Cempaka Eco Green

100 Countries Back World Environment Agency: France

2012-01-31T21:27:00.000+07:00

Jakarta Globe, January 31, 2012

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Paris. Morethan a hundred countries now support a French proposal to create a “WorldEnvironment Organization” at the upcoming 20th anniversary conference of theRio Summit, France’s ecology minister said on Tuesday.

“More than100 countries have now associated themselves with the proposal,” NathalieKosciusko-Morizet said at a conference in Paris aimed at stimulating ideas forthe June 20-22 global gathering.

The idea isto beef up the UN Environment Program (UNEP), which critics say lacks clout andresources for dealing with the world’s worsening environmental crisis.

Kosciusko-Morizetsaid the new agency was a key to the success of the June 20-22 conference,designed to assess the 20 years that have passed since the 1992 Rio Summit thatnailed the environment to the political agenda.

It shouldbe part of a rethink of the world’s economy, in which green issues and socialquestions should be placed alongside the search for profit.

“The newcapitalism which emerges from the crisis has to be environmental, or it won’tbe new,” she said.

The Parisconference gathered several hundred representatives from national and localgovernment, thinktanks and civil society with the declared aim of gingering upa program, called “draft zero,” that is being hammered out for Rio.

Agence France-Presse

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U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

Volcanic origin for Little Ice Age

2012-01-31T01:44:00.000+07:00

BBC News, by RichardBlack, Environmentcorrespondent, 30 January 2012

RelatedStories

Plants trapped under Iceland's icecaps
store a record of ancient temperatures

The LittleIce Age was caused by the cooling effect of massive volcanic eruptions, andsustained by changes in Arctic ice cover, scientists conclude.

Aninternational research team studied ancient plants from Iceland and Canada, andsediments carried by glaciers.

They say aseries of eruptions just before 1300 lowered Arctic temperatures enough for icesheets to expand.

Writing inGeophysical Research Letters, they say this would have kept the Earth cool forcenturies.

The exactdefinition of the Little Ice Age is disputed. While many studies suggesttemperatures fell globally in the 1500s, others suggest the Arctic andsub-Arctic began cooling several centuries previously.

The globaldip in temperatures was less than 1C, but parts of Europe cooled more,particularly in winter, with the River Thames in London iced thickly enough tobe traversable on foot.

What causedit has been uncertain. The new study, led by Gifford Miller at the Universityof Colorado at Boulder, US, links back to a series of four explosive volcaniceruptions between about 1250 and 1300 in the tropics, which would have blastedhuge clouds of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere.

These tinyaerosol particles are known to cool the globe by reflecting solar energy backinto space.

The Little Ice Age saw an increase in
cold winters in parts of Europe, but a
small global change

"Thisis the first time that anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of thecold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age," said Dr Miller.

"Wehave also provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains howthis cold period could be sustained for a long period of time."

Thescientists studied several sites in north-eastern Canada and in Iceland wheresmall icecaps have expanded and contracted over the centuries.

When theice spreads, plants underneath are killed and "entombed" in the ice.Carbon-dating can determine how long ago this happened.

So theplants provide a record of the icecaps' sizes at various times - and therefore,indirectly, of the local temperature.

Anadditional site at Hvitarvatn in Iceland yielded records of how much sedimentwas carried by a glacier in different decades, indicating changes in itsthickness.

Puttingthese records together showed that cooling began fairly abruptly at some pointbetween 1250 and 1300. Temperatures fell another notch between 1430 and 1455.

The firstof these periods saw four large volcanic eruptions beginning in 1256, probablyfrom the tropics sources, although the exact locations have not been determined.

The laterperiod incorporated the major Kuwae eruption in Vanuatu.

Aerosolsfrom volcanic eruptions usually cool the climate for just a few years.

When theresearchers plugged in the sequence of eruptions into a computer model ofclimate, they found that the short but intense burst of cooling was enough toinitiate growth of summer ice sheets around the Arctic Ocean, as well asglaciers.

The extra icein turn reflected more solar radiation back into space, and weakened theAtlantic ocean circulation commonly known as the Gulf Stream.

"It'seasy to calculate how much colder you could get with volcanoes; but that has nopermanence, the skies soon clear," Dr Miller told BBC News.

"Andit was climate modelling that showed how sea ice exports into the NorthAtlantic set up this self-sustaining feedback process, and that's how aperturbation of decades can result in a climate shift of centuries."

Analysis of the later phase of the Little Ice Age also suggests that changes in the Sun'soutput, particularly in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, would also havecontributed cooling.

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U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

GLOBAL WARMING – NOT LONG TERM (WATER CYCLE)

New Mini Ice Age

"The weather you have today, and all the alarming attributes of it, is a scenario of what was scheduled to happen on Earth anyway. I review again that the weather changes you are seeing prophesied by myself, 21 years ago, are not a surprise. The changes are not caused by the pollutants you put in the air. You call it global warming and that's a nice phrase, and perhaps that will get you to put less pollutants in the air – a very good thing. But what you are seeing in the weather shift today was not caused by Humans putting things into the air. It would have happened anyway in about 300 years."

"We've called this process the water cycle, since it's all about water, not about air. The water is the predominant attribute of Gaia and of the weather cycle you're seeing. More predominant is the temperature of it. The cycle is ice to water and water to ice, and has been repeated on this planet over and over and over. It is not new. It is not exceptional. It is not frightening. But it's a cycle that modern humanity has not seen before, and it's a long cycle that is beyond the life span of a Human Being. Therefore, it tends to be overlooked or not seen at all !"

"In the days of the Lemurians, the water level of the Pacific Ocean was almost 400 feet lower, and that's only 50,000 years ago. [Kryon invites science to check this out – the water level at that time.] That was a water cycle working, and the reason it was lower was due to so much of the water being stored as ice. Today you're going through another water cycle that will eventually lead to cooling. The last one was in the 1400s."

"Science sees that at about 1650. As mentioned, they are so slow there is no remembrance that a Human has of them except in past writings and in the rings of the trees. The time span of the changes is so great that environmental record keeping does not exist in the form that it does today. But you can still look at the rings of the trees and at the striations of the rocks and can generally figure out that a few hundred years ago, you had a mini-ice age. Now you're going to have another one." Read more .....(THE RELATIONSHIP TO GAIA - April 2010 (Kryon Channeling))

Radical Theory Explains the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, Challenges Conventional Wisdom

2012-01-30T02:37:00.001+07:00

ScienceDaily, January 26, 2012

Related Stories:

Arevolutionary scientific theory

of life asserts that Earth is alive.

(Credit:Beboy / Fotolia)

ScienceDaily(Jan. 26, 2012) — Earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory oflife emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Thetrans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-livingobjects -- for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA -- are animate, thatis, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of scienceand medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

ErikAndrulis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology,advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript "Theory of theOrigin, Evolution, and Nature of Life," published in the peer-reviewedjournal, Life. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of lifeon earth and in the universe but also the structure and function of existingcells and biospheres.

In additionto resolving long-standing paradoxes and puzzles in chemistry and biology, Dr.Andrulis' theory unifies quantum and celestial mechanics. His unorthodoxsolution to this quintessential problem in physics differs from mainstreamapproaches, like string theory, as it is simple, non-mathematical, andexperimentally and experientially verifiable. As such, the new portrait ofquantum gravity is radical.

The basicidea of Dr. Andrulis' framework is that all physical reality can be modeled bya single geometric entity with life-like characteristics: the gyre. Theso-called "gyromodel" depicts objects -- particles, atoms, chemicals,molecules, and cells -- as quantized packets of energy and matter that cyclebetween excited and ground states around a singularity, the gyromodel's center.A singularity is itself modeled as a gyre, wholly compatible with the thermodynamicand fractal nature of life. An example of this nested, self-similarorganization is the Russian Matryoshka doll.

By fittingthe gyromodel to facts accumulated over scientific history, Dr. Andrulisconfirms the proposed existence of eight laws of nature. One of these, thenatural law of unity, decrees that the living cell and any part of the visibleuniverse are irreducible. This law formally establishes that there is onephysical reality.

Anothernatural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identicalorganizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solarsystems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

"Modernscience lacks a unifying, interdisciplinary theory of life. In other words,current theories are unable to explain why life is the way it is and not anyother way," Dr. Andrulis says. "This general paradigm furnishes afresh perspective on the character and meaning of life, offers solutions toprotracted problems, and strives to end divisive debates."

One debateswirls around the scientific merit of James Lovelock's popular Gaia hypothesis.By showing that Earth is theoretically synonymous with life, Dr. Andrulis'paradigm substantiates the Gaian premise that all organisms and theirsurroundings on earth are closely integrated to form a single self-regulatingcomplex system.

Anotherlegendary quarrel is that between biblical creationists and neo-Darwinianevolutionists. In demonstrating that the origin and evolution of life is aconsequence of natural laws and physical forces, this theory synthesizesarguments and dispels assumptions from both sides of the creation-evolutiondebate.

To test hisparadigm, Dr. Andrulis designed bidirectional flow diagrams that both depictand predict the dynamics of energy and matter. While such diagrams may beforeign to some scientists, they are standard reaction notation to chemists,biochemists, and biologists.

Dr.Andrulis has used his theory to successfully predict and identify a hiddensignature of RNA biogenesis in his laboratory at Case Western ReserveUniversity School of Medicine. He is now applying the gyromodel to unify andexplain the evolution and development of human beings.

Related Articles:

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

"Spiritual Logic" - Oct 15 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)
(Subjects: Benevolent Design, Channelling, Holy scriptures, Higher self, (Old) Souls, Universes, Big Bang, Galaxy/Solar system build for life, Astronomy, Life on Earth tried to start 5 times/ 5th time life started, Large Animals/No Humans, Asteroid belt, 7 Sisters / 100.000 year ago Pleiadian Brothers and Sisters seeded Humans on earth, DNA, Humans Ascensiont with Pleiadian DNA, Lemuria (Hawaii),21-12-2012, 26.000 years cycle, 1987 - Harmonic convergence (11:11), Shift of Human Consciousness, Gaia, The Humanization of God, 1991 Russia falls, 1994 started 36 years galactic window (Presession), Mid point on 21-12-2012, Lemuria (Hawaii) center of the Earth time, Love (Mother & Child), Religion, Higher self, Global Unity,..... etc.)

U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

2012-01-25T15:30:00.002+07:00

Reuters, byDeborah Zabarenko and Nina Chestney, Tue Jan 24, 2012

A man sortsoffcuts of fabric that will be sold to textile factories before

being recycled,in the outskirts of Faisalabad, December 27, 2011.

(Credit:Reuters/Fayyaz Hussain)

(Reuters) -Representatives from around the world gather in Rio in June to try to hammerout goals for sustainable development at a U.N. conference designed to avoidbeing tripped up by the intractable issue of climate change.

But thereis concern in the lead-up to the conference, known as Rio+20 or the EarthSummit, that it risks ending up as all talk and little action.

In anattempt to avoid too much confrontation, the conference will focus not onclimate change but on sustainable development - making sure economies can grownow without endangering resources and the environment for future generations.

U.N.conferences over the past decade have begun with high hopes for agreements tocompel nations to cut climate-warming emissions and help adapt to a hotterworld, but they often ended with disappointingly modest results. That was thecase last year in the global climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.Participants at that meeting agreed to forge a new deal by 2015 that would gointo force by 2020.

The"sustainable" branding for this year's summit, rather than climate,is by design, said Ambassador Andre Correa do Lago, who headed Brazil'sdelegation to the U.N. climate talks in Durban and will be a chief negotiatorfor Brazil in Rio.

Sustainabledevelopment is an easier sell globally than climate change, even thoughsustainable development is a way of tackling global warming and otherenvironmental issues, he said.

"Climatechange is an (issue) that has very strong resistance from sectors that aregoing to be substantially altered, like the oil industry," do Lago said."Sustainable development is something that is as simple as looking at howwe would like to be in 10 or 20 years."

The timeseems ripe. Natural resources are at a premium. The global human populationtops 7 billion. Traditional economies are failing. And the planet is warming.Leaders may accept the premise that it makes sense to ensure rich and emergingnations can grow without further damaging the environment.

The focusof global meetings has been on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,especially carbon dioxide, but the world's biggest emitters, including Chinaand the United States, have balked, arguing it would cripple economicdevelopment.

Climatechange first claimed the world stage at the U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro20 years ago. That first Earth Summit in 1992 ultimately led to thecarbon-capping Kyoto Protocol and a treaty on biodiversity.

This summitoffers a chance to renew political will to make the world's economies greener.

Since the1992 summit, successive attempts to secure a new binding pact to cut greenhousegas emissions have failed to produce concrete results, public interest inclimate change has waned, and many world leaders are concentrating on upcomingelections and financial worries.

"AMISSED OPPORTUNITY"

There isconcern that this new summit could fall short.

"Themost it will manage is to set some voluntary goals with a vague timeline, butit will not be clear what the process is to achieve these goals," saidAndrew Light of the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington.Without real goals and a way to reach them, Light said, Rio "will be amissed opportunity."

