Babylon A.D.
August 31, 2008
Science on the national political stage
August 31, 2008
Just some brief notes about science in the presidential campaign here. Barack Obama responded to 14 science-related questions posed by ScienceDebate 2008. Question 4 is about science education. Here is his response:
4. Education. A comparison of 15-year-olds in 30 wealthy nations found that average science scores among U.S. students ranked 17th, while average U.S. math scores ranked 24th. What role do you think the federal government should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology driven 21st Century?
All American citizens need high quality STEM education that inspires them to know more about the world around them, engages them in exploring challenging questions, and involves them in high quality intellectual work. STEM education is no longer only for those pursuing STEM careers; it should enable all citizens to solve problems, collaborate, weigh evidence, and communicate ideas. I will work to ensure that all Americans, including those in traditionally underrepresented groups, have the knowledge and skills they need to engage in society, innovate in our world, and compete in the global economy.
I will support research to understand the strategies and mechanisms that bring lasting improvements to STEM education and ensure that promising practices are widely shared. This includes encouraging the development of cutting edge STEM instructional materials and technologies, and working with educators to ensure that assessments measure the range of knowledge and skills needed for the 21st Century. I will bring coherency to STEM education by increasing coordination of federal STEM education programs and facilitating cooperation among state efforts. I recently introduced the “Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Act of 2008″ that would establish a STEM Education Committee within the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies engaged in STEM education, consolidate the STEM education initiatives that exist within the Department of Education under the direction of an Office of STEM Education, and create a State Consortium for STEM Education. These reforms will strengthen interagency coordination at the federal level, encourage collaboration on common content standards and assessments for STEM education at the state and local levels, and provide a mechanism for sharing the latest innovations and practices in STEM education with educators. I also recently sponsored an amendment, which became law, to the America Competes Act that established a competitive state grant program to support summer learning opportunities with curricula that emphasize mathematics and problem solving.
My education plan is built on the recognition that teachers play a critical role in student learning and achievement. My administration will work closely with states and local communities to ensure that we recruit math and science graduates to the teaching profession. Through Teacher Service Scholarships, a Teacher Residency Program, and Career Ladders, I will transform the teaching profession from one that has too many underpaid and insufficiently qualified teachers to one that attracts the best STEM teaching talent for our schools.
We cannot strengthen STEM education without addressing the broader challenges of improving American education and other priority issues. In addition to a focus on high quality teachers, my comprehensive plan addresses the needs of our most at-risk children, focuses on strong school leaders, and enlists parent and community support. My proposals for a comprehensive “zero to five” program will ensure that children enter school ready to learn. And when they finish school, I will make sure that through the new $4,000 American Opportunity Tax Credit, they will have access to affordable higher education that will provide them with the science fluency they need to be leaders in STEM fields and across broad sectors of our society.
John McCain has yet to provide his answers. However, his selection of running mate has raised some serious concerns when it comes to science education.
The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor’s race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.
Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, ‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’
Playing God with “Endangered” Species By Alan Caruba
August 31, 2008
In mid-August Barack Obama had this to say about a White House decision regarding the Endangered Species Act: “After over 30 years of successfully protecting our nation’s most endangered wildlife like the bald eagle, we should be looking for ways to improve it, not weaken it.”The White House executive order would eliminate the need for the advice of government scientists and permit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior and NOAA Fisheries of the Department of Commerce to determine whether to list or de-list an alleged endangered or threatened species.
Here’s an example why this decision was issued. In an effort to ensure that no exploration or drilling for oil could occur anywhere in the habitat of the polar bear, this species was put forward for listing as “endangered” even though its population has been growing steadily since the 1950s.
The reason cited, however, involved the projection of melting sea ice over the course of the next fifty years resulting from global warming. That’s right. A perfectly fine population of polar bears that have been around for millions of years is deemed “endangered” based on computer models for something that is not happening. As Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne delicately put it, “It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species.”
