DO THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FOR 86TH DISTRICT DELEGATE SUPPORT VIRGINIA DIVESTMENT FROM FOSSIL FUELS? 22MAR13

JENNIFER BOYSKO AND HERB KEMP are the Democratic candidates for Delegate to Richmond from the 86th District, which includes Herndon. Here is the e mail I sent them asking for their opinions on the Divest from Fossil Fuels campaign by 350.org. I have also e mailed the Mayor and Town Council of Herndon on this divestment campaign, see Will your city divest?& MY E MAIL TO HERNDON'S TOWN COUNCIL AND MAYOR & UPDATE ON KEYSTONE XL 22MAR13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/will-your-city-divest-update-on.html

Good Morning Jennifer & Herb,

Hope all is well with both of you, have been watching your campaigns and appreciate the e mails from both of you on issues facing all of us in the 86th District and all of Virginia. 

I am forwarding this e mail on the latest 'Divest from Fossil Fuels' campaign from 350.org and would like to know if you, as our delegate in Richmond, would introduce or support and fight for legislation divesting Virginia from fossil fuel industry investments. I have also included links to the latest information on coal industry jobs and Green Energy / Technology jobs in Virginia. Looking forward to your positions on this issue. 

Peace to both of you,

Craig

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_and_jobs_in_the_United_States

http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Campus-Ecology/Greenforce-Initiative/Virginia%20Summit/Virginia%20summit%20summary%20one-pager%20FINALx1.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20130322T0813487813

Dear Friends,
There are days when I get utterly preoccupied playing defense against the fossil fuel industry, trying to stop pipeline after frack well after coal port. It’s necessary work -- but there are also days when I remind myself we’ve got to go on offense too.
Today’s one of those days. We’re launching the next phase of our fossil fuel divestment campaign, bringing it off campus to include city, state, and town governments; religious denominations, museums, foundations -- anyone with an investment portfolio. If someone’s investing in the destruction of the future, we’re going to ask them to sell those shares.
Here’s how to get started. Our web-team has set up a new online petition tool that makes it easy for you to join up with a local campaign or start your own. These petitions will help you build up some local pressure, as well as start a local email list you can use for organizing (they’re so easy to use, even I can figure it out).
Click here to find or start a local divestment petition: www.GoFossilFree.org/start
Once you’ve got a petition going, it’s time to start organizing. Host a local meeting to get your group together, set up meetings with your key decision makers, make the case for divestment, and then figure out the type of pressure you’re going to need to get a victory. You’ll find some useful resources up on the GoFossilFree.org website -- and don’t hestitate to get in touch if you need help.
The first phase of this campaign, on American colleges and campuses, has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Inside Climate said it was “spreading like wildfire,” and writing in the Nation, Harvard student leader Chloe Maxmin said it was “engaging more students than any similar campaign in the past twenty years.” The fourth college to commit to make their portfolio fossil free -- College of the Atlantic in Maine -- divested last week, which is way ahead of our wildest hopes.
And truthfully, Phase 2 has been up and running quietly for a while: the City of Seattle has already announced plans to divest, and 6 conferences of the United Church of Christ have joined to urge the national denomination to do the right thing.
But now it’s going to get big fast, in no small part because a we’ve got a very talented new staff member, Jay Carmona, who will be running the battle. She’s worked in City Government, organized with our friends at Media Matters and Get Equal, and she plays to win. “Divestment is targeting the one thing that those companies can’t buy, which is their reputation,” she told Yale e360 earlier this week.
I’m pretty fired up too. The best arguments for divesting if you’re a city: “why would we spend millions putting up seawalls and so on, and at the same time invest in the companies making it necessary?” If you’re a church: “why are we doing business with an industry that’s running Genesis backwards?” If you’re -- well, if you’re a human being: “if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage?”
I think those arguments will prevail. Not easily -- but no one ever said it was going to be easy. Just exciting! You can get started right here: www.GoFossilFree.org/start
Many thanks,
Bill
P.S. An update on the Keystone fight in the Senate from our political director Jason: "The vote on the pipeline could come today, tomorrow, or Saturday. Our work together is making an impact: offices report being flooded with calls telling them to vote no on KXL. A few Senators who were on the fence are now leaning our way -- and we have everyone who called to thank for that." We can't let our guard down, but I'd say that's good news. Our team will send another update in the near future!