A U.N.draft document was released this month as a starting point for the Juneconference, outlining seven issues including jobs, energy, food, water anddisasters.

"Withoutclearly defined goals, the summit will not provide the clarity and certaintythat are needed to get the private sector to actively participate andpotentially make the investments needed to achieve the goals," saidStephen Starbuck, expert on climate change and sustainability at Ernst &Young.

A narrowerclimate focus could also put off some countries, such as the United States,where opposition to carbon-capping legislation was so strong from Republicansand the oil industry that it overturned plans for a national emissionscap-and-trade arrangement.

In the past20 years, the debate has changed as the world has changed, according to TimWirth, a former U.S. senator who attended the 1992 Rio meeting and will be atthis year's conference as president of the non-profit U.N. Foundation.

"Thedebate's changed because of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, the veryrapid and surprisingly powerful growth of the newly industrializedcountries," he said.

In 1992 andin the Kyoto Protocol that grew from events at Rio, these developing countriesand others were exempt from curbing carbon dioxide emissions, while richcountries like the United States would have had to cut back. In the end, theU.S. Senate never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in2005.

"Riowas really exploratory," Wirth said. "Nobody knew what this was goingto be all about. ... I think Rio+20 becomes an opportunity to be very specific,especially about energy and development."

Althoughfast-developing economies are eager for this shift, Wirth said there may beresistance from big energy powers like the United States and some oil producersin the Middle East.

"Theseare the countries that say, 'Hey, this is our sandbox, you can't get intoit,'" he said. "But I think that's passing by very quickly."

Rio+20 willhave to give the private sector the clarity and incentives they need over themedium term, Starbuck said.

Any goalsset in Rio would likely be for the next 20 years, which could be too far in thefuture for most chief executives whose time in office is more likely to lastyears, not decades.

Instead,interim goals set along the way to 2030 would make the private sector morelikely to engage, Starbuck added.

(Reportingby Deborah Zabarenko in Washington and Nina Chestney in London; Editing byRussell Blinch and Will Dunham)

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Leaked document reveals Rio+20 sustainable development goals

Matthew preparing us for the Golden Age. (Channelled by Suzy Ward) - New !

NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

German village generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it needs, earns millions selling it back to national power grid

Durban? What a waste of time!

(Photo: RNW)

GLOBAL WARMING / CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE (THRU CHANNELING)

7. Let us give you another prime example of duality, the controversial issue you call global warming. Those who believe this is a natural occurrence cite Earth’s ice ages as proof that humankind has no hand in today’s record temperatures, the melting of glaciers and the harsh climate anomalies. They believe that there is no need to change manufacturing operations or turn to alternative energy sources because doing so would be cost-prohibitive. Then there are those who believe that science proves climate change is manmade. They point to industrial pollution and the use of biofuels as the cause, and they maintain that unless action is taken to end those practices, the cost will be total destruction of the environment. With the two sides at loggerheads, no large scale efforts are underway to change business as usual.

8. The truth is, both sides have validity even though neither knows that Earth herself is in the process of restoring the moderate climate of Eden times, when her body was pristine and healthy. And pollution, a product of humanity, must stop because it is harming the planet and all of its life forms. Eventually the two sides of the global warming issue will realize that protecting and repairing the environment is essential, and formerly extreme views will be reconciled into effective methods to remedy the present critical state. Read more ..... (Q&A - November 2010 (Matthew Channeling))

DSM to produce advanced biofuel

2012-01-25T02:51:00.001+07:00

RNW, 24January 2012

Dutchspecialty chemicals company DSM has entered into a joint venture with the USethanol producer POET to produce biofuel from the inedible plant material leftover from the corn harvest.

The Dutchcompany is one of the first worldwide to produce advanced, ‘second generation’,biofuels. POET–DSM Advanced Biofuels will produce the ethanol from the stalksand leaves of the corn plant using a a biological process which involves achemical reaction between water and enzymes followed by fermentation. Theresulting biofuel is referred to as 'advanced' because the process utilisesonly material which has no nutritional value.

Milestone

Productionis scheduled to start in the second half of 2013 in a factory in the US stateof Iowa, which will be built next to an existing POET production unit. DSM andPOET will both make an initial investment of 192 million euros in the newfactory which is to produce between 75 and 95 million litres of ethanol a year.The joint venture, with its headquarters located in South Dakota, is to beprofitable by 2014. DSM and POET both have a 50 percent stake in the jointventure.DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma on Monday spoke of a strategic milestone for DSMand a major step in the direction of a bio-based economy. “We are not justtalking about a bio-based economy, we are really going to make it happen.”

Commerciallyviable

DSMbelieves biofuel has great commercial potential. Projections made by the USgovernment show that production of biofuel in the United States alone could beas high as 60 billion litres by 2020. Between 350 and 400 new bio-refinerieswould have to be built to meet demand.

POET–DSMAdvanced Biofuels is forecast to realise an annual turnover of around 100million US dollars plus additional revenue from licence agreements with otherPOET factories and third parties. Mr Sijbesma declined to give an estimate ofhow much revenue these agreements could generate.

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Conserving biodiversity hotspots 'could bring world's poor $500bn a year'

2012-01-21T06:41:00.000+07:00

Study putseconomic value on the indirect ecosystem services provided by the world'spoorest people

guardian.co.uk,Fiona Harvey in Jakarta, Friday 20 January 2012

A farmer walks with an ox-drawn cart - Webuye district, Kenya. Many of
the benefits of conservation, so-called 'ecosystem services', are invisible.
Photograph: Jake Lyell/Alamy

Some of theworld's poorest people would be half a trillion dollars a year better off ifthe services they provide to the rest of the planet indirectly – throughconserving natural habitats – was given an economic value, a new study hasfound.

Many ofthese valuable habitats and species are under threat, but the people who livein these areas lack the means to improve their conservation, according to a new study in the journal BioScience.

If poor people were paid for the services they provide in preserving some of theworld's key biodiversity hotspots, they could reap $500bn. There are somefledgling schemes that could help to raise this cash – for instance, the UnitedNations-backed system called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation andforest Degradation), which uses carbon trading to generate cash to preservetrees – but so far they are small in scale.

Thebenefits of safeguarding these habitats, such as providing valuable servicesfrom food, medicines and clean water to absorbing carbon dioxide from the air,are more than triple the costs of conserving them, the researchers found.

WillTurner, vice–president of Conservation International and lead author of thestudy, said: "Developed and developing economies cannot continue to askthe world's poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally importantecosystem services for the rest of the world's benefit, without compensation inreturn. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about valuing naturalcapital. Nature may not send us a bill, but its essential services and flows,both direct and indirect, have concrete economic value."

He saidthat preserving areas of highest biodiversity should be the priority."What the research clearly tells us is that conserving the world'sremaining biodiversity isn't just a moral imperative - it is a necessaryinvestment for lasting economic development. But in many places where the poordepend on these natural services, we are dangerously close to exhausting them,resulting in lasting poverty," said Turner.

Many of thebenefits of conservation, so-called "ecosystem services", areinvisible – for instance, maintaining wooded land can help to prevent mudslidesduring heavy rainfall, and provides valuable watersheds that keep rivershealthy and provide clean drinking water, as well as absorbing carbon dioxidefrom the air. These benefits are not assigned an economic value, however, sothat chopping down trees or destroying habitats appears to deliver an instanteconomic return, when in fact it is leading to economic losses that are onlyobvious when it is too late.

The study,entitled Global Biodiversity Conservation and the Alleviation of Poverty, wasled by a team from Conservation International, and co-authored by scientists atNatureServe, the US National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They looked in particular at 17 of the world's mostimportant areas for biodiversity.

They foundthat some of the ecosystem services accrued to the local people themselves –for instance, using forests as sources of food, medicines and shelter – whilethe rest are regional or global.

The studyfollows on a growing body of work from the past decade that has sought to place a value on ecosystem services, as a way of ensuring that they are accounted forin economic policy. If nature is not economically valued, many scientists haveargued, it is more prone to being destroyed.

RussellMittermeier, president of Conservation International and a co-author, said:"We have always known that biodiversity is foundational to humanwellbeing, but we now have a strong case that ecosystems specifically locatedin the world's biodiversity hotspots and high-biodiversity wilderness areasalso provide a vital safety net for people living in poverty. Protecting theseplaces is essential not only to safeguard life on earth but also to support theimpoverished, ensure continued broad access to nature's services, and meet theUN millennium development goals."

He calledon governments to integrate the conservation of nature into economic andpoverty-alleviation policies, in order to value these services better.

Dark matter galaxy hints seen 10bn light-years away

2012-01-19T22:51:00.001+07:00

BBC News, 18January 2012

RelatedStories

The light bent by a dark-matter-dominated
galaxy can form what is known as
an "Einstein ring"

Astronomershave spotted a "dwarf" galaxy some 10 billion light-years away whichmay be made mostly of the mysterious material called dark matter.

The dwarfwas found using a technique called gravitational lensing. It is only the seconddark dwarf ever seen, and it is by far the most distant.

The factthat so few dwarf galaxies are seen in our own cosmic neighbourhood hasremained a conundrum in astronomy.

The study inNature could explain it: they may be overwhelmingly dark matter.

Dwarfgalaxies often occur in the periphery of larger galaxies, where they are knownas satellites - the Milky Way may have many as well.

"Accordingto the theory of galaxy formation, you'd expect thousands of thesesatellites," explained lead author of the study Simona Vegetti of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Butif you look at the Milky Way we only find 30, so it's important to understandhow many satellites are really there, and important to look at other galaxiesother than the Milky Way," she told BBC News.

That willhelp determine if our cosmic neighbourhood of galaxies - the Local Group - isunusual, or if the theory of galaxy formation is incomplete.

Massivequestion

Dark matteris so named because it does not interact with light - it cannot be seendirectly, as the stars and dust of the cosmos can.

However, itdoes have mass - making up 85% of the mass in the Universe - and the effects ofthat mass can be spotted.

Gravitationallensing is a technique in which an object that lies between Earth and a distantlight source can actually act as a "lens"; the object's mass bendsthe distant galaxy's light, magnifying and distorting it.

By usingcomputer models of how that magnification and distortion should work, the massof the lensing galaxy - and where that mass is distributed - can be determined.

Dark energy and dark matter mysteries

. Gravity acting across vast distances does
not seem to explain what astronomers see

. Galaxies, for example, should fly apart;
some other mass must be there holding
them together

. Astrophysicists have thus postulated "dark
matter" - invisible to us but clearly acting
on galactic scales

. At the greatest distances, the Universe's
expansion is accelerating

. Thus we have also "dark energy" which
acts to drive the expansion, in opposition to
gravity

. The current theory holds that 73% of the
Universe is dark energy, 23% is dark matter,
and just 4% the kind of matter we know well

BBC Universe: Dark matter

BBC Universe: Dark energy

Thetechnique was recently used to develop the widest view of dark matter distribution in the Universe ever produced.

Dr Vegettiand colleagues in the US and the Netherlands have now used the Keck telescopein Hawaii to study the lensing caused by a distant elliptical galaxy calledJVAS B1938+666.

They founda discrepancy in comparing with the image that their detailed computer modelsuggested should come from the system.

Somethingwith a mass about 200,000,000 times that of our Sun is in the periphery of theimage they see.

Yet thatsource of mass is not visible in the image of the galaxy itself.

"It'svery hard to tell at the moment because the telescopes are just not powerfulenough to see such dim galaxies so far away," Dr Vegetti said.

"But[the dwarf galaxy] is most likely dominated by dark matter, or maybe there area few stars hiding here and there."

The team mustcontinue the hunt for such satellites to get to the bottom of the dark mystery.

"Wewere kind of lucky that the first one we looked at also had a satellite,"Dr Vegetti said.

"If wefind other galaxies or satellites, it will tell us whether we need to changethe properties of dark matter; if we don't find enough, then dark matter mustbe different from what we think."

Related Article:

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

"The Interdimensional Universe" – Nov 15, 2003 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

“… Let me give you another hint about themechanics of your Universe. We've talked about gamma-ray activity for almost adecade. We told you to "look for intense gamma-ray activity." We toldyou that when you see it, you'll know that there's creation going on - somethingspecial happening. Now we identify this as dimensional shift. It's alwaysaccompanied by powerful gamma rays, specifically of extreme high intensity.This is an attribute of dimensional shift, and also tells you that something ishappening. You see this at the edge of your galaxy, and you know that somethingis changing there. It's a "mini-big bang," if you want to use yourown terms. It's part of a constantly changing Universe, one that's moving in apush/pull fashion. …”

Stephen Hawking

(According to Gaia is Stephen Hawking an incarnation of Sir Isaac Newton, confirmed in a channeling thru Pepper Lewis in the Shirley Maclaine Radio Show 2, including explanations of BP Oil spill, Dark Matter, God/God/Local God..., ET Disclosure, 3/5/7 dimensions, Money, Currencies ... etc.)

