Heat is Online

Discuss political news items / current events.
msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/05/04/ ... ern-ocean/




New Crack Found in Delaware-Sized Chunk of Larsen C Ice Shelf as it Heads Toward Southern Ocean
A 2,000 square mile section of the Larsen C Ice Shelf is hanging by a thread as it continues to drift toward the Weddell Sea.

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City of Chicago website rescues EPA climate change page
City of Chicago posts deleted EPA climate change information on website

Abc7chicago.com, May 9, 2017

The city of Chicago's website includes deleted information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) climate change page.

The "Climate Change is Real" (www.cityofchicago.org/climatechangeisreal) website includes information that the Trump administration removed from the EPA website on April 29. Federal officials said the EPA website was being updated to "reflect the approach of new leadership."

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has expressed doubt about the cause of climate change and skepticism of the role carbon dioxide plays.

"The Trump administration can attempt to erase decades of work from scientists and federal employees on the reality of climate change, but burying your head in the sand doesn't erase the problem," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement Sunday.

Emanuel urged other U.S. mayors to do the same thing.

According to the Emanuel's office, the new website "includes information on the basic science behind climate change, the different ways in which weather is impacted from increased greenhouse had emissions, and actions the federal government has taken to reduce the impact."

The Department of Innovation and Technology's released a new tool that allows users to save, archive and preserve open data from public data portals, such as the EPA site.

Emanuel also used the EPA website announcement to tout Chicago's environmental record, including reducing carbon emissions by 7 percent from 2010 to 2015, while the region's economy grew 12 percent.

On April 9, the mayor announced that by 2025 all of Chicago's public buildings will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.

http://abc7chicago.com/science/city-of- ... e/1969616/

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/05/25/ ... sions-now/


“Too Huge to Manage” — New Studies Highlight Danger in Failing to Rapidly Cut Carbon Emissions Now

“If we continue burning coal and oil the way we do today and regret our inaction later, the amounts of greenhouse gas we would need to take out of the atmosphere in order to stabilize the climate would be too huge to manage,” — Lena Boysen from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Phys.org.

******

When it comes to dealing with global warming and human-forced climate change, the best options for response have always been rapid carbon emissions cuts and an equally rapid energy transition away from fossil fuel burning. And while swiftly transitioning energy systems away from fossil fuel burning, cutting carbon-based consumption, and aggressively increasing energy efficiency may all be seen as difficult or unsavory to the vocal and powerful special interests invested in continued burning of oil, gas, and coal, such cuts and transformations remain the safest path forward.

At issue is the fact that the two other chief climate change response ‘options’ are either inadequate on their own or, worse, can simply amount to so much reckless and harmful flailing about. Atmospheric geo-engineering and rapid removal of carbon from the Earth System — are either costly, difficult to scale to the level needed to remove carbon from the atmosphere fast enough to prevent serious harms under continuing fossil fuel burning, or, in the case of the solar radiation management version of geo-engineering, flat-out dangerous.

(New scientific studies highlight the fact that there is no substitute for a rapid halt to fossil fuel burning when it comes to preventing the worst impacts of human-caused climate change. Image source: The Sierra Club.)

Some of these basic facts were highlighted this week by a new study in the journal Science. The study — Rightsizing Carbon Dioxide Removal — found that under worst-case carbon emissions scenarios, there is practically not enough forested land area to grow the amount of switch grass and other biomass needed to recapture even half of the projected carbon emission. It also found that land mass dedicated to biomass production would need to equal roughly 1/3 of all forested lands under present emissions cuts goals under the Paris Climate Summit in order to prevent 2 C warming. A level of land use that would likely put global food security at risk.

Study Authors Katherine March and Christopher Field note that:

“The models generating possible trajectories of climate change mitigation bet on planetary-scale carbon removal in the second half of the century. For policymakers trying to limit the worst damages from climate change, that bet is reckless. This puts climate change mitigation, global food security and biodiversity protection on a collision course with no easy off-ramps.”

Only the most ambitious cuts to emissions combined with a moderate assist through considerable advances in atmospheric carbon capture provide a reasonable path to avoiding 2 C warming, according to the study.

A separate but similar study also published in May provides some confirmation to the Stanford study’s results. The co-author of that study, entitled The Limits to Global Warming Mitigation by Terrestrial Carbon Removal,Wolfgang Lucht from PIK notes in Phys.org:

“As scientists we are looking at all possible futures, not just the positive ones. What happens in the worst case, a widespread disruption and failure of mitigation policies? Would plants allow us to still stabilize climate in emergency mode? The answer is: no. There is no alternative for successful mitigation [cutting carbon emissions]. In that scenario plants can potentially play a limited, but important role, if managed well. [Emphasis Added]”

The issue is the fact that while methods like planting trees, changing the way we manage farmland, or even adding various carbon capturing biofuel plants and enhanced weathering materials to capture more carbon from the air is likely only capable of drawing down a fraction of the carbon we presently emit each year (and an even smaller fraction of carbon if emissions keep growing). At best, under practical considerations, we might be able to take down 1-3 billion tons of carbon every year compared to a present emission in excess of 10 billion tons and a BAU emission that could hit 20 billion tons of carbon per year or more.



(This graphic, produced by Greenpeace, provides a good illustration of basic carbon math. However, given the fact that warming will tend to push more carbon into the atmosphere from the Earth System and keep it there for a longer period, it’s likely that some assist by enhanced atmospheric carbon capture will be necessary even if carbon emissions are rapidly cut to zero. That said, atmospheric carbon capture at best provides an avenue for moderately enhancing atmospheric carbon draw-down. New studies warn that atmospheric carbon capture by itself and without coordinate rapid cuts to fossil fuel burning is not a practical solution. Image source: Greenpeace.)

Such levels of carbon capture, even if they were achieved in as short a time as two decades, would not be enough to prevent 2 C warming under anything but the most modest future emissions pathways. As a result, the primary climate change response strategy should continue to focus on increasing and rapidly scaling the size of planned emissions cuts. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon capture is a good potential option as a follow-on to rapid emissions cuts to zero as soon as possible — providing a means eventually, over many decades, to possibly start to claw atmospheric greenhouse gases down from very dangerous and harmful levels. But such an option alone should not be viewed as something that will magically swoop in to save us from climate destruction if we continue to burn fossil fuels willy-nilly.

Chris Field — professor of biology & Earth System science and director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment provides this urgent observation following his study’s publication:

“For any temperature limit, we’ve got a finite budget of how much heat-trapping gases we can put into the atmosphere. Relying on big future deployments of carbon removal technologies is like eating lots of dessert today, with great hopes for liposuction tomorrow.”

With the caveat being that eating lots of dessert today is likely to have far more limited and less disastrous consequences than continuing to burn oil, gas and coal.

Links:

Rightsizing Carbon Dioxide Removal

The Limits to Global Warming Mitigation by Terrestrial Carbon Removal

Assuming Easy Carbon Removal is High-Stakes Gamble

Planting Trees Cannot Replace Carbon Emissions Cuts

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/05/30/ ... er-spikes/


Record Heat Predicted for Fort McMurray Wednesday as Fire Danger Spikes
Just a little more than one year after freakish global warming-spurred wildfires forced a near complete evacuation of the tar sands production town of Fort McMurray, Alberta, record heat and extreme fire hazard are again settling in over this subarctic region.



(Subarctic sections of Alberta are expected to experience temperatures in the upper 80s and lower 90s [F] tomorrow. Such heat is expected to spike fire dangers throughout the region. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

The weather forecast for Wednesday, May 31, 2017 tells a story of predicted extreme heat for a typically cool region of Northwest Canada. High temperatures for the day are expected to range from 86 to 90 F (30 to 32 C). That’s a hot day anywhere. But it’s particularly impressive for a region that shares a common climate with places like historically cold Alaska and Hudson Bay.

Average high temperatures for Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada for this time of year typically top out at a rather cool 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 C) — closer to the expected Wednesday morning low of 62 F (17 C). Wednesday’s forecast high, meanwhile, is quite considerably outside the normal range and exceeds 30 year averages by fully 22 to 26 degrees F. If such heat does emerge, it will tie or break the 2007 all-time record for May 31 of 86 F (30 C). Such record heat is now predicted to occur after today’s expected, well above average, high of 80 F (26 C).



(A spike in fire hazard early this week coincides with predicted record temperatures across Alberta. Image source: Alberta Fire.)

Unseasonable warmth — which deepened over the weekend and is expected to peak by Wednesday — is presently resulting in spiking fire dangers for the region. According to the government of Alberta, fire risk for Fort McMurray is now listed as very high through Wednesday due to above average to near record high temperatures and low humidity. Fire hazard for a large swath of Northern Alberta is now also rated very-high-to-extreme.

It is worth noting that the overall fire situation for Canada to-date is presently much-improved from 2016. Last year, extreme warmth combined with high winds and dry conditions to fuel an unusually large fire outbreak over Central and Northwestern Canada during mid-to-late May. This year, wetter than normal conditions have suppressed fire activity over much of Canada over the same seasonal period. And we have some regions in British Columbia that are now experiencing evacuations due flooding rivers.



(Wildfires are flaring over British Columbia even as rapidly rising temperatures are causing large snow packs to melt far more swiftly than normal. Such heat and rapid melt is producing a dual threat of flood and fire at the same time. Image source: BC Wildfire Service.)

Rising fire risks coinciding with hot and dry conditions are coming at the same time that this year’s moisture-engorged snow packs are melting at far faster than normal rates. Large fires are thus breaking out in British Columbia and along the Alberta border as heat and dryness spread northward even as creek and lake levels in places like Okanagan, BC are facing the highest flood stages ever recorded.

Overall, despite 2017’s rainy spring weather, the tale is still one of unusual warmth. May temperatures have ranged from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius above average over Northern and Central Canada during 2017. Such departures are in keeping with the ongoing trend of rapid warming in the upper Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. A trend that has considerably worsened overall fire hazard by lengthening the fire season, by adding new fuels for fires, and by increasing the number of lightning strikes which help to provide ignition sources for wildfires. A warming that is directly caused by ongoing human fossil fuel burning and by related activities such as the tar sands extraction that continues unabated in Alberta.

Links:

Earth Nullschool

Fort McMurray Weather

Weather Underground: Fort McMurray Climate

Alberta Fire

BC Wildfire Service

Thousands Forced to Evacuate Fort McMurray Due to Wildfires

Wildfires, Rising Water Levels Hamper Okanagan

Earth Observatory

msfreeh
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... arm-norway


World's first floating windfarm to take shape off coast of Scotland
Turbines for £200m Hywind project will be towed from Norway across North Sea and moored to seabed off north-east Scotland

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/07/13/ ... -critique/

Facing Down Climate Doom — Wallace-Wells’ Appropriate Alarm Earns Michael Mann’s Necessary Critiques
“Fear will NOT save us; however, fear is a prime motivator to promote new thinking and different action; to change an unsustainable status quo.” — unknown source.

“There are many things that motivate us. But the most powerful motivator of all is FEAR. “– Psychology Today.

“Both hope and fear are great motivators, and they both have the capacity to promote growth in us, but hope creates space in the mind and heart. Fear, more often than not, restricts it.” — Joyce McFadden.

******

When two parties seeking a good end passionately disagree over a crucial issue it is sometimes the case that one side is flat out right and the other side is dead wrong. But what is more often the case in an honest dialogue is that both sides are expressing a part of the truth and it is the duty of us, as observers, not to take sides, but to open our ears and learn as the necessary conflict unfolds.

Valid Warnings Against a Dark Future

This week, David Wallace Wells painted a scientifically imperfect, but truthful in broad-brush, picture of a bleak potential worst case scenario if human beings continue burning fossil fuels while dumping such massive volumes of carbon into the atmosphere.

Wells’ New York Magazine article was accurate in broad brush in that it depicted a possible worst case climate scenario where the atmosphere becomes choking and poisonous, heat becomes so great that it’s deadly to venture outside even in New York City, disease vectors multiply, breadbaskets are crushed by heat and extreme weather, and wars over dwindling resources escalate. In the larger scope, if missing the mark on a number of details, David Wallace Wells and NYMag get it right. If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, this is basically what our future looks like. BAU fossil fuel burning ultimately looks so incredibly grim it is difficult to fathom or even talk about.

msfreeh
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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/07/26/ ... ed-for-it/


100 Fossil Fuel Companies Responsible for 71 Percent of Carbon Emissions Since 1988 — And They’re Being Sued For it
According to research from the Carbon Disclosure Project, since 1988, 100 fossil fuel producers have been responsible for 635 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This total represents 71 percent of human carbon emissions that have occurred over the past 29 years.

Companies involved in this massive carbon emission included such giants as ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom. The report also found that these 100 companies were responsible for fully 52 percent of all emissions since the industrial revolution began in 1751.

Report authors went on to point out that this relatively small group of companies is likely to have an outsized influence on responses to climate change — hopefully adding that positive action by such corporations could produce significant positive change. However, historically, such companies have tended to fight against global climate treaties, misinform the public on dangers related to human-caused climate change, and work to delay responses to climate change within their host nations. Due to this past bad-economic-actor behavior combined with rising climate change related damages, these corporations also are exposed to what may well be a historic and unprecedented corporate liability.



(If you were born in 2015, the estimate for your lifetime lost wealth from climate change, according to DEMOS, is between 581,000 and 764,000 dollars. With 100 companies responsible for 50 percent of that loss, it’s pretty obvious that liability will become a more and more serious impact as climate harms ramp up throughout the coming decades.)

A far-reaching liability that could well include various harms related to climate change coming from such diverse dangers as sea level rise, loss of water and food security, loss of habitability due to heat, and damage to valuable natural resources like forests, glaciers and reefs.

Already, a number of lawsuits are testing the legal waters in this regard. For example, in California this week, Imperial Beach, San Mateo and Marin counties are filing lawsuits to get some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers to pay for sea level rise related damages. And if Imperial Beach and the two counties prevail, large corporations like Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell could be liable for billions of dollars in mitigation costs and punitive damages in coming decades even as direct damages from climate change ramp up.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune:

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they modeled their legal tactics after past efforts to hold accountable cigarette businesses, makers of cancer-causing agents and gas and chemical companies that used methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive that has contaminated groundwater across the country.

And though not all liability related lawsuits against major tobacco and chemical companies were successful, those that stuck resulted in major awards even as the lawsuits themselves produced a very harmful public relations impact for the companies involved.

on JULY 26, 2017

msfreeh
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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/spec ... -duo-21654


Published: July 29th, 2017
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian

Invasions by alien species and global warming form a “deadly duo”, scientists have warned, with the march of Argentine ants in the UK a new example. The public are being asked to be on alert for invaders such as the raccoon dog and Asian hornet, as eradication can be near impossible after a species becomes established.