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MORE LINKS AND INFO

• The Nation - "Why Divestment is Changing the Climate Movement" - go.350.org/14d1jQ1
• Inside Climate - "Spreading Like Wildfire, Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign Striking a Moral Chord" - go.350.org/11hk7Jl
• The New York Times - "To Stop Climate Change, Students Aim at College Portfolios" - nyti.ms/RAqc34

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350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by donating here.

Robotboat Mark VI (A KICKSTARTER CROWDFUNDING PROJECT) DEADLINE 12OKT12 UPDATE 9OKT12

JUST AN UPDATE ON THIS PROJECT, they now have $70074.00 in pledges since I first posted this on 7OKT, just $9026.00 away from meeting their goal of $80000.00 by 2PM / 1400 Friday 12OKT12. They have to meet that goal or they get nothing. WAY TO GO EVERYONE WHO HAS PLEDGED!!! If you didn't, will ya consider it? If you can't will you pass this on to others who might? Think about it!!!!
THIS is another project on KickStarter I decided to back because it is way cool, it will be good for the American economy and very good for the world's oceans. When I pledged they had raised just over $30000.00 (of a goal of $80000.00), they are now at $61654.00 and have till 12OKT12 or they get nothing. They are so close! Take a look at the project here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robotboat/robotboat-mark-vi 
and check out the funding update below sent to supporters by Eamon Carrig, on of the projects team members a few days ago. IF you can please make a pledge, and please send this out to family and friends so they can consider supporting the project. Peace to all!
From Eamon...
There are an awful lot of really talented, passionate, and capable people working on trying to figure out how we can better understand and be better stewards of our agua.  One of the happiest surprises of the campaign so far has been connecting with some of them.  It's a good thing too, because there is not a lot of time to waste.  As we round out the 20th day of our campaign, we are proud to be able to say that we've made it just about halfway to our financial goal.  We are also very proud that so many people have thought this cause worthy of their time and precious resources (nearly 1000 backers!).  We are especially proud of the people who have waded out into the new and exciting world of crowdfunding for the first time to support Robotboat.  At the risk of being pedantic (you seasoned backers will have to bear with us), we thought it prudent to point out an important feature of this effort, and indeed all Kickstarter campaigns: if we fall short of our goal, by even one dollar, it will all be for naught. Kickstarter is all-or-nothing in that regard.  We feel as though this project is both important and urgent in the context of global water stewardship.  And, through the looking glass, your support has become both important and urgent to the project.  We have only ten days left and quite a few dollars to go.  If you haven't already (we are thrilled and humbled by the fact that so many of you have) would you consider sending a note/link to your friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, respected enemies, and anyone else you think might care or be in a position to help?  Together we can make the dream of abundant, accurate, ocean data an irrefutable reality. 

HELP FINANCE ROBOTBOAT MARKVI ON KICKSTARTER BY 12OKT12!!! (I'M A BACKER!!!)

THIS is just so cool, it is local (Silver Spring, MD) and if they get this up and running they will invest in jobs and technology here in the U.S.! Check out their project page on KickStarter and pledge what you can, if you can, And share with others who may be interested. Click the link...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robotboat/robotboat-mark-vi?ref=live 

by Eamon Carrig · You're a backer

• Home

• Silver Spring, MD
• Technology

• Embed

We're building a fleet of autonomous sailing robots to study the oceans. Each boat can sail itself anywhere & send data back to shore.

• Launched: Sep 12, 2012
• Funding ends: Oct 12, 2012
• Remind Me

WHAT IS THIS ANYWAY?

