Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Methane emissions from industry soar past previous estimates, study says - NBC News.com

Methane emissions from industry soar past previous estimates, study says - NBC News.com 

Heartbreaking that science under-assessed their 'estimates' for methane emissions. The real concentrations measured in the atmosphere are much higher than anticipated, 50% higher than the EPA estimates. These emissions are from cows/livestock, and fossil fuels and fracking.
We have to do a better job tracking these greenhouse gases, and acting accordingly.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Founding Fathers Wanted Distribution of Wealth and Ownership, Not Concentration of Wealth

Here

'James Madison warned that inequality in property ownership would subvert liberty, either through opposition to wealth (a war of labor against capital) or "by an oligarchy founded on corruption" through which the wealthy dominate political decision-making (a war of capital against labor). John Adams favored distribution of public lands to the landless to create broad-based ownership of property, then the critical component of business capital in the largely agricultural U.S. Current levels and trends in inequality would almost certainly have terrified the founders, who believed that broad-based property ownership was essential to the sustenance of a republic.
...

If increasing inequality is indeed as dire a problem as the Founding Fathers imagined, what, if anything, can the U.S. do to reverse the pattern and to assure that in the next three decades, all of us share in the benefits of modern technology and economic progress? What is the best way to avoid Madison's dark scenarios?
...
We propose a new strategy: to expand capital ownership and capital income for normal workers through programs that encourage broad-based employee stock ownership of firms, widely available profit-sharing, and all-employee stock options and stock grants in firms that now restrict ownership, stock options and bonuses to only the highest-level executives. (More active pension fund investments, more active institutional investors economy-wide and reforms in corporate governance are also needed to address what we could call the ownership gap, but we'll save them for another day.)'

Yes.

Monday, November 11, 2013

NY Times: Typhoon in Philippines Casts Long Shadow Over U.N. Talks on Climate Treaty

Here

We're fucking this up pretty mighty.
The world governments better commit to action ASAP.
The ass draggers and oil investors are irrelevant.
Because we are talking about the viability of whole nations and ecosystems here.
We're talking about our species and keeping Earth's climate intact.
Science knows what needs to be done. We need to keep CO2 PPM under 400.
That needs to be done, FUCKING ASAP.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

U.S. negotiators offer Iran relief on sanctions

U.S. negotiators offer Iran relief on sanctions 

This has promise. I hope Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani comes clean and they become transparent, clearly non-nuclear weaponizing and not a rogue regime. We all want a nuke-free world.

EPA in US Should be Lauded (detractors should be sent to China for a 'last gasp' aircation)

Thomas Friedman lays out a first-person account of China's air here. What is awful, and what good people are trying to do to make it livable there (read: not just increase hospital size and airmask supply).

Too Big to Breathe?

FDA Ruling Would All but Eliminate Trans Fats

This is good news, to help make for less obese and less heart-attacky Americans.
More sustainable. Reminds me of Thomas Friedman's kudos to the EPA (read: FDA doing good= EPA doing good) for keeping our skies blue and healthy, as opposed to China (here: Too Big to Breathe?)

FDA Ruling Would All but Eliminate Trans Fats 

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.

Antidotes to Violence, a.k.a., Take Charge of Where Your Head's At - here

Tell Congress to Strengthen Gun Control Laws NOW - here

Good News & Brain Food News -
Christians & Muslims Gather, for Peace here
Good News - Top RIO+20 Summit Posts here
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
here