As trade and human travel has become globalised many thousands of species have crossed oceans or mountain ranges and become established in new regions, with some causing “invasional meltdown” and over a trillion of dollars of damage a year.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.3416910

President Trump disbands business councils after numerous CEOs depart
BY DAN GOOD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 1:28 PM






http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.3414933

How to cope with President Trump Stress Disorder


Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 4:06 AM


So many Americans are suffering from political anxiety that doctors have coined a term for their distress — President Trump Stress Disorder.

Patients are turning up in therapists' offices across the country reporting symptoms including insomnia, hypervigilance, and the inability to pull themselves away from the 24-hour news cycle.

Therapists report that their practices are more robust than ever. Deborah Cooper, a California-based therapist said she can hardly accommodate all of her patients. "I have people I have not seen in literally 30 years that have called me to come back in because of trauma," she said. "I am more than full. I am overworking."

She cited Trump's lackluster condemnation of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville as one in a string of anxiety-inducing events that are "coming too fast and furious" for her patients — and her practice — to handle.

Full transcript: Trump’s eye-popping Charlottesville comments
Clinical psychologist Scott Christnelly said President Trump's remarks Tuesday serve as confirmation that his patients' anxiety is well founded. "This is more evidence they should be anxious. There is evidence the anxiety is real, and it's not just something they are making up," he said.

Worry over America's future under Trump spans the country. It's so pervasive that therapists say most of their clients have brought it up in session.

"I don't think I have a patient that has never mentioned it. It's remarkable," said Sue Elias, a New

An American Psychology Association study conducted after Trump was elected showed that 66% of adults, including Democrats and Republicans, said the future of the nation was causing them significant stress. Fifty-seven percent of adults identified the current political climate as a significant source of stress.

The APA reports that stress has, over the past 10 years, been trending downward among American adults. But stress levels spiked for the first time in January 2017, when Trump's inauguration took place.

Talkspace, an online therapy service, also reported three times more traffic than usual in January. Demand for its services remains about one and a half times higher than usual, its founder and CEO Oren Frank told the Daily News.

America defeated Nazis before — yet President Trump doesn't care
It's important, though, to distinguish between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and President Trump-induced anxiety.

President Trump responded to the criticism of his initial statement about the Charlottesville violence on Aug. 15 but was met with further backlash. Trump said the group protesting against white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, were "also very violent." He went onto say there is "blame on both sides" after the deadly violence over the weekend. "You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides," he told the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.
57 PHOTOS
VIEW GALLERY
Donald Trump in the White House
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America defines PTSD as a potentially debilitating condition occurring in people who have witnessed a life-threatening or traumatic event.

For the most part, political anxiety is less severe.

It is, however, chronic. "You can't go a week without anything. Every week there is something else," Cooper said.

Trump takes aim at Amazon in wake of Charlottesville controversy
And so psychotherapists have devised coping techniques.

Five ways to overcome Trump trauma

1. Unplug

As hard as it might be to tear oneself away from the news, or from Trump's Twitter account, therapists recommend disconnecting from electronic and social media for at least a few hours a day.

sending on spec
The President’s response to Saturday’s deadly violence in Charlottesville was not a welcome one for those suffering from Trump burnout. (GO NAKAMURA/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
"Turn off Twitter, turn off the news. By 10 o'clock at night you should get rid of the electronic media, it's just too agitating if you are anxious," said Dr. Marlin S. Potash, a New York-based psychologist.

Another therapist advised taking an extended break from the news. "Shut it off for a couple days and don't feel like you are putting yourself in danger. If there is something incredibly important, you are going to hear it," Elias said.

This advice extends to participation in political conversations. "It's important to stay informed and also important to know your limits and give yourself a break from social media, mainstream news and political discussions," said Vaile




Blink Tank

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FyzSLgpWbgg


https://vimeo.com/22027387

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -profiling

How black women's bodies are violated as soon as they enter school
In the final part of our series on policing in America, writer Andrea J Ritchie documents how girls of color as young as five are exposed to routine humiliation by police


Wednesday 16 August 2017 10.37 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 16 August 2017 10.55 EDT

Pulled over at a traffic stop and beaten by the side of the road. Placed in a banned chokehold by a New York City police officer. Violently taken into police custody, never to come out alive. Shot first, questions asked later.

The stories and images that immediately leap to mind in connection with these scenes are those of black men – Rodney King, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile.

But these are also the stories of black women.

Women like Sandra Antor, pulled over and brutalized on Interstate 95 in 1996 by a South Carolina state trooper in an incident captured on video five years after images of Rodney King’s beating sparked a national uprising.


Women like Rosann Miller, placed in a chokehold in 2014 by a New York City police officer when she was seven months pregnant, just weeks after police choked Eric Garner to death on camera using one.

Women like Alesia Thomas, repeatedly kicked and beaten by a Los Angeles police officer in 2012 while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. Like Freddie Gray’s, the injuries she sustained in police custody proved fatal.

Women like Mya Hall, a black trans woman shot dead by police after making a wrong turn onto a National Security Agency property outside of Baltimore, just weeks before Freddie Gray’s case rocked the city and the nation.

Yet black women’s experiences of profiling and often deadly force remain largely invisible in ongoing conversations about the epidemic of racial profiling, police violence and mass incarceration in the US.

A five-year-old in handcuffs


I had been documenting police violence against adult women of color for almost a decade when I learned about the case of Jaisha Aikins, in 2005. Jaisha, a five-year-old black girl, was handcuffed and arrested at her St Petersburg, Florida, school for essentially throwing a temper tantrum – as every five-year-old has done at some point.

The school’s administrators and some media commentators justified putting a five-year-old in handcuffs on the grounds that she “punched” the school’s vice principal, as if the little girl had hauled back and clocked her, rather than flailing at her with tiny hands while in the throes of a tantrum, with the force of a child.

It was clear from video taken of the incident that the vice principal was not hurt and that Jaisha eventually calmed down. In fact, Jaisha was sitting calmly in a chair when police arrived in response to the vice principal’s call to arrest an unruly student.

Even after discovering the student was a kindergartener, three white armed officers nevertheless proceeded to pull the little girl’s hands behind her back to put them in handcuffs as she cried and begged them not to. Jaisha was taken to the police station in a patrol car, but released to her mother’s custody when prosecutors refused to file charges against her.

Invisible No More
Invisible No More, by Andrea J Ritchie, is out now. Photograph: Beacon Press
Jaisha’s story illustrates just how deeply entrenched controlling narratives of black women and girls are – no matter how young and small they are. The video of the incident was also one of the first depicting police violence against a black girl to be widely broadcast and generate outrage across the country.

In her groundbreaking book Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Monique Morris tells the stories of several other black girls as young as six and seven arrested in school in similar incidents over subsequent years, some as recently as 2013. In some cases, the little girls were held in police cars and stations for extended periods of time after arrest.

Policing of girls extends beyond instances where officers are summoned by school administrators. Police are increasingly stationed inside schools, leading to increased police contact with girls, and increased police violence as officers enforce school rules.



For instance, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) reported several cases where young women of color were slammed against the wall, thrown to the floor and arrested by officers stationed in their schools for leaving class a few minutes late (“roaming the hallways”), asking for return of a confiscated cell phone (“threatening an officer”), or cursing in the hallway (“disorderly conduct”).

What happens behind school doors often mirrors what happens on the streets in the context of broken windows and gang policing in the community.

In 2010, I represented three young black women pulled off a New York City subway train by officers who believed they had gotten on without paying – a classic broken windows offense that was the number-one arrest charge in New York City in 2015. In fact, as part of an after-school program, they had entered as a group with the stationmaster’s permission. The officers also acted on the assumption that the young women were involved in a purportedly gang-related fight on a completely different platform.

One officer yelled at one 17-year-old girl to “get the @#$%! off the train, &!@$#!” Even though she was complying, he grabbed her by the neck and slammed her down onto a bench, choking her.

As her twin approached, alarmed, she too was thrown down and hit her head and face on the floor as an officer began striking her. Officers slammed the third young woman, the twins’ friend, to the ground and pepper-sprayed her in the face before handcuffing her. Afterward, they left her in a cell for 30 minutes with no means of removing the burning spray from her eyes, despite her desperate pleas for relief.

Throughout the violent encounter, the officers referred to the young women as “&!@$#” and “Shaniquah”, making explicit the racially gendered perceptions driving their violent behavior within the broader framework of broken windows and gang policing.

Teenagers shocked by Tasers
The presence of law enforcement officers in schools has driven increased student referrals to police and arrests in schools, often “for actions that would not otherwise be viewed as criminal ... such as refusing to present identification, using profanity with a school administrator, or ‘misbehaving.’”

One study found that the rate at which students are referred for lower-level offenses more than doubles when a school has regular contact with a “school resource officer”.

The result is a “net-widening” effect expanding surveillance of youth of color and infusing policing and prison culture into schools across the country, with predictable effects.

Kathleen Nolan, a former New York public school teacher, describes “considerable subjectivity in determining whether a behavior was actually a violation of the law”, and notes that everyday items – box cutters used for after-school jobs, razors used to style hair, Mace or pepper spray carried by young women for protection – were met with “zero tolerance” in a school populated by youth of color.

Indeed, a 2005 report issued by the Advancement Project concluded: “Across the board, the data shows that black and Latino students are more likely than their white peers to be arrested in school . . . [despite the lack of] evidence that black and Latino students misbehave more than their white peers.”

#SayHerName Vigil in remembrance of black women and girls killed by police.
#SayHerName Vigil in remembrance of black women and girls killed by police. Photograph: Tim Knox for the Guardian
Black students are “punished more severely for less seriously and more subjectively defined infractions” such as “disturbing school” or “disorderly conduct”.

A 2011 Texas study found that, after controlling for 80 other variables, race remained a reliable predictor of discipline for subjective violations like disruption. In South Carolina, black students like Niya and Shakara are nearly four times as likely to be charged with “disturbing school” as white students.

Today, black girls make up approximately 33% of girls referred to law enforcement or arrested on school grounds but only 16% of the female student population. Yet the discourse around the policing of youth and the “school-to-prison pipeline” continues to focus nearly exclusively on boys and young men.

Alarmingly, among the violent policing tactics that have migrated from the streets to schools is indiscriminate use of Tasers, which are used to subdue people by firing barbs into them that deliver a jolt of electricity.

While researching a 2006 report on the US government’s failure to comply with the UN Convention Against Torture, I discovered a 2004 case in which a Miami-Dade police officer used a Taser against a 12-year-old girl, shocking her with 50,000 volts of electricity – for skipping school.

Between late 2003 and early 2005, at least 24 Central Florida students, some as young as 12, were shocked with Tasers by police officers in public schools. A typical scenario involved officers wading in through a crowd to break up a fight and using Tasers to “get them to move”.

As of 2005, 32% of police departments interviewed by the weapon’s manufacturer, Taser International, had used Tasers in schools. An August 2016 Huffington Post investigation uncovered at least 84 incidents of Taser use against students since 2011.

Beyond the discriminatory arrests and excessive force, police sexual harassment and violence also takes place inside the schoolhouse gate. Inappropriate commentary about young women’s bodies and appearance by police officers stationed in or near schools is commonplace.

At one New York City school, “school safety agents ... would degrade students with comments like ‘That girl has no @#$.’” I witness similar harassment on a daily basis as young women travel back and forth on my Brooklyn street to attend one of three schools on my block. Daily pat-downs and mandatory passage through metal detectors before entering schools are also experienced by young women as violative and degrading, especially when conducted by male officers.

After forcing one child to squat, a male officer repeatedly traced his handheld metal detector up her inner thigh
Jacquia Bolds, a Syracuse, New York, high school student, testified to a UN committee in 2008: “It is more uncomfortable for girls because sometimes they check you around your most private areas.” The New York Civil Liberties Union reports that in New York City schools in the 2000s:

After being pushed against the wall for frisking, many girls were ordered to squat for intrusive searches with handheld metal detectors. After forcing one child to squat, a male officer repeatedly traced his handheld metal detector up her inner thigh until it beeped on the button of her jeans. “Is there something in your pants?” he asked repeatedly. The frightened girl repeated that there was not, but the officer kept at it, making her fear a cavity search, until he finally let her go.

The girl’s fears were not baseless: “routine” frisks and scans can quickly escalate to strip searches. Girls whose underwire bras set off metal detectors have been forced to lift up their shirts or unbuckle or unzip their pants to prove that they are not concealing weapons, or cell phones.

One 14-year-old Chinese girl who was interviewed in New York City stated: “The security guard accused me of having a knife ... They took me to a room and made me take off my shirt and pants to check my bra. They didn’t call my parents or let me talk to a teacher I know. I didn’t have a knife just like I told them.”

Maksuda, a 17-year-old South Asian high school student, stated: “School safety agents pick on those they perceive to be religious, particularly those who wear scarves and hijab.”

A Muslim youth, 16-year-old Fariha, explains in a video made by grassroots group Girls for Gender Equity: “For some of us it’s about you’re not covered up enough; for us it’s like you’re covered up too much.”

The searches these girls were subjected to appear to have been motivated at least in part by controlling narratives framing Asian women as knife-wielding assassins, Latinos and black girls as drug “mules”, and Muslim women as potential terrorists. They also often produce racially gendered humiliation, as officers rifling through young women’s belongings find tampons, birth control pills and condoms.

Manny Yusuf, a 14-year-old Bangladeshi youth leader at Drum, testified about being stopped and frisked on her way home from school. She believed she was singled out from a group of friends because she had the darkest skin. On another occasion, an officer called her over to his car to ask her for her number. She asked city council members: “How do you think it feels to be stopped and searched by an officer when all you are doing is going home from school?”

Another 14-year-old girl described being stopped with a cousin and two friends and frisked because officers thought they had weed on them – which is not sufficient legal justification for a frisk, and certainly not for a male officer to frisk a 14-year-old girl.

Ultimately, young women of color experience every form and context of police violence discussed in this book, and their stories – a







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Philippine police say 32 drug suspects killed in one day — the deadliest yet in Duterte's crackdown






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No, Mr Trump, we're not the same as the neo-Nazis
Emily Gorcenski


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Family Says Man Charged In FBI Right-Wing Terror Sting Is Mentally Ill, Incapable Of Attack
Jerry Drake Varnell’s family says the FBI “should not have aided and abetted a paranoid schizophrenic to commit this act.”





http://dfw.cbslocal.com/video/category/ ... allas-fbi/

Pair Arrested Outside Dallas FBI Office
The FBI would not say why the men were taken into custody or if the vehicle searched belonged to them.
Program: CBS 11 News Evening
Categories: News Crime KTVTTV




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Queens jail officers hit with federal bribery charges in drug smuggling scheme


BY VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 11:32 AM



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Georgia judge suspended for comparing protesters who pulled down Confederate statues to ISIS
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http://www.openculture.com/2017/03/matt ... ience.html

Matt Damon Reads Howard Zinn's "The Problem is Civil Obedience," a Call for Americans to Take Action | Open Culture
Open Culture › 2017/03 › matt-damon-r...
Mar 15, 2017 - Say, for example, that a gang of obscenely rich mercenaries with questionable ties and histories had taken power with the intent to destroy institutions so they could loot the country, further impoverish ...







