Signs of the Times

The world has failed to meet any of its biodiversity targets, the UN said in a landmark report published every five years.

Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals (The Guardian, 5-21-18) Study
The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.

Humans Spur Worst Extinctions Since Dinosaurs
A report released in March 2006 by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity concluded that "the current pace of [animal and plant] extinctions was 1,000 times faster than historical rate] thanks to the activities of human beings. Read the "Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 Report" (Planet Ark, 3-21-06)

Extinct Species Won't Return for 10 Million Years
Analyzed fossils lead to calculations that it takes about 10 million years after a plant or animal becomes extinct before anything resembling it reappears, if it reappears at all. (ABC News, 3-8-00)

Climate Change Drives Widespread Amphibian Extinctions
A new 2006 study provides the first clear proof that global warming is causing outbreaks of an infectious disease that is wiping out entire frog populations and driving many species to extinction. (National Science Foundation, 1-11-06)

Web Site on Extinctions Human beings are exterminating other forms of life at the highest rate in millions of years.

The State of the World? A Grim Warning from 1,300 Leading Scientists
This is the considered opinion of 1,300 leading scientists from 95 countries, who conclude that environmental degradation, if continued at its current pace will irreparably damage the global ecosystem to such an extent that it will not recover for thousands of years. Read the "Millennium Assessment Reports"
(By The Independent posted on Information Clearing House, 3-30-05)

A $528 billion plan to clean up 54 million gallons of radioactive bomb-making waste may never be achieved.

An EU study shows that annual cost of environmental destruction is greater than current credit crisis.

"The TEEB review was set up by the German government and the European Commission during the German G8 presidency.

The two institutions selected Mr Sukhdev, a managing director in the global markets division at Deutsche Bank, to lead it. "

IEA predicts coal will grow by as a share of world energy between 2005 and 2030. This means the world's worst form of energy will grow in demand by 73%. (International Energy Agency) (Click here for report.)

Greenland's Ice Cap is Melting Three Times Faster than Five Years Ago
Citing evidence accumulated by a University of Texas at Austin team of scientists, the article demonstrates that the Greenland ice cap, which holds an estimated 2.85 cubic kilometers of fresh water ice (See New Scientist), is melting away more rapidly than scientists had previously thought. This melting process is raising sea levels around the world, which will in turn place coastal areas underwater within 50 years. (By San Francisco Chronicle posted on Common Dreams, 8-11-06)

Even more grim news from Greenland according to NASA (CNN News, 12-11-07)
According to new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

Scientists Find New Global Warming "Time Bomb"
"Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb. Methane - a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide - is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published today in the journal Nature." (By The Associated Press posted on Common Dreams, 9-7-06)

South Florida Ocean's temperature could be a new world heat record. This poses an immense threat to coral and other ocean life.

A crucial system of ocean currents is heading for a collapse that ‘would affect every person on the planet.’

Only 10 Percent of Big Ocean Fish Remain
According to a study published in Nature in 2003, 90% of the world's largest species of fish have already been killed by humans.
(CNN News, 5-14-03)

World's Fish Supply Will Run Out by 2048
A recent scientific study concluded that unless changes are made, current fishing practices and ecological destruction caused by pollution of the world's oceans will result in the extinction of fish caught to provide food. This will provoke a crisis among the world's population as a critical source of food for human beings disappears.
(Washington Post, 11-3-06)

Forests Face Global Extinction (By Toronto Globe & Mail posted on Common Dreams, 8-21-01)
A UN report released in 2001 stated it would "take a miracle -- and concerted international effort -- to save the healthy forests left in the world from obliteration". Read UNEP Publications.

"Worldwide, one-half of all forests we've lost in the last 10,000 years has occurred in the last 80 years. Half of that was destroyed in the last 30 years," says Scott Paul, Forest Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace

Cambodia, for example, lost nearly 30 percent of its primary forests from 2000 to 2005, according to FAO. Vietnam lost close to 55 percent of its primary forests, FAO found. And Nigeria lost nearly 56 percent of its primary forests over the same period, the worst rate of forest loss in the world, according to FAO. The destruction of the Earth's oldest and richest forests is not a new phenomenon, but the rate of destruction has increased in recent decades. (CNN News, 7-12-07)

EPA REGULATION

Weedkillers are being found in Streams and Rivers Endangering Fish, and Aquatic Life (Washington Post, 12-9-07)