We're asking for your help to produce and test the ROBOTBOAT MARK VI.  Each robotboat is fully autonomous, needs no fuel, and will bring to bear myriad sensors at remote points on the surface of oceans, lakes, and rivers.  Think of it as a satellite for the seas.

WHY?

We need lots of low-cost self-propelled robots to study the health of the world's water.  Never send a person to do a buoy's job!  The real value of this technology lies at the fleet level, but given the extremely high performance required of each boat, purchasing even a few of them is simply beyond our means.  Building one boat represents a huge step towards cheap data.  Building more than one boat will allow us to test swarming algorithms, implement complex communication schemes, and take greater risks (e.g. undertake longer, more challenging missions).
Bringing this opportunity to the kickstarter community will allow us to develop this technology MUCH FASTER than we could if we have to fund it ourselves;  the more resources we can raise here, the faster we can deliver.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Perhaps Lilly Tomlin said it best: "I said 'Somebody should do something about that.'  Then I realized I am somebody."
No matter where you stand on issues like climate change, marine conservation, offshore energy production etc., we hope you'll agree that everyone is better served by policies and behavior based on empirical scientific evidence.  We should all care about how we manage our water resources.
We think Robotboat is the best way yet to generate information about the world's oceans.

• More data = better ocean management
• Fully automatic = cheap to acquire data
• Fast = station-keep in high seas; get to points of interest quickly
• Durable = collect longitudinal data; self-righting
• Each boat = millions upon millions of datapoints

WHO ARE YOU?

Walt, Rob, TJ, and Eamon... Hi.
We're a professional engineering team.  Between us we hold 8 patents and have over fifty years of engineering experience.
Our principals (Walt & Rob respectively) founded these companies:
Planetary Systems Corp. and Tiger Innovations
TJ and Eamon have worked for Walt making satellite subsystems for the last few years (among other pursuits).  We've designed and executed dozens of successful missions.  We've produced space flight hardware, ground station equipment, and remote sensing systems for the most demanding customers in the world,  Collectively, our expertise is in developing robust mechatronics.

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PULL THIS OFF?

We've built & tested 5 autonomous sailing robots over the last several years.

Our boats have completed hundreds of hours of fully autonomous navigation and traversed hundreds of kilometers on the water.
We've proved a robust sailing algorithm.  In the GPS trace below you can see the boat complete upwind tacking maneuvers without human control.

We've completed the Robotboat Mark VI design.  We're going to build it like a surfboard; it will be incredibly strong and be capable of being rolled in waves indefinitely.

We won't quit.
Neither will the boats.  The Robotboat Mark VI features a patent pending self-righting mechanism, the first and only such system in existence.  It can prosecute targets day or night, rain or shine, wind or doldrums, thanks to its advanced wing sail and assistive electric propulsion system.
And... we'll need your help.  R&D of this nature is not cheap.

• Mechanical and electrical components = $40k
• Tooling (molds & dies) = $30k
• Average cost per test = $1k
• Expected test quantity = 10x
• TOTAL = $80,000

We're trying to build as many of these boats as possible. 

As soon as we receive this kickstart, we will execute the following schedule:

As your sponsorship allows us, we will undertake more ambitious missions in the next few months:
World Record

Trans-Atlantic Crossing

Measure oil leaks

Measure the Pacific Garbage Patch

Measure Boundary Currents (e.g. the Gulf Stream)

Measure Marine Life (video & acoustic)

Measure Icebergs

Measure Coral Reefs

Think bathtub/desktop size...
Special thanks to our international backers!  We'll have to ask you to help mitigate the extra shipping costs required to deliver your rewards.  For addresses outside the U.S.A. please add $8 for keychain / $15 for tshirt / $20 for 3D model / $35 for jacket to the appropriate rewards levels at right.
Thanks for checking out the Robotboat!!!

