(10 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Water is essential for life.

But, America and much of the rest of the world is running short of clean, freshwater.

The future is drying up in much of the United States reported The New York Times last October. “Water tables all over the United States have been dropping, sometimes drastically, from overuse. In the Denver area, some cities that use only groundwater will almost certainly exhaust their accessible supplies by 2050.” Drought hit hard the Southeast this fall and before the winter rains came, the residents of Atlanta were less than 90-days away from exhausting the city’s freshwater supply.

Adding to the drought-caused strain on America’s water supply, is the country’s increasing energy demands. McClatchy Newspapers reports that America’s Energy and water demands are on collision course. “It takes a lot of water to produce energy. It takes a lot of energy to provide water. The two are inextricably linked, and claims on each are rising.”

These claims are not just of the type people living in the Pacific Northwest are used to hearing of where hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest are causing the extinction of salmon, but water is also needed for nearly all energy production.

As the McClatchy story explains

“The water supply is as critical as oil,” said Charles Groat, a geologist and expert on the problem at the University of Texas in Austin.

In return, “water use requires a tremendous amount of energy,” said Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, Calif.

As the United States tries to lower its dependence on foreign oil by producing more energy from domestic sources such as ethanol, however, it’s running low on fresh water.

Water is needed for mining coal, drilling for oil, refining gasoline, generating and distributing electricity, and disposing of waste, Gleick said.

“The largest use of water is to cool power plants,” he said at a panel of experts on “The Global Nexus of Energy and Water” in Boston last month.

Water shortages can force nuclear power plants to shutdown. For example:

Nuclear plants are subject to restrictions on the temperature of the discharged coolant, because hot water quickly evaporates and can also kill fish or plants or otherwise disrupt the environment. Those restrictions, coupled with the drought, led to the one-day shutdown August 16 of a TVA reactor at Browns Ferry in Alabama.

The water was low on the Tennessee River and had become warmer than usual under the hot sun. By the time it had been pumped through the Browns Ferry plant, it had become hotter still — too hot to release back into the river, according to the TVA. So the utility shut down a reactor.

Biodiesel and ethanol are increasing the demands on America’s freshwater resources and that will exacerbate the country’s water shortages. The McClatchy story quotes Michael Webber, a mechanical engineer and researcher at the University of Texas in Austin as explaining “driving one mile on ethanol consumes 600 gallons of water to irrigate the corn from which it’s made… Even plug-in hybrids, which are touted as the most efficient way to power electric cars, need to withdraw 10 gallons of water for every mile traveled”.

Even if the United States had enough water to make all the biodiesel and ethanol it needed, there still is a pollution problem to solve with these fuels’ production. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Alabama’s first biodiesel plant was polluting the Black Warrior River near Tuscaloosa with an “oily sheen” that “resembled Italian salad dressing”. This pollution is called a byproduct of a ‘clean’ fuel.

The day before, the Associated Press published the results of their probe that found drugs in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas in the United States. “A vast array of pharmaceuticals – including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones – have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.” Not only are pharmaceuticals tainting our water, but the pesticides and herbicides like Atrazine our agriculture uses to grow corn and soybeans, which we use to make ethanol and biodiesel, are also polluting our limited suppy of freshwater.

The McClatchy article explains “vast amounts of energy are needed to pump, transport, treat and distribute water.” It’s a vicious cycle, lots of energy is needed to provide water and lots of water is needed to produce energy. On top of that, the heating of water is a “greedy consumer of energy”. The United States is already a huge consumer of energy. “America currently uses one-quarter of the world’s oil supply, the most of any country in the world.” In addition, “coal is used to generate more than half of the electricity in the U.S.” According to the National Geographic, “Nearly 90 percent of the world’s energy consumption is through fossil fuel, which produces carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned.”