"The federal government first approved atrazine in the 1950s, but it came under increased scrutiny in the late 1990s after Tyrone B. Hayes, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley, did a series of studies -- first for chemical companies and then on his own -- that indicated that tiny amounts of the pesticide de-masculinized tadpoles of African clawed frogs. The European Union declared it a harmful "endocrine disrupter" and banned it as of 2005, but the EPA decided to allow its continued use after determining that the agency lacked a standard test for measuring the hormone-disrupting effects of chemicals. "

CLIMATE CHANGE

US Industrial Sites Pose New Climate Risk (Consortium News, 8-4-22)

Inconvenient Truth Web Site

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Al Gore 2007 Nobel Prize Speech and Video (Official Nobel Prize Site) Official Transcript

Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore, Accused the U.S. of Blocking at U.N. Climate Talks in Bali (CNN News, 12-3-07) CNN video clip of Al Gore's comments on Bali conference. Al Gore petition on Bali conference.

Al Gore Official Web Site

Chinese Water Shortage Signals Coming Crisis China's massive industrialization and population growth over the last decade have left its water resources severely depleted. Almost "320 million Chinese lack adequate access to clean drinking water. Deserts cover 27% of the country's landmass. Most of China's surface water is unfit for human consumption, and some of that not even clean enough for industrial use. Grain production is sliding. The Yellow River runs dry so often and so long that some scientists have argued that it ought to be considered a seasonal phenomenon." (Time, 10-2-06)

CHINA'S ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS (Spiegel, 2-1-07)
An excellent article from Germany's Der Spiegel on the global impact of China's pollution.. Click here for story.

Global Warming "May Cause Economic Chaos"
A British government report has stated that climate change could cause massive economic and social upheaval if reforms are not put into place that stop the warming of the planet. (CNN News, 10-30-06)

Richest 2% hold half the world's assets (See also Financial Times article, 12-6-06)
Distribution on personal wealth is spread unevenly across the world. This article explains how the richest being two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent of the world's assets while the poorest half share only one per cent of wealth. Click here to read the Press Release text. (World Institute for Development Economic Research)

Social Mobility in America Lags Behind "Old" Europe
Hertz, an Assistant Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, DC, takes a scientific and statistical look at socio-economic mobility in the United States. He finds disturbing evidence that poverty is on the rise in America and that upward economic mobility between generations in the United States, long a heralded advantage of living in this country, lags significantly behind many developed countries, especially in Western Europe. Read the full report: "Understanding Mobility in America" (Center for American Progress, 4-26-06)

America is the only modern state with no national health insurance, a social program begun over over years ago in Imperial Germany. Obama's "reform" plan, if it survives, will only start in 2014 to make an effort for universal coverage.

45,000 Americans are killed every year due a lack of adequate health insurance. (Reuters 9/17/2009)

AIDS Disaster in Nation's Capital
What's particularly damning is that a key cause of this has been the banning of a needle exchange program by the Republicans in Congress. America's capital, unlike other world capitals, does not have the right to elect members of Congress who can vote due to conservative politic pressure tactics.
(Washington Post, 12-2-07)

Medical Malpractice Kills as Many as 100,000 Americans Annually (Center for Justice Democracy)
According to the Center for Justice and Democracy, in a major study released in 1999, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine found that up to 98,000 people are killed each year by medical errors in hospitals -- far more than die from car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS. Read the "Executive Summary of To Err is Human" the book which drew national attention to the crisis.

Top Evangelical Leader Discredited in Homosexual Scandal
Tim Haggard, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, has admitted publicly that he has battled a lifelong "sexual problem" (aka homosexuality), following allegations that he paid a man for sex and asked the man to procure crystal meth for him. Ironically, perhaps, Haggard's NAE has been vocal in its support of a so-called "family values" political agenda which includes a ban on gay-marriage, a policy stance that clearly conflicts with Haggard's secret life.
(CNN News, 11-6-06)

Claude Allen, President Bush's Domestic Policy Chief, Charged with Felony Theft (Washington Post, 3-11-06)
In March 2006, Claude Allen, President George Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was forced to resign in disgrace after being charged with felony theft in a scam to defraud Target and Hecht's stores using returned merchandise he did not purchase at those stores. Allen's resignation came as a deep disappointment to social conservatives who believed Allen was "a stalwart for marriage, for family, for abstinence education and ... unwavering in his dedication to the things that our constituents value." (See Conservatives Stunned by Allen's Arrest on Theft Charges)

