Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues harmonica player William Clarke. Enjoy!
William Clarke - Blowin' Like Hell
“In parliament I have to sit looking at the right hand side of the auditorium, where 10 Nazis sit, representing Golden Dawn. If our party, Syriza, that has cultivated so much hope in Greece … if we betray this hope and bow our heads to this new form of postmodern occupation, then I cannot see any other possible outcome than the further strengthening of Golden Dawn. They will inherit the mantle of the anti-austerity drive, tragically. The project of a European democracy, of a united European democratic union, has just suffered a major catastrophe.”
-- Yanis Varoufakis
News and Opinion
Could Historic Iran Nuclear Deal Transform the Middle East?
Iran and World's Major Powers Reach Historic Nuclear Deal
After more than a decade of wrangling and 18 days of intense negotiations, Iran and six world powers reached a historic nuclear deal on Tuesday — an agreement that could transform the Middle East and herald a new era in the relationship between Tehran and the west.
Iran will curb its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions, in a deal described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "a bad mistake of historic proportions."
Diplomats said Iran agreed to the continuation of a United Nations arms embargo on the country for up to five more years, though it could end earlier if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) definitively clears Iran of any current work on nuclear weapons. It's understood similar restrictions on ballistic missile technology will last another eight years.
Washington had sought to maintain the ban on Iran importing and exporting weapons, due to concerns that an Islamic Republic flush with cash from the nuclear deal would expand its military assistance for Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other forces opposing America's Mideast allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Iranian leaders insisted the embargo had to end as their forces combat regional scourges such as the Islamic State. And they got some support from China and particularly Russia, which wants to expand military cooperation and arms sales to Tehran, including the long-delayed transfer of S-300 advanced air defense systems — a move long opposed by the United States.
Hat tip mimi:
Iran Deal Creates World's Most Intrusive Inspection Regime
Iran nuclear deal: world powers reach historic agreement to lift sanctions
Among the conditions of the agreement are:
- Iran will reduce its enrichment capacity by two-thirds. It will stop using its underground facility at Fordow for enriching uranium.
- Iran’s stockpile of low enriched uranium will be reduced to 300kg, a 96% reduction. It will achieve this reduction either by diluting it or shipping it out of the country.
- The core of the heavy water reactor in Arak will be removed, and it will be redesigned in such a way that it will not produce significant amounts of plutonium.
- Iran will allow UN inspectors to enter sites, including military sites, when the inspectors have grounds to believe undeclared nuclear activity is being carried out there. It can object but a multinational commission can override any objections by majority vote. After that Iran will have three days to comply. Inspectors will only come from countries with diplomatic relations with Iran, so no Americans.
- Once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has taken steps to shrink its programme, UN, US and EU sanctions will be lifted.
- Restrictions on trade in conventional weapons will last another five years, and eight years in the case of ballistic missile technology.
- If there are allegations that Iran has not met its obligations, a joint commission will seek to resolve the dispute for 30 days. If that effort fails it would be referred to the UN security council, which would have to vote to continue sanctions relief. A veto by a permanent member would mean that sanctions are reimposed. The whole process would take 65 days.
Golden Dawn will be strengthened by more austerity, Yanis Varoufakis warns
The former finance minister told the ABC the bailout agreement is a ‘new form of postmodern occupation’ and predicts Greece will fall into the grip of the far right
Austerity measures demanded of Greece by its European creditors will strengthen the far right, the country’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said.
Varoufakis also dubbed the bailout agreement reached in Brussels this week as a new Treaty of Versailles, and a coup d’état which used banks instead of tanks. ...
The outspoken former minister, who resigned from his role after the national referendum, despite it returning the result he was calling for, told the ABC the far-right Golden Dawn party could “inherit the mantle of the anti-austerity drive, tragically”.
“If our party Syriza, that has cultivated so much hope in Greece – to the extent that we managed to score 61.5% in the recent referendum – if we betray this hope and if we bow our heads to this new form of postmodern occupation, then I cannot see any other possible outcome than the further strengthening of Golden Dawn,” Varoufakis said.
Alexis Tsipras battles own MPs over Greek bailout deal
Greek prime minister in talks with own MPs amid speculation he could be forced to form a national unity government and sideline leftwing Syriza faction
A beleaguered Alexis Tsipras was locked in talks on Tuesday with his own MPs amid speculation that the Greek prime minister could be forced to form a national unity government to push through the draconian bailout deal imposed by Brussels on debt-stricken Greece.