FAQ

• Seriously, you couldn't come up with a real name?
• It’s a catamaran! It’s going to flip!
• So what are these sensors you're talking about?
• Why would one want to use a Robotboat over a satellite?
• Have you tested the telemetry systems?
• What steps have you taken to avoid fouling?
• Will Robotboats pose a hazard to ships? How will you avoid other potential collisions and debris on the water?
• What kind of electrical hardware is 'under the hood'?
• Can this technology be used to make an 'autopilot' for recreational sailing?
• Can these things tow a sonar array?
• Wait a second, I heard sonar kills whales...
• Haven't we seen stuff like this before?
• Is this ever going to be open source?

Ask a question

The GOP’s ‘Europe’ is a land of make-believe from the WASHINGTON POST 3FEB12

Here is a great rebuttal to the charges by the repiglican / tea-bagger field of candidates that Pres Obama and the Democratic Party want to turn the U.S. into a socialist state a la Europe. WHAT I can't understand is the number of people who support romney's and gingrich(k)'s attacks on the social safety net while they themselves, or someone they know, family, friends or former co-workers, are benefiting from the very programs making up the social safety net. How can they not be aware that these programs are putting food on the table, keeping homes warm, keeping people in their homes, providing medical care when needed for families, for children? Their hypocrisy is amazing, their voluntary ignorance disgusting. If the repiglicans and tea-baggers had their way the poverty rate in the U.S. would be higher than it's current unacceptable level and many more would be hungry, cold, homeless and without any medical care. The attitudes and support of these people for the politics of those who seek to do them harm lends credence to the article on HuffPost on 2FEB12 "Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/intelligence-study-links-prejudice_n_1237796.html?ref=mostpopular
Martin Klingst is Washington bureau chief of the weekly German newspaper Die Zeit. 

Lately it seems that not a day goes by without a Republican presidential candidate portraying Europe as a socialist nightmare. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum paint a picture of the Old World as unfree, strangulated by bureaucratic and inefficient welfare systems, and unable to reform and modernize. To these Republicans, Europe seems to be the antipode to everything America is meant to be.
I understand that stump speeches are coarse and that, to Republican candidates, Europe must be bad because President Obama occasionally praises some of its achievements, such as universal health care or the “green” revolution.
I also know there is an American tradition of holding up the Old World as an example of all that is wrong and corrupt. There is, unfortunately, a more recent European custom of blaming the United States for all that is perverse and profane. Moreover, there are good reasons to worry about Europe’s fiscal calamities, which stem in part from the unaffordable benefits for its citizens. It is understandable that some on this side of the Atlantic fear that the European debt crisis could drag the slowly recovering U.S. economy under.
But when Romney, Gingrich and Santorum warn about “socialist Europe,” they sound as though they are talking about the Soviet empire, which vanished long ago. Europe is the European Union, a modern entity of 27 democratic countries that, despite many commonalities, greatly differ in history, culture, language, sociology and politics. Europe is difficult to comprehend, but viewing it through a single lens is like calling the United States a Third World nation because there are very poor areas in the South where some people live in shacks or have little access to health care or where some schools are corridors of shame.
My problem as a European living in the United States is that it is not Joe the Plumber who is bashing Europe but three longtime politicians who want to be president — people who should know better. Wasn’t Mitt Romney a missionary in France? Hasn’t he spoken fluent French since the late 1960s? I do not recall any important European politician who ran for prime minister or president and pilloried the United States in the same manner. Even when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came out against the imminent Iraq war before seeking reelection in 2002, the rhetoric was muted in comparison.
It is not necessary here to define socialism or to detail the many distinctions between a state-run economy and a social democracy based on a ­free-market system. But those who seek to be president of a global superpower — and may perhaps one day sit at a table with leaders of the Old World — should know a few things:
All 27 E.U. members believe, more or less, in mandatory health-care insurance and public education. They believe that government should offer a helping hand to struggling businesses and people during economic downturns. That is why we pay high taxes. It is also true that a number of E.U. countries have irresponsibly expanded their welfare systems and can no longer afford their bills.
But some countries have carried out necessary economic reforms, engineered their comeback and managed the storm of the Great Recession quite well. To some extent they can now present better results than the United States. Germany, for example, raised its retirement age to 67 and drastically reformed its social safety net, lowering labor costs to businesses. Thanks to government subsidies, German enterprises were able to keep their skilled workers employed during the recession. When business picked up again, the labor force was in place and the economy more competitive. Unemployment is at a 20-year low of about 6 percent.
Several European states run their mandatory health-care systems more efficiently and at lower cost than the United States while guaranteeing every citizen access to affordable and up-to-date services. The population’s health remains an important economic factor. Moreover, while the national debt is disastrous in Greece or Italy, debt remains at a much more responsible level in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
Romney pointed out in New Hampshire last month that, despite the economic downturn, the average U.S. worker still takes home a bigger monthly paycheck than the average European (and even the average German, who makes more than, say, Romanians). That’s true, but the comparison doesn’t take into account the much greater wealth gap in the United States nor the fact that Americans have to spend larger portions of their income on medical care and education.
A college education is still free in most Old World countries and produces generally better results than in the United States. The Program for International Student Assessment study by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, released in December, shows that high school students in a number of E.U. countries scored better in reading, math and science than their U.S. counterparts. Another OECD report shows that it is much easier for Germans, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Spaniards to climb the socioeconomic ladder than Americans. That’s a stark reversal from the time when greater social mobility was a main reason so many Europeans flocked to the land of opportunity.
Comparing data across societies is risky because cultural and social differences may not be reflected. Yes, pendulums swing. But framing Europe simply as inflexible and outdated, or backward and socialistic, is shortsightedand wrong. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum should know as well as anyone that the globe is no longer flat.
 