Well, no. It is possible if you are a government scientist with lots of time on your hands, a commitment to the idiotic and discredited notion of global warming, and a need to justify your existence. Or dare I say your survival?
The Earth is not warming. It has been cooling for a decade and many scientists have concluded that the Earth is heading into either another mini-Ice Age or a full-scale one that will pretty much ruin everyone’s plans for anywhere between the next fifty or few thousand years.
Let’s get to the nitty-gritty of the Endangered Species Act. Originally adopted in 1973, the framers of the Act wanted to protect species believed to be on the brink of extinction. This is a noble idea, but 99% of all species that have existed on Earth are extinct. At some point or other, Nature steps in to kill them off. This is why there are no dinosaurs around except in Steven Speilberg movies and animated documentaries.
Despite ample evidence that the Act is a great waste of time and money, Congress has been funding the ESA ever since the first 109 species were listed.
According to the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, these days there are approximately 1,300 species on the list with another 250 considered as “candidates” for listing and another nearly 4,000 species designated as “Species of Concern.”
The ESA is testimony to the way stupid legislation, once it is passed, not only continues, but expands to ensure that government jobs and power do the same.
The website of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services provides six pages of small print listings of species put forth as “threatened” or “endangered.” You will find 120 were deemed to lack standing because, as often as not, there was “insufficient data” to demonstrate any threat existed or it was determined that there were plenty of the critters. Others were believed to have gone extinct just as Nature intended.
Another USFWS page lists 21 species as “recovered” since 1978 and 9 as “extinct.” In order words, over its glorious 30 year history, the Act claims justification for the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars for less than one species per year of its existence. The same page lists 16 species that should never have been listed in the first place as lacking sufficient data and thus “de-listed.”
There is probably no way of knowing how many thousands of hours were wasted adjudicating these proposed listings, but if your job as a government scientist depends on such foolishness, you can bet it cost the taxpayers a bundle.
Here’s the kicker. The ESA officially expired on
This is legislation that Sen. Obama claims should continue despite an abysmal record of performance and lacking any rational justification for its existence. Where is it written in the U.S. Constitution that the federal government should undertake to save any species?
Other than preserving the Bald Eagle from idiot hunters, what purpose was served in saving tree frogs, shrews, doves, and other species from presumed extinction?
The intended consequences of the Endangered Species Act have been the delay or loss of needed dams, highways, hospitals, and entire subdivisions of new housing for the nation’s growing human population. When some “concerned” environmental group secures a listing of some obscure species, the process mandated by the ESA ensures that progress will slow or defeat many a worthy project that would benefit humans.
The most endangered thing about the ESA is common sense and the humility to stand aside and let Nature do what it has done for millennia.
Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Joe Biden’s deep (but mythical) blue-collar roots by Steve Chapman
August 31, 2008
Senator Barack Obama in his 1995 book "Dream from my father: A story of race and inheritance" makes many claims about his life growing up and family background. Jerome Corsi in his book, "The Obama Nation", points out that many of the things Obama says about his mother, father and family are mythical. Dr. Corsi states, "What we are told by Obama is that much of the autobiography is not factually true, at least not as written". Dr. Corsi asks if a person lies about his own family what else will he lie about?Now we find that Senator Biden has the same problem. Inflating his roots. This is a story from the Chicago Tribune on Senator Biden's real background:
Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts.
In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington [Delaware]." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as middle class.
So what did the news media report? "Sen. Joseph R. Biden accepted the vice presidential nomination of the Democratic Party with a speech that harkened back to his working-class roots in Scranton," said The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal informed readers that "Sen. Joe Biden showcased his working-class upbringing." The New York Times said he "spoke frequently, and earnestly, of his blue-collar background."
No, he didn't. In fact, he did just the opposite. Anyone paying attention would have noticed as much. But the legend of Joe Biden, born in a welding shop, dies hard with political reporters, who find it easier to romanticize a gritty, hardscrabble childhood than a conventionally comfortable one.