Facing a rebellion over the terms of a fresh €86bn (£61bn) rescue package, Tsipras has considered sidelining the increasingly belligerent leftwing faction in Syriza in favour of a broader coalition to push through spending cuts and painful reforms. ...
In Athens, one of the scenarios being considered is the formation of a cross-party government to not only push reforms through parliament but also play a role implementing them against what is likely to be stiff opposition.
The radical-left party is increasingly fighting a battle for survival in government with cadres saying Syriza’s overall aim is not to go down as a “left parenthesis” in power.
#ThisIsACoup: Greeks Denounce Bailout Deal That Calls for New Round of Austerity
The rise and fall of the German Empire: What Greece’s crippling bailout deal reveals about the future of Europe
The flag of Europe still has twelve stars on it, and organizations with names like Eurogroup and European Commission and European Council still persist. But despite the unfortunate historical overtones, in order to be accurate we need to call the governing body in Europe the German Empire, after the events of this weekend. And the thing about empires is that they end sooner or later, because human beings don’t much like to be controlled by an overlord they never elected or endorsed.
The end of the German Empire will not take place today. Greece folded, giving up their sovereignty and agreeing to all the creditors’ demands, even to sell off national assets, without achieving anything more than a vague promise of debt relief in return. They decided to accept the devil they knew – crushing austerity, a worse package than what was on the table just weeks ago – rather than the devil they didn’t – the Grexit. ...
As Wolfgang Munchau writes, expulsion from the German empire, with the explicit promise of economic immiseration down that road, is now squarely on the table in any future talks with Greece, or any other country that manages to get itself into trouble. And other countries will; at least, they will occasionally seek fiscal or monetary policy interventions at odds with the emperor’s wishes. There is no democratic political union anymore, it’s just a shotgun marriage run on threats.
Once you eliminate that democratic possibility of a Europe based on shared interests, once you affirm that only the interests of one ruling nation matters, there’s no real advantage to everyone sticking together other than fear. And fear doesn’t last forever, particularly when those supposed to be afraid of the unknown are stripped of everything they’ve got in the process. Does this mean that Britain will now leave the European Union, the subject of a coming vote? Does it mean that the next left-wing anti-austerity or right-wing Euroskeptic party that comes into power will not suffer the same fate as Syriza? It’s hard to predict when the German Empire will fall, just that it will.
Oh my, not a hint of self-dealing here:
Fund Proposed to Hold 50 bln Euros of Greek Assets Is Controlled by German Fin Min Schauble
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble proposed on Saturday that 50 billion euros of Greek public assets be transferred to an external fund and privatized over time. The fund he used as a suggestion, the Institution for Growth in Greece, is owned by the German bank KfW, whose current Chairman of the Board of Supervisory Directors is Schaeuble himself.
KfW is a German government-owned promotional bank. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel is the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Supervisory Directors.
Keiser Report: Lethal Bloodlettings for Greece
Vultures are already circling Athens now the Troika is in charge
Just in case anyone was in any doubt about the extent of Greece's capitulation, Merkel was explicit at a press conference yesterday that eurozone leaders "made clear that a nominal haircut is ruled out". It was not enough that she won; she wanted to rub her victory in his face. Her performance was reminiscent of a boxer knocking out an opponent - then dousing him with water to wake him up so she can hit him again. Over and over.
It's an odd sort of victory. The debt that everyone - from the IMF to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble - has expressly admitted is unsustainable will remain at the same unsustainable level with eurozone leaders piling even more debt on top. The announcement is less an economic plan and more a sociological experiment - precisely how much austerity does it take to kill a country? With Greece's GDP already down 25pc, a precipitous decline usually only observed in post-war countries, we may not have to wait long to find out. ...
Syriza did its best, but it underestimated the eurozone's ideological obsession with austerity. For zealots like Schauble, austerity is a god - there is no evidence it works but he has unshakeable faith anyway. The IMF, Nobel Prize-winning economists and pretty much every other economist all agree that more austerity for Greece will be a disaster. But the Troika will inflict it anyway, throwing good money after bad and ensuring the Greeks never repay anything. ...
Meanwhile, even if a Grexit has been averted for now, the cost could be a Brexit, as the vindictive treatment of Greece has alienated the Left whose support David Cameron will rely on to win his forthcoming referendum.
Merkel is right when she says the most important currency in the eurozone is trust, but she has failed to recognise that there is a crisis of trust all over Europe - a crisis that will be much more damaging in the long-term than anything happening in Greece.
