Rainforest Action Network, Hizbullah, al-Nakba, Royal Albatross, Pithecophaga jefferyi

Rainforest Action Network Defends Support for Old-Growth Logging

RAN indicates industrial first time logging of centuries old trees in primeval forests the best that can be expected, censors further discussion on their web site, and faces renewed global call for members to cancel until withdraws from FSC
After six months of evasions and personal recriminations, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has officially answered the question "how does Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified logging of primary and old-growth forests 'protect endangered forests'"? RAN has been the target of protest by thousands of forest conservationists from eighty countries concerned with how RAN's support for FSC legitimizes continued loss of ancient forests, their biodiversity and the climate. This is there answer:

"Simply, FSC certification isn't the ultimate protection for endangered forests, but it is a vastly superior alternative to standard industrial logging. In forests that would otherwise be logged without third party oversight, FSC promotes practices that preserve ecosystem functions (like habitat and water quality) and safeguards the most ecologically valuable areas." -- RAN statement, 4/1/08.

.. further discussions on their web site will be censored.
...Notably absent from RAN's statement is any scientific evidence or quantification of FSC being "vastly superior". They fail to acknowledge conflicts of interests by certifiers and the slew of problematic certifications. ..For years RAN has even suggested first time industrial logging of primary and old-growth forests is "sustainable".
...Ecological Internet calls upon Rainforest Action Network to withdraw from FSC, ending their involvement in the destruction of the Earth's last primary rainforests and the climate. By doing so, they join the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, which has recently done so, and Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which has announced they no longer standby FSC and are reviewing their membership.
It is simply unacceptable that America's largest recipient of rainforest protection monies continues to support heavy industrial logging of ancient rainforests. If RAN does not withdraw from FSC, they can expect long, sustained protest including web sites urging members to cancel their support, and physical protests at their events. Sadly, this is necessary to put the RAINFOREST back in the action network.

whew! I recall RAN meetings in the 1980's in Sydney - those radical greenie guys must be long gone if RAN is now for the removal of big old trees, and against discussion thereof

HT to scoop,
scoop
This controversy/betrayal doesnt show up in the first few pages of Google ... somehow the googlefix is in
[googlefix = successful removal of controversial news fro first few pages of Google & Google News]

also see
climateark
May 5, 2008
Environmentalists Reject "Clean" Coal Greenwash (but not "Certified" Ancient Forest Logging)

What is so mystifying is why generally rigorous environmental groups like Greenpeace -- along with so many other groups including Rainforest Action Network -- are so visionary on coal while continuing to insist that logging of ancient forests, equally antiquated and damaging to not only the climate but also biodiversity, can be certified as being environmentally acceptable. The economic dislocation caused by ending ancient forest logging... would be much less than ending use of coal

And
earthmeanders

Greenpeace and others named promote and otherwise support (GP actually holds the head of the board of directors ) of FSC, the organization that has certified some 60-80 million hectares of primordial rainforest logging -- and wants to do so for 120-160 million more;

['holds the head of' as distinct from 'bring me the head of' ??]

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Burma's junta must have been reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.
"The 2004 tsunami enabled the government of Sri Lanka to force the fishermen off beachfront property so it could be sold to hotel developers."
- if I was on the Irrawaddy Delta right now, I would gladly sign away my rights for a litre of drinking water.
A Grotesque standoff, whereby the Junta want videos of them dispensing aid, and the InternationalAidIndustry want their Logo's on the screen
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Chaitén volcano Chile
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Fisk on Beirut 5/9/2008 8:13AM
independent
Ironically, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora now rules – or tries to rule – his nation from a building which was once the Beirut cavalry stables of the Ottoman army.

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albawaba
Hizbullah has installed a private non-commercial fiber-optic land-line telephone network to provide secure communications between its leaders and the cadres. The network is extensive, stretching from Hizbullah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut to south Lebanon. Since the summer 2006 war with Israel, the system has spread further into the Bekaa Valley in the east and even into mainly Christian and Druze areas of the Mount Lebanon district, according to Marwan Hamade, the minister of telecommunications and a close ally of Mr. Jumblatt.
csmonitor
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Israel declared itself an independent state on 14 May 1948, three years after the end of World War II, and the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
Palestinians are due to mark the occasion, al-Nakba, on 15 May.