The facts are there for anyone who wants to look at them. When Joe Biden Sr. died in 2002, his obituary in the News-Journal of Wilmington reported that when he married in 1941, "he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg."
Executive, co-owner and manager? Those titles identify the jobholder as solidly middle class, if not better. They fall in the category of white-collar occupations, not blue-collar.
And Biden Sr. clearly knew the difference. In his book, "Promises to Keep," Biden writes that his father was "the most elegantly dressed, perfectly manicured, perfectly tailored car sales manager Wilmington had ever seen."
Biden notes that he himself could have gone to the best public high school in Delaware. Instead, he enrolled at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school that made him think he had "died and gone to Yale." He took a summer job to help pay the steep tuition, which today amounts to $18,450 a year.
That doesn't mean the family never had financial trouble. Biden says they had to move in with his mother's parents after one setback, and he remembers "when the electric company would send a collector to the house."
For nearly a year, the father was reduced to cleaning boilers for a heating company. But middle-class people are not immune to unemployment and bad business deals, and the Bidens regained their footing before long.
So where did he get his working-class reputation? Partly it comes from Biden's streetwise demeanor and his preoccupation with the fact that his family wasn't as well-off as some of the people he knew—which seems to have given him a permanent chip on his shoulder. Partly it comes from his frequent tributes to blue-collar folks, such as the firefighters who took him to the hospital when he suffered an aneurysm.
But mostly it reflects journalists' weakness for simple, vivid narratives. It's easy to write about a statesman who worked his way up from a log cabin. It's easy to write about a leader who came from great wealth. But someone growing up the son of a sales manager is a bit lacking in color and drama.
The errors about Biden bring to mind the recent satirical report from humorist Andy Borowitz: "A member of the U.S. Olympic diving team was disqualified from competition today when it was learned that he did not have a sufficiently compelling human story line to exploit on the NBC telecast of the worldwide sporting event."
Biden just didn't have a sufficiently compelling human story line for a presidential campaign. Luckily, he does now.
Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune editorial board. He blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman and his e-mail address is schapman@tribune.com.
Comparing Senator Obama to Governor Palin on experience
August 31, 2008
The pundits are going wild over her. The issue that keeps coming up is her qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief and her experience on foreign policy. I find this discussion fascinating. The argument is that Governor Palin does not have the experience to be the President, when she is not running for President, John McCain is.
The media is now comparing Governor Sarah Palin to Senator Barack Obama. This is a big mistake as it only highlights the inexperience of Senator Obama, who is not a heart beat away from the Presidency, but if elected would be the President.
So let us all look at the backgrounds and experiences of Governor Palin and Senator Obama. Our good friends at Red State have done the research on both candidates and here it is:
Sarah Palin
| Barack Obama
| |
| Office being sought | Vice President | President of the United States and Leader of the Free World |
| Full name | Sarah Louise Heath Palin | Barack Hussein Obama II |
| Nickname | Sarah Barracuda | Barry Obama; "The One" |
| Public opinion | Smoking hot in a "naughty librarian" sort of way | May be The Messiah |
| Age | 44 | 48 |
| Children | 5: two sons, three daughters | 2: two daughters |
| Religion/Church attendance | Evangelical Christian; attends Juneau Christian Center when in Juneau and grew up attending Wasilla Assembly of God | Attended Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years, a "black liberation theology" church formerly led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and governed according to the Black Value System |
| Current Job | Governor of Alaska | Junior Senator from Illinois |
| Previous Public Jobs | Mayor of Wasilla, AK (1996-2002); President of Alaska Conference of Mayors; City Council member (1992-1996) | State Senator (1997-2004); Community Organizer |
| Executive Experience | Governor for 2 years; Mayor for 10 years | None |
| Foreign Relations experience | Governor of state that borders two foreign countries (Canada and Russia) | Chaired Senate subcommittee on Europe but never called it into session; once gave a speech to 200,000 screaming Germans |