Keystone XL pipeline: Obama rejects controversial project

2012-01-19T05:03:00.000+07:00

Republicansset up election-year showdown by blasting Obama for decision, saying thousandsof jobs have been lost

guardian.co.uk,Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, Wednesday 18 January 2012

John Boehner, surrounded by other House Republicans, decries the state
department's announcement that the US will not proceed with the
controversial Keystone Pipeline. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

BarackObama rejected the controversial Keystone tar sands pipeline on Wednesday,making good on a promise not to give in to a Republican ultimatum on theproject.

Theannouncement from the state department – which was expected – was hailed by environmentalistsas a victory.

But it setsup an election-year confrontation over the pipeline, which was to carrycarbon-heavy crude from the tar sands of Alberta across the American heartlandto refineries on the Texas coast.

However,TransCanada, the Canadian company which was seeking to build the pipeline, willbe allowed to re-apply for permission to go ahead with the project.

"TheDepartment's denial of the permit application does not preclude any subsequentpermit application or applications for similar projects," the statedepartment said in a statement said.

Obama, inhis statement, pinned the blame for the decision on the Republicans for tryingto push the administration to an earlier deadline. "The rushed andarbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a fullassessment of the pipeline's impact, he said. "This announcement is not ajudgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadlinethat prevented the state department from gathering the information necessary toapprove the project and protect the American people."

He saidofficials would continue to explore new pipeline routes

Environmentalgroups immediately hailed the decision as David versus Goliath victory for anunlikely coalition between national activists and Nebraska landowners opposed to the pipeline's route across an ecologically sensitive area known as the SandHills.

Industrygroups – and Republicans – said the decision showed Obama did not care aboutjobs. There was also disappointment from the Canadian government, which hadpushed hard for the pipeline.

As newsspread on Wednesday of a forthcoming announcement, Bill McKibben, theenvironmentalist who galvanised opposition to the pipeline, said:"Assuming that what we're hearing is true, this isn't just the right call,it's the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been thathe's too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked threat from Big Oil toexact 'huge political consequences' he's stood up strong."

DamonMoglen, the climate campaigner of Friends of the Earth, cast the decision as anepic victory. When the project was first proposed, in August 2008, "No onethought we could win," he said

Industrygroups said Obama was squandering a chance to create jobs through pipelineconstruction, and warned he would rue his decision come election day.

"Thispolitical decision offers hard evidence that creating jobs is not a highpriority for this administration," said Tom Donohue, president of theChamber of Commerce, which has pushed hard for the pipeline.

MittRomney, the Republican frontrunner, said the decision showed a "lack ofseriousness" about bringing down unemployment, and that Obama waspandering to his political base.

Republicansin Congress echoed the jobs argument, and said they would try and put forwardnew legislation to push the project forward.

"PresidentObama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs," a spokesmanfor Republican house speaker John Boehner said.

Canadianprime minister Stephen Harper has also pushed hard for the pipeline, tellingthe CBC earlier this week that the administration's earlier delays were madefor "very bad political reasons".

In anextraordinary rant this month, the natural resources minister, Joe Oliver,lashed out at opponents of the pipeline as foreign radicals and jet-settingcelebrities.

However,administration officials argued that Republicans would have to take some of theblame for the cancellation of the project.

The WhiteHouse had warned repeatedly that it would be forced to turn down the nearly1,700 mile pipeline, after Congress voted last month to give the administrationa tight 60-day deadline to render its decision.

White Housespokesman Jay Carney made it clear on Tuesday that Obama would not be stampededinto approving the project. "There was an attempt to short-circut thereview process in a way that does not allow the kind of careful considerationof all the competing criteria here that needs to be done," he said."It's a fallacy to suggest that the president would sign into lawsomething when there isn't even an alternate route identified in Nebraska,"he said.

In anofficial statement, the state department said: "The Department of Staterecommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposedKeystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada KeystoneXL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest."

Thestatement said officials had not had enough time for an adequate review of theproject, given the 21 February deadline set by Congress. The State Departmenthas final authority over the pipeline because it crosses international borderwith Canada.

The statedepartment had earlier delayed a decision for up to a year, saying it needed toreview additional routes through Nebraska.

Thatdecision, which the state department attributed to intense grassrootsopposition from Nebraska, was a political gift to Obama, saving him from makinga decision on a project which had been cast as a choice between jobs or theenvironment.

The state departmentsaid at the time that the review, including a search for alternate routesacross Nebraska, would likely delay a final decision until 2013.

TransCanadahad begun to work with officials in Nebraska on finding a new path around theSand Hills, adding about 100 additional miles to the route. Officials hadindicated earlier they were close to agreeing on a new route.

Butactivists in Nebraska and Washington warned that they would be as ready tofight off a new tar sands pipeline. "If they do reapply, TransCanada willface the same valid public concerns and fierce opposition as the firsttime," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a campaigner for the Natural ResourcesDefence Council in Washington. "If they do reapply, TransCanada will facethe same valid public concerns and fierce opposition as the first time."

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Bulgaria backs off on shale gas exploration

Bulgaria backs off on shale gas exploration

2012-01-18T23:06:00.001+07:00

Deutsche Welle, 18 January 2012

Hydrofracking has not yet proven
to be safe

Bulgarianlawmakers gave in to strong public pressure over environmental concerns and onWednesday banned shale gas exploration and production through"fracking."

TheBulgarian parliament has slapped a ban on shale gas exploration and productionthrough hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," a commonly used methodthat uses high pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals to blastthrough rock and release oil and gas trapped inside.

Thedecision follows months of widespread protests from environmentalists acrossthe country. Critics say there is high risk of contaminating soil and drinkingwater and of triggering earthquakes.

Thegovernment had planned to start drilling for shale deposits in northeasternBulgaria as a way to decrease dependence on Russian natural gas deliveries.

Environmentalconcerns

In aspecial resolution, the parliament on Wednesday "banned the use of themethod of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil exploration on Bulgarianterritory and its Black Sea waters."

Violatorsrisk fines of 100 million leva (50 million euros, $64 million) and confiscationof all equipment.

On Tuesday,the government revoked a test shale gas exploration permit granted to US oilgiant Chevron, citing "the lack of sufficient assurances that the commonlyused shale gas drilling method of hydraulic fracturing can guaranteeenvironmental safety."

Environmentalistswelcomed the ban but said shale gas exploration by fracking should not only bebanned in a resolution but forbidden by law, as is the case in France.

Author: Dagmar Breitenbach (AFP, Reuters)

Editor: Michael Lawton

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Below, an apparatus the Duke University researchers used to test
methane levels. (Photograph by Wil Andruschak.)

Ethiopia forces thousands off land - Human Rights Watch

2012-01-17T17:50:00.001+07:00

BBC News, 17January 2012

RelatedStories

Many Ethiopian farmers struggle to survive
on what they can grow

Ethiopia'sgovernment has been accused of forcing tens of thousands of people off theirland so it can be leased to foreign investors.

US-basedHuman Rights Watch says people are being forcibly relocated to new villagesthat lack adequate food, farmland and facilities.

Ethiopiahas already leased out more than 3.6 million hectares (8.8m acres) of land - anarea the size of The Netherlands - HRW says.

Addis Ababarejects HRW's allegations.

"HumanRights Watch has wrongly alleged the villagisation programme to be unpopularand problematic," government spokesman Bereket Simon told Reuters newsagency.

"Thereis no evidence to back the claim. This programme is taking place with the fullpreparation and participation of regional authorities, the government andresidents," he said.

'Weaker andweaker'

HRW says ithas evidence that some 70,000 indigenous people were relocated against theirwill to new villages that "lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare andeducational facilities".

The groupsaid it spoke to more than 100 people in May and June last year for the report.

"Myfather was beaten for refusing to go along [to the new village] with some otherelders," a former villager told HRW.

"Hesaid: 'I was born here - my children were born here - I am too old to move so Iwill stay'. He was beaten by the army with sticks and the butt of a gun.

"Hehad to be taken to hospital. He died because of the beating - he just becameweaker and weaker."

Thegovernment has said in the past that all the moves are voluntary, the newvillages will have adequate infrastructure and everyone who moves will be givenassistance to help their transition to a new livelihood.

But HRWsays many of the new villages have no access to government services at all, andpeople are arriving at the worst time of year - the beginning of the harvest -to find the land has not been cleared and prepared for growing.

"Thegovernment failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has causedendemic hunger and cases of starvation," HRW says.

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'Speculation on basic foodstuffs is catastrophic'

Cargo boat and US navy ship set sail on 'green' algal oil in marine fuel trials

2012-01-15T20:09:00.001+07:00

Substitutingthe biofuel for bunker fuel may bring about a revolution in the world'sshipping fleets

guardian.co.uk,John Vidal, environment editor, Friday 13 January 2012

A Maersk container ship. The results of subsituting algal oil for bunker fuel
are being evaluated by the shipping company. Photograph: Roland
Magunia/AFP/Getty Images

Giant cargoboats and US navy warships have been successfully powered on oil derived fromgenetically modified, microscopic algae in moves which could see a revolutionin the fuel used by the world's fleets and a reduction in the pollution theycause.

The resultsof substituting algal oil for low-grade, "bunker" fuel and diesel ina 98,000-tonne container ship are still being evaluated by Maersk, the world'sbiggest shipping company, who last week tested 30 tonnes of oil supplied by theUS navy in a vessel travelling from Europe to India. Last month the navy tested20,000 gallons of algal fuel for a few hours on a decommissioned destroyer.Both ran their trials on a mix of algal oil – between 7% and 100% – andconventional bunker fuel.

"Thetests are not complete yet but we had very few problems," said a Maerskspokesman.

Collaborationbetween the world's two biggest shipping fleets is expected to lead to thedeployment of renewable marine fuels. Maersk uses more than $6bn of bunker fuela year for its 1,300 ships, and the US navy, the world's biggest single user ofmarine fuels, burns around 40m barrels of oil a year. The navy plans to testmore ships on algal fuel next year as part of its "green fleet" initiative and has pledged to cut 50% of its conventional oil use a year by2020 to reduce US imports. Maersk hopes to achieve similar cuts in the sametime.

"Shippingtakes 350m tonnes of oil a year and causes 3-4% of all greenhouse gasemissions, so it is very attractive to find alternatives. We can envisage [theworld's] ships being 10% or more powered by biofuels in 20 years' time,"said Jacob Sterling, Maersk head of climate and environment.

The exactnature of the algae, one of 30,000 single-cell organisms known to exist in thewild, is a closely guarded secret of Solazyme, the company which manufacturesthe fuel in giant fermentation tanks in Pennsylvania. The fast-growing algaeare fed crop or forest waste and convert their sugars to oil.

"Thetechnology is there. The question now is how to scale up," said TylerPainterm, chief finance officer of Solazyme, which has a contract to produce450,000 gallons of biofuels for the navy's trial. "We have testedthousands of algae, found in swamps, in mountains and at sea and we know we canbe competitive. By using different strains of algae we can produce differentkinds of oils."

Thecompany, which is set to expand shortly with a 50m gallon-a-year plant inBrazil, is backed by oil company Chevron, giant US agribusiness Bunge, and SirRichard Branson whose Virgin airline has tested planes on algal fuel.

Unlikeearly biofuels, which made transport fuel from food crops, the new "secondgeneration" process uses only plant waste and does not displace foodswhich could be fed to people or animals. Nevertheless, immense amounts offeedstock would be needed to power the world's ships. Maersk estimates it couldtake the crop waste of an area half the size of Denmark to completely powertheir ships.

But even apartial switch to algal oils would massively reduce air pollution. Bunker fuel,which is little more than asphalt, can produce as much pollution from a single ship in a year as 50m cars, is the most polluting fuel in the world.

But thereis uncertainty over how much algal fuels would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Algae sequester CO2 when growing, but they release it when burned as oil.Solazyme and Maersk claim that they reduce carbon emissions by 80% comparedwith petroleum derived fuels in a "lifetime" analysis.

The race ison between different companies to produce competitive algal oils. In October2010, the US Navy purchased 20,055 gallons on algae biofuel at $424 per gallon,but by December 2011, the price had reduced to $26.67 per gallon. Meanwhile,Craig Venter, the scientist who first sequenced the human genome and designedthe first synthetic cell, is trying to develop a genetically engineered algae fuel that depends only on sunlight and sea water and can be grown and harvestedat sea.

In an interview in this month's Scientific American, he said: "We need threemajor ingredients: CO2, sunlight and seawater, aside from having the facilityand refinery to convert all those things. We're looking at sites around theworld that have the major ingredient. To us, this is a long-term plan."

If the USnavy does switch to algae or other biofuels, it would mark the end of an era ofoil-burning navies ushered in by Winston Churchill. In 1911, as British navyminister, he controversially ordered the massive British fleet to switch fromcoal to oil for efficiency.

Two yearslater he bought for the UK government a 51% controlling interest in the thensmall Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Within a few years, the company changed itsname to BP, and is now the world's fourth largest corporation.