Cheap Chinese Panels Spark Solar Power Trade War 19JAN12

THE chinese are guilty of dumping solar panels on the American market as well as the rest of the world. They do so with their subsidies to the solar panel industry in the prc and with their control of their labor force, keeping wages low, benefits nonexistent, and lax enforcement of environmental and safety regulations. Tariffs should be levied on solar panels from the prc and that money used to fund tax credits for consumers of American made solar panels. From NPR....

by Christopher Joyce

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

[4 min 16 sec]

 

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images Contractors with SunEdison install more than 1,000 Chinese-made solar panels on top of a Kohl's Department Store in Hamilton Township, N.J., in 2010. Energy generated by the solar system will cut the store's usage, on average, by 25 to 30 percent.

There's a solar trade war going on inside the U.S., sparked by an invasion of inexpensive imports from China.
The U.S. solar industry is divided over these imports: Panel-makers say their business is suffering and want a tariff slapped on the imports. But other parts of the industry say these cheap panels are driving a solar boom in the U.S.
On the manufacturers' side, there's Gordon Brinser. He's an Oregon native who says the company he runs there, SolarWorld, is not only green, it's red, white and blue. "The mission that we have is to build products here in America, for America's community, for America's energy independence, and really leave the world a better place," he says.
Brinser claims China is threatening that vision by flooding the U.S. with cheap solar panels. He claims China subsidizes its solar panel industry to the tune of $30 billion a year, yet uses only a small percentage of the panels it makes. "So obviously," he says, "these subsidies have gone into the industry, and their full intention is to export and control markets in other countries."
Brinser claims the imports contributed to the collapse of some U.S. manufacturers. Three did go out of business in 2010, though the exact cause may or may not be cheap imports. But Brinser has petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission to slap tariffs on imported Chinese panels.
So far the feds say, yes, American panel-makers have been harmed by Chinese imports. Yet to be determined is whether China is doing anything illegal: for instance, subsidizing panel-makers so they can sell below cost, a practice called "dumping."
Brinser acknowledges that if he wins and tariffs are added, Americans will have to pay more for panels. "The prices will have to increase, you know, a little. They will find their new, natural balance in a competitive and legal environment," he says.
Higher Prices Could Hurt Installers
But CASE, the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, says higher prices are bad for companies that install solar power. These companies far outnumber panel manufacturers.
Kevin Lapidus works for CASE and is vice president of SunEdison, which builds and operates solar power systems.