| Military Affairs experience | Commander in Chief of Alaska National Guard; Son is enlisted Infantryman in U.S. Army | None |
| Private Sector Experience | Sports reporter; Salmon fisherman | Associate at civil rights law firm |
| Speaking ability | Beautifully executed initial stump speech in Dayton, OH hockey arena without a teleprompter | An enter...wait--did you say without a teleprompter?? |
| Spouse's name | Todd Mitchell Palin | Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama |
| Spouse's occupation | Salmon fisherman; Former North Slope production supervisor for BP Oil | Vice President for Community and External Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals; former Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago; former Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies; former Assistant to the Mayor of Chicago; former associate at Sidley Austin law firm |
| Reaction to spouse's political success | Quit 17-year BP oil job when BP became involved in natural gas pipeline negotiations with wife's administration | Promoted and given 160% pay raise by UofC hospitals within months of husband's election to U.S. Senate; Employer received $1,000,000.00 federal earmark, requested by husband, after her promotion |
| Coolest thing about Spouse | Tesoro Iron Dog Snowmobile race champion (longest snowmobile race in the world); In 2008, while defending his championship, was injured when he was thrown 70 feet from his machine. He was sent to the hospital but still finished in fourth place | Sister of Oregon State University head basketball coach Craig Robinson |
| Most Courageous Moment in Public Service | Resigned in protest from position of Ethics Commissioner of Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in order to expose legal violations and conflicts of interest of Alaska Republican leaders, including the former state Attorney General and the State GOP Chairman (who was also an Oil & Gas Commissioner), who was doing work for the party on public time and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. | Gave an anti-Iraq war speech to a crowd of anti-Iraq war demonstrators in Hyde Park in 2002 |
| In Current Office Because... | Upset sitting Governor in GOP primary due to public support for her efforts to clean up corrupt government establishment | Republican opponent, who was leading in the polls, was forced to leave race after unsealing of divorce records exposed a sex scandal |
| Theme: | Change and Clean Government | Hope and Change; "Bringing Change from Outside Washington" |
| What they've done to live that theme: | Replaced entire Board of Agriculture and Conservation because of conflict of interest; Resigned from position of Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in order to expose corruption among members of own party | Selected 36-year incumbent Senator as running mate |
| Family Affairs | May have removed State Public Safety Commissioner as part of effort to protect sister in messy divorce and child custody battle | Often says, "I am my brother's keeper"; Brother lives in a hut in Nairobi on $12 per year |
| Union affiliation | Union member, married to Union member | Endorsed by a union |
| Iraq and Troop Support | Formerly (pre-surge) critical of apparent lack of long-term strategy for Iraq; Visited wounded U.S. soldiers in Germany; visited AK National Guard soldiers deployed to Kuwait; Son deploying to Iraq on 9/11/08 as Army infantryman | Gave an anti-Iraq war speech to a crowd of anti-Iraq war demonstrators; almost visited wounded troops in Germany, but decided to go shopping in Berlin instead |
| Bipartisan/ "maverick" credentials | Married to a non-Republican; Exposed corruption within own party; Campaigned for Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell against corrupt GOP congressman Don Young; Called out Sen Ted Stevens (R-AK) to "come clean" about financial dealings that are under fed investigation | Talks about bipartisanship |
| Legislative Record | Passed a landmark ethics reform bill; Used veto to cut budgetary spending; Prevented "bridge to nowhere" that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars. | Voted "present" over 100 times as IL state senator |
| How they dealt with corrupt individuals in home city/state | Exposed legal violations and conflicts of interest of Alaska Republican leaders; Campaigned against corrupt GOP Representative; Ran against and defeated corrupt incumbent governor in GOP primary | Launched political career in home of unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers (and still refers to him as a part of "mainstream Democratic Chicago"; Purchased home with help of convicted felon Tony Rezko |
| Guns | Lifetime member of NRA and avid hunter; video can be found on YouTube of Palin firing an M4 at a military firing range | Worked to pass legislation in Illinois that would prevent all law-abiding citizens from owning firearms |
