GOING WITH THE FLOW

GOING WITH THE FLOW

The Alaska Progressive Review staff felt compelled to spend Thanksgiving weekend in the Alaska range, cross-country skiing, and hiking.

Because we were in a southerly flow aloft at that time, which brings mild maritime air northward from the Gulf of Alaska. Usually raising temperatures throughout the Alaska Range and Interior to as warm as 0 to -15C (+32 to +5F). Which in late November and December is a good 10-20C above average. This allows us to be outside doing whatever we like, with much less protection, and worry, from cold weather hazards. And it sure feels great!

So, Thanksgiving day we lit out early for the just over three hour drive to Paxson, 120 KM south of Delta Junction, on the Richardson Highway. I had long seen cabins for rent there at the junction where the Denali Highway starts, on it's westward direction to Cantwell. This looked like a perfect base to use for nordic skiing all around the area, in the nice mild conditions.

The drive down was exciting, through the Alaska Range. The strong south chinook winds were howling through 1500-2500 metre deep canyon of the Delta River, probably 60-80 KPH. The road would occasionally become obscured when visibility in blowing snow dropped abruptly, and we'd have to nearly stop, and get our bearings. Two mangled cars, one upside down, were on the side of the highway near Black Rapids. Fortunately, no one was in them, but they obviously were either driving too fast, or didn't have good tires, for the conditions. We got to Paxson around 1230 and drove up to the "Denali Highway Cabins".

http://www.denalihwy.com/
These "Denali Highway Cabins" are actually quite nice and plush inside. As good as any hotel room you'll find anywhere, for it's price. Since it was winter though, the plumbing was turned off, so no shower or sink, but buckets of water were provided so the toilet tank could be filled, for flushing. And, drinking water was also provided. They of course had oil stoves for heat, and electricity, for all the other amenities. Amazingly, our cell phone even worked better here than in Fairbanks!

The owner, Dr. Audobon Bakewell, and his wife greeted us, and showed us our cabin. It looked like we were the only ones staying that day, in the five cabin complex. Audie, as he likes to be called, must have a PhD in a biological science (we forgot to ask), as he advertises giving nature tours, in the area.

We just wanted to get on the trails though, and get out in the mild -5C air. But first, Homer wasted no time checking the place out and getting comfortable. He is 13 now, which for a canid, is equivalent to 85-90 in human terms, and so appreciates his creature comforts, such as a warm room with soft carpeting, and quick access to me, so he can nudge me with his big black wet nose, when he needs something.



One of the first things I noticed, when we got there, is that the Gulkana River, right next to the cabin, was still open and running fast. In fact, Audie said that it always is, and is one of the only rivers in the Alaska Interior that does, because it is so steep here. He said it takes a week of -45C temperatures to create a thin skim of ice on top, but as soon as it warms to -40C, it opens right back up! We sure loved listening to it, missing that sound from the years of living in Juneau and Missoula, MT, where it was ever-present.


After a hasty unpacking and lunch, we hit the trails around the area. Audie said that there are about 32 KM of trails, on both sides of the Richardson Highway, around the Alaska Pipeline, and around the Denali Highway. I classic skied for a couple hours in the dim afternoon sun, while Mattie and Homer ran free, something they really appreciate. Snowmachines packed down some of the trails, making for easy gliding, though we did break some trail occasionally, on smaller ones, to get to a small lake.

Although we could have given thanks that day with friends, we just couldn't pass up being in the mountains like this, when it's warm, so after skiing, we just had a regular backpacking meal, along with some good red wine, and watched a movie, on the little TV/DVD player in the cabin. Not bad! And walked around occasionally by the rushing Gulkana River, savoring that sound, as it will be a long while before we get to hear it again.

One plan of mine was to skate ski the next day, on the Denali Highway. This highway stretches 250 KM west to Cantwell, south of the crest of the Alaska Range, with only a few lodges on it, no towns. Very beautiful and relatively wild. I had hoped to be able to ski at least 34 KM in to the Tangle Lakes, then back, that day, which if conditions were right, could be done in 8-10 hours, maximum. But, friday morning, I skated up about 4 KM or so, and had to turn back, there just wasn't enough snow on the highway, there were many bare spots, and cars and trucks were still driving on it. Not wanting to jeopardise Mattie and Homer's safety as well, we turned back. The road is technically closed to auto traffic in winter, so once more snow accumulates, it will be. There is enough snowmachine traffic on it to keep it packed down, allowing skiers to skate, which is the fastest, most efficient form of nordic skiing (but also the most vulnerable to bad weather, a heavy snowfall, or abrupt thaw can make it miserable and slow).

That was a disappointment, but we'll get back there in Feb. or March (or April!) and do some skating there when it is car-free, with good snow conditions.

So, I put on my classic skis, and we went exploring for a few more hours around Paxson, on some other trails around the area. We came upon this about 1KM long lake, just south of the Denali Highway, Homer and Mattie loved running all around and across it. There wasn't enough trail distance though for an all-day outing, so we drove back north up the Richardson highway, after lunch, to ski up toward the base of the Gulkana glacier.

As we came around a curve on the side of Summit Lake, Caribou were blocking
the highway, and we had to stop. A herd of about 20 of them just walked across the highway, and onto the lake. Mattie was going wild in the car, jumping and crying. She sure wanted to get out and make chase, but that was not going to happen.

Kilo for kilo though, or little assistant editor has as much energy and drive as any canid I've ever seen. She would have given them a run for their money!

I classic skied in the warm -8C air on some snowmachine trails, northeast, toward the base of the Gulkana glacier. Unfortunately, the snowpack was rather skimpy, only about 10cm, and I was hitting some rocks occasionally, on my newer back-country skis. Not wanting to ruin them, we turned back, but not before Homer and Mattie discovered a porcupine. I'm not sure if either one of them has experienced being quilled, but I yelled as loud as I could at them to get them back, and fortunately they listened. It would have been a miserable time for them, had they gotten a face full of quills. All the more reason to get back after just a two-hour outing.

So, having been disappointed in our skiing twice that day, we just decided to do a short 90 min. run up and back, on the Denali Highway, to end the day. That sure felt good, in the mild evening, turning to night, since we finished around 1800. Homer ran about six hours that day, without tiring at all. What an inspiration! I want to be able to do that, when I reach 85-90, his equivalent age!

The plan for the trip back saturday was to stop at Rainbow Ridge, and hike around on it, which is on the way back to Fairbanks. This is a beautiful, multi-coloured ridge that rears nearly vertically 1500 metres up on the east side of the Richardson Highway, about 90 KM south of Delta Junction.

There wasn't a whole lot of snow on it, since the chinook winds scoured much of it way on Thanksgiving and Friday.

We reached the base around 1100, and just started walking up the talus slopes, at the foot of the ridge. The only 8-10 cm of wind-packed snow actually stabilised the talus, so it was safer footing than in summer, and faster! It was still fairly mild, -13C, with not a hint of a breeze, that felt great!








We just hiked up about an hour, to get up about halfway up the ridge, and enjoy the view, before heading home. This is looking north, the higher 3000-4000 metre, eternally white, peaks of the eastern half of the Alaska range are in the far distance.

What a treat, to be able to enjoy ourselves for three days, in the mild weather in the Alaska Range!

While we greatly prize, and make the most of the mild winter weather, when we have it, it is becoming more frequent. While that makes it easier, and more enjoyable for us living and recreating here, it's coming at a price.

This southerly flow pattern, with a high pressure ridge in the jet stream pumping mild maritime air northward, is occurring much more frequently now in winter, as Global Warming asserts itself more strongly.

The greatest magnitude of the warming seen over the past 30-40 years in the Arctic, has been in winter, for this reason. And this makes perfect sense. Since our sun angle in winter this far north is so low, the only way mild weather (defined arbitrarily, by me, thank you very much, as -15C or warmer) can occur is if warmer, maritime air is circulated north by the jet stream. Since there is more heat energy being retained in the atmosphere now that the atmospheric CO2 level is 390 ppm (up from 280 70 years ago, and rising 3-5 ppm annually), this method of global heat re-distribution occurs more frequently, is more persistent, and of greater magnitude now, than say, 30 or more years ago.

The warmer winters then don't allow as thick of ice cover to develop over the Arctic ocean, snow cover over the land is generally not as thick and persistent, and when the deep cold spells (-25C to -50C) do occur, they don't last as long. Which is why permafrost is also melting rapidly now, especially in the southern half of the Arctic. Which in itself, is a "positive feedback", since vast amounts of CO2 and methane is released when it thaws and melts.

An excellent example of this occurred just yesterday around interior Alaska. A very strong southerly chinook flow, pushed mild, maritime air, above freezing in the lower levels, north across the Alaska Range. Temperatures around Fairbanks popped up to 3-4C, and strong south winds surfaced in a few areas, which is very unusual.

Even more unusual, is this 5-day forecast height of the 500 millibar pressure (a level in the atmosphere generally between 4900-6000 metres, depending on the temperature, the higher these heights, the warmer the airmass), right. Which is from the generally most accurate numerical weather forecast model, the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting). Because all the western European countries pool their best researchers and funding, this model is the World's premiere tool for looking out 3-7 days ahead. The U.S. medium range model, the GFS (Global Forecast System) is also quite good, but the ECMWF usually tends to outperform it slightly in the higher latitudes. What this is showing, is an incredibly strong, nearly record-breaking, warm summer-like high pressure ridge, developing over Alaska at Day 5 (wed. 02DEC09) (the flow is parallel to the countours, clockwise around a high pressure ridge).

If this occurs, which seems likely, it will bring our second, even warmer, above-freezing episode to Interior Alaska this winter. Temperatures could conceivably reach up to 6-10C! Which would break some daily records, and begin to melt our snowpack, since at least two days of these conditions may occur.

Since it is winter, the airmass is not as warm, with a ridge of this magnitude, as it would be in summer, when solar insolation heats the ground. If this ridge were over Alaska in June or July, temperatures would easily reach 30-36C (86-95F), instead of the just 6-10C (43-50F) expected next week. Still, this would be 20C above average, for this time of year!

Many people have been asking me about the more turbulent weather we've been getting in Interior Alaska over the past 20 years, stronger temperature cycles, more thunderstorms, and more extremes in general, in drought, and heavy precipitation. I don't hesitate to tell them, this is just a taste of things to come. Because if this is what we're seeing from an increase of 330 to 390 ppm CO2 over the past 30-40 years, what will we be seeing when we reach 500-550 ppm CO2 in 20-30 years?! Cheers.

OPTING OUT

OPTING OUT

I cut up my Alaska Airlines credit card today. Which I've had for nine years now, and through which I've accumulated thousands of Alaska Airlines "frequent flyer" miles. One mile is given for each dollar spent with the card. This gave me an occasional "free" flight, first-class upgrade, and MVP status, occasionally.

But it all came at a price. Because that card is really from the Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the World, one that was "too big to fail", even though they were one of the many large players engaging in greedy, exploitative, risky and reckless financial policies which led to the current global depression. They also received many of the 700 BILLION dollars in "bailout" funds given over to them from your tax dollars, as a reward for their criminally greedy and destructive behaviour. This article from Common Dreams today summarises the current situation with Wall Street, "your" government, and where we stand.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-7

Still Doing God’s Work on Wall Street
by Robert Scheer

"Jail, anyone? Perhaps that's too harsh, and at any rate premature, but is anyone ever going to be held accountable for the behind-the-scenes sweetheart deals that passed tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through the AIG shell game to the very banks that caused the financial meltdown? Or for the many other acts of double-dealing that left one out of three American homeowners owing much more than their houses were worth while the folks who swindled them were rewarded with hundreds of billions in public money?

Undoubtedly not, since the same folks who are most culpable wrote the laws that made this, and the other scams at the heart of the banking collapse, perfectly legal. And guess what? They're back at work in the government, writing the new laws that will, they claim, prevent us from being had once again. As a telling example of that process at work, check the official response of the Department of Treasury to the devastating report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Neil M. Barofsky, titled "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties." The main factor was that Timothy Geithner followed the lead of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd "I'm Doing God's Work" Blankfein in crowding the lifeboats with bankers.

Geithner, now treasury secretary, was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), where he negotiated the deal to pay Goldman Sachs and the other top banks in full to cover their bad bets on securitized mortgages. Barofsky's report concluded that Geithner's scheme represented a "backdoor bailout" for the financial hustlers at the center of the market fiasco. Noting that Geithner denies that was his intention, the report states, "Irrespective of their stated intent, however, there is no question that the effect of FRBNY's decisions-indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG-was that tens of billions of dollars of Government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG's counterparties."
Not surprisingly, the Treasury Department that Geithner now heads defended his actions in not forcing "haircuts" on the full dollar-for-dollar payoff by AIG to the banks while he was at the New York Fed: "The government could not unilaterally impose haircuts on creditors, and it would not have been appropriate for the government to pressure counterparties to accept haircuts by threatening to retaliate in some way through its regulatory power."

Nonsense, argues Eliot Spitzer, who as New York attorney general was way ahead of the curve in challenging Wall Street arrogance. Writing in Slate on Monday, Spitzer points out: "Pressuring Goldman and the other counterparties to offer concessions would have forced them to absorb the consequences of making suspect deals with an insurance company that was essentially a Ponzi scheme."

The Ponzi scheme was based on the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) in which the bankers traded and which AIG had insured with the credit default swaps (CDSs) that they sold but failed to back with adequate funding. Now Geithner's Treasury concedes that AIG "should never have been allowed to escape tough, consolidated supervision." But none of AIG's scams were regulated, nor were any of the others at the center of the larger financial debacle, because of laws pushed through Congress by Geithner's boss, Lawrence Summers, when they both were in the Clinton administration. Specifically, they prevented regulation of those opaque CDOs and CDSs that would come to derail the world's economy.

As the inspector general's report stated: "In 2000, the [Clinton administration-backed] Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) ... barred the regulation of credit default swaps and other derivatives." Why did the financial geniuses of the Clinton administration seek to prevent that obviously needed regulation? Because the Clintonistas believed the Wall Street guys knew what they were doing and that what was good for them was good for us lesser folk. As Summers, who is the top economic adviser in the Obama White House, put it in congressional testimony back then: "The parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies."

Sounds nonsensical today: The inspector general's report notes that AIG, because of the deregulatory law that Summers and Geithner pushed through, was "able to sell swaps on $72 billion worth of CDOs to counterparties without holding reserves that a regulated insurance company would be required to maintain." But why, then, is Summers once again running the show with Geithner when both have made careers of exhibiting total contempt for the public interest? Because there is no accountability for the high rollers of finance, no matter who happens to be president."

© 2009 TruthDig.com
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle

Below each article on this site, people occasionally write in comments, and we at A.P.R. often do as well! I thought this one was particularly insightful...

"Isn't the myth that unfettered capitalism has made America rich now being debunked by China's regulated capitalism?"

I think this image I included in my last (and most ominous) climate change post presents a good picture of how things are in this country, and in the rest of the "developed" World.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/ac-cu-iii-update-it-gets-worse-and-can.htmlhttp://counterpunch.org/lindorff11252009.html

Which is this. These large wildfires, this one behind the major city of Los Angeles last August, are increasing in frequency and intensity globally, thanks to global warming. Which is occurring because our consumerist, capitalist culture is incapable of not "fouling the nest" with greenhouse gasses and other pollutants, without strict regulation and oversight. Oversight, which though desperately needed, will not occur unless strong pressure is applied by great amounts of people, in various ways. Most of these large skyscrapers are owned and populated by the major financial institutions at the heart of all this, in Los Angeles, and most cities world-wide.

One way in which we all can help decrease the importance, influence of, and damage done by these greedy, criminal financial institutions, is to BOYCOTT THEM. Thus, we here at the Alaska Progressive Review, have finally divested ourselves of the last piece of this destructive system today, our Alaska Airlines credit card. Sure, we won't be getting as many free airline miles and trips anymore, but that is a small price to pay, for peace of mind, knowing that we are not supporting these institutions. Now, our mortgage for the Chena Ridge Research Centre, our auto loan, bank accounts, and credit card, are all with local Credit Unions. We implore all of you, to do the same. Conduct all your business with non-profit Credit Unions, and BOYCOTT the greedy large banks. You'll be doing yourself, family, community, nation, and the World a big favour!

I came across this article today in the Counterpunch web-site.

http://counterpunch.org/lindorff11252009.html

"Working the War Up Since Early 2002"

The Blair-Bush Conspiracy on Iraq

By DAVE LINDORFF

"Most Americans are blissfully in the dark about it, but across the Atlantic in the UK, a commission reluctantly established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown under pressure from anti-war activists in Britain is beginning hearings into the actions and statements of British leaders that led to the country’s joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Even before testimony began in hearings that started yesterday, news began to leak out from documents obtained by the commission that the government of former PM Tony Blair had lied to Parliament and the public about the country’s involvement in war planning.

Britain’s Telegraph newspaper over the weekend published documents from British military leaders, including a memo from British special forces head Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, saying that he had been instructed to begin “working the war up since early 2002.”This means that Blair, who in July 2002, had assured members of a House of Commons committee that there were “no preparations to invade Iraq,” was lying.

Things are likely to heat up when the commission begins hearing testimony. It has the power, and intends to compel testimony from top government officials, including Blair himself.
While some American newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, have run an Associated Press report on the new disclosures and on the commission, key news organizations, including the New York Times, have not. The Times ignored the Telegraph report, but a day later ran an article about the British commission that focused entirely on evidence that British military leaders in Iraq felt “slighted” by “arrogant” American military leaders who, the article reported, pushed for aggressive military action against insurgent groups, while British leaders preferred negotiating with them.

While that may be of some historical interest, it hardly compares with the evidence that Blair and the Bush/Cheney administration were secretly conspiring to invade Iraq as early as February and March 2002.

Recall that the Bush/Cheney argument to Congress and the American people for initiating a war against Iraq in the fall of 2003 was that Iraq was allegedly behind the 9-11 attacks and that it posed an “imminent” danger of attack against the US and Britain with its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, such arguments, which have subsequently been shown to have been bogus, would have had no merit if the planning began a year earlier, and if no such urgency was expressed by the two leaders at that time. Imminent, after all, means imminent, and if Blair, Bush and Cheney had genuinely thought an attack with WMDs was imminent back in the early days of the Bush administration, they would have been acting immediately, not secretly conjuring up a war scheduled for a year later. (The actual invasion began on March 19, 2003).

As I documented in my book, The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), there is plenty of evidence that Bush and Cheney had a scheme to put the US at war with Iraq even before Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001. Then Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in his own tell-all book, The Price of Loyalty, written after he was dumped from the Bush Administration, recounts that at the first meeting of Bush’s new National Security Council, the question of going to war and ousting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was on the agenda. Immediately after the 9-11 attacks, NSC anti-terrorism program czar Richard Clark also recalled Bush ordering him to “find a link” to Iraq. Meanwhile, within days, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was ordering top generals to prepare for an Iraq invasion. Gen. Tommy Franks, who was heading up the military effort in Afghanistan that was reportedly closing in on Osama Bin Laden, found the rug being pulled out from under him as Rumsfeld began shifting troops out of Afghanistan and to Kuwait in preparation for the new war.

It is nothing less than astonishing that so little news of the British investigation into the origins of the illegal Iraq War is being conveyed to Americans by this country’s corporate media—yet another example demonstrating that American journalism is dead or dying. It is even more astonishing that neither the Congress nor the president here in America is making any similar effort to put America’s leaders in the dock to tell the truth about their machinations in engineering a war that has cost the US over $1 trillion (perhaps $3 trillion eventually when debt payments and the cost of veterans care is added in), and over 4000 lives, not to mention as many as one million innocent Iraqi lives."

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com

Once again, we can see how the corporate media in this country deliberately keeps hidden important news like this. There may actually be some accountability demanded from British politicians, for their involvement in the mass-murders of a million or more civilians in Iraq, and thousands of U.S., British, and other nation's, soldiers killed in a war based on lies, conducted for greed, and maintenance of political power.

It's quite clear now that we have two right-wing parties in this country, since the new Democratic administration is continuing the illegal and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing to increase the defense budget, and has staffed all the most important economic and financial posts in it with the same people who were responsible for the current depression.

Thus, we here at A.P.R. feel it is absolutely essential that everyone with a social conscience, OPT OUT of "the system". That is, do not do business of any sort with large corporations, support the commercial, corporate media, and educate yourself and others to the current political/socio-economic situation. Only support political parties like the Green Party, that work for social/economic/political/environmental justice. Our job here at the Alaska Progressive Review, is to provide you with a quick reference, and source for material that can help you understand what is happening in our World, why, and how we can change things for the better. Spread the word!

This does take time, and effort on our part, and we occasionally need a break, to recharge, reconnect with the Natural World, and our place in the Cosmos.

So, for the next few days, we will be in the Alaska Range, heading south down the Richardson Highway,

To ski for miles and miles in and around the mountains, and maybe

even do a little climbing in these beautiful mountains. Alaska is currently in a very mild, southerly chinook flow weather regime. This weather pattern occurs more frequently now, with global warming, and is how most of our greatest increase in annual temperatures manifests. Instead of temperatures in the -15C to -40C range, this pattern brings us mild temperatures of 0 to -15C, perfect for winter recreation of all sorts. But it still can and does get much colder here, especially from now through mid-March, so we have to make most of this warmth, when it does occur. Cheers.

SIGN OF THE TIMES [and] SLIDING INTO WINTER

SIGN OF THE TIMES

I came across this article today in the Truthout news-site. Hunger is on the rise in the U.S. Because of the rising jobless rate in our low-grade, but persistent depression, brought on by the unregulated greed of the financial industry, and out-sourcing of jobs by large corporations, from this country over the past 20 years.

NEARLY ONE IN SIX CITIZENS WENT HUNGRY IN 2008

http://www.truthout.org/1117093

Washington - As the World Food Security Summit got under way in Rome Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) disclosed that nearly one in six U.S. households went hungry at some time during 2008, the highest level since it began monitoring food security levels in 1995.

Altogether, 14.6 percent of households, or some 49 million people, "had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year", according to the report, "Household Food Security in the United States, 2008".

That marked a sharp increase from the 11.1 percent of households, or 36.2 million people, who found themselves in similar straits during 2007, according to the report whose lead author predicted that the percentage was likely to be higher in 2009 due to the ripple effects of the financial crisis that erupted 14 months ago.

Among the 17 million households that experienced hunger – or "food insecurity", as the report referred to it - during 2008, about one-third suffered "very low food security", meaning that the amount of food of at least some household members was reduced and their normal eating patterns were substantially disrupted. Such households experienced such disruptions for at least a few days during seven or eight months of the year.

The other two-thirds were able to obtain enough food to avoid substantial disruptions by using a number of coping strategies, such as eating less varied diets, participating in government food and nutrition assistance programmes, or obtaining food from community food pantries or emergency kitchens.

And the number of households in which children, as well as adults, were subject to "very low food security" rose steeply – from 323,000 in 2007 to 506,000 last year, according to the report.

President Barack Obama released a statement from China, his latest stop on a week-long swing through Asia, which called the latest findings "unsettling".

"This trend was already painfully clear in many communities across our nation, where food stamp applications are surging and food pantry shelves are emptying," he said.

"It is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year. Our children's ability to grow, learn, and meet their full potential – and therefore our future competitiveness as a nation – depends on regular access to healthy meals," he said, noting a number of steps taken by his administration to "revers(e) the trend of rising hunger."

Of the 49 million people who faced hunger on at least one occasion last year, 16.7 million were children, according to the report. That was 4.2 million more than in 2007 and the highest on record since 1995.

"The data released today is not surprising," said David Beckmann, the president of Bread for the World, a national anti-hunger group that also carries out programmes in poor countries. "What should really shock us is that almost one in four children in our country lives on the brink of hunger."

Feeding America, the largest U.S. food-relief organisation, said the USDA's latest statistics squared with its own experience in local communities where it runs some 200 food banks that feed more than 25 million people each year.

"It is tragic that so many people in this nation of plenty don't have access to adequate amounts of nutritious food," said Vicki Escarra, the group's president and CEO.

"Although these new numbers are staggering, it should be noted that they reflect the state of the nation one year ago, in 2008," she said. "Since then, the economy has significantly weakened, and there are likely many more people struggling with hunger than this report states."

She noted that some of the group's food banks, which supply food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency feeding centres, have reported increases of more than 50 percent in requests for emergency food aid over the past year.

"National socio-economic indicators, including the escalating unemployment rate and the number of working poor, lead us to believe that the number of people facing hunger will continue to rise significantly over the coming year," Escarra said.

The official unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent last month for the first time since the early 1980s, while former Labour Secretary Robert Reich estimated the "unofficial" unemployment rate – which includes people who have given up looking for work or who are under-employed – to be as high as 20 percent.

"Research on previous recessions indicates that people who fall into the grips of poverty in a time of recession do not recover financially," Escarra said. "Many of those people are likely to be in need of our services now or in the future."

Food insecurity, according to the new report, correlated closely to households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line of some 22,050 dollars for a family of four, single-parent households, and African-American and Hispanic households.

It found that food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas then in suburbs and was most prevalent in the southeastern part of the country.

Under Obama, the government has significantly increased funding for food stamps, emergency food aid, and school lunch programmes. In his statement, Obama said he hoped to provide more support next year.

"The survey suggested that things could be much worse but for the fact that we have extensive food assistance programmes," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday. "This is a great opportunity to put a spotlight on this problem."

Beckmann agreed. "The recession has made the problem of hunger worse, and it has also made it more visible," he said. "Increased public awareness and the administration's commitment give me hope. To end hunger, our leaders need to strengthen nutrition programmes and provide steady jobs that allow parents to escape the cycle of poverty and feed their families for years to come."