What amazes me is the existance of so many old Palestinian village sites, within 'Israel' but not used, simply abandoned. The Palestinian owners prevented from return

nytimes
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An Iraqi family look from the wreckage of their home in eastern Baghdad hit by an airstrike during clashes between Shia militiamen and Iraqi and US forces.
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At that difficult age of 59 when Virginia Woolf checked out
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DeSmogBlog manager Kevin Grandia emailed 122 of the scientists yesterday afternoon, calling their attention to the list. So far - in less than 24 hours - three dozen of those scientists had responded in outrage, denying that their research supports Avery's conclusions and demanding that their names be removed.
desmogblog
Heartland blame [credit?] DeSmogBlog with 'persuading' scientists to bale from the denialist paper (I havnt viewed it, its pdf, so doesnt respond to searches ... how naf is pdf, how great that denialists use crapp technology
desmogblog
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Now:
Blue Whales, cold seas more CCN (Cloud Condensation Nucleii)

Gaias biggest pet, Gaia loves cold seas?
... 30 Ma, the first toothless baleen whales .. Right whales 20 Ma, and rorqual-like .. 15 Ma.


Right Old Whales
.. rare bowhead whales ...can outlive humans by generations—..one male pushing 200 years old.
"About 5 percent of the population is over a hundred years old and in some cases 160 to 180 years old," said Jeffrey Bada, a marine chemist at the Scripps Institution - seems that some Rights are turning up (sic) with stone harpoon heads.
nationalgeographic


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Then:
Brachiosaurs, hot dead seas, less CCN - Gaia's previous love affair with tree ferns and 60 Ton herbivores

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nationalgeographic
pictures

Royal Albatross Adolescents break dancing
{most pics are bigger if right clicked & 'view image']
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nationalgeographic


\
When I visited the eagle centre, a couple of hours from Davao, in 1988, the keeper hadnt perfected the breeding. They were getting a few parthenogenic chicks, but they are not fertile (birds parthenogenic progeny are male I think).
The big cage was rather grand, but not big enough for birds to mate on the wing, which was believed to be the only way. I recall one big female flying the length of the cage (60M?) and landing a few inches from my nose, a shock to the soul, I have the picture of her eye somewhere.
In those days in Mindanao, the PLA/communists were the declared problem, not AbuSayef as now. On the way to the centre we passed a patrol of skinny teens in tees with M16s. My companion dissuaded me from taking a picture. They were apparently the Army, uniforms not provided.
The bird keeper said he didnt mind giving a bit of rice occasionally to the NPA when they came by the centre, but he drew the line at lending them his truck. The Army has been firing shells over the cages, which disturbed the birds a lot.
The breeding problem was eventually solved, it involves sperm collection. A junior keeper dresses up in an eagle suit and the male swoops down... one of the more extreme jobs...

Back in the outskirts of Davao where I was staying with a poor family, lots of orchids, in the evening a jeep came down the lane - the Christian Militia ("Iliwag" - Visayan for rats, they called themselves) they asked me if I liked communists. I cravenly replied that I had met any.

Rainforest Action Network, Hizbullah, al-Nakba, Royal Albatross, Pithecophaga jefferyi

Heartland, Peak Oil

Last year, the Heartland Institute (a US climate-change denial thinktank) published a list of 500 scientists they say disagree with the central theses of anthropogenic global warming (that the climate is changing and that it's our fault)... The five New Zealand scientists listed today took the extraordinary step of issuing a joint press release demanding to be removed:

\Associate Professor Chris Hendy (University of Waikato), Dr Matt McGlone (Science Team Leader, Landcare Research), Dr Neville Moar (retired DSIR,), Dr Jim Salinger (Principal Scientist, NIWA) and Dr Peter Wardle (retired DSIR, FRSNZ). Other eminent scientists around the world, also included in the list of 500, have publically distanced themselves from the Heartland statement

niwa
scoop
Good to see my old high-school buddy Matt McGlone getting himself off that list
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Exon funded 'think-tanks' anti-AGCC - quite a scary chart
exxonsecrets
How many lying pseudo-science 'institutes' can $40B profit fund?
With Oil companies making record profits, we might expect a 'plateau' rather than a 'peak' in oil. Plateaus have a steeper eventual fall.
But Exxon's greed (Oil is $122 today) and the fundamental inability to support decency in eg Nigeria and Iraq, mean that the ride down is on.
Some things (North Sea Unions? Saud family?) may be to some extent beyond Exxon's control?

Its not clear why so much effort is put into obfuscating carbon-climatechange, whereas much less propaganda seems around against Peak Oil which is a more immanent danger.
Somehow Peak Oil hasn't caught in the public imagination, so less counter-propaganda required?
There must have been a successful campaign, which we just cant discern, to marginalise PO.
Oddly with Texas crude at $122 the popular reaction, such as it is, seems to be
1) the Oil Companies could lower the prices
2) the Govt should lower taxes on petrol
3) we oughta delay carbon-capping-trading mechanisms on petrol

now, 3) has just been announced (NZ)
1) and 2) are true, to the extent that profits and taxes, rising at fixed proportions, are much higher now. But all 3 claims amount to abandoning 'Market' signals.
If we are going to abandon the Market, we oughta just promulgate oil saving decrees. eg 30kW power limit on cars......