| Earmarks | Opposed "Bridge to Nowhere" project; Said Alaska should avoid relying on federal money for projects; Campaigned against porker Don Young (R-AK) in 2008 primary | Secured federal earmarks for wife's employer and for campaign bundlers |
| Abortion | Pro life; gave birth to 5th child knowing that he would have Down's syndrome | Pro-choice; only IL state sen. to speak against the Born Alive Infant's Protection Act, which required medical care to be given to live infants who survived abortions |
| Energy | Believes energy independence is a matter of national security; For drilling in ANWR, which is in her state | Says Americans should "get tune-ups" and "check tire pressure"; Says "we can't expect the world to be okay with" our use of heating and air conditioning |
| Environment | Chair of Alaska Conservation Commission (2003-4); Announced plans to create sub-cabinet group of advisors to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in AK | Talks about the environment a lot |
| Athletic Prowess | Runs marathons | Has reporters tailing him to the gym |
We thank our fellow bloggers at Red State for this side-by-side comparison. I am voting for McCain/Palin. Either one is more qualified than Senator Obama. How about you?
Green Reads
August 30, 2008
Note to Readers: Submit your own brief review about a book that has the potential to help people live healthier, more balanced lives to editor@pcmflorida.com. We will feature select reviews in future editions. The following is provided by the Earth Policy Institute (www.earthpolicy.org).
Plan B 3.0:Mobilizing to Save Civilization
“In late summer 2007, reports of ice melting were coming at a frenetic pace. Experts were ‘stunned’ when an area of Arctic sea ice almost twice the size of Britain disap-peared in a single week,” writes Lester R. Brown in his new book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
“Nearby, the Greenland ice sheet was melting so fast that huge chunks of ice weighing several billion tons were break-ing off and sliding into the sea, triggering minor earthquakes,” notes Brown, President and Founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based independent environmental research organization.
“We need not go beyond ice melting to see that civilization is in trouble. Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. It is time for Plan B,” Brown says in Plan B 3.0, which was produced with major funding from the Farview, Lannan, Summit, and Wallace Genetic foundations, the U.N. Population Fund, Fred and Alice Stanback, and An-drew Stevenson.
“Plan B 3.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are fast undermin-ing our future. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth’s damaged ecosystems,” says Brown. “Fail-ure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.”
“Even as the accumulating backlog of unresolved problems is leading to a break-down of governments in weaker states, new stresses are emerging. Among these are rising oil prices as the world approaches peak oil, rising food prices as an ever-larger share of the U.S. grain harvest is converted into fuel for cars, and the spreading fallout from climate change.
“At the heart of the climate-stabilizing ini-tiative cited above is a detailed plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020 in order to hold the future temperature rise to a minimum. This initiative has three major components: raising energy efficiency, de-veloping renewable sources of energy, and expanding the earth’s tree cover. Reaching these goals will mean the world can phase out all coal-fired power plants.”
In setting the carbon reduction goals for Plan B, we did not ask, “What do politicians think is politically feasible?” but rather, “What do we think is needed to prevent irreversible climate change?” This is not Plan A: business as usual. This is Plan B: an all-out response at wartime speed proportionate to the magnitude of the threats facing civilization.
“We are in a race between tipping points in natural and political systems,” says Brown. “Which will come first? Can we mobilize the political will to phase out coal-fired power plants before the melt-ing of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible? Can we halt deforestation in the Amazon basin before it so weakens the forest that it becomes vulnerable to fire and is destroyed? Can we cut carbon emissions fast enough to save the Himalayan glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia?”
Although efforts have been made in recent decades to raise the efficiency of energy use, the potential is still largely untapped. For example, one easy and profitable way to cut carbon emissions worldwide is simply to replace incandes-cent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs that use only a fourth as much electric-ity. Turning to more efficient lighting can reduce world electricity use by 12 per-cent—enough to close 705 of the world’s 2,370 coal-fired power plants.