We here at A.P.R. see nothing on the horizon that would improve the jobless situation in this country. No real effort has been made by the Obama administration to restore important regulatory powers by the federal government of the financial industry first started by the F.D.R. administration in the late 1930s (to prevent another financial melt-down), but gutted ten years ago (during the Clinton administration!). The incredibly blatant taxpayer robbery of 700 billion dollars, with even more proposed, to prop up the same greedy, short-sighted financial institutions that have caused a global recession, continues apace. No significant federal efforts for job growth have been undertaken.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

You've seen this quote before here in a previous post. Why is our government spending two to three billion dollars a day on illegal, immoral, and destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Wars that were based on lies. Think what that money could be doing in this country, and others. For just 40 billion dollars, or 20 days of war, clean water could be provided GLOBALLY to the people who needed it. What do you think would do more to promote U.S. national security, 20 days of war on defenseless countries, or that?

Federal jobs programmes to develop and implement renewable energy sources on a large scale, shore up our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, etc.), and develop high-speed rail links between all our major cities could employ millions gainfully, for many years. And help combat global warming.

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered......True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring......A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Maybe MLK's words have come true. Is it too late?

SLIDING INTO WINTER











This past monday, while running errands around the UAF campus on a cold, dim early winter day,






I came across these inspiring, caring UAF students, camped out in the middle of campus. It was about -32C (-25F) overnight, warming to about -25C by day, and they had been there for four days. Trying to raise money for local shelters and awareness about homelessness, in our community, and all over. It's hard staying warm, just standing around like that! Our hat is off to them, and contributions too. Good on 'ya!

We had some time the following day for a short jaunt into the backcountry. The White Mountains, 70 Km or so northeast of Fairbanks beckoned. This is where the trail system that links a nice set of cabins is located, that many nordic skiers, dog-mushers, and snowmachiners go into throughout the winter.

We had had a nice 16 cm snow-dump at the Chena Ridge Research Centre last week, and we wanted to see how much occurred in the Whites, and how the trails were. When we got to the trailhead at 1pm, things were looking up! I'd estimate a good 30-40 cm snow base here. It sure made for beautiful scenery on the usually ugly black spruce. Because these trails run through the higher terrain at 800 to 1200 metres, when we have a cold-weather pattern, they are often in the clouds. Rime ice builds up thickly on all the tree branches, this combined with the snow from last week, made for quite a nice scene.

We wasted no time getting up the trail to Lee's Cabin, 12 Km southeast from the trailhead on the Elliott Highway. Homer and Mattie sure had a great time running in the -28C cold on the snowmachine-packed trail. I couldn't go as fast as them in that cold, slow, snow, on my waxless classic skis. Still, there was some decent glide on the downhill sections, since the trail was packed down.






The view looking north, about halfway to Lee's Cabin, toward Wickersham Dome shows the nice, thick snow base. I'm guessing they must have picked up double the amount of snow last week, that Fairbanks received. These trails are in prime shape now for any winter adventuring, good to know!



It took me a slow 90 min. to go just the 12 Km in to Lee's cabin. Just near there, the trail forks, this branch, heading east into the heart of the Whites, takes you into the network of cabins in the higher mountains, to the east. We'll be getting in there later this season, for sure.

Sunset comes by 4pm now, and was quite nice, with all the new snow. After a quick food/energy break near the cabin, it was time to head back. Since it was clear, that meant it would be getting much colder than -28C soon, so we were not going to take our time. I had to stop several times to whirl my arms, to force blood into my fingers, since they were getting cold and numb at times.

It took us another 90 minutes to make the return trip back to the trailhead. Homer sure has our admiration. For his advanced canid age of 13, he hasn't slowed down at all. He ran the entire 24 km, more even, since he kept going back and forth, so he probably ran 35-40 km, with no sign of tiring. Keep it up! Mattie of course was just going wild, she must have run 50 Km or more. She never shows any sign of tiring until she runs at least 90-100 Km.

We got back to the trailhead just as darkness was setting in. I managed to snap this picture with my ice buildup just in time.

I tried something new this time. I've seen UAF ski racers use these respirator face masks before when training in the deep cold of -20C or colder. These pre-warm the air above freezing as you inhale.

Inside our lungs, the surface area of air-exchange is very large, and with bitter cold air, a great amount of heat can be lost when breathing hard. Years of this can sometimes make the lungs more sensitive as well, inducing asthma in some people. To prevent that, I thought I'd give the mask a try. It worked great. Normally when working hard in the deep cold, I cough a little, not at all this time. And, after our 3 1/2 hour trip, my lungs felt just as good as when we started. I think this will be mandatory for all my runs and skis when temperatures drop below -20C. It's always nice to find some new way of adapting to the cold, so that we can be as active as we like. Cheers.

WHY WE ARE HERE [and] THE ONLY ONE

WHY WE ARE HERE

In part of our previous post, the "Getting Boulderised" section, we may have mislead you to think we didn't like living in Fairbanks, or that it is an inherently regressive, dark place.

This is definitely not the case, so here are a few reasons why the staff of the Alaska Progressive Review has chosen to remain here, continuing the furthest north stand for peace and justice!

First and foremost, is the presence of the University of Alaska, main campus, situated on the western edge of Fairbanks. Billed as "America's Arctic University", it has over 13,000 students, and most of the common degree programs one associates with a major public university.

The large student body and associated researchers, professors, and support staff, along with former students, does exert a significant, and beneficial impact on the Fairbanks North Star Borough (boroughs are what counties are called in Alaska, and the FNSB is home to about 100,000 people, while the city of Fairbanks has about 45,000).




UAF is one of the leaders in Arctic environmental, biological, and cultural research globally. For example, many of the authors of the definitive scientific assessment of global warming, the U.N. sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), http://www.ipcc.ch/,
are researchers at UAF. Atmospheric scientists, climatologists, statisticians, glaciologists, biologists, and many others.




Your lead author is privileged to be studying there, and finishing my M.S. in natural resources management/forestry, conducting research into global warming's effects on future Alaska wildfire seasons.

Like many public universities, UAF often sponsors thought-provoking and conscience-raising events:

Presentation and Book-signing:
The New GI Resistance
Dahr Jamail
Sunday November 15
Schaible Auditorium (Bunnell Bldg, UAF) 7PM - book signing to follow

Independent journalist and author of "The Will to Resist," DahrJamail, will share stories from the growing number of active dutymilitary personnel who are refusing to participate in what they see ascriminal wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. These GI's arefinding comfort in the discomfort of truth despite the reprimand theyface for their dissent, and many come away from their armed servicededicated to working toward a rapid and responsible end to the occupations.

Jamail's Alaska tour is being sponsored by the UA Foundation Gene Sharp Lectureship on Nonviolent Action and he will be visiting all three UA campuses. Jamail's visit to Fairbanks is being hosted by the UAFairbanks Coalition for Peace and Justice, the Alaska Peace Center, North Star Veterans for Peace, and the Unitarian UniversalistFellowship of Fairbanks. For more information about Dahr and to seehis work, please visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com.


And, we even do have a local peace group, as mentioned above, the Fairbanks Coalition For Peace and Justice, https://lists.uaf.edu:8025/mailman/listinfo/fairbankspeace-l

I have helped staff their booth at our annual Tanana Valley Fair each August, and participated with them in candle-light vigils on the first and second anniversaries of the illegal, and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign country of Iraq, a country not threatening this one. Which has cost the lives of at least a million innocent civilians, there, and over 5000 U.S. soldiers, and destroyed their country.

That UAF would sponsor, much less allow, Dahr Jamail, to give his presentation on-campus speaks highly for it, and is the major reason why the A.P.R. remains in Fairbanks!

And although our progressive community is more widely dispersed, and smaller, than places like Missoula, MT, or Boulder, CO, it is present, under the radar, so to speak, of the dominant oil industry/military power centres here. One significant sign that the Fairbanks progressive community is slowly growing and increasing in prominence, is that a new cooperative natural food market, is well on it's way to fruition. http://fairbankscoop.wordpress.com/

This will be a welcome addition to Fairbanks, as natural food stores, wherever they are, serve as a nucleus for progressive culture, in addition to providing healthy, sustainable foods and other products.




Winters are cold here, there is no doubt about that. Our average high and low at the Fairbanks airport in January is -19C/-28C (-2F/-18F). And the sun only nudges 2 degrees above the horizon for 3 1/2 hours in the few weeks around the winter solstice. Producing beautiful lighting effects, on our snow-draped boreal forest landscape.

The long winters, sometimes cold (but not always, there are warm spells where temperatures warm up to near freezing between our periods of deep cold), produce a snowpack that gives us some of the best conditions in the World for nordic skiing. A pursuit we at A.P.R. avidly enjoy, and pursue every chance we get.

Nordic skiing trails were developed around the UAF campus as early as the 1930s. There are about 25 km of trails there now, groomed and set for both skating and classic skiing. Across town, just to the east of downtown Fairbanks, lies Birch Hill, the larger nordic skiing centre. It has a world-class set of about 35 Km of trails, and races at different times of the season attract athletes from all over the World. This is probably the second main reason why we like living here!

Today in fact, was the first day I had off, when our snowpack was deep enough for good conditions at Birch Hill.

So, I had to get out and skate about 25 Km, and then switch to my classic skis (the snow was a little stiff today, so the glide for skating was not as good as it could be, at the mild temperature of only -8C), for another 18 Km or so.

The trails at Birch hill wind their way predominantly through stands of birch trees, intermixed with white spruce, and black spruce on the permafrosty north-facing aspects. Some days I'll skate or classic ski 50-70 Km here, when the conditions are supportive.

We have nice, locally-dominated races as well. In late March every year, a 50 Km race called the Sonot Kkhazoot, starts downtown on the Chena River. We all go 10 Km up the Chena to a large hill, ascend that, then ski most of the trails in the Birch Hill nordic ski area, then descend back to the Chena, and slide back in to the start.




There are usually several hundred racers each year for this, and I've done it three times, getting a little faster each time (I'm still taking lessons, and probably will be for the rest of my life!). And since we have much longer days in March, and usually, warmer temperatures, it is a great time to be out enjoying a fast ski with hundreds of others!

And, in summer, all of the trails by UAF and at Birch Hill, serve as running and hiking trails, which we liberally take advantage of. We also have a very strong and large running community in Fairbanks, www.runningclubnorth.org, which we interact with quite a bit, running in many of the races, and in our annual Equinox marathon.

So, we do have some progressive culture in Fairbanks, with more on the way, along with an environment that is conducive for outdoor recreation of almost every conceivable sort. To say nothing of being within a few hours of all the other wilderness activities Alaska has to offer.

THE ONLY ONE

As you may already know, the U.S. is the only one of the 25 industrialised nations without some kind of national health coverage. A.P.R.'s take on the Obama administrations attempt at "health care reform" can best be summed up by this article, from the Counterpunch web-site. http://counterpunch.org/demoro11102009.html

Another Big Bail Out
The Truth About the House Health Care Bill
By ROSE ANN DeMORO

Of all the torrent of words that followed House passage of its version of healthcare reform legislation in early November, perhaps the most misleading were those comparing it to enactment of Social Security and Medicare.

Sadly no. Social Security and Medicare were both federal programs guaranteeing respectively pensions and health care for our nation's seniors, paid for and administered by the federal government with public oversight and public accountability.

While the House bill, and its Senate counterpart, do have several important reform components, along with many weaknesses, neither one comes close to the guarantees and the expansion of health and income security provided by Social Security or Medicare.

By contrast, if the central premise of Social Security and Medicare was a federal guarantee of health and retirement security, the main provision of the bills in Congress is a mandate requiring most Americans without health coverage to buy private insurance.

In other words, the principle beneficiary is not Americans' health, but the bottom line of the insurance industry which stands to harvest tens of billions of dollars in additional profits ordered by the federal government. Or as Rep. Eric Massa of New York put it on the eve of the House vote, "at the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period."

Further, while Social Security and Medicare, two of the most important reforms in American history, were both significant expansions of public protection, the House bill actually reduces public protection for a substantial segment of the population, women, with its unconscionable rollback of reproductive rights in the anti-abortion amendment.

Why then so much cheerleading by many progressive and liberal legislators, columnists, and activists?

* Passage of the bill was a clear defeat for the Republican opposition and those on the right who have so mischaracterized what boils down to modest reform that looks more like a "robust" version of the Medicare prescription drug benefit or the state children's health initiative.
* Proponents of the bill, starting in the White House and running through the Democratic leadership in Congress, with the assistance and support of many in labor and liberal and progressive constituency groups, have so lowered expectations on healthcare reform that with eyes wide shut they can call this a sweeping victory.

To be sure there are commendable provisions in the House bill that bear note. Among the most important are:

Expansion of Medicaid to millions of low income adults.
Reduction of the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare drug coverage law making drug costs more affordable for many seniors.

Increased federal funding for community health programs, such as home visits for nurses and social workers to low income families.

Additional regulation of the insurance industry, mostly targeted to people who are presently without coverage rather than those with existing health plans. Those include limits on insurers ability to drop sick enrollees or refuse to sell policies to people with prior health problems, extending the age that dependent children can be on their parents' plan, and repeal of the anti-trust exemption for insurers.

Extending the same health benefit tax benefits available to married couples to domestic partners.

A progressive tax to help pay the bill through a surcharge on wealthy earners and required contributions from large employers, in sharp contrast with the Senate proposal to tax health benefits on misnamed "Cadillac" plans, comprehensive coverage available to many union members, for example.

But the acclaim now flowing from some quarters would have been better deserved had these provisions been enacted on their own -- not accompanied by the many shortcomings of the legislation. To cite a few:

Healthcare will remain unaffordable for many Americans. The bill does not do nearly enough to control skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital costs. Indeed, by various estimates, with no effective limits on the insurance industry's price gouging, out-of-pocket costs for premiums, deductibles and other fees by some estimates with eat up from 15 to 19 percent of family incomes by several accounts.

No meaningful reform of the rampant insurance denials of medical treatment the insurers don't want to pay for.

Little assistance for individuals and families who presently have employer-sponsored health plans and face frequent erosion of their coverage and health security. No help for the healthcare cost-shifting from employers to employees.

Minimal expansion of consumer choice. The much debated public plan option will be available only to about 2 percent of people under age 65, mostly those now not covered who buy insurance on their own (it may or may not be expanded in 2015). Further, no additional plan options for those in the many markets dominated by one or two private plans, and no additional choice of doctor or hospital within existing plans.

The new limits on abortion extended to poor women.

Ultimately, the combination of the mandate to buy insurance, federal subsidies to low income families to purchase private plans, failure to adequately control insurance prices or crack down on the abuse of insurance denials make the House bill -- and its Senate counterpart -- look a lot like a massive bailout for the private insurance industry.

Don't be misled by the howling from insurance industry which has been spending some $1.4 million a day to steer the direction of legislation. They would have preferred the status quo, but will be more than happy to count the increased revenues coming their way.

As Rep. Dennis Kucinich said on the House floor, "we cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem."

While some people will have improved access, the final accounting will be an even firmer private insurance grip on our healthcare system, with the U.S. remaining the only industrialized nation which barters our health for private profit.

Months ago, the Obama administration pre-determined this outcome by ruling out the most comprehensive, most cost effective, most humane reform, single payer, or an expanded and improved Medicare for all. Single payer proponents were shut out of White House forums, blocked from most hearings in the Senate, and single payer amendments stripped from the final House bill. Yet, through grassroots pressure, single-payer advocates forced consideration by the House of an improved Medicare for all until the very end.

But nurses and other single payer proponents who have heroically fought for this reform for years will continue the campaign, next in the Senate, where single payer amendments are expected to be introduced. The scene will also shift to state capitols, where vibrant single payer movements remain active and will escalate.

Proponents of comprehensive reform will never be silent, and never stop working for the real change we most desperately need.

Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the California Nurses Association.

I think everyone knows someone with health care horror stories. My brother Greg in San Diego had a bad surfing accident in 2006, when his surfboard shot up out of the water from a large wave. As it came down, and he came up from the water, the skeg sliced open the side of his head, severing his temporal artery. He would have bled to death, but fortunately, lifeguards were nearby, and were able to keep direct pressure on the wound until paramedics arrived.

His whole ordeal, the ambulance ride, vascular surgery, etc.. cost over $16,000. The charges on his bill were incredible for things like the pain-killers, etc. He doesn't have health insurance. It seems they charge more to people without insurance! Now he has to pay an inflated amount monthly for this unfortunate accident, for many years.

Back when I was 25, in February, 1990, and still learning to alpine ski, I had my first of five near-death experiences, on beautiful Mt. Hood here, near Portland OR.

Whilst skiing at the Mt. Hood Meadows ski area on a day where the snow was very icy, I got out of control and flew off a ledge, hitting a tree in mid-air, and descending through the trees 10-15 metres. Unconscious for a few hours, my first memory returning was laying ensconced in blankets on a sled, while the ski patrol peered down at me. Had some other skiers not heard my weak moaning emanating from a grove of mountain hemlocks beneath a ledge, and investigated, I surely would have froze overnight. This was followed by a 150 Km ambulance ride, x-rays and consultations with a plastic surgeon to plan the fix of my caved-in eye socket around the left eye, and then an arduous five-hour operation, whereby tantalum metal plates were used to re-shape the orbital socket (which also saved the vision in that eye, it had been made blurry by the accident).

Remember, this was in 1990. The total for all this, the ambulance ride, emergency room exam, plastic surgeon consultations, and the operation/hospital stay was $13,000. Of which, I only had to pay my Blue Cross calendar-year deductible of $250.00. Because they covered emergencies fully, at that time. Now, in 1990, federal salaries, and probably most private-sector salaries, were about 1/2 to 2/3 what they are now.

What do you think would be the total for this event, if it happened today? I guarantee you it would be at least 6 to 8 times what it cost in 1990. Even though wages generally have not even doubled since then. So you can imagine the plight of people without any health insurance coverage, or those who have serious diseases like cancer or need organ transplants, that insurance won't fully (or at all) cover. Medical bills like these are the major reason for personal bankruptcy in the U.S.

Is it really ethical, and healthy for us as a nation, to require health care to be a for-profit concern? What do you think? If not, join with progressive movements to press for single-payer health coverage for all, like in all the other industrialised nations.

IDENTITY CORRECTION [and] GETTING BOULDERISED

IDENTITY CORRECTION

Your lead editor first became of the Yes Men a few years ago, after reading of some of their interesting, and important performances.

What are the Yes Men? A band of merry hipsters, hundreds in number, of indeterminate gender, who go around posing as different important figures in large corporations or supporting government agencies. They do some of these performances at large conferences, and present factual, yet completely contrary and/or outrageously outspoken information to what the real figures would present. Highlighting corporate excesses, hypocrisy, and the destructiveness of our unregulated capitalist system, which if left unchecked, will poison the planet and bring catastrophic environmental changes.
http://theyesmen.org/

In their words, they perform:

Identity Correction

Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.

and:

The Yes Men agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, ask questions, and then smuggle out the stories of their hijinks to provide a public glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of business. In other words, the Yes Men are team players... but they play for the opposing team.


http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/09/entering-circle-shamanic-thoughts-and.html

We first alerted you to one of their hijinks in our 9/20/09 article, "Shamanic Thoughts [and] We're Screwed!" Whereby they and a group of collaborating activists created a fictional New York Post, describing a real official N.Y. City report on the effects global warming would have upon it. They then printed HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of copies, and distributed them in NYC! It caused quite a stir, since most people initially thought they were the real New York Post's for that day. Quite a service, of time and money, to put information out that our corporate media suppresses. A.P.R. applauds their devotion to performing this important public service. And we'd like to describe a few of their other performances, which can be found here:
http://theyesmen.org/hijinks

This one is, we think, the most outrageous, funny, but also, downright creepy, from 2007:
http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/vivoleum

Here is what went down:

Exxon's Climate-Victim Candles
Overview
Impostors posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada's largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today.

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the major highlight of this year's conference, which had 20,000 attendees. In it, the "NPC rep" was expected to deliver the long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, who is also the chair of the study.

In the actual speech, the "NPC rep" announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.

"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant," said "NPC rep" "Shepard Wolff" (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.

"Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production," noted "Exxon rep" "Florian Osenberg" (Yes Man Mike Bonanno). "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left."

The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit "commemorative candles" supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an "Exxon janitor" who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles after his death, and all became crystal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who, still in character as "Shepard Wolff," explained to them the rationale for Vivoleum.

"We've got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells. Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us."

"We're not talking about killing anyone," added the "NPC rep." "We're talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That's only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel."

Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada's oil sands, along with "liquid coal," are keystones of Bush's Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world's worst carbon emitters. The production of "liquid coal" has twice the carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.

"If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is," Bonanno said. "While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits, they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about climate change. This is a crime against humanity."

"Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge of the flock," said "Shepard Wolff" (Bichlbaum). "Exxon has done more damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?"

Amazing, and inspiring! Then there was this one, where they posed as Halliburton officials at a "Catastrophic Loss" conference in Florida, in 2006 :

Halliburton solves global warming!
Overview

SurvivaBalls save managers from abrupt climate change
An advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even when climate change makes life as we know it impossible.

"The SurvivaBall is designed to protect the corporate manager no matter what Mother Nature throws his or her way," said Fred Wolf, a Halliburton representative who spoke today at the Catastrophic Loss conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida. "This technology is the only rational response to abrupt climate change," he said to an attentive and appreciative audience.

Most scientists believe global warming is certain to cause an accelerating onslaught of hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, etc. and that a world-destroying disaster is increasingly possible. For example, Arctic melt has slowed the Gulf Stream by 30% in just the last decade; if the Gulf Stream stops, Europe will suddenly become just as cold as Alaska. Global heat and flooding events are also increasingly possible.

In order to head off such catastrophic scenarios, scientists agree we must reduce our carbon emissions by 70% within the next few years. Doing that would seriously undermine corporate profits, however, and so a more forward-thinking solution is needed.

At today's conference, Wolf and a colleague demonstrated three SurvivaBall mockups, and described how the units will sustainably protect managers from natural or cultural disturbances of any intensity or duration. The devices - looking like huge inflatable orbs - will include sophisticated communications systems, nutrient gathering capacities, on-board medical facilities, and a daunting defense infrastructure to ensure that the corporate mission will not go unfulfilled even when most human life is rendered impossible by catastrophes or the consequent epidemics and armed conflicts.

"It's essentially a gated community for one," said Wolf.

Dr. Northrop Goody, the head of Halliburton's Emergency Products Development Unit, showed diagrams and videos describing the SurvivaBall's many features. "Much as amoebas link up into slime molds when threatened, SurvivaBalls also fulfill a community function. After all, people need people," noted Goody as he showed an artist's rendition of numerous SurvivaBalls linking up to form a managerial aggregate with functional differentiation, metaphorically dancing through the streets of Houston, Texas.

The conference attendees peppered the duo with questions. One asked how the device would fare against terrorism, another whether the array of embedded technologies might make the unit too cumbersome; a third brought up the issue of the unit's cost feasibility. Wolf and Goody assured the audience that these problems and others were being addressed.

"The SurvivaBall builds on Halliburton's reputation as a disaster and conflict industry innovator," said Wolf. "Just as the Black Plague led to the Renaissance and the Great Deluge gave Noah a monopoly of the animals, so tomorrow's catastrophes could well lead to good - and industry must be ready to seize that good."

Goody also noted that Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society was set to employ the SurvivaBall as part of its Corporate Sustenance (R) program. Another of Cousteau's CSR programs involves accepting a generous sponsorship from the Dow Chemical Corporation.

Their latest escapade is getting them in some hot water, specifically, a lawsuit against them filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, because of:
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/10/20-0

The Yes Men Pull Off Prank Claiming US Chamber of Commerce Had Changed Its Stance on Climate Change

The business community got a shock on Monday when its leading advocacy group appeared to make a startling announcement. A statement purporting to come from the Chamber of Commerce said the group had dropped its opposition to congressional climate change legislation and would now even support taxing carbon emissions. The news wires quickly picked up the story, and within minutes it was being reported on the websites of outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post. It also made its way onto cable news, including the Fox Business Network. It was all a prank pulled off by the Yes Men.

We here at A.P.R. are inspired and captivated by these activists, using creativity, and real, factual information, to shine a light on hypocrisy and publicise important issues. They have a movie out, which we have not seen yet (it probably won't show in Fairbanks...), but will at our first opportunity. http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

Visit their web-site, http://theyesmen.org/, see the movie if you can, and join us in encouraging and supporting their highly important activities!

GETTING BOULDERISED

A few months ago, I was asked if I wanted to attend a winter weather forecasting workshop in Boulder, Colorado, put on by the Meteorological Services, Canada, in conjunction with our NOAA/National Weather Service. I was initially not enthusiastic, as it meant I would only have five days back at the Chena Ridge Research Centre with Mattie and Homer, after returning from my California/Florida trip.

However, once I got there, I was in for a treat. Boulder is probably the original "latte town", home to the large, University of Colorado, main campus. This is a disparaging term some conservatives use for progressive, public-university dominated cities like Boulder, CO, Missoula, MT, Berkeley, CA, Eugene, OR, Athens, GA, Burlington VT, and many others. Because they try and polarise the more blue-collar types outside of them in their states, to make them think the people of these college-towns are selfish and elitist. When it is just the opposite.

"Latte Towns" all share these characteristics: A large public university is located immediately in or closely adjacent to a small city. The large body of educated people associated with it who live, study, and continue living in it after graduating (if they can find jobs!) shifts the prevailing culture so that they become more progressive, sustainable communities. Focusing local activism on environmental, and socio-economic/political issues. This also leads to large diversity in cultural activities, concerts, art galleries, funky, interesting multi-ethnic restaurants, and a stronger sense of community. Unfortunately, Fairbanks doesn't qualify as one, because our University of Alaska campus is on it's outskirts, and so it's influence is limited on the prevailing military/oil industry/tourism culture here. North Dallas we like to call it sometimes, alas.