GOP Rep. Mark Foley, Chair of House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, Resigns Due to Homosexual-Pedophilia Scandal Former House Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned on September 29, 2006 for having sent sexually explicit email and instant messages to teenaged boys (under 18) serving as pages in the U.S. Congress. Foley had made fighting child pornography a center-piece of his congressional agenda and in a particularly ironic twist he was serving as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children at the time the emails came to the public's attention. The scandal promises to widen as the Justice Department investigates Foley and the press continues to question when the Republican leadership first learned about Foley's conduct. After all this, "pro-family" Foley now admits he is an active homosexual and says this was a result of having had sex with a minister. See story.
(Washington Post, 10-1-06)

U.S. Invasion is Responsible for Deaths of Over 650,000 Civilians in Iraq
The estimate is probably low since it is very hard to count the death toll from the indirect effects of the U.S. invasion. It also does not count the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by the western sanctions before the war. (Washington Post, 10-11-06)

A Majority of Iraqis Now Approve of Attacks on U.S. Forces
This story from ABC News details the findings of a recent University of Maryland study concerning public opinion in Iraq. Some of the results included "Six in ten Iraqis (60%) approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces" and "Nearly eight in ten say the U.S. presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it's preventing (as opposed to being 'a stabilizing force.'). (ABC News, 9-27-06)

Top Iraqi "moderate" leader, Mr. Hakim, who is praised by Bush, refuses to condemn Holocaust denial or calls for Israel's destruction. This story is truly stranger than fiction. Read actual CNN transcript if you are skeptical. (Interview is in middle of program transcript.)

Saddam's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disproved Before the War
In new major report U.S. intelligence analysts and members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee found no links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials publicly asserted those links to justify invading Iraq. (Washington Post, 9-9-06)

Cold-Blooded Carnage is Soaring in "Free" Iraq
Death squads and terrorists have increased attacks on civilians in Iraq, killing more than 1,600 people in cold-blooded "execution-style" slayings in July 2006 alone.
(CNN News, 9-1-06)

Triumph of Free Market Economics: Afghanistan Leads the World Again in Heroin Production
The triumph of free market economics in post-Taliban Afghanistan has translated into that country once again becoming the world's leading producer of heroin since the U.S. invasion in autumn 2001. Tight Taliban control over the country had led to an estimated 95% decline in opium cultivation by 2001 (See BBC Report). However, since the overthrow of the Taliban opium production has skyrocketed. U.S. officials blame the Taliban but this is not at all clear and the majority of the money may be going to political friends of the current government. (CBC News, 7-5-07)

Opium now produces 50% of Afghan economy
This new UN report raises more questions about the dependence of the Karzai government on opium and heroin. (CNN News, 11-17-07)

The term "war on terror" as used by President Bush is really not a correct term. The overwhelming majority of people who have been killed by "terror" in the last 100 years have been killed by state terror not terror perpetuated by those not in power. Mr. Bush's plan is not concerned at all about that. Indeed, his plan actually creates a system of state terror by using torture to enforce state authority.

UN Condemns U.S. Human Rights Record in War on Terror
The U.N. Human Rights Committee issued a strongly worded critique of the U.S. government’s rights record at home and abroad, which reflects a growing international consensus that the U.S. is violating basic human rights norms. (Human Rights News, 7-28-06)

Home-made bombs are easy to build. Internet search engines turn up hundreds of sites that even include information on how to make an atom bomb. Here is a popular site. (Bomb Shock Web Site)

Germany's conservative leader calls for EU Army. This story has been largely ignored but it represents a truly revolutionary development that will further set the stage for Europe becoming a world military giant. Click here for article. (Spiegel Web Site, 5-23-07)

Israel Creates Humanitarian Disaster in Gaza (Counter Punch Web Site, 7-4-06)
Israel's invasion of Gaza in the summer of 2006 resulted in tremendous damage to the area's already shaky infrastructure. Electric power and supplies of drinking water have been cut to hundreds of thousands of people in an area that is already one of the world's most impoverished. A Los Angeles Times article on this subject.
(Information Clearing House Web Site, 9-23-07)