In the United States, buildings—commer-cial and residential—account for close to 40 percent of carbon emissions. Retrofitting an existing building typically can cut en-ergy use by 20 to 50 percent. The next step, shifting to carbon-free electricity to heat, cool, and light the building completes the transformation to a zero-carbon emissions building.
We can also reduce carbon emissions by moving down the food chain. The energy used to provide the typical American diet and that used for personal transportation are roughly equal. A plant-based diet re-quires about one fourth as much energy as a diet rich in red meat. The reduction in carbon emissions in shifting from a red meat-rich diet to a plant-based diet is about the same as that in shifting from a Chevrolet Suburban SUV to a Toyota Prius hybrid car.
In the Plan B energy economy, wind is the centerpiece. It is abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales easily and can be developed quickly. The goal is to devel-op at wartime speed 3 million megawatts of wind-generating capacity by 2020, enough to meet 40 percent of the world’s electricity needs. This would require 1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. These tur-bines could be produced on assembly lines by reopening closed automobile plants, much as bombers were assembled in auto plants during World War II.
In the development of renewable energy resources, Brown notes, we are seeing the emergence of some big-time think-ing—thinking that recognizes the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels. Nowhere is this more evident than in Texas, where the state government is coordinating an effort to build 23,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity (the equivalent of 23 coal-fired power plants). This will supply enough electricity to satisfy the residential needs of over 11 million Texans—half the state’s population. Oil wells go dry and coal seams run out, but the earth’s wind resources cannot be depleted.
Solar technologies also provide exciting opportunities for getting us off the carbon treadmill. Sales of solar-electric panels are doubling every two years. Rooftop solar water heaters are spreading fast in Europe and China. In China, some 40 million homes now get their hot water from rooftop solar heaters. The plan is to nearly triple this to 110 million homes by 2020, supplying hot water to 380 million Chinese.
Large-scale solar thermal power plants are under construction or planned in California, Florida, Spain, and Algeria. Algeria, a leading world oil exporter, is planning to develop 6,000 megawatts of solar-thermal electric-generating capacity, which it will feed into the European grid via an under-sea cable. The electricity generated from this single project is enough to supply the residential needs of a country the size of Switzerland.
Investment in geothermal energy for both heating and power generation is also growing fast, notes Brown. Iceland now heats nearly 90 percent of its homes with geothermal energy, virtually eliminating the use of coal for home heating. The Philippines gets 25 percent of its electricity from geothermal power plants. The United States has 61 geothermal projects under way in the geothermally rich western states.
The combination of gas-electric hybrid cars and advanced-design wind turbines has set the stage for the evolution of an en-tirely new automotive fuel economy. If the battery storage of the typical hybrid car is doubled and a plug-in capacity is added so that batteries can be recharged at night, we could do our short-distance driving—commuting to work, grocery shopping, and so on—almost entirely with cheap, wind-generated electricity.
This would permit us to run our cars largely on renewable electricity—and at the gasoline-equivalent cost of less than $1 per gallon. Several major automakers are coming to market with plug-in hybrids or electric cars.
With business as usual (Plan A), the environmental trends that are undermining our future will continue. More and more states will fail until civilization itself begins to unravel. “Time is our scarcest resource. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize,” says Brown. “These deadlines are set by nature. Nature is the timekeeper, but we cannot see the clock.”
The key to restructuring the world energy economy is to get the market to tell the environmental truth by incorporating into prices the indi-rect costs of burning fossil fuels, such as climate disruption and air pollu-tion. To do this, we propose adopt-ing a carbon tax that will reflect these indirect costs and offsetting it by lowering income taxes. We pro-pose a worldwide carbon tax to be phased in at $20 per ton each year between 2008 and 2020, stabilizing at $240 per ton. This initiative, which would be offset at every step with a reduction in income taxes, would simultaneously discourage fossil fuel use and encourage investment in renewable sources of energy.
