Scientists fear Global Meltdown

Richard Alley sums up the state of knowledge: "We used to think that it would take 10,000 years for melting at the surface of an ice sheet to penetrate down to the bottom. Now we know it doesn't take 10,000 years; it takes 10 seconds."
Fred Pearce - The Guardian

Honey, We Killed the Planet

May the infinite God help Americans under the age of 40. As matters stand now they can look forward to a frightening future. It will be a future the older people did nothing to prepare them for or to prevent.

The young people must look to themselves to avoid what's coming to them. They don't have much time, and they don't have much training. They have been brought up on the slogans of "fun first" and "if you can't be anything else, be cool." At the rate they're going, they're not only going to be cool, they're going to be freezing. \

Nicholas von Hoffman - The Nation

NYers Want More Bike Lanes

Last night on NY1.

not that it matters if you listen to Kurt Vonnegut...

Vonnegut's Apocalypse

He survived being captured by the Nazis and the suicide of his mother to write some of the funniest, darkest novels of our time, but it took George W. Bush to break him.

SUVs on Our Bridges

Streetsblog (with my photos) and Gothamist are following up on the Brooklyn Bridge weight limit issue. Nice.

Vermont Activists Battle Global Warming

For Vermont to meet its 2010 pollution reduction target (which was written into statute last year by the legislature), activists say the state will need to take the following steps:

* Begin amore serious investment in the siting, not just discussion, of new renewable electric generators, especially commercial wind power.
* Vermont should coordinate with neighboring states and provinces to build out the region’s rail network.


YES - MORE TRAINS!

Portland Peak Oil Task Force

They are on the right track -
Read their list of suggestions for the Portland City Council.

The Republican Emergency

Scaling Down Atlantic Yards?

This is probably what they intended since the beginning.

Critical Mass

from nyc.indymedia.org
...and while a hundred cops in and on dozens of scooters and unmarked vehicles were busy harassing us cyclists around union square - a few blocks away on 9th and 28th a couple in their fifties were hit by a car the papers said was going so fast through the intersection that it sent them flying through the air, killing the husband and critically injuring his wife. despite the fact that witnesses gave a clear description of the car with florida plates the driver was not caught. this happened around 8pm. so rather than help try to catch that murderer all these cops continued to be commanded to hassle us on our bikes even though we were trying to stop at red lights and actually obey the laws of the road. the commanding officers of lower manhattan should be ashamed of their priorities and decisions that night.

I think this is a criminal negligence of duty by Commissioner Ray Kelly, anybody?

Cooking Our Way to Collapse

Do you really want to know?
I don't think so.

Vermonters March Across the State Demanding Global Warming Legislation

Great article.

Help Letitia Save Brooklyn

Is there anything we can do to stop the corporate takeover of Downtown Brooklyn?Maybe Eliot Spitzer can help?

From last night's Altantic Yards hearing:
Umar Jordan, 51, a black resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he had come to "speak for the underprivileged, the brothers who just got out of prison,” and he drew loud cheers when he mocked opponents who had moved to Brooklyn only recently. Mr. Jordan suggested that they “just go back up to Pleasantville.”

“People complaining about the size of a building, the height of this or that?” Mr. Jordan said. “Welcome to the hood; this is Brooklyn!"

What can you say? It looks like the working class has decided to look to the Corporation as their savior. Has Fascism finally completed its takeover of America?

If ANYBODY actually believes that Ratner is going to improve the lives of the working class in Brooklyn, then you truly need to have your head examined. Look closely, its not as simple as jobs vs. no jobs - development vs. no development. Thats what he wants you to believe, as he divides Brooklyn along class lines.

Don't be a sucker - Brooklynites are much smarter than that
aren't they?

Iran is Winning the War on Terror?

...the Royal Institute for International Studies in London - also known as Chatham House - says: "There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East.

Cuba's Pathbreaking Energy Policies

The Nation reports on Peak Oil and how Cuba converted to sustainable agriculture.