America is constrained by limited water and energy sources. Today, as the United States occupies oil-rich Iraq, getting clean water to American troops is a challenge. For example, KBR, the private military contractor, supplied American bases in Iraq with polluted hygiene and laundry water that made U.S. troops sick. But the war for Iraq was not fought for the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, but Iraq’s oil. According to the Council of Foreign Relations and others, “In 2001 Iraq’s proven oil reserves were estimated to be around 115 billion barrels, making them the world’s third largest after Saudi Arabia’s and Canada’s.”

The largest surface body of freshwater is the Great Lakes shared between the United States and Canada. Environment Canada states “Canada has 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater and 20% of the world’s total freshwater resources (including waters captured in glaciers and the polar ice caps).” According to the Atlas of Canada, just the Northwest Territories and Nunavut alone, “contains 9.2% of the world’s total freshwater”.

Canada is “a freshwater-rich country“. Each year, “Canadian rivers discharge close to 9% of the world’s renewable water supply, while Canada has less than 1% of the world’s population.” Being rich with oil and water makes Canada well-positioned for the challenges of energy and water in the 21st century. But, sitting atop of all that oil and freshwater could be why some Canadians are concerned that the U.S. and Canada signed an agreement that allows troops to cross over the U.S.-Canadian border in case of “an emergency”.

Already water shortages contribute to the causation of wars in Africa. Last June, The Guardian reported that a United Nations report warned that the Darfur conflict heralds era of wars triggered by climate change and that “with rainfall down by up to 30% over 40 years and the Sahara advancing by well over a mile every year, tensions between farmers and herders over disappearing pasture and evaporating water holes threaten to reignite the half-century war between north and south Sudan, held at bay by a precarious 2005 peace accord.”

In November, The Observer reported that Climate wars threaten billions of people and more than “100 countries face political chaos and mass migration in global warming catastrophe”. In the Americas, Peru gets most of its freshwater “from glacier meltwater. But by 2015 nearly all Peru’s glaciers will have been removed by global warming and its 27 million people will nearly all lack fresh water.” And “In Africa, rivers such as the Niger and Monu are key freshwater resources passing through many nations. As droughts worsen and more water is extracted from them conflicts will be inevitable.”

Just this past week, The Guardian reported that the European Union was told to prepare for flood of climate change migrants. So, if freshwater shortages happen in South America, then I believe the United States could see climate change migrants heading north to its border shared with Mexico.

I think oil was the most valuable resource of the 20th century. The Bush administration lied the nation into war to secure the last century’s treasure. While oil is still essential to America’s economy, this century’s future wars seem destined to be fought over freshwater. The Republicans’ solution appears to be to privatize water. For example last March, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted a conference to promote privatization of water. If freshwater, essential to life, is becoming increasingly scarce and valuable, then the Republican solution is to make sure someone will make a profit.

In October 2006, Prensa Latina, Cuba’s state-run news agency, reported of George W. Bush’s alleged Paraguay “land grab”. They reported that Bush purchased nearly 98,840 acres of land near Chaco, in northern Paraguay. The Guardian noted that “some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans.” Nearby the acreage is Mariscal Estigarribia, an airport and an alleged U.S. military base used in 2005 and 2006.

The nexus between energy and water can be as simple to see as the challenge of supplying clean water to soldiers in Iraq or as complex as the relationship of the energy-water-energy production/supply relationship explained in the McClatchy article. The pressures on energy and water and food continue to grow.

So, I think it comes to this: the nations of the world, not just the United States, must acknowledge the connection between energy, food, and freshwater and then manage the growing demands on these finite resources intelligently to prevent famine and wars.

That’s good, but unlikely, on an international level, but on an individual level I think we need to make changes too. In the McClatchy story, Peter Gleick observed that “Running a hot water faucet for five minutes is the equivalent of burning a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours… Maybe the best way to save energy is to save hot water.” I think he’s right. We need to reduce our energy dependence. We need to become energy and water conservatives.