“Saving civilization is not a spec-tator sport,” says Brown. “We have reached a point in the deteriorat-ing relationship between us and the earth’s natural systems where we all have to become political activists. Every day counts. We all have a stake in civilization’s survival.”
“We can all make lifestyle chang-es, but unless we restructure the economy and do it quickly, we will almost certainly fail. We need to persuade our elected representa-tives and national leaders to support the environmental tax restructuring and other changes outlined in Plan B. Beyond this, each of us can pick an issue that is important to us at the local level, such as phasing out coal-fired power plants, shifting to more-efficient light bulbs, or developing a comprehensive local recycling program, and get to work on it.”
We all need to educate ourselves on environmental issues. For its part, the Earth Policy Institute is making Plan B 3.0 available for down-loading free of charge from its website, www.earthpolicy.org.“It is decision time,” says Brown. “Like earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble, we have to make a choice. We can stay with business as usual and watch our economy decline and our civilization unravel, or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that mobilizes to save civilization. Our generation will make the decision, but it will affect life on earth for all genera-tions to come.”
-------------------------------------------------------------
After earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers Uni-versity in 1955, author Lester Brown spent six months living in rural India, where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959, he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service as an international agricultural analyst. He then earned master’s degrees in agricultural economics and public administration. He was an adviser to Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman on foreign agricultural policy but then left government to help establish the Overseas Development Council. In 1974, with support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Lester founded the Worldwatch Institute, devoted to the analysis of global envi-ronmental issues.
Brown has authored or coauthored over 50 books. In May 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide a vision and a road map for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. His most recent book is Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, which is available for free downloading at www.earthpolicy.org/books/pb3/index.htm.
Trying to Wash Us Away
August 30, 2008
All Mothers are Working Mothers
August 30, 2008
Rebecca muses:
SHREWD SAUDI ROYALS MANIPULATE OTHER POWERS By Nick Catsakis
August 29, 2008
Geopolitical gurus generally regard as America’s potentially greatest rivals some emerging world powers like China and India. Notwithstanding, it is a grave omission not to also focus on the Muslim Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and neighboring petro-sheikdoms. By selling us oil, they wield astronomical wealth, power and influence. They have increasingly been able to use and manipulate other powers, including the United States, for their own aims, national security, economic and global objectives. They generously fund the spread of the Muslim faith globally. Their petrodollar billions have enabled them to own by now a huge proportion of U.S. Treasury-issued debt, U.S. private commercial, industrial and real estate holdings, as well as exerting increasing influence on legislative and executive political leaders, eager for campaign funding from any source.
Saudi petrodollar economic strength is accompanied by immense diplomatic skills and capacity to hire top-notch, Western public relations agents, enabling them to influence and manipulate other powers, including formal governments as well as intra-national power groups such as terrorists. It is widely believed that, using its wealth, the Saudi Royal family has achieved some time ago a secret understanding with al-Qaeda whereby the Saudi Royals spend billions to fund the Wahabi Muslim sect’s fanatical Madrassa religious schools all over the Muslim world. This is bin Laden’s militant Islamic sect. These are the schools where mullahs brainwash thousands of youths into hating non-Muslims and becoming suicide bombers. In return, according to the secret agreement, as long as Saudi Royal funding keeps flowing to those schools, al-Qaeda desists from committing terrorist acts inside the Kingdom, while it tries its best at blowing up every other corner of the globe.