It's always refreshing then to take a break from taking a stand for peace/justice in Fairbanks, and spend time in a place were we feel culturally at ease and supported. I still feel that Missoula, MT is the place I felt culturally most at home with. As it is a hotbed of environmental and political activism, with enough wilderness and outdoor activities available close at hand, for quick refuge from the stresses of modern living. My years there in 1990-98 are what really helped expand my social conscience, meeting so many concerned, and active people engaged in meaningful activities to promote peace and justice.

The biggest drawback to living in, or wanting to live in a "latte town" is this: Because they are special, sustainable, and progressive, with a strong sense of community, more and more people want to live there. This drives up prices, leads to rapid growth, and a very tight job market. Which is why I had to leave Missoula, in 1998. While living in Missoula, around 1992-93, it became apparent that this was happening there. I used to tell people then, "Oh God, Missoula is going to become Boulderised!".

And it did, by 1996, the large beautiful Victorian houses on the sugar-maple lined streets near the Univ. of Montana were selling for 600K. In 1990, when I first arrived, one could be had for 80K! And the population had almost doubled there between 1990 and 2000.

I remembered this when I arrived in Boulder, thinking it would be just a massively crowded and incredibly expensive place. I was pleasantly surprised. It still is three times larger than Missoula, almost as large as Anchorage, with a population close to 200,000. And it has heavy traffic, and numerous noisy freeway-like expressways. However, it became expensive in those idyllic Mork and Mindy days of the late 1970s-early 1980s, so much of the development was done with some forethought. Instead of single-family homes on large lots, much of it was in the form of condos and townhomes, linked by bike trails. So I could run to different areas of the city, even up to the foothills, without having to be on the busy streets for very long. And, needless to say, there were multitudes of good restaurants, brew-pubs, and interesting ethnic stores in the downtown area.


There is a beautiful park on the southwest portion of town, up against the base of the Rocky Mountains, called Chautaqua Park. Containing many KM of trails which can take you from the base at 1900 metres, all the way up to 3000 metres or so, into the forested mountains. Anomalously warm weather greeted us all on our first day there (imagine that!), sunday 10/18, with temperatures near 30C, about 8C above average.

It gradually cooled off after that, and after the first week our our workshop, I had to get on those trails! On that sat., the 24th, I did a nice 30 KM semi-fast pack where I had this picture taken. Running about 12-14 KM on the flats and downhills, and walking the steeper uphills, due to the altitude. It was fairly warm still though, 18-20C, except at the very end of the day, when an upper-trough came through, and westerly winds of 120-140 KPH came roaring through, and I thought I'd meet my end from flying tree limbs.

Sunday the 25th though dawned calmer, but cooler. I decided I had to see Rocky Mountain NP. http://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm

From lush valleys to craggy peaks

This living showcase of the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, with elevations ranging from 8,000 feet in the wet, grassy valleys to 14,259 feet at the weather-ravaged top of Longs Peak, provides visitors with opportunities for countless breathtaking experiences and adventures.

I had to go through Estes Park first, to get there, a large town at it's base, with apparently very rapid growth, judging by all the newer condos/townhouses I saw there. I drove in to the Storm Pass Trailhead on the Bear Lake Road (trailhead elevation 3000 metres!), and hiked about 8 km in to Emerald Lake, here to the left, at 3500 metres! An amazingly beautiful spot, the equal of anything we have here in Alaska! It was cold and windy here, about -5C with a stiff 40 kph west wind. The sun would come out between snow showers and light up the crags briefly. Had to be fast with the camera!


Leaving the park late in the afternoon, I drove south on beautiful CO Highways 7 and 72 through Meeker Park, Nederland, and Coal Creek Canyon, at elevations of 2500-3000 metres, returning to Boulder at 5 pm in the evening. There had been a little bit of snow that day, and I had to get in some more trail time there at Chatauqua Park. This is looking back north over Boulder, with the front range of the Rockies to the West. Man, it would sure be something to live in one of those nice old houses, a few blocks from this park!


One of the main draws to the trails around Chautaqua is that they provide access to the Flatirons, these large, imposing rocks rising 100-200 metres vertically. Rock-climbing and hiking around them are highly sought-after. They were always beautiful in the different lighting, at different times of the day. I just spent another 90 min. or so racing around those trails that sunday, getting in some last-minute pictures, before darkness set in.





The highlight of my time there, beside learning very useful and important information about winter weather forecasting, and meeting and interacting with the Canadians, was our big snow storm from 10/27 to 10/29. We all saw it coming in the numerical forecast models for several days before-hand, in class, and it was the topic of much debate. We had a snow-forecast contest. Of all the students, my forecast of 51 cm for the event was closest. But we received 60 cm! Here is right outside our building that the conference is in, thu. morning 10/29 as the snow was starting to wind down. Beautiful, and refreshing. Temperatures started out near freezing intitially on the evening of 10/27, and the snow was heavy and slushy. But by mid-day of wed. 10/28, it was -2 to -3C, and the snow was a nice light powder, with a 14:1 snow to liquid ratio.

My classmate Charles Creese, from Trenton, Ontario, and I knew we had to make the most of this. We rented nordic waxless classic skis that wed., and after class that day had a beautiful night ski around the trails in Chautaqua Park in 45 cm of powder. The next day, thu., after class, there was 15 cm more, and we hit the trail a little earlier, around 1730, when there was more daylight, and got some great pictures in:














All that heavy wet snow, followed by the powder, was caked on to those huge Flatiron rocks, and was draped over the Ponderosa Pines and Douglas Fir. Some of them had torn limbs from the heavy weight of all that snow.

'We skied in just about 8 km on the Mesa Trail, then took off our skis and walked a little further up a steep rocky section, where we found some great evening photo-ops, around 1815. It was getting dark then by 1830, so we had to act fast.

The dim lighting and heavy snow was really interesting on those rocks, as well as the heavily-loaded trees.


Almost surreal-looking, to be sure. Those rocks are 200 metres high. A northerly light breeze at times caused a few avalanches off the trees, one of these was really powerful. The wind gust coming from it (it was about 20 metres away from us, thank god!) was quite strong. Good thing it didn't come down on us, it would have been painful.

While we were there, a manic-looking lad of about 20 or so came down the trail. He had seen a mountain lion a kilometre back, and they stared each other down, about 15 metres apart! Fortunately, the lion retreated, they rarely attack adults. If one appears imminent, the suggestion is to make yourself look as large as possible by extending your arms and jumping up and down. But our Univ. of Colorado student didn't have to do that.

All in all, visiting Boulder, CO and all it's "Latte Town" amenities was highly refreshing, and that area of Colorado, which I had never before seen, is now one that I look forward to returning to. As well, our friends Matt Klick and Lalida Crawford had just moved to Denver last summer, and I got to visit them in their beautiful, interesting, funky, Berkely neighborhood on the northwest side of the city. It's mix of nice older homes and good restaurants in close proximity reminded me favourably of West Seattle, or parts of Southeast Portland. Good stuff!

CAPITALISM'S DIRTY WARS/(SECRETS)

It has been many years since your lead editor has come across information, which is so shattering, and important, as to fully capture my attention for many days. And which requires sharing, to as wide an audience as possible. Not just through this article, but in my day to day life, interacting with friends, and other interested people.

What is this information? It is a book, published in 2007, The Shock Doctrine-The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, written by a Canadian, London-trained economist, Naomi Klein.

http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256613012&sr=8-1

Here are what a few leading progressive voices have to say about it:

"Naomi Klein is an investigative reporter like no other. She roams the continents with eyes wide open and her brain operating at full speed, finding connections we never thought of, and patterns which eluded us. This is a brilliant book, one of the most important I have read in a long time." HOWARD ZINN

"Naomi Klein is one of the most important new voices in American journalism today. She has turned globalism inside out, and given us all a new way of looking at our seemingly unending disaster in Iraq, and a new way of understanding why we got there." SEYMOUR M. HERSH

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x369448

Here is the book description, from the publisher:

"At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq's civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves. Immediately following September 11, the Bush administration quietly outsources the running of "The War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater. After a powerful tsunami devastates the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts. New Orlean's residents, still scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals, and schools, will never be reopened.

These events are examples of what Naomi Klein calls "the shock doctrine": the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks-wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters-to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don't succeed in wiping out all resistance, a third is employed: that of the electrode in the prison cell or of the Taser gun.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Disaster capitalism-the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies that are reeling from shock-did not begin with September 11, 2001. In this courageous new book, Klein traces the intellectual origins of disaster capitalism back to the University of Chicago's economics department under Milton Friedman, whose influence is still felt around the World. The Shock Doctrine draws new and surprising connections among economic policy, "shock and awe" warfare and the covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation [begun in the 1950's, eds.] that shaped the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

As Klein shows how the deliberate use of the shock doctrine produced World-changing events, from Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973 to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, she tells a story radically different from the one we usually hear. Once again, Naomi Klein has written a book that will reframe the debate."

When I was in Mr. Wilson's fourth grade class, at Euclid Elementary, in San Diego, in September, 1973, we had a "current events" period every friday, for an hour. Each student was required to bring a newspaper or magazine article, read parts of it aloud, and moderate a discussion with the rest of the students about it. I always liked that part of our school day. On 12 September, 1973, I brought in a very small, one-column article, of about three paragraphs, from the San Diego Union, our main newspaper. It was entitled "Coup in Chile", and briefly described the chaotic and terrifying events of the previous day, which occurred, in that poor country (and which Naomi Klein documents in great detail, in The Shock Doctrine).

I was too young to really understand then what had happened there, and why, and my mother, who for many years was an anti-war/peace activist, tried to explain to me. Over the course of the years to come, as I grew into adulthood, my mother kept me abreast of what was happening in South and Central America. How vicious, fascist, right-wing governments took and maintained power, with aid and support from the U.S., in the 1970s and 1980s. These governments tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of suspected "leftists" in their respective countries, people whose only "crimes" were that of supporting trade unions, worker's rights, ending torture, and working for basic human rights (or even just being indigenous). She used to give me copies of Amnesty International reports from people who had survived imprisonment and unspeakable torture, in these countries.

Particularly vicious were the governments of the "Southern Cone" of Latin America, in the 1970s and '80s, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. Many movies and books have appeared since then, documenting the tragedies that occurred in those countries, and throughout this hemisphere. I had always assumed, from the articles/reports I had read, that pressure from U.S.-based multi-national corporations was the reason our government supported these murderous governments (who can forget the murders of Catholic priests, archbishops, and nuns, in El Salvador in the late 1970s/early 1980s, because they spoke out). But Naomi Klein's research documents that this was not the full story. That not only were these governments aided by ours to keep and maintain power so that corporate-friendly policies would be maintained, this was done with the expectation that these countries would be re-made, with completely unregulated, free-market-based economies. By any means necessary, including torture, and murder, to intimidate the peoples of these countries to accept policies that would never have been allowed under a democracy.

What kind of policies were these? Complete de-regulation of all sectors of the economy, complete privatisation of all formerly-government-controlled sectors such as power generation, water purification/distribution, mining, social services, and transportation. Which when undertaken by these countries, led to massive unemployment, inflation and extreme hardship. Poverty rates increased greatly in all these countries when their repressive governments forced these policies upon their terrorised populations. The repression was not just confined to their respective countries either. A vicious terrorist attack occurred on the streets of Washington D.C. in 1976. Orlando Letelier had been Chile's ambassador to the U.S., under Salvador Allende's administration, from 1970-73. When Gen. Augusto Pinochet led the right-wing coup there, and took power, after 11 September, 1973 (the first 9/11!), he fled the country, and eventually wound up in Washington D.C., working for a human-rights organisation, and began writing articles and giving speeches to expose the repression under Pinochet's regime.

On 21 September, 1976, as he was driving through the heart of the embassy district of Washington D.C., a bomb planted under his car seat exploded, severing his legs, and killing instantly his 25 year old passenger, Ronni Moffit, a colleague of his. Orlando died before reaching the hospital. The FBI investigated and traced the bomb to a member of the Chilean secret police, who was convicted and imprisoned for the attack. The assasination team had been admitted to the U.S. on false passports, with the knowledge of the CIA.

The Shock Doctrine, besides describing the sad and terrifying repression that occurred in Chile and Argentina, during the "Dirty Wars" of the 1970s/80s, then also describes how governments in other countries were forced to enact massively unpopular deregulation and privitisation policies, which impoverished their populations.

I had never fully understood what had happened after the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1990-91, and how they made the transition to a capitalist economy in the years following. Klein describes in detail how Mikhail Gorbhachev, while he was still in power in 1989-90, actually had wanted to have his country transition to a benevolent social democracy, in the model of Norway, Sweden, or Finland. But, because of great economic difficulties, and the need for emergency loans from the World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF), he was forced to rapidly enact shock doctrine policies in his country. The results are plaguing Russia to this day, the highest death-rate from alcoholism in the World, massive unemployment, and a decreased life-span, especially for men. This was very sad to read, as Russia is a country rich in history and natural resources, and if it had been allowed and encouraged to develop a Social Democratic government, it could have become an inspiration to the World, and it's 200 million people would have had much better living conditions.

Klein also describes what happened in South Africa after Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990, to lead the African National Congress in it's peaceful transition to majority rule, ending the apartheid minority white-ruled regime. Mandela and the ANC had wanted to enact massive public-works programs to build housing for the millions of impoverished blacks living in shanty-towns outside the major cities, as well as to increase government spending on other employment-creating programs. But, because their economy was facing collapse at that critical time, they were forced by the IMF and World Bank in the early 1990s to enact massively unpopular and destructive economic policies, aka, the shock doctrine. The results continue to this day. There are actually fewer households with electricity now, in South Africa, than in 1994, and none of the promised millions of new, modern, housing units with basic sanitation, have been built for the millions of shanty-town residents.

The Shock Doctrine spends the greatest amount of time documenting the immoral and illegal attack on Iraq by this country, expanding upon the ideas presented by Greg Palast, in his ground-breaking expose, Armed Madhouse.
http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Madhouse-Baghdad-Orleans-Sordid-Secrets/dp/0452288312/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256873012&sr=8-1

In this book, Palast, after posing as an oil industry spokesman, and interviewing numerous people in the US government and in powerful positions in major oil companies, lays out the reasons for the Iraq invasion. Namely, that it was undertaken, not for the direct acquisition and control of Iraq's oil, but to remove Sadaam Hussein's control over it, with Saudi Arabia's blessing. Because Sadaam Hussein had been manipulating Iraq's oil production and exports against the wishes of OPEC, and was causing turbulence in the oil market price.

Klein goes further though, documenting that another important goal was to create a "free-market" paradise in the Middle East, where unregulated capitalism would allow foreign corporations to get in on re-developing Iraq's infrastructure, and aiding in restoring and maintaining it's oil industry and production (which under Hussein's government had been nationalised).

So, the illegal, and immoral invasion and occupation of that sovereign nation, which posed no threat to this one, or it's neighbours, and led to the deaths of at least a million innocent civilians, and caused 3-4 million more to flee to neighbouring countries, was also undertaken to enforce a "shock doctrine" upon it. Klein describes in great detail the policies of deregulation and privitisation which were rapidly enacted in 2003-04, after the US began ruling the country. Hundreds of thousands of government employees in Iraq were fired, local corporations and construction companies were shut out from providing supplies and labour for the country's reconstruction, and attempts (ultimately unsuccesful) were made to privatise it's national oil company.

These were the policies that led to the resistance movements there, and which continue to this day, and are why there is still unemployment of 50 percent or more there, along with only sporadic access to power and clean water in most of it's cities. It's heartbreaking reading, because the suffering in Iraq is so palpable, and un-necessary. And the criminals that caused it are walking around free and prosperous, in this country, because our corporate-controlled media will not allow information like this to appear.

So, we at A.P.R. urge you all to get a copy of The Shock Doctrine, read it, and spread the word (and the book).
http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0676978010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256873896&sr=1-1

Your understanding of our capitalist system, and how it is maintained and spread will be greatly enhanced. Only by opening our eyes to the causes of the massive social, economic, and political injustice that are present in this world, can we begin the process of changing it. Cheers.

ALASKA SLED DOGS - The Edge of the Wild?

For as long as your lead author can remember, I have always been captivated by Husky and Malemute dogs, even though I grew up in the sunny southlands of San Diego.

Maybe it was because I read the "Call of the Wild" at least ten times by the time I was 12. I got to know many great ones living in Montana in the 1990s, though I had an amazing feral chow/german shepherd canine companion, Coyote, then (we found each other at the Missoula pound in 1991). Who would routinely hunt and eat whole, rabbits, marmots, and squirrels, on all our wilderness jaunts in Montana, and here in Alaska, before he passed away late in 2003, at the age of 13.

Alaska "sled dogs" are a mix of breeds, husky (Alaskan and Siberian), malemute, and various domestics (lab, shepherd, etc...). http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/sleddogs.htm

They are bred by dog mushers for speed, endurance, and docility, so that they will be able to relate to people and generally not be too quarrelsome amongst themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Husky

Many of them also come from the hundreds of Alaska Native villages, where they live outdoors all year, and even around Fairbanks and other major road-based settlements they also live outdoors, since most serious mushers will have 25-50 dogs, or more. On the edge of the wilderness. This also means that traveling wolf packs, if a female sled dog is in heat, will breed with them, if no precautions are taken. Hence, many sled dogs have a detectable wolf influence, both in their physical characteristics, and in their demeanor.

Since they are born and bred for speed and endurance and to live and thrive in our harsh sub-arctic environment, they make excellent companions for anyone with an active, outdoor-based lifestyle, here in Alaska, or anywhere where colder winter temperatures occur. A typical active sled dog is easily capable of running up to 160 km (or more!) a day, at average speeds of 20 kilometres per hour! And most effectively/efficiently when temperatures are -15 to -40C!

Unfortunately, with so many dog mushers in Alaska, with so many dogs, the many that "don't work out" as racers, or effective members of a team, have to find other homes, or face euthanasia or dumping at the nearest animal shelter. This link shows the dogs available at our Fairbanks North Star Borough animal shelter. Note that most of them are husky's or mixed husky breeds (sled dogs). It is estimated that just here in Fairbanks, 300 or more of these beautiful, hardy beings are turned in to the animal shelter every year. Most of them never get adopted...

http://www.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?&shelterid=AK12&Animal=Dog&sort=Identifier&preview=1

Therefore, here at the A.P.R., we feel it is our duty to always have two of these wonderful companions, so at least they will have a new lease on life, and return to us manyfold, the love, care, and protection that we give to them.

All that said, I'd like to introduce to you to the previous sled dogs I've been fortunate enough to have lived with, since moving to Fairbanks in 2001. This was Stikine, a beautiful fluffy little girl, of mixed husky and wolf origins. She came from the kennels of my friend Rebecca Chandler's then-husband, Eric Nicolier. Who was a musher training for the Yukon Quest, in the early 2000s. After losing Coyote in 12/03, I decided I should have two sled dogs for companionship. Stikine was born in Jan. 2004, and she came to live with me that summer.

She grew quickly, surpassing 20 kg by the time she as 4 or 5 months old. Homer, our research assistant, here at A.P.R., is Stikine's uncle. Her mother Elizabeth, is Homer's sister. Stikine had the same blue eyes and fur thickness/colours as Homer, and would probably reached his large size, had she been able.

I also adopted another beautiful sled dog at this time, Frost, a nine year old classic Alaskan Husky. More about her later.

Frost and Stikine grew to be great companions, in all our outdoor adventures, and during our routine neighbourhood runs.

She loved to sit on my lap while I drove, between my arms, looking out over the steering wheel. I tried to discourage this, as she grew, but she really loved being there.

Unfortunately, like many sled dogs, she had a penchant for running off, if allowed, returning a half hour to hours later. I tried limiting this possibility. But one evening in November, 2004, I opened the door of our little house we were living in, which is just off the busy Goldstream Road, in the Goldstream Valley, north of Fairbanks. She rushed out the door, and wouldn't come back. After calling out, I decided to wait, figuring she'd be back, like the many times before. But it was not to be. About an hour later, I saw cars stopped on the road, and flashing state trooper lights. Not knowing what was up, I went back to my evening. But a little while later, someone called from Ivory Jacks, the nearby bar/restaurant. Stikine had been struck and killed by a hit/run driver. My phone number was on her collar.

This was a big blow, she had been such a beautiful and loving companion, to Frost and I, and had a very strong, dominant personality. Frost was just as grief-stricken as I, but we helped each other through that winter, along with our other friends.

The next summer, 2005, I wanted another companion for Frost and I. While running on the Denali Highway near Maclaren Summit, I ran into Zoya Denure, a musher, who is married to John Shandlemeier, one of Alaska's mushing stars. He and his teams had won the grueling 1000+ km Yukon Quest race a few times in the 1990s. http://www.yukonquest.com/

They have a large summer-time sled dog kennel operation near Maclaren River Lodge, where they give tours to groups on tour buses. They also take in "rescue dogs", ones that have been taken from abusive and neglectful mushers or homes. They introduced me to Nahanni, the little black beauty here, at their lodge.

She was only six months old, and had been rescued from a very abusive situation. She was very skittish and afraid when I brought her home in July, 2005. It took me weeks of gentle conversation and treat-handing, to re-domesticate and bond with her. She took to running though with Frost and I immediately, greatly enjoying it. She never ran off while we ran together, or were in the wilderness.

She grew to be about Frost's size, 25 kg or so, while she was with us. But she was very independent, always wanting to run off, if we were just around town. In Nov. 2005, whilst the Chena Ridge Research Centre was under construction, she wouldn't return to our van, as we were leaving the job-site. So, Frost and I just took off slowly in the van. She followed us on the back dirt roads of Chena Ridge. I'd stop every now and then, she'd edge up close, but then back away, when I tried to grab her. Finally, I decided to try something different. We sped at a higher speed of 50 kph for several km. She ran at full speed after us. After about 15 minutes of this, I stopped, opened the sliding door, and she popped right in!

She also had a very strong, independent, domineering personality, a true "alpha". For those not in the know, wolf and dog packs are led by a dominant pair, an "alpha male and female". They call the shots and maintain discipline in the pack.

Of course, Nahanni loved running in the cold with Frost and I, the colder the better. Always amazing to me was that we could rush out our cozy 19C house, into the -40C winter air, and run for 1-2 hours. Me in my four layers, but them with nothing! And they couldn't be happier.

Unfortunately for Nahanni, her independence also proved to be her undoing. In February, 2006, after a beautiful snowfall of 15 cm or so of fresh powder, I wanted to snowshoe around the neighbourhood with Frost and her. I only had her out of my sight 30 seconds while adjusting a strap on my snowshoes, and she ran off. Frost and I combed the neighbourhood for half an hour with no success. Then we saw a truck stop on Goldstream Road, 150 metres from the house. We knew. We raced up there. She was lying in the ditch, severely injured. She had been lying there for some time, while we were searching. I rushed her as fast as possible to the animal hospital.

The vets there did their best. But her thorax was crushed and she had uncontrollable internal bleeding. She screamed and cried out in her terror and pain, for 20 minutes or more, before she departed. When the vets could do no more, they came out, in tears to tell me the news. But they didn't have to. I came home from the hospital to Frost without Nahanni. She ran out to Nahanni's little house and let out mournful howls. Frost was already 11 years old at this point, and Nahanni's loss hit her very hard. She lost some of her energy and drive after this.

Of all my canid companions to date, Frost was my favourite, and most loyal and loving. She came from my friends Doug and Lea Hutchinson, who were recreational mushers, with sixteen dogs. They were going to be leaving Alaska in 2005, so were trying to find homes for their sled dogs. Frost was the cream of their crop. She had been the lead dog on their team for many years. Her parents were both veterans of the Iditarod and Yukon Quest, from prestigious musher Rick Swenson's kennel. When I took her in with Stikine, in summer 2004, at the age of nine, she was in her last heat! I regret not having her bred, she would have produced beautiful, strong puppies, and been a loving mother to them. But I was not ready to sacrifice the time and energy to deal with 3-9 puppies, so had her neutered.

Frost was extremely loyal, but also very timid. She rarely ever ran off, and was always by my side, wherever we were. In her prime, as lead dog on the Hutchinson's team, she would run 150 km or more a day at times, at speeds of 20 kph. On all of our long runs and skis, at least before mid 2006, when she startedto slow down, I was incapable of tiring her out.

Her timidity though, required vigilance on my part. Sled dogs, more than domestic breeds, often have extreme jealousy issues. This may be a combination of their wolfiness, and lack of adequate human interaction when living in a large dog-yard.. On several occasions, I would gave attention to a different dog, then leave off, and turn to Frost. The other dogs attacked Frost, sometimes savagely. The worst was in April 2006, while we were running around Chena Ridge. A larger sled dog, outweighing her 5-8 kg, after I petted him, and we ran past, set upon her brutally. She was in a ball, while the other dog went for her throat. I didn't have time to think, I beat and kicked him off her with all my strength. He ran off, leaving Frost screaming and quivering on the road. I had to gently talk to her for a few minutes before she got up, and were able to resume our run. Fortunately she wasn't seriously injured.

A few weeks later, she returned the favour. My friend Jeff Gordon and I decided to just do a short day-ski/snowshoe on the frozen Delta River, through the Alaska Range, on a bright sunny, Easter sunday, 2006.

Here she is, midway through, helping us break trail through 30 cm or so of heavy packed powder.

The Delta River flows through a 1500-2000 metre deep canyon of the Alaska Range, funneling north or south winds through it. On this day, we began our outing with light south chinook winds.

But, three or four hours later, after lunch, we decided to head back, as the winds were increasing. By the time we got back near the river, after going up a side canyon, we could see we were in for a rough go.