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Matt Damon among many who pay tribute to Zinn




Over 250 friends and family gathered Saturday at the Arlington Street Church to pay tribute to the late Howard Zinn, the longtime BU political science professor and author of the influential book, "A People's History of the United States." Zinn, who died in January at the age of 87, was more than once referred to as "Howie" by a crowd of admirers that included familiar faces from the fields of academia and entertainment. Actor Matt Damon, a former neighbor of Zinn's, was with his mom, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, and his wife Luciana and daughter Alexa. Also there were Chris Moore, producer of "The People Speak," the movie based on Zinn's bestselling book, and actor Benjamin Bratt, who appears in the film. Others in attendance included "Democracy Now" host Amy Goodman, scholar Noam Chomsky, civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate and his wife, photographer, Elsa Dorfman, writer Jonathan Kozol, poets Marge Piercy and Martin Espada, Phoenix Media exec David Bieber, editor Anthony Arnove, peace activist Staughton Lynd, comedian Jimmy Tingle, "Here and Now" host Robin Young, Robert Meeropol, the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, actor Harris Yulin, Zinn aid Janice Tumonis, composer Bernice Johnson Reagon, feminist Lydia Sargent, and Zinn's son, Jeff, and daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn. Hardly a somber affair, the service easily included as many laughs as tears. Damon said one of the last times he spent with Zinn was at the Toronto Film Festival, for a screening of "The People Speak." While the film's focus is on everyday Americans, a ticket to the screening cost $800. With a smile, Damon said Zinn could not resist pointing out the irony.




https://zinnedproject.org/support/donors/

Why We Support
the Zinn Education Project
Thanks to all our donors—individuals like you—who make it possible for the Zinn Education Project to promote the teaching of people’s history. We are pleased to highlight some of the stories and endorsements that donors have shared with us.




https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/16/ ... -going-on/

No El Nino, But July of 2017 was the Hottest on Record. So What the Hell is Going on?
by robertscribbler
According to NASA's GISS global temperature monitoring service, July of 2017 was 0.83 C hotter than the NASA 20th Century baseline (1.05 C hotter than 1880s). That's the hottest July ever recorded in the 137 year global climate record.

In the Pacific, ENSO conditions remain neutral. And since 2014-2016 featured one of the strongest El Ninos on record, you'd expect global temperatures to back off a bit from what should have been a big spike in the larger warming trend. So what happened?





(Top image shows July of 2017 global temperature anomalies compared to July of 2016 global temperature anomalies. July of 2016 was cooling into a weak La Nina relative to one of the strongest El Ninos on record. This year, ENSO neutral conditions prevail coordinate with rather strong polar amplification in the Southern Hemisphere. Images provided by NASA GISS.)

During July of 2016, the world was backing away from a very strong El Nino and heading into the mild global temperature trough of a weak La Nina. Cooler conditions in the Equatorial Pacific were starting to put a bit of a damper on the extreme global temperature departures that, earlier in the year, hit as high as 1.55 C above 1880s averages during February.

The La Nina lag during July of 2016 was enough to pull global surface temperatures down to 1.04 C above 1880s averages. However, the added heat pumped out into the system by both fossil fuel produced greenhouse gasses and the shift to strong El Nino appears to have generated a step change in the global temperature regime. So despite a weak La Nina dominating during fall of 2016, global temperatures remained in a range of 1.06 to 1.21 C above 1880s averages.

2017 Still Trending Toward Second Hottest on Record

Moving into 2017, overall global temperatures have backed off from the extreme heat seen during 2016. But only a little.

Adding in the record hot July at 1.05 C above 1880s averages, we find that 2017, so far is 1.16 C hotter than 1880s overall for the first seven months. That's just 0.05 C shy of the record global heat that appeared in 2016. Not really much of a back-off at all.

July's own record wasn't a very impressive warm departure from 2016 -- beating it by just 0.01 C. But what it does reveal is that there is an extraordinary amount of heat roaming the surface airs and waters of our world. And since all that extra heat will tend to resist cooling into Northern Hemisphere winter as it transfers poleward, we can probably expect that relative temperature anomalies will again rise as we move away from Northern Hemisphere summer. With departures likely continuing to exceed 1.05 or even 1.1 C above 1880s for most months going forward.

Already, early GFS model runs indicate that August of 2017 will likely be warmer than July. And this month might even come close to challenging the 1.21 C above 1880s averages achieved during 2016. However, using GFS global averages as an indicator is not a perfect oracle. So we wait on the August numbers from GISS and NOAA a month from now for final confirmation.

Prediction for 2017 annual mean in GISTEMP w/Jul data in, 77% chance of a top 2 year. pic.twitter.com/zwZVnEXit3

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) August 15, 2017

Furthermore, we do have a relatively weak cool Kelvin wave rippling along beneath the Equatorial Pacific at this time. This wave should shift the ENSO pattern to the cool side of neutral by Northern Hemisphere fall. A pattern that should also tend to nudge overall global temperatures downward. Recent falls in the north, though, have tended to exhibit very extreme polar warming. And a similar trend this year would tend to offset any Pacific Equatorial cooling. Lastly, the cooler ENSO neutral pattern is likely to still be a warmer general forcing than the weak La Nina that appeared during late 2016. So there is at least some potential that some months during fall of 2017 will be warmer than those during fall of 2016.

Considering these trends, the best available predictive analysis from NASA shows that 2017 is likely to be about 1.1 C warmer than 1880s or the second hottest year on record globally overall. NASA's Gavin Schmidt gives this range a 77 percent likelihood of bearing out. But note the error bar in Gavin Schmidt's above tweet. In other words, the presently far more unstable climate appears to be quite capable of serving up some relatively nasty surprises.

Links:

NASA GISS

NOAA ENSO Forecast and Analysis

Global and Regional Climate Anomalies

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Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/22/ ... louisiana/

Harvey’s Approach Brings Potential Severe 5-Day Rain Event For Texas and Louisiana
For the third time in less than one month, powerful thunderstorms have dropped torrential rains in excess of 6 inches over Kansas City, Missouri. In the most recent event, a frontal system dropping down over the U.S. midsection encountered a very heavy load of atmospheric moisture streaming in off a much warmer than normal Gulf of Mexico. The result for Kansas City was the production of a towering boomer that dropped 10 inches in just one night.

Such an intense downpour turned roads into rivers and forced numerous residents to take refuge on rooftops as the waters rose once again. By morning, more than 130 water rescues had been called in across the city.



(NOAA predicts heavy rainfall for Texas and Louisiana over the coming week. Image source: NOAA.)

But this particular extreme event may be a simple prelude for what’s to come as the remnants of Harvey sets its sights on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Harvey is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm or weak hurricane over a very warm and moist Gulf of Mexico within the next 48 hours. Models then predict that it will combine its substantial moisture load with that of the frontal system responsible for such severe flooding in Missouri last night.

Already NOAA is predicting some very significant rainfall amounts over the coming days for the Texas and Louisiana coastal regions (see image above). And Harvey represents a considerable rainfall potential given the fact that it is expected to stall over Texas and Louisiana for the better part of 5 days. With regards to NOAA rainfall predictions, it is worth noting that extreme local precipitation values have significantly exceeded NOAA predictions recently in the case of the most severe thunderstorms.



(2 PM EST assessment of Harvey’s path and potential for restrengthening. Image source: The National Hurricane Center.)

One possible spoiler for Harvey reforming is an upper level low swirling just southeast of Texas. This low could rip Harvey apart. But if this happens, that system would tend to also direct Harvey’s moisture toward Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. In which case, strong rainfall potentials are also likely. However, the National Hurricane Center expects this upper level low and associated squalls to move toward the north and west — generating rainy conditions for Texas and Louisiana ahead of Harvey and creating space for a more powerful and heavily moisture laden storm to form.

Lower than normal precipitation totals in the region of Coastal Texas during the past couple of months may help to alleviate flood potential if the rains from Harvey remain on the somewhat lighter side (2-4 inches) and if the system continues to be disorganized. A more organized system would tend to bring heavier precipitation totals. However, it is worth noting that during recent years, much warmer than normal sea surface temperatures have combined with a warmer atmosphere to spike heavy rainfall totals. A result of human-forced climate change due to ongoing rampant fossil fuel burni
The National Hurricane Center

Historic Flooding Leaves One Dead

Over 130 Calls Made to Kansas City Fire Department Amid Life Threatening Flooding Overnight

msfreeh
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Re: Heat is Online

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https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/25/ ... t-of-rain/



Harvey’s Mammoth Deluge Potential: Some Models Are Showing Storm Could Produce Five Feet of Rain
Media and Gulf Coast residents take note: the thing to be most concerned about with regards to Harvey is not its admittedly life-threatening storm surge and strong winds, but what is shaping up to be a potentially historic rainfall event.

*****

The latest update from the National Hurricane Center shows that Harvey is just shy of major hurricane status. Packing 110 mph winds and a 947 mb minimum central pressure, the storm is certainly powerful. And NHC expects that storm to peak at around 120 mph maximum sustained winds just prior to landfall late tonight or early tomorrow.

But with this storm, the main issue we are facing is not the usual and notably dangerous high winds and storm surge flooding that go along with a category 2 or 3 storm. The main issue is the flooding rains that will have the potential to cause damage and disruption for not just months but for years to come.

A Devastating Rainfall Potential


(Houston has never seen 60 inches of rainfall from a tropical system. But that potential exists with Harvey.)

Consensus models now predict that peak rainfall totals will be around 35 inches in association with Harvey. This is due to the dual facts that Harvey is currently a very moisture-rich storm and that the storm is expected to inexplicably stall for between 5 and 6 days following landfall. The storm is predicted to hover along the coastline, drawing in an unusually intense flow of moisture from a much warmer than normal Gulf, and to generate severe thunderstorms hour after hour, day after day. And this kind of rain event, if it emerges, could produce a disaster of historic proportions for Texas.

It’s worth noting that rainfall totals could also exceed the consensus forecast. Some models are now predicting upwards of 50 or 60 inches of rainfall by the time Harvey leaves the Texas area later next week (see top image above). The highest rainfall amounts ever produced by a tropical cyclone, in our records, for Texas is 48 inches. But there’s at least some possibility, with the perfect rainstorm that appears to be shaping up in Harvey, that these ultimate rainfall totals will be exceeded and a disaster of unprecedented proportions could emerge. But even if this worst-case doesn’t emerge, a 35 inch rainfall event would wreck untold destruction upon Texas’s coastal cities.



(Highest rainfall totals for a tropical cyclone state-by-state. Image source: Commons.)

Normally soft-spoken forecasters like Bob Henson and Eric Holthaus are not mincing words over the potential severity of the present situation. Last night, Bob Henson on twitter asked people: “Please don’t fixate on whether Harvey arrives as a Cat 2, 3, or 4. It’s the mammoth rainfall amounts (up to 35″) that will affect millions.” Meanwhile, Eric Holthaus warned: “This is scary. I have never seen a rainfall forecast like this in my entire career. Texas will be recovering from #Harvey for years.”

Of course, we could dodge a bullet and rainfall totals could be lower for Harvey. It’s just that this event is currently trending toward a worst case or near worst case deluge-type storm that produces very heavy rains over the same region of nearly a week-long period.

Conditions in Context — This is Not Your Father’s Atmosphere



(The number of record rainfall events has increased dramatically during recent years. An observation attributed to human-forced climate change. Image source: Increased Record-Breaking Precipitation Events Under Global Warming.)

During recent years, a warmer than normal atmosphere has been producing more and more intense rain storms. The number of record daily rainfall instances around the world has been rising precipitously. This is, in large part, due to the fact that human-forced warming amps up the hydrological cycle — producing more intense rain storms and more intense droughts. In other words, the climate dice are loaded for extreme rainfall and droughts in the present atmosphere. And it is in this atmosphere that Harvey has emerged. So we shouldn’t at all discount the fact that Harvey’s potential worst impacts from rainfall are now higher than they would have been even just a few decades ago. And this is one of the major reasons why we are seeing such a historic potential out of Harvey.

Links:

National Hurricane Center

Increased Record-Breaking Precipitation Events Under Global Warming

Greg Carbin

Eric Holthaus

Bob Henson

msfreeh
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Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/08/30/ ... on-people/


Half a World Away From Harvey, Global Warming Fueled Deluges Now Impact 42 Million People
Rising sea surface temperatures in South Asia led to more moisture in the atmosphere, providing this year’s monsoon with its ammunition for torrential rainfall. — The Pacific Standard

While flooding is common in the region, climate change has spurred dramatic weather patterns, greatly exacerbating the damage. As sea temperatures warm, moisture increases, a dynamic also at play in the record-setting rainfall in Texas. — Think Progress

******

With Harvey delivering its own hammer blow of worst-ever-seen rainfall to Texas, 42 million people are now impacted by record flooding half a world away. The one thing that links these two disparate disasters? Climate Change.

A Worsening Flood Disaster in South Asia

As Harvey was setting its sights on the Texas Coast this time last week, another major rainfall disaster was already ongoing. Thousands of miles away, South Asia was experiencing historic flooding that seven days ago had impacted 24 million people.

At the time, two tropical weather systems were developing over a very warm Pacific. They were angling in toward a considerably pumped up monsoonal moisture flow. And they appeared bound and determined to unleash yet more misery on an already suffering region.


As of Monday, the remnants of tropical cyclone Hato had entered the monsoonal flow and was unleashing its heavy rains upon Nepal. The most recent in a long chain of systems that just keeps looping more storms in over the region to disgorge they water loads on submerged lands.

By Wednesday, the number of people suffering from flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal had jumped by 18 million in just one week to more than 42 million. With 32 million impacted in India, 8.6 million in Bangladesh, and 1.7 million in Nepal. More tragically, 1,200 people have perished due to both landslides and floods as thousands of square miles have been submerged and whole regions have been crippled with roads, bridges, and airports washing out. Adding to this harsh toll are an estimated 3.5 million homes that have been damaged or destroyed in Bangladesh alone.

Worst impacts are likely to focus on Bangladesh which is down-stream of flooded regions in Nepal and India. As of last week, 1/3 of this low-lying country had been submerged by rising water. With intense rains persisting during recent days, this coverage is likely to have expanded.

Hundreds of thousands of people have now funneled into the country’s growing disaster shelters. A massive international aid effort is underway as food and water supplies are cut off and fears of disease are growing. The international Red Cross and Red Crescent and other relief agencies have deployed over 2,000 medical teams to the region. Meanwhile, calls for increased assistance are growing.

Warmer Oceans Fuel Tropical Climate Extremes

As with Harvey, this year’s South Asia floods have been fueled by much warmer than normal ocean surface temperatures. These warmer than normal ocean surfaces are evaporating copious amounts of moisture into the tropical atmosphere. This moisture, in turn, is intensifying the monsoonal rains.