More About Solar Power In The U.S.

Solar Panels Compete With Cheap Natural Gas

Cheap natural gas due to fracking makes more expensive forms of renewable energy less attractive.

Big Solar Project Moves Forward Without Uncle Sam

Large-scale plan to install solar panels on military homes doesn't rely on federal loan guarantees.

"Fully 52 percent of the U.S. jobs are in the installation business," he says. "These are U.S. workers who wake up in the morning, put on a tool belt, and they go and build something." He says manufacturers of solar panels in the U.S. are only about a quarter of the domestic business.
Lapidus says solar power is just now shaking off its reputation as too pricey for regular people. "We're finally reducing the price of solar," he says. "We're driving down the cost to grow the solar base — installations, jobs, etc. And the SolarWorld trade case will increase the cost of electricity; it will set the industry back by years."
He says it could also start an international trade war with China. American solar industries export well over a billion dollars of products to China per year.
Most Customers Just Want The Best Price
At Solar Energy Services in Millersville, Md., a single stack of solar panels sits on the floor of a warehouse. Engineer Rick Peters says he got them cheap because the manufacturer folded — they couldn't compete. He's run out of Chinese panels for the moment. "Probably about 70 percent of what we install is Chinese panels," he says.
Peters points out that some homeowners like to buy American, but most, about 90 percent of his customers, just want the best price. And Chinese panels are about 10 percent cheaper.
A tariff could double their price, and Peters says that could push everyone's prices up.
"I'm very concerned about that," he says. "I think that it could significantly increase the price, because of the limited number of manufacturers in the U.S. Potentially, they could take advantage of the marketplace."
By raising their prices as well? "Absolutely," says Peters.
He fears that could have ripple effects for other U.S. manufacturers. He illustrates by cutting open a big cardboard box on the floor of the warehouse. Inside is an inverter, a device that every solar installation needs to convert direct current to the alternating current in your home. It costs about $4,500.
"This one is made by PV Powered," he says, "which is a U.S. manufacturer. A lot of the inverters are manufactured in the U.S." Fewer installations would mean fewer inverters sold.
Over the next several months, the federal government will decide whether China is playing fair or not.

Related NPR Stories

After Scandal, Solar Industry Looks On Bright Side Oct. 29, 2011

A Lease On Solar Panels? Some States Pitch In Feb. 22, 2011

The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium 6DEZ11

PRESIDENT OBAMA campaigned on creating green jobs in the U.S. in 2008, but he has fallen far short of fulfilling his campaign promises. To be fair he has had no support from congress, and the business community, mainly big oil, gas and coal, have fought him on green energy and green technology tooth and nail. AND the American people have been apathetic, mostly because of the propaganda campaigns from the oil, gas and coal industries that promise more energy from our own national natural resources through drilling in environmentally fragile areas, fracking and "clean coal" technology. We are more interested in protecting our own lifestyles than admitting we are part of the problem of global warming and will have to pay a price for our consumption, complacency and greed. As a nation we have a responsibility to the future generations of Americans and the world as a whole to insist our government take definitive action to transform the energy industry in the U.S. from dirty carbon based power to wind, solar and energy efficient transportation, appliances and structures. We have the knowledge, can develop the technology and can make adjustments to our lifestyles to address the threat of global warming. We need the government to provide the support, legislatively and financially, for green technology and to provide the moral leadership to motivate all of us to become responsible for reducing our carbon footprint. From the Washington Peace Center.....
The most important piece of news yesterday, this week, this month, and this year was a new set of statistics released yesterday by the Global Carbon Project. It showed that carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. In fact, it was arguably among the most important pieces of data in the last, oh, three centuries, since according to the New York Times it represented “almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.”