You can see the blowing snow on the river there, with 3000 metre Mt. Silvertip looming above.

Jeff was ahead of me on snowshoes, retracing our route, while I followed behind, after stopping for a late lunch. When we caught back up to each other on the river, the winds were easily 80-100 kph sustained, and all the snow was being scoured off the river, creating a ground-blizzard, with near-zero visibility at times. It was difficult getting back across the river, because the snow was completely scoured away in spots, and edging across the sheer river ice on skis in that wind was a chore. There were also some open-water leads to skirt. Jeff and I got separated a few times, but Frost kept us together, by going back and forth between us. Thus, making our return trip much easier and safer! I had to stop and get her the biggest steak I could find, on the way home, for that.

She was starting to slow down though that year, and she even had some breast tumours removed in fall 2006. By April 2007, she was very slow and frail, in part due to another grief incident (more on that later) several months previous. Finally in May, 2007, she became very ill, and I rushed her to our vet. She was shaking and quivering, trying to run off into the woods and die. Her abdomen was filled with inoperable cancer, and she expired that month. Never to be forgotten, for her loyalty, affection, strength, and endurance.

After Nahanni's passing, in February, 2006, I wanted another companion for Frost and I.

That May we went to the Fairbanks animal shelter, and were captivated by this large, beautiful, gentle being.

His name was Nimbus, and he was just two or three years old. All that was known about him, was that he had been dumped after-hours at the pound with a note, saying he "didn't work out" as a sled dog. He was large, about 37 kg, and thought to be McKenzie River Husky/Wolf hybrid.

He came home with Frost and I in mid-May, 2006, and we had quite a challenge. He obviously had suffered hard times at the hands of other men, as he would shrink away from my approaching hand. And, not even take an offered treat, but would only eat it if I threw it to him, then looked away, while he ate it. He was also not housebroken. So it took weeks of gentle persuasion and encouragement to domesticate and bond with him. While keeping him roped to me at all times, out of doors. It took him a few months, before he would not run off for hours, if he accidentally got away.

He took to running with Frost and I immediately though, and was a majestic sight, with his wolfy appearance and plume of a tail. On our longer runs, up to 32 km or so, he wouldn't even drink water (at temps. of 15-25C!), though I tried to encourage him to do so.

He loved all our wilderness outings, as well our regular in-town runs and hikes. His large size and wolf background belied an amazingly gentle and timid demeanor. He always backed away from other dogs, if challenged (requiring my intervention at times). And never barked, just let out squeeks, if he needed something. He really took to women as well, perhaps because of his earlier experiences.

Unfortunately, his previous abuse at the hands of other men, proved to be his undoing. On 04 November, 2006, I rushed home to the Chena Ridge Research Centre, from work and bounded up the stairs, to change, so we could go for a run. But Nimbus always was perched at the top of there, that was his lair. Not knowing who I was, he panicked and bolted down the stairs. He tripped and broke a leg, and plummeted past me, too fast for me to grab. When his head reached the tile floor at the bottom of the stairs, it folded under his body, breaking his neck. I got to him and held his head in my hand, as he left this world, for the next. It took only a few seconds. Frost was there at our side, and she knew what happened. I rushed him to our local vet, just down the road, hoping for some miracle, but when I got there, we all knew it wasover. But Dr. Jean Battig worked on him just the same, more for my benefit than Nimbus'.

He was only three. But he had six good months at least, before his untimely end. I have to tell you what happened next, even though it is very graphic and sad. Dr. Battig said I could take Nimbus body to the pound for cremation. So in my shocked state I did, and asked the staff there what to do. When I came back with Nimbus' loose 37 kg body in my arms, they opened a door and had me put him in there. There were 20-30 other dead dogs on the floor in there. I almost dropped straight-away. It was the bi-weekly quota of dogs that didn't make it, that couldn't find homes. At least half of them were sled dogs. If this is happening here in Fairbanks, think what it is like in Anchorage, or other large cities in the lower 48. I stumbled and lurched out of there to my car, and collapsed for a few minutes in the driver's seat, before I could get it together for the drive home.

Frost was never the same after that, she became withdrawn and much less energetic that winter, and her end to cancer then came in May, 2007. I found myself dogless that summer, of 2007. Which did not feel right, and I knew that would change. My friend Jeff Gordon was thinking about adopting one, so after we got back from running the Whitehorse marathon in early August, we went to the animal shelter. He didn't find a dog there that really grabbed him, but my attention was quickly caught by this little beauty.

She was named Jinga at the time, by the shelter staff, and was thought to be two. She had been dumped at the shelter, limping on her back legs, and starving. I immediately was attracted to her beauty and sweet smile. I had her checked out by Dr. Battig, who said she would recover from her injuries.

So, a week later, she came home to the Chena Ridge Research Centre, with a new name of Kiana. After a village in northwest Alaska, known to be a very friendly place. What I didn't know, was anything about her past (which was surely very abusive). My room-mate at the time, Sabine, a very sweet German graduate student, had a timid little blue-eyed Siberian Husky named Ophie, a girl of eight. As soon as I brought Kiana in the door, and she saw Ophie, she charged! Straight for her neck! I grabbed Kiana in mid-air and threw her out the door.

It took weeks of attention, discipline, and treats, to get her to accept other dogs, and bond with her. But, as with all the others, she took to running with me right away, and greatly enjoyed it.

Here she is in her prime, September, 2007, after we bonded and she became accepting of other dogs.

In late September, 2007, we, along with my friend Janice, went for a hike up to the Gulkana glacier, in the Alaska Range. Just a half-hour after Janice took this picture, I slipped on some snow-covered ice, with boulders studded all round. I fell full-force, jamming my left knee onto a knobby rock. The pain was incredible, I fell to my back, writhing and gasping, trying to get my pack off, because I thought I was going to vomit. After about 5-10 minutes of pain and gasping, I was able to collect myself, and Janice (a radiologist!) and I assessed the damage. There was a hole in the kneecap down to the fascia, and it was rapidly swelling. I was able to get up, and with the aid of my trekking poles, was able to stumble the ten kilometres back to our car, with Janice and Kiana helping me as needed. Kiana was always by my side, whimpering and concerned.

With a broken and bandaged knee, I was unable to run or hike much for several weeks. So, two weeks after the injury, we drove up the Dalton Highway, to Atigun Pass and back, 13 1/2 hours in one day. We had never been there. I was able to stumble around in the tundra for about an hour near Atigun Pass, and Kiana had a great time. When I got back and looked at my pictures though, this one set me on edge. She looks like a spirit, flitting over the tundra, and with the past history of my otherdogs...

Jeff Gordon moved back in as my room-mate that fall, and brought Mattie with him, our now assistant-editor. He had gotten her from the pound on the Emerald Isle of Kodiak, when he lived there for a year. Mattie and Kiana had a great time that fall and winter together, and grew to be great companions.

On a mid-January evening of 2008, when this picture was taken, Mattie, Kiana, and I went for our usual 90 min. neighbourhood run. A few kilometres of which is on Chena Ridge Road, which has a 90 km speed limit, meaning most people are doing 110 or better.

When we were on a straight stretch of that road, Mattie pulled me hard, and I let go of Kiana. She got out into the traffic lane. I immediately went after her, but it was too late. A large 4WD truck was bearing down at us, easily going 120 kph. I got out of the way just in time, and felt it brush my shoulder. It went right through Kiana, and her remains ended up on the other side of the road. The tan/white mid 1990s Ford 4WD extra-cab never slowed or stopped. I was dressed in bright reflective red, and Kiana had alot of white on her, so the driver had to have seen us. I ran over and just lay with her in the road, not caring what happened, at that point. A nice older man in another truck stopped, came out, and helped us all into the bed of it. He took us the two km home. I called my friend Rebecca, and she came over to help me deal with the situation, and took Kiana's remains for me to the pound. Mattie of course was traumatized as well, but her recovery was much faster than mine.

It took me a few months before I could look again at large trucks without great fear and anger, and drive or run past that spot on the road without re-living the experience.

Jeff decided he couldn't take very good care of Mattie, and asked me if I would adopt her. I was happy to, she was and is a very sweet, loyal, and extremely brave and tough companion.

When she was just 15 months old, and weighed 25 kg, we went for a short pack trip in the Alaska Range in August, 2008. At our campsite, by this pond, just after I took this picture, around 2000 in the evening, I heard a snorting and pawing sound, while in my tent. I rushed out, hoping it was not a bear. A large bull caribou, easily more than 2 metres tall, and weighing 180-200 kg, was displaying displeasure that we were in his area (I had seen large amounts of caribou scat there when we were setting up camp earlier).

Before I could stop her, she charged after him, barking and running circles around him. I couldn't believe it, and the moreso, because he ran off! He could have easily dispatched her with one kick. After that surge of bravery and protection on her part, she could do no wrong in my eyes!
She has incredible endurance, even though she is half-lab. When our friend Erik Hursh and I skied in to the Chris McCandless bus on the Stampede Trail last March (about 68 km round trip), Mattie ran along. Going back and forth, constantly. So, we figure she must have easily ran about 140 km that day. She was a little tired at the end, but the next day, was not sore at all!

We were thinking another canine companion would be a good idea, over the past year. Then our friend Rebecca notified me that her 12 year old boy, Homer, needed a new home. Rebecca had moved to Oregon last year, leaving Homer with another family. Who couldn't give him the care and attention he needed. So he came to us this past June. After just a few weeks of running with us, he had shed at least 3-4 kg, and was looking, acting, and feeling much better.

Since Homer had lived with Rebecca and her ten year old daughter Isabell his whole life, he was fully trained and domesticated, in spite of his wolfiness. Which is quite apparent in his long legs and method of running; he lopes along much like a wolf.

He and Mattie quickly bonded, and are now inseparable, as we work and play in and around the Chena Ridge Research Centre, or go on outings in
more wild settings.

Such as this beautiful area, on the Mt. Healy trail, in the Alaska Range, near Denali N.P. This was late last July, when he surprised a young hiker, who thought he was a wild wolf, before he saw me and Mattie.

In spite of his relatively advanced age, for a canine, of 12 or 13, Homer is in very good shape, physically and mentally. He participates actively in all our activities, and has run as far as 30 km with us. We think we'll have the pleasure of at least a few more

good years with his strong, yet gentle presence.

Which brings us to the end of this narrative. In spite of all the misfortune of losing Stikine, Nahanni, Nimbus, and Kiana, so quickly, and at such young ages, I don't regret having taken them in at all. For they all at least had several good months to ayear, before they were taken from us.

And their love and affection was real and strong, greatly enriching us. They always reinforced strong ideas for me too, interacting with them. For they never worried about past or future events overmuch, living much more in the moment. And when tragedy has struck, while grief-stricken for a short while, they have always recovered much more quickly than I.

For those of you living in Fairbanks, if you don't already have a canid companion or two, please think of adopting one of these hardy, strong, loyal and affectionate beings.

http://www.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?&shelterid=AK12&Animal=Dog&sort=Identifier&preview=1

Even though some of them may require focused work and attention, to bond with and re-domesticate them, it will be well worth it. They may even save your life, if a bear or other large animal becomes aggresive. You can count on that! And for routine companionship, especially if you like to run or hike alot, they can't be beat, the colder the better!

If you don't live here, but are just visiting, consider visiting our animal shelter, and taking one or two home with you. You won't regret it! We never have. Cheers.

THE OCEAN BLUE / NOBEL THOUGHTS

THE OCEAN BLUE

Your lead editor just returned from two weeks of beach activity, visiting my siblings in San Diego, and father and stepmom in Florida. Surfing lessons, scuba diving, packrafting, running, and general beachcombing. I love being by and in the ocean almost as much (sometimes more) than being in inland, mountainous terrain, with all that has to offer.

Unfortunately, while returning from a shore dive off La Jolla Shores, 15-25 metres down in the La Jolla Canyon, I had to walk back out with my 28+ kg of dive gear through just .8 metre surf, while trying to get my fins off. The waves were breaking every few seconds, and while I was struggling with my fins, the A.P.R. Dive Cam came off my arm, and floated away. I didn''t realize this until I was well onshore, heading toward the OEX Dive Shop, where I'd rented my gear.

I ran back and looked for over an hour, but it is lost to posterity. As are all my San Diego surfing and diving pictures. So, we'll just have to make do with some generic ones from the area(s).

My brother Greg is amazing as a surfer, since he's been at it since 1976. We took a couple sessions at La Jolla Shores, on the southern end of that beach is where the smallest break is, ideal for learning. The last day we were at it, I borrowed his friend Mike's longboard, which was over two metres long. Making it more stable for a beginner. But it was very windy, onshore west winds 25-35 kilometres per hour, so the .5 to 1 metre waves were blown out and breaking every two seconds. Tough conditions for learning with that fast wave period and strong current, so all I was able to do in our hour of struggling was to get on my knees for a few rides. Greg was still able to get a few decent rides though, it's neat seeing how all those years of experience enables him to use that board as an extension of himself and just flow through the surf. Reminding me alot of really good alpine skiers, when they can just shoot through heavy powder, down through trees and steep, rocky chutes.

My shore dives in the La Jolla canyon, were very beautiful. I had a guide both times from OEX, a dive shop right in La Jolla Shores, two blocks from the beach. My guide on both was a cool 30 yr. old Cypriot (from Cypress) and UCSD physics student, Alexis. One of his two jobs was as a divemaster there at OEX. Our last dive was the best. We paddled out 100 metres from La Jolla Shores near the Beach/Tennis Club, dropped down to 8 metres or so, then underwater headed east another 50 metres or so, to 10 metres depth. At this point, the La Jolla Canyon is reached. Here it was only 30-40 metres deep, but it quickly drops to depths ten and more times that as it cuts through the continental shelf, to the abyssal plain below. The visibility was an amazing 10 metres at 20 metres depth, often it's only 2-4 metres there. We saw plenty of lobsters and crabs in the rocks of the canyon wall at 20 metres (this area is a protected marine reserve, no harvesting of any fauna allowed), and smelt swimming around. The water was about 20C on top, but only 13C below the thermocline at 10 metres, requiring a 7mm wetsuit, hood, gloves, and booties.

My two dives from Jupiter, Florida were even more spectacular, the reefs 4-8 km offshore (accessible by boat only) have stunning corals and tropical fauna at depths of 20-30 metres, in warm 28-30C water (even in a 3mm suit, with no gloves and hood, I was too warm!). With visibilities of 15-25 metres.

This picture, from a different area in Florida, was very similar to what the ten of us on the dive charter saw. Three big loggerhead turtles were nestled in the rocks of Area 51 reef, and we also saw a few small reef sharks, large groupers, and many multi-coloured tropical fish species. In fact, I have to rate this area as almost as spectacular as the Great Barrier Reef in diversity and colour of fauna, combined with usually excellent visibilities in very warm water. Almost like a secret, as there have never been that many boats out on these reefs in my four charters I've done there.

So it was, that when I came across this article during my time in San Diego, I found it very distressing. We here at A.P.R. don't always want to be bearers of bad news. But things like this will directly and adversely affect all of us in the coming decades, if no actions are taken to limit CO2 and methane emissions.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/04

Published on Sunday, October 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk

With the world's oceans absorbing six million tonnes of carbon a day, a leading oceanographer warns of eco disaster
by Robin McKie

"Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.

(Juniors Bildarchiv/Alamy)"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."
Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.

This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.

His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.

The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral – unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.

"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.

"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase – and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."

This was backed by other speakers at the conference. Daniel Conley, of Lund University, Sweden, said that increasing acidity levels, sea-level rises and temperature changes now threatened to bring about irreversible loss of biodiversity in the sea. Christoph Heinze, of Bergen University, Norway, said his studies, part of the EU CarboOcean project, had found that carbon from the atmosphere was being transported into the oceans' deeper waters far more rapidly than expected and was already having a corrosive effect on life forms there.

The oceans' vulnerability to climate change and rising carbon-dioxide levels has also been a key factor in the launching of the EU's Tara Ocean project at Barcelona. The expedition, on the sailing ship Tara, will take three years to circumnavigate the globe, culminating in a voyage through the icy Northwest Passage in Canada, and will make continual and detailed samplings of seawater to study its life forms.

A litre of seawater contains between 1bn and 10bn single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, between 10bn and 100bn viruses and a vast number of more complex, microscopic creatures known as zooplankton, said Chris Bowler, a marine biologist on Tara.

"People think they are just swimming in water when they go for a dip in the sea," he said. "In fact, they are bathing in a plankton soup."

That plankton soup is of crucial importance to the planet, he added. "As much carbon dioxide is absorbed by plankton as is absorbed by tropical rainforests. Its health is therefore of crucial importance to us all."

However, only 1% of the life forms found in the sea have been properly identified and studied, said Bowler. "The aim of the Tara project is to correct some of that ignorance and identify many more of these organisms while we still have the chance. Issues like ocean acidification, rising sea levels and global warming will not be concerns at the back of our minds. They will be a key focus for the work that we do while we are on our expedition."

The toll by 2100
■ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast in 2007 that sea levels would rise by 20cm to 60cm by 2100 thanks to global warming caused by man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. This is now thought to be an underestimate, however, with most scientific bodies warning that sea levels could rise by a metre or even higher. Major inundations of vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh would ensue.

■ The planet will be hotter by 3C by 2100, most scientists now expect, though rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Deserts will spread and heatwaves will become more prevalent. Ice-caps will melt and cyclones are also likely to be triggered.

■ Weather patterns across the globe will become more unstable, numbers of devastating storms will increase dramatically while snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009"

This is terrible news, because it is already happening, and it seems unlikely anything will be done by 2020, at the earliest. However, the industrialised countries of the world did come together in the 1980s to limit the use and emissions of chlorofluorocarbons as refrigerants and aerosol-can propellants because they were destroying the high latititude stratospheric ozone layer. Since the Montreal Treaty was signed in 1987, the ozone "hole" over Antarctica has lessened in severity, and should recover completely in a few decades. So, perhaps the industrialised countries can act again for the health of the planet, but it will take strong grass-roots pressure and activism to make this happen within 10-20 years, which is necessary.

NOBEL THOUGHTS

We at A.P.R. were just as shocked as everyone when we heard the news that this year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to our President Obama. And it's been somewhat difficult for us to make up our minds about how we feel about this.

On the pessimistic but realistic side of things, Howard Zinn, one of our favourite progressive figures, and author of the seminal, revealing, "Peoples History of the United States"

(http://www.harpercollins.com/book/index.aspx?isbn=9780060528423
Book Description
Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.

Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.)

presented this article. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/10-3

War and Peace Prizes
by Howard Zinn

"I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war, with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, is given a peace prize!

People should be given a peace prize not on the basis of promises they have made – as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises – but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war, and Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Nobel peace committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history."

© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited

Howard Zinn is one of our favourite progressive voices here at A.P.R., and we take his views very seriously, and he makes strong arguments here.

However, other progressive voices have written that they hope this award will spur him to be realistic about the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to end them quickly. Since nothing but more death and destruction will occur to innocent civilians there, before the U.S. is forced out, as all empires have been in that region since the Greeks of Alexander, 2500 years ago. Fidel Castro even wrote supportively about Obama's award, which was interesting, viewing it as given for his potential, and to spur him on. Since the right-wingnuts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all the rest on Faux News are all spewing forth their usual vitriol condemning it, our instinctive reaction is to support Obama's award.

We here at A.P.R. always try and want to make the best of every situation, and present positive, constructive views. Nevertheless, we are more in agreement with Howard Zinn about Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Because the U.S. defense budget has increased this year, and no real signs of rethinking the tragedies and crimes that are the wars (and occupations of a sovereign countries that posed/poses no threat to this one) in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be occurring. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by criminals and murderers, and should have been handled as such. As a police action. International support would have been very strong for that, at that time. Instead, innocent civilians continue to suffer horribly and die in remote-controlled aerial drone bombing attacks, and from manned bombers as well, in both these countries and in Pakistan. That is not making it safer "over here" by "killing terrorists over there". But maybe that's the point?

Sad to think that way, to be sure, but as we have seen from our previous post, "Making Out Like Bandits" http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/making-out-like-bandits.html, corporate profits accelerate during wartime. And since the corporate media won't allow the reality of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars/occupations to be exposed, politicians are afraid to go against the status quo, for fear of being destroyed by conservatives calling them weak and unpatriotic, supporting "terrorism". Despite the fact that "War is Terrorism With a Bigger Budget", as one of our favourite bumper stickers reads, since 80 percent or more of the casualties in every modern war are innocent civilians. Families, with children often.

And we also know what happened to several historical figures who were strong forces fighting for peace and economic justice (Malcom X, MLK, RFK, Senator Paul Wellstone). It's going to take many years, we are afraid, for the US to extricate itself and/or be forced out from the Middle Eastern imperial actions. Meaning many more thousands of innocent civilians will suffer and die.

SOUTHERN UTAH ROCKS [and] SHIFTING THE PARADIGM

SOUTHERN UTAH ROCKS

Greetings from sunbaked San Diego, CA where only 9 cm of rain have fallen since 1 January (the average is about 2.5 times that). But an El Nino wind/sea surface temperature event is currently taking shape in the Pacific, which should help California have a more robust upcoming winter rainy season.

Your lead A.P.R. editor is visiting his brother Greg (who is an avid surfer), and sister Mischelle, and soaking in the sights/activities of the area. One thing I've long wanted to do, is tour southern Utah more in-depth, than I have in the past. This was a good opportunity. So, the morning after my arrival here on 9/22, Mischelle, her partner Lisa, and I set out in our little rented car.

First stop was Las Vegas, for two nights. Mischelle and Lisa both love it there. I find it compelling, for different reasons, as an epitome of what our current financial/economic system represents, and an excellent metaphor showing how unsustainable it is. Las Vegas receives only about 10 cm of rainfall a year, yet has a population of 1.5 million, with green lawns, golf courses, and swimming pools evaporating water into the desiccating desert air. Water comes not just from the Colorado River (the entire output of which is allocated to the states it flows through, leaving nothing but a salty trickle for Mexico!), but other smaller waterways in Nevada. Which are also fully used up. Then there is the incredible power load for all the casinos, the lights, machines, etc.. Which uses the bulk of the electricity from Hoover Dam, which will silt up and become useless in 20-30 years, because of the extreme evaporation from Lake Mead (this is not factoring in any drought effects).

So, I think of these things alot when I'm there, but still try to have some fun! And, I did win 500.00 on a keno machine my second evening there at Sam's Town, one of the older casinos, north of "the strip" (which necessitated a trip to REI the next day, to make sure I'd have something to show for it). And a couple hundred the last day on the slots in different places.

We had two objectives for this trip, to spend the bulk of our time visiting Bryce Canyon N.P., then drive back through Zion N.P. An anomalously strong high pressure ridge (imagine that?) was over the western states, and so the weather was perfectly sunny and very warm during our entire trip. The drive from Cedar City, east up through the Cedar Breaks country was very beautiful, the aspens were in full fall yellow/red colours from about 2000 metres elevation up. Unfortunately, in the ten years since I had last been through here, half the high-elevation stands of lodgepole pine and white fir were dead from bug kill and diseases, caused by the warmer winters now, which allow more pests to over-winter. Making for some bleak scenes at times.

This route, Utah state highway 14, east from Cedar City, is highly recommended, for those of you who haven't driven that way. Of course, you won't find it on this old map of the region, but we here at A.P.R. happen to like it, so included it, to serve as a reference. It pre-dates the designation of Bryce and Zion N.P.'s as well, so you'll have to poke around a bit on it.

Lisa reserved us a nice "wet" cabin in Kodachrome Basin state park for three nights, which is about 40 km east and south of Bryce. Not having heard much about this area, I was not sure what to expect.
This is a view of the Basin. Amazing orange/red rocks, with interesting "sand pipe" formations in different shapes and sizes.

There were about 25 km of trails in it in different places, and the lighting at different times of the day made for beautiful views and photo-ops. We all hiked around quite a bit, and I did a few short 10K runs, once in the evening, and again on our last morning there.

One of my favourite rock formations was just down the road from our cabin, a sand-pipe (thought to be composed of sand from an ancient stream bed), next to the orange rocks, which had a strange horizontal groove in them. This picture, taken in the evening, shows how the lighting really accentuates the colours here. I liked having the moon in close proximity as well.

Kodachrome Basin is lower than Bryce, only around 1800 m, so it was quite warm, up to 30C by day, and only dropping to about 10C at night. It is cold enough here in winter for snow and frost, but not cold enough to limit nasty insects. Our second evening there I discovered a 12cm diameter spider with a tan/black body in the shower. Argh! I slipped a paper coffee cup over it, then slid a coffee bag envelope over the cup, and ran it out the door, fast! Just as I took off the covering envelope, it raced up the cup toward my hand. I yelped and dropped that sucker fast! It fell under the floor-boards of the front porch. We are not too crazy about spiders...

Both of our of two days in Bryce NP dawned hot and sunny. What makes Bryce so noteworthy are the tan/pink/orange sandstone eroding rock formations on the east side of a high plateau, which is at an elevation of 2300-2800 metres. The dropoffs on this amazing east-side are around 200-700 metres. You can see these interesting colours from near the start of our hike on the first day, the Queen's Canyon and Navajo Loop trails.

The fall colours from the aspen (and vine maples, where there are denser coniferous stands of white fir, ponderosa pine, and douglas fir) combined with those from the rocks were fantastic.

On our 9 km hike the first day on the Queen's Canyon and Navajo Loop trails, here are some of the interesting sights. Not bad for such a short excursion!

Dropping down into a slot canyon pretty quickly on this hike, the orange rocks combined with the deep blue high-elevation sky were stunning.