(Very warm ocean surface temperatures related to global warming are contributing to catastrophic South Asian flooding in which 42 million people are now impacted. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

In the Bay of Bengal, ocean surfaces have recently hit about 3 C above the three decade average. But ocean waters have been warming now for more than a Century following the initiation of widespread fossil fuel burning. So even the present baseline is above 20th Century temperature norms. At this point, such high levels of ocean heat are clearly having an impact on tropical weather.

In an interview with CNN, Reaz Ahmed, the director-general of Bangladesh’s Department of Disaster Management noted last week that:

“This is not normal. Floods this year were bigger and more intense than the previous years.”

Further exacerbating the situation is that fact that glaciers are melting and temperatures are rising in the Himalayas. This increases water flow into rivers during monsoon season even as glacial melt flow into rivers is reduced during the dry season. It’s kind of a flood-drought whammy in which the dry season is growing hotter and drier for places like India, but the wet season is conversely getting pushed toward worsening flood extremes.

Links:

The Pacific Standard

Think Progress

Earth Nullschool

Nepal, India, Bangladesh Floods Impact Millions

NASA Worldview

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://www.circa.com/story/2017/09/05/ ... the-bureau



Former FBI special agent challenges new director to investigate whistleblower claims


When former FBI Special Agent Robyn Gritz first joined the FBI in 1997, she said she would have never fathomed that her career as a top counterterrorism agent would end due to sexual discrimination, and even worse leave her working for two years selling "blush and lipstick" at a Macy's make-up counter.

But that, of course, she said is exactly what happened.

Robyn Gritz, former FBI Supervisory Agent
In 2004, Robyn Gritz, the person in from the right bottom row, was one of several women in the FBI's Newark Division, Joint Terrorism Task Force. Gritz, who graduated from the FBI in 1997, investigated some of the world's most notorious terrorists and national security threats. In 2012 after she said she was harassed and her career threatened by senior FBI officials she filed an EEOC complaint for sexual discrimination. Her case is still pending.

Gritz says she has been fighting against some of the most powerful men in the FBI, including now Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe has refused to comment on the series of stories Circa has published on Gritz's case and three separate internal federal inquiries into his actions. The FBI also declined to comment despite repeated requests.

Gritz says she's not just fighting for herself but for other FBI whistleblowers who have been mistreated and pushed out of senior positions either because of their gender, race or for reporting wrongdoing within the bureau.

She hopes recently confirmed FBI Director Christopher Wray will help change what she says is a broken bureaucracy at the top. Wray, she says, needs to access the number of current Equal Employment Opportunity Complaints being brought forth by FBI agents and look at "culture and retention." She believes if the new director does this, he will see a pattern of cultural deterioration brought by some of the bureau's leaders.



FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

"I would say to Director Wray, take a good look at your culture," said Gritz. "Stop looking at your recruitment. There are thousands and thousands of people that want to be FBI agents. Take a look at what some of the corporations have done out there, how they have embraced diversity, how they have changed their culture. Take a good look at why women in the FBI are not moving up. They're saying there's a lack of candidates for higher positions and higher ranks. Ask why?"

In Gritz's 15th year with the bureau, the then GS-15 who was at the time detailed to the CIA, said she ended up in a battle for her job when she confronted leaders in the FBI and management, who she claimed were going after her and a African American coworker. She says both her and her African American coworker had been in the bureau for more than 15 years.

In a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], which Gritz is still pursuing in court, she wrote FBI leaders treated her African American coworker "extremely disrespectfully, undermined his position and tried to get him out of the section as well."



Circa recently published her first on-camera interview regarding Gritz's battle with the FBI.

“They wanted the black male and the female out, we were the only two they were going after,” said Gritz, referring to the colleague she defended during her last year.

She recalled that it wasn't until she rose in the ranks that she confronted sexual discrimination. As a young special agent she said she never experienced any discrimination issues. Most of her colleagues were male and they worked with her as an equal on highly sensitive national security issues, she said.

Gritz said in her lawsuit that McCabe, and other supervisors, created an environment of hostility that forced her to file the EEOC complaint in 2012 charging a handful of FBI executives with sexual discrimination and eventually resign.

“All hell broke loose,” she said. “They retaliated and it was vicious.”

Time and Attendance

The nine hour time difference between South Asia, Yemen, Somalia and Washington D.C. would make for long nights for Gritz during her time at the CIA. Like many FBI agents working with overseas sources she would wait for calls on her blackberry and many times it would be 1 a.m. or 2 p.m. on the East Coast.

It was different being a detailee. "You're working terrorism. You're working long hours. You're not only working in the office," she said.

Gritz was one of the top counterterrorism agents in the bureau and was highly decorated. Her exemplary work on terrorism cases was one of the main reasons she was detailed to the CIA in 2012.

Documents obtained by Circa support Gritz's claim of her outstanding work performance reviews, letters of commendation and awards for service.



Because Gritz was detailed to the CIA, she also reported to her supervisors at the CIA and her work at the FBI's Washington Field Office took on a different role.

But that's not how it played out.

Her supervisors at headquarters questioned her every move. And later after confronting them about her situation and another colleague at the bureau who was going through similar circumstances she said "everything I did was scrutinized, whether I was traveling, whether I was going to a certain meeting."

She said the supervisors harangued her for not making early morning FBI meetings, among other work related complaints regarding the bureau, despite the fact that she was at the CIA.

"I was working different hours at the CIA and sometimes I was working 16 hour days trying to keep up with sources overseas," Gritz said. "I was a detailee to the CIA and I was working under their requests and guidelines."

The Justice Department Office of Inspector General noted in a 2005 review of FBI detailees working in the CTC's Bin Laden Unit, that the bureau "lacked clear guidance on the role and responsibilities of FBI detailees," which "led to inconsistent expectations about what they were supposed to be doing at the CTC." The Inspector General discovered that none of the FBI detailees "had defined duties that were clearly understood, either by them or FBI managers. Nor were there any memoranda of understanding (MOU) between the FBI and the CIA setting out the job duties and responsibilities of any of the detailees."

"The Joint Duty detailee is significant because it came out of the intelligence failures of 9/11," said Gritz said. "There were detailees at the CIA from the FBI who didn’t know who they reported to, who didn’t know what their responsibilities were for reporting and to rectify that. That’s why the Office of Director at the National Intelligence came out with policies and guidelines that governed all these questions about detailees."

But the Gritz lawsuit said the same problems, which should have been resolved, became the weapon her supervisors used against her to force her out.

"Being told that I didn’t know what I was doing," she said. "I was following US government policy on my position. I had seen those buildings come down. I saw a reason why these rules were put into place. Now I was experiencing what those agents, those detailees back around 9/11 felt, that, 'Wait a second, am I supposed to report to this meeting and this person, or am I supposed to report to the CIA direct supervisor?'"

The Sen. Patrick Toomey letter



In 2015, Senator Patrick Toomey, a Republican from Gritz’s home state of Pennsylvania sent an inquiry on Gritz’s behalf to the Office of Professional Responsibility [OPR] to inquire about the OPR claims against Gritz. Candace Will, the then assistant director for the Office of Professional Responsibility [OPR], responded to Toomey’s inquiry that "she voluntarily forfeited the opportunity to challenge the findings and conclusions set forth in the OPR's proposal letter."

Circa obtained copies of both the letter from Toomey and the OPR response.

Gritz said she was left without a choice because the bureau gave her no real options. In Will's letter the FBI states, Gritz "repeatedly failed to attend daily meetings after being directed to do so (2) engaged in time and attendance fraud (3) sent an unprofessional e-mail to another government official," among several other complaints.

"It's what they do to everyone they want to get out," Gritz said. "They go after your time and attendance. They find anything they can to try and push you out."

But statistics released in a story by the New York Times last October reveal a significant decline in female leadership in the bureau since 2013. As of October, only 12 percent of 220 senior agent positions, which include nine women who run field offices. In 2013, women held 20 percent of senior agent jobs and 15 women headed the field offices, according to the report.

Psychological Warfare

On one occasion Gritz told Circa she was asked by her supervisors at the CIA to attend a weekend work retreat in Virginia Beach, known to be home to the Navy's elite SEAL teams. Later when questioned by her supervisors about the work-related event, she said she was told by one of the supervisors questioning her, "you just wanted to be with Navy Seals."

She said she was also accused by FBI supervisors in emails and testimony obtained by Circa of being too “emotional.”

In the interview she told Circa, her supervisors also asked, “if I was sleeping around. I wasn’t. But it was a ridiculous accusation and would never happen with any of the male colleagues.”

Gritz described the retaliation as psychological warfare.

“They would say things like Robyn seems fragile, we’re not sure she’s capable of being a detailee for the CIA, she’s a hard one to deal with, or ‘that one is polarizing' and at one point they wrote up in a negative way, that I hold myself to extremely high standards and others,” she said. “It’s the culture of how females are treated. It’s not about recruitment but when women get up to GS14 and GS15 positions then a good majority of us become a target.”

Five years later she finally returned to working in the security industry but she won't give up the fight.

"In the FBI, basically, if something doesn’t read like a book, then there’s something wrong," said Gritz. "There are people that feel there’s unfair treatment happening. They’re afraid to speak out if they see something wrong ...but more are coming forward every day. I'm not fragile and I'm not going to stop fighting."

Related

A former FBI agent battling Deputy Director McCabe said there is a 'cancer' inside the FBI

Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching a Russia probe?



Blink Tank


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NR6AM5oKk

In the Face of Chaos - Ram Dass Full Lecture 1994 - YouTube
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Posted: Nov 12, 2014
We live in the midst of great change - whether social ...




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Lawmaker wants to rename Trump State Park for Heather Heyer


Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 3:18 PM






http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-la ... ice-2017-9

Trump Lawyer Asks Reporter If She’s on Drugs for Asking about Trump’s Termination Letter to Comey

James Comey testifies about President Trump before a Senate committee.

White House special counsel Ty Cobb questioned whether a reporter was on drugs for asking why the president didn’t send his letter notifying James Comey that he was being fired as FBI director.

The unprofessional question came in an email exchange between Cobb and Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand, who wrote a story about how the letter may be used as evidence in the obstruction of justice case against President Trump.

Cobb declined to say why the letter was never sent to Comey and asked Bertrand, “Are you on drugs?”



http://gizmodo.com/fuckup-congressman-t ... 1800805559

Fuckup Congressman Threatens FBI Director Over 'Pee Tape' Dossier
Gizmodo-
In a letter obtained by CNN on Wednesday, Nunes threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the new FBI director, Christopher Wray, in contempt if ...




http://thehill.com/homenews/house/34943 ... ce-charges


Former Dem IT staffer who fled country to return to US, face charges
The Hill-
The couple, who are believed to have had access to sensitive government information, are at the center of a Capitol Police and FBI investigation probing ...



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ility-plan

Mars counters Trump's climate stance with $1bn sustainability plan
Confectionery firm also launches M&Ms renewable energy campaign as part of a growing corporate backlash against the US’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... new-normal

Twin megastorms have scientists fearing this may be the new normal
Destructive force of Irma and Harvey has Trump expressing awe, but those in power should focus on the environmental causes
Hurricane Irma: ‘superstorm’ heads to Florida – live








http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/h ... -1.3474153

Hurricane Irma is the size of Texas and so powerful it’s showing up on earthquake monitors
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 6:36 PM



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/d ... -1.3474465

Drunken driver who struck and killed 5-year-old boy gets 30-day sentence
BY DAVID BOROFF
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 2:06 PM


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3475150

Cops shoot black emotionally disturbed man armed with knife in the Bronx
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA JOHN ANNESE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 7:01 PM




study: one–quarter of people killed by police are mentally ill - Treatment Advocacy Center
Treatment Advocacy Center › home-page
Twenty-five percent of people shot and killed by police during the first half of this year were identified by police ... “at least half of the people shot and killed by police each year in this country have mental health problems.


Of All U.S. Police Shootings, One-Quarter Reportedly Involve The Mentally Ill : NPR
NPR › 2015/07/04 › paper-finds-one-qu...
Jul 4, 2015 - In compiling a database of fatal police shootings, The Washington Post took an extra step — finding details about the mental health of the deceased. Reporter Kimberly Kindy relates what she learned.



Fatal Police Shooting of Seattle Woman Raises Mental Health Questions - The New York Times
The New York Times › 2017/06/20 › sea...
Jun 20, 2017 - Officers with the Seattle Police Department were no strangers to Unit 4303 in the Brettler Family Place apartment complex in the northeast part of the city. ... The fatal shooting has outraged Ms. Lyles’s family, who said she struggled with mental illness after years of abusive ...


Half of People Killed by Police Have a Disability: Report - NBC News
NBC News › news › us-news › half-peop...
Mar 14, 2016 - "Police have become the default responders to mental health calls"



Tulsa shooting: Police kill man armed with knives after mental health call - CNN - CNN.com
CNN.com › 2017/06/10 › tulsa-police-fat...
Jun 10, 2017 - A mental health call turned into a deadly shooting in Oklahoma when three law enforcement officers confronted a knife-wielding man outside a convenience store, the Tulsa County Sheriff's ...


Police departments struggle to get cops mental health training - USA Today
USA Today › news › nation › 2016/10/02
Oct 2, 2016 - 27 fatally shot Alfred Olango, 38, an unarmed man who was killed after his sister says she called police for help because he was in the midst of a mental health crisis. Olango's sister, who has ...


People with mental illness 16 times more likely to be killed by police - USA Today
USA Today › story › news › 2015/12/10
Dec 10, 2015 - At at time of increased attention to police shootings, a new report estimates that people with ... "Even for trained mental health professionals, it can be challenging to deal with people who are ...


Video shows police cornering mentally ill man and fatally shooting him: 'This was an execution' - LA Times - Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times › local › lanow › la-...
Jan 19, 2017 - Video shows five police officers cornering a mentally ill man before shooting him dead in a .... police officer, said another key question is whether police knew Hall had mental health issues.


Police Shootings: A Mental-Illness Problem - National Review
National Review › article › police-shooti...
Jan 1, 2016 - The latest police shooting to roil Chicago was all too familiar — and not because it fits the ... The police are our de facto front-line mental-health workers — “armed social workers” in the ...



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/i ... -1.3475281


Island of Barbuda 'literally under water' after Hurricane Irma, prime minister says
BY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 9:40 PM

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »


msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

Money Drain

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqj ... 800x-1.png





http://www.climatecentral.org/news/thre ... ange-21725


Here Are Three Ways Nanomaterials Could Help Combat Climate Change



Published: September 12th, 2017
By Bhavya Khullar, Ensia

The list of environmental problems that the world faces may be huge, but some strategies for solving them are remarkably small. First explored for applications in microscopy and computing, nanomaterials — materials made up of units that are each thousands of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair — are emerging as useful for tackling threats to our planet’s well-being.