• Get theGuardian's environment news on your iPhone with our new app. You can also joinus on Twitter, Facebook and Google+

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NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

2012-01-13T20:03:00.001+07:00

MNISPEL, By Dr. MarkD. Nispel, January 12, 2012

NASA is allin and claiming to “be working on another way of producing energy withefficient nuclear power.” NASA as anorganization apparently suddenly wants to be seen as in the forefront of thisnew thing they see coming. Pretty coolactually.

NASA hasproduced and featured a video presenting LENR as a technology. The video features Dr. Joseph Zawodny, SeniorResearch Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center. The video highlights the potential of havinga LENR nuclear power generation device in your home to provide all the powerneeds of your home as the “easiest” implementation, even though it couldpotentially be used even for transportation and infrastructure. The technology is “clean” producing noionizing radiation or waste.

See thevideo highlight on the right of the NASA technology gateway page here.

The videodirectly is here.

In themeantime, A. Rossi continues to move apace claiming he is working on puttinghis e-cat LENR device intoproduction. He is working with NationalInstruments to complete his design. Heclaims that the first small home units that generate electricity and can heat /cool the home will be in production by the end of 2012 for around $1500 and heplans on producing a million the first year after they get going. See here and here.

Twointeresting notes:

1. The NASAvideo avoids using the term “cold fusion.”

2. The NASAvideo interestingly right toward the end uses an image to represent LENR
somewhat abstractly which it attributes to the US Navy SPAWAR within the video(see lower left).

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Decisions must be made at Rio Earth summit, urges UN official

2012-01-12T01:02:00.000+07:00

The summitmust not be a talking shop for world leaders, says Brice Lalonde, UN executiveco-ordinator of the conference

guardian.co.uk,John Vidal, Wednesday 11 January 2012

Heads of state and government gather for a group photograph as the media,
delegates and staff members look on at the United Nations Earth summit in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 13 June 1992. Photograph: UN Photo

The Earthsummit in June must be the place where decisions on the future of the planetare made, and not just another talking shop for world leaders, the head of whatwill be 2012's largest political conference has urged.

Speaking asthe first draft of the UN declaration for Rio+20 was released in New York onTuesday night, Brice Lalonde, the UN's executive co-ordinator of the conferenceand former French environment minister, said: "[The draft] is a goodstart. Most topics are on the table: from efficient international co-operationto sustainable development goals, from a regular review of the state of theplanet to an agency for the environment, from universal access to energy tosocial safety floors. What is missing now is one verb: to decide. Because tostress, urge, call, recognise, underscore, encourage, support or reaffirm isnot enough. When heads of state meet, it should be to decide."

As revealed by the Guardian early on Tuesday, world leaders will be called on to sign upfor 10 new sustainable development goals for the planet and promise to buildgreen economies. They will also be asked to negotiate a new agreement toprotect oceans, approve an annual state of the planet report, set up a majorworld agency for the environment, and appoint a global"ombudsperson", or high commissioner, for future generations.

John Major,Fidel Castro and George H W Bush were among the leaders who attended theoriginal earth summit, which was the world's biggest ever political gathering.But David Cameron has said he is not planning to attend Rio+20, despite promisingto lead the "greenest government ever" and the date of the summit being changed to avoid a clash with the Queen's diamond jubilee.

Internationalgroups on Wednesday reacted to the draft. Diana Bronson, a spokeswoman for ETCgroup in Canada, said: "The draft declaration calls for bold and decisiveaction and then offers weak and equivocal statements, reiterating commitment tothe same old policies that have failed to deliver on sustainable developmentfor 20 years. Alarmingly, business is called upon show leadership on the greeneconomy – completely ignoring how well-entrenched and increasingly consolidatedprivate interests have steered us away from sustainable development thus far.We need a clear commitment to support peasant agriculture and food sovereignty."

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Leaked documents reveal US diplomats actually work for Monsanto

2012-01-11T22:59:00.001+07:00

NaturalNews, by: Anthony Gucciardi, Wednesday, January 11, 2012

See allarticles by this author

(NaturalNews)Biotech giant Monsanto has been genetically modifying the world's food supplyand subsequently breeding environmental devastation for years, but leakeddocuments now reveal that Monsanto has also deeply infiltrated the UnitedStates government. With leaked reports revealing how U.S. diplomats areactually working for Monsanto to push their agenda along with other keygovernment officials, Monsanto's grasp on international politics has never beenclearer.

Amazingly,the information reveals that the massive corporation is also intensely involvedin the passing and regulations concerning the very GM ingredients they areresponsible for. In fact, the information released by WikiLeaks reveals justhow much power Monsanto has thanks to key positions within the United Statesgovernment and elsewhere. Not only was it exposed that the U.S. is threateningnations who oppose Monsanto with military-style trade wars, but that many U.S.diplomats actually work directly for Monsanto.

What theleaked documents reveal -- Military style trade wars, government corruption

In 2007 itwas requested that specific nations inside the European Union be punished fornot supporting the expansion of Monsanto's GMO crops. The request for suchmeasures to be taken was made by Craig Stapleton, the United States ambassadorto France and partner to George W. Bush. Despite mounting evidence linkingMonsanto's GM corn to organ damage and environmental devastation, theambassador plainly calls for 'target retaliation' against those not supportingthe GM crop. In the leaked documents, Stapleton states:

"Countryteam Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causessome pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but thatalso focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured ratherthan vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should notexpect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the currentpath has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen Europeanpro-biotech voices."

The undyingsupport of key players within the U.S. towards Monsanto is undeniably madeclear not only in this release, but in the legislative decisions taken byorganizations such as the FDA and USDA. Legislative decisions such as allowingMonsanto's synthetic hormone Posilac (rBGH) to be injected into U.S. cowsdespite being banned in 27 countries. How did Monsanto pull this off?

The biotechjuggernaut managed to infiltrate the FDA positions responsible for the approvalof rBGH, going as far as instating the company's own Margaret Miller as DeputyDirector of Human Safety and Consultative Services. After assuming thisposition, Miller reviewed her own report on the safety and effectiveness ofrBGH.

Many USdiplomats pawns of Monsanto's GM agenda

While itmay be shocking to you if you are not familiar with the corrupt influence ofMonsanto, the cables also show that many US diplomats are pushing GMO crops asa strategic government and commercial imperative. Interestingly enough, theU.S. focused their efforts toward advisers to the pope specifically, due to thefact that many Catholic figureheads have openly voiced their opposition to GMfoods. With this kind of political influence, is it any wonder that many foodstaples are now predominantly GM? Nearly 93% of U.S. soybeans are heavilymodified conservatively, with many other staple crops coming in at similarnumbers.

U.S.diplomats have unique opportunities to spread honest and intellectual campaginsthat can serve to better mankind and end suffering, however they are insteadspreading the roots of Monsanto deeper and deeper into international territory.As a substitute for the betterment of mankind, these paid-off diplomats are nowspreading environment desecration and health destruction.

As if therewasn't already enough information to reveal Monsanto's corruption, the biotechgiant also spends enormous amount of money lobbying government each year.Monsanto spent an astonishing $2 million lobbying the federal government in the3rd quarter of 2011 alone, according to mainstream sources. Why so much cash?The government lobbying focuses on issues like regulations for GM crops andpatent reforms. This 'legal' form of persuasion is the reason governmentagencies like the USDA and FDA let Monsanto roam freely.

Satisfyinggovernment officials' financial vested interest is all that matters whendealing with corrupt mega-corporations like Monsanto. As long as thesefinancial ties continue to exist, Monsanto will continue to reign over the foodsupply and continue to wreak devastation to the environment, ecosystem, andhumankind.

Sources forthis article include:

http://naturalsociety.com/us-start-trade-wars-with-nations-opposed-to-monsanto-gmo-crops/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9RL51J81.htm

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1677871/fearful-of-genetically-modified-crops-youre-too-late

About theauthor:

AnthonyGucciardi is a health activist and wellness researcher, whose goal is centeredaround educating the general public as to how they may obtain optimum health.He has authored countless articles highlighting the benefits of natural health,as well as exposing the pharmaceutical industry. Anthony is the creator ofNatural Society (http://www.NaturalSociety.com), a natural health website.Anthony has been accurately interpreting national and international events foryears within his numerous political articles. Anthony's articles have been seenby millions around the world, and hosted on multiple top news websites.

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Activists detained on Japan whaling vessel: Sea Shepherd

2012-01-10T04:49:00.001+07:00

Reuters, SYDNEY,Sun Jan 8, 2012

A smallboat from the Sea Shepherd vessel, Steve Irwin, makes a

reconnaissance trippast the Japanese whaling ship the Shonan Maru #2

near Freemantle in thishandout picture released to Reuters on January 8, 2012.

(Credit:Reuters/Sea Shepherd/Handout)

(Reuters) -Three Australian environmental activists were detained on board a Japanesewhaling ship on Sunday after boarding in protest at Japan's annual whale cullin the Antarctic, anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said.

The threeactivists from Forest Rescue, an Australian group specializing in direct actionto prevent logging, boarded the ship early on Sunday with assistance from theSea Shepherd Conservation Society, Sea Shepherd said in a statement.

U.S.-basedSea Shepherd is tailing Japan's whaling fleet as it heads towards the SouthernOcean to try to prevent the cull.

Thestatement described the activists as "prisoners now detained on a Japanesewhaler."

Speakingwhile en route to the Antarctic, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told Reutersby satellite phone that the activists were still on board the Shonan Maru 2. Hesaid the Japanese vessel had been sent to disrupt Sea Shepherd's longstandingcampaign to stop the cull.

There hadbeen no contact from the Japanese and the activists' radios appeared to havebeen seized, Watson said from aboard the Steve Irwin, one of two ships headingsouth with the aim of preventing the hunt from taking place.

"TheShonan Maru won't talk to us. They don't respond to our radio calls,"Watson said. "They are chasing us."

A NewZealand-based spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, whichcoordinates the annual hunt, confirmed the three men were on the Japanese boatand uninjured. He did not rule out that they might be taken to Japan.

"Thethree men are on board," spokesman Glenn Inwood told Reuters. "Theyare being questioned now and they remain on the vessel."

TheJapanese boat, he said, was 40 km off the Australian coast when the trioboarded it.

ForestRescue spokesman Michael Montgomery had earlier said the action was to protestat inaction by the Australian government to stop the hunt and to demand thedeparture of the whalers from Australian waters.

"Wedon't need to kill these beautiful creatures any more," he told Reuters.

SeaShepherd said the three activists came in a boat from Australia's western coastand approached the Shonan Maru 2 in the dark, with assistance from two SeaShepherd boats.

"Thethree negotiated their way past the razor wire and spikes and over the rails ofthe Japanese whaling vessel," the statement said. "They are beingheld in Australian territorial waters by an invading Japanese vessel containingarmed Japanese military personnel."

Theycarried with them a message reading: "Return us to shore in Australia andthen remove yourself from our waters."

Whaling wasbanned under a 1986 moratorium, but Japan continues to hunt hundreds of whalesannually under a loophole that allows whaling for "scientific"purposes.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Scientists discover 'hybrid sharks' off Australia

2012-01-05T17:57:00.001+07:00

Deutsche Welle, 4 January 2011

Genetic testing proved the
shark hybridization

Thediscovery of a hybrid species of shark has led excited marine scientists tospeculate that the animals are responding to climate change. They say naturemay be selecting for sharks that extend their range.

Crossbreedinghas been observed for the first time among sharks in a development thatscientists are calling "evolution in action."

Australianresearchers say the hybrid offspring of a tropical shark and its cousin foundin cooler waters will inherit a greater range than its parents.

A total of57 offspring of common blacktip and Australian blacktip sharks were found inwaters off Australia's eastern coast, researchers said.

"It'svery surprising because no one's ever seen shark hybrids before," JessMorgan of the University of Queensland, the lead researcher, told the AFP newsagency.

"Thisis not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination."

Morgan andothers said the widespread interspecies breeding across 2,000 kilometers (1,243miles) of the eastern Australian coastline indicated that the sharks aredealing with the effects of rising sea temperatures.

Territorialexpansion

"Hybridizationcould enable the sharks to adapt to environmental change," said JenniferOvenden, of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, in astatement.

The smallerAustralian blacktip favors tropical waters in the north. Its more common cousinis found mostly in sub-tropical and temperate waters, like along thesouth-eastern Australian coastline.

There could be a new predator on Australia's beaches

"If it[the Australian blacktip] hybridizes with the common species it can effectivelyshift its range further south into cooler waters, so the effect of thishybridizing is a range expansion," Morgan said.

Researchersfrom the University of Queensland, James Cook University and the states ofQueensland and New South Wales used body measurements as well as genetictesting, including a nuclear DNA marker inherited by both parents, to confirmthe hybridization.

The researchersmade the discovery while monitoring shark populations off Australia's easterncoast. Genetic testing proved that sharks that looked to belong to one speciesbelonged more genetically to the other, Morgan said.