I really liked these Douglas Fir (Pinaceae Tseudotsuga Menziesii) trees in the narrow slot. This one was almost 30 metres tall and and had a one metre diameter trunk at breast height.

The bright orange colours even made me look like that. The warm and dry conditions, combined with the high altitude, made me have to carry lots of water and fuel. Even on this short hike, I must have drank two litres of water.

At the tail end of the hike, at the top of the rim near Sunrise Point (at an elevation of 2700m), was this interesting bristlecone pine. I named it the Walking Tree. Erosion has been steady, but slow enough, for the tree to keep pace with it by extending its roots. Interesting. The late afternoon colours were of course amazing here. There are about 15 km of trails above the rim that are groomed for skiing in winter. What a beautiful place to get some nordic skiing in, something we'd love to do there.

I had wanted to do a full 48km fast-pack of the Under The Rim Trail from Rainbow Point north to Bryce Point, then the Rim Trail to the visitors center. But that saturday night it was so hot in our cabin, none of us slept well, and instead of getting up at 0630, so I could be on the trail by 0900, we slept in until 0930. So, I decided just to do the first half. Starting at Rainbow Point, the southern terminus of the park road and trailhead for the 38 km Under the Rim Trail. I got to the Rainbow Point trailhead at 1330, and ran the first 10 km downhill, from 2780m to 2260m. I was able to keep a good pace on the downs and levels, but any upslope, and I had to walk, with that altitude. It felt like 30C, even that high, with strong sun, so used alot of water and fuel, more than double than I would at home in the lowlands of interior Alaska. By the time I finished my 23K, 3 hours later, I had gone through 4 liters of water, 3 energy gels, and a lunch. Since there was no water available on the trail, it would have been difficult to carry twice that much for the full 48K. My pack on this outing was just about 8 kg.

The Under The Rim trail drops down from the high plateau, to the base of the rim, which all the multi-coloured rock formations jut up from. This it follows, in up and down sections through three drainages, to Bryce Point. I cut out though halfway through, to get back to the highway, where Mischelle and Lisa could pick me up. Scenes like this were common though, looking up through the fir and aspen trees to the bright orange rocks toward the top of the rim. I was warned by a ranger the previous day to be careful of the altitude, but I just felt a little more tired than usual, the heat was just as much a factor.

After our three days exploring Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin, we had to drive back to Cedar City, and hop south on I-15 to Vegas, then San Diego. But were able to drive a different way, south on US-89, to Utah 9, which bisects Zion NP.

Zion was even more stunning than Bryce. The rocks are more solid sandstone here, and are almost reminiscent of Yosemite's granite, except with more colour. Which makes for incredible scenery, with sheer vertical rock walls 500-1200 metres high.

The hot, dry weather continued, under the high pressure ridge. Since the highway through Zion descends here to only 1200 metres, it got quite hot, up to 35C! And this is the last day

in September. But the deep blue sky and dry air made the colours of the rocks, that more vibrant.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop and hike any of the many trails there. So, a multi-day exploration here will be necessary some time in the coming years. Preferably in a cooler month.

We got to Vegas in the evening, where we stayed at the Fitzgerald. The largest casino in the old area north of the strip, 34 stories of hotel rooms, with a casino at the bottom. None of us did very well this time. It was even hinted at by one of the workers there, that the casinos aren't paying out as well as they used to, because fewer people are coming in, due to the poor economy and higher unemployment.

SHIFTING THE PARADIGM

From Wikipedia...

"Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of Weltanschauung (German for world view). For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A “dominant paradigm” refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community’s cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. The following are conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm:

Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm

Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm

Journals and editors who write about the system of thought. They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy

Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm

Educators who propagate the paradigm’s ideas by teaching it to students

Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm

Media coverage

Lay groups, or groups based around the concerns of lay persons, that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm

Sources of funding to further research on the paradigm"

For all of modern U.S. history, and especially since the 1980s, when a concerted effort seems to have been undertaken by the "power elite" and corporate media to reinforce this, the dominant paradigm of our culture has been that the "free market", or unregulated capitalism, would see to all of our needs. That although capitalism is based on greed, market forces would weed out the "bad apples" and the general population would benefit greatly from commerce unfettered by government regulations. And, the last four U.S. administrations (and seemingly now, the fifth) have driven policy by this paradigm.

What has it gotten us? Well, just since 2001, two immoral, illegal, and un-necessary wars, leading to the deaths of at least 1.2 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan (with millions more homeless and unemployed). A semi-depression economically, with true jobless rates approaching 25 percent, brought on by the near-demise of many of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. Who through their greed and short-sightedness, and abetted by the deregulation of the financial industry over the past 25 years, bankrupted themselves through greedy and short-sighted decisions, and keep begging the government for more aid, since they are "too big to fail". Not to mention the thousands of corporate lobbyists in Washington D.C. working on behalf of the defense, fossil fuel, financial, and insurance industries, who are intent on keeping the system unchanged. As well, increasing atmospheric CO2 and methane concentrations from our fossil-fuel based way of life are continually increasing, with no real end in sight. Which will unleash global climatic catastrophe unless concerted action is taken within 10-20 years, at most.

With all these problems as a result of the "dominant paradigm", isn't it time for something new and different?

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/10/02

I urge you all to look at this link, and see Michael Moore's new movie, when you can. He puts everything we just discussed in great perspective, and in a very convincing, yet entertaining way.

I came across this article last week.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/30-14

I thought it was an excellent summary of where we are at, concerning the Obama administration, and very disheartening. We knew Mr. Obama, from his senatorial record, was not going to effect much change, on his own, and warned you in several previous posts. Yet, it still is discouraging, to see this borne out.

I'd like to present you with the best part of this article:

"And given the global financial meltdown that has hit working people so hard, can anyone really say that those who critique the entire capitalist system don't have a point?

Rather than being a mere "abstraction," as Obama claimed, capitalism is an economic system that functions on a set of rules that we created, which inevitably leads to massive inequalities between the haves and have-nots and the easily avoidable deaths of millions around the world every year who simply cannot afford basic medical care or food. It rewards greed and is based on a belief that continual, limitless economic growth is not only possible, but necessary.

The planet's atmosphere and natural resources, however, are finite and being quickly exhausted by the developed world's gluttonous consumption.

In his new book, All My Bones Shake, Robert Jensen succinctly sums up our predicament: "Capitalism is fundamentally inhuman, antidemocratic and unsustainable. Capitalism has given those of us in the First World lots of stuff (though much of it of questionable value) in exchange for our souls, for our hope for progressive politics, and for the possibility of a decent future for children. Either we change or we die -- spiritually, politically, literally."

Obama's dismissal of mass nonviolent action was disingenuous for other reasons as well. Behind his desk in his Senate office, Obama prominently displayed pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

In an interview last year, he explained that the portraits were there "to remind me that real results will not just come from Washington, they will come from the people." And only weeks before the G-20, during his "controversial" address to school children, the president brought up Gandhi, calling him "a real hero of mine."

Could anyone possibly argue with a straight face that King, who was killed while planning the Poor People's Campaign, would not be on the streets with those calling for economic justice? Would Gandhi not oppose the diversion of $700 billion this year from meeting people's basic needs to fund the Pentagon and the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The interview with Obama also revealed a growing chasm between his approach to social movements and that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to whom he is widely compared.

After listening to the concerns of the legendary labor organizer and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph during a meeting, as the famous and perhaps apocryphal story goes, FDR replied: "I agree with everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit ... But I would ask one thing of you, Mr. Randolph, and that is go out and make me do it."

During his presidential campaign, Obama even used this story. He told his supporters that he was just one person who could not make the changes they wanted to see by himself. Obama's final message was clear: "Make me do it."

Now that Obama is in the White House, however, he is singing a different tune. Rather than encouraging grassroots protest to help push the public debate and further a progressive legislative agenda as Roosevelt did, Obama is unfortunately publicly trying to quash pressure from the left.

As a counter to the recent mobilization of right-wing tea-baggers, it would seem that now is as good a time as ever for the president to embrace the protesters who are championing at least some of the causes that he once claimed to believe in.

Instead, Obama disgracefully sent in the militarized police -- with the National Guard on the ready -- to silence their dissent."

This sums things up nicely. It really is time for a "Paradigm Shift", because the future of the planet, and the human race, is at stake. Instead of a system based on greed, how about one based on empathy and concern for one's fellow man/woman?

What would such a system be like? Very much like what the Green Party espouses. A governmental system with tightly regulated capitalism, universal health care, education, gainful employment and housing as human rights, and vastly reduced military expenditures, combined with an end to all overseas military operations.

The closest analogues to this can be found in the social democracies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Western Europe (and Japan to a certain extent). If more people in this country could visit these countries, especially those who are blue collar and socially conservative, traditionally voting Republican, they would understand how they are being manipulated. And we would become much closer to being able to realize the dream of a more sane and just political and economic system. But since this is impossible, we have to try and educate people about what is possible here, since other countries are providing for their citizens much more effectively than ours. And work in our own lives, to promote peace, tolerance, and justice. Then change can really occur. Cheers.

ENTERING THE CIRCLE - Shamanic Thoughts [and] WE'RE SCREWED!

Your lead editor has been interested in "paranormal" issues for as long as I can remember, since childhood. I've read hundreds of books about psychics, unexplained occurrences, and "new-age" themed books for self-help and spiritual seeking.

So it was only natural, that when I came across this very interesting and thought-provoking book, Entering the Circle, in 1997, when I lived in Missoula, MT, that an interest in shamanism would develop.

http://www.amazon.com/Entering-Circle-Siberian-Discovered-Psychiatrist/dp/0062514172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253559225&sr=1-1

This book is a fascinating story of a psychiatrist in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and her experiences, as she treated an indigenous Siberian man for psychological issues. And how she ended up learning from his culture (which is similar to indigenous cultures in the Americas), and came to incorporate some of their principles into her discipline.

Lately, it has become increasingly apparent that the prevailing "western" technological culture we are immersed in, with Capitalism as it's economic mode, is fouling our nest and will lead to catastrophic events due to global warming/rising sea levels and eco-systems collapse if left unchecked. Because, like cancer, being based on unlimited growth and expansion, it will kill the host. Clearly, a spiritual paradigm shift is needed globally if there is to be a future for humanity in any large sense, on this planet.

This is where Shamanism becomes important. Because of it's focus on holistic spiritual discipline and respect for all living things as part of a larger whole. Incorporating these views into the prevailing culture(s) of our planet will help us solve the looming problems facing us. So, I thought I would share this article with you, from a man who has been at the forefront of Shamanic teaching and cultural practice, for over 45 years.
http://www.shamanism.org/articles/article01.html

Shamanic Healing: We Are Not Alone

An Interview of Michael Harner by Bonnie Horrigan © Shamanism, Spring/Summer 1997, Vol. 10, No. 1

Michael Harner, Ph.D., is an anthropologist and founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving shamanic knowledge as it survives on the planet and to teaching the basic principles of that knowledge for practical applications in the contemporary world.

Harner, who has practiced shamanic healing since 1961, received his doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley. He is a former professor and chairperson of the department of anthropology at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, and has taught at Columbia, Yale, and UC Berkeley. He also served as co-chair of the anthropology section of the New York Academy of Sciences. His books include The Jívaro, Hallucinogens and Shamanism, and the classic The Way of The Shaman.

In the course of his academic study of shamanism, Harner lived and worked with indigenous peoples in the Upper Amazon, Mexico, Peru, the Canadian Arctic, Samiland, and western North America.

Alternative Therapies interviewed Harner at his office in Mill Valley, California, during an intense storm. The following article is from the FSS journal, Shamanism, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring-Summer) 1997, and was originally published in 1996 in Vol. 2, No. 3 of Alternative Therapies.

What is Shamanism?

Michael Harner: The word "shaman" in the original Tungus language [indigenous Siberian group, eds.] refers to a person who makes journeys to nonordinary reality in an altered state of consciousness. Adopting the term in the West was useful because people didn't know what it meant. Terms like "wizard," "witch," "sorcerer," and "witch doctor" have their own connotations, ambiguities, and preconceptions associated with them. Although the term is from Siberia, the practice of shamanism existed on all inhabited continents.

After years of extensive research, Mircea Eliade, in his book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, concluded that shamanism underlays all the other spiritual traditions on the planet, and that the most distinctive feature of shamanism—but by no means the only one—was the journey to other worlds in an altered state of consciousness.

"...in our culture many consider it avant-garde if a person talks about the mind-body connection, but the fact that the brain is connected to the rest of the body is not the most exciting news. It's been known for hundreds and thousands of years. What's really important about shamanism, in my opinion, is that the shaman knows that we are not alone. By that I mean, when one human being compassionately works to relieve the suffering of another, the helping spirits are interested and become involved."

Shamans are often called "see-ers" (seers), or "people who know" in their tribal languages, because they are involved in a system of knowledge based on firsthand experience. Shamanism is not a belief system. It's based on personal experiments conducted to heal, to get information, or do other things. In fact, if shamans don't get results, they will no longer be used by people in their tribe. People ask me, "How do you know if somebody's a shaman?" I say, "It's simple. Do they journey to other worlds? And do they perform miracles?"

Is shamanism a religion?

The practice of shamanism is a method, not a religion. It coexists with established religions in many cultures. In Siberia, you'll find shamanism coexisting with Buddhism and Lamaism, and in Japan with Buddhism. It's true that shamans are often in animistic cultures. Animism means that people believe there are spirits. So in shamanic cultures, where shamans interact with spirits to get results such as healing, it's no surprise that people believe there are spirits. But the shamans don't believe in spirits. Shamans talk with them, interact with them. They no more "believe" there are spirits than they "believe" they have a house to live in, or have a family. This is a very important issue because shamanism is not a system of faith.

Shamanism is also not exclusionary. They don't say, "We have the only healing system." In a holistic approach to healing, the shaman uses the spiritual means at his or her disposal in cooperation with people in the community who have other techniques such as plant healing, massage, and bone setting. The shaman's purpose is to help the patient get well, not to prove that his or her system is the only one that works.

In many cultures, shamans are often given gifts for their work, but they will return all the gifts if the patient dies, which I think is a commendable innovation that might help us with the costs of health services today.

How is an altered state of consciousness achieved in shamanism?

In about 90% of the world, the altered states of consciousness used in shamanism are attained through consciousness-changing techniques involving a monotonous percussion sound, most typically done with a drum, but also with sticks, rattles, and other instruments. In perhaps 10% of the cultures, shamans use psychedelic drugs to change their state of consciousness.

I was introduced to shamanic work in 1961 among the Conibo Indians in eastern Peru, with the aid of native psychedelics. When I came back to the United States and no longer had my supply of ayahuasca, I experimented with drumming. Much to my surprise, it really worked. It should not have surprised me, because drums were reportedly used by shamans almost worldwide. Virtually everything you find in shamanism is done because it works. Over tens of thousands of years, shamans developed the most time-tested system of using the spirit, mind, and heart for healing, along with plant remedies, and so on. Again, the system is time-tested. So if healers in 90% of the shamanic cultures are using the same methods, we pay attention to them. And, of course, we find they work.

To get back to the extraction technique: the technique involves an altered state of consciousness and seeing into the client's body. Much shamanic work, including journeying and extraction, is done in darkness for a very simple reason. The shaman wishes to cut out the stimuli of ordinary reality—light, sound, and so on—and move into unseen reality. The shaman learns to look in the body with "x-ray vision" and see the illness and its location, and then to extract that illness.

Is that like depossession?

Depossession is related to extraction but it's not the same thing. From a shamanic point of view, it's very important to get out of the Middle World when journeying for spiritual purposes. In the old days, shamans journeyed in the Middle World to see how relatives were doing at a distant place or to locate the herds of migratory animals. But most of our work today is in the Upper and Lower Worlds where shamans have voyaged since ancient times. Shamans often prefer not to draw on the spirits of the Middle World because many of them are confused and lacking in power. Going to the Upper or Lower Worlds, one reaches spiritual beings of compassion, power, and wisdom.

Shamans who do another type of healing help the dead as well as the living. These shamans are called "psychopomps," or conductors of souls. Remember, from a shamanic point of view, when you're comatose, you're dead. So the shaman, in the case of comatose persons, would seek them out and see if they wanted to come back. Shamanism is not a system that intends to keep people in this ordinary reality whether they like it or not, because the shaman knows that this is not necessarily the best reality. You make the journey for the person who is comatose to find out what they want. If they want to come back, then the job of the shaman is to bring them back. But if they want to go on—or, more commonly, if they're dying or already dead—then the job of the shaman is to get them to a place where they will be content and not have them stay here, adrift in the Middle World.

So now we come back to this business of depossession. Most cases of depossession of humans are by other humans who are dead, who are here in the Middle World and don't know they're dead. If people are disempowered, or have soul loss or power loss, they are like a vacuum into which these confused entities can come. This is involuntary possession.

Shamans will conduct the entity—with its permission once it realizes it's dead—to a place beyond the Middle World where it will be reunited with people who it loves. Once this is done, so that the clients are no longer possessed, shamans restore their full soul and lost power connections so they are again whole and not vulnerable to further possessions.

Depossession work has slightly different forms in different cultures, but the basic principles are the same. I hope that one day our culture will recognize the need to permit shamanic practitioners to work with the spiritual aspects of illness in cooperation with nonspiritual health professionals.

In your opinion, why don't we do that now?

Unfortunately, when science started, partially as a reaction to the church in Europe, it ordained that souls and spirits have no reality and therefore could not be considered in scientific theory. Now that's an a priori position; in other words, ironically, a statement of faith enunciated in the 18th century. In fact, science has never disproved the existence of spirits. I would submit that now, on the edge of the 21st century, it's time to stop having a science that's based on faith (the faith that there are no spirits) and make it real science, which means that it doesn't ordain a priori that certain types of causes cannot exist.

In regard to extraction healing, in the shamanic view, where does the illness to be extracted come from?

From a shamanic point of view, all people have a spiritual side, whether they recognize it or not. When people get angry, jealous, or have a hostile emotional attitude, they can vent not only verbal and physical abuse, but spiritual abuse without even knowing it. In other words, if somebody is ignorant of shamanic principles, they can do damage to other people on a spiritual level.

Among the Untsuri Shuar and Jívaro people of eastern Ecuador, with whom I lived for quite a while, they call these intrusions "magical darts." There were many feuds and wars, and sometimes healers would get angry and lose their discipline and use their powers to get even. But it is important to know that this is a big mistake, not just ethically, but in terms of self-preservation. No matter how justified a person feels emotionally at the time, those spiritual beings who are representative of the great, loving, hidden universe will disconnect. It's like we're rechargeable bat

teries. We still have some power, and we can do damage, but the power source is no longer charging us. I've seen this many times in the Amazon. The shamans, in their anger, do harm for awhile, but eventually everything they send out comes back in on them, and it often results not only in their own death or pain, but their immediate family gets affected disastrously by it.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't get angry at people. It just means that you should have discipline and know there are parameters. You can get angry with somebody and verbally let out steam and, at the same time, control your spiritual side. But for your own self-preservation, if you don't work to relieve pain and suffering—and especially if you work in a contrary way—you're soon out of business, and probably dead.

If I understand the concept, shamans restore wholeness and power to a human being, and then that wholeness and power heals whatever is wrong with

that person. So in this framework a power-filled person has the ability to heal himself.

To an outsider, it would look like they're healing themselves. But the concept of self-healing excludes the spirits. From the shamanic point of view, nobody's lived into adult life without spiritual help, whether they know it or not. The self-healing concept is a secular concept, and that's fine as far as it goes. It teaches people to take some responsibility for their illness. But it also teaches them to take responsibility for their death. With that approach, everybody's a failure at the moment of death, because they are responsible for the whole thing. From a shamanic point of view we are not that important. We are not necessarily the biggest thing in the universe. The shaman has a more humble point of view, that there is what looks like self-healing but, in fact, we are getting help. And the shaman has the role, of course, of accelerating that possibility.

So the person is not healing himself?

They might be in a specific case. I don't want to rule that out. Self-healing is a very secular view of reality, but it's a step in consciousness. It's like recognizing the brain is connected to the body.
Can you talk about the difference between ordinary reality and nonordinary reality, especially regarding the implications for medicine?

The terms "ordinary reality" and "nonordinary reality" come from Carlos Casteneda. Ordinary reality is the reality that we all perceive together. It's the reality in which we can all agree that there is a clock on the wall. Nonordinary reality is the reality that is associated with the shamanic state of consciousness; that is, when the consciousness has been altered and you're able to see what you normally don't see in an ordinary state of consciousness.

Ordinary reality is something that virtually everybody agrees on. Nonordinary reality is very person-specific. The information obtained in nonordinary reality is tailor-made to the individual—other people may not perceive it at all, as opposed to the information obtained in ordinary reality, in which everybody gets the same thing.

Nonordinary reality is also an empirical reality; that is, the person interacts with it, sees it, touches it, hears it, feels it. And the shaman sees with the heart in that reality. In nonordinary reality, for something to be the same for different persons, it has to be the same in the heart. Here (in ordinary reality) for something to be the same it doesn't matter what your emotion is; you'll see it, for example, as a door in the room. If I showed you a picture of my mother, now deceased, you and I would not have the same emotional relationship with that picture. But if I said the word "mother," and everyone saw their own mother, the emotional feeling in the heart would be closer—not identical, but closer. So to see things exactly the same in the heart, they have to be a little different for each person, because each person has a different personality and a different life history.

The term "nonordinary reality" is useful because it permits one to be reminded that access to these worlds is related to the degree to which you have entered the shamanic state of consciousness. It clarifies our thinking. For years, many people were confused by what shamans said. "I made a journey and was away for 3 years, and such and such happened." Now that person in nonordinary reality had the experience of living somewhere else for 3 years, but might have been gone only a half-hour in ordinary reality.

What about divination?

Work in shamanism also involves divination. A person can journey for themselves or have somebody who's a shamanic practitioner journey for them to get an answer to a question. What's really interesting is when somebody who's a complete stranger—about whom the shaman knows nothing—asks for an answer to a question, and the shaman then journeys or uses other techniques and gets the exact information that's valid for that person's life. This can happen because these things are known by the spirits. The shaman doesn't need to know anything except the methods, and to have his or her own spirit helpers.

How can doctors and nurses use this knowledge?

Sometimes I informally call our foundation the "University of Shamanism." I bring that up because our primary purpose is to return shamanism to the planet by training people. Many of these people are doctors and other health professionals. It is they who must discover how to integrate what they are taught into their practices. We don't have a ready template for that. Within the next few years, we hope to have a large-scale conference of health practitioners who have studied with us, to exchange information about how they have used these methods in their practice.

I know the Foundation is conducting research regarding drumming and health. Can you talk about that?

Our research, thanks to a Canadian foundation, is investigating certain matters regarding shamanic journeying and drumming and health. My wife, Dr. Sandra Harner, is the director of the Shamanism and Health Project. Her research involves two major aspects, one of which is the effect of shamanic journeying and drumming on one measure of immune response and on emotions.

In connection with this work, she has gotten some hints that people with certain profiles of psychological descriptors respond much more effectively in terms of the immune response than others. This is a subject, obviously, of considerable interest. She has also found that there is a tremendous increase in the sense of well being as well as decreased mood disturbance and stress in people working with shamanic drumming and journeying. But to say more would be premature.

It's ironic that a system of healing that—other than using plants—is the oldest known system of healing in the world, should have no research going on in it at all, other than what we are able to do with our meager resources. I look forward to the day when the possibility of spiritual causality is not ruled out of research, so that science, in fact, can be completely scientific.
We also have what the medical profession would call "anecdotal" accounts. People often come to the shamans when everybody else has failed. We have cases in which, once people start getting shamanic treatments and laboratory tests are continued, the tests turn out negative, whereas they previously were positive. The assumption from the medical profession is usually that the previous diagnoses were incorrect, because there's been a reversal. That's fine with us. After all, it's virtually impossible, on a case-by-case basis, to prove causality. People wonder, How do you know this works? Well, you just practice it for your life and it develops a track record for you.

What are you working on now?

My primary interest right now is in miracles. I've devoted some years now to finding out what principles are involved to have miracles happen. I think we're making significant progress. Almost everything that anybody's ever read about in the shamanic literature or the miracle literature is something that we have some knowledge of how to do now. And this includes miracles of healing.

Starting next year, we will be moving forward on this project with some of our most advanced students. I'm not in a position to comfortably start sharing this information publicly—it's too early—but it does involve a real awareness of the spirits.

I might say something about spirits, because it's a strange word to people. What is a spirit? In 1961, when I was with the Conibo Indians in eastern Peru in the Amazon, I was training using ayahuasca with a shaman, and we were working with the various nature spirits every night. I worked with the anaconda spirit, the black panther spirit, the fresh-water dolphin spirit, various tree spirits, and so on. They would come, we would see them, and so on. Then one night I got introduced to the outboard-motor spirit. And then the radio spirit and the airplane spirit. I came to realize that anything that you see in complete darkness or with your eyes closed is technically a spirit. That makes it sound like it's just an image in the air, but shamans find out which spirits have power and which don't. They discover what spirits can help in what ways. It's very important to recognize that whatever you contact in nonordinary reality is technically a spirit. It's a spiritual reality.

Once a shaman contacts the spirits, what happens?

There's a crossover of the power from nonordinary reality to ordinary reality. The two realities are conceptually discrete, but the shaman is able to move the power of one over to the other. When this is done successfully, that's how healings occur and how we have what is called miracles.

Your interest in miracles was obviously spurred by your experiencing or witnessing miracles. Would you be willing to tell us a miracle story?

This is a very simple one that can be seen to this day, empirically, in ordinary reality. One of our students, Carol Herkimer, was in what we call a "spirit boat," along with other members of a basic class. The spirit boat is a technique used in aboriginal Australia, on the northwest coast of North America, and in the upper Amazon. A group of shamans journey together to the Lower or Upper world to go outside of time. They may be going for healing or knowledge. When a whole group of people, trained properly and in contact with spirits, journey together to help one person, it's very powerful.

