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Tonight's editor is: Hopeful Skeptic with input from LaughingPlanet
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.ss
You will often here with some justification the need to develop economically outweighs the environmental risk; in the short term. You may have enough revenue to educate the population but you by then may have degraded the environment to such an extent it cannot support them. Indeed you may spark a war with your neighbor if you have diverted resources such as main rivers to suit your own purposes but have starved them of their primary food source.
Such is the case with the proposed dams of the Mekong in Laos
He felt there was no alternative. "We have done studies on micro-energy and renewables, but they are expensive. I don't think the world can subsidise that. If we do it ourselves, only cheap energy from hydropower will do."
I would argue that the world cannot afford not to help developing nations attain their goals through renewables, the only reason the cost is high is that we are not expanding their use ourselves. If we increase the production capacity the price will come down.
U.S. Marines, the Pakistani military the UN and NGO's are desperately trying to get food and aid to flood victims but the Indus river has taken a new channel, the water is still rising and the it's one foot from cutting off a the Indus highway and number of towns.
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Tonight's editor: patrickz
Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 101
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I've been doing some research on toxic chemicals that Americans are exposed to lately and ... WOW! Turns out that, without any consent from me, I've been exposed to a long list of highly toxic chemicals from things I thought were harmless like my couch. So were you. It could be your socks, or your toothpaste. Or perhaps your washing machine. So why the hell are these chemicals legal?
More below.
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Tonight's editor: ellinorianne
Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 90
And don't forget to check out Ecojustice, tonight's diary is EcoJustice: Coming to Ecuador, with or without Chevron
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.
Global warming deniers come in basically one version: the one which holds their hands to their ears and sings lalalalalalala all day, refusing to discuss any and all evidence of global warming or that fossil fuels have anything to do with it.
They are more willing to believe the craziest conspiracy theories and outright lies rather than deal with facts. It's a shame really, because the facts are there and they are telling us something needs to be done -- Now. Not twenty or thirty of fifty or one hundred years in the future, but right fricking now! Like this information, for one:
Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for green diaries and series.
Tonight's editor: LaughingPlanet
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So did ya hear? The one about the stuff hitting the fan?
Yeah, so far 2010 is the year of mega-disasters.
Jan 10: Haiti quake
April 20: BP's Big Problem
Jul 30: Russian wildfires
Jul 31: Pakistan's floods
At least 3 of those things can be chalked up to our fossil foolish bender last century.
And yes, there are others.
I got 4 words for ya:
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Five years ago, a natural disaster plus human callousness and ineptitude combined to kill more than 1800 people on the Gulf Coast and plunged an American city into a nightmare from which it has far from fully recovered. Thousands of New Orleanians still live in homesick exile. Four of the hospitals that once served the east side of the city remain permanently closed. Crime is out of control. We had a chance right then, as a nation, to make the catastrophe of 2005 into a flex moment, a window of opportunity not merely to rebuild but rather to go boldly in a new direction, a green trajectory that would restore greater New Orleans and the Katrina-obliterated towns of Mississippi to ecological health with sustainable economies.
But, of course, the Cheney-Bush administration was in office and it had other fish to fry. Once it had completed the botch-job of its immediate response and handed out a few bucks and a few FEMA trailers, it more or less vanished from the scene. As for spurring a move down a green path in a big way, puhleez. Those were the days when the White House was still in its climate-change denier phase. Local politicians suffered their own form of myopia.
We’re told, obviously so, that the immediate tasks in a disaster are to save lives, save livelihoods and prevent bad effects from becoming worse. Emergencies are no time to start rewriting the CPR manual. The problem with this is that emergencies instantly focus our intense attention but, afterward, when the societal adrenaline from the rescue effort ebbs, so does any thorough public pondering or accounting about how the way we live and consume and are organized contribute to creating these emergencies in the first place. What does get studied typically winds up as a 27-recommendation tome collecting dust somewhere, resurrected 10 or 20 years in the future as a curiosity for some columnist to highlight as what-could-have-been.
The possibilities emerging from flex moments such as Katrina and the BP gusher should be pounced on. “Don’t waste a crisis,” said Rahm Emanuel in the best sound bite I ever heard from him. Use this moment to do something big, something transformative for the Gulf, for the people, the ecology, the economy.
The floods in Pakistan are now believed to have affected twenty million people, fully 11% of the population. The case can be made that Islamic extremism hot spots Afghanistan and Somalia, both under pressure of drought in the years before their implosion, were actually the first to tumble. Pakistan appears to be the next climate domino set to fall.
Already our Pentagon, driven by profiteering defense contractors, has begun to apply the rhetorical devices of the Cold War to describe the consequences of climate change. See my clever title? Yes, indeed, we need to expand defense spending to be ready for the War On Climate Change(tm).
Or we can extract our heads from our hindquarters and come up with a rational response.
The F Word: Time to Declare Global War on Flooding, Laura Flanders & GritTV, August 13, 2010
And not just any government, but a nuclear armed government. A government that is at the very crux of our "National Security."
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The humanitarian and economic disaster caused by the worst floods in Pakistan's history could spark political unrest that could destabilize the government, dealing a major blow to the Obama administration's efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism.
The government's shambling response to floods that have affected a third of the country has some analysts saying that President Asif Ali Zardari could be forced from office, possibly by the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 63-year history.
Other experts caution that the state itself could collapse, as hunger and destitution trigger explosions of popular anger that was already seething over massive unemployment, high fuel prices, widespread power outages, corruption, and a bloody insurgency by extremists allied with al Qaida.
Thanksgiving of 2008 I published The Famine Of 2009. I was right about starvation, only partially right about the causes and conditions, and two years premature.
I called my wheat farmer friend Bryan Lutter today to double check my thinking, and I'm really, really worried about what I see coming at us in 2011.
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Tonight's editor: patrickz
Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 73
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.
Beneath the fold you will find news and notes, community announcements, and our eco-diary roundup.
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Tonight's editor: boatsie
Please remember to rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 71
All views expressed by today's editor do not necessarily represent those of eKos or eKos listed diarists.