Dirty Biofuels: Leaked Data Shows Some Worse Than Fossil Fuels

According to leaked data from the European Commission obtained by EuroActiv, greenhouse gas emissions from some biofuels are higher than those from fossil fuels, when Indirect Land Usage Change (ILUC) is factored in.

EuroActiv reports:

ILUC happens when forests and wetlands are cleared to compensate for lands taken to grow biofuels elsewhere.

One recent report predicted that all of Malaysia’s tropical peatswamp forests would be destroyed by the end of the decade because of ILUC - with alarming consequences for greenhouse gas emissions - unless the expansion of palm oil production was halted.

To measure the climate impact of fuels, Brussels favours assigning default values based on a calculation of their full lifecycle emissions, hence the debate over ILUC factors and biofuels.

In its recent review of the Fuel Quality Directive, the EU proposed a default value of 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj) for oil from tar sands, as compared to 87.5g CO2/mj for crude oil, reflecting the greater environmental harm that its production causes.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/27-5 

Iraq water crisis could stir ethnic clash

Iraq is facing worsening water shortages caused by the failure of successive postwar governments to ensure supplies and extensive dam-building in neighboring states that could trigger sectarian conflict.

"One prediction, which has yet to come true, has been made repeatedly by former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali since 1988: That the Middle East will at some point in the future see war break out over access to water," the Middle East Economic Digest observed.

"Boutros-Ghali thought an interstate war would occur because of disputes over the ownership of the Nile. This has yet to happen.

"But if policymakers in Baghdad do not act soon, water could well be the source of renewed strife, not between Baghdad and its neighbors, but between Iraq's already deeply divided population," the weekly warned.

Read More:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Iraq_water_crisis_could_stir_ethnic_clash_999.html

David Rosen - The Mass Psychology of Newt Gingrich

Are hypocrites born or made? Is false consciousness a social disease? These are among the unasked questions haunting the 2012 Republican presidential race.

The four surviving candidates are hypocrites. Mitt Romney is the guy-next-door everyman with a quarter-billion-dollars in his pocket; Rick Santorum is the blue-collar everyman who has learned to work the corporate con for self-serving ends; Ron Paul is the white everyman standing before a giant Confederate flag proclaiming that the South was right seceding from the Union; and then there is Newt Gingrich, the shameless everyman who sheds his past like a snake loses its old skin.

Gingrich is the most hypocritical presidential candidate in modern history. But the significance of his hypocrisy can only be fully appreciated in terms of his surprising Jan. 21^st primary victory in South Carolina. Approximately 40 percent of registered Republicans willingly accepting his fiction. This is the politics of false consciousness.

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/the-mass-psychology-of-newt-gingrich/

James Hansen - Cowards In Our Democracies

Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson. As the UK Guardian reported earlier this week, James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies who first warned the world about the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, has joined other scientists in submitting statements to be considered by a judge at the Information Rights Tribunal on Friday. Hansen has posted “Cowards in Our Democracies: Part 1"— his submitted statement and an explanatory intro

Read More:

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/28/413955/james-hansen-on-cowards/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed&mobile=nc

Gary G. Kohls - What Kind of Christianity Is This?

From time to time, I read about condemnations of religion coming from non-religious groups, especially concerning the all-too-common violence perpetrated in the name of religious gods. Indeed there is plenty to condemn.

Altogether too many religions sects of both major and minor religions, despite verbally professing a desire for peace and justice in the world, are actually pro-war, pro-homicide and pro-violence in practice (or they may be silent on the subject, which is, according to moral theology, the same as being pro-violence).

Obvious examples include those portions of the three major war-justifying religions of the world: fundamentalist Islam, fundamentalist Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity.

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/25/what-kind-of-christianity-is-this/

Will Allen and Ronnie Cummins - What About the State of Our Planet, Mr. President?

In his state of the union address this week, President Obama talked about the American promise - the promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

“The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive,” he said. “No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important.”

Climate scientists might beg to differ.

Most of the President’s speech focused on economic reforms. He proposed energy reforms almost exclusively in the context of adding jobs and growing the economy.

But what good is a healthy economy on a planet too sick to sustain human life?

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/what-about-the-state-of-our-planet-mr-president/

David A Love - The US government's capital punishment prerogative

While much attention is paid to the 34 US states that still administer the death penalty, federal and military systems of executions also exist. The retention of the US federal death penalty undermines those states that have abolished capital punishment– and federal executions undermine Washington's claims of world leadership in human rights.

Historically, perhaps the most well-known federal executions were of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in New York. The Rosenbergs were convicted of Soviet espionage and electrocuted in 1953, at a time of anti-communist hysteria, amid charges of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct and a climate of antisemitism.

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/27/us-government-capital-punishment

Jahanzeb Hussain - The Global Worth of Human Life

I wonder how Europe and North America would react if the victims of 9/11, 7/7 and Madrid bombings were universally declared as nothing but “collateral damage”. It is simply unthinkable that victims who happen to be citizens of imperialist countries can be deprived of their humanity, the value of their life negated and their memories brushed under the rug. It would be totally wrong if we dismissed the lost lives as a mean to an end. Human life is an end in itself and its worth can never be diminished.

However, it is culturally accepted that when an innocent Iraqi, Palestinian, Afghan and a Pakistani dies they are not automatically accorded the same human right that Westerners and whites are. They are not viewed as valuable lives, but they are looked down upon as “collateral damage”.

Read More:

http://afghansforpeace.org/archives/2059

Nick Beams - IMF Warning On Global Downturn

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has added its voice to those of the World Bank and the United Nations in warning of a global slowdown and increased financial risks flowing from the eurozone crisis.

Revising its forecast for global growth in 2012 to 3.3 percent—0.7 percentage points lower than its September forecast—and warning of outright recession in Europe, the IMF said world recovery was threatened by “intensifying strains in the euro area and fragilities elsewhere.” Growth began to decline in the fourth quarter of 2011 “as the euro crisis entered a perilous new phase.”

While there had been higher than expected growth in the advanced economies, these developments were not expected to sustain significant momentum. In view of the often repeated claim that “emerging markets” will provide the basis for a new expansion of the world economy, the IMF’s comments on these regions were particularly significant.

Read More:

http://countercurrents.org/beams250112.htm

Ellen Brown - Why All the Robo-Signing? Shining a Light on the Shadow Banking System

The Wall Street Journal reported [6] on January 19 that the Obama administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the "robo-signing" scandal. The scandal involves employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity of documents they had not really reviewed. Investigation is revealing that it did not just happen occasionally, but was an industry-wide practice, dating back to the late 1990s; and that it may have clouded the titles of millions of homes. If the settlement is agreed to, it will let Wall Street bankers off the hook for crimes that would land the rest of us in jail - fraud, forgery, securities violations and tax evasion.

To the president's credit, however, he seems to have shifted his position on the settlement in response to protests before his State of the Union address. In his speech on January 24, President Obama did not mention the settlement, but announced instead that he would be creating a mortgage crisis unit to investigate wrongdoing related to real estate lending. "This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans," he said.

Read More:

http://www.truth-out.org/why-all-robo-signing-shining-light-shadow-banking-system/1327502824