Greenspiration News: Hopenhagen or Cokenhagen?
angela bischoff
greenspi at web.ca
Tue Dec 15 09:51:22 EST 2009
Greenspiration News
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Hello Greenspiration Readers, let me send you a Bicycle Calendar!
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Thanks!
-angela
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Common Dreams.org videos and live-webcast from Copenhagen – see it all,
the protests and the best speeches:
http://www.commondreams.org/videos
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Environment Canada hit by 'damn clever' climate stunt
Canada is red-faced at the Copenhagen climate-change conference as a
result of a spoof news release purporting to be from Environment Canada
announcing Canada was bringing in bold new emissions reduction targets.
The authentic-looking release, which was announced on a fake Jim Prentice
Twitter account, caught many observers off guard and a fake story about it
landed on a fake Wall Street Journal website - all an elaborate ruse to
embarrass Canada, which is being considered the "dirty-old man" of the
conference for its intransigence on negotiating better targets.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/environment-canada-hit-by-damn-clever-climate-stunt/article1399474/
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Canada Falling Dangerously Behind U.S. Efforts on Climate
Results of a comparative report by PowerUP Canada show that Canada has
fallen well behind the United States in fighting climate change and is not
keeping up with current efforts by the U.S. federal government.
http://www.powerupcanada.ca/%7EASSETS/DOCUMENT/fallingbehind_low.pdf
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Country takes verbal lashing for inaction on climate change
Canada received the dubious honour of being the recipient of more Fossil
of the Day Awards http://www.fossil-of-the-day.org/ than any other
country, presented by non-governmental groups at the Copenhagen conference
to countries they deem laggards on the environment.
A New York Times article portrayed Canada as a "dirty oil" producer that
has "abandoned its commitments under the 1997 Kyoto climate-change treaty
and has fallen short in the fight to reduce climate-altering carbon
emissions.
Britain's The Guardian was equally critical: "Until now, I believed that
the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate-change agreement
was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we
can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a
century of good works."
Environmental groups released a petition signed by more than 150,000
Canadians calling for urgent action.
An independent study released Monday suggested pollution from Alberta's
oilsands is nearly five times greater and twice as widespread as industry
figures say. The study says toxic emissions from the industry are equal to
a major oil spill every year.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/country-takes-verbal-lashing-for-inaction-on-climate-change-78751862.html
http://www.fossil-of-the-day.org/
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G77: 'US Should Spend as Much on Global Warming as War'
Poor countries have demanded that the US spends as much on tackling
climate change as it does on warfare.
The row between the rich countries and the developing world intensified at
the Copenhagen summit, as China and its supporters blamed America for
"endangering the world" by refusing to hand over more cash. Read more:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/11-1
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Environment Spending Dwarfed by Rising Defence Budget
Canadians could be forgiven for thinking that they spend a mere pittance
on their military: politicians and pundits constantly bombard us with the
claim that Canada is a military miser. Most Canadians would probably be
stunned to learn that Canada is actually among the top 15 military
spenders in the world, and the 6th largest spender among the 28 members of
NATO. They might also be surprised to learn that Canadian military
spending is now higher than it has been in more than 60 years — higher
than it was during the Cold War, or indeed at any time since the end of
the Second World War.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/canadian-military-spending-2009
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Fight Climate Change, Not Wars
by Naomi Klein
In the U.S. plenty of bloggers have pointed to the irony of Barack Obama
collecting the Peace Prize while he launches a major escalation of the war
in Afghanistan. Here in Copenhagen, the Nobel--which was awarded in part
because of Obama's re-engagement with the climate change
negotiations--carries a special set of ironies.
The figure U.S. negotiators are floating for how much Washington will
contribute to an international climate change fund is a paltry $1.4
billion. Meanwhile, the cost of the "surge" in Afghanistan is estimated at
$30-billion to $40 billion. Yesterday I interviewed Kumi Naidoo, the new
director of Greenpeace International, and he made this point forcefully:
And the issue is not only that wars hog money that needs to be spent
helping countries adapt to climate change and shift to green energy. Those
wars also deepen the climate crisis because they are themselves major
sources of greenhouse gasses.
