If anything belongs in the public domain it is the crops we grow for food."

[image caption: President Barack Obama's administration has been investigating monopoly concentration in the seed business for over two years. But when the President spoke on the steps of the Seed Savers Exchange, an independent seed company, he didn't mention that inquiry once. Nor did he talk about business concentration in other areas of agriculture, despite hearings held by his Department of Justice all over rural America.]

Last week President Obama held a town hall meeting on the grounds of Iowa's Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.

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"Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall" - Did Fracking Cause the Virginia Earthquake?

August 23, 2011

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Injecting High Pressure Water Deep into Rock Bed by Atlantic Council

Earthquakes in the nation's capitol are as rare as hen's teeth. The epicenter of Tuesday's quake was in Mineral, Virginia, which is located on three very quiet fault lines. The occurrence of yet another freak earthquake in an unusual location is leading many anti-fracking activists (including me -- they have just started fracking in Stratford, which is 40 minutes from New Plymouth) to wonder whether "fracking" in nearby West Virginia may be responsible.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of initiating and subsequently propagating a fracture in a rock layer, employing the pressure of a fluid as the source of energy. The fracturing is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations, in order to increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of oil and natural gas and coal seam gas.

How Fracking Causes Earthquakes

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