Robber fly - Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects. It isn't easy. Shahan says that this Robber Fly (Holcocephala fusca), for instance, is "skittish" and doesn't like its picture taken.

Eye-popping bug photos

Nature by Numbers (Video)

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -
"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)


“ … Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013.

They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader ..."

(Live Kryon Channelings was given 7 times within the United Nations building.)

"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.)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“… 4 - Energy (again)


The natural resources of the planet are finite and will not support the continuation of what you've been doing. We've been saying this for a decade. Watch for increased science and increased funding for alternate ways of creating electricity (finally). Watch for the very companies who have the most to lose being the ones who fund it. It is the beginning of a full realization that a change of thinking is at hand. You can take things from Gaia that are energy, instead of physical resources. We speak yet again about geothermal, about tidal, about wind. Again, we plead with you not to over-engineer this. For one of the things that Human Beings do in a technological age is to over-engineer simple things. Look at nuclear - the most over-engineered and expensive steam engine in existence!

Your current ideas of capturing energy from tidal and wave motion don't have to be technical marvels. Think paddle wheel on a pier with waves, which will create energy in both directions [waves coming and going] tied to a generator that can power dozens of neighborhoods, not full cities. Think simple and decentralize the idea of utilities. The same goes for wind and geothermal. Think of utilities for groups of homes in a cluster. You won't have a grid failure if there is no grid. This is the way of the future, and you'll be more inclined to have it sooner than later if you do this, and it won't cost as much….”



"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Reference to Fukushima / H-bomb nuclear pollution and a warning about nuclear > 20 Min)

Obama unveils landmark regulations to combat climate change

Obama unveils landmark regulations to combat climate change
In a bid to combat climate change, US President Barack Obama announced the Clean Power Plan on Monday, marking the first time power plants have been targeted by mandatory regulations on carbon dioxide emissions in the US.
Google: Earthday 2013

Sunday, October 16, 2011

'Speculation on basic foodstuffs is catastrophic'

Deutsche Welle, 16 October 2011  

Ziegler: Death by starvation is murder
To mark World Food Day on 16 October 2011, DW-World presents an exclusive interview held earlier this month with Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, about the causes of world hunger.

Jean Ziegler, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, is a stark advocate of the right of every individual to have access to food. Since 2008, Ziegler has been a member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council. He spoke to Deutsche Welle in Geneva about the current global food situation.

Deutsche Welle: All people have a right to food, but food has also become a speculative commodity on the world's stock markets. Where do you see the reasons for this, and what effects does it have?

Jean Ziegler: Financial speculation on basic foodstuffs is completely catastrophic. In the first place, the big hedge funds, large banks and large-scale speculators moved to the commodities exchanges, particularly the food stock markets, after the financial crash and are now making astronomical profits, quite legally, with forward transactions. The result is that corn has become 93 percent more expensive in the past 18 months. The price of rice has gone up 110 percent. And the third basic foodstuff is wheat. A ton of wheat now costs 271 euros ($372), exactly twice as much as last year. Why is that a catastrophe? If you take the example of developing countries such as the 53 countries in Africa, 37 of them have to import food in normal periods, not just when there is famine, and they can't do that if the prizes explode. That is why stock market speculation on basic foodstuffs should be banned.

One of the biggest obstacles in the fight against hunger is that poor countries in particular are dependent on food imports. How could this development be reversed? How can countries regain some degree of the food security that they once had?

More than 10 million people are affected
 by the current food crisis in parts of Africa
By canceling their foreign debt. If developing countries spend everything they earn in the way of foreign currency to pay off interest or to pay back creditor banks in Frankfurt, London, Paris or New York, they don't have any money. Take Ethiopia as an example: this huge country of a million square kilometers, with 70 million inhabitants, has 3.8 percent of arable land. Because there is no investment, no fertilizer or selected seeds, and no market development, productivity is low. In normal periods, in the Sahel, Burkina Faso or Niger, they harvest 600 to 700 kilograms (1,300 to 1,500 pounds) per hectare (2.47 acres). In Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, they get ten tons, or ten thousand kilograms (22,000 pounds), not because the farmers in Baden-Württemberg are so much cleverer or work so much more than farmers in the Sahel, but because farmers in the Sahel have no investments. No draft animals, so no natural fertilizer, no seed, selected seed, no pesticides, no irrigation. The only thing they have is the same short-handled hoe they have had for three thousand years, and they use rain-based agricultural methods, totally dependent on weather conditions that have gone mad.

You have said that death by starvation is murder. Who is the murderer?

The recently released World Food Report says that a child of under 10 years of age dies every five seconds. Some 37,000 people die of hunger every day. The same World Food Report says world agriculture could feed 12 billion people without any problems. There is no objective lack of food any more.