^{I am busy finalizing things for my move tomorrow. So I thought 73rd might get a kick out of the essay I wrote at dKos last April…}

The nephews are both on little league teams and their seasons opened today. This is the second time I’ve done the little league thing: about 15 years ago with stepchildren and now with my sister’s kids. and i swear to god, it was like I had stepped into a time warp, like I had left everything the way it was all those years ago.

I don’t know what day in creation God said “Let there be baseball” but it is as persistent as spring. I don’t actually know anything about baseball except the rudiments – kids throw, catch, pitch, hit, and run. I know less about coaching, but was hypnotized by one guy who kept urging his players today: See the ball, hit the ball. See the ball, hit the ball.

Anyway, it felt good to hear little kids screaming on the playground as their brothers (I didn’t notice any girls playing today) scored on overthrown balls and every-once-in-a-while, a real honest-to-god hit. I loved watching these 8 to 12-year-olds looking like little men with their windups, cleat digging, and hat pulling.

You could even buy a hotdog.

Amid all of this Americana, I realized the pact we make with our children: You will be safe here. Our lives our reproduceable: you will grow up, go to college, and get married. You will have kids and watch them play baseball on opening day. You will be part of this American Dream.

Maybe there are no guarentees and maybe one day soon, we’ll wake from the American Dream to something harder. I don’t know. But today, there were screaming kids on swingsets and swinging at fast balls. Today, they are safe and the disruption of what may come is not going to stop today, my nephews’ opening day.

This diary was written to be read while listening to Rusted Root’s “Cruel Sun” off their album “When I Woke” (1994)

Click to listen….then click ‘play’…

Cruel Sun

See the bloody faces lifted to the sky

Do you want to run to a future left behind?

I remember asking why, there lies aggression.

Separation where there should be love

Power plays while the people die

Let it rain and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain and protect us from this cruel sun

I remember asking why, there lies aggression

Separation where there should be love

Power plays while the people die

I remember asking why, I remember asking why

I remember asking why, I remember asking why, why.

Open up your eyes, your eyes and let the child learn.

Open up your eyes, and let the child learn

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Why does war kill only the small man?

Why does war kill only the small man?

I think we know, yes, we know

I think we know, know, know

I remember asking why.

I remember asking why.

I remember asking why.

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

My mother was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer on September 10th, 2001…a day before the Twin Towers were felled.  

We sat there we two, in front of the telly, mesmerized like the rest of the world…numb…unable to function…motionless…expressionless…empty.

I had just happened to fly home to visit my mother in California for a week and was unable to leave…all flights grounded…how could I leave her alone in her condition anyway???

I stayed and took care of her, of course…I don’t shirk my responsibilities…I had to leave my job and school in Miami Beach, Florida, gave up my apartment and split with my then boyfriend, whom I am now married to.  Luckily he was very understanding…

I was her only child, and she raised me by herself…it was always just the two of us.

So, on October 6th, the night before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, aggravated by the recent politics and propaganda, I climbed into bed with my mother for the first time in my adult life and held her tight.  

As we both lie there crying for what was about to happen, I remember asking why…why did we jump so quickly and so blindly into war without so much as  an investigation?

I remember asking why…was war even a possibility with so many other tools at our disposal, we were such a civilized society here in the states, that there must be some other avenues to trod down first.  Pre-emptive war must always be the last straw, not first thought.

I remember asking why….I begged my mother for an answer….especially since she had voted for Bush and worked for his campaign in California.

I remember asking her why war was an acceptable answer to Sept. 11th.  War is a band-aid solution, a for-profit mechanism benefiting only the few whom have interests in the military-industrial complex and nothing more.  

I felt at the time that we had been attacked by those whom felt our foreign policies were wrong, unfair and unjust…why can’t we just look at those policies, and maybe look at who we were as a nation.

I remember asking why so many had to die for our own blood-lust need for revenge.  Our unconcerned, fanatical obsession with oil and it’s by-products when we know all too well that every aspect of oil and its’ retrieval are disastrous for our planet and our bodies.  We all knew Bush was after oil in the Middle East, but we we told we were crazy for even thinking along those lines.