Keeping Palestinians Poor and Without Electricity
During Israeli-Palestinian violence in summer of 2006, the only electric power plant in Gaza was bombed by the Israeli air force. This plant, which supplied power to 65% of the population of the Gaza Strip, also drives the desalination facilities that provide locals with their only potable water. Tens of thousands of people were thus left without easy access to either fresh water or electricity in the middle of the Middle East summer. (Counter Punch Web Site, 7-3-06)

Desmond Tutu Likens Israeli Actions to Apartheid
South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu compares conditions in Palestine to those in South Africa under apartheid, and called on Israelis to try and change them. (By Inter Press Service posted on Common Dreams web site, 10-29-07)

Jimmy Carter's new book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" has angered many Israeli sympathizers, as Carter compares Israeli policies to the former racial policies of the Republic of South Africa. He also states the occupation of Palestinian land contradicts the peace agreement he brokered between Egypt and Israel and also violates United Nations resolutions. Jimmy Carter, Former President Says The U.S. Government Has Been Too Submissive To Israel

A global debate is raging about "fascism". Many Europeans regard U.S. President Bush as a fascist. In return, President Bush claims that he is fighting Islamic "fascism". A particularly troubling problem for President Bush on top of all the other problems he is facing at home and abroad is the fact that a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (somebody who knows something about real fascism) has stated that Mr. Bush should be put on trial as a war criminal.

Bush and Saddam should Both Stand Trial, Says Former Nuremberg Prosecutor
This article details comments made by Benjamin Ferencz, a former U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, who argues that according to the standards of international law established after World War II, George Bush should be tried for launching an "aggressive war" against Iraq in 2003. (One World News, 8-25-06)

Europeans See U.S. Under Bush as Primary Threat to Global Stability
Recent polling done by the Angus Reid Global Scan concludes that 30% of Europeans see the United States as the biggest threat to global stability, far surpassing Iran (23%), China (15%), and North Korea (14%). (Angus Reid Global Monitor, 9-5-06)

Reclaiming the Issues: Islamic or Republican Fascism?
The article states that Neo-Conservative policies, as exemplified by the Bush Administration, are ideologically closer to historical Fascism than the "Islamic Fascists" that the administration argues it is fighting. (Common Dreams Web Site, 8-28-06)

Arming Japan with Nuclear Weapons
Columnist Charles Krauthammer, an advocate for the use of torture against terror suspects, writes that the new right-wing government of Japan, which embraces Japan's militaristic past, should be armed with nuclear weapons in response to the testing of a small nuclear device by North Korea. This despite the fact that Japan is already protected by treaty under the U.S. nuclear weapons umbrella. (Washington Post, 10-20-06)

Iran: The Next War
This revealing and detailed article documents the manipulation of intelligence information in order to bolster a case for a U.S. invasion of Iran. (Rolling Stone, 7-24-06)

The significance of China's political system in the world. A very thought-provoking article from Germany's Der Spiegel on the paradox that today's modern, supposedly "free enterprise" "democratic" "new order" is based on a totalitarianian state that has a closer relationship in terms of political and economic theory to Mussolini's Italy than modern democratic systems. Click here for article. (Spiegel Web Site, 2-27-07)

Islamic Militants are Defeating U.S. Technology Five Years after 9/11
An excellent article by respected Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on the ways in which the West's military response to Islamic radicalism has been failing. High technology is no substitute for ideas and the human element. (Washington Post, 9-11-06)

Major film in Japan glorifies Kamikazes.
Japan, unlike Germany, has not totally repudiated its actions in World War II. Indeed, Japanese Prime Ministers worship at the Yasakuni Shrine where many of Japan's World War II leaders are commemorated in spite of vehement protests from nations like China and Korea. (Reuters Web Site, 5-12-07)

Just recently, a new film has been made with the active support of Japan's popular Governor of Tokyo that glorifies the Kamizazes. This article speaks for itself.

Rebirth of Paganism in Africa. A very interesting article from Germany's Der Spiegel showing that Christianity is fading. Certainly the record has been a sorry one in recent years. Congo and Rwanda were the African nations with the highest percentage of Christians. Click here for article. (Spiegel Web Site, 2-7-07)

Our Rebirth of Big Government (The American Prospect, 6-9-08) A very prophetic article by former Clinton promoter. Far from being "dead" as Clinton claimed in 1995, big government is more important than ever.