Scientists across the globe are developing nanomaterials that can efficiently use carbon dioxide from the air, capture toxic pollutants from water and degrade solid waste into useful products.

Pollution-absorbing nanosponge.
Credit: Rice University News
“Nanomaterials could help us mitigate pollution. They are efficient catalysts and mostly recyclable. Now, they have to become economical for commercialization and better to replace present-day technologies completely,” says Arun Chattopadhyay, a member of the chemistry faculty at the Center for Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati.

Harvesting CO2

To help slow the climate-changing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, researchers have developed nano-carbon dioxide harvesters that can suck atmospheric carbon dioxide and deploy it for industrial purposes.

“Nanomaterials can convert carbon dioxide into useful products like alcohol. The materials could be simple chemical catalysts or photochemical in nature that work in the presence of sunlight,” says Chattopadhyay, who has been working with nanomaterials to tackle environmental pollutants for more than a decade.

Ion beam “slice and view” showing the interior porous structure of the entangled nanotube network.
Credit: Science Reports
Many research groups are working to address a problem that, if solved, could be a holy grail in combating climate change: how to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and convert it into useful products. Chattopadhyay isn’t alone. Many research groups are working to address a problem that, if solved, could be a holy grail in combating climate change: how to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and convert it into useful products. Nanoparticles offer a promising approach to this because they have a large surface-area-to-volume ratio for interacting with carbon dioxide and properties that allow them to facilitate the conversion of carbon dioxide into other things. The challenge is to make them economically viable. Researchers have tried everything from metallic to carbon-based nanoparticles to reduce the cost, but so far they haven’t become efficient enough for industrial-scale application.

One of the most recent points of progress in this area is work by scientists at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum and the Lille University of Science and Technology in France. The researchers developed a nano-carbon dioxide harvester that uses water and sunlight to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into methanol, which can be employed as an engine fuel, a solvent, an antifreeze agent and a diluent of ethanol. Made by wrapping a layer of modified graphene oxide around spheres of copper zinc oxide and magnetite, the material looks like a miniature golf ball, captures carbon dioxide more efficiently than conventional catalysts and can be readily reused, according to Suman Jain, senior scientist of the Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun in India, who developed the nano-carbon dioxide harvester.

Jain says that the nano-carbon dioxide harvester has a large molecular surface area and captures more carbon dioxide than a conventional catalyst with similar surface area would, which makes the conversion more efficient. But due to their small size, the nanoparticles have a tendency to clump up, making them inactive with prolonged use. Jain adds that synthesizing useful nanoparticle-based materials is also challenging because it’s hard to make the particles a consistent size. Chattopadhyay says the efficiency of such materials can be improved further, providing hope for useful application in the future.

Cleansing Water

Most toxic dyes used in textile and leather industries can be captured with nanoparticles. “Water pollutants such as dyes from human-created waste like those from tanneries could get to natural sources of water like deep tube wells or groundwater if wastewater from these industries is left untreated,” says Chattopadhyay. “This problem is rather difficult to solve.”

An international group of researchers led by professor Elzbieta Megiel of the University of Warsaw in Poland reports that nanomaterials have been widely studied for removing heavy metals and dyes from wastewater. According to the research team, adsorption processes using materials containing magnetic nanoparticles are highly effective and can be easily performed because such nanoparticles have a large number of sites on their surface that can capture pollutants and don’t readily degrade in water.

Chattopadhyay adds that appropriately designed magnetic nanomaterials can be used to separate pollutants such as arsenic, lead, chromium and mercury from water. However, the nanotech-based approach has to be more efficient than conventional water purification technology to make it worthwhile.


In addition to removing dyes and metals, nanomaterials can also be used to clean up oil spills. Researchers led by Pulickel Ajayan at Rice University in Houston, Texas, have developed a reusable nanosponge that can remove oil from contaminated seawater.

The technology shows promise, but it’s not yet ready for prime time.

“While the nanosponge is a good material to deal with oil spills, these results are confined to the laboratory,” says Ashok Ganguli, director of the Institute of Nano Science and Technology in Mohali, Punjab, India. “Large-scale synthesis is required if we have to remove oil from seawater which is spread over several miles.” Although scientists have yet to successfully synthesize nanomaterials for cleaning oil spills at a scale large enough for practical application, “this may become possible with more research and industry partnerships,” Chattopadhyay says.

Accelerating Digestion

Another area being explored for application of nanomaterials is in managing organic waste, which can pollute land and water if not handled properly. “Farms and food industry generate humongous amounts of biodegradable waste, and we must find ways to manage it efficiently,” says Debjyoti Sahu, a professor of engineering at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Karnataka in India.

One of the oldest methods to treat biodegradable waste is to dump it into tanks called digesters. These are full of anaerobic microbes that consume the material, converting it into biogas fuel and solids that can be used as fertilizers. But anaerobic digestion is slow.

Recent research showed that adding metal oxide nanoparticles to a food waste digester doubled the amount of biogas fuel produced compared to the digester without it.“Nanoparticles can accelerate the anaerobic digestion of the sludge, thus making it more efficient in terms of duration and enhanced production of the biogas,” says Kamalakannan Kailasam, scientist with the Institute of Nano Science and Technology, in Mohali, India.

Recent research showed that adding metal oxide nanoparticles to a food waste digester doubled the amount of biogas fuel produced compared to the digester without it.

“Iron oxide nanoparticles are nontoxic, and they should be added to sludge waste to enhance the rate of its degradation,” says Sahu.

Safety First

While nanoparticles have potential to solve environmental problems, the small size that makes them useful for environmental cleanup also raises special concerns about health and persistence in the environment.

“The long-term effects of using nanomaterials have not been evaluated yet,” says Chattopadhyay.

The U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and others are funding research to evaluate the potential effects of engineered nanoparticles on health and the environment. Researchers are also creating models to predict nanomaterials’ transport and fate in the environment as well as their potential effects on humans. If concerns that have been raised can be adequately dealt with, nanomaterials could play a big role in helping us cope with environmental challenges in the years ahead.




FBI planning a terrorist event in DC ?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... 34f10095a7


Training exercise in the District will involve police, Secret Service, FBI
By Martin Weil September 11
A training exercise will be conducted Tuesday morning in the Washington metropolitan area by a variety of law enforcement agencies under the supervision of the FBI.

Among the agencies participating will be the U.S. Secret Service and the D.C. police. Also to be involved are the D.C. medical examiner’s office and the Metro transit system.





http://www.storyleak.com/dhs-boston-tra ... xplosives/

DHS Admits Boston Drill Using Backpack Explosives Planned Before Marathon - Storyleak
www.storyleak.com › Injustice
Jun 10, 2013 - But the exercise admission lends further credence to the ignored eyewitness account of bomb sniffing dogs and bomb squads running a training exercise during the morning of the Boston Marathon.



http://truthstreammedia.com/2013/06/11/ ... n-bombing/


Homeland Security Admits Boston Drill Eerily Similar to Marathon Bombing | Truthstream Media
Truthstream Media › 2013/06/11 › home...
Jun 11, 2013 - RELATED: 'Mass Casualty' Exercise at Boston Marathon Coincided with Explosions ... In the case of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the admitted role of the FBI in setting up the perpetrators did ...





http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... iling.html

FBI releases report detailing interview with Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years before the attacks | masslive.com
MassLive.com › index.ssf › 2017/04 › fb...
Apr 11, 2017 - Two years before the deadly Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev told the FBI he didn't search for anything ... Tamerlan was in several fights as a child in school in Kyrgyzstan.
s
The exercise is to begin at 6:50 a.m.


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-e ... 2Q20140326

Russia warned U.S. about Boston Marathon bomb suspect Tsarnaev: report - Reuters
Reuters › article › us-usa-explosions-bost...
Mar 25, 2014 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian authorities warned the FBI in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two Chechen brothers accused of carrying out last year’s Boston Marathon bombings, but U.S. authorities missed chances to detain him, NBC News reported on Tuesday. ... The network said ...






http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/p ... -1.3491960

Ohio cop pleads guilty to using sex toy on two women during illegal traffic stop



BY JESSICA CHIA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 3:20 AM




https://books.google.com/books/about/Dr ... HnjwEACAAJ


"Driving While Female": A National Problem in Police Misconduct -

Title, "Driving While Female": A National Problem in Police Misconduct. Contributors, Police Professionalism Initiative, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Department of Criminal Justice. Publisher, Department of Criminal ...



https://www.thenation.com/article/polic ... ing-about/

The Police Violence We Aren't Talking About | The Nation

Aug 27, 2014 - Sexual assault is a persistent problem within police departments. ... As Samuel Walker wrote in his 2002 report “Driving While Female,” officers who commit sexual crimes are often considered “rogue ...
The Police Violence We Aren’t Talking About
Sexual assault is a persistent problem within police departments.






http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/rele ... -1.3490702

Release the video, now: the NYPD fails the transparency test


Editorials
EDITORIALS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 3:00 AM





http://ticklethewire.com/2017/09/13/dem ... broke-law/

Democrats to Special Counsel Mueller: We Have Evidence Michael Flynn Broke the law




Democrats say they have evidence that President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn broke the law by failing to disclose a trip that involved a potential business deal between the Saudi government and a Russian nuclear power agency.

House Democrats provided details in a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating wether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia to win the White House.





http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-w ... 70916.html


Government waives reviews for border wall in California


Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-w ... rylink=cpy




http://ticklethewire.com/2017/09/12/fbi ... les-death/

FBI Raids Home of Hacker Who Launched Digital Protest Following Philando Castile’s Death

A hacker who launched a digital protest following a not-guilty verdict against a police officer who killed a black motorist has been raided by the FBI.

The man known as “Vigilance” told the Daily Beast that FBI agents searched his home in Minnesota for allegedly hacking into government and education websites in the state in June. He’s accused of posting stolen email address and other information online.

The man, whose real identity wasn’t revealed, breached the websites after police officer Jeromino Yanez was found not guilty on charges of manslaughter for shooting black motorist Philando Castile.

“They knocked, cleared the house with their guns,” the man said, adding that his electronic devices, including a laptop, were seized.

No charges have yet been filed.






http://www.thedailybeast.com/why-robert ... p-immunity


Why Robert Mueller May Have to Give Donald Trump Immunity
If the president fights a subpoena, the special prosecutor can make him a deal: Testify and it won’t be used against you (sort of).


09.10.17 8:00 PM



http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-stando ... fbi_i.html

Man who outed FBI informants in refuge takeover case found in contempt of court

A federal judge has found California resident Gary Hunt, who published the names of confidential FBI informants in the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in contempt of court.

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown gave Hunt until noon Wednesday to remove the articles on his blog that reference the informants and destroy all government documents he received on the informants.

If he doesn't, he'll face more "coercive sanctions,'' the judge wrote in her 23-page ruling.

Hunt, on his online blog, alerted readers of the judge's order. But he also urged others to download the material before he removes the information.

In an online post Monday morning under the heading "Notice - Get Them While You Can,'' Hunt wrote: "At this time, it is prudent that Hunt complies with said requirement, as he stated he would during the August hearing, so he will comply. However, he will comply at the last minute.''

He wrote that his articles will be available until the judge's deadline. Brown's original protective order for the material and her new order to remove it is limited to him, "therefore there is no legal consequence for downloading and preserving for posterity, these articles.''

Assistant U.S. Attorney Pam Holsinger had argued in court that it was Hunt's intent to aid the defendants in the case by outing the FBI informants online so they could be called as witnesses during one of the occupation trials.


During a November 2016 recorded phone call with Schuyler Barbeau, who was in custody in Washington on an unrelated firearms offense, Hunt said, "Right now I'm focused on exposing these informants because that's going to help the February trial.'' Hunt, prosecutors said, was referring to the second trial of Oregon refuge occupiers.

Barbeau had served as a security guard in support of the Bundy ranch during its standoff with federal land management agents in Nevada in 2014.

The judge cited Hunt's statement to Barbeau, as well as other evidence, in concluding that Hunt helped a defendant in the Oregon standoff case or a member of a defense team by identifying and quoting from excerpts of confidential FBI reports on the informants.

Hunt, 71, of Los Molinas, Calif., received an envelope in his mail in late summer or fall 2016 that contained a thumb drive with a note warning him not to share "this information'' and to "get rid'' of the drive, according to court records. When he opened the thumb drive, Hunt found numerous FBI reports on the agency's "confidential human sources.'' The documents had stamps on them that read, "Dissemination Limited by Court Order.''




Then there are those people who say you either believe in Climate Change/Global Warming
or you believe in Weaponized Weather Making
The two cannot co exist...duhhhhhhh



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-1 ... icane-irma



http://www.occurrencesforeigndomestic.c ... tty-quick/


“…As you’re attempting to unravel all the contradictions found in global warming narrative, consider these 175 patents that describe — in tremendous detail — highly advanced weather control technology. These patents describe known processes for generating rain, augmenting hurricanes, seeding storm systems, accomplishing weather modification and much more. Keep in mind that all these patents have already been approved by the U.S. patent office, meaning that the U.S. government affirms the scientific feasibility of these inventions.