A child that dies of starvation these days has been murdered. The murderer is the cannibalistic world order. That world order is dominated by multinational corporations. The global agricultural market is dominated by some 10 multinational companies that function according the principle of profit maximization; that's completely normal. It's not a matter of attacking them. What matters here is the structural violence of a cannibalistic order. Last year, Cargil controlled 26 percent of the entire global wheat trade. Monsanto controls 85 percent of all seed, both genetically modified and normal selected seed. Archer Midland, Louis Dreifus control the rice market and decide every day who on this planet will live and who will die.

According to the human rights organization FIAN, chronic hunger results above all from the fact that the perpetrators are not punished. Is that how you see it, and who could bring them to trial?

Huge quantities of grain are needed
to make bioethanol
Last year, the Americans burnt 138 million tons of corn and hundreds of millions of tons of wheat to produce bioethanol and biodiesel. The production and import of bioethanol and biodiesel have to be banned. Stock market speculation on basic foodstuffs must and can be banned. The 27 states of the EU pay billions in production and export subventions and swamp the African markets with cheap products, completely ruining the local farming industry. This form of dumping can and must be stopped. The foreign debt of the poorest countries must be canceled so that these countries can invest in subsistence farming. And land-grabbing has to stop, it must be banned. All of these are very concrete demands that a democratic public sphere could implement today, now.

What demands would we have to make on global agricultural production to be able to feed nine billion people in the long run?

The world could feed 12 billion people already today. It's a problem of distribution.

It's not just raw agricultural products that are being destroyed - you spoke about wheat and corn from the USA - but we also hear that around a third of all food on offer is wasted here in Europe. What can be done there? Who is to blame?

Millions of tons of food are thrown away by supermarkets, by bakeries. That is the consumption mania, the neoliberal consumption mania that we have, the total lack of responsibility for people. It isn't a matter of transporting the bread that is thrown away here as dry bread for Somali refugees. That is nonsense, complete nonsense. It is a matter of wresting the structures of production and consumptions away from the corporations; of saying: there is a right to food, it is produced and the amount of food is distributed in such a way that everyone has access to the food that gives and preserves life.

The tyranny of the oligarchy of globalized financial capital has existed for 20 years. Things have been liberalized and privatized as never before in the history of humankind. Nation-states are like snowmen in summer; every week they lose more sovereign rights. And hunger is growing. Minimum wages for farmers, land rights, rights to seed, rights to fertilizers, the legally protected access of people to sufficient food: these are things we can achieve - it isn't a utopian dream.

Author: Andreas Zumach / tj

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

UN chief calls for universal access to energy

Google/AFP, Oct 10, 2011 

About 1.3 bn of the world's 7bn people have no access to energy 
(AFP/File, Jay Directo)

OSLO — UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who himself studied by candlelight as a child, pleaded on Monday for universal access to clean energy, a privilege denied to more than half the world population.

"We need an energy revolution," Ban said at an energy conference in Oslo.

"We need energy not only to be universal, we need it to be clean and sustainable as well," he added.

Improving access to energy was key to addressing global challenges like poverty, climate change, water scarcity, lacking health care and food shortages, Ban said.

About 1.3 billion of the world's seven billion people have no access to energy, while another 2.7 billion are without clean cooking facilities, using coal and wood for domestic tasks, according to a study published Monday by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"For me, this is anything but academic. It is how I grew up in Korea. I studied by candlelight. Refrigerators, air-conditioning or a simple fan were just a far-off luxury that didn't touch our lives," Ban, 67, said.

"When I was growing up, Korea had to go through the Korean war and abject poverty," he said.

The Oslo conference, organised by Norway and the IEA and attended by representatives of more than 70 countries, is looking at ways to finance clean energy for all people in developing countries.

The UN has set three goals to be achieved by 2030, Ban recalled: universal access to modern energy services, a 40 percent improvement in energy efficiency, and a doubling of renewable energy.

The IEA study shows that 48 billion dollars would be needed per year to guarantee access to modern energy services by 2030, or a little more than five times the amount currently earmarked.
"This is really a small amount," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said, adding: "It is only three percent of the global energy investments."

Birol said the use of dirty fuels for cooking was the second-leading cause of premature death behind AIDS, responsible for killing 1.5 million women and children each year.

"If you don't find a solution to this problem, very soon it will be the primary source of premature death worldwide..., which is unacceptable," he said.

Financially feasible, universal access to energy would only lead to a 1.1 percent rise in global energy demand, since poor households would still be limited in their consumption, and a 0.7 percent rise in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IEA.

"The implications are very small. There are no real tensions between the targets of providing energy access and the issues of energy security and climate change," Birol concluded.


Related Articles:

"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 RevealedGeothermal 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.New !