I remember the smell of my mother, her own personal, perfect scent…lying there close to me and the warmth of her body comforting me, I felt like a child again….so scared that she was leaving me alone in a world on the brink of war, but so deeply angered by her politics.  She truly believed George Bush was the right man for the job.  If she only knew exactly what she was cheer-leading for….

Four years ago today, my mother passed away.  I didn’t get much sleep last night so I took a little snooze this morning after getting the kids to school and for the first time since she died, I had a dream of her…she whispered in my ear…’I love you my girl’…I heard her voice, so gentle and so lucidly hers…as if she were there next to me.  When the fog of sleep lifted, it took me a few moments to remember she was dead, and then I realized, she woke me at her favorite time…11:11, what she used to call ‘toothpick’ time!  Sounds silly doesn’t it…?

My mother was never able to answer my questions, I think she knew deep in her heart that she had made a fatal mistake…that she had fallen for the darkness and had been taken by it’s illustrious illusions of grandeur, never imagining that she had helped the devil rule the roost.

I think I will never understand war and torture, I hope I never do.  

I know and understand peace, though, and that is what I stand for.

Peace must be the legacy we offer our children, we must strive for peace and we must succeed.

I’m sorry I am so dark today.  I needed to reach out today, thank you dharmaniacs for being here, I needed to get this off my chest.

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will have hearings, reports and testimonials from the women and men who have fought in this war.  All three days of hearings will be broadcast on several outlets including, Pacifica FM Radio, warcomeshome.org, and speak peace tv.

Pacifica’s schedule is:

  Friday, 3/14 ….. 9AM to 7PM EDT.    Saturday, 3/15 ….. 9AM to 7PM EDT

                           Sunday, 3/16 …… 10AM to 4PM EDT  

More information and on-line streaming at kpfa or on war comes home, linked at kpfa.

The first Winter Soldier hearings were in early 1971 during the Vietnam war.  It was a forum where combat troops could voice their disillusionment at having found themselves in a crazy and illegal war.  Like today, Winter Soldier gave troops a safe environment to express their guilts, fears and anguish at participating in a war where atrocities were committed, where it felt like some wrongs had to be committed just to survive.

The name “Winter Soldier” comes from Thomas Paine in 1776:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

When I first listened to the Vietnam Winter Soldiers, years ago, it felt as if my soul was ripped apart, but ripped apart in a necessary, righteous, imperative way.  I knew I must understand what these wars do to our soldiers, to the “enemy” and to all of us.  The hearings were a step toward healing.  They were also a major factor in raising awareness about the conflict.  Two other actions flowed from the Winter Soldier hearings: Dewey Canyon III, A Brief Incursion into the Country of Congress, and troops tesitfying at congressional hearings.  

Dewey Canyon III was named after an illegal invasion into Laos called Operation Dewey Canyon (I & II) where American troops met the NVA (North Vietnam Army regulars) and suffered heavy casualties.  Dewey Canyon III was a very powerful and effective action where troops camped for days on the capitol mall, and threw their medals back on the capitol steps.  As one vet said, while throwing his medals back —

I’m not proud of these medals.  I’m not proud of what I did to receive them.  A whole year, we never took one prisoner alive.  Just wasted them.

As for Winter Soldier I:

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit – the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry concluded: “Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be – and these are his words – ‘the first president to lose a war’. We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Since it is imperative that we:

         End the madness of War     and     Create the Sanity of Peace

It is also imperative to have as much information as possible and to do everything we can to reverse this course.  Bush has called for a war without end.  We must counter with a peace movement without end.  In a preview of this Winter Soldier II, one vet expressed this perfectly, saying that when a war ends, the peace movement just picks up and goes home; we must not do that again.  The peace movement must remain, ever vigilant, saying “No” again and again to any and every threat of permanent war.