ColinSimpfendorfer of James Cook University's Fishing and Fisheries Research Centresaid in a statement that more work needed to be done to tie climate change tothe species' hybridization.

He addedthat blacktip sharks are among the most understudied species in tropicalAustralia.

Geneticmapping will help establish how long the sharks have been interbreeding.

Thephenomenon could be recent or it may have been happening unbeknownst toscientists for generations.

"Theresults of this research show that we still have a lot to learn about theseimportant ocean predators," Simpfendorfer said.

Author: Sean Sinico

Editor: Nathan Witkop

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Lost World Discovered Under Antarctica

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: The Humanization of God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

World pays Ecuador not to extract oil from rainforest

2011-12-31T05:12:00.001+07:00

Governmentsand film stars join alliance that raises £75m to compensate Ecuador for lostrevenue from 900m barrels

guardian.co.uk, John Vidal, environment editor, Friday 30 December 2011

Supporters of the Yasuní 'crowdfunding' initiative say it could change the
way important places are protected. Photograph: Prisma Bildagentur AG
/ Alamy/Alamy

An allianceof European local authorities, national governments, US film stars, Japaneseshops, soft drink companies and Russian foundations have stepped in to preventoil companies exploiting 900m barrels of crude oil from one of the world's mostbiologically rich tracts of land.

Accordingto the UN, the "crowdfunding" initiative had last night raised $116m(£75m), enough to temporarily halt the exploitation of the 722 square miles of"core" Amazonian rainforest known as Yasuní national park in Ecuador.

The park,which is home to two tribes of uncontacted Indians, is thought to have moremammal, bird, amphibian and plant species than any other spot on earth.Development of the oilfield, which was planned to take place immediately if themoney had not been raised, would have inevitably led to ecological devastationand the eventual release of over 400m tonnes of CO2.

Ecuadoragreed to halt plans to mine the oilfield if it could raise 50% of the $7.6bnrevenue being lost by not mining the oil. While the world's leadingconservation groups pledged nothing, regional governments in France and Belgiumoffered millions of dollars – with $2m alone from the Belgian region ofWallonia. A New York investment banker donated her annual salary and Bo Derek,Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton and Al Gore all contributed.

The idea ofasking people to pay for something not to take place was widely dismissed bynational treasuries as holding the world to ransom. The German developmentminister, Dirk Niebel, said that the principle of paying for the oil not to beexploited "would be setting a precedent with unforeseeablereferrals". However, Germany has now contributed $48m in "technicalassistance". The former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was widelycriticised after he wrote off $51m of Ecuador's $10bn external debt as Italy'scontribution.

Othergovernments pledging support were Chile, Colombia, Georgia and Turkey ($100,000each), Peru ($300,000), Australia ($500,000) and Spain ($1.4m).

Supportersof the scheme argued that it could be a model for change in the way the worldpays to protect important places. The money raised is guaranteed to be usedonly for nature protection and renewable energy projects. Nigeria, Cameroon,Gabon and other countries with oil reserves, have investigated the possibilityof setting up similar schemes as an alternative to traditional aid.

Thebiological richness of Yasuní has astonished scientists. One 6sq km patch ofthe park was found to have 47 amphibian and reptile species, 550 bird, 200mammal and more species of bats and insects than anywhere in the westernhemisphere. According to Ecuadorean scientists, it would take in the region of400 years to record Yasuní's 100,000 or more insect and 2,000 fish species.

Of the63.4% of Ecuadoreans polled last month who knew of the Yasuní initiative, 83.4%supported it.

Global hunger for plastic packaging leaves waste solution a long way off

2011-12-29T22:10:00.000+07:00

Despitemeasures to increase recycling, discarded plastic packaging continues to blightEarth

guardian.co.uk,Juliette Jowit, Thursday 29 December 2011

Indian children carry drinking water as they pass through a pond polluted
with plastic bags and other discarded items. Photograph: Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

Five hundred tonnes of Christmas tree lights and at least 25m bags of plastic sweetwrappers, turkey coverings, drinks bottles and broken toys will be thrown awayby UK homes this Christmas and New Year. But only a tiny proportion of thisfestive plastic waste will be recycled.

Even atmore typical times of year, only a little under one quarter of the UK's plasticwaste is recycled, but over the festive period still less escapes the tip,according to survey by home drinks makers SodaStream. Globally, recycling ofplastics is even smaller.

The outcomeis a belief that planet Earth is being slowly strangled by a gaudy coat ofimpermeable plastic waste that collects in great floating islands in theworld's oceans; clogs up canals and rivers; and is swallowed by animals, birdsand sea creatures. In many parts of the developing world it acts as a nearubiquitous outdoor decoration, along roads in India, around villages in Africa,and fluttering off fences across Latin America. And when it is not piling up,it is often burned in the open, releasing noxious smoke into the surroundingarea.

From thecentral parks of Moscow after the spring thaw, strewn with plastic uncovered bythe melting snows, to some of the the most remote places on Earth - the summit of Mount Everest or the Tibetan Plateau - nowhere, it seems, is free ofdiscarded bags, bottles, unwanted toys, used toothbrushes and lost beach shoes.

There areno global figures on the true scale of the problem, but according to theEuropean Packaging and Films Association (PAFA) 265m tonnes of plastic areproduced globally each year. In the UK at least, about two thirds of this isfor packaging: which globally would translate to 170m tonnes of plastic largelycreated to be disposed after one use. Even at the almost unmatched EuropeanUnion recycling rate averaging 33%, two thirds of that, or more than 113m tonnes,would end up in landfill, being burned, or cluttering up the environment thatpeople and wildlife live in. Such a figure – almost certainly a hugeunderestimate, and excluding more "permanent" items from car parts toBarbie dolls – would be more than enough to cover the 48 contiguous states ofthe US in plastic food wrapping. If the world recycled packaging at the ratethe US does, 15%, it would generate more than enough plastic to cover China inplastic wrap. Every year.

A few yearsago the UK was seized by worry about plastic bags: communities went"plastic-bag free", and the then prime minister, Gordon Brown,announced he would talk to major retailers about phasing out their use. In theabsence of much change, his successor as PM, David Cameron, recently re-raised the idea of a national levy.

Inresponse, the plastics industry argues that the alternatives would be even morewasteful in terms of extra greenhouse gas emissions.

What wouldthis world without plastic look like? Earlier this year Austrian-basedenvironmental consultancy Denkstatt imagined such a world, where farmers,retailers and consumers use wood, metal tins, glass bottles and jars, andcardboard to cover their goods. It found the mass of packaging would increaseby 3.6 times, it would take more than double the energy to make, and thegreenhouse gases generated would be 2.7 times higher.

Tounderstand this, consider the properties of plastic that make it so attractiveto use: it is durable, it is flexible and does not shatter, it can breathe - ornot, and it is extremely lightweight. As a result, food and drink are protectedfrom damage and kept for lengths of time previously unimaginable. The PAFA saysaverage spoilage of food between harvest and table is 3% in the developedworld, compared with 50% in developing countries where plastic palates, crates,trays, film and bags are not so prolific. Once the food reaches people's homesits lifespan is also increased - in the case of a shrink-wrapped cucumber fromtwo to 14 days. A less obvious benefit of plastic packaging is that by beingmuch lighter than alternatives it greatly reduces the fuel needed to transportthe goods. Because of the huge carbon content of our diets, it is estimatedthat for every tonne of carbon produced by making plastic, five tonnes issaved, says Barry Turner from the PAFA .A more surprising point is made byFriends of the Earth's waste campaigner Julian Kirby, who points out thatbecause it is inert in landfill, plastic waste buried in the ground is acounterintuitive way of "sequestering" carbon and so avoiding itadding to global warming and climate change.

This focuson carbon and climate change, however, ignores the very reasons plastic bags,and plastic packaging generally, first gripped the public imagination – namelythat it is such a highly visible result of our throw-away society.

Wales,Ireland and other countries have opted to levy a tax on plastic bags to detertheir use but making deeper cuts to plastic waste will need other options too.

Many"ethical" products from sandwiches to nappy bags have switched tobiodegradable plastics, made either from natural products such as cornstarch orby using a special additive which helps breakdown the plastic. However, Turnersuggests this will remain a niche, because the process is expensive and – inhis words – is "destroying" a resource that could be recycled.

Recyclingplastic is particularly hard, because there are so many types, and becauseplastic melts below the boiling point of water, making it hard to removecontamination. Increasing recycling is, though, one of the two key areasfocused on by the plastics industry, which estimates if every council in the UKoperated at the rates achieved by the best local authority for each type ofplastic – PET bottles, cartons, trays, bags and so on – the country could raisetotal plastic recycling from 23% to 45%. "On the go recycling" –currently almost non-existent – also needs to be dramatically improved bythings like separated waste bins, or simply more bins in public places, saidTurner.

To meet theindustry's self-imposed target of zero plastic waste to landfill by 2020,however, it is largely looking to incineration, which is highly controversialwith environment groups and local communities who worry about how waste ash is disposed of and breathing in emissions from the plants – despite the HealthProtection Agency giving modern plants the go ahead as not damaging to health.Greenhouse gas emissions from such plants are also high: equivalent to 540g of carbon dioxide (CO²e) per kilowatt hour, more than gas power and more than 100 times that for nuclear.

Instead,environment and wildlife campaigners want far more attention to the "wastehierarchy" – reduce, reuse, recycle. To drive this change, the governmentthis month proposed increasing all recycling targets, raising plastics to 50%.If enforced, that should encourage innovations, such as more food recycling(which research suggests reduces over-purchasing and so the need forpackaging), and the recent development of a new dye for black plastic bagswhich, unlike the traditional compound, can be detected by the automaticsorting machines.

Furtherafield, 47 industry groups from around the world have joined forces to fundresearch and schemes to stop plastic from getting into the seas and oceans.While on land, countries without plastic recovery regulations could adopt asystem used in several European countries like Belgium, where manufacturers areresponsible for recovering a percentage of the plastic they produce. "Theidea of producer responsibility is one of the ones people are most agreed on,but no-one's sure how," said Kirby.

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Japan streets ahead in global plastic recycling race

Analysis: Green groups find success fighting shale oil boom

2011-12-28T02:08:00.000+07:00

Reuters, by Ayesha Rascoe, Washington, Tue Dec 27,2011

(Reuters) -A resurgent green movement is launching a multi-pronged counter-attack againstthe shale oil and gas boom in the United States that could slow, thoughultimately not stop, development.

Buildingupon their unexpected success in the battle against the Keystone XL pipeline, arenewed onslaught from environmentalists is putting the shale industry on thedefensive while adding to costs, limiting expansion and potentially scuttlingmajor projects.

"Ithink it's the totality of what's going on all at once, that's the biggestconcern," said Barclay Nicholson, a lawyer for the Washington-basedFulbright & Jaworski law firm, which has represented companies involved inshale development.

With newoversight pending from federal and state authorities and lawsuits, Nicholsonsaid critics of shale development have a plethora of avenues to fight back.

Environmentalists,alarmed at what they see as unchecked industrialization of rural areas, saythey are working to secure more regulation of the rapidly growing shaleindustry to protect fragile areas from damaging practices.

PIECE MEALAPPROACH

Afterlegislation aimed at addressing climate change failed to make it into law lastyear, green groups have been forced to take a more piece meal approach toenergy policy.

Thatstrategy worked well against TransCanada's proposed Canada-to-Texas Keystone XLpipeline, which environmentalists successfully turned into a potent symbol ofthe threat of carbon-intensive oil sands crude.

In Novemberthe Obama administration delayed the project, once described as a "nobrainer" by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, after a wave ofprotests erupted in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Thedecision was like a shot of adrenalin for the green movement and groups areplanning more creative and high profile efforts to fight a range of energyprojects.

Republicansin Congress maneuvered to keep Keystone alive by including a provision in taxlegislation that would force the White House to make decision on the projectwithin 60 days.

But greengroups have vowed to fight on and the administration has already said it cannotapprove the project because of the time needed to study new routes.

"Forthe moment we're stuck fighting one pipeline, one gas well at a time,"said Bill McKibben, who rose to prominence with his staging of huge protestsagainst Keystone and is now using his influence to attack the fracking bonanza.

FRACKING INTHE SPOTLIGHT

Oil and gascompanies are using advanced drilling techniques to unlock vast stores of shalefuel across the country, which is bringing legions of rigs, trucks and workersto areas unused to such activity.

Thecompanies employ the controversial "fracking" drilling process, thatinvolves fracturing rock formations by shooting vast and often secret cocktailsof water and chemicals deep underground to free a trove of hydrocarbons.

The oil andgas industry argues that the fracking technique has been used safely for yearsand advances in the practice have set off a revolution that is creating jobsand boosting U.S. energy security.

But,environmentalists warn against downplaying their concerns about fracking.

"I'mnot sure that they really want a Keystone XL fight on their hands, because thepublic is strong and they're not going to back down on this issue," saidDeb Nardone, director of the Sierra Club's natural gas reform campaign, whichformally launched this year.