This full list is cited from GeoengineeringWatch.com:

• 0462795 – July 16, 1891 – Method Of Producing Rain-Fall

• 1103490 – August 6, 1913 – Rain-Maker

• 1225521 – September 4, 1915 – Protecting From Poisonous Gas In Warfare

• 1338343 – April 27, 1920 – Process And Apparatus For The Production of Intense Artificial Clouds, Fogs, or Mists

• 1619183 – March 1, 1927 – Process of Producing Smoke Clouds From Moving Aircraft

• 1665267 – April 10, 1928 – Process of Producing Artificial Fogs

• 1892132 – December 27, 1932 – Atomizing Attachment For Airplane Engine Exhausts

• 1928963 – October 3, 1933 – Electrical System And Method

• 1957075 – May 1, 1934 – Airplane Spray Equipment

• 2097581 – November 2, 1937 – Electric Stream Generator – Referenced in 3990987

• 2409201 – October 15, 1946 – Smoke Producing Mixture

• 2476171 – July 18, 1945 – Smoke Screen Generator

• 2480967 – September 6, 1949 – Aerial Discharge Device

• 2550324 – April 24, 1951 – Process For Controlling Weather

• 2582678 – June 15, 1952 – Material Disseminating Apparatus For Airplanes

• 2614083 – October 14, 1952 – Metal Chloride Screening Smoke Mixture

• 2633455 – March 31, 1953 – Smoke Generator

• 2688069 – August 31, 1954 – Steam Generator – Referenced in 3990987

• 2721495 – October 25, 1955 – Method And Apparatus For Detecting Minute Crystal Forming Particles Suspended in a Gaseous Atmosphere

• 2730402 – January 10, 1956 – Controllable Dispersal Device

• 2801322 – July 30, 1957 – Decomposition Chamber for Monopropellant Fuel – Referenced in 3990987

• 2881335 – April 7, 1959 – Generation of Electrical Fields

• 2908442 – October 13, 1959 – Method For Dispersing Natural Atmospheric Fogs And Clouds

• 2986360 – May 30, 1962 – Aerial Insecticide Dusting Device

• 2963975 – December 13, 1960 – Cloud Seeding Carbon Dioxide Bullet

• 3126155 – March 24, 1964 – Silver Iodide Cloud Seeding Generator

• 3127107 – March 31, 1964 – Generation of Ice-Nucleating Crystals

• 3131131 – April 28, 1964 – Electrostatic Mixing in Microbial Conversions

• 3174150 – March 16, 1965 – Self-Focusing Antenna System

• 3234357 – February 8, 1966 – Electrically Heated Smoke Producing Device

• 3274035 – September 20, 1966 – Metallic Composition For Production of Hydroscopic Smoke

• 3300721 – January 24, 1967 – Means For Communication Through a Layer of Ionized Gases

• 3313487 – April 11, 1967 – Cloud Seeding Apparatus

• 3338476 – August 29, 1967 – Heating Device For Use With Aerosol Containers

• 3410489 – November 12, 1968 – Automatically Adjustable Airfoil Spray System With Pump

• 3429507 – February 25, 1969 – Rainmaker

• 3432208 – November 7, 1967 – Fluidized Particle Dispenser

• 3441214 – April 29, 1969 – Method And Apparatus For Seeding Clouds

• 3445844 – May 20, 1969 – Trapped Electromagnetic Radiation Communications System

• 3456880 – July 22, 1969 – Method Of Producing Precipitation From The Atmosphere

• 3518670 June 30, 1970 – Artificial Ion Cloud

• 3534906 – October 20, 1970 – Control of Atmospheric Particles

• 3545677 – December 8, 1970 – Method of Cloud Seeding

• 3564253 – February 16, 1971 – System And Method For Irradiation Of Planet Surface Areas

• 3587966 – June 28, 1971 – Freezing Nucleation

• 3601312 – August 24, 1971 – Methods of Increasing The Likelihood oF Precipitation By The Artificial Introduction Of Sea Water Vapor Into The Atmosphere Winward Of An Air Lift Region

• 3608810 – September 28, 1971 – Methods of Treating Atmospheric Conditions

• 3608820– September 20, 1971 – Treatment of Atmospheric Conditions by Intermittent Dispensing of Materials Therein

• 3613992 – October 19, 1971 – Weather Modification Method

• 3630950 – December 28, 1971 – Combustible Compositions For Generating Aerosols, Particularly Suitable For Cloud Modification And Weather Control And Aerosolization Process

• USRE29142 – May 22, 1973 – Combustible compositions for generating aerosols, particularly suitable for cloud modification and weather control and aerosolization process

• 3659785 – December 8, 1971 – Weather Modification Utilizing Microencapsulated Material

• 3666176 – March 3, 1972 – Solar Temperature Inversion Device

• 3677840 – July 18, 1972 – Pyrotechnics Comprising Oxide of Silver For Weather Modification Use

• 3722183 – March 27, 1973 – Device For Clearing Impurities From The Atmosphere

• 3769107 – October 30, 1973 – Pyrotechnic Composition For Generating Lead Based Smoke

• 3784099 – January 8, 1974 – Air Pollution Control Method

• 3785557 – January 15, 1974 – Cloud Seeding System

• 3795626 – March 5, 1974 – Weather Modification Process

• 3808595 – April 30, 1974 – Chaff Dispensing System

• 3813875 – June 4, 1974 – Rocket Having Barium Release System to Create Ion Clouds In The Upper Atmosphere

• 3835059 – September 10, 1974 – Methods of Generating Ice Nuclei Smoke Particles For Weather Modification And Apparatus Therefore

• 3835293 – September 10, 1974 – Electrical Heating Apparatus For Generating Super Heated Vapors

• 3877642 – April 15, 1975 – Freezing Nucleant

• 3882393 – May 6, 1975 – Communications System Utilizing Modulation of The Characteristic Polarization of The Ionosphere

• 3896993 – July 29, 1975 – Process For Local Modification of Fog And Clouds For Triggering Their Precipitation And For Hindering The Development of Hail Producing Clouds

• 3899129 – August 12, 1975 – Apparatus for generating ice nuclei smoke particles for weather modification

• 3899144 – August 12, 1975 – Powder contrail generation

• 3940059 – February 24, 1976 – Method For Fog Dispersion

• 3940060 – February 24, 1976 – Vortex Ring Generator

• 3990987 – November 9, 1976 – Smoke generator

• 3992628 – November 16, 1976 – Countermeasure system for laser radiation

• 3994437 – November 30, 1976 – Broadcast dissemination of trace quantities of biologically active chemicals

• 4042196 – August 16, 1977 – Method and apparatus for triggering a substantial change in earth characteristics and measuring earth changes

• RE29,142 – February 22, 1977 – Combustible compositions for generating aerosols, particularly suitable for cloud modification and weather control and aerosolization process

• 4035726 – July 12, 1977 – Method of controlling and/or improving high-latitude and other communications or radio wave surveillance systems by partial control of radio wave et al

• 4096005 – June 20, 1978 – Pyrotechnic Cloud Seeding Composition

• 4129252 – December 12, 1978 – Method and apparatus for production of seeding materials

• 4141274 – February 27, 1979 – Weather modification automatic cartridge dispenser

• 4167008 – September 4, 1979 – Fluid bed chaff dispenser

• 4347284 – August 31, 1982 – White cover sheet material capable of reflecting ultraviolet rays

• 4362271 – December 7, 1982 – Procedure for the artificial modification of atmospheric precipitation as well as compounds with a dimethyl sulfoxide base for use in carrying out said procedure

• 4402480 – September 6, 1983 – Atmosphere modification satellite

• 4412654 – November 1, 1983 – Laminar microjet atomizer and method of aerial spraying of liquids

• 4415265 – November 15, 1983 – Method and apparatus for aerosol particle absorption spectroscopy

• 4470544 – September 11, 1984 – Method of and Means for weather modification

• 4475927 – October 9, 1984 – Bipolar Fog Abatement System

• 4600147 – July 15, 1986 – Liquid propane generator for cloud seeding apparatus

• 4633714 – January 6, 1987 – Aerosol particle charge and size analyzer

• 4643355 – February 17, 1987 – Method and apparatus for modification of climatic conditions

• 4653690 – March 31, 1987 – Method of producing cumulus clouds

• 4684063 – August 4, 1987 – Particulates generation and removal

• 4686605 – August 11, 1987 – HAARP Patent / EASTLUND PATENT – Method and apparatus for altering a region in the earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and/or magnetosphere

• 4704942 – November 10, 1987 – Charged Aerosol

• 4712155 – December 8, 1987 – Method and apparatus for creating an artificial electron cyclotron heating region of plasma

• 4744919 – May 17, 1988 – Method of dispersing particulate aerosol tracer

• 4766725 – August 30, 1988 – Method of suppressing formation of contrails and solution therefor

• 4829838 – May 16, 1989 – Method and apparatus for the measurement of the size of particles entrained in a gas

• 4836086 – June 6, 1989 – Apparatus and method for the mixing and diffusion of warm and cold air for dissolving fog

• 4873928 – October 17, 1989 – Nuclear-sized explosions without radiation

• 4948257 – August 14, 1990 – Laser optical measuring device and method for stabilizing fringe pattern spacing

• 1338343– August 14, 1990 – Process and Apparatus for the production of intense artificial Fog

• 4999637 – March 12, 1991 – Creation of artificial ionization clouds above the earth

• 5003186 – March 26, 1991 – Stratospheric Welsbach seeding for reduction of global warming

• 5005355 – April 9, 1991 – Method of suppressing formation of contrails and solution therefor

• 5038664 – August 13, 1991 – Method for producing a shell of relativistic particles at an altitude above the earths surface

• 5041760 – August 20, 1991 – Method and apparatus for generating and utilizing a compound plasma configuration

• 5041834 – August 20, 1991 – Artificial ionospheric mirror composed of a plasma layer which can be tilted

• 5056357 – October 15, 1991- Acoustic method for measuring properties of a mobile medium

• 5059909 – October 22, 1991 – Determination of particle size and electrical charge

• 5104069 – April 14, 1992 – Apparatus and method for ejecting matter from an aircraft

• 5110502 – May 5, 1992 – Method of suppressing formation of contrails and solution therefor

• 5156802 – October 20, 1992 – Inspection of fuel particles with acoustics

• 5174498 – December 29, 1992 – Cloud Seeding

• 5148173 – September 15, 1992 – Millimeter wave screening cloud and method

• 5242820 – September 7, 1993 – Army Mycoplasma Patent Patent

• 5245290 – September 14, 1993 – Device for determining the size and charge of colloidal particles by measuring electroacoustic effect

• 5286979 – February 15, 1994 – Process for absorbing ultraviolet radiation using dispersed melanin

• 5296910 – March 22, 1994 – Method and apparatus for particle analysis

• 5327222 – July 5, 1994 – Displacement information detecting apparatus

• 5357865 – October 25, 1994 – Method of cloud seeding

• 5360162 – November 1, 1994 – Method and composition for precipitation of atmospheric water

• 5383024 – January 17, 1995 – Optical wet steam monitor

• 5425413 – June 20, 1995 – Method to hinder the formation and to break-up overhead atmospheric inversions, enhance ground level air circulation and improve urban air quality

• 5434667 – July 18, 1995 – Characterization of particles by modulated dynamic light scattering

• 5441200 – August 15, 1995 – Tropical cyclone disruption

• 5486900 – January 23, 1996 – Measuring device for amount of charge of toner and image forming apparatus having the measuring device

• 5556029 – September 17, 1996 – Method of hydrometeor dissipation (clouds)

• 5628455 – May 13, 1997 – Method and apparatus for modification of supercooled fog

• 5631414 – May 20, 1997 – Method and device for remote diagnostics of ocean-atmosphere system state

• 5639441 – June 17, 1997 – Methods for fine particle formation

• 5762298 – June 9, 1998 – Use of artificial satellites in earth orbits adaptively to modify the effect that solar radiation would otherwise have on earth’s weather

• 5800481 – September 1, 1998 – Thermal excitation of sensory resonances

• 5912396 – June 15, 1999 – System and method for remediation of selected atmospheric conditions

• 5922976 – July 13, 1999 – Method of measuring aerosol particles using automated mobility-classified aerosol detector

• 5949001 – September 7, 1999 – Method for aerodynamic particle size analysis

• 5984239 – November 16, 1999 – Weather modification by artificial satellite

• 6025402 – February 15, 2000 – Chemical composition for effectuating a reduction of visibility obscuration, and a detoxifixation of fumes and chemical fogs in spaces of fire origin

• 6030506 – February 29, 2000 – Preparation of independently generated highly reactive chemical species

• 6034073 – March 7, 2000 – Solvent detergent emulsions having antiviral activity

• 6045089 – April 4, 2000 – Solar-powered airplane

• 6056203 – May 2, 2000 – Method and apparatus for modifying supercooled clouds

• 6110590 – August 29, 2000 – Synthetically spun silk nanofibers and a process for making the same

• 6263744 – July 24, 2001 – Automated mobility-classified-aerosol detector

• 6281972 – August 28, 2001 – Method and apparatus for measuring particle-size distribution

• 6315213 – November 13, 2001 – Method of modifying weather

• 6382526 – May 7, 2002 – Process and apparatus for the production of nanofibers

• 6408704 – June 25, 2002 – Aerodynamic particle size analysis method and apparatus

• 6412416 – July 2, 2002 – Propellant-based aerosol generation devices and method

• 6520425 – February 18, 2003 – Process and apparatus for the production of nanofibers

• 6539812 – April 1, 2003 – System for measuring the flow-rate of a gas by means of ultrasound

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

Dante always reserved a special place in Hell for Climate Change deniers

from a never meteorologist to ever deniers


https://robertscribbler.com/2017/09/18/ ... erto-rico/

just in from Robert Scribbler’s website
Major Hurricane Maria Could Hit 150 Mph+ Intensity as it Barrels Toward Puerto Rico
As of early afternoon on September 18, Hurricane Maria had reached major hurricane intensity of 125 mph maximum sustained winds and a 956 mb minimum central pressure. Moving west-northwest at 10 mph, the storm is tracking through already the hurricane-weary eastern Caribbean islands on a path toward a Puerto Rico still recovering from its close brush with Category 5 Hurricane Irma.

(National Hurricane Center’s [NHC] projected path and intensity for Maria shows a major hurricane threatening Puerto Rico over the next two days. Image source: NHC.)

Maria is expected to track over very warm Caribbean waters in the range of 84 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (29+ C) as it enters a favorable atmospheric environment. And forecasters now call for Maria to rapidly intensify. Hurricane watches have already been issued for the American territory of Puerto Rico. And the present official Hurricane Center track and forecast intensity for Maria (see above image) shows a severe blow by a powerful category 4 storm striking somewhere along southeastern Puerto Rico early Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.

2017 Already a Season for the Record Books

It’s worth noting that some models presently show Maria tracking north of Puerto Rico. So the island could still avoid a direct hit. But the current official consensus is a rather grim forecast.

(IR satellite imagery of Maria shows an increasingly organized storm. Forecast points and sea surface temperatures included for reference. Image source: National Hurricane Center.)

Maria is the fourth major hurricane to form in the Atlantic during 2017 — which has been an exceptional season in many respects. This year saw the early formation of Arlene in April — only the second named storm recorded to have formed during that month. It saw the strongest hurricane ever to form outside of the Carribbean or Gulf of Mexico — Irma — which was also tied as the strongest land falling hurricane in the Atlantic. Both Category 4 Harvey and Irma struck the continental U.S. — the first time two Cat 4 storms have struck the states in a single month. And Harvey produced the heaviest recorded rainfall total from a tropical system at 51.88 inches. Overall damage estimates from the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season presently stand at 132 billion dollars — which makes this season the second costliest so far (behind 2005).

How Climate Change and Other Global Factors Contributed

With damages from Harvey and Irma still uncounted, with Maria barreling in, and with a week and a half left to September and all of October remaining, it’s likely that 2017 will see more to come. Though Irma and Jose have churned up cooler waters in their wakes, large sections of the Gulf, Caribbean, and North Atlantic remain considerably warmer than normal.

(Sea surface temperature anomaly map shows that much of the North Atlantic and Carribbean are between 0.5 and 2 C warmer than the already warmer than normal 30-year average. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Meanwhile, a very vigorous Inter-Tropical-Convergence-Zone (ITCZ) is still producing powerful thunderstorms over Africa. And cool water upwelling in the Pacific has generated La Nina-like conditions that tend to cut down on Atlantic wind shear — allowing more storms to fully develop and tap those warmer than normal waters to reach higher maximum intensities. Some of these factors — particularly the warmer than normal surface waters and possibly the increased intensity of ITCZ thunderstorms are climate change related. So yes, statements from those like Dr. Michael Mann claiming that this season’s hurricanes were made worse by climate change are absolutely valid.