Winter Soldier Begins Today, Live Coverage Begins Tommorrow

Posted on: March 13, 2008 – 5:27am by Aaron Glantz

Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan kicks off in Washington, DC today, with hundreds of veterans of the two wars descending on the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland to talk about what they saw, and did, in the name of America. Pacifica radio will be carrying the proceedings live beginning at 9am Eastern tomorrow morning. Audio will be streamed live from Warcomeshome.org and kpfa.org until 4pm EST on Sunday.

They Didn’t Hate Us Before!

Just One Of Tens of Thousands, NOW!!

Um Saad, a middle-aged woman living in the Sunni district of Khadra in west Baghdad, blames the Americans for the death of her husband and two of her sons and threatens revenge.

We Invaded

Based on Lies and Cherrypicked Intelligence!

We Occupy

One of the reason given, Saddam was Evil and he Tortured, he was all ours for years! We installed him, we welcomed him, we supported him, and We All Know Now, We Torture, just like Saddam, even in his old prisons!

“One day I will put on an explosive belt under my clothes and then blow myself up among the Americans. I will get revenge against them for my husband and sons and I will go to paradise.”

As long as We Stay we are Responsible

Everything that happens within a Country we destroyed, and Occupy, driven Millions from their homes, killed and maimed untold numbers of Innocent Human Beings, We Are Responsible!

Not just the military we sent, But this Entire Nation!

The misery of people like Um Saad is the cumulative result of years of war. Dressed in dark robes, sitting in the bare sitting room of her modest house in al-Khadra, this 49-year-old woman tells how her family was slowly destroyed.

Bereaved Iraqi mother vows revenge on US

As you Don’t Think about what we’ve done, the Conflict in Iraq, along with the rest of of the 72% that don’t care about the Military personal Killed, 3,987 you probably won’t care about the Hatreds we’ve created on a people that most certainly didn’t do a Damn Thing to deserve these past Five Years we’ve given them!!

Still think there might be waves and waves of Flowers for us, for our Victory, Think Again

Place yourself, especially your Children, in place of the Iraqi’s, How Would You Feel and What Would You Do!!

Mission Accomplished

I’m guessing that tens of millions of people today know the name of the young woman Eliot Spitzer was paying for sex. I’m guessing that no one outside their circles of family, friends, and colleagues knows the names of Kevin S. Mowl and Christopher S. Frost. They are the last two named American servicemen to have been killed in Bush’s Iraq disaster. Mowl died in late February, from wounds suffered in an IED attack. Frost died last week, in a helicopter crash. Thirteen more American service personnel have been killed more recently, but their names have not been released to the public. Three were killed yesterday, in a rocket attack near An Nasiriyah.

We all know about Geraldine Ferraro. We found out about Samantha Power not because she’s an expert on one of the most important issues humanity faces, but because she made some stupid comments to a Scottish reporter. We’ve recently heard more about obscure Canadian embassy officials than we have about the people who are dying in Iraq. Little wonder, then, that support for the war is at the highest level since 2006. Little wonder that more Americans think the number of U.S. casualties is closer to 3,000 than the actual 4,000. The Iraqi people are a little more realistic. As reported by the Associated Press:

In just a week, Baghdad has seen a spate of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Iraqis and five U.S. soldiers – among 12 Americans who have fallen in the line of duty during the past three days in Iraq.

Suddenly, the city is feeling the unease of the period before violence eased partly as a result of the U.S. troop buildup, which is now coming to a close.

“Violence has increased dramatically” over the past few days, said Haitham Ismael, a 33-year-old father of three living in western Baghdad.

After five years of war, Iraqis interviewed said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines. But all said the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.