Worriesabout shale output have already prompted the Environmental Protection Agencyand the Interior Department to begin crafting new regulations that addressissues such as wastewater disposal and disclosure of chemicals.

GreenGroups have made headway with their appeals in New York, where authorities haveimposed a temporary moratorium on shale drilling. Environmentalists also cheereda decision by regulators to delay a vote on lifting a ban on shale drilling inthe Delaware River basin that affects the states of New York, Pennsylvania,Delaware and New Jersey.

John Sachs,a director at energy investment bank Taylor-DeJongh, said the economic anddomestic energy benefits of access to cleaner burning natural gas willultimately win out, but green groups may be able to make inroads in some areas.

"Itmay slow down some of the development in some states," Sachs said. He saidsuch delays would not necessarily be negative for development, because it wouldallow industry and regulators to address some of the public concerns.

CHANGINGTHE MAP

AmericanGas Association president Dave McCurdy recently told reporters that while therewere some legitimate concerns about development, the problems were manageable.

"Noneof those are going to halt the production of shale gas in this country,"McCurdy told reporters earlier this month. "It is changing the politicaland economic map."

Still, theexpansion of shale production has spawned dozens of local groups and activistsfocused on combating development.

Scott Ely,a resident of the small town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, very much at theepicenter of the fight over shale production, said he is trying to spread hisstory.

Greengroups have rallied in support of Ely and 10 other families in Dimock that saytheir water was contaminated after Cabot Oil and Gas began drilling in theirarea. Cabot has denied responsibility.

"Asfar as the oil industry goes, this is a machine you're probably not going to beable to stop because the world needs its gas," Ely said in Dimock inDecember where supporters in a publicity event delivered fresh water to thefamilies. "But because of what we did three years ago, when we startedcoming out, they've already started making changes in the way theyoperate."

(ReportingBy Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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Queen Beatrix: Green is good

2011-12-26T23:43:00.001+07:00

RNW, 25December 2011

In herannual Christmas message, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands drew attention toenvironmental issues, expressing her concern for the future of planet Earth andthe unequal distribution of the planet's riches.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands

QueenBeatrix said "selfishness and extravagance blind people to the damage thatis done to our natural surroundings and undermine community spirit... we havelost sight of the fact that the Earth's resources are finite and of behaviourthat is acceptable in a civilised society."

Accordingto the queen, people should be concerned with more than their own comfort andwelfare because "avarice distorts the aims of our economy," and shecalled on politicians to carefully weigh "the quality of the future whenmaking decisions about today."

Green isgood

The Dutchmonarch said she was encouraged by the many different programmes and privateinitiatives calling on people to adopt environmentally-friendly ways of living,including wind and water energy and sustainable, responsible methods ofproduction.

However,she lamented the fact that so many of these programmes are overwhelmed by theneed for economic growth, adding "all these hopeful moves toward changethat come from so many different segments of society generate far less mediaattention than the drive to make and hold on to money, profits and materialgoods."

She calledon people to work to improve the natural world and their immediatesurroundings, "everywhere, people are coming up with new ideas and ways tolive in more sustainable, aware life. This is a source of hope in the futureand for the future as it is young people who are behind these new ideas."

The queenquoted Mahatma Gandhi, "there is enough on the planet to satisfyeverybody's needs but not everybody's desires," and added "we arebeings gifted with intelligence and morals and therefore we should use thesegifts to take care of the planet and work toward creating a just society."

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Dike to house ‘blue energy’ plant

Mind the sleigh! Airlines given permission to fly over North Pole for the first time slashing the hours to exotic destinations

2011-12-24T17:19:00.000+07:00

Daily Mail, by Ray Massey, Transport Editor, 24 Dec 2011

Long-haulflight times reduced by up to 50%
'Whole newworld opened up,' says Branson

Airpassengers will be able to cut the times of long-haul flights by as much ashalf and fly faster to exotic destinations under a new relaxation of aviationrules.

It couldalso mean cheaper and cleaner flights for British holidaymakers.

The newrules will allow carriers operating in the South Pacific, to take a 'short cut'over the North Pole for the first time.

Shorter flights: A British Airways Boeing 777 which will be able to
take a 'short cut' over the North pole

Whilepassenger jets from Australia to South America will be able to fly the mostdirect routes.

FLIGHTSFROM LONDON

Fiji(10,000 miles) - current time via Los Angles or Seoul: 24 hours. New time:18 hours non-stop using 'polar express' short cut.
Tahiti(9,600 miles) via Los Angeles: 23 hours. New time:17 hours.
Honolulu(7,300 miles) via Los Angeles: 18 hours. New time:13 hours.
Anchorage(4,500 miles) via Seattle: 16 hours. New time: 8hours

Until now,Boeing’s 777 and the new 787 ‘Dreamliner’ jets had for safety reasons to staywithin a three hour range (180 minutes)of the nearest diversion airport.

Under thenew rules, that has been nearly doubled to five and a half hours, (330 minutes)taking account of improvements in aircraft and engine technology.

It means,for example, that planes from the UK will be able to take a non-stop flight - dubbed 'Santa's short cut' -over the North Pole to destinations suchas Hawaii, Alaska or French Polynesia.

It alsomeans shorter journeys, cheaper flights, less fuel, and lower emissions ofcarbon dioxide (CO2) - the so-called greenhouse gas’ blamed for global warming.

The‘extended operations’ rules define the time that an aircraft is permitted to befrom an emergency landing site in case of an engine failure and is applied totwo-engine jets.

It followsa decision by the U.S. Federal AviationAdministration to allow up to330-minutes ‘extended operations’ for Boeings' 777 fleet.

Frozen: An aerial view of the North Pole which passenger carriers
will now be able to fly over to exotic destinations

It allowsairlines operating Boeing 777-300ER(extended range), 777-200LR (longer range), 777 Freighter and 777-200ER modelsequipped with General Electric engines to fly up to 330 minutes from apotential ‘diversion’ airport.

Approvalfor the Boeing 777-200ER equipped with British Rolls-Royce and American Pratt& Whitney engines is expected to follow over the next few months.

The firstairline to take advantage of the new longer ‘extended operations’ option is AirNew Zealand which earlier this month flew from Los Angeles to Auckland.

Capt. DavidMorgan, chief pilot for Air New Zealand said: ‘What this means is that theaeroplane is able to fly a straighterroute between pairs of cities and that's good for the environment.

‘Less fuelis burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere. It's alsogood for customers because flights are potentially shorter and passengers couldarrive sooner at their destinations.’

VirginAtlantic airline president Sir Richard Branson said: 'This new developmentreally does open up a whole new world.

'Our newfleet of 787s could well be flying to Honolulu or even Fiji one day.'

LastOctober The European Aviation Safety Agency granted a 207-minute rating afterreceiving an application from Air France to fly a 777-300ER from Los Angeles toPapeete, Tahiti. The European agency is also expected to adopt the 330-minute rule.

Planes onceflew over the North Pole during the Cold War in the 1950s to avoid CommunistBloc airspace.

Related Article:

Aviation could switch to low-carbon fuel 'sooner than thought'

Richard Branson said the airline industry should aim for 50% sustainable
fuels by 2020. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Dike to house ‘blue energy’ plant

2011-12-23T22:28:00.001+07:00

RNW, 23December 2011

Afsluitdijk, The Netherlands

The cabinethas approved funding totalling 20 million euros for sustainable energy projectson the Afsluitdijk, the 32-kilometre barrier that closed off the Zuiderzee fromthe open sea to create what is now the freshwater IJsselmeer lake.

The dikewill house an innovative osmotic power plant, or ‘blue energy’ plant, whichexploits pressure created when salt water passes through a membrane to mix withfresh water. Solar panels will also be mounted on the dike.

Thesustainable energy funding comes as part of a renovation package to increasethe safety of the Afsluitdijk, which was completed in 1932. In its presentstate the barrier can no longer guarantee protection against high water, theInfrastructure Ministry says.

The surfaceof the dike is to be reinforced along its entire length, and the sluices thatdrain excess water from the IJsselmeer into the sea will be given a 200-millioneuro overhaul.

Theregional authorities have also investigated opportunities to use the dike forrecreational purposes. The renovation project may also include the constructionof a marina. At present the dike serves as a road link between the west andnorth of the country.

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(Photo: RNW)

Judge rules plan to cut solar power subsidies 'legally flawed'

2011-12-22T04:50:00.001+07:00

High courtruling opens door for review that could force government to delay cuttingincentives to solar households

guardian.co.uk,John Vidal, Wednesday 21 December 2011

The government had wanted to cut the feed-in tarriff - paid to households
with solar panels installed - with only weeks' notice. Photograph: Simon Burt/PA

Governmentplans to slash incentive payments for householders who install solar panelswere ruled "legally flawed" by a high court judge on Wednesday. Theruling opens the door for a judicial review that could force the government todelay its plans, and let thousands more people claim the higher subsidy.

Friends ofthe Earth and two solar panel companies argued that the government's decisionto cut the feed-in tariff – the amount paid to those with solar panelsinstalled – with only a few weeks' notice was premature and unlawful, and hadled to unfinished or planned projects being abandoned. The tariff was cut from43.3p to 21p per kWh of energy generated.

Thousandsof individuals, farmers, councils and community groups had applied to installphotovoltaic panels. The subsidy was set high to encourage people to investwhen the scheme was launched in April 2010. But the government announced in October that it would cut the subsidy from 12 December, arguing that the costof solar equipment had fallen sharply. This was 11 days before the consultationended.

Thejudgment, by Mr Justice Mitting after a two-day court hearing, was hailed as avictory by green campaigners and the solar industry, after firms warned thatthe scale and pace of the proposed cuts could cripple the sector and costthousands of jobs.

Mittingsaid the minister was "proposing to make an unlawful decision".

Friends ofthe Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, said: "These botched andillegal plans have cast a huge shadow over the solar industry, jeopardisingthousands of jobs. We hope this ruling will prevent ministers rushing through damagingchanges to clean energy subsidies – giving solar firms a much-needed confidenceboost."

Lawyers forthe Department of Energy and Climate Change are seeking permission to appealagainst the judge's ruling.

It came asa report by MPs on two select committees said the cuts were clumsily handledand may have fatally damaged a growing industry which could provide tens ofthousands of jobs.

By givingconsumers and companies just a few weeks' notice that it intended to halve thepayments, the government has created uncertainty among investors and underminedpublic confidence in energy policy, said the MPs. "There is no questionthat solar subsidies needed to be urgently reduced, but the government hashandled this clumsily. Ministers should have spotted the solar gold rush muchearlier. That way subsidy levels could have been reduced in a more orderly waywithout delivering such a shock to the industry," said Tim Yeo, chair ofthe energy and climate change committee.

Inaddition, plans to require homes to meet a C-rated energy efficiency standardbefore they can receive subsidies will limit access to wealthier households andcould have a "fatal impact" on the industry, the MPs warn. Eighty six per cent of homes would need to be better insulated to qualify for the scheme –increasing up-front costs for homeowners by between £5,600 and £14,000, evenbefore the panels are purchased, they said.

JoanWalley, chair of the environmental audit committee said: "It doesn't makeeconomic sense to let the sun go down on the solar industry in the UK. As wellas helping to cut carbon emissions, every panel that is installed brings in VATfor the government and every company that benefits from the support is keepingpeople in work. The Government is right to encourage people to focus on savingenergy before fitting solar panels, but these proposals will stop nine out often installations from going ahead, which will have a devastating effect onhundreds of solar companies and small building firms installing these panels acrossthe country."

Risingenergy bills and the falling cost of solar panels made the original subsidyrates so attractive that tens of thousands of households, companies and community groups have rushed to install photovoltaic (PV) systems since thescheme was introduced last year.

Thegovernment had evidence that solar panel prices were falling significantly asearly as March 2011, but ministers did not act to stem rocketing levels ofsmall solar installations until the end of October.

The MPs saythe consultation then announced by the government was based on an inadequateimpact assessment and unfairly set a 12 December deadline for changes to comeinto effect before the consultation closed on 23 December.

The scaleand pace of the changes proposed was a shock for the solar industry and thesuddenness of their introduction has damaged investor confidence across thewhole energy sector, the MPs said. The government has proposed an even lowertariff (80% of the new rate) for generators who have more than one solar systemregistered for FiTs, in recognition of the economics of scale such aggregatedschemes can achieve. This, said the MPs, will have an adverse impact oncommunity solar projects.

"Thiscould have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged and poorer communitiesfor whom such schemes are a good way of accessing the benefits of renewable energy and reducing electricity costs. The social housing sector and communityowned schemes are going to be particularly hard hit by the reduced tariffsbeing brought in by the Government retrospectively," said the MPs.

The MPs'report and court ruling follows the decision by BP to close its solar division,blaming the "commoditisation" of the sector. It emerged this weekthat Mike Petrucci, chief executive of BP Solar, wrote to his remaining 100staff last week to say that "the continuing global economic challengeshave significantly impacted the solar industry, making it difficult to sustainlong-term returns for the company."