Save the Brooklyn Bridge

Notice the sign? Weight Limit 3 Tons

Well, this is my letter to the Commissioner Iris Weinshall, of the Department of Transportation:

Dear Commisioner,
I am concerned that the 3 ton weight limit at the Brooklyn Bridge is not being enforced, and therefore compromising the structural longevity of the bridge.

I ride over the Brooklyn Bridge daily on my way to work and I always see the following vehicles that exceed the 3 ton limit: Chevy Suburban and Tahoe, Range Rover, GMC Yukon, Toyota Land Cruiser and Sequoia, Lincoln Navigator, Mercedes M Class, Porsche Cayenne S, Dodge Ram 1500 pickup (with optional Hemi), Hummer (H1 and H2).

It is important to note that some of the vehicles almost double the 3 ton limit!

Is this a concern to the Department of Transportation? And if not, who is resposible for the safety limits on the Brooklyn Bridge because I would like to contact them.

Thank you very much for your time.


WRITE YOU OWN LETTER HERE

Forced to Fight

Thousands of Marines face involuntary recalls - CNN

Is the next step a draft?

Iran Fires on Romanian Oil Rig

...and seized the oil field.
Why do people fight for oil?
Because its running out.
Isn't that obvious by now?

Bush's final gamblegiving Iraq a dictator?

This is Unbelievable.

Emulate French on global warming

The French live in a modern industrial society but produce 1.69 tons of CO2 per person per year compared with the U.S. figure of 5.37. The French generate nearly 100 percent of their electricity with nuclear reactors and make it very expensive to drive.

Hit and Run Driver Kills Cyclist in Brooklyn

The impact catapulted the biker 12 feet into the air. He landed under a parked car several feet down the street. His leg had been severed, witnesses said.

"The cars were going super-fast. He flew up off the bike. There was a screech and then a bang," Elizabeth Black, 29, said. - NY POST

With deaths and clampdown, cyclists feel deflated - The Villager

Pedal Politics in The NYTimes by Andrew Vesselinovitch

NYPD Backs Down

A victory for the people. Is the bicycle lobby getting powerful?
OnNYTurf reports HERE

America in 2020?

read Carolyn Baker's brilliant essay

By The Light of a Burning Bridge

Mike Ruppert is gone.
A Permanent Goodbye to the United States

"My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny, and in so doing, they have become tyranny’s primary support group; its base constituency; its chief defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the American people that they can’t live without the “good things”, then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever-less meat on them. All the while, lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their own shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want."

Nope. He is a criminal.
But, anyone who voted for him would qualify as an idiot.

If You Voted for BushMay Your Crops Shrivel Up and Die

more global warming...
Drought in Texas Staggers Farmers
Crop yields far off for year; prospects weak even if rain comes
- Houston Chronicle

A Country Where Humans Live

"People are getting fed up with the congestion they see on the roads. The Executive should be leading by example and putting more money into walking, cycling and public transport, instead of spending £1 billion on new roads which will generate more traffic."
- DUNCAN MCLAREN, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH SCOTLAND

Seven days to green your life

We all know global warming is a fact. And we'd all like to do something to make a difference. But where to begin? The answer, of course, is in our own homes and daily routines. Donnachadh McCarthy, one of Britain's leading expert in green living, believes seven days is all it takes to cast aside the bad habits of a lifetime. Here he explains how to change for the better - starting tomorrow
- The Independent, UK

The Food Emergency

How many years until the first food lines appear here?

"Bread makers say poor crop harvests and rising energy costs are forcing a hike in the price of bread on the shelves," - BBC

Watching TV While the World Burns

Plasma screen TVs sap energy supplies

- Britain's seemingly insatiable appetite for the latest plasma screen televisions could be posing a serious threat to the planet, a technology expert has warned.

If just half of British homes were to buy one of the flat-screen sets, two more nuclear power stations would be needed to meet the extra energy demand - with all the environmental problems that would bring.

Outlasting Ten U.S. Presidents...and counting

What the West's only communist nation has done right
- Grist Magazine

Killing in the Name of Cuisine?