New study connects sun to harsher winters

Deutsche Welle, 10 Oct 2011  

The findings may help in predicting weather,
especially for the northern hemisphere
A new study shows periods of low solar radiation could cause colder winters in northern Europe and the continental United States, helping to explain recent cold winters there despite growing greenhouse gas emissions.

Cyclical changes in the amount of radiation emitted from the sun affect weather patterns in the northern hemisphere, according to a study published on Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Researchers analyzed recent satellite data to conclude that when ultraviolet emissions from the sun drop, parts of Europe and North America experience harsher winters.

Sunspot cycles

Bitter weather caused chaos on the
eastern seaboard last winter
Scientists have known for some time that radiation from the sun peaks and falls in a cycle that runs around 10 or 11 years.

Sunspots are an indicator of solar activity, and ultraviolet radiation varies in concert with these cycles of activity.

The new study relies on fresh data that suggests this activity is more variable than previously thought.

"We're actually measuring the direct amount of ultraviolet radiation that's reaching the Earth," said Jeff Knight of the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, one of the study's authors.

The scientists found that a reduction in ultraviolet light from the sun makes cold air form in the atmosphere about 40 kilometers above the tropics.

"It kicks off a chain of influences that lead to a reduction of the westerly winds that blow across the Atlantic into Europe in the winter," Knight told Deutsche Welle.

In a normal winter, Europe receives westerly winds that cause a warming influence.

"When we lose those winds, you lose that warming influence, bringing that cold, Siberian-type of wind into northern Europe," Knight said.

These frigid winds are part of a larger circulation that reaches all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Eastern seaboard of the United States. "So you get similar types of weather in that region too – as demonstrated last winter," Knight said.

During this time of absent westerly winds, Canada and the Mediterranean experience milder weather.

Periods of stronger solar radiation, the scientists believe, cause the opposite effect.

Predicting the weather

The study could assist long-term predictions for winter weather around the world by helping illuminate the sun's impact on climate.

"We can't draw a direct one-to-one parallel between the sun and our weather – it's more complicated," Knight said.

He added that the study has more relevance for the northern hemisphere and mid-latitudes of the Earth.

Some skeptics of man-made global warming have pointed to variations in solar activity as an alternative explanation for climate change.

Knight said the new study did not challenge the role of greenhouse gases in affecting the climate.

"This study doesn't say anything at all about global climate," Knight emphasized. "Air is being moved around, not changed – it's just a rearrangement."

Knight said he and other researchers planned to look into speculation that the sun may be entering a period of prolonged relative inactivity, like what happened during the "little ice age," between the 16th and 19th centuries. 

NASA captured this image of a solar flare on the Sun in 2008

Satellite data

The study was made possible thanks to new satellite data from 2004 that has been able to measure the ultra violate radiation levels more accurately than before.

The researchers ran the new data through computer models that simulate interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. Their findings were able to account for the extreme winters experienced in parts of Europe and North America in recent years.

The relatively small size of the data sample spells a potentially high rate of statistical uncertainty. The scientists hope to complete further studies as more data become available.

The paper involved five researchers with the Met Office (the UK public weather service), one with the University of Oxford and the other with the University of London.

Author: Sonya Angelica Diehn
Editor: Nathan Witkop

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"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.New !

Friday, October 7, 2011

Solar plant first to generate energy AT NIGHT - in a glowing 'lightbulb' tower hot enough to melt salt

Daily Mail, by ROBWAUGH6th October 2011

  • Solar plant 'boils' salt using 2,600 mirrors
  • Can store power for 15 hours without sunshine and work for 24 hours

The first solar plant that can operate without the sun has been officially opened.

The £260million Germasolar power plant has been designed to work even through the night and can store heat to power turbines for 15 hours without exposure to sunlight.

The plant - a tower with a glowing 'bulb' surrounded by 2,600 mirrors - is situated near Seville, one of the hottest places on the European mainland.

The plant is a heliostatic solar plant - a solar furnace - which uses mirrors to concentrate the intense heat onto two salt tanks. The 900C heat melts the salt, boiling water around it to drive turbines.

This blinding light is the world's first 24-hour solar plant in action - during the
day it 'stores' heat in tanks of molten salt, which then drives steam
turbines through the night

'Renewable' technology such as wind turbines is often hobbled by the fact that mankind is not master of the elements. If the wind dies down, the power goes off. The heat-storage of Germasolar's tanks can clear this hurdle.

Makers Torresol say, 'The salts are stored in a hot tank, saving the heat to be used when solar radiation is low. The salts transfer the stored heat and continue to generate electrical power through the night.'

More...

Enqrique Sendagorta, of the engineering company behind the plant says, 'We want to become a global company that develops the use of concentrated solar power. The start up of this plant is a first decisive step.'