Tormenting Greece is about sending a message that we are now in a new EU
What’s the difference between the Mafia and the current European leadership? The Mafia makes you an offer you can’t refuse. The leaders of the European Union offer you a deal you can neither refuse nor accept without destroying yourself. ...
By closing the Greek banks, threatening Greek voters and countering the Greek government’s surrender with terms designed to be utterly humiliating, the EU and euro zone leadership finished off the notion of consent. All the waffle about solidarity and respect has been exploded and we are left with an EU based on six little letters: or else.
A new idea has been shoved into the foundations of the EU – the idea that a member state can and will be brought to heel. And brought to heel, not quietly or subtly, but openly and ritually in a Theatre of Cruelty designed for that sole purpose.
The whole idea of making flagrantly provocative demands – the initial insistence that €50 billion of Greek public assets be placed in a fund in Luxembourg being the most spectacular – was to demonstrate, not just to Greece but to all member states, that the EU is now a coercive institution.
Hungary Is Building a Wall Along the Serbian Border to Keep Migrants Out
Hungary is doing everything it can to keep out unwanted migrants, in spite of strong opposition from other European countries and human rights groups.
On Monday, the Hungarian Defense Force started building a temporary wall along the Serbian border to curb what government agencies describe as an unprecedented flow of undocumented people coming into the country.
"A daily average of 1,000 illegal border crossers are arriving in Hungary, so illegal immigration has become a severe problem and its control a prominent task," said a joint statement from Hungary's interior and defense ministries.
An estimated 80,000 refugees and migrants have reached Hungary this year — up from 43,000 in 2014. The vast majority of whom are arriving via Serbia from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Many will request asylum in Hungary then move onto other European Union countries such as Sweden and Germany.
The wall, which is planned to be four meters high and 110 miles long and cost around $35 million, was announced by the far-right Hungarian government in June to swift criticism from Serbia and beyond.
Destroying Syria to Make It Safe for American Values
“The Turks have passed by here; all is in ruins and mourning. “
So wrote France’s great writer, Victor Hugo, of the horrors he had witnessed during the Balkan liberation wars of the 1880’s. If Hugo were alive today, he might well have used the same haunting lines to describe the smoking wreckage of the Mideast. Except this time it was the United States, France and Britain who wrought havoc in the Arab world, assisted by modern Turkey.
The UN’s refugee czar, Antonio Guterres, just asserted that there are now 4,013,000 Syrian refugees outside their homeland, and another 7.6 million as internal refugees from the war raging there since 2011.
That total’s some 11.6 million refugees- a staggering 50% of Syria’s population. Over a quarter million are refugees in Europe; the rest spread across the Mideast with the largest numbers in Lebanon and Jordan. ...
Before the 2011 war, Syria used to be a vibrant, growing nation with beautiful old cities and a rich, ancient culture going back over 2,500 years. Damascus is believed to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. ...
The massacres and butchery in Syria is unprecedented in the Mideast. The carnage even exceeds the many horrors of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. Street fighting is destroying many of Syria’s villages, towns and cities. Beautiful Aleppo, a world heritage site, is being blown apart.
Syria’s anti-regime groups could not continue fighting without arms, munitions, medical supplies, radios and cash from the western powers. Washington’s fatuous claims it is deploying “moderate” jihads is a sour joke. The US is fully backing the region’s extremists against one of its oldest secular regimes. Who will finally win this multi-faceted civil war remains unclear.
But it is clear that Syria has been largely destroyed. It joins Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia in ruins and mourning – all examples of states that defied the American Raj. The plight of some 11 million Syrian refugees huddled in tents, drowning in the Mediterranean, or fleeing for their lives must be laid directly on Washington’s doorstep.
The nation of the Statue of Liberty is supposed to welcome and shelter huddled masses fleeing hunger and danger, not cause millions of refugees because of its ruinous Mideast policies.
Hmmm... so now it's inconvenient for Ukraine's Chocolatier-in-Chief to have a bunch of heavily-armed nazis running around...
Ukraine's Poroshenko says 'illegal groups' must disarm after standoff
President Petro Poroshenko ordered Ukraine's security services and police on Monday to disarm "illegal groups", saying they threatened to further destabilize a country fighting separatists in its east.
Poroshenko said a weekend standoff between members of a far-right group and police in the western town of Mukacheve, close to the border with Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, was simply a turf war over smuggling routes.
But he appeared to take aim at Right Sector, which played a prominent role in protests that toppled Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich last year, saying no political force should operate armed cells in Ukraine and run "criminal cells".