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German village generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it needs, earns millions selling it back to national power grid

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(Photo: RNW)

German village generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it needs, earns millions selling it back to national power grid

2011-12-22T00:40:00.002+07:00

Natural News, Monday, December 19, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

German village of Wildpoldsried generates 321 percent more renewable
energy than it needs

(NaturalNews)Developing a renewable energy system that creates energy independence and evena considerable new source of revenue is not some sort of sci-fi pipe dream.BioCycle reports that the German village of Wildpoldsried, population 2,600,has had such incredible success in building its renewable energy system.Wildpoldsried generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it uses, and itnow sells the excess back to the national power grid for roughly $5.7 millionin additional revenue every single year.

Byutilizing a unique combination of solar panels, "biogas" generators,natural wastewater treatment plants, and wind turbines, Wildpoldsried haseffectively eliminated its need to be attached to a centralized power grid, andcreated a thriving renewable energy sector in the town that is self-sustainingand abundantly beneficial for the local economy, the environment, and thepublic.

You canview some amazing pictures of the Wildpoldsried village at: (http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/wildpoldsried-germany).

Possessingadmirable vision for the town and strong motivation to see the project as awhole succeed, Mayor Arno Zengerie has led the way for many years in makingWildpoldsried's energy independence efforts a success. As far back as 1997, thevillage has been investing in building and promoting new industries,maintaining a strong local economy, generating new forms of revenue, andultimately staying out of debt. And the best way it saw fit to accomplish muchof this was through the implementation of self-sustaining, renewable energytechnologies.

Not onlydid Wildpoldsried successfully reduce the amount of time expected to generatethe necessary funds to build local treasures like a sports hall, theater stage,pub, and retirement home with the revenue generated by its thriving renewableenergy sector -- the village has already successfully built nine communitybuildings, with more on the way -- but it also achieved all this and morewithout going into debt.

"Weoften spend a lot of time talking to our visitors about how to motivate thevillage council (and Mayor) to start thinking differently," said MayorZengerle, who now gives talks around the world about the successes of hisaward-winning village. "We show them a best practices model in motion andmany see the benefits immediately. From the tour we give, our guests understandhow well things can operate when you have the enthusiasm and conviction of thepeople.

Be sure toread the full, inspiring account of Wildpoldsried's history of, and successesin, renewable energy at: (http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/002409.html).

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Sony's bio battery turns waste paper into electricity

2011-12-21T22:55:00.003+07:00

BBC News, 21December 2011

RelatedStories

Sony's paper-powered battery offers the prospect of
waste paper being used to top up mobile phones

Sony has unveiled a paper-powered battery prototype in Japan.

Thetechnology generates electricity by turning shredded paper into sugar which inturn is used as fuel.

If broughtto market, the innovation could allow the public to top up the power of theirmobile devices using waste material.

The teambehind the project said such bio-batteries are environmentally friendly as theydid not use harmful chemicals or metals.

TheJapanese electronics giant showed off its invention at the Eco-Productsexhibition in Tokyo last week.

Employeesinvited children to drop piece of paper and cardboard into a liquid made up ofwater and enzymes, and then to shake it. The equipment was connected to a smallfan which began spinning a few minutes later.

Learningfrom nature

The processworks by using the enzyme cellulase to decompose the materials into glucosesugar. These were then combined with oxygen and further enzymes which turnedthe material into electrons and hydrogen ions.

Theelectrons were used by the battery to generate electricity. Water and the acidgluconolactone, which is commonly used in cosmetics, were created asby-products.

Researchersinvolved in the project liken the mechanism to the one used by white ants andtermites to digest wood and turn it into energy.

"Inthe future using this technology, we will be able to generate electricity usingglucose derived from unused wood, cardboard and old papers," apresentation given by the team said.

Eco-friendly

While thebattery is already powerful enough to run basic music players, it is stillfalls far short of commercially sold batteries.

Theenvironmental campaign group Greenpeace welcomed the development.

"Theissue that we always have with battery technology is the toxic chemicals thatgo into making them and recycling batteries is also complicated," JohnSauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK told the BBC.

"Anyway to provide a greener technology could be a potential magic bullet. So fromthat point of view this is interesting, and I think it's fantastic thatcompanies like Sony are looking to make the generation of energy moreenvironmentally friendly."

Sony'sengineers are not the only ones exploring the concept of paper-based batteries.

In 2009 ateam of Stanford University scientists revealed they were working on a batterycreated by coating sheets of paper with ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires. They said their work might ultimately lead to a device capable oflasting through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles.

Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg

2011-12-16T02:29:00.001+07:00

Daily Mail, by Vincent Graff, 10th December 2011

Admittedly,it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest,too.

Outside thepolice station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire,there are three large raised flower beds.

If you’dvisited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrotplants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.

Today thebeds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police stationforecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are thecops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Nothing.

Food for thought: Todmorden resident Estelle Brown, a former interior
designer, with a basket of home-grown veg

Well,that’s not quite correct.

‘I watch’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott,with a huge grin. It’s the smile that explains everything.

For thevegetable-swipers are not thieves. The police station carrots — and thousandsof vegetables in 70 large beds around the town — are there for the taking.Locals are encouraged to help themselves. A few tomatoes here, a handful ofbroccoli there. If they’re in season, they’re yours. Free.

So thereare (or were) raspberries, apricots and apples on the canal towpath;blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries beside the doctor’s surgery; beansand peas outside the college; cherries in the supermarket car park; and mint,rosemary, thyme and fennel by the health centre.

Thevegetable plots are the most visible sign of an amazing plan: to make Todmordenthe first town in the country that is self-sufficient in food.

‘And wewant to do it by 2018,’ says Mary Clear, 56, a grandmother of ten andco-founder of Incredible Edible, as the scheme is called.

‘It’s avery ambitious aim. But if you don’t aim high, you might as well stay in bed,mightn’t you?’

More...

So what’sto stop me turning up with a huge carrier bag and grabbing all the rosemary inthe town?

‘Nothing,’says Mary.

What’s tostop me nabbing all the apples?

‘Nothing.’

All yourraspberries?

‘Nothing.’

It just doesn’thappen like that, she says. ‘We trust people. We truly believe — we are witnessto it — that people are decent.’

When shesees the Big Issue seller gathering fruit for his lunch, she feels onlypleasure. What does it matter, argues Mary, if once in a while she turns upwith her margarine tub to find that all the strawberries are gone?

‘This is arevolution,’ she says. ‘But we are gentle revolutionaries. Everything we do isunderpinned by kindness.’

The ideacame about after she and co-founder Pam Warhurst, the former owner of thetown’s Bear Cafe, began fretting about the state of the world and wondered whatthey could do.

Theyreasoned that all they could do is start locally, so they got a group ofpeople, mostly women, together in the cafe.

Incredible Edible is about more than plots of veg. It's about educating people
about food, and stimulating the local economy (pictured Vincent Graff and Estelle)

‘Wars comeabout by men having drinks in bars, good things come about when women drinkcoffee together,’ says Mary.

‘Ourthinking was: there’s so much blame in the world — blame local government,blame politicians, blame bankers, blame technology — we thought, let’s just dosomething positive instead.’

We’restanding by a car park in the town centre. Mary points to a housing estate upthe hill. Her face lights up.

‘Thechildren walk past here on the way to school. We’ve filled the flower beds withfennel and they’ve all been taught that if you bite fennel, it tastes like aliquorice gobstopper. When I see the children popping little bits of herb intotheir mouths, I just think it’s brilliant.’

She takesme over to the front garden of her own house, a few yards away.

Three yearsago, when Incredible Edible was launched, she did a very unusual thing: she loweredher front wall, in order to encourage passers-by to walk into her garden andhelp themselves to whatever vegetables took their fancy.

There weresigns asking people to take something but it took six months for folk to ‘getit’, she says.

They get itnow. Obviously a few town-centre vegetable plants — even thousands of them —are not going to feed a community of 15,000 by themselves.

But thepolice station potatoes act as a recruiting sergeant — to encourage residentsto grow their own food at home.

Today,hundreds of townspeople who began by helping themselves to the communal veg arenow well on the way to self-sufficiency.

But out onthe street, what gets planted where? There’s kindness even in that.

‘The ticketman at the railway station, who was very much loved, was unwell. Before hedied, we asked him: “What’s your favourite vegetable, Reg?” It was broccoli. Sowe planted memorial beds with broccoli at the station. One stop up the line, atHebden Bridge, they loved Reg, too — and they’ve also planted broccoli in hismemory.’

Not thatall the plots are — how does one put this delicately? — ‘official’.

Take theherb bushes by the canal. Owners British Waterways had no idea locals had beensowing plants there until an official inspected the area ahead of a visit bythe Prince of Wales last year (Charles is a huge Incredible Edible fan).

EstelleBrown, a 67-year-old former interior designer who tended the plot, received anemail from British Waterways.

‘I was abit worried to open it,’ she says. ‘But it said: “How do you build a raisedbed? Because my boss wants one outside his office window.”’

IncredibleEdible is also about much more than plots of veg. It’s about educating peopleabout food, and stimulating the local economy.

There arelessons in pickling and preserving fruits, courses on bread-making, and thelocal college is to offer a BTEC in horticulture. The thinking is that youngpeople who have grown up among the street veg may make a career in food.

Crucially,the scheme is also about helping local businesses. The Bear, a wonderful shopand cafe with a magnificent original Victorian frontage, sources all itsingredients from farmers within a 30-mile radius.

There’s abrilliant daily market. People here can eat well on local produce, andthousands now do.

Meanwhile,the local school was recently awarded a £500,000 Lottery grant to set up a fishfarm in order to provide food for the locals and to teach useful skills toyoung people.

JennyColeman, 62, who retired here from London, explains: ‘We need something for ouryoung people to do. If you’re an 18-year-old, there’s got to be a good answerto the question: why would I want to stay in Todmorden?’

The day Ivisit, the town is battered by a bitterly-cold rain storm. Yet the place radiates warmth. People speakto each other in the street, wave as neighbours drive past, smile.

If thephrase hadn’t been hijacked, the words ‘we’re all in this together’ wouldspring to mind.

So whatsort of place is Todmorden (known locally, without exception, as ‘Tod’)? Ifyou’re assuming it’s largely peopled by middle-class grandmothers, think again.Nor is this place a mecca for the gin-and-Jag golf club set.

Set in aPennine valley — once, the road through the town served as the border betweenYorkshire and Lancashire — it is a vibrant mix of age, class and ethnicity.

A third ofhouseholds do not own a car; a fifth do not have central heating.

You cansnap up a terrace house for £50,000 — or spend close to £1 million on ahandsome stone villa with seven bedrooms.

And thescheme has brought this varied community closer together, according to PamWarhurst.

Take oneexample. ‘The police have told us that, year on year, there has been areduction in vandalism since we started,’ she says. ‘We weren’t expectingthis.’

So why hasit happened?

Pam says:‘If you take a grass verge that was used as a litter bin and a dog toilet andturn it into a place full of herbs and fruit trees, people won’t vandalise it.I think we are hard-wired not to damage food.’

Pam reckonsa project like Incredible Edible could thrive in all sorts of places. ‘If thepopulation is very transient, it’s difficult. But if you’ve got schools, shops,back gardens and verges, you can do it.’

Similarschemes are being piloted in 21 other towns in the UK, and there’s beeninterest shown from as far afield as Spain, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada. And,this week, Mary Clear gave a talk to an all-party group of MPs at Westminster.

Todmordenwas visited by a planner from New Zealand, working on the rebuilding of hiscountry after February’s earthquake.

Mary says:‘He went back saying: “Why wouldn’t we rebuild the railway station withpick-your-own herbs? Why wouldn’t we rebuild the health centre with appletrees?”

‘What we’vedone is not clever. It just wasn’t being done.’

The finalword goes to an outsider. Joe Strachan is a wealthy U.S. former sales directorwho decided to settle in Tod with his Scottish wife, after many years inCalifornia.

He is 61but looks 41. He became active with Incredible Edible six months ago, andcouldn’t be happier digging, sowing and juicing fruit.

I findmyself next to him, sheltering from the driving rain. Why, I ask, would someoneforsake the sunshine of California for all this?

His answersums up what the people around here have achieved.

‘There’s anobility to growing food and allowing people to share it. There’s a feelingwe’re doing something significant rather than just moaning that the state can’ttake care of us.

‘Maybe weall need to learn to take care of ourselves.’

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Facebook 'unfriends' coal and 'likes' clean power

2011-12-16T01:52:00.001+07:00

Agreementto power its operations using clean and renewable energy follows a two-yearcampaign by Greenpeace

guardian.co.uk,James Meikle, Thursday 15 December 2011

Facebook director of operations, Tom Furlong, announces plans to build
a 'green' datacentre in Lulea, northern Sweden. Photograph: Susanne
Lindholm/AFP/Getty Images

Facebookhas announced it will move away from coal and power its operations – includingdatacentres – with clean and renewable energy.