Violent civilian deaths were up 36%, last month. American casualties are also again increasing, with the first two months of this year seeing more deaths than the last two months of last year. Total U.S. and Iraqi casualties are on pace for the highest monthly total in more than half a year. The cost estimate is now up to $12,000,000,000 a month. And then there’s that embassy. Not to mention Pentagon efforts to bury the latest report proving no pre-war links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

I mention all this because it matters. I also mention it because the Democratic candidates don’t mention it nearly often enough. We know that the corporate media won’t tell the truth about the war, but our candidates should. Every day. All day long. Everyone’s watching everything they do and say. The media are dishonestly dissecting every comment. The candidates should take advantage of all the attention. A lot of people whine about the potential pitfalls of a drawn out nomination fight, well the candidates ought to turn that around and make it a positive. Tell the truth about Iraq. Don’t make it but another talking point, recite the facts. Recite the statistics. Begin each stump speech by honoring the latest released named American service personnel to die for Bush’s folly. Tell the truth. No one else will. No one else can. There’s a war going on. The American people are being lulled into complacency. The Iraqi people and American service personnel are dying for it.

Hey all!

First off, my personal apologies for not being around the last couple days.  I’m actually in the midst of starting two projects including this one.  The other could make me financially independent, and this week is proving to be a good week for advancing it.  I consider both projects to be very important, so my time is going to them rather than to reading/commenting here.  Again, my apologies.

Second, we’re almost ready to move to the next stage of the GMW project.  If this is new to you, follow that link which will start you in the right direction.  (I’m feeling too lazy to link all the essays.)  Or you can read this really, really short version (pending final approval):

(what is this?) The internet, primarily through blogs, has brought about a communications revolution. Yet the traditional media has maintained their position as information gatekeepers, and they won’t let you hear us.

We can’t bring about change when the media ignores us. We can’t rely on politicians to fix things for us. So we’re through playing nice. We’re done begging for attention. We’re bypassing the media and coming direct to you.

We can solve our problems if we work together. We can make things better when all of us try. All we’re asking for is your help. So we can generate a little Feedback.

Third, yes, we’ve finally got a name!  Feedback.  We think it fits pretty well.

Fourth…the meat.

We’re preparing a special two page pre-launch edition for the coming 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq.  This means we need submissions or recommendations for essays/diaries to use.  Because of the nature of this edition, we’re looking for articles that deal with Iraq, our military, veterans, and so on.  We don’t have our official email address set up yet, so if you want to submit something original, please send them to me at my contact address, here.  If you are recommending someone else’s work, please make sure they have listed a means of contacting them so we can get their permission and work with them on any edits which may be necessary.

We already know that buhdy and Edger have granted us blanket permission to reprint their work.  If anyone else would like to do so, please let us know.

Please also try to have all recommendations/submissions to us by Saturday evening.  We may not have time to go over anything sent to us later than that, though we’ll certainly do our best.  You are more than welcome to post them here, too.  Pony up the ones you think would be best.

I’m still in the middle of finalizing our guidelines, so if you want to submit anything, just use the tentative ones in that GMW link above.  We’re not being too sticklerish about any of it right now.  (In fact, ironically, the article length guideline, which I said was pretty much set in stone, is not in fact all that set in stone.  More on this in the next essay.)  However, we’ve already got one long article we’d like to run (just waiting for the author’s permission), so it might be best to keep it short.

I’ve also decided not to post this request at other sites since I have yet to complete (barely started) the generalized “submission request” post.  I think many of you here are already familiar with the background, so I feel confident that this request will make sense to you without taking a lot of your time.  I’m not nearly so confident that those who have not followed the project will take the time to learn right now.  However, if you think it should be posted somewhere, you have my permission to do so in whole.

After this special edition, there will be a week pause due to the fact that both VC and pfiore will be attending the DC protests (not to mention pfiore will be without internet access), so they won’t have time to help.  So our official launch won’t be for another two weeks.  We should easily have everything in place by then (barring unforeseen circumstances, of course).

Finally, I have yet another apology to make.  I really shouldn’t be here right now.  I’m supposed to be working on my other project, which will likely take up the rest of my time, today.  But I needed to get this out to you today so we could start looking at submissions.  I won’t be able to comment until late tonight.  If I’m lucky.  I’m sorry.