The far-right nationalist group demanded the resignation of the interior minister at the weekend after two of its members were killed in a firefight with police in Mukacheve, where it said it was set upon by police. The Interior Ministry said the group shot first.
Poroshenko said in a statement there needed to be a tough investigation into the events there and that the Interior Ministry, security services and other law enforcement officials must disarm "all illegal armed groups".
Somebody Isn't Telling the Truth About the 'Pause' in Yemen Fighting
Amid a hail of airstrikes and shelling in Yemen, the United Nations repeated on Monday that the country's president told the organization he'd conveyed to Saudi Arabia's air coalition his support for a humanitarian "pause" that began late Friday — a pause that has been completely ignored by all sides.
Over the weekend, coalition officials had said that President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, currently in Riyadh, had never told them of his support for the pause, which the UN announced on Thursday.
Upon revealing the pause, the UN said in a statement that "the president has communicated his acceptance of the pause to the Coalition to ensure their support and collaboration." A spokesperson added that the UN had received further assurances from Houthi rebels and other parties "that the pause will be fully respected, and that there will be no violations from any combatants under their control."
But what followed Friday's 11:59pm start to the pause was not the setting down of arms. Instead, fighting continued to rage in several cities, and within hours — or in some case, reportedly in minutes — Saudi Arabia's coalition continued its air campaign in several cities, including the capital Sanaa, as well as Taiz and Aden, in Yemen's south.
Perpetual war creates endless consequences
When the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, began this month by issuing a farewell report on U.S. military strategy, the gist was hardly big news. “Dempsey to Pentagon: Prepare for the Never-Ending War” read the headline on the cover page of the National Journal.
The “war on terror” now looks so endless that no one speculates anymore about when it might conclude. “This war, like all wars, must end,” President Barack Obama declared in a major speech more than two years ago. “That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.” But midway through 2015, this war seems as interminable as ever.
In the process, Washington has blazed trails for cross-border impunity. The U.S. government’s latest expression of contempt for international law is its full support for the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia that has been bombing Yemen since late March. (Other countries deploying jets for the airstrikes are Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan and United Arab Emirates.) ...
The Obama administration has made America a powerful role model for impunity, with unapologetic violations of international law that continue to fly drones and missiles across borders into half a dozen countries. It’s a star-spangled perversion of the Golden Rule — those who have the military power make the rule — giving Washington the globe’s lead role as high-tech destroyer of international law. ...
While the automation of Uncle Sam’s killing-at-a-distance has sharply reduced American casualties, it has increasingly rendered the U.S. war path as the main avenue for pursuing its goals. And the nation’s top leaders, as well as the military contractors that profit from this tendency, appear to like it that way.
Uncomfortable Conversations in Geneva
The United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) is currently holding its annual session in Geneva to consider the reports submitted by states setting out their adherence to the obligation in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ...
For Canada, the Committee was particularly concerned at the treatment of Aboriginal peoples, and especially Aboriginal women. The need for a balance between human rights protections and security surfaced repeatedly in strikingly detailed reviews of the Canadian government’s respect for privacy, the processing of refugee and asylum claims, and the recent practices by the Canadian government of sending individuals subject to HRC-issued interim measures meant to protect their safety back to their countries of origin or third countries in apparent violation of the non-refoulement principle. Criticisms also emerged on the manner in which Canada has created new methods and means to withdraw Canadian citizenship from persons believed to have committed terrorist offences including the recent passage of Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act 2015.
The United Kingdom also had a surprisingly contentious ride at the Committee as it presented its 7th periodic Report. Security and post-conflict issues figured prominently in the Committee’s robust questioning. The Committee expressed its concern about the proposed repeal of the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act 1998 and the failure to implement the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights. The UK representative was rigorously grilled on issues of torture by British soldiers, the use of stop and search powers under anti-terrorism legislation, the failure to deal with conflict-related deaths in Northern Ireland, and breaches of the state’s obligation with respect to liberty and security of person from various anti-terrorism measures that impose restrictions and requirements on individuals including those based on the Terrorism Investigation and Prevention Measures (TPIM) Act 2011.
While we await the Concluding Observations of the Committee for both countries, the review process itself revealed the robustness of the Committee’s interrogation and its willingness to be an “equal opportunities” reviewer. The tone, content, and detail of the HRC ‘s engagement with these countries affirms that even states with long democratic credentials can expect to be subject to rigorous review on their ICCPR obligations.