What it means, in climate terms, is that we’ve all but lost the battle to reduce the damage from global warming. The planet has already warmed about a degree Celsius; it’s clearly going to go well past two degrees. It means, in political terms, that the fossil fuel industry has delayed effective action for the 12 years since the Kyoto treaty was signed. It means, in diplomatic terms, that the endless talks underway in Durban should be more important than ever--they should be the focus of a planetary population desperate to figure out how it’s going to survive the century.

But instead, almost no one is paying attention to the proceedings, at least on this continent. One of our political parties has decided that global warming is a hoax--it’s two leading candidates are busily apologizing for anything they said in the past that might possibly have been construed as backing, you know, science. President Obama hasn’t yet spoken on the Durban talks, and informed international observers like Joss Garman are beginning to despair that he ever will.

Who are the 99%? In this country, they’re those of us who aren’t making any of these deadly decisions. In this world, they’re the vast majority of people who didn’t contribute to those soaring emissions. In this biosphere they’re every other species now living on a disorienting earth.

You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in DC in August against the Keystone Pipeline?  We’re not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history. And he and his ilk spend heavily on campaigns to make sure no one stops them--the US Chamber of Commerce gave more money than the DNC and the RNC last cycle, and 94% of it went to climate deniers.

Corporate power has occupied the atmosphere. 2011 showed we could fight back. 2012 would be a good year to step up the pressure. Because this time next year the Global Carbon Project will release another number. And I’m betting it will be grim.

A Little Straight Talk on National Defense 2DEZ11 & WATCH: Military Spending Doesn't Create Jobs—It Costs Them 3DEZ11

THE military-industrial complex is waging a full blow propaganda war to protect their profits and keep the American economy in recession. Greed, not patriotism is behind their campaign to prevent cuts to the Pentagon's budget. Defense spending does not create more middle class jobs than federal domestic spending, it creates less jobs and so makes our country weaker, not stronger. Consider this from Mother Jones and Brave New Foundation.....

Now that the budget supercommittee has failed in its mission to produce a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction plan, the Department of Defense must automatically cut $600 billion from its budget within the next decade. As expected, the US defense industry is not happy about this, and its lobbyists have been scrambling for ways to convince Congress that the impending cuts are untenable.
So far, one major theme has emerged: Cut spending in our industry, and you cut hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Marion Blakey, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, announced that "the cuts in the aerospace and defense portion alone could result in the loss of over 1 million American jobs."
But that's misleading, according to the Brave New Media Foundation. While the defense industry would lose some opportunities, military spending in fact amounts to a net loss of jobs when compared with government investment in other industries, according to the group's research. Pumping money into the green energy sector and education field creates far more jobs than defense spending does—in the case of education, twice as many.
Watch:

If You Liked This, You Might Also Like...

• Inside the Corporate Plan to Occupy the Pentagon

  Behind the growing push to slash soldiers' pensions and other military costs is a little-known advisory group—stacked with Wall Street executives.

• Wall Street Tactics for the Pentagon?

  Some say a corporate advisory group created by Donald Rumsfeld is unimportant—but its plan to slash military pensions has gained currency in Washington.

• A Pre-Primer on an Upcoming Defense Budget Fight

  You wouldn't have thought that the Obama team is taking a courageous stand by insisting on the same DOD funding...

• The Pentagon's Bulging Toy Chest

• The Pentagon Since 9/11: By the Numbers

  $869 billion for Iraq, $487 billion for Afghanistan, and everything else your almost $8 trillion in military spending bought you in the last decade.

Samantha Oltman is the Online Editorial Intern at Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here. You can follow her on Twitter here.