We were using a dance studio in lower Manhattan on Canal Street called "The Kiva." Like any other dance studio, it had highly polished floors, so

we always had to be careful not to scuff them. Carol was recovering from a terrible traffic accident and she couldn't sit on the cushions on the floor with the other people. She had to sit in a chair with bent tubular metal legs. So we went off on the journey, and when we came back (to ordinary reality), people shared what they had encountered. When Carol went on the journey, she went through a sea of fire in nonordinary reality. When she came back, the floor was smoking under her chair, and the bent aluminum tubular leg on one side had burned a channel into the floor, but she hadn't gotten burned. The people who owned the studio were quite upset, and to this day the burned channel is still there.
This example alone doesn't prove anything, but it's these kinds of coincidences that build up in your own practice. In no single case can you be sure what actually happened, but if you find a high correlation between treatments by people who are well known as healing shamans and recoveries—when other things have failed—then you begin to pay attention.

When you start shamanic journeying, if you're the kind of person the spirits feel compassion for and want to help, you're going to get lots of teachings you never asked for and never expected. Because once you go through those doors—whatever those doors are—the spirits will teach you according to your preparation, and your life will change. Even one journey may start changing your life.

In my daily life, I have incorporated some basic shamanic principles over the past few years very effectively. I have a collection of music of drumming, didgeridoo, and other "native" or "indigenous" percussion sounds. I listen to these cd's when I am working as a meteorologist on evening or night shifts, and I feel that they do alter my consciousness just slightly. To a point where I am able to access my "intuition" or "higher self" more effectively. I also do this while driving long distances, and while still alert to the conditions of the road, will shift slightly into a very peaceful, and insightful state of being. I plan on, in the coming years, taking Shamanic courses and traveling to workshops, to more fully acquire knowledge and skills which I can use for the benefit of those around me, and myself.

WE'RE SCREWED!

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/09/21-0

I came across this cool article yesterday, and couldn't help but share it with you. I love it when people creatively take matters into their own hands to spread knowledge and subvert the dominant paradigm!

'We're Screwed': Media Heist Blankets City With 'Special Edition' New York Post
Tabloid Tells Truth About Climate Change and How It Will Affect City, World

NEW YORK - September 21 - Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a "special edition" New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report. Distributed by over 2000 volunteers throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change.

It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has "less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet," adding that Copenhagen is a "once-in-a-generation opportunity." Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts. "This could be, and should be, a real New York Post," said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men. "Climate change is the biggest threat civilization has ever faced, and it should be in the headlines of every paper, every day until we solve the problem." The fake Post's cover story ("We're Screwed") reports the frightening conclusions of a blue-ribbon panel of scientists commissioned by the mayor's office to determine the potential effects of climate change on the City. That report was released in February of this year, but received very little press at the time.

Other lead articles describe the Pentagon's alarmed response to global warming ("Clear & Present Disaster"), the U.S. government's sadly minuscule response to the crisis ("Congress Cops Out on Climate"), China's alternative energy program ("ChinaŐs Green Leap Forward Overtakes U.S."), and how if the US doesn't quickly pass a strong climate bill, the crucial Copenhagen climate talks this December could be a "Flopenhagen."

The paper includes original investigative reporting as well. One article ("Carbon counter counts New Yorkers as fools") reveals that Deutsche Bank - which erected a seven-story "carbon counter" in central Manhattan - not only invests heavily in coal-mining companies worldwide, but has recently entered the business of coal trading itself.The paper has the world's gloomiest weather page, covering the next 70 years rather than just 7 days. The "Around the World" section describes the disproportionate effects of climate change on poorer parts of the world, including extreme droughts, floods, famines, water shortages, mass migrations and conflicts. Developing countries will bear the brunt of climate change effects even though they have done very little to cause the problem. But the paper isn't all doom and gloom. An article called "New York Fights Back" notes that the carbon emissions of Big Apple residents are only one third the national average, and that the city is building 1800 miles of bike paths, planting one million trees, and replacing its fleet of police cars with hybrids. There's also a page of black-humor cartoons (in one, Charlie Brown finds Snoopy drowned), a gossip section that takes no prisoners, and a number of truly cheerful ads - for sex ("Awesome. No carbon emissions."), tote bags, bicycles, and tap water ("Literally comes right out of your faucet!").

Another ad promotes civil disobedience, encouraging readers to visit http://BeyondTalk.net and pledge to risk arrest in a planned global action November 30, just before the conference in Copenhagen. "We need strong action on climate change," said David Solnit of Mobilization for Climate Justice West, one of the partners in BeyondTalk.net. "But history shows that leaders act only when people take to the streets to demand it. That's what needs to happen now."This paper is one of 2500 initiatives taking place in more than 130 countries as a response to the "Global Wake-up Call" on climate change. For more information, visit www.tcktcktck.org/wakeup Fake New York Post: http://www.nypost-se.com/Video News Release: http://www.nypost-se.com/videoCity report on climate change: http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2009/NPCC_CRI.pdf

Fantastic, yes? Three cheers to the Yes Men and activists who put this together!

The A.P.R. will be on the road over the next three weeks. Visiting family and friends in San Diego, CA, and Jupiter, FL. We'll be sure to stay abreast of the latest events though, and even provide you with some undersea images from our exclusive A.P.R. Dive Cam, as I submerge to 20-30 metres in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Mattie and Homer will be holding up the fort at the Chena Ridge Research Centre, in my absence. Cheers.

METRIC MANIFESTO! [and] MT. PRINDLE - el otro mundo?

Back when I was in Miss Mannarino's sixth grade class at Whittier Elementary in San Diego in 1975-76, we studied the metric system. Change was coming, the U.S. was going metric by 1980! So we were told. The following year in seventh grade, through all of junior and senior high, and college thereafter, nothing more was mentioned about this. What happened? Take a look at this world map. What is it showing? Those countries in red, including the U.S., are the only ones not officially requiring the use of the metric system in all aspects of living, transportation, weights/measures, weather forecasts, etc...

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/usmb.html The preceding link gives the history of the aborted U.S. drive to go metric. The Reagan administration cancelled the funding for the U.S. Metric Board in 1982, citing budgetary reasons. So ended the U.S. drive toward metrication. What was the real reason? American exceptionalism, complaints from industry (especially auto-makers)? Probably a mix of both. And in spite of the findings and recommendations of the U.S. Metric Board, which were:

Findings
The present policy of maintaining a dual system of measures for trade and commerce is confusing to all segments of American society.

Voluntary metric conversion by industry occurs primarily in response to marketplace demands and usually on a company-by-company basis.

The costs of metric conversion have not been excessive.

Large segments of industry have metric capability.

Past perceptions of the difficulty of metric conversion have no basis.

There are no substantial legal barriers to metric conversion requiring Federal preemptive action.

There are no substantial technical problems with metric conversion.

Consumers accept conversion according to their own interests.

Recommendations
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 should continue to be administered.

National policy on metric conversion should be reassessed.

Research should be conducted on economic sectors where metric capability may be critical.

The Federal Interagency Committee on Metric Policy and the National Council on State Metrication should be continued.

The functions outlined in the Board's Private Sector Planning Guidelines should be continued.

Government public awareness, consumer and education programs should be continued selectively.

The States should consider enacting uniform metric conversion legislation.

As we proudly and often state, all of the A.P.R. staff are "One-Worlders" (my favorite epithet hurled at me by a conservative person once!). That is, we view ourselves as part of the human race, who just happen to live in a certain country. And that if humanity is to survive as a race with some form of technological culture, all countries and groups must trust each other and work together to solve the looming and inter-related threats of global warming/environmental collapse and overpopulation/resource depletion. Which means working toward some form of effective World Government. As you often see in science fiction, stories/novels, and movies/television shows. I don't know about you, but I think it's inspiring to see a vision of the future like the Star Trek shows, where 300-500 years from now, humanity has evolved to the point where there is effective World Government, and the related pestilences of poverty and war have been eliminated.

M.K. Ghandi famously stated, "You must be the change you wish to see". Since we here at A.P.R. wish to see an end to the curse of American Exceptionalism, and for this country to join the global community as a force for positive change in tackling the serious threats facing us all, we offer the following METRIC MANIFESTO:

We pledge ourselves to only use the metric system henceforth in all our daily activities, writings, and relations with others. And to educate others as to why we are doing this. Of course, there are some instances where this is not possible (in your lead author's other job, for example), but every effort will be made to go metric, and hence, through this small step, become more of a global citizen.

There are signs of gradual change, as this highway sign on I-15 in the Mojave Desert shows, yet the speed limit sign is still in MPH. Let's make the transition complete, and become more a part of the global community!

MT. PRINDLE - el Otro Mundo?

El Otro Mundo (spanish for "the other world") is my favorite way of referencing the place we all go every night in our dreams and when we finally let go our physical bodies in this life.

Looking out our windows of the Chena Ridge Research Station, you can see peak fall colour is upon us. This also means that within a few weeks it will be much colder, the ground will be frozen, and the first snowflakes flying. And, moderate conditions for a short pack trip won't last much longer. This past weekend the A.P.R. staff decided a short getaway was needed, and we decided to visit Mt. Prindle, which is listed as a 30 kilometre round trip hike to the top of it's 1612 metre summit. It is about 120 km east of Fairbanks, off the Steese Highway. A guidebook showed pictures of interesting rock formations (tors - granitic outcroppings) there and that it is not a very heavily visited place, because of two stream crossings on the first part of the trail. Perfect!
We headed out last saturday afternoon and reached the trailhead at 4pm. Sure enough, not 20 metres from the parking spot, we had to cross Nome Creek, which was too deep and wide to hop across on rocks, so we just plunged through in our regular hiking boots and socks. Another smaller stream then had to be crossed another 100 metres or so up similarly. We did this because I knew this would be a swampy tundra hike, full of tussocks and underwater sections of trail. And since we were just going to hike 10 km this day and set up camp, no biggie. I brought extra socks for the next day, and my 7mm scuba dive neoprene booties to wear in camp for comfort/dry feet.

It didn't take long to realize, there really aren't many people coming in here. Because berries like this wouldn't be seen on all sides of the trail otherwise. We had to stop and gorge a few times.

The trail the first several kilometres gradually ascends up the Nome Creek drainage above treeline, and did have many swampy sections, so my feet were constantly wet and muddy.

About 9 km and two hours up, we decided to stop and set up camp just below a bowl where the valley comes to an end. A nice stream close by would give me access for cooking and drinking water and for Mattie and Homer's needs. A few weeks ago I visited our local outdoor store, Beaver Sports, and checked out the clearance area. I saw a small one-person "Big-Agnes" Seedhouse SL-1 tent for sale for 100.00, normally 250.00. I snapped it up. This was my first opportunity to use it. It only weighs .9 kg (not much more than my bivvy sack!) and takes up a third the packed space of my larger tents. Here you can see it without the fly. During high summer, when bugs are in full swing, if not expecting rain, this will make a great bug escape zone.

With the fly on, it gives full protection from the elements. It is big enough for me and all my gear, or two people could squeeze in in a pinch, leaving their packs outside. Not bad for 100.00! It sure pays to check out that clearance rack!

Looking up the valley from our camp-site that evening in the gentle fall sun, I could make out the route we'd take tomorrow to get up Prindle. Up the slope of the tallest hill in the center, then following the ridge to the right east, and then north.

After a chilly, rainy, windy night, we awoke to grey skies, sprinkles, and a stiff 30-45 kph northeast wind. I knew it would be much worse as we ascended, but them's the breaks. We waited until 1030 though, for it to warm up a little, and see if it would stop sprinkling or improve. It didn't so we set out.

After ascending the flank of the first hill and ridge-line, a few kilometres brought us to the first of the significant "tors", ones I called "the bookends". All very old, weathered granite, millenia of arctic extreme weather has been working on these. These were probably about 200-300 metres above camp, which itself was probably around 1000 m elevation (tree line here is only around 900 m).

Homer was very happy to be here, many times he had to roll around on the ground, whine, and growl to register his approval. With his strking blue eyes, wolfy body and face, he can come off as rather imposing. But he is as kind and and gentle a canine as I've ever been fortunate enough to associate with. Mattie sure loves him too.

Getting up the first slope, there was no real trail, but by the time I got to the "bookends" one re-appeared. Looking up the trail, just past this, is when I first realized, what a strange place this is. In the far distance, the 1612 metre summit of Prindle looms. The "trail" (such as it is) weaves through the tors, up that dark ridge past them, down this to another, up and over that, then to the top of Prindle. By the time we got this high, the winds were easily double what they were in camp, still sprinkling, and it was about 6-8C (42-46F), we estimated. More importantly, the lichens on the many rock fields we had to go through were quite slippery, which was potentially dangerous, in the wind, and we had to pay attention to every step.

Mattie switched to mountain-goat mode early on, once we hit the rocks.

She loves being in high places, and climbing around, just as much as she loves being in the water.

Weaving through these bizaare-looking rocks, I felt as though I was in "el Otro Mundo". They looked like a cross between Stonehenge, and the huge statues on Easter Island, at times. I think the flat grey lighting, and strong cold wind just accentuated the effect. The main area of these tors is about a kilometre long, and we took our time going through, they were so interesting. They are reknowned for rock-climbing, and I can definitely see the draw there, and will put that on the list for next year.

My favorite of the tors was the last large one before ascending the dark ridge heading toward the Prindle summit. This is the one that I think really looks like an Easter Island statue.

This is looking back, south, down the line of the tors. Such a strange place...

We were definitely put into a spiritual, almost trance-like state being here. I am a strong believer that certain areas exert different influences/energies upon us. Many hot springs have healing energy, for example. This area, to me, exemplifies a "power-center", where it would be beneficial to conduct nature-based rituals and ceremonies, as they would be very powerful. Since I am scotch/irish and swiss/german, I identify strongly with the pre-Christian, nature-based Celtic beliefs. Which I believe are healthier, and more affirming than Christianity, as every part of the Earth, person, plant, and animal, are seen as sacred, and part of the larger whole.

After our spiritual experience weaving through the tors, we ascended the next ridge. The rocks were very slippery, and I could see I would have another hour of that in the strong wind, to ascend Prindle. I decided to save it for another time. I'm running a longer, 50 km equinox marathon next weekend, and didn't want to jeopardise that with a slip. Not to mention, having to get back down, and out 15 km back to the car. It went pretty quickly descending back to camp, packing up, and then heading back to the car. We were there at 430 pm. A perfect quick two-day getaway.

I decided there should be a Summer Solstice ceremony/celebration here next June. Anyone with me? Cheers.

MUST PADDLE LIST - Tangle Lakes/Delta River

Interior Alaska abounds with almost unlimited opportunities for wilderness outings on our lakes and rivers. On everyone's Must Paddle list who lives here, because it's so accessible, yet still beautiful and wild (at least after the first few miles), is the Tangle Lakes/Delta River trip. 48 kilometres on lakes and a river through the heart of the Alaska Range.

Erik Hursh and his two younger kids, Shane, 12, and Megan, 10, and the whole A.P.R. staff decided to give this a try last Labour Day weekend. Erik and the kids, along with Mattie and Homer, would be in a canoe, while

your lead editor would follow in his Alpacka pack raft.

Erik likes to drive his trusty old 1984 Volvo DL casually, as you can see, on the way to pick up the canoe.

Of course, it's a five hour drive from Fairbanks to Tangle Lakes. 160 km southeast to Delta Junction, then 140 km south on the Richardson Highway to the take-out spot on the Delta River (where we had to leave the Volvo, so we could load everything on it when we reached the end of the paddle, then drive back to my vehicle at the start).

We reached the Tangle Lakes campground, 38 km west of Paxson, on the Denali Highway, around 6 pm. It was pretty crowded with the holiday weekend and hunting season.

But this is where we had to put our craft in, for the beginning of the float trip. So, in spite of the crowd, and noise (people's generators in their campers mainly), there was an upside.

Just over a ridge from the campground, we figured there would be blueberries. We were not disappointed! We spent an hour picking, and Erik made us some fantastic pancakes bursting full of them. Very tasty!

Logistics for float trips can be tricky. We couldn't leave the Volvo at the takeout spot on the Delta River, next to the Richardson Highway, on the way out, because my Ford Escape wouldn't fit everyone and all our gear. So we had to drive to the campground/put-in spot first, set up camp, then stage the vehicles.

So after dinner, we drove both vehicles down to the take-out spot, and left the Volvo there. On the way down though, Erik had to pull over quickly, and I'm glad he did. High-Latitude sunset emergency! Here in the high latitudes, our long twilights give us beautiful drawn-out scenes like this, which demand picture-taking. This was just looking west off the Richardson Highway, near Summit Lake. We were very lucky this weekend to have the weather cooperating. Weak high pressure ridging promised relatively mild weather with a chance of a shower, but no steady, hours-long rains.

Sunday morning, after a leisurely breakfast and getting everything stashed in the canoe, we set out paddling south on Round Tangle Lake, the first of the two large Tangle Lakes to paddle through. The bright, sunny weather, fall colour, and lack of headwind, made this quite enjoyable. You'll note our intrepid assistant editor Mattie swimming behind the canoe, with me rounding up the rear.

For reasons unknown, Mattie decided to be a real challenge on this trip. She had never been on a float trip before. When she was in the canoe, she would whine and squirm, wanting to jump out. When she was swimming or running along onshore, she would still be whining and squirming. What to do? We just tried to manage her as best we could, and of the 48 km we did this trip, she probably swam/ran at least half of them. She has a good lifejacket with a handle on top, with which we could pluck her out of the water and drop her in the canoe at times, which helped.

This is looking north down the Narrow Tangle Lake, which is the second of the two. It is much longer, but narrower, than the Round Tangle Lake. At times it becomes quite narrow, almost like a stream, but it is almost still, current-less, so you have to keep paddling. The two lakes take up the first 14 km of the 48 km total for this route.

After about six hours of paddling and breaks, Narrow Tangle Lake transitioned into the Delta River. At this point, we decided to call it a day and set up camp. Erik recommended a real nice bench 30 metres above the river. It had a great view, up and down the river, as you can see, and the exposed site let more winds through, keeping the clouds of gnats from being too bothersome. This is looking downriver, just around the curve at the end, is where the mainly class II rapids begin, followed by a portage, where you have to put out and haul boats/supplies a kilometer on a rocky trail, which skirts some un-navigable rapids.

We had a great time at this beautiful camp spot, we were able to get a nice fire going all evening, so we stayed around it, having a big dinner and hanging out. It didn't look like any weather was due, and when I last worked the previous fri., our models indicated it should stay dry. Nonetheless I felt an urge to prepare my tent for rain, and shelter my pack, etc.., and urged Erik to do so as well.

Sure enough, around midnight, a heavy shower came through, for over an hour. Mattie and Homer, sleeping out, wanted to come in, but I had no room in my tent for wet canines. Mattie was able to shelter underneath the vestibule of my tent's rainfly though.

The next day, after the rain, donned foggy and chilly, around 1-2C or so. My camera stopped working, the battery drained for some reason. So all the pictures from the second day came from Erik's hands/camera. He snapped this beautiful picture of the morning mist clearing across the river shortly before we packed up and headed out.

We only paddled north about 2 km monday through the first small rapids, I and II's, before reaching the take-out spot for the portage. We hauled everything up onshore. Erik decided to bathe and shave in the river, while I made fun of that, since we'd only been out two days. But he always manages to look clean and neat, unlike yours truly.

After that, he started preparing all his and the kids supplies for the haul up the trail, while I readied mine. Here is where the only real misadventure occurred. We both were focused on these tasks and weren't really aware of what Shane and Megan were up to. I was hauling some of Erik's packs up some rock stairs to stage them there, while he was still unpacking some things. We neglected to coordinate with them and tell them we need to all stay together. After I hauled some loads up the first steep rocky part of the trail and staged them at the top, I noticed Shane and Megan were way up in the distance. I just decided to then take my Alpacka and backpack all the way to the put-in spot, a kilometre up. Unfortunately, they had gotten off the main trail, which I didn't know. I followed them, to keep an eye on them. Shane was up ahead on some faint trails, so I followed him, and we both lost sight of Megan. After some bushwhacking and cursing, we got tothe put-in spot, so then we had to get back and find Megan, and catch up with Erik.

By this time Erik had hauled the canoe up the main trail, which I hadn't been on, and we caught up. He didn't know where Megan was! And Shane had split up with me to go back and find Megan. It then took us over 90 min. to finally get all together with our supplies. Erik was rightfully upset. Had one of the kids been injured in some way, we would have been in a bad spot, hours from help. We both should have paid attention to them and coordinated. I haven't spent much time with kids in the wilderness, so I lost sight of the fact that they easily wander, and need to be kept around. At least Mattie and Homer helped though, they kept running back and forth between us all, and would have been there in case of any bear problems (we only saw one, at a distance, the night before, a medium-size black, when we first set up camp).

We finally got ready to put back in at 230 pm. Here is where the heaviest rapids are, right at the start of this put in. Since my camera wasn't working, I couldn't get any pictures, and Erik was too focused on loading all the supplies, Shane and Megan, and Homer and Mattie, into the canoe. He decided it would be best to line the canoe (walk it through the worst rapids, the water was only knee-thigh deep), then start paddling about 50 metres down, where the rapids were a little gentler, class II instead of II/III. I did the same with my Alpacka. Of course I got soaked, but it was sunny, so I wasn't too worried.

Once we got through that, we had a couple fast fun kilometres of class I/II rapids, which while not overly dangerous, did require us to pay attention to what we were doing and paddle different directions to get through them the most efficiently. Mattie actually stayed in the canoe during this, fortunately. Homer was a perfect gentlemen, on the entire trip, regally poised in his spot, never complaining or squirming.

This picture sums up that situation quite well, notice how Homer is so calm and is questioning why Mattie is so stupid as to keep jumping out of the canoe and then whining while swimming after it. A few hours after the portage fiasco, I got ahead of Erik and the kids, and when we caught up again, Mattie was going full bore swimming and running to keep up. She had put Erik and the kids in jeopardy earlier by squirming in the canoe, almost causing them to capsize. So she had to be taught a lesson, and was not allowed back in for awhile. It didn't help that much, unfortunately!

After a break at 2:45 pm, we all made guesses as to how long it would take to reach the take-out spot. I knew had 30 km more to go, and guessed 4 hours. Erik guessed two, and the kids three. There was quite a slow stretch after this of what seemed like 8-10 km where there seemed to be almost no current. That alone took a couple hours.

This beautiful fall colour picture Erik took sums up that section quite well, you can see how clear and calm the river is here.

That meant I had to paddle hard in the Alpacka to keep up with canoe. Canoes slice through the water, and a paddler in one has about a four-to-one advantage over a packrafter paddling their little craft bobbing on top of the water like a leaf. So my arms were getting pretty tired.

Around 4 pm, the first silty stream out of the higher glaciated mountains of the Alaska Range merged in to the Delta River, and it lost its clarity, and became the silty, braided river, we usually associate with Alaska range river-courses. At this point, with all the braids, it required alot of attention to keep in a deeper channel, and not ground on shallow gravel or rocks. Which I did frequently, occasioned by much cursing, and heavy pushing with my paddle to keep moving, or getting up and pulling the raft back into a deeper area. Since I had been soaked most of the day from the waist down, I was getting pretty cold when we stopped on breaks. Paddling though, I was staying warm.

After our 4 pm rest/food break, Erik and the kids got way ahead of me, and I never caught back up. The final kilometers here to the put-out were in the silty, braided, but fast, shallow section of the Delta River. It was quite beautiful though with the sunshine, fall colour, and steep terrain. I finally reached the take-out spot at 645 pm, about 15-20 min. behind Erik and the kids. So my earlier four hour guess was the most accurate (and even then I thought we'd be lucky!). But the river was pretty fast the last 10-15 km or so, easily 10-15 km per hour I'd guess.

This is looking north from the put-out spot to 2900 metre Mt. Silvertip. You can see the braids in the silty river.
I was relieved to be done when I spied Erik and the kids, my arms were tired, and I was cold, so it was a good time to finish.

Still, I knew our trip was coming to an end, which is always disappointing when having fun in a place like this.

Looking north from the put-out spot, you can see 2000 metre Rainbow Ridge, a beautiful sheer rock wall jutting up above the east side of the Richardson Highway.

It only took us a few minutes to pack up and load everything in the Volvo, to drive back to the Tangle Lakes Campground. Where we could pick up my Ford Escape, and then commence the return journey.

We got everything separated and loaded into the two vehicles at the campground around 830 pm, and then stopped at Paxson. I took Shane and Megan, so I could drop them off in North Pole, where they live with their mother, while Erik went south back to Valdez. Since it was already late on a monday night, and the kids had school the next day, I gunned it and went 120-150 kph on the Richardson highway, until reaching Fort Greely. There was little traffic, which helped. I didn't get the sleepy kids back to their house until 1130 pm though. But they had a great time, and the A.P.R. staff headed back to the comforts of our Chena Ridge Research Centre. Which we reached at midnight. We all had a great time in the beautiful scenery and late summer/early fall weather. And learned the importance of managing children in wilderness settings more closely. All in all, a great success.

Next year though, Erik and I want to do traverse/floats with just our Alpacka's, and no kids or canines. Multitudes of options there! Cheers.

A.C.-C.U. III - UPDATE, IT GETS WORSE [and] CAN ANYTHING BE DONE?