Another “Terror” Arrest; Another Mentally Ill Man, Armed by the FBI
U.S. law enforcement officials announced another terror arrest on Monday, after arming a mentally ill man and then charging him with having guns.
ABC News quoted a “senior federal official briefed on the arrest” as saying: “This is a very bad person arrested before he could do very bad things.”
But in a sting reminiscent of so many others conducted by the FBI since 9/11, Alexander Ciccolo, 23, “aka Ali Al Amriki,” was apparently a mentally ill man who was doing nothing more than ranting about violent jihad and talking (admittedly in frightening ways) about launching attacks—until he met an FBI informant. At that point, he started making shopping lists for weapons.
The big twist in this story: Local media in Massachusetts are saying Ciccolo was turned in by his father, a Boston Police captain. The FBI affidavit says the investigation was launched after a “close acquaintance … stated that Ciccolo had a long history of mental illness and in the last 18 months had become obsessed with Islam.”
Eric Garner's family to receive $5.9m settlement from New York City
New York City has agreed to pay $5.9m to the family of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old man who died on Staten Island last July after being placed in an illegal chokehold by a police officer. ...
The city’s medical examiner ruled the death a homicide but Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who placed Garner in a chokehold during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes, was not indicted. ...
A New York police department investigation into the death is reported to have been completed, but no conclusions or disciplinary measures have been announced. A number of other bodies are investigating the case, amid calls for federal charges.
Stringer’s statement said: “We are all familiar with the events that led to the death of Eric Garner and the extraordinary impact his passing has had on our city and our nation. It forced us to examine the state of race relations, and the relationship between our police force and the people they serve.”
Stringer said he could not discuss details of the settlement, and said the city admitted no liability.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the International Socialist Review: Carl Sandburg on what Frank P. Walsh did to smash the Rockefeller Jr myth.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Pope Calls on World Youth to Rise Up Against Global Capitalism
The latest call for a youth uprising against global capitalism came not from grassroots groups, but from the leader of the Catholic Church, who on Sunday gave a rousing speech during which he told a crowd of young people in Paraguay that it is their time to "make a mess."
The address marked the end of Pope Francis' week-long pilgrimage to Latin America, during which he also assailed the prevailing economic system as the "dung of the devil," saying that the systemic "greed for money" is a "subtle dictatorship" that "condemns and enslaves men and women." ...
"They wrote a speech for me to give you. But speeches are boring," Pope Francis said. "Make a mess, but then also help to tidy it up. A mess which gives us a free heart, a mess which gives us solidarity, a mess which gives us hope."
He also encouraged those present to look at their less fortunate peers, some of whom he met earlier in the day during a visit to the Banado Norte shantytown, and spoke of the connection between authentic liberty and responsibility and the necessity of fighting for the right to lead a dignified life.
"Something Big Is Happening": John Nichols on Bernie Sanders’ Surge and Rising Power of Movements
How Does Bernie Sanders' Turnout in Maine Compare to Other Democratic Rallies? It Was Epic.
Maine is a small state—1.3 million. Its largest city is Portland, with a population of 66,000.
Maine is one of the few states where Presidential national delegates are chosen at local caucuses. The Maine Democratic Presidential Caucuses will be held on March 6, 2016—8 months from now. And the General Election is still 16 months away.
Last Monday evening, July 6, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders brought his surging campaign to the Cross Insurance Arena in downtown Portland, Maine. ...
Bernie packed the house. The Bangor Daily News reported:
The 2016 election may be 16 months away, but you wouldn’t know it from the thousands of people who turned out Monday evening to cheer on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
What was scheduled as a town hall forum had become a full-blown rally by Monday night. Sanders’ speech was delayed by 20 minutes as organizers let in the throngs of people still awaiting entry. Estimates pegged the crowd at 8,000 to 9,000 people.
Maine political circles are still buzzing about the gathering—not just the size of the audience, but the crowd's youthful energy and intensity.
It was epic.
The Evening Greens
Obama Moves to Preserve More Than 1 Million Acres of Land
President Barack Obama signed into existence three new national monuments on Friday, using his executive powers to preserve more than 1 million acres of land across Nevada, California, and Texas.
The three new monuments — Berryessa Snow Mountain in northern California, Waco Mammoth in Texas, and the Basin and Range in Nevada — bring Obama's total preserved acres of land and water to 260 million, which the White House said in a statement was more than any other president.
Each new monument preserves land that was already public and being used for recreation, education, and grazing, and will have management plans developed and followed by federal agencies for how best to care for them.