War and Warming
The connections between war and warming go deeper than as Alan Greenspan
put it, the "politically inconvenient" [fact that] "everyone knows: the
Iraq war is largely about oil." When we choose to go to war, that choice
means money is no longer available for other things, such as clean energy
or funding for communities vulnerable to climate impacts around the world.
And the war itself, with all its planes, trucks, missiles, and ships,
emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases--that no one tracks.
Fighting wars is mind-bendingly expensive, exceeding the costs of even the
bank bailout money. Some key figures:
- Projected Total Cost Iraq War: at least $3 trillion
- Total Obama Admin (FY2010) Defense Budget request: $687 billion
- Additional amount estimated for Obama's Afghan surge: $40 billion
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/copenhagen/504907/fight_climate_change_not_wars
http://priceofoil.org/
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Canada’s About-Face on Climate
Tar Sands and a Tough Business Lobby Pull Ottawa Far from Copenhagen
Ottawa’s 1,570 Climate Lobbyists
The battle over climate change in Canada largely pits environmental groups
against a powerful coalition of energy companies, along with academic
climate-change skeptics and deniers who support the Harper Conservatives.
The lobbyists hired by these groups are among the largest special interest
groups on Parliament Hill, an ICIJ analysis of the Canadian lobby registry
shows. They lobby not only to shape legislation in an industry’s favor,
but also to ensure that those industries benefit from the billions of
dollars in government grants being issued for clean energy and
emissions-reduction projects. The analysis found that 1,570 climate change
lobbyists have pounded the halls of Parliament since 1996.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/global_climate_change_lobby/articles/entry/1853/
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Under Harper: Canada will remain a global environmental pariah
The vision of Canada as a vast supplier of petroleum from the oil sands
for a thirsty United States is one that promotes dreams of enormous
profits in the minds the executives of the petroleum companies and the
investors in those companies.
But it is a truly dark vision for the simple reason that the industrial
process by which oil is produced from the oil sands results in the release
of an enormous volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Pursuing
the vision commits Alberta, indeed Canada as a whole, to the emission of
greenhouse gases on a gargantuan scale, exactly what the earth does not
now need.
http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/james-laxer/2009/12/under-harper-canada-will-remain-global-environmental-pariah
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Paying our climate debt
By Naomi Klein
"About 75 to 80 per cent" of the damages caused by global warming "will be
suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about
one-third of greenhouse gases."
Climate debt is about who will pick up the bill. The grass-roots movement
behind the proposal argues that all the costs associated with adapting to
a more hostile ecology -- everything from building stronger sea walls to
switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies -- are the
responsibility of the countries that created the crisis.
http://www.rabble.ca/columnists/2009/12/paying-our-climate-debt
Naomi Klein on Climate Debt: Why Rich Countries Should Pay Reparations To
Poor Countries For The Climate Crisis.
Democracy Now, Nov. 23, 2009
Watch/Listen
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/23/naomi_klein_on_climate_debt_why
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Geographically speaking, what on earth is Canada doing?
The effects of atmospheric warming on our vast territory, immense
coastlines and abundance of fresh water are already apparent
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/geographically-speaking-what-on-earth-is-canada-doing/article1389524/
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Hypocrisy and Contradictions at the COP
Today is also the day that Obama’s Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar will
address the Copenhagen conference hours after approving oil giant Shell’s
highly controversial plans to drill for oil off Alaska’s northwest coast
as early as next summer.
http://priceofoil.org/2009/12/10/hypocrisy-and-contradictions-at-the-cop/#more-4184
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And Now to Discuss Those Hacked Emails
By Elizabeth May
How dare the world’s media fall into the trap set by contrarian
propagandists without reading the whole set?
http://greenparty.ca/blogs/7/2009-12-03/and-now-discuss-those-hacked-emails:
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A Cloud Still Hangs Over Bhopal
This is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster, an epic mess that
started one night when a pesticide plant owned by the American chemical
giant Union Carbide leaked a cloud of poisonous gas. Before the sun rose,
almost 4,000 human beings capable of love and anguish sank to their knees
and did not get up. Half a million more fell ill, many with severely
damaged lungs and eyes.
