Tag: water

EcoJustice: About Darfur, Part 1.

KuangSi2

There is a years long grisly struggle between ethnic groups in Darfur — with one government-backed militia brutalizing civilians with ethnic connections to the guerrilla rebels they fight. There is a refugee crisis, starvation, drought, and horrible violence.

The conflict in Darfur is complicated. It has several causes, and the people who fight sometimes do so for different reasons. Sudan is riddled with deep ethnic divides, fueled by the colonialism that favored one ethnic group over others. There is political posturing and finger pointing in Khartoum that might occupy a handful of doctoral theses on the subject before we understand it all. But at least two of the reasons this conflict persists are rooted in ecojustice: desertification and oil. And that oil doesn’t even lie under Darfur.

Water Alert In Portland, Oregon

My fellow Portlanders, I just want to warn you not to drink any tap water west of the Willamette River. From the Water Bureau:

Hannity Tries Triggering Water Wars, Obama Blamed for Water Crisis

Last week, Sean Hannity broadcast live from San Joaquin Valley an astroturf rally designed to trigger water wars based on lies & transfer the health care memes to eco issues. The new CT is a whopper:  President Obama, extremist environmentalists in his administration, and liberal radicals have planned for decades to turn California into a dust bowl so that the solar industry can use farmland, forcing us to buy our food from China!

The means to implement this CT is compliance with a federal law to provide instream flows to endangered or threatened fisheries. It was this temporary reduction in water availability that was characterized as an “act of domestic terror” by one of Hannity’s guests, Alan Autry (actor/former mayor):

If you would have told me that that water would have stopped, I would have believed maybe al Qaeda struck, not the federal government.

Pique the Geek 20090920. Water: You Should Have Never Seen It

Water is a material unlike any other.  I will go on record to say that, whilst a few other substances may have a one or two unusual properties, no other known substance has as many, or as to as great an extent in toto, than does water.  If anyone can think of any other substance that has as many aberrant properties, please let me know.

Because of the unique set of properties, water is usually declared to be essential for life.  I do not know if I would go quite that far, because that sounds more like dogma than science to me.  However, I would agree that any nonaqueous form of life would be extraordinarily bizarre to us, and might not even be recognized as a lifeform.

Water is such a basic part of daily life that the ancients thought that it was a fundamental element.  Whilst they were incorrect, it is so different than anything else that it deserves a place of its own in our understanding of things.

Water Barons, Hoarders & Hunters

The World Economic Forum (WEF) issued a report warning that the world may face in less than 20 years a huge and pervasive water bankruptcy of fresh water shortages. The problem is that water is a finite resource, yet management and policies are based on the erroneous assumption that a renewable resource is inexhaustible. We generally have the same quantity of water that was available for dinosaurs. However, water sustainability is not possible unless we address issues of population growth, increased irrigation for food, energy water needs, waste, mismanagement and pollution of water supplies.  Another factor is water barons, hoarders and hunters who work to control and seize our diminishing water supplies for their own financial benefit. If we don’t wake up to our water crisis, we could end up just like the bird, looking for water.

Barack’s got a drinking problem … that has to end

Barack Obama has a serious problem in terms of his personal habits.

It isn’t that fact that, according to The Washington Post, Obama is too perfect and the rest of America’s males can’t keep up.

It isn’t his sneaking around smoking cigaretters while putting forward policy to cut youth smoking.  

Considering the fact that the last President was an alcoholic, it seems reasonable to wonder why there is all of this attention on a few cigarettes and not a word on Obama’s drinking problem. A problem, by the way, that he shares with 100s of millions (if not billions around the world) and which is documented as helping wreck havoc on global society.

The Hidden Danger in Coal Ash The Selenium Wars – in the TN. Legislature.

This is up at DK now – not getting ANY attention, but it’s an important story – so Ill put it up here but don’t have time to edit.

Who knows how the polo ponies were killed in Florida?  

“An overdose of selenium is the probable cause of death of 21 polo horses in Wellington last week, the state veterinarian said today.” http://www.palmbeachpost.com/h…

While a little bit of selenium may be health promoting, at amounts of just a little bit more, it becomes a deadly toxic.  http://ods.od.nih.gov/factshee…

Aquatic selenium pollution is a global environmental safety issue. http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.u…

Kossacks have heard previously in many good diaries about  the Kingston coal ash disaster, including this one TOXIC BREW IN TENNESSEE: A look at what’s in TVA’s coal ash. http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

There have also been diaries about the absurd things happening in the Tennessee legislature this year, particularly with guns http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

and our water laws.

Economic Crisis What if we Can’t Fix It Who’s preparing for that?

So far nothing has worked; not bailouts, or conversions to bank holding companies, not front page stories or investigative committees…nothing is helping the economic crisis it only continues to get worse.

What if we cannot stop the economic crisis from continuing to deteriorate, what if the economic levees break?

How is our government (Federal, State, Municipal) preparing for the worst case scenario?

How are we hoping they are preparing, what should we be expecting of them, what can we do?

cross-posted at Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

A Tale of Greed, Water, Blood & Oil

Knowing of my interest in food and water, a dear Australian friend of mine sent me a copy of the BBC’s excellent investigative team, Panorama, which was aired Down Under recently. The documentary showed how many Fijians are falling ill and dying from typhoid and other diseases caused by a lack of safe, clean water. The irony of course is that these South Pacific islands have a flourishing bottled water industry, worth over $200 million per year and employing around 700 people. Having visited Fiji twice I can vouch for the purity of its water. Bottles of Fiji natural mineral water are a common sight in restaurants and on supermarket shelves across the US and Europe, some are cleverly called Fiji Water, and it travels up to 10,000 miles to get to your table, depending where you are. Click on the preceding link and you will see how they use Obama’s name to push sales. Follow me for the sick story.

a real abrupt climate change plan

Several diarists have already suggested during last week’s debate about the bailout bill that the “real” crisis facing America is that of abrupt climate change.  This is an attempt to take them seriously.

The discussion of what to do about abrupt climate change is, in this author’s opinion, at an extremely preliminary level — this diary is intended to forward the conversation in conformance to what can be realistically expected from climate change.

(Crossposted at Big Orange)

Palin Violated Law To Defeat Ballot Measure

Alaskans recently had a charged public debate over whether mining companies should be able to discharge toxic waste into drinking water supplies. The issue was submitted to the voters with a ballot measure. Polling by supporters showed public strongly favored the measure, even obtaining the support of persons who never supported environmental measures because this issue also affected the livelihood of fishermen. The tide then quickly changed days before the election when Palin violated state law by advocating for the defeat of the measure. Working within the rules of the system, a complaint was filed, and a state agency found that both the state regulators and Palin had violated the law. However, the damage was already done and the measure was defeated. A win by any means at any cost. Is this what lies ahead for our presidential election?

Avoiding Water Wars and Feces Waters

Our government is setting us up for a life of water wars between communities and between people and wildlife.  We need to stop thinking that solutions to water supply issues in a climate change world can be solved by resolutions used in the past in a pre-climate change world. Resolutions beneficial for isolated droughts, isolated dust storms, isolated flooding or isolated extreme storms will not prepare us for multiple extreme events of greater intensity, frequency and widening geographic scope.  In short, we need to discuss proposals about how to prep for living in a climate change world where our finite water supplies will become so stretched that water wars will be commonplace unless we take action now to develop a national water supply policy designed to minimize or avert climate change impacts on our water resources.  

Load more