Obama's use of the Antiquities Act, which he has employed 19 times, has drawn sharp lines between environmentalists who say the already-public lands need to be protected from development, and outspoken Republicans who say Obama is overreaching with his federal powers.
Global warming is causing rain to melt the Greenland ice sheet
Greenland, one of the largest ice sheets in the world, is melting. In fact, it is melting ahead of schedule as the world warms. Scientists are working hard to deepen their understanding of this ice sheet’s behavior so that we can predict how fast and how much of the ice sheet will melt in the coming decades and centuries.
It might seem obvious that in a warming world, the Greenland ice sheet will melt. But, what seems obvious and simple can be more complex when investigated more deeply. With respect to Greenland, it is expected that warmer temperatures increase melting but warmer temperatures can also mean more snowfall, as there is more moisture in warm air which can then fall as snow. So, it has been a question of which of these two competing processes would win out. Would Greenland get smaller because of melting or would it grow as more snow fell?
Over the past few years, the verdict has become clear. The Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an increasing rate. In fact, Greenland currently contributes twice as much as the Antarctic to rising sea levels. ...
A new study, just published in Nature Geoscience, makes an important new contribution to our understanding of the forces at play in Greenland. Dr Samuel Doyle and an international team captured the wide-scale effects of an unusual week of warm, wet weather in late August and early September, 2011. They found that cyclonic weather led to extreme surface runoff – a combination of ice melt and rain – that overwhelmed the ice sheet’s basal drainage system. ...
In a warming world, we expect, and are already observing, increases in warm, wet weather in place of snowfall, so the effect the authors find may be more important if predicted changes in Greenland’s climate are realized. Professor Jason Box summed it up, "We’re seeing that warm wet weather that is increasing with climate change is driving more melt of the Greenland ice-sheet than we thought. And worryingly, this melt is reaching higher elevations on the ice sheet."
How Trade Activism and Divestment Go Hand-in-Hand
Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of climate activists are engaged in a fight against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a trade deal being negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries around the Pacific Rim. Meanwhile, fossil fuel divestment activists are pushing institutions to pull investments from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies and reinvest in climate change solutions, highlighting that they have more on reserve than we’ll ever safely be able to burn. Both movements are critical in the fight for a stable climate, and climate activists dedicated to the fight for a clean energy economy can amplify efforts by engaging in both.
Trade and climate activists oppose TPP provisions that mandate the Department of Energy’s automatic approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to TPP countries. This policy would pave the way for more fracking and more climate-disrupting emissions. They also oppose “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS)--part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would empower corporations to sue governments in private tribunals over policies that they claim reduce their expected profits. Shocking investor-state cases in places like Quebec show that the fossil fuel industry uses ISDS to keep business as usual. Trade activists directly challenge these policies, and the damage that companies like Shell and ExxonMobil can bring to our climate, by fighting free trade agreements like the TPP.
While recent developments in divestment and trade activism are already shaping political and economic conversations about climate disruption, we’ll find even greater opportunities for growth and success when the members of both movements recognize their common stake in moving our economy beyond fossil fuels. With divestment activists and advocates for responsible trade actively engaged in both fights, our movements will only grow stronger from here.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
AEI Expert: Iranians Think “Very Differently” From Us Because They’re “Nationalists”
Psychologists could torture because they have no Hippocratic oath
Smarter Foreign Policies or Bigger Blowbacks?
Killing by Committee in the Global Wild West
Fear Takes Root in Syriza
The Problem of Greece is Not Only a Tragedy: It is a Lie
The other part of the Greek story
Pentagon follows the lead of its branches
A Little Night Music
The William Clarke Band - I'm An American
William Clarke - Hard Times
William Clarke - Pawnshop Bound
William Clarke - The Work Song
William Clarke - Lollipop Mama
William Clarke - Lonesome bedroom blues
William Clarke - The War Is Over
William Clarke - Must Be Jelly
William Clarke - Drinkin' Beer
William Clarke - Watch dog
William Clarke - I Know She's Fine
William Clarke - Hot Dog and a Beer
William Clarke - Easter Bunny Boogie
William Clarke - Blues is killing me
William Clarke - Chromatic Crumbs
William Clarke - Your Love is Real
William Clarke - The Boss
William Clarke - My Last Goodbye
William Clarke - Somebody Is Calling Me Home
William Clarke - Daddy Pinocchio
William Clarke - Deal The Cards
William Clarke - Iodine In My Coffee
William Clarke - Tribute to George Harmonica Smith
William Clarke - Live in Germany