(UPDATES TO FOLLOW)

RELATED STATEMENTS AND INFORMATION:




Blink Tank

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KysuBl2m_w






Slim and Dave Mallett have written and performed
some music I will be using in my Doc about Robert Shetterly
https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org

check them out


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNmoHmf8RE

http://davidmallett.com/tour/




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3503931


Man allegedly wears clown mask to chase daughter, nearby witness fires gun
BY DAN GUNDERMAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, September 18, 2017, 10:20 AM
This father took his scare way too far.

Vernon Barrett, Jr., a father from Boardman, Ohio, allegedly donned a clown mask and chased his daughter down the street, in an effort to scare and discipline her, according to WKBN.

This comes as the 6-year-old’s mother was reportedly jailed for child endangerment — in allegedly breaking four of the girl’s ribs.

As Barrett scared his daughter, she reportedly jumped into a stranger’s car and then entered a stranger’s apartment. She shouted about a clown trailing right behind her, according to police, as relayed by WKBN.

Police







http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pree ... 50678.html
Preet Bhararas new podcast to take on justice issues, Trump

PTI
September 18, 2017 | UPDATED 18:15 IST

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/09/22/ ... ions-cuts/

Half-way to Catastrophe — Global Hothouse Extinction to be Triggered by or Before 2100 Without Rapid Emissions Cuts
Over recent years, concern about a coming hothouse mass extinction set off by human carbon emissions has been on the rise. Studies of Earth’s deep history reveal that at least 4 out of the 5 major mass extinctions occurred during both hothouse periods and during times when atmospheric and oceanic carbon spiked to much higher than normal ranges. Now a new scientific study reveals that we are have already emitted 50 percent of the carbon needed to set off such a major global catastrophe.

Fossil Fuel Burning = Race Toward a 6th Mass Extinction

The primary driver of these events is rising atmospheric CO2 levels — often caused in the past by the emergence of masses of volcanoes or large flood basalt provinces (LIP in image below). In the case of the worst mass extinction — the Permian — the Siberian flood basalts were thought to have injected magma into peat and coal formations which then injected a very large amount of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.



(In the Earth’s deep past, the worst global mass extinctions were driven by large igneous provinces like the eruptions across Siberia during the Permian. The initial killing mechanism during these extinctions was a result of the upshot ocean anoxia, acidification, and biochemistry change. During the Permian, effects eventually spilled over to land and possibly the upper atmosphere. Today’s human carbon emissions will ultimately produce worse impacts over shorter time scales than the Permian. Image source: Skeptical Science and The History of Seawater Carbonate Chemistry, Atmospheric CO2, and Ocean Acidification.)

Higher atmospheric and ocean carbon drove both environmental and geochemical changes — ultimately setting off hyperthermal temperature spikes and ocean anoxic events that were possibly assisted by methane hydrate releases and other climate and geophysical feedbacks. The net result of these events was major species die-offs in the ocean and, during the worst events, on land.

Considering the fact that present human activities, primarily through fossil fuel burning, are releasing vast quantities of carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans at a rate never before seen in the geological past, it appears that the world is racing toward another major mass extinction. In the past, the location of this dangerous precipice was a bit murky. But a recent study in Science Advances attempts to better define the threshold at which the worst of the worst mass extinction events — set off by rising ocean and atmospheric carbon — occur.

310 Billion Tons Carbon Entering Ocean = Mass Extinction Threshold

The study used a relatively easy to identify marker — ocean carbon uptake — in an attempt to identify a boundary limit at which such mass extinctions tend to occur. And the study found that when about 310 billion tons of carbon gets taken in by the oceans, a critical boundary is crossed and a global mass extinction event is likely to occur.

Presently, human beings are dumping carbon into the atmosphere at an extremely high rate of around 11 billion tons per year. Today, about 2.6 billion tons per year of this carbon ends up in the ocean. In total, since 1850, humans have added about 155 billion tons of carbon to the Earth’s oceans — leaving us with about another 155 billion tons before Rothman’s (the study author) extinction threshold is crossed.



(Thresholds of Catastrophe in the Earth System finds that present carbon emissions bring us about halfway to the global mass extinction boundary limit. That carbon emissions cuts need to be more aggressive than the most aggressive present international policy scenario to reliably avoid risk of setting off a global mass extinction event.)

At the presently high rate of fossil fuel burning and greenhouse gas emissions from humans, that gives us about 60 years. This is true even if emissions levels remain steady and do not increase. If emissions increase along a business as usual pathway, we could cross that threshold by or before the 2050s. And under all present emissions scenarios identified by international climate policy, the 310 billion ton threshold is either closely approached or greatly exceeded by 2100.

This should set off warning bells for global governments and climate policy advocates alike. What it means is that halting fossil fuel burning and transitioning to renewable energy needs to occur at rather swift rates — with annual global carbon emissions peaking within the next 1-10 years and then rapidly diminishing to zero — if we are to avoid a high risk of setting off another major global mass extinction. Of course, this does not mean that such a response will avoid harmful climate impacts — a number of which have already been locked in. Just that such a major response would be needed to avoid a high risk of setting off a catastrophic global mass extinction event equal to some of the worst in all of Earth’s deep history.

Rapid Movement Toward Terrible Long-Term Global Consequences

The study notes that past major extinctions like the Permian occurred on 10,000 to 100,000 year time-scales. And that during these events the changes inflicted upon the global environment by major carbon additions to the ocean and atmosphere occurred too swiftly for organisms to adapt. The pace of human carbon addition is presently faster than even during the Permian — the worst mass extinction event. So if this very large carbon spike were to continue it has the potential to set off impacts as bad, or worse than the Permian and over much shorter time horizons.

The study also notes that it takes about 10,000 years for the worst impacts of a mass extinction carbon spike to be fully realized. So hitting the 310 billion ton threshold by or before 2100 runs a high risk of consigning the world to many, many centuries of increasingly worsening climate impacts.

Links:

Thresholds of Catastrophe in the Earth System

History of Seawater Carbonate Chemistry, Atmospheric CO2, and Ocean Acidification

Today’s Climate Change is More Comparable to Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction






https://www.courthousenews.com/mit-stud ... me-events/

MIT Unveils Framework to ID Extreme-Weather Patterns

September 22, 2017







https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-sta ... ees-32487/


Subject: Freedom of Information Request: Course Attendees/Requestees
To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

I would like a copy of any and all requests from local or state law enforcement agencies wishing to hold a FLETC course in their own jurisdiction, or near their own jurisdiction. This can be in the form of any written communications, including email. The date range I would like searched for is 1/1/12 to the date this request is processed.

I would also like any breakdowns, intra-agency reports, summaries, or logs of the law enforcement agencies that have used FLETC to train officers from 1/1/12 to the date this request is processed on. I do not need reports from each department, I am only looking for compilations of the departments that have used FLETC to train officers.

The following is a list of courses I would like specifically searched for, to limit my search:
-Active Shooter Threat Training Program
-Advanced Instruction for Marksmanship
-All Terrain Vehicle Training Program
-Advanced Pistol Training Program
-Continuing Legal Education Training Program-Uniformed Police
-Covert Electronic Tracking Program
-Internet Investigations Training Program
-Introduction to Digital Evidence Analysis
-Mobile Device Investigations Program
-Use of Force Instructor Training Program
-Land Transportation Antiterrorism Training Program

As a member of the news media working for MuckRock News I request that a fee waiver for my request be granted. My work has been published by national outlets. My work for Motherboard can be viewed at the following link: http://motherboard.vice.com/author/cwaltman

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Curtis Waltman

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.3513555

Betsy DeVos does away with Obama-era rules for probing college sexual assaults under Title IX
BY TERENCE CULLEN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Friday, September 22, 2017, 11:51 AM




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3513596



Teacher fired after showing third graders how to give Nazi salute
BY DAVID BOROFF
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, September 22, 2017, 11:52 AM


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.3513344

Snapchat video shows Florida childcare workers taunting, throwing objects at boy with autism
BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, September 22, 2017, 10:01 AM



http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/v ... ffdb3.html

VA psychiatrist who had sex with veteran could face 20 years for witness tampering, U.S. attorney says
Psychiatrist who had sex with veteran could face 20 years for witness tampering





http://bangordailynews.com/link/some-pa ... ly-a-miss/

Some parts of Maine may see 90° by Monday, fall temps arrive late week, Maria likely a miss




http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.3515598

Off-duty NYPD school crossing guard, 70, busted for attacking husband
BY THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, September 23, 2017, 9:49 AM



Link du jour


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... rture.html


http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/23/ph ... tember-23/


http://www.collective-evolution.com/201 ... eir-plane/


https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-sta ... ials-9125/



https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/09/21 ... ant-women/

Police Reports Suggest Dem IT Scandal Ringleader Abused Several Muslim Immigrant Women
BY DEBRA HEINE SEPTEMBER 21, 2017






https://www.courthousenews.com/immunity ... lled-teen/

Immunity Denied for Sheriff’s Deputy Who Shot & Killed Teen


September 22, 2017


A Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy must face civil claims from the family of a 13-year-old boy he killed after mistaking the boy’s toy rifle for an AK-47, the Ninth Circuit ruled Friday.

On Oct. 22, 2013, the afternoon he was shot and killed, school was out for the day and Andy Lopez was walking on a Santa Rosa sidewalk to his friend’s house.

The toy gun Lopez was swinging at his side was missing the orange tip that designates it as a replica, but expert witnesses for the police in the case have conceded that officers were far enough away at the time of the shooting that they would be unable to distinguish the tip in any case.

Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus was on a routine patrol with his partner when he observed Lopez from a distance of 100 yards.

In 20 seconds, Gelhaus’ partner had spun their vehicle around and chirped the siren while Gelhaus propelled himself from the car, ordered Lopez to drop the weapon, and fired eight shots.

Seven of those shots hit Lopez in the chest, and he died at the scene.

After Chief U.S. District Judge Phillis Hamilton advanced civil claims by Lopez’s family against Gelhaus in Oakland last year, the deputy appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Rejecting that bid Friday, a divided three-judge panel determined that “a reasonable jury could conclude that Gelhaus deployed excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

“Additionally, the alleged violation of Andy’s Fourth Amendment right was clearly established at the time of Gelhaus’s conduct,” U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith Jr. wrote for the majority.

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace wrote in dissent that the majority improperly discounted evidence that the barrel of Lopez’s toy gun was beginning to rise as he turned around to look at Gelhaus.

Wallace accuses the majority of employing a “distorted reading” of the lower court’s decision, emphasizing that that court had found that the gun “was beginning to rise” as the boy turned to face Gelhaus and his partner, which lead the officer to believe they were in “imminent danger.”

“The majority opinion exhaustively recounts the facts of the case, but for me, they are largely irrelevant,” Wallace wrote. “One critical fact — the upward motion of the fake gun — resolves the qualified immunity issue in Deputy Gelhaus’s favor.”

Smith’s opinion meanwhile says a reasonable jury could conclude that Lopez’s gun “never rose to a position that posed any threat to the officers.”

“The dissent’s accusations are as seismic as they are unconvincing,” the majority opinion states.

Smith accused Wallace of falsely reframing the incident as a “duel” between the teen and deputy, who “avoided imminent peril only by firing at Andy just before Andy fired at him.”

He chided Wallace as well for ignoring the evidence that Lopez had not threatened or acted aggressively toward Gelhaus and his partner.

“The dissent also apparently believes that the district court not only made this factual finding, but then made the rather inexplicable decision to ignore this obvious threat in its qualified immunity analysis,” Smith said with regard to the “duel.”

“To be sure, if those were the facts, it would be hard to see how the district court could have denied summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim and on qualified immunity,” Smith added. “But those were not the facts the district court found.”

Noah Blechman, an attorney for Gelhaus with McNamara Ney Beatty Slattery Borges & Ambacher, disagreed with the majority’s assessment.

“In this scenario there was no time for the officers to determine exactly his intentions before he turned around and the gun started coming up and around towards the officers,” Walnut Creek-based Blechman said in an interview.

The dissent by Wallace claims that there was no evidence to support “speculation,” based on three-dimensional models of Lopez’s movements presented by an expert for the family, that the gun had stopped rising by the time Gelhaus fired.

“In reaching the opposite conclusion, the majority accuses me of making an assumption regarding this fact that is improper at the summary judgment stage,” Wallace said. “I have done no such thing. In fact … it is the majority whose position is unsupported by the record.”

Gerald Peters, an attorney for the Lopez family based in Thousand Oaks, blasted the dissent as coming from a “law-and-order judge appointed by Richard Nixon.”

“The justice didn’t consider at all that Gelhaus shot Andy seven times, which was sort of remarkable,” Peters said of Wallace. “It was purely the gun coming up, therefore he had the right to shoot.”





https://www.courthousenews.com/aclu-say ... rs-rights/

ACLU Says St. Louis Police ‘Kettling’ Violated Protesters’ Rights


September 22, 2017

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/scie ... ctionfront

As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Dangers
October. 2, 2017



MOUNT DESERT ROCK, Me. — From the top of the six-story lighthouse, water stretches beyond the horizon in every direction. A foghorn bleats twice at 22-second intervals, interrupting the endless chatter of herring gulls.

At least twice a day, beginning shortly after dawn, researchers climb steps and ladders and crawl through a modest glass doorway to scan the surrounding sea, looking for the distinctive spout of a whale.

This chunk of rock, about 25 nautical miles from Bar Harbor, is part of a global effort to track and learn more about one of the sea’s most majestic and endangered creatures. So far this year, the small number of sightings here have underscored the growing perils along the East Coast to both humpback whales and North Atlantic right whales.

This past summer, the numbers of humpback whales identified from the rock were abysmal — the team saw only eight instead of the usual dozens. Fifty-three humpbacks have died in the last 19 months, many after colliding with boats or fishing gear.

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/10/03/ ... tion-ramp/



Tesla’s Electric Sales Explode Despite Slow Model 3 Production Ramp
Around the world, electric vehicle makers are starting to make serious inroads into the global auto market. And aspirational industry leader Tesla continues to break new ground and open new markets despite an increasing array of challenges.

Record Tesla Sales

During the third quarter of 2017, Tesla sold 26,150 all-electric vehicles. A new quarterly sales record for the company which included 14,065 super-fast luxury Model S sedans, 11,865 of the also super-fast and highly luxurious Model X SUV, and 220 of the mid-class luxury-sport Model 3. In total, during 2017, Tesla has sold more than 73,000 vehicles. Placing the all-electric vehicle and renewable energy systems manufacturer in a position to challenge the 100,000 cars sold mark by end of December.