A sea bed of dead crabs in Oregon.

Target: Oil Companies

MONTREAL—Quebec provincial police confirmed yesterday that anti-terrorism squad investigators are probing the apparent firebombing of a car owned by a spokesman for the oil industry.

Montreuil is a spokesman for the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute and the Initiative e-mails blame oil companies for holding consumers hostage while making big profits, damaging the environment and financing an imperialist army that is "committing barbarous acts" in places such as Iraq.

The Climate Emergency

A new study published in the journal Science reveals that global warming is melting Greenland's ice sheet three times faster than scientists had thought.

There is a reason I always use the word emergency

Oil ends at near two-week low on terrorism fears

Oil prices drop because of terrorism, hmmm...isn't that interesting

Die Off

Prominent biologists say we're on par with the five previous
mass extinctions in the history of life on earth.

Back to the Cycling Emergency

Trucker Kills Cyclist on Ninth Avenue and 29th Street

... and more carnage for New York City bikers this week HERE

Clean Energy: Wall Street's New Love Affair

For those of you who don't think the world is ending...

BusinessWeek is reporting that energy independence is becoming a national imperative, and renewable energy is attracting an unprecedented array of groups. "We're seeing an alignment of the environmental interests, automakers, the agricultural industry, the security and energy-independence proponents, even the evangelicals," says billionaire venture capitalist L. John Doerr. "When did all those [interests] come together before?" You know a cultural movement is real when the money men get on board.

I'm in Portland, Oregon

The U.S. city leading the pack for peak oil planning

In preparing this list, the City of Portland have done us all a big favor for they have moved the thinking about how to cope with the post-peak oil world forward another step. The message in the Portland report is that while we are all going to face peak oil, the effects on every one of those 87,576 governments is going to be slightly or a lot different.

Areas with sprawl will face massive commuting problems as gasoline becomes unaffordable, but in New York City , so long as the subway works, most people could care less. While feeding New York City may one day become a giant problem, rural America will continue to grow food way beyond what they consume. We are going to need 87,000 different solutions to mitigating peak oil.

Biking in NYC

Zocalo Plaza, Mexico City

THIS

IS

WHAT

FREEDOM

LOOKS

LIKE

Critical Mass NYC July 2006

Footage from the Critical Mass ride in NYC (Manhattan) - July 28th, 2006. The cops have been cracking down on Critical Mass since 2004 but the Cyclists continue to ride.

Another daily record for electricity

15,000 people without power in the Bronk, Queens and Brooklyn

NORAD releases 9/11 tapes

08:37:52
BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise?BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

Powell's question—"Is this real-world or exercise?"—is heard nearly verbatim over and over on the tapes as troops funnel onto the ops floor and are briefed about the hijacking. Powell, like almost everyone in the room, first assumes the phone call is from the simulations team on hand to send "inputs"—simulated scenarios—into play for the day's training exercise.

Hang in there Fidel

New York State uses record amount of power Tuesday, August 1, 2006

So much for conservation....

Clinton's Climate Emergency

22 Cities Join Clinton Anti-Warming Effort

"But London Mayor Ken Livingstone -- who spoke at the news conference and whose city charges a daily fee to drive cars downtown during peak traffic times -- said cities are already "at the center of developing the technologies and innovative new practices that provide hope that we can radically reduce carbon emissions." - Washington Post

Global Warming Anyone?

-More than 60 Percent of the US in drought - Associated Press
-California's heat wave deemed "freakish" and "epochal" - The San Fransisco Chronicle
-Deaths mount amid California heat - BBC
-Heatwave with a global grip - Times Online
-Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants - The Guardian
-How global warming has thrown nature into disarray The Herald

Consumir es morir.

PETALUMA, Calif. - Residents of an upscale corner of Petaluma awoke Monday morning to find their homes and vehicles covered with graffiti denouncing war and capitalism.

"Eat the rich," "End capitalism," "Suburbia ain't safe no more" and others featuring obscenities were among the slogans spray-painted on doors of five homes and several sport-utility vehicles.