An additional 15,000 people have since died from the aftereffects, and 10
to 30 people are said to die every month from exposure to the hundreds of
tons of toxic waste left over in the former factory. But amazingly, the
site still has not been cleaned up, because Dow Chemical, which since
acquired Union Carbide, refuses to accept any responsibility. The
groundwater is contaminated; children of the survivors suffer from genetic
abnormalities; and the victims have long since run out of their measly
compensation and are begging on the streets.
After a quarter of a century, Dow should acknowledge that it is responsi
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/opinion/03mehta.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
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Mounting Debilities and Deaths from H1N1 Vaccine
At the beginning of November, a 42-year-old Quebec woman died two days
after receiving the H1N1 vaccine. But did authorities report it as an
adverse reaction to the vaccine? No! Instead, they attributed her death to
complications resulting from the H1N1 virus!
It’s no surprise, then, that when an 80-year-old man died in Quebec after
getting his H1N1 vaccine, health officials dismissed that too, saying it
was too soon to link his death to the shot.
In the meantime, GSK’s H1N1 vaccine (which was granted FDA approval for
use in the US as recently as November 10) was pulled in Manitoba, Canada
after too many life-threatening reactions occurred there. As reported on
CTV/Canada on November 20, the vaccine was triggering so many anaphylactic
reactions that health officials and GSK pulled more than 170,000 doses of
one batch.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/05/Swine-Flu-Shot-Side-Effects-Beginning-to-Take-Their-Toll.aspx
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Climate Change Songs
Courtesy of Toronto Raging Grannies
Climate Change is Coming to Town—bicycle version
(To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town)
You better watch out, you better not drive.
You better ride bikes I'm telling you why.
Climate change is coming to town.
We're making it hot, we're raising the seas.
Gonna feel life at a hundred degrees.
Climate change is coming to town.
If people keep on driving.
The poles will soon be lakes.
The air will stink like petrol fumes.
Ride your bike for goodness sake.
We're making a list, we're checking it twice.
We're gonna find out who drives and who bikes!
Climate change is coming to town.
http://climatechangeiscomingtotown.net/multimedia_mp3_CCsong_CCiscomingtotown_bicycle.html
http://climatechangeiscomingtotown.net/multimedia/MP3/bic_mix03.mp3
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Dangerous Ingredients You Should Avoid at All Costs
Headaches, birth defects, allergies and even cancer can be caused by
ingredients in common cosmetics. You don't need that junk to look good.
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/144426
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Common weed killer gives male frogs sex change
A popular weed killer sprayed on cornfields across North America turns
male frogs into females even at low levels, Ottawa biologists have found.
He said he hoped his results would lead the Canadian government to
re-evaluate its guidelines and lower the acceptable level of the
herbicide. He would not go as far as to recommend banning it, as some
European countries have already done.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/12/03/ottawa-frogs-sex-change-atrazine.html
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The arrest of 114 power station protesters is extremely worrying
The arrest of 114 people on suspicion of conspiracy to commit aggravated
trespass at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, near Nottingham, is extremely
worrying and may be regarded as further indication of a style of policing
that has developed under this appalling government and is undermining the
values and needs of a free society.
Power station protest plot suspects released on bail
• Police say 114 suspects posed 'serious threat'
• Officers raid homes of those held in custody
The 114 people arrested for allegedly planning to target a power station
were released on bail today after many of their homes were raided while
they were in custody. None of them has been charged.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/14/protesters-power-station-arrests
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US Kids Represent Psychiatric Drug Goldmine
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in
the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a
study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another
study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health
care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost
all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.
http://www.truthout.org/1213091
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SSRI Stories
Antidepressant Nightmares
This website is a collection of 3500+ news stories with the full media
article available, mainly criminal in nature, that have appeared in the
media (newspapers, TV, scientific journals) or that were part of FDA
testimony in either 1991, 2004 or 2006, in which antidepressants are
mentioned.
Antidepressants have been recognized as potential inducers of mania and
psychosis since their introduction in the 1950s.
http://ssristories.com/
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Buy Nothing Day - Buy Nothing Christmas
There is only one sure way to stop catastrophic climate change: we, the
rich one billion people on the planet, have to consume less!
https://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd#buy_nothing_christmas
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Real Christmas Trees are 'Greener' than Fake
It may not sound like "tree-hugging," but cutting down a real tree for
Christmas is actually greener than going with the artificial kind.
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/40815
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