What are they to do? The major multi-national privately-owned oil companies have been funding "researchers" aimed at sowing confusion about the reality of global climate change due to the CO2 emissions from our fossil-fuel based economy. And fighting hard to prevent any significant governmental initiatives, in this or other countries, to limit emissions.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/19

In spite of amplifying trends in things such as major floods, droughts, and wildfires. I thought this picture was particularly worth sharing, as it's imagery is very powerful. This is from the 150,000 acre Station Fire just north of Los Angeles, last sunday, 30 AUG 09. Temperatures in the inland areas of Southern California have been over 100F for the past two weeks, leading to this spectacular fire behaviour, a fire plume crowned by a "pyrocumulus" These only develop when fires are burning every bit of fuel on the ground (crown-fires) in an intense conflagration, which is unstoppable by any form of suppression attempt. And, there has been very little wind. God help them around that fire if a Santa Ana wind event were to develop on it! Get used to scenes like this, there will be alot more of them in the coming years, and in places not necessarily used to it.

Unfortunately for our beloved oil companies, who experienced record profits over the past four years, (Exxon posted the greatest quarterly profits of any corporation in history last year!), reality has a way of intruding upon even the best set and funded of plans. This reality though is not just bad for the oil companies, but something that will affect us all, in very detrimental ways, unless rapid, concerted, global action is taken to limit CO2 and Methane emissions, as well as to stop tropical deforestation for unsustainable livestock ranches and biofuels plantations.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/03

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/31-9

Published on Monday, August 31, 2009 by Associated Press

Climate Trouble May Be Bubbling Up in Far North

MACKENZIE RIVER DELTA, Northwest Territories — Only a squawk from a sandhill crane broke the Arctic silence — and a low gurgle of bubbles, a watery whisper of trouble repeated in countless spots around the polar world.

"On a calm day, you can see 20 or more `seeps' out across this lake," said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze.

"It's essentially pure methane."
Pure methane, gas bubbling up from underwater vents, escaping into northern skies, adds to the global-warming gases accumulating in the atmosphere. And pure methane escaping in the massive amounts known to be locked in the Arctic permafrost and seabed would spell a climate catastrophe.
Is such an unlocking under way?

Researchers say air temperatures here in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 2.5 C (4.5 F) since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) a year, and a further 7 C (13 F) temperature rise is possible this century, says the authoritative, U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees, and unpredictable consequences for Earth's climate.

Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries. But the Russian scenario is disturbing enough to have led six U.S. national laboratories last year to launch a joint investigation of rapid methane release. And IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri in July asked his scientific network to focus on "abrupt, irreversible climate change" from thawing permafrost.
The data will come from teams like one led by Scott Dallimore, who with Bowen and others pitched tents here on the remote, boggy fringe of North America, 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles) from the North Pole, to learn more about seeps in the 25,000 lakes of this vast river delta.
A "puzzle," Dallimore calls it.

"Many factors are poorly studied, so we're really doing frontier science here," the Geological Survey of Canada scientist said. "There is a very large storehouse of greenhouse gases within the permafrost, and if that storehouse of greenhouse gases is fluxing to the surface, that's important to know. And it's important to know if that flux will change with time."

Permafrost, tundra soil frozen year-round and covering almost one-fifth of Earth's land surface, runs anywhere from 50 to 600 meters (160 to 2,000 feet) deep in this region. Entombed in that freezer is carbon — plant and animal matter accumulated through millennia.

As the soil thaws, these ancient deposits finally decompose, attacked by microbes, producing carbon dioxide and — if in water — methane. Both are greenhouse gases, but methane is many times more powerful in warming the atmosphere.

Researchers led by the University of Florida's Ted Schuur last year calculated that the top 3 meters (10 feet) of permafrost alone contain more carbon than is currently in the atmosphere.
"It's safe to say the surface permafrost, 3 to 5 meters, is at risk of thawing in the next 100 years," Schuur said by telephone from an Alaska research site. "It can't stay intact."

Methane also is present in another form, as hydrates — ice-like formations deep underground and under the seabed in which methane molecules are trapped within crystals of frozen water. If warmed, the methane will escape.

Dallimore, who has long researched hydrates as energy sources, believes a breakdown of such huge undersea formations may have produced conical "hills" found offshore in the Beaufort Sea bed, some of them 40 meters (more than 100 feet) high.

With underwater robots, he detected methane gas leaking from these seabed features, which resemble the strange hills ashore here that the Inuvialuit, or Eskimos, call "pingos." And because the coastal plain is subsiding and seas are rising from warming, more permafrost is being inundated, exposed to water warmer than the air.

The methane seeps that the Canadians were studying in the Mackenzie Delta, amid grassy islands, steel-gray lakes and summertime temperatures well above freezing, are saucer-like indentations just 10 meters (30 feet) or so down on the lake bed.

The ultimate source of that gas — hydrates, decomposition or older natural gas deposits — is unclear, but Dallimore's immediate goal is quantifying the known emissions and finding the unknown.

With tent-like, instrument-laden enclosures they positioned over two seeps, each several meters (yards) wide, the researchers have determined they are emitting methane at a rate of up to 0.6 cubic meters (almost 1 cubic yard) per minute.

Dallimore's team is also monitoring the seeps with underwater listening devices, to assess whether seasonal change — warming — affects the emissions rate.

Even if the lake seeps are centuries old, Bowen said, the question is, "Will they be accelerated by recent changes?"

A second question: Are more seeps developing?

To begin answering that, Dallimore is working with German and Canadian specialists in aerial surveying, teams that will fly over swaths of Arctic terrain to detect methane "hot spots" via spectrometric imagery, instruments identifying chemicals by their signatures on the light spectrum.

Research crews are hard at work elsewhere, too, to get a handle on this possible planetary threat.

"I and others are trying to take field observations and get it scaled up to global models," said Alaska researcher Schuur. From some 400 boreholes drilled deep into the tundra worldwide, "we see historic warming of permafrost. Much of it is now around 2 below zero (28 F)," Schuur said.

A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft is overflying Alaska this summer with instruments sampling the air for methane and carbon dioxide. In parts of Alaska, scientists believe the number of "thermokarst" lakes — formed when terrain collapses over thawing permafrost and fills with meltwater — may have doubled in the past three decades. Those lakes then expand, thawing more permafrost on their edges, exposing more carbon.

Off Norway's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard last September, British scientists reported finding 250 methane plumes rising from the shallow seabed. They're probably old, scientists said, but only further research can assess whether they're stable. In March, Norwegian officials did say methane levels had risen on Svalbard.

Afloat above the huge, shallow continental shelf north of Siberia, Russian researchers have detected seabed "methane chimneys" sending gas bubbling up to the surface, possibly from hydrates.

Reporting to the European Geophysical Union last year, the scientists, affiliated with the University of Alaska and the Russian Academy of Sciences, cited "extreme" saturation of methane in surface waters and in the air above. They said up to 10 percent of the undersea permafrost area had melted, and it was "highly possible" that this would open the way to abrupt release of an estimated 50 billion tons of methane.

Depending on how much dissolved in the sea, that might multiply methane in the atmosphere several-fold, boosting temperatures enough to cause "catastrophic greenhouse warming," as the Russians called it. It would be self-perpetuating, melting more permafrost, emitting more methane.

Some might label that alarmism. And Stockholm University researcher Orjan Gustafsson, a partner in the Russians' field work, acknowledged that "the scientific community is quite split on how fast the permafrost can thaw."

But there's no doubt the north contains enough potential methane and carbon dioxide to cause abrupt climate change, Gustafsson said by telephone from Sweden.

Canada's pre-eminent permafrost expert, Chris Burn, has trekked to lonely locations in these high latitudes for almost three decades, meticulously chronicling the changes in the tundra.
On a stopover at the Aurora Research Institute in the Mackenzie Delta town of Inuvik, the Carleton University scientist agreed "we need many, many more field observations." But his teams have found the frozen ground warming down to about 80 meters, and he believes the world is courting disaster in failing to curb warming by curbing greenhouse emissions.

"If we lost just 1 percent of the carbon in permafrost today, we'd be close to a year's contributions from industrial sources," he said. "I don't think policymakers have woken up to this. It's not in their risk assessments."

How likely is a major release?
"I don't think it's a case of likelihood," he said. "I think we are playing with fire."
Copyright 2009 Associated Press

So folks, there you have it. As you know, methane is 22 times more efficient of a greenhouse gas than CO2. Uncontrolled vast releases of it from our melting Arctic permafrost and undersea hydrate deposits will create rapid warming of a scale that could lead to melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and around the coastal margins of Antarctica. Which would create rapid sea-level rises of 20-40 feet in a decade. Not only would low-lying coastal countries like Bangladesh be inundated, but so would all the global industrial infra-structure for energy and food distribution. What kind of global effects would that have? I'm sure you can think of some pretty apocalyptic scenarios, many people have. How long do we have, before this occurs, if nothing is done? 10 to 20 years, at best.

Can anything be done, in the next 10 to 20 years, or sooner? Yes. Here are some promising ideas, which if implemented rapidly, globally, along with conservation measures, would buy us needed time, to transition to a low-carbon industrial base.

http://www.physorg.com/news170664833.html

Forests of Artificial Trees Could Slow Global Warming

August 28th, 2009 by Lin Edwards

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study on how technology could help to regulate climate change has studied hundreds of ideas, and selected three considered practical and able to be implemented quickly. The report's authors propose the construction of forests of artificial trees and installing tubes of algae on the sides of buildings to absorb carbon dioxide. They also proposed painting the roofs of buildings white to keep the Earth cool by reducing the amount of solar radiation absorbed.

The engineers from Britain's Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) have asked their government for an investment of 10 million pounds (around 16.3 million dollars) in these ideas to counter the threat to Britain posed by global warming.

One of the authors of the report, Dr Tim Fox, said geo-engineering techniques could buy us a few extra years' breathing space while we transition to a low-carbon world, and may help ward off the climate change scenarios we fear. The report claimed global temperatures could rise by as much as 6°C in the next 90 years if we don't act soon, and the results would include major refugee movements as well as food and water shortages.

One proposal was the building of forests of artificial trees. Each synthetic tree could capture up to 10 tons of CO2 a day, which is thousands of times more than a real tree. Each tree would cost around $24,400, and a forest of 100,000 of them could be constructed within the next couple of decades using existing technologies. A forest that size would be able to remove 60% of the UK's total CO2 emissions. Globally, forests of five to ten million trees could absorb all the CO2 from sources other than power plants.

The trees would have a special synthetic filter that absorbs carbon dioxide. When the filters had absorbed their load of CO2 they would be replaced with new filters and the old ones would be stored in empty gas and oil reservoirs, such as depleted oil wells in the North Sea. The trees are already at the prototype stage and their design is well-advanced. The prototype is the size of an average shipping container.

Another proposal put forward by the study was to install transparent tubes filled with algae on the outside of buildings. The "algae based photobioreactors", as they call them, would absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and could later be turned into charcoal, which could then be buried to trap the carbon dioxide.

The third idea proposed by the IME was to paint city roofs white to reflect sunlight back into space and prevent it warming the Earth. Cities can be up to 4°C hotter than suburban areas, and reflective roofs could reduce the need for cooling and save up to 60% of a building's energy use.

Dr Fox warned that geo-engineering ideas such as those proposed are not a silver bullet that will solve all the problems, and they would need to be used in conjunction with other measures such as reducing our emissions and adapting to changes in the climate.
More information: Read the full Institution of Mechanical Engineers report
© 2009 PhysOrg.com

Another important thing that can be done is for governments World-wide to fund focused research into developing fuels from algae cultures. It has already been demonstrated that certain types of algae when grown in concentrated "farms" will produce an oil that can be easily refined into diesel and even kerosene for jet engines. In fact, an Air New Zealand 767 took a test flight this year using a 50-50 mix of this algae-based fuel and conventional kerosene. If enough research/development funding could be given, "carbon-neutral" transportation fuel could be mass-produced on a scale to displace the bulk of what is currently extracted from fossil fuels.

OK, we know what needs to be done, and how urgently and quickly. But how to pay for it? The US government is running huge deficits, in the trillions of dollars. How can it undertake large scale projects, similar to the NASA space program in the 1960s, to mass-produce and deploy artificial tree systems, sponsor energy conservation programs, design and deploy things like the building algae systems, and crash-develop alternative energy/fuel resources?

Well, this article by Shamus Cooke, in yesterday's Counterpunch web-site, gave some very good ideas: http://counterpunch.org/cooke09022009.html

"Make no mistake, the corporate elite want the U.S. deficit taken care of and they don’t want to pay higher taxes to do it. They rightfully fear that foreign investors — most notably China and Japan — will quit feeding the American debt machine unless the deficit is drastically reduced.
Instead of making workers pay off the deficit, the corporate elite should be forced to. A plan of action to accomplish this might look something like this:

1) Pass REAL health reform: nationalized, single-payer health care without the insurance companies, eliminate the Medicare windfall profits for the pharmaceutical companies by operating these companies as public utilities and have the government set affordable prices for all medications. Over the years, this will save billions of dollars.

2) Pass the Employee Free Choice Act: unionized workers make more money, and will thus pay more in taxes to help reduce the deficit.

3) A massive jobs creation program: masses of unemployed workers cost the government billions of dollars in unemployment benefits. Creating living-wage jobs while rebuilding the U.S. failing infrastructure is a very logical alternative.

4) Tax the rich: The top tax bracket should pay what they paid pre-Reagan, which was 70 percent of their income. (If necessary, tax them what they paid under Truman, which was 91 percent.)

5) End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6) Drastically reduce the military budget.

7) No more bailouts: Make public all the bailout spending, and make all those who received money return it. If the banks cannot pay back the money, take over their assets, i.e., nationalize them.

8) Require that the rich pay the same percentage of their salary into Social Security as the rest of us. This involves removing a cap on salaries over $102,000 which eliminates payment into Social Security on salaries over that amount."

The savings from implementing policies like this could easily pay for the necessary measures to reduce CO2 and methane emissions, as well as gradually start to bring the federal budget back toward the black. Unfortunately, as long as the corporate media, defense, and fossil fuel/transportation industries maintain control of our legislators, these ideas are totally utopian.

Another consideration is the extreme militarism of the U.S. How many millions of barrels of oil a year go to support all the military operations this country undertakes? And how much of a contribution is this to the total global CO2 emissions? Just ending the illegal, immoral, and corporate-profit driven wars the US is involved in, and reducing it's global military footprint, will also help in the fight to prevent runaway warming from developing. Can we do it?

Cheers.

ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE III - Bad News and [Good News?]

Your lead editor here at the Alaska Progressive Review is on the long-term M.S. plan for a forestry degree from the University of Alaska. My thesis project involves using climate change modeling to estimate changes in Interior Alaska fire season severity over the next 5 to 8 decades. In addition, during my 22 years of operational weather forecasting experience as a meteorologist throughout the northwestern lower 48 and Alaska, I have witnessed many changes in weather patterns and occurrences, which I feel are highly significant. Things such as stronger high pressure ridging episodes, throughout the year, and less frequent winter deep-cold spells here in the sub-Arctic, and consequently, fewer and weaker "Arctic outbreaks" of this cold air transported south into the northern tier of the lower 48.

The University of Alaska is on the forefront of global warming/climate change research, as the Arctic regions are experiencing some of the most rapid changes on the planet (the other most rapidly changing place is the northerly reaches of Antarctica). http://amap.no/acia/

Thus, we here at A.P.R. feel it is imperative to share the latest state of the science information regarding our changing climate and atmospheric/oceanic systems. Because rapid action is urgently necessary to limit CO2 and methane emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, before so-called "positive-feedback" processes overwhelm the climate system and initiate runaway warming processes. The results of which would be greatly disastrous for all on our planet. BAD NEWS.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/26/featuresreviews.guardianreview16ardianreview16
You might remember seeing some graphs like these, if you saw The Inconvenient Truth, the movie Al Gore, our ex-2000 president (if there had been a real election), helped to make. We here at A.P.R. viewed this movie as extremely important in documenting the climate change problem, and felt it was an accurate depiction of the state of the science.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

The figure to the right is from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, and shows the expected changes in CO2 concentrations, and resultant warming, by 2100. As you can see, barring any significant reductions in current emissions (which seems likely, unfortunately), average temperature increases in the Arctic of 6C or more are likely by 2100. Which follows exactly the trend of concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Which is what this figure shows. The concentration of CO2 over the past 1000 years (measured from bubbles of air in glacier ice cores world-wide) has varied little until around 1900. And likewise global mean temperatures (reconstructed from a variety of sources, glacial ice, tree-ring analysis, etc..) have varied little, until after 1900. And the trend of increasing temperature matches exactly, that of the increasing CO2 concentration.

With all that in mind, what has been happening, and is happening, here in Alaska, with global warming?

Well, let's take a look at a few things.

This image shows the total change in mean annual temperatures throughout Alaska since 1949. Note how significant changes of 2.5F to 5.0F have occurred across the entire state.











http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html

Even more interesting is the seasonal breakdown of these increases. Note how most areas have experienced the greatest warming in the winter season (Fairbanks and the interior, 7 to 9F increases!). Now, that has made it easier living here, fewer days of deep cold, for example (the -30F or colder ones especially). But this comes at a price. Permafrost thawing is also occuring as a result, which has and will even more greatly affect roads and infrastructure. In addition, thawing permafrost releases more CO2 and methane, a "positive feedback".

How is this warming manifesting here in Alaska? One thing we are seeing, are increasing frequencies of stronger high pressure ridging, throughout the year. High pressure ridging refers to the flow patterns in the jet stream, the meandering generally westerly overall atmospheric circulation between the subtropics and the polar regions, that transports heat poleward, and cold equator-ward, to maintain an overall temperature balance. High pressure ridging is when warmer air in the Northern Hemisphere moves northward in the jet stream, forming a "ridge" in the circulation pattern, which is just a bubble, or large mass, of warm air. Above average temperatures occur with a ridge pattern, and usually dry weather, though in summer, on it's edges, sometimes enough moisture and instability will be present to generate thunderstorms (and thus, start more fires!). One other thing to mention as well, about stronger, and more persistent high pressure ridging patterns is this. Up and downstream from a high pressure ridge, there are low pressure troughs. If an area is under a low pressure trough, blocked from moving by a strong ridge, a spell of very wet weather can occur. In the right circumstances, this will lead to stronger storms and increased flooding episodes.

An excellent example of this occurred at the end of April this year here in Alaska and Northwest Canada, and was the subject of our "Year Without a Spring?" post. This strong high pressure ridge, which built north from the subtropics, brought temperatures in the 70sF to interior Alaska abruptly at the end of April, after just an average slowly thawing month, with snowpacks and river ice just gradually thinning, as is usually the case. The rapid warmth sent a surge of snowmelt into the waterways of the region, and the thick river ice began moving and jamming, causing extensive flooding. Many villages along the Yukon river experienced major damage from this occurrence, and are hectically trying to rebuild, before the still harsh sub-arctic winter sets in.
http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/05/year-without-spring.html

Then, there are our fire seasons. So far, since 2004, we have burned approximately 15 million acres in interior Alaska, 3 million this summer. This is about 14 percent of the 110 million burnable acres in the region. You can see the trend in our wildfire acreages since 1955, around 1986 or so, a trend toward higher seasonal accumulations more frequently began, which has also been seen in Western Canada and the Western Lower 48.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/24-6
This article, at the above website, describes the increasing fire trends in Canada and Siberia, so unfortunately, this trend, another positive feedback mechanism, is occurring globally. Greece is experiencing wildfire emergencies currently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8217433.stm

And, the tragic Australian fires last February, which caused 173 fatalities (the worst natural disaster in that country's history), were the subject of our first "Warning Lights Are Flashing" post.
http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/03/warning-lights-are-flashing-australia.html

Here are the perimeters of the 2009 fires in Interior Alaska. I worked on the very largest one, southwest of Fairbanks, the Railbelt Complex, forecasting weather for the suppression team this past July, for two weeks, when it was "only" 150,000 to 350,000 acres. It eventually grew to over 600,000.

What caused this large fire season of 3 million acres? And the emergencies in Greece and Australia, and our record 2004/2005 fire seasons?

Anomalously strong and persistent high pressure ridging.

High pressure ridging covered Alaska and Northwest Canada from late June through the entire month of July. Fairbanks had it's driest July ever, since records began in 1904 (and driest summer month ever!), with only .06.

Fairbanks also picked up it's first day over 90F since 1994 this summer, when the temperature reached 91F on 08 July. And, as you can see from this figure, most of the days of the month had above average high and low temperatures.

So there you have it. The warming climate in the Arctic is occurring because stronger, more frequent, and more persistent high pressure ridging episodes are transporting greater amounts of heat northward. Since we've only warmed 1-2C over the past 60 years, another 4-6C of warming would therefore mean a strong amplification of this high pressure ridging pattern occurrence. Meaning, stronger more frequent warm spells, and all the ramifications thereof.

Here are some articles detailing changes occurring for the Arctic as a whole, which are very interesting and alarming.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/28/climate-change-poles

Climate change hitting entire Arctic ecosystem, says report

Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.

In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.
In addition, says the report released today at a Norwegian government seminar, plants and trees are growing more vigorously, snow cover is decreasing 1-2% a year and glaciers are shrinking.

Scientists from Norway, Canada, Russia and the US contributed to the Arctic monitoring and assessment programme (Amap) study, which says new factors such as "black carbon" – soot – ozone and methane may now be contributing to global and arctic warming as much as carbon dioxide.

"Black carbon and ozone in particular have a strong seasonal pattern that makes their impacts particularly important in the Arctic," it says.

The report's main findings are:

Land
Permafrost is warming fast and at its margins thawing. Plants are growing more vigorously and densely. In northern Alaska, temperatures have been rising since the 1970s. In Russia, the tree line has advanced up hills and mountains at 10 metres a year. Nearly all glaciers are decreasing in mass, resulting in rising sea levels as the water drains to the ocean.

Summer sea ice
The most striking change in the Arctic in recent years has been the reduction in summer sea ice in 2007. This was 23% less than the previous record low of 5.6m sq kilometres in 2005, and 39% below the 1979-2000 average. New satellite data suggests the ice is much thinner than it used to be. For the first time in existing records, both the north-west and north-east passages were ice-free in summer 2008. However, the 2008 winter ice extent was near the year long-term average.

Greenland
The Greenland ice sheet has continued to melt in the past four years with summer temperatures consistently above the long-term average since the mid 1990s. In 2007, the area experiencing melt was 60% greater than in 1998. Melting lasted 20 days longer than usual at sea level and 53 days longer at 2-3,000m heights.

Warmer waters
In 2007, some ice-free areas were as much as 5C warmer than the long-term average. Arctic waters appear to have warmed as a result of the influx of warmer waters from the Pacific and Atlantic. The loss of reflective, white sea ice also means that more solar radiation is absorbed by the dark water, heating surface layers further.

Black carbon
Black carbon, or soot, is emitted from inefficient burning such as in diesel engines or from the burning of crops. It is warming the Arctic by creating a haze which absorbs sunlight, and it is also deposited on snow, darkening the surface and causing more sunlight to be absorbed.

Check out the image to the right. An Arctic sea ice image from 20 August, 1980, next to one from 20 August, 2009. Can you see the differences? They are very significant. Here is the lastest Arctic sea ice update from the National Snow and Ice Data center:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

ARCTIC SEA ICE UPDATE

"During the first half of August, Arctic ice extent declined more slowly than during the same period in 2007 and 2008. The slower decline is primarily due to a recent atmospheric circulation pattern, which transported ice toward the Siberian coast and discouraged export of ice out of the Arctic Ocean. It is now unlikely that 2009 will see a record low extent, but the minimum summer ice extent will still be much lower than the 1979 to 2000 average.

Overview of conditions

On August 17, Arctic sea ice extent was 6.26 million square kilometers (2.42 million square miles). This is 960,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) more ice than for the same day in 2007, and 1.37 million square kilometers (530,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. On August 8, the 2009 extent decreased below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum annual extent, with a month of melt still remaining."

Unfortunately, the news keeps getting worse. Both the increasing wildfire acreage trends across the Northern Hemisphere, and this decreasing Arctic sea ice coverage are positive feedback mechanisms. The sea ice coverage because decreasing areas allow more heat to be absorbed by the water, which retains the heat longer, which delays freezing longer in the fall. The new ice over the winter freezes thinner, and melts off sooner the next year. And so on...

This next article though describes what we think is the most ominous finding to date. Because if methane clathrate deposits from the seafloor are really melting now and releasing methane gas into the ocean (and eventually into the atmosphere), runaway warming is nearly upon us. Methane is 22 times more efficient of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and rapid increases in its atmospheric concentration will rapidly amplify warming, warming ocean waters further, triggering more methane releases, etc.. There are no mechanisms known that could stop this, once it starts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8205864.stm

Methane seeps from Arctic sea-bed
By Judith Burns Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Methane bubbles observed by sonar, escape from sea-bed as temperatures rise
Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea-bed.

Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.
As temperatures rise, the sea-bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to escape.

The research team found that more than 250 plumes of methane bubbles are rising from the sea-bed off Norway.

The joint British and German research team detected the bubbles using a type of sonar normally used to search for shoals of fish. Once detected, the bubbles were sampled and tested for methane at a range of depths.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the team says the methane was rising from an area of sea-bed off West Spitsbergen, from depths between 150m and 400m.

The gas is normally trapped as "methane hydrate" in sediment under the ocean floor.
METHANE HYDRATES

Methane gas is trapped inside a crystal structure of water-ice
The gas is released when the ice melts, normally at 0C
At higher pressure, ie under the ocean, hydrates are stable at higher temperatures
"Methane hydrate" is an ice-like substance composed of water and methane which is stable under conditions of high pressure and low temperature.

As temperatures rise, the hydrate breaks down. So this new evidence shows that methane is stable at water depths greater than 400m off Spitsbergen.

However, data collected over 30 years shows it was then stable at water depths as shallow as 360m.