The salts - a combination of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate - always remain in liquid form. The plant is not at full capacity yet - it's projected to reach 70 per cent capacity by next year.

The £260 million Gemasolar Power Plant in AndalucÌa, Spain, is made
 of 2,650 panels spread across 185 hectares. The mirrors focus 95 per
cent of the sun's radiation on to a giant receiver at the centre of the plant

Seville's climate, of course, is uniquely adapted to solar power - and not every nation has the time, or the budget, or the space for 2,600 mirrors angled towards a central tower.

There are very few such plants around the world - and Torresol's is the only  one built with 24-hour capacity in mind.

The plant began production in May, and hit 24-hour production during a sunny spell earlier this summer. Feasibility studies have been carried out into an even bigger solar plant to be built in South Africa.

Environmentalists have hailed it as a vindication of solar technology, 'The ability to generate electricity even after dark is a monumental milestone for solar technology. No longer hamstrung by sunset, the Germasolar plant should be a competitive and comparable alternative to conventional power plants,' says Chris Haslam, author of How to Stop Climate Change. 

UN expert calls for guidelines to protect vulnerable people against 'land grabs'

Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, calls for consensus before talks this month on land governance, as commercial pressures mount

guardian.co.uk, Mark Tran, Thursday 6 October 2011

William Bakeshisha, father of six, was evicted from land he claims was
given to his father. Photograph: Simon Rawles/Oxfam

Governments should be wary of speculation and concentration of ownership when land rights are transferred to investors to "develop" farmland, a UN expert has warned before key UN negotiations on land governance.

"We must escape the mental cage that sees large-scale investments as the only way to develop agriculture and to ensure stability of supply for buyers," said the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, amid concern among civil society groups about "land grabs".

The recent surge in food prices has prompted investors and governments to focus on agriculture after decades of neglect. Attention has also focused on land deals in developing countries.

A report by Oxfam, published last month, identified 227m hectares (561m acres) of land – an area the size of north-west Europe – as having being reportedly sold, leased or licensed, largely in Africa and mostly to international investors in thousands of secretive deals since 2001. This compares with about 56m hectares identified by the World Bank earlier this year, again predominantly in Africa.

UN talks on land governance, which begin in Rome on 17 October, are the culmination of six years of negotiations involving governments, international organisations and civil society groups brought together under the UN's committee on food security (CFS). The session is expected to adopt the voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources.

Urging participants to find a consensus, De Schutter said the world needs to establish general guidelines on land governance before adopting rules on land investment.

"Commercial pressures on land are rapidly growing. Biofuels, large-scale infrastructure projects, carbon-credit mechanisms, and speculation lead to rapid changes in land rights, creating new threats for vulnerable land users," he said.

"Climate change and population growth will exacerbate tensions within countries and between them. We need to establish general guidelines on land governance before we adopt rules on land investment. Harmful investments to the detriment of local populations – so-called land grabbing – can only be warded off if we first secure the underlying rights of farmers, herders and fisherfolk."

In its report Oxfam said many land deals in recent years often intended to grow crops for foreign food and biofuel markets, and can rightly be called land grabs as they violate human rights, particularly the equal rights of women; flout the principle of free, prior and informed consent of the affected land users, particularly indigenous peoples; ignore social, economic and environmental impacts; and avoid transparent contracts.

Much of the land grabbing has been driven by the expansion of sugar cane and oil palm for biofuel production, with thousands of evictions taking place in Uganda, Guatemala and Honduras.

Oxfam said most of the land deals in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania have been done to grow crops for export commodities, including cut flowers, as well as biofuels. Luca Chinotti, an Oxfam policy adviser in Rome, said one of the most critical issues at the Rome talks will be that all land deals should have the prior consent of communities. He also said the current draft of guidelines was "dramatically weak" in terms of women's rights.

The EU, particularly Germany, has strongly supported incorporation of international human rights standards into the guidelines throughout the negotiations. Brazil and Zimbabwe actively opposed the application of particular human rights standards, while the US and Canada came out strongly against the principle of consent, insisting any such notion be non-binding. Australia adopted a strongly unfettered market approach.

De Schutter said the voluntary guidelines could provide much-needed guidance about how conflicts over land use should be addressed. In May 2011, he issued a detailed set of proposals to ensure that these land guidelines are consistent with internationally accepted human rights standards, including the right to food, which have concrete implications for land issues.

"States have nothing to fear," De Schutter said. "There is much to gain in adopting guidelines that will improve the ability of governments to defuse land-related conflicts, in times of growing tensions over access to natural resources. The guidelines will also strengthen the bargaining position of states when negotiating with private investors. This could help avoid the current 'race to the bottom' in which countries compete in order to attract investors, dismantling any existing protection land users enjoy."