The movefollows a two-year campaign by environmental group Greenpeace, which arguedthat the company's massive energy consumption was contributing significantly toclimate change.

Theagreement comes after Greenpeace united 700,000 supporters behind its UnfriendFacebook campaign to lobby the company to change its energy policies."This move sets an example for the industry to follow," said TzeporahBerman, co-director of Greenpeace's international climate and energy programme."This shift to clean, safe energy choices will help fight global warmingand ensure a stronger economy and healthier communities."

In April2011, a Greenpeace report, How Dirty is your Data?, calculated that 53.2% ofFacebook's electricity was generated by coal. Energy consumption by datacentresis growing rapidly and each of Facebook's US datacentres is estimated toconsume the same electricity as 30,000 US homes.

Facebooksaid it wanted to develop its platform to work more closely with Greenpeace to"promote environmental awareness and action" after the twoorganisations published a joint statement on future collaboration.

Marcy ScottLynn, of Facebook's sustainability programme, said it looked forward "to aday when our primary energy sources are clean and renewable, and we are workingwith Greenpeace and others to help bring that day closer. As an important step,our datacentre siting policy now states a preference for access to clean andrenewable energy."

She addedthat Greenpeace had been "particularly effective" in using Facebook,saying: "We are excited to work with them to explore new ways in whichpeople can use Facebook to engage and connect on the range of energy issuesthat matter most to them – from their own energy efficiency to access tocleaner sources of energy."

Facebook'scommitment to renewable energy "raises the bar for other IT and cloudcomputing companies such as Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Twitter", saidCasey Harrell, senior IT analyst for Greenpeace International.

Theenvironmental group has argued that IT companies, by increasing theirelectricity consumption while avoiding increasing demand for coal, could becomea strong force in helping move countries to low-carbon economies.

In October,the company announced plans to build a "green" datacentre in Lulea innorthern Sweden that would handle all data processing from Europe, the MiddleEast and Africa. Powered primarily from renewables, the planned facility willcover 30,000 square metres - about the size of 11 football pitches.

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Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. The internet
giant has published its carbon footprint for the first time.
Photograph: David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Durban? What a waste of time!

(Photo: RNW)

Kenya's Samburu people 'violently evicted' after US charities buy land

2011-12-15T04:13:00.001+07:00

Around2,000 Samburu families have stayed squatting on edge of disputed territory,says NGO Survival International

guardian.co.uk,Clar Nichonghaile in Nairobi and David Smith in Johannesburg, Wednesday 14December 2011

The pastoralist Samburu have reported constant harassment from police
with women allegedly raped and animals seized. Photograph: Zhao
Yingquan/Xinhua

Members ofthe Samburu people in Kenya have been abused, beaten and raped by police afterthe land they lived on for two decades was sold to two US-based wildlife charities, a rights group and community leader have alleged.

The disputecentres on Eland Downs in Laikipia, a lush area near Mount Kenya. At leastthree people are said to have died during the row, including a child who waseaten by a lion after the Samburu were violently evicted in November last year.

TheLondon-based NGO Survival International said the Samburu were evicted followingthe purchase of the land by two American-based charities, the Nature Conservancy and the African Wildlife Foundation.

The groupssubsequently gifted the land to Kenya for a national park, to be calledLaikipia National Park.

SurvivalInternational said the land was officially owned by former president Danielarap Moi, although AWF simply said it bought it from a private landowner.

Withnowhere to go, around 2,000 Samburu families stayed on the edge of the disputedterritory, living in makeshift squats, while 1,000 others were forced torelocate, Survival said.

Jo Woodman,a campaigner for Survival, said the pastoralist Samburu had reported constantharassment from police with women allegedly raped, animals seized and an eldershot as recently as last month.

"Therehas been an ongoing, constant level of fear, intimidation and violence towardsthe community, which has been devastating," Woodman said.

A communityleader, who did not wish to be named, described police harassment as enormous.He said police beat people, burned manyattas or traditional homesteads andcarried out arbitrary arrests during the period leading up to and including theeviction last year. He said they also confiscated many animals and the intimidationhas continued.

"Thesituation has been really bad for a long time," he said. "[TheSamburu] have nothing. Things like bedding and utensils were burned."

Kenyanpolice were not available on Wednesday to comment on the allegations.

Survivalhas written to the UN appealing for urgent action to put an end to the violenceand provide assistance to the Samburu, who have gone to court to establishtheir right to the land.

"Inone incident, a Samburu elder was shot dead by paramilitaries," the groupsaid in its letter to the UN committee on the elimination of racialdiscrimination, dated 7 December.

"Thedisplaced community has nothing but their livestock, thousands of which wereimpounded – with no reason given – on 25 November 2011. This is an urgent andserious violation of the rights of this community, which has been leftsquatting beside its land with no amenities," Survival's letter said.

The twoconservation groups gifted the 17,100 acres to Kenya's government in Novemberto create a national park to be run by the Kenya Wildlife Service.

However,since then a court has banned the KWS from proceeding with the conservationproject until a ruling on the Samburus' legal case.

BothUS-based charities indicated they were watching the situation with concern butwere unable to comment for legal reasons.

JohnButler, director of marketing for the AWF, said: "The African WildlifeFoundation does not condone violence. AWF has a longstanding history of workingclosely with local communities to ensure that conservation solutions benefitboth people and wildlife. Unfortunately, we cannot comment at length on thisissue due to a pending court case in Kenya."

BlytheThomas, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy, said: "The conflict overnatural resources across Africa is a serious issue. Everywhere we work inAfrica, we're working with local communities to address natural resourceissues. We're closely monitoring this situation; unfortunately we can't commentat length due to a pending court case in Kenya."

Kenya has ahistory of land-grabbing by senior government officials, particularly duringDaniel arap Moi's time in power. Land disputes are common as legal documents ofownership are often missing or have been forged.

A requestfor comment from Kenya's Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife went unanswered.However the minister, Dr Noah Wekesa, was quoted as telling parliament lastmonth that KWS had ceased all activity on the land, which would not be gazettedas a national park until the other legal case was resolved.

TheSamburu's legal case was heard in the town of Nyeri on Wednesday and lawyerKorir Sing'Oei said the court confirmed that the KWS had secured registrationof the land.

"Thecourt has turned a blind eye to the pleas of the Samburu community and allowedthese illegalities to subsist," he said. "The transfer [of the landto the KWS] is totally unlawful and it's in flagrant violation of the interestsof the Samburu community."

The courthad agreed to give further direction on the matter in January.

KorirSing'Oei said he intended to address the violations of rights in a separatecase.

"Lastyear, when the community was forcefully evicted from the land ... their homeswere burnt down and livestock confiscated in their hundreds and lots of theirwomen were violated," he said.

"Giventhe powerful actors who have vested interests in the land, this issue has beenreally hushed up in the local media," he added.

The lawyersaid the evicted Samburu had no intention of leaving Laikipia, a populardestination for wildlife-loving tourists and the area where Prince Williamproposed to Kate Middleton in a rustic lodge.

"Wherewould they go to? They have absolutely nowhere else to go," he said.

Thecommunity elder said running away was not an option.

"That'sthe place you call your home ... it's where you were brought up and where yourchildren call home. It's an ancestral land."

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Factbox: What is the Big Bang?

2011-12-14T05:37:00.001+07:00

Reuters, TueDec 13, 2011

A scientistdrinks a glass of champagne after the first successful

collisions at full powerat the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience

control room of the Large HadronCollider (LHC) at the European Organisation

for Nuclear Research (CERN) inMeyrin, near Geneva March 30, 2010.

(Credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse)

RelatedArticles:

(Reuters) -Scientists at the CERN physics research centre said on Tuesday they had foundsigns of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle believed to have played avital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang.

Leaders oftwo experiments, ALTAS and CMS, revealed their answer in which finding theHiggs was a key goal for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), designedto re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answerfundamental questions of science and the universe itself.

Followingare some facts about the Big Bang and CERN's particle-smashing experiments:

RECREATING THE BIG BANG:

- Testshave involved pumping a single bunch of energy particles from the project'saccelerator into the 27-km (17-mile) beam pipe of the collider and steeringthem counter- clockwise around it for about 3 km (2 miles).

- Thecollider aims to simulate conditions milliseconds after the "BigBang" which created the universe around 13.7 billion years ago.

- Thecollisions, in which both particle clusters travel around the speed of light,are monitored on computers at CERN and laboratories around the world byscientists looking for, among other things, a particle that made life possible.

HIGGSBOSON:

- Theelusive particle, which has been called the "Higgs boson" afterBritish physicist Peter Higgs, 82, a particle-physics theorist who first showedin 1964 that it must exist, is thought to be the mysterious factor that giveseverything mass.

WHAT ISTHE BIG BANG?

-Recreating a "Big Bang," which most scientists believe is the onlyexplanation of an expanding universe, ought to show how stars and planets cametogether out of the primeval chaos that followed, the CERN team believes.

- Itsessential feature is the emergence of the universe from a tiny speck about thesize of a coin but in a state of extremely high temperature and density.

- The name"Big Bang" was coined in 1949 by British scientist Fred Hoyle todisparage a then emerging theory about origins that countered his own"steady state" view: that the universe had always existed and wasevolving but not expanding.

- Accordingto the Big Bang model, the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressedprimordial state, which resulted in a significant decrease in density andtemperature. Soon afterward, the dominance of matter over antimatter (asobserved today) may have been established by processes that also predict protondecay. During this stage many types of elementary particles may have beenpresent. After a few seconds, the universe cooled enough to allow the formationof certain nuclei.

- Thetheory predicts that definite amounts of hydrogen, helium and lithium wereproduced. Their abundances agree with what is observed today. About a millionyears later the universe was sufficiently cool for atoms to form.

WHAT ISCERN:

- CERN, theEuropean Organisation for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largestcenters for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, findingout what the universe is made of and how it works.

- Foundedin 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 20 member states, plussix actively participant observers including the United States and Russia.

Sources:Reuters/Britannica.com/CERN/www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/peter-higgs/ (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; editing by David Stamp)

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"Spiritual Logic" - Oct 15 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)
(Subjects: Benevolent Design, Channelling, Holy scriptures, Higher self, (Old) Souls, Universes, Big Bang, Galaxy/Solar system build for life, Astronomy, Life on Earth tried to start 5 times/ 5th time life started, Large Animals/No Humans, Asteroid belt, 7 Sisters / 100.000 year ago Pleiadian Brothers and Sisters seeded Humans on earth, DNA, Humans Ascensiont with PleiadianDNA, Lemuria (Hawaii), 21-12-2012, 26.000 years cycle, 1987 - Harmonic convergence (11:11), Shift of Human Consciousness, Gaia, The Humanization of God, 1991 Russia falls, 1994 started 36 years galactic window (Presession), Mid point on 21-12-2012, Lemuria (Hawaii) center of the Earth time, Love (Mother & Child), Religion, Higher self, Global Unity,..... etc.) - New !

Canada to pull out of Kyoto protocol

2011-12-13T06:16:00.004+07:00

Reuters, byDavid Ljunggren and Randall Palmer.OTTAWA | Mon Dec 12, 2011

Environmentalactivists wearing masks with the faces of Canadian Prime

Minister StephenHarper (R) and European Commission President Jose

Manuel Barroso (L)demonstrate outside a meeting of the World Business

Council on SustainableDevelopment in Durban, December 5, 2011.

(Credit: Reuters/Mike Hutchings)

(Reuters) -Canada will pull out of the Kyoto protocol on climate change, EnvironmentMinister Peter Kent said on Monday, dealing a symbolic blow to the troubledglobal treaty.

Canada willbecome the first country to formally withdraw from Kyoto, which it says isbadly flawed because it does not cover all major emitters of greenhouse gasses,notably the United States and China.

The newscame as little surprise, especially since Kent said last month that "Kyotois the past." The right-of-center Conservatives took power in 2006 andmade it clear they would not stick to Canada's Kyoto commitments.

"Aswe've said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past ... We are invoking our legal rightto formally withdraw from Kyoto," Kent told reporters after returning fromtalks in Durban, South Africa, on extending the protocol.

He gave nodetails on when exactly Ottawa would pull out, but said Canada would be subjectto enormous financial penalties under the terms of the treaty unless itwithdrew.

Theannouncement will do little to help Canada's growing reputation as aninternational renegade on the climate. Green groups awarded the country theirFossil of the Year award for its performance in Durban.

Ottawa saysit backs a new global deal to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, but insists ithas to cover all nations, including China and India, which are not bound byKyoto's current targets.

Canada'sformer Liberal government signed on to Kyoto, which obliged the country to cutemissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. By 2009 emissions were 17percent above the 1990 levels.

Kent saysthe Liberals should not have signed up to a treaty they had no intention ofrespecting.

Environmentalistsquickly blasted Kent for his comments.

"Mr.Kent does not understand what he is sentencing our children to. Catastrophicclimate change will cost them far more," said John Bennett, executivedirector of the Sierra Club Canada.

(Reportingby Randall Palmer, writing by David Ljunggren; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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