Ocean has warmed

Temperature records show that this area of the ocean has warmed by 1C during the same period.

The research was carried out as part of the International Polar Year Initiative, funded by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc).

The team says this is the first time that this loss of stability associated with temperature rise has been observed during the current geological period.

Professor Tim Minshull of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton told BBC News: "We already knew there was some methane hydrate in the ocean off Spitsbergen and that's an area where climate change is happening rather faster than just about anywhere else in the world."

1. Methane hydrate is stable below 400m
2. Nearer the surface the hydrate breaks down as temperatures rise and the methane is released
3. Gas rises from the sea-bed in plumes of bubbles - most of it dissolves before it reaches the surface
4. So far scientists haven't detected methane breaking the ocean surface - but they don't rule out the possibility

"There's been an idea for a long time that if the oceans warm, methane might be released from hydrate beneath the sea floor and generate a positive greenhouse effect.

"What we're trying to do is to use lots of different techniques to assess whether this was something that was likely to happen in a relatively short time scale off Spitsbergen."

However, methane is already released from ocean floor hydrates at higher temperatures and lower pressures - so the team also suggests that some methane release may have been going on in this area since the last ice age.

Significant discovery

Their most significant finding is that climate change means the gas is being released from more and deeper areas of the Arctic Ocean.

Professor Minshull said: "Our survey was designed to work out how much methane might be released by future ocean warming; we did not expect to discover such strong evidence that this process has already started."

"We were slightly surprised that if there was so much methane rising why no one had seen it before. But I think the reason is that you have to be rather dedicated to spot it because these plumes are only perhaps 50m to 100m across.

"The device we were using is only switched on during biological cruises. It's not normally used on geophysical or oceanographic cruises like ours. And of course you've got to monitor it 24 hours a day. In fact, we only spotted the phenomenon half way through our cruise. We decided to go back and take a closer look."

The team found that most of the methane is being dissolved into the seawater and did not detect evidence of the gas breaking the surface of the ocean and getting into the atmosphere.

The researchers stress that this does not mean that the gas does not enter the atmosphere. They point out that the methane seeps are unpredictable and erratic in quantity, size and duration.

It is possible that larger seeps at different times and locations might in fact be vigorous enough to break through the ocean surface.

Most of the methane reacts with the oxygen in the water to form carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas. In sea water, this forms carbonic acid which adds to ocean acidification, with consequent problems for biodiversity.

Graham Westbrook, lead author and professor of geophysics at the University of Birmingham, said: "If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane a year - equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources, could be released into the ocean."

The team is planning another expedition next year to observe the behaviour of the methane plumes over time. They are also engaged in ongoing research into the amount of methane hydrate under this area of the ocean floor.

Ultimately, they want to be able to predict how much might be vulnerable to temperature change and in what timescale.

As the next article shows, warming ocean waters are breaking records. Combined with the news from the previous article, describing the Arctic seafloor methane releases, we here at A.P.R. are very alarmed.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/20-13

Hot Water: World Sets Ocean Temperature Record
by Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON — Steve Kramer spent an hour and a half swimming in the ocean Sunday — in Maine. The water temperature was 72 degrees — more like Ocean City, Md., this time of year. And Ocean City's water temp hit 88 degrees this week, toasty even by Miami Beach standards.
Kramer, 26, who lives in the seaside town of Scarborough, said it was the first time he's ever swam so long in Maine's coastal waters. "Usually, you're in five minutes and you're out," he said.
It's not just the ocean off the Northeast coast that is super-warm this summer. July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping.

The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. June was only slightly cooler, while August could set another record, scientists say. The previous record was set in July 1998 during a powerful El Nino weather pattern.

Meteorologists said there's a combination of forces at work: A natural El Nino system just getting started on top of worsening man-made global warming, and a dash of random weather variations. The resulting ocean heat is already harming threatened coral reefs. It could also hasten the melting of Arctic sea ice and help hurricanes strengthen.

The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 90. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The heat is most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees above average. The tongues of warm water could help melt sea ice from below and even cause thawing of ice sheets on Greenland, said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado.

Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool off as easily as land.

"This warm water we're seeing doesn't just disappear next year; it'll be around for a long time," said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It takes five times more energy to warm water than land.

The warmer water "affects weather on the land," Weaver said. "This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring."

Georgia Institute of Technology atmospheric science professor Judith Curry said water is warming in more places than usual, something that has not been seen in more than 50 years.
Add to that an unusual weather pattern this summer where the warmest temperatures seem to be just over oceans, while slightly cooler air is concentrated over land, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the climate data center.

The pattern is so unusual that he suggested meteorologists may want to study that pattern to see what's behind it.

The effects of that warm water are already being seen in coral reefs, said C. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's coral reef watch. Long-term excessive heat bleaches colorful coral reefs white and sometimes kills them.
Bleaching has started to crop up in the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — much earlier than usual. Typically, bleaching occurs after weeks or months of prolonged high water temperatures. That usually means September or October in the Caribbean, said Eakin. He found bleaching in Guam Wednesday. It's too early to know if the coral will recover or die. Experts are "bracing for another bad year," he said.

The problems caused by the El Nino pattern are likely to get worse, the scientists say.
An El Nino occurs when part of the central Pacific warms up, which in turn changes weather patterns worldwide for many months. El Nino and its cooling flip side, La Nina, happen every few years.

During an El Nino, temperatures on water and land tend to rise in many places, leading to an increase in the overall global average temperature. An El Nino has other effects, too, including dampening Atlantic hurricane formation and increasing rainfall and mudslides in Southern California.

Warm water is a required fuel for hurricanes. What's happening in the oceans "will add extra juice to the hurricanes," Curry said.

Hurricane activity has been quiet for much of the summer, but that may change soon, she said. Hurricane Bill quickly became a major storm and the National Hurricane Center warned that warm waters are along the path of the hurricane for the next few days.
Hurricanes need specific air conditions, so warmer water alone does not necessarily mean more or bigger storms, said James Franklin, chief hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

[Good News ? ]

Our last article to present describes some findings from Greenland, which does on the face of it, seem like good news:
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=981

FOR RELEASE ON Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:00 AM PDT

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Wetlands Likely Source of Methane from Ancient Warming Event

Analysis of Greenland ice led by Scripps researchers could allay fears about methane 'burp' accelerating current global warming trend

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego

An expansion of wetlands and not a large-scale melting of frozen methane deposits is the likely cause of a spike in atmospheric methane gas that took place some 11,600 years ago, according to an international research team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus extracts blocks of ice from an ice sheet in Greenland.

Severinghaus participated in an international analysis of methane trapped in the ice sheet to understand the origins of a sudden burst of atmospheric methane 11,600 years ago. Photo: Vas Petrenko, University of Colorado, Boulder

The finding is expected to come as a relief to scientists and climate watchers concerned that huge accelerations of global warming might have been touched off by methane melts in the past and could happen again now as the planet warms. By measuring the amount of carbon-14 isotopes in methane from air bubbles trapped in glacial ice, the researchers determined that the surge that took place nearly 12,000 years ago was more chemically consistent with an expansion of wetlands. Wetland regions, which produce large amounts of methane from bacterial breakdown of organic matter, are known to have spread during warming trends throughout history."This is good news for global warming because it suggests that methane clathrates do not respond to warming by releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere," said Vasilii Petrenko, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the analysis while a graduate student at Scripps.

The results appear in April 24 editions of the journal Science.

Scientists had long been concerned about the potential for present-day climate change to cause a thawing of Arctic permafrost and a warming of ocean waters great enough to trigger a huge release of methane that would send planetary warming into overdrive. Vast amounts of methane are sequestered in solid form, known as methane clathrate, in seafloor deposits and in permafrost. Cold temperatures and the intense pressure of the deep ocean stabilize the methane clathrate masses and keep methane from entering the atmosphere. Scientists have estimated that a melting of only 10 percent of the world's clathrate deposits would create a greenhouse effect equal to a tenfold increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

For comparison, the warming trend observed in the last century has taken place with only a 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.The research team, overseen by Scripps geoscientist and study co-author Jeff Severinghaus, collected what may be the largest ice samples ever for a climate change study. The researchers cut away 15 tons of ice from a site called Pakitsoq at the western margin of the Greenland ice sheet to collect the ancient air trapped within. Methane exists in low concentrations in this air and only a trillionth of any given amount contains the carbon-14 isotope that the researchers needed to perform the analysis. Levels of carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,730 years, were too high in the methane to have come from clathrates, the researchers concluded.

Geoscientists Vas Petrenko and Jeff Severinghaus celebrated the acquisition of uncontaminated methane samples during field research at the Greenland ice sheet. The two helped determine that a burst of atmospheric methane 11,600 years ago was most likely caused by expansion of wetlands.

"This study is important because it confirms that wetlands and moisture availability change dramatically along with abrupt climate change," said Severinghaus. "This highlights in a general way the fact that the largest impacts of future climate change may be on water resources and drought, rather than temperature per se."The burst of methane took place immediately after an abrupt transition between climatic periods known as the Younger Dryas and Preboreal. During this event, temperatures in Greenland rose 10° C (18° F) in 20 years. Methane levels over 150 years rose about 50 percent, from 500 parts per billion in air to 750 parts per billion.

In addition to Petrenko and Severinghaus, researchers from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Oregon State University, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, the Technical University of Denmark and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia contributed to the report. The work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Chemical Society, the ANSTO Cosmogenic Climate Archives of the Southern Hemisphere project and the New Zealand Foundation of Science and Technology.

This may seem like good news, and possibly it is (let's hope so!). However, this article was written last April, based on research conducted a year previously. The article describing the Arctic seafloor methane releases just came out a few days ago. The researchers in Greenland from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography may not be aware of these latest findings. Massive surveying of the Arctic seafloor needs to be undertaken A.S.A.P., to ascertain if these methane releases are very widespread, and if they are increasing. As well as to measure how much, if any, is making it into the atmosphere.

Bad news all around. The industrialised nations are all dragging their feet about implementing any significant emission reduction plans, primarily due to extreme pressure from the fossil fuel and transportation industries. Who fund researchers and advertising campaigns to muddy the waters, so that the public and policy-makers will not feel that climate change is a pressing issue.

It now looks like it is too late to prevent extreme events such as sea level rises that will affect low-lying countries, droughts, and all the other effects of global warming (increasing wildfire severity, stronger tropical storms, increased flooding), SINCE THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK MECHANISMS ARE STARTING.

The only hope now is that once more people and politicians are directly affected, real attempts to solve the problem can be undertaken. Will it be too late?

Cheers.

MAKING OUT LIKE BANDITS

We can never understand the modern history of war in this country, without looking at who benefits. I strongly urge everyone to read a most amazing book, which we've talked about before. WAR IS A RACKET written in 1930 by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. He wrote this book after serving in the Marines for decades, and participating in many "expeditions" to countries in Latin America. He wrote about those experiences, and World War I, why they happened, and who benefited. His words, unfortunately, are just as true now, as they were then.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Then of course, are these famous sayings from men who have participated in and experienced the full horrors of war.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

"What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world." ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

Our corporate media, and corporate-controlled President continues to report news from Iraq as if it was just an every-day, ordinary occurrence. And not the criminal, unprovoked act of aggression against a powerless country, whose crime it was to lie atop the World's second largest pool of sweet crude oil. Yet, this is coming at a great price to the US now, as our economy unravels due to the spiraling greed that the deregulated capitalism of the past 25 years has encouraged.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8206433.stm

And so it was that I came across this article today, and just had to share it with you. This is why the US is, and has been, nearly continuously at war overseas since 1898 (longer, if you count the theft of land from the Indigenous peoples of this continent).

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/17-9

Iraq War's Winners and Losers
by Sherwood Ross

"On my last day in Iraq," veteran McClatchy News correspondent Leila Fadel wrote August 9, "as on my first day in Iraq, I couldn't see what the United States and its allies had accomplished. ... I couldn't understand what thousands of American soldiers had died for and why hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had been killed."

Quite a few oil company CEO's and "defense" industry executives, however, do have a pretty good idea why that war is being fought. As Michael Cherkasky, president of Kroll Inc., said a year after the Iraq invasion boosted his security firm's profits 231 percent: "It's the Gold Rush."
What follows is a brief look at some of the outfits that cashed in, and at the multitudes that got took.

"Defense Earnings Continue to Soar," Renae Merle wrote in The Washington Post on July 30, 2007. "Several of Washington's largest defense contractors said last week that they continue to benefit from a boom in spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..."
Merle added, "Profit reports from Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin showed particularly strong results in operations in the region." More recently, Boeing's second-quarter earnings this year rose 17 percent, Associated Pressreported, in part because of what APcalled "robust defense sales."

But war, it turns out, is not only unhealthy for human beings, it is not uniformly good for the economy. Many sectors suffer, including non-defense employment, as a war can destroy more jobs than it creates.

While the makers of warplanes may be flying high, these are "Tough Times For Commercial Aerospace," Business Week reported July 13. "The sector is contending with the deepening global recession, declining air traffic, capacity cuts by airlines, and reduced availability of financing for aircraft purchases." The general public suffers, too.

"As President Bush tried to fight the war without increasing taxes, the Iraq war has displaced private investment and/or government expenditures, including investments in infrastructure, R&D and education: they are less than they would otherwise have been," write Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes in The Three Trillion Dollar War.

Stiglitz holds a Nobel Prize in economics and Bilmes is former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce. They say government money spent in Iraq does not stimulate the economy in the way that the same amounts spent at home would.

The war has also starved countless firms for expansion bucks.
"Higher borrowing costs for business since the beginning of the Iraq war are bleeding manufacturing investment," Greg Palast wrote in Armed Madhouse. And when entrepreneurs -- who hire so many -- lack growth capital, job creation takes a real hit.

We might recall too, the millions around the world who filled the streets to protest President Bush's impending attack on Iraq and who have quit buying U.S. products, further reducing sales and employment.

"American firms, especially those that have become icons, like McDonald's and Coca-Cola, may also suffer, not so much from explicit boycotts as from a broader sense of dislike of all things American," Stiglitz and Bilmes wrote.

"America's standing in the world has never been lower," the authors said, noting that in 2007, U.S. "favorable" ratings plunged to 29 percent in Indonesia and nine percent in Turkey. "Large numbers of wealthy people in the Middle East - where the oil money and inequality put individual wealth in the billions - have shifted banking from America to elsewhere," they said.

Because the Iraq war crippled that country's oil industry, output fell, supplies tightened, and, according to Palast, "World prices leaped to reflect the shortfall."
What's more, Palast pointed out, after the Iraq invasion the Saudis withheld more than a million barrels of oil a day from the market. "The one-year 121 percent post-invasion jump in the price of crude, from under $30 a barrel to over $60, sucked that $120 billion windfall to the Saudis from SUV drivers and factory owners in the West," he said.
Count the Saudis among the big winners.

The oil spike subtracted 1.2 percent from the gross domestic product, "costing the USA just over one million jobs," Palast reckoned. Stiglitz and Bilmes said the oil price spike meant "American families have had to spend about 5 percent more of their income on gasoline and heating than before."
Last year, the Iraq and Afghan wars cost each American household $138 per month in taxes, they estimated. Count the Joneses among the big losers.

Palast wrote, "It has been a very good war for Big Oil - courtesy of OPEC price hikes. The five oil giants saw profits rise from $34 billion in 2002 to $81 billion in 2004...But this tsunami of black ink was nothing compared to the wave of $120 billion in profits to come in 2006: $15.6 billion for Conoco, $17.1 billion for Chevron and the Mother of All Earnings, Exxon's $39.5 billion in 2006 on sales of $378 billion."

Palast noted that oil firms have their own reserves whose value is tied to OPEC's price targets, and "The rise in the price of oil after the first three years of the war boosted the value of the reserves of ExxonMobil oil alone by just over $666 billion...

"Chevron Oil, where Condoleezza Rice had served as a director, gained a quarter trillion dollars in value...I calculate that the top five oil operators saw their reserves rise in value by over $2.363 trillion."

Who's surprised when Forbes reports of the ten most profitable corporations in the world five are now oil and gas companies - Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, and Petro-China.
"Since the Iraq War began," Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive wrote, "aerospace and defense industry stocks have more than doubled. General Dynamics did even better than that. Its stock has tripled."

An Associated Pressaccount published July 23 observed: "With the military fighting two wars and Pentagon budgets on a steady upward rise, defense companies regularly posted huge gains in profits and rosier earnings forecasts during recent quarters. Even as the rest of the economy tumbled last fall, military contractors, with the federal government as their primary customer, were a relative safe haven."

Among the big winners are top Pentagon contractors, as ranked by WashingtonTechnology.com as of 2008. Halliburton spun off KBR in 2007 and their operations are covered later. Data was selected for typical years 2007-09.

Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, Maryland, a major warplane builder, in 2007 alone earned profits of $3 billion on sales of nearly $42 billion.

Boeing, of Chicago, saw its 2007 net profit shoot up 84 percent to $4 billion, fed by "strong growth in defense earnings," according to an Agence France-Presse report.
KBR
Northrop Grumman, of Los Angeles, a manufacturer of bombers, warships and military electronics, had 2007 profits of $1.8 billion on sales of $32 billion.

General Dynamics, of Falls Church, Virginia, had profits in 2008 of about $2.5 billion on sales of $29 billion. It makes tanks, combat vehicles, and mission-critical information systems.
Raytheon, of Waltham, Massachusetts, reported about $23 billion in sales for 2008. It is the world's largest missile maker and Bloomberg News says it is benefiting from "higher domestic defense spending and U.S. arms exports."

Scientific International Applications Corp., of La Jolla, California, an engineering and technology supplier to the Pentagon, had sales of $10 billion for fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2009, and net income of $452 million.

L-3, of New York City, has enjoyed sales growth of about 25 percent a year recently. Its total 2008 sales of $15 billion brought it profits of nearly $900 million. Its primary customer is the Defense Department, to which it supplies high tech surveillance and reconnaissance systems.
EDS Corp., of Plano, Texas, purchased by Hewlett-Packard in May, 2008, had 2007 sales of nearly $20 billion. Its priority project is building the $12 billion Navy-Marine Corps Intranet, said to be the largest private network in the world.

Fluor Corp., of Irvine, Texas, an engineering and construction firm, had net earnings of $720 million in 2008 on sales of $22 billion.

The good times continue to roll for military contractors under President Obama, who has increased the Pentagon's budget by 4 percent to a total of about $700 billion. One reason military contractors fare so well is that no-bid contracts with built-in profit margins tumble out of the Pentagon cornucopia directly into their laps.

The element of "risk," so basic to capitalism, has been trampled by Pentagon purchasing agents even as its top brass rattle their missiles at supposedly enemy governments abroad. If this isn't enough, in 2004 the Bush administration slipped a special provision into tax legislation to cut the tax on war profits to 7 percent compared to 21 percent paid by most U.S. manufacturers.
Former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, according to author Pratap Chatterjee in his Halliburton's Army, raked in "more than $25 billion since the company won a ten-year contract in late 2001 to supply U.S. troops in combat situations around the world."

As all know, President Bush's Vice President Dick Cheney previously headed Halliburton (1995-2000) and landed in the White House the same year Halliburton got its humungous outsourcing contract. Earlier, as Defense Secretary, (1989-1993) Cheney sparked the revolutionary change to outsourcing military support services to the privateers. Today, Halliburton ranks among the biggest "defense" winners of all.

Halliburton's army "employs enough people to staff one hundred battalions, a total of more than 50,000 personnel who work for KBR, a contract that is now projected to reach $150 billion," Chatterjee wrote.
"Together with the workers who are rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and the private security divisions of companies like Blackwater, Halliburton's Army now outnumber the uniformed soldiers on the ground in Iraq."
Accompanying Pentagon outsourcing, Chatterjee wrote, "is the potential for bribery, corruption, and fraud. Dozens of Halliburton/KBR workers and their subcontractors have already been arrested and charged, and several are already serving jail terms for stealing millions of dollars, notably from Camp Arifjan in Kuwait."
There's likely no better example of how Halliburton/KBR literally burned taxpayers' dollars than its destruction of $85,000 Mercedes and Volvo trucks when they got flat tires and were abandoned.
James Warren, a convoy truck driver testified to the Government Affairs Committee in July 2004, "KBR didn't seem to care what happened to its trucks...It was common to torch trucks that we abandoned...even though we all carried chains and could have towed them to be repaired."
Bunnatine Greenhouse, once top contract official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, made headlines by demanding old-fashioned free enterprise competitive bidding. She told a Senate committee in 2005: "I can unequivocally state the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper abuse I have witnessed" in 20 years of working on government contracts.
Greenhouse was demoted for her adherence to the law, Chatterjee said, but she became a cover girl at Fraud magazine and was honored by the Giraffe Society, a tribute to one Federal employee who stuck her neck out.

Tales of Halliburton/KBR's alleged swindles fill books. Rory Maybee, a former Halliburton/KBR contractor who worked at dining facilities in Camp Anaconda in 2004 told the U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee "that the company often provided rotten food to the troops and often charged the army for 20 thousand meals a day when it was serving only ten thousand."
Food swindling, though, is small potatoes. Say Stiglitz and Bilmes: "KBR has also been implicated in a lucrative insurance scam that has gouged U.S. taxpayers for at least $600 million."
To fatten profit margins, contractors who cheat U.S. taxpayers apparently think nothing of underpaying their help.

"While the executives of KBR, Blackwater, and other firms are making profits, many of those performing the menial work, such as cooking, driving, cleaning, and laundry, are poorly paid nationals from India, Pakistan, and other Asian and African countries," Stiglitz and Bilmes wrote. "Indian cooks are reported to earn $3-$5 a day. At the same time, KBR bills the American taxpayer $100 per load of laundry."

Blackwater, the security firm repeatedly charged with shoot-first tactics, fraudulently obtained small-business set-aside contracts worth more than $144 million, the authors asserted.
According to Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, the security firm in 2004 got a five-year contract to protect U.S. officials in Iraq totaling $229 million but as of June 2006, just two years into the contract, it had been paid $321 million, and by late 2007 it had been paid more than $750 million.
Scahill reported an audit charged that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs. The result was "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit," Scahill wrote. "The audit also alleged that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies."

"As of summer, 2007, there were more ‘private contractors' deployed on the U.S. government payroll in Iraq (180,000) than there were actual soldiers (160,000)," Scahill said. "These contractors worked for some 630 companies and drew personnel from more than 100 countries around the globe. ... This meant the U.S. military had actually become the junior partner in the coalition that occupies Iraq."

And each Blackwater operative was costing the American taxpayers $1,222 per day. The Defense Department remains, of course, America's No. 1 Employer, with 2.3 million workers (roughly twice the size of Wal-Mart, which has 1.2 million staffers) perhaps because America's biggest export is war.

"Who pays Halliburton and Bechtel?" philosopher Noam Chomsky asked rhetorically in his Imperial Ambitions. "The U.S. taxpayer," he answers.

"The same taxpayers fund the military-corporate system of weapons manufacturers and technology companies that bombed Iraq. So first you destroy Iraq, then you rebuild it. It's a transfer of wealth from the general population to narrow sectors of the population."

It's also been a body blow to Iraq, killing an estimated one million inhabitants, forcing two million into exile and millions more out of their homes. Incredibly, the U.S. proposed to reconstruct the nation it invaded with their oil revenues - and then, after taking perhaps $8 billion left the job undone. (Since the U.S. kept no records of how the dough was dispensed, it is not possible to identify the recipients.)
As Stiglitz and Bilmes remind us, "The money spent on Iraq could have been spent on schools, roads, or research. These investments yield high returns."
In an article in the Aug. 24 Nation, policy analyst Georgia Levenson Keohane cites the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to the effect that 48 states are reporting deficits totaling nearly $166 billion, projected to reach, cumulatively, $350 billion-$370 billion by 2011.
"Although many states have attempted tax increases, these are politically challenging and often insufficient to close the gaps. Consequently, statehouses have been forced to cut vital services at a time when the need for them is ever more desperate," Keohane wrote.

In the same issue, reporter Marc Cooper notes the poverty rate in Los Angeles county borders on 20 percent; that California's schools are ranked 47th nationally; that the state college system has suspended admissions for Spring 2010; that thousands of state workers are being laid off and/or forced to take furlough days; that unemployment has reached 12 percent; that state parks are being closed; that personal bankruptcies peaked last; that one in four "capsized mortgages in the U.S. is in California."

Plus, California's bond rating is just above the junk level and it faces a $26 billion budget shortfall.
California's woes need to be examined in the light of the $116 billion the National Priorities Project of Northampton, Massachusetts, says its taxpayers have shelled out for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

Those same dollars roughly would put four million California students through a four-year college. Bear in mind, too, outlays for those wars are but a fraction of all Pentagon spending, so the total military tax bill is far higher than $116 billion to California.

In calling for a reduction in military spending, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, said, "The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy....

"[American] well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face."

On the other hand, maybe Americans want to keep paying to operate 2,000 domestic and foreign military bases and spend more money on armies and weapons of death than all other nations combined. Maybe they like living in the greatest Warfare State the world has ever known.

My hunch, though, is a lot of Americans haven't connected the country's looming bankruptcy with the greedy, gang from the military-industrial complex out to control the planet, its people and its precious resources.

After the long-suffering civilian population of Iraq, whose crime was having oil - a country Steiglitz says that has been rendered virtually unlivable - the big losers are the American taxpayers who are bleeding income, jobs and quality of life, not just sacrificing family members, on behalf of a runaway war machine.

California's plight is being repeated everywhere. A great nation is being looted and millions of its citizens are being pauperized before our eyes.
© 2009 Consortium News

Sherwood Ross formerly worked for The Chicago Daily News and other major dailies and as a columnist for wire services. He currently runs a public relations firm for “worthy causes”. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Cheers.