Oil Will Drive the U.S. to More Wars Unless America Changes

by Magnifico

The United States of America is the world's biggest military spender and allocates more on its war machine than any other nation in the world. The U.S. paid $661 billion to the armaments industry in 2009, a recession year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). "This represented 43 percent of the total global spend, and was $47 billion higher than the 2008 U.S. expenditure, according to SIPRI." America has increased military spending by 63 precent since 2000, according to SIPRI. This increase has partially been driven by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes estimate the "budgetary and economic costs" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will now be "between $4 trillion and $6 trillion". An upwards revision of 25 percent in just two years. The U.S. has already spent $1 trillion in Iraq and "spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than $3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits."

continued at Daily Kos....

Have a Facebook? Want to Take Revenge?

by joelado

Revenge for the Gulf oil spill and the Exxon Valdez, our involvement in middle eastern wars and all the other crap that comes with petroleum oil can only be gotten one way.  That way is to stop using oil. So if you have a Facebook account and you want to take revenge, one way you can do it, which will only take a few clicks on a mouse, is to help promote the movie “Revenge of the Electric Car” the new documentary from Chris Paine director of “Who Killed the Electric Car? To do this you have to click on this link http://www.facebook.com/... .  Once at the “Revenge of the Electric Car” Facebook page go to the top of the page and click the thumbs up like button. Once 10,000 people say they like the Facebook page we will all be able to see the trailer, and the promotion for the movie begins in earnest. If you really want to take revenge you will tell all your Facebook friends about the movie by clicking the “Suggest to Friends” button on the left of the Revenge page. There are other things you can do as well such as register and purchase an electric car or a Volt and say goodbye to your contribution to all that mess caused by oil.

continued at Daily Kos....

Slouching Towards Ecotopia

by Dauphin

After reading Jerome a Paris' optimistic diary (the previous-to-last one) it got me thinking about social and economic processes which may ensure that, when all's said and done, we end up with sustainable economies, hopefully in time to avert the worst of global warming.

This may turn into a diary series, if there is interest. Since it's rattled around my head for a while, I'll address the oil issue in the first diary of the potential series.

continued at Daily Kos....

Time to Commit in the Arctic

by Michael Brune

President Obama needs to finish something that started the year before he was born. That's when President Eisenhower set aside the pristine wilderness in the northeast corner of Alaska that we know today as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's the last truly unspoiled wilderness in the United States, and the only way to be sure it stays that way is to make it a National Monument.

continued at Daily Kos....

Energy policy will change under GOP House Dr. Daniel Fine

by finehelen10

With the Republican Party's newly won control of the House of Representatives, national energy policy could be rolled back to 2005, with all legislative advances under a Democratic Party majority at risk.

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No Solar Energy Until You Eat Up All the Oil

by gmoke

All I know about simple solar at
http://solarray.blogspot.com/...
http://solarray.blogspot.com/...

Solar IS Civil Defense
http://solarray.blogspot.com/...

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A More Ancient World (Biodiversity Diary Repeat): Measuring Oil Impact in the Gulf

by matching mole

This is a repeat of a diary I posted two and a half weeks ago as part of my Sunday evening biodiversity series.  For reasons foot-noted below* I am 'publishing' this diary again.

Just about a month ago I was privileged to attend, as a guest (rather than a participant) a conference devoted to developing a coordinated research program to measure the impact of the BP oil disaster on Gulf of Mexico coastal ecosystems.  I'm going to attempt to give you an overview of the main points and show you some pictures to go along with them.

Beach in Panama City, Florida in fall 2008.  This was the easternmost point (that I know of) where oil came ashore during June 2010.

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White House hid the truth on spill: The truth and the oil is still out there.

by Phil Radford II Greenpeace

The President's National Oil Spill Commission released preliminary findings today from its investigation into BP's oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Read more about how the White House hid the truth on the spill, and what we know now.

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How to Say "Never Again"

by Michael Brune

When the BP oil disaster was raging this summer, much of the country was engaged in a conversation about how we could prevent something like this from ever happening again.

If there were an easy answer to that question, we would have found it already. Oil drilling is inherently dangerous and dirty. As long as we keep drilling for oil, there's simply no way to guarantee against another disaster. Sure, we can reduce the odds -- the new drilling regulations announced by the Interior Department last week  might make another accident less likely, but they don't address the fundamental challenge: getting off oil as quickly as possible.

continued at Daily Kos....

No Alien Tort Liability for Corporations??

by rebb

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently dealt a serious, perhaps, mortal blow to the Alien Tort Statute.  

continued at Daily Kos...

Sarah Palin's Supposed Energy Expertise Backfires. Again.

by Avenging Angel

During the 2008 campaign, John McCain said of his running mate Sarah Palin, "She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America."  As it turns out, not so much.  The half-term Alaska Governor literally had no idea how much energy her state produced and suffered from selective amnesia over the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated her coastlines.  Now, after Palin accused President Obama of being in bed with big oil, even the Wall Street Journal took her to task for getting it comically wrong.

continued at Daily Kos....