Not only the Saudis, using their wealth, enjoy relative immunity from al-Qaeda terror but another very shrewd geopolitical achievement of theirs has been to use the United States and its military strength to keep them safe from the other great menace to the Kingdom: The Iranian Shiite theocracy. Like the Saudis, most Arabs are Sunni Muslims, engaged in a centuries’ old conflict with the non-Arab, Persian Shiites of Iran. The Saudi Royals, by manipulating U.S. leaders into doing all the worrying about Iran and counting on U.S. military might to come in and save them, continue to enjoy in relative security their petroleum wealth. It should have been the other way around. It is they and their oil wealth who face the most imminent danger from Iran and it should have been instead Saudi wealth, military force and covert operations in the front line fighting, or at least de-stabilizing, those in power in Iran.
Saudi petrodollars are used to promote the expansion of Islam in most of the Third World, in Europe, and including even the U.S. itself by funding countless Islamic centers, mosques and Muslim schools. There are many examples. Just a few miles from the White House, in Northern Virginia, the Saudi Royal Embassy has constructed, funded, runs and supports two Islamic Saudi Academies, one in Alexandria and the other in Fairfax, with a total of 900 K-12 students. Translations of their curriculum texts reveal that students are taught fanatical Muslim concepts such as that it is the duty of Muslims to take the property and the lives of those deemed infidels. Unfortunately, even though the Secretary of State has the authority under the Foreign Missions Act to shut the academies down for teaching material harmful to the U.S., the Department of State’s diplomatic bureaucracy has not taken any decisive action yet.
Saudi wealth has been buying influence in America’s academia. In Washington, Georgetown University, a Christian, Roman Catholic academic institution ran by the Jesuit Order, has been offered and has accepted millions in grants from the Saudi Royal family to fund the creation of an Islamic Studies Center. It promotes the teaching of, and has published books on, the need to seek a peaceful, greater understanding of Islam and its similarities with Christianity rather than being hostile towards Islam. That university’s School of Foreign Service, of which I am a graduate having specialized in diplomacy and international relations in both its undergraduate and later its graduate schools, used to be the primary source of reliable, patriotic career officers for the Department of State and the D.C. intelligence community. That was decades ago. Today’s graduates who have careers in federal departments and agencies, notoriously adhere to geopolitical theories that place the blame for the world’s conflicts on America’s perceived global aggressiveness and believe the solution rests in diplomatic negotiations and understanding rather than military preparedness.
U. S. -Saudi relations have been underscored for decades by one single consideration: petroleum. The Saudis, in partnership with U.S. petroleum interests and while cultivating close relations with U.S. political leaders, particularly those who are always thirsty for campaign funding, are pursuing the objective of keeping the U.S. economy heavily dependant on Arab oil rather than alternative sources of energy or increased U.S. domestic oil production. As a result, by continuing to sell us oil, the Saudis have been accruing astronomical petrodollar royalties. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy and consumers suffer from skyrocketing oil prices and, worse of all, U.S. long-term national security and geopolitical interests—indeed our very survival--are jeopardized by our continued dependence on Arab oil. What we spend on gasoline may very well be eventually used to annihilate us.
One would hope that for the sake of our survival, those new leaders in Washington that are soon to be elected would happen to be cognizant of the urgency to undertake dramatic shifts in U.S. geopolitical policies. Foremost would be to reduce our reliance on Arab oil. Congressional bans on new drilling should be lifted. They are outdated, having been adopted when crude was only $15 per barrel and when major producers, like Iran and Venezuela, had strongly pro-American leaders who have now been deposed by fanatical haters of the U.S. The Saudis and other petro-sheikdoms should be forced to take a more active role in facing primarily by themselves, rather than relying on U.S. military might, the al-Qaeda menace and the threat to them by the Iranian theocracy.
Tax paying, voting citizens should be urged to write and pressure their Legislators for urgently needed, realistic policies to be adopted by our diplomatic and intelligence bureaucracies.
McCain Can ‘Obliterate’ Democrats, Obama
August 29, 2008
Dick Morris says he feels nostalgic as he makes a symbolic analogy of the dismantling of the Democratic convention hall and the end of the Clinton era in the party. Hear him explain why he thinks John McCain has "an incredible opportunity" to "completely defang and obliterate" the political impact of the Democratic convention.