A Little Straight Talk on National Defense

A paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division’s “Devil Brigade” aims his M240-B crew-served machine gun. Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod/US Army

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/12/straight-talk-national-defense 

The Economist's Roger McShane is unimpressed with all the doom-mongering over proposed cuts to the Pentagon budget:

So by how much will the defence budget decline over the next decade? That could be seen as a trick question, because in nominal terms it will grow. Prior to the supercommittee's failure, the defence budget was slated to increase some 23% between 2012 and 2021. Now, according to Veronique de Rugy, the Pentagon will have to make do with a 16% boost…Or to put it another way, as Lawrence Korb does, the "sequestration will return defense spending in real terms to its FY 2007 level, the next to last year of the Bush administration, when no one was complaining about devastating levels of spending."
…But these numbers have not quieted the critics. And perhaps the most ardent among them has been [Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta. My colleague cites a statement from the secretary, in which he lists the tragic results of a 16% increase: "We would be left with our smallest ground force since 1940, the fewest ships since 1915 and the smallest Air Force in its history." Here's another fact: America already has the fewest ships since 1916, despite a 70% increase in defence spending between 2001 and 2010.

We could, of course, have thousands of ships and tens of thousands of warplanes if we wanted. But that would mean buying lots of PT boats and swarms of F-4s instead of a dozen Nimitz- and Ford-class supercarrier groups and a few hundred F-35s. We don't have a small number of ships and planes because we're too cheap to buy more, we have them because that's what the Pentagon wants. Modern war makes a small number of superadvanced weapons systems more effective than a bunch of cheap cannon fodder.
Defense hawks like to insist that we should judge the Pentagon budget as a percentage of GDP. The Bill Kristol contingent, for example, claims that we should never allow defense spending to fall below 4 percent of GDP. But is this a sensible way of looking at things? For some programs it is. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are both inherently tied to population growth and living standards, so as those go up so will outlays. But in other areas this doesn't make so much sense. Do we need more embassies overseas just because our GDP has grown? Not really. There will be some increase in wages that's tied to economic growth, but that's about it.
National defense falls into this category. The United States is no harder or easier to defend when our economy grows, so it's foolish to pretend that defense spending as a percentage of GDP should remain constant. It should go up when we're at war, or when external threats are high for some reason, and it should go down in other times.
This is one of those other times. Despite the best efforts of defense hawks to jangle nerves over China, the plain fact is that China remains a minuscule military threat and probably will remain so for the foreseeable future. We aren't going to start a land war in Asia, after all. Spending on cybersecurity will increase in the future, but it's still a nit in the grand scheme of Pentagon spending. On other fronts, Al Qaeda is all but dead, and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. We'll continue to keep troops in the Middle East and (for better or worse) we'll continue with our drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. But those are pretty cheap. As scary as terrorism might be, the fact is that it's primarily an intelligence expense. On a pure military basis, it's simply not a big-ticket threat.
So can we afford to reduce defense spending to 2007 levels? Of course we can. The world is not more dangerous today than it was in 2007, and there's no a priori reason it should cost more to defend the security of the United States today than it did in 2007. We might spend that money differently, of course. Perhaps the Pentagon will decide it would rather have a thousand more drones instead of a single additional supercarrier group. That might well make sense since the mission of supercarrier groups is becoming fuzzier all the time in an era of primarily asymmetric warfare.
The supercommittee sequestration will require the Pentagon to find additional cuts of about $50 billion per year in its budget. To pretend that this would make us virtually defenseless is to insult our collective intelligence. We can make that cut and still have the most powerful military on the planet by a factor of five or six. If that doesn't make you feel safe, nothing will.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Kevin Drum's RSS feed.

Audio: How Green Is My Country? 23JUL10

WE have a long way to go and a lot to do or we are going to have a lot to answer for.
The race is on to develop sustainable solutions to climate change. From clean coal technology in Tianjin to the construction of Masdar City—a self-contained metropolis in the United Arab Emirates designed to be carbon neutral—countries around the world are devising new ways to reduce global dependency on fossil fuels. But as places like China and the U.A.E. move ahead with large scale green initiatives, is the U.S. lagging behind?
Need to Know’s Alison Stewart runs that question by Professor Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Professor Chameides writes about environmental issues and options for a more sustainable future on his blog, The Green Grok.

This podcast was produced by Need to Know for the Climate Desk collaboration.