For those who have just joined: PO is not about the end of oil, its about the end of Cheap oil.
All the nifty replacements; algae, solarcells, battery cars, are fine, its just that they are not Cheap, so they involve a different sort of civilization.



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cenospheres. The microscopic spheres can form only when fossil hydrocarbons such as coal and crude oil burn. The team reports in the May issue of Geology that it found cenospheres at eight of 13 sites it examined around the world, and the objects were present only at the K-T boundary, not above or below it. [Dinosaurs drove SUVs???]
sciencemag
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nasa
"We have more planes"
over USA
Heartland,Oil

Nargis, Clouds, Methane, Keith Haring,

nasa
Nargis Burma floods - a huge amount of Burma underwater
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ABSENCE OF CLOUDS CAUSED PRE-HUMAN SUPERGREENHOUSE PERIODS

In a world without human-produced pollution, biological productivity controls cloud formation and may be the lever that caused supergreenhouse episodes during the Cetaceous and Eocene, according to Penn State paleoclimatologists.
.. the Cretaceious and Eocene atmosphere never exceeded 4x the current CO2 level, which is not enough for the models to create supergreenhouse conditions. .. Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, looked for another way .. where mean annual temperatures in the tropics were above 100°F °F and polar temperatures were ca 50°F Changing the Earth's albedo – .. by changing cloud cover will produce supergreenhouse.. (April 11) issue of Science.
Normal cloud cover reflects about 30% of the sun's energy .. looking for a scenario that allowed in 6 to 10% more sunlight.
..human generated aerosols, pollutants, serve as cloud condensation nuclei," ..
Today, the air contains 1,000..cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in a cc.. Pristine ocean areas ..algae produce dimethylsulfide that eventually becomes the CCNs of sulfuric acid or methane sulfonic acid.
Algae's productivity depends on .. nutrients.. come to the surface by upwelling.. Warming would lead to ocean stratification and less upwelling.
"The Cetaceous was biologically unproductive due to less upwelling in the ocean and thermal stress on land and in the sea," says Kump. "That means fewer cloud condensation nuclei."
What they found was that the clouds were less bright and that there were also fewer clouds. If they lowered the production of biogenic CCNs too much, their model created a world with remarkable warming inconsistent with life. However, they could alter the productivity in the model to recreate the temperature regime during supergreenhouse events.
"The model reduces cloud cover from about 64% to 55% which lets in a large amount of direct sunlight,".
nasa
April 10, 2008
[looks like increasing clouds may be the easiest way to cool the Earth]
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Methane
.. the first glacial/interglacial record of the carbon isotopic composition of methane (?13CH4)..
Glacial concentration.. 350 ppbv ... 700 ppbv during the last glacial/interglacial transition superimposed by rapid shifts of.. 200 ppbv ..
..human methane emissions..CH4 concentrations to .. 1750 ppbv.

..tropical wetlands emitted substantially less CH4 during glacials; most likely caused by changes in monsoonal.. Together with a reduced atmospheric lifetime, this explains major parts of the glacial CH4 reduction. In addition, boreal methane sources located in wetlands .. switched off during the glacial ..However, ..quickly reactivated when rapid climate warming
..forest fires emit a considerable amount of CH4,..surprisingly constant over time.
..no signs of CH4 emissions by a destabilization of marine gas hydrate reservoirs when climate was warming..

.. .European Science Foundation (ESF), EPICA .
nasa
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youtube
vulcan project video CO₂ pumping out of USA
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Marijuana may block Alzheimer's
...Dr Susanne Sorensen
...a dramatically reduced functioning of cannabinoid receptors in diseased brain tissue.
.. effect of cannabinoids on rats injected with the amyloid p.rotein that forms Alzheimer's plaques.
Those animals who were also given a dose of a cannabinoid performed much better in tests of their mental functioning.
..rats that also received the cannabinoid showed no sign of microglia activation.
Using cell cultures, the researchers confirmed that cannabinoids counteracted the activation of microglia and thus reduced inflammation.

Drug target
Researcher Dr Maria de Ceballos said: "These findings that cannabinoids work both to prevent inflammation and to protect the brain may set the stage for their use as a therapeutic approach for Alzheimer's disease."
22 February, 2005

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youtube
Keith Haring
In 1980 on the A train I noticed these chalk drawings, done on the black paper placed over expired ads in the subway stations.
I planned to photo these barking dogs and radiant children, but got sidetracked. What a brilliant calendar thay would have made


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PSUSENNES I,
what ease, or unease underscores this perfection?



TUTANKHAMUN’S GOLDEN SANDALS



xkcd gets weird


LHC (large picture of)
via
nasa

Nargis, Clouds, Methane, Keith Haring