(Tesla production and sales by Quarter shows that Q3 2017 beat Tesla’s previous record by more than 1,300 vehicles. Tesla appears on track to hit near 100,000 vehicle sales in 2017. Note that Model X production took 6 Quarters, or approximately 18 months to fully ramp to present sales rates above 10,000 per Quarter. Telsa ultimately expects to produce more than 60,000 Model 3s per Quarter by 2018. Investment analysts are more conservative — with Morgan Stanley targeting 30,000 Model 3s per Quarter. Image source: Commons.)

Surprises in Tesla’s Q3 report include greater than expected overall Model S and X sales. Pessimistic speculation about Tesla struggling to sell its higher-quality line as customers await the anticipated but less expensive and tweaked-out (but still bad-@#$) Model 3 abounded throughout August and September. Those contributing to this brouhaha, however, did not appear to anticipate the excitement generated by Tesla’s Model 3 launch which appears to have spilled over to the more expensive line-up even as Tesla both offered incentives on some of its showroom vehicles and cut shorter range, lower cost versions of its Model S line-up.

Tesla Model 3 Production Ramp — A Miss, But Still in the Window

Tesla did, however, fail to meet Model 3 production ramp goals of 1,500 by the end of September. And this was one point where the Tesla pessimists ended up proving at least partly right. Citing production bottlenecks, the luxury EV manufacturer noted that it had produced only 260 Model 3s by end month — a 1,240 vehicle short-fall for the Quarter.

Overall vehicle production had still grown from July through September — hitting 30 in July, about 80 in August, and about 150 in September. This is still an exponential rate of expansion. But the more rapid anticipated ramp was not achieved. Tesla noted that most of their fast production chain was functioning as planned. But that a few bits of the complex and highly automated Model 3 manufacturing subsystems were taking “longer than expected to activate.”



(Tesla’s ground-breaking Model 3 missed company production targets by a fairly wide margin this month — triggering a big controversy among investors. Long term prospects for the Model 3 remain strong as Tesla works through what is, effectively, an employee beta testing period. Image source: Tesla.)

At first blush, this appears to be a fairly wide miss in Tesla’s planned production ramp. But if rapid production scaling is still achieved this fall, it will look like nothing more than a bit of a bump in the road. After the Q3 report, Elon Musk noted:

“I would simply urge people to not get too caught up in what exactly falls within the exact calendar boundaries of a quarter, one quarter or the next, because when you have an exponentially growing production ramp, slight changes of a few weeks here or there can appear to have dramatic changes.”

In other words, we are still in the window for rapid production scaling, even if the earlier, more rapid, ramp was missed by a few weeks.

The company previously struggled with its very complex production of the ultimately popular Model X. To address production challenges, Tesla aimed to simplify production for the Model 3. But integration of new automated equipment into large manufacturing chains as the vehicle is built and product-tested by employee-customers is proving to again pose a few challenges. Challenges that, at this time, do not appear to be anywhere near as serious as those encountered during the Model X production ramp, but are still enough to produce delays.

Tesla Model 3 Production Still About to Explode as EV Maker Enjoys Serious Structural Advantages

Keeping these facts in mind, we can take some of the overly negative reports following Tesla’s failure to hit early Model 3 production targets with a lump of salt. The company still produces amazing cars, is still going to flood the world with high-quality and much more affordable all-electric Model 3s. The company owns a massive manufacturing apparatus in the form if its Freemont plant and Nevada Gigafactory. An apparatus that is rapidly growing. Outside this expanding manufacturing chain, the company is the only major automaker to seriously invest in and rapidly expand crucial EV charging infrastructure. All of these are systemic underlying strengths that the electric automaker will continue to leverage and expand on.



(Tesla battery sales help to reduce EV battery pack costs by producing economies of scale in production. The reverse is also true. With demand for Tesla’s powerwall and powerpacks on the rise, the company possesses a number of systemic advantages that most automobile manufacturers lack. Image source: Tesla.)

Tesla is in the process of transitioning from an automaker that produces a moderate number of vehicles each year to a major automaker that produces more than half a million vehicles each year. And it’s bound to encounter a bump or two in the road from time-to-time. Ultimately, the Model 3 production ramp will hit its stride as Tesla works out the kinks. Around 500,000 reservation-holders will still get their cars.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley recently:

warned investors against “micro-analyzing the monthly ramp of the Model 3.” Most vehicle launches have hiccups, and quality and attractiveness count for far more importance than quantity “at least for now,” they said in a note.

Tesla was quick to stress that it foresaw no serious issues with the Model 3 production. That the company understood what needed to be fixed in the manufacturing chain and was working to address those issues. If this is the case, we should see Model 3 production start to ramp more swiftly over the coming weeks. But even without rapidly ramping Model 3 production — which is on the way sooner or later — Tesla is still smashing previously held all-electric sales records.

And for those of us concerned about climate change, that’s good news.

Links:

Tesla Shares Shake off Bad News of Model 3 Deliveries

Tesla

Tesla Q3 Report





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33 COMMENTS by ROBERTSCRIBBLER on OCTOBER 3, 2017 • PERMALINK
Posted in CLIMATE CHANGE, RENEWABLES, SUSTAINABILITY
Tagged CLIMATE CHANGE, ELECTRIC VEHICLES, MODEL 3, RECORD SALES Q3, RENEWABLES, SUSTAINABILITY, TESLA, TESLA GROWTH
Previous Post
Reflections of Opal and Why Trump’s Response to Maria’s Monumental Strike on Puerto Rico is, Thus Far, Vastly Inadequate
Leave a comment
33 Comments

Allan Barr / October 3, 2017
We are in the early stages of a massive transformation into renewables and battery storage. A paradigm shift equal to the transformation from Horse and Buggy into ICE. That Change took a couple of decades. For those who care about the biosphere and can afford to invest in companies like Tesla its going to be good for their soul and pocketbook. Thanks for throwing out some positive news every now and then Robert, am personally struggling to remain optimistic when the deluge of ongoing catastrophic climate events appears overwhelming.


robertscribbler / October 3, 2017
It’s important not to get too focused on the dark side of what’s happening. We should remain alert to real and viable threats. But we should also remain open to the options that are now becoming available to us. In other words — there is both light and darkness here.

Worth noting that Rick Perry is now pushing to subsidize the ailing nuclear and coal industries. Small surprise, that. The largest threats to renewables remain on the policy level. We should do all we can to support renewables by voting for politicians (democrats primarily) that support alternative options and voting out those (republicans primarily) who oppose them.


Allan Barr / October 4, 2017
10 new members in just the past month. I believe this group may be the single most important development in the political arena. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climat ... ns-caucus/


robertscribbler / October 3, 2017
Test version of Tesla’s all-electric semi also found recently:




Greg / October 3, 2017
Nicely timed. I found this 30 minute summary of Jack Richard’s analysis well worth listening to (originally 2 hours or so). He’s not a traditional analyst, but has done his homework including actual taking apart of the cars, and doesn’t come off polished but he nails Tesla spot on and covers why it can dominate the future as a company and why we will all benefit.



Abel Adamski / October 4, 2017
Excellent Video, share it around


Jim / October 4, 2017
+1 Allan, you are spot on when saying we’re in the midst of a massive energy transformation.

With the Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt, and Nissan Leaf among others, the tipping point of EVs having a lower lifetime operating cost compared to ICE has already been soundly crossed, and the tipping point to build, and purchase, an EV is probably only 2 – 3 years away.

Plus this doesn’t consider the regulatory activities that are now happening globally. The combination of PV solar panels and EV’s and soon, storage batteries, can dramatically influence the demand for oil and coal. Equally as important, people need to know it’s also economical.

Do your own calculation using the NREL PV Watts website for you specific street address to calculate PV generation, and calculate your cost to drive with electric vs gasoline. Most folks are being ripped off to the tune of thousands of dollars each and every year. There is no such thing as “Clean, Affordable Coal”. It’s expensive. And gasoline even at $2.50/gallon is still about 4 times the cost of driving on electricity.


wili / October 4, 2017
Ford’s announcement today:

Ford CEO outlines plan to aggressively cut costs, funneling savings to electric, self-driving cars

The Blue Oval is getting a makeover.

Ford CEO Jim Hackett and his leadership team are steering the automaker to drive greater profits on its most valuable products, trucks and SUVs, while turning away from less valuable areas like cars. At the same time, Ford plans to aggressively cut costs while investing more resources on electric and autonomous-drive vehicles.

“When you’re a long-lived company that has had success over multiple decades, the decision to change is not easy — culturally or operationally,” Hackett said. “Ultimately, though, we must accept the virtues that brought us success over the past century are really no guarantee of future success.”

Hackett devised his plan for transforming Ford after using most of his first 100 days at the helm to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. The result is a substantial push to shift gears at a company that has a history of being slow to change.

More trucks and SUVs, fewer Cars

Ford plans to reallocate about $7 billion to increased development and production of trucks and SUVs, while demphasizing less profitable cars and sedans.

Ford is not getting out of the car business all-together, but it will no longer be an automaker that pushes cars as heavily as it has in the past.

Instead, Ford will emphasize trucks and SUVs, an area of strength and big profits, especially when compared its competitors. This year, 76 percent of Ford’s sales in the U.S. are trucks and SUVs.

Charging up EVs

Like other automakers, Ford is going electric.

Over the next five years, it will redeploy money into its program for developing and building electric vehicles while cutting capital expenditures for internal combustion engines by one third.

Ford sees the writing on the wall, especially in many foreign markets where governments are de-emphasizing or moving to ban gasoline-powered vehicles. This move is critical since Ford has lagged competitors when it comes to developing EVs. …

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/ford-to ... -cars.html

Generally, we need to move mostly away from car culture as rapidly as we can. But while cars still rule, it is important to have alternatives it ICE, imho.


wili / October 4, 2017
Other developments:

“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols said, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.”

California is now also considering a ban on gas and diesel-powered cars
https://electrek.co/2017/09/26/californ ... ered-cars/


wili / October 4, 2017
And:

Twenty new electric vehicles are on the way, GM says
There will be a mix of long-range battery EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

DETROIT—General Motors is the latest car company to unveil plans for an emissions-free future. On Monday morning, the US’ largest automaker announced that the next 18 months will see two new electric vehicles join the Bolt EV in showrooms, and 18 more are due by 2023. “GM believes in an all-electric future and a world free of automotive emissions,” said Mark Reuss, GM’s executive VP for product development, purchasing, and supply chain. “When the Bolt EV was announced at CES it was described as a platform, and this is the next step.” …

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/ge ... g-by-2023/


wili / October 4, 2017
Sorry for the back-to-back, but I’ve been following these developments over at the cars thread at ASIF. Thanks to Sig there for these links and text. One more note, then I’m off to bed:

Most of the fastest selling used cars in the US are now electric
https://qz.com/1090343/most-of-the-fast ... re-now-ev/

6 of the 10 fastest-selling used cars in the US are electric plug-ins
https://electrek.co/2017/09/28/6-of-the ... -plug-ins/

Tipping points, of a happier sort than we usually use that term around here, seem to be coming on all sorts of fronts wrt EVs!


Abel Adamski / October 5, 2017
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/04/por ... d-testing/

Porsche Mission E caught testing against Teslas
It looks as though Porsche is pretty far in development.

Porsche has previously said that the Mission E would reach production by 2020, and according to our friends at Engadget, it should go on sale in 2019. Based on how complete the cars in these photos appear to be, we think the company has a good chance of hitting that target. When the concept was shown, Porsche promised 590 horsepower and, on the European test cycle, a range of over 310 miles. Also interesting was the concept’s claimed 800-volt electrical system that could be charged to 80 percent capacity in 15 minutes. Time will tell whether that system comes to fruition, but Porsche has at least tested some portion of the system on its Le Mans-winning 919 Hybrid race cars. Porsche also expects to sell the car for $80,000 to $90,000. All these features taken together would definitely make for a compelling Tesla alternative.

California and charging stations


Abel Adamski / October 4, 2017
The issue for the big auto makers is simply charging stations as Jack Richards points out in the video Greg posted above, as Jack points out to much of the buying public, can they drive to California in it ( even if they never will ) , Tesla has built 380 or so supercharger stations in the US, so for Tesla cars it is a yes, for the other manufacturers, unless their vehicles can plug into a Tesla Supercharger, the answer is no, so off the list of prospective veh purchases.

As he also points out Tesla offered a share in that network to the Car Manufacturers on a share all costs basis, they knocked it back, as such dependant on private operators and those stations if they are working are of highly variable standard.

Another interesting point I picked up that is behind the panic of the worlds ICE veh manufacturers is that US car makers sell 60% of their new cars in China, China going EV as well as many other countries, destroys their business model if they don’t have suitable products regardless of what happens in the US


Vic / October 4, 2017
I personally find it pretty bizarre that I’m actually looking forward to the unveiling of a new semi truck, but these are pretty strange times so I guess that explains my enthusiasm.

I feel a certain measure of trepidation however about Elon’s plans for his massive new rocket ship the BFR, which could allow us not only to become a multi-planet species but also to travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour for around the same cost as traditional air travel. Sounds great, except that it would likely increase the popularity of long distance travel and considering the rocket’s CO2 emissions high into our atmosphere this is somewhat concerning.



But there might just be a silver lining. In order for Elon to achieve his Martian goals he’ll need to be able to produce methane and oxygen on Mars in order for the rockets and people to get back to Earth. For this he proposes using electrolysis to extract O2 and H2 from water sources on Mars and combining the H2 using the Sabatier process with CO2 extracted from Mars’ atmosphere to produce the methane. All solar powered of course.
He mentions it briefly around the 33:50 mark in the video below, and goes on to mention that the same process could be employed on Earth, but is also careful to describe that possibility as “in the long term”. It’s hard to know what someone like Elon Musk thinks of as long term. He plans to begin sending his rockets to Mars by 2022. Let’s hope he has a fleet of Earth bound climate-friendly methane factories putting the frackers out of business by then. A price on carbon would certainly help.




Vic / October 4, 2017



Vic / October 4, 2017
German startup Lilium Aviation have secured $90 million in funding to help bring their new electric VTOL aircraft to market. The funding was led by Tencent – adding to their now many electric vehicle-related investments, including a 5% stake in Tesla.

https://electrek.co/2017/10/02/electric ... ilium-jet/




Mblanc / October 4, 2017
Ten years ago we could see the future was looking pretty dark, and we had relatively little positive evidence that the massive energy transition we need was truly imminent.

Now we know that transition will happen, as all the key tech is now very affordable, so it’s now a question of how fast .That is a huge positive thing.

I appreciate RS letting us know about some of the genuinely good news stories, because it is hard to handle the knowledge of all the bad stuff unwinding in front of our eyes, and what the future will bring.

We might be up the creek, but at least we starting to paddle.


Mblanc / October 4, 2017
… at least we are starting to paddle.


Suzanne / October 4, 2017
At NYTimes this morning..”In a warming world, keeping the planes running”


Climate change is making airport planners think again.

Low-lying airports may become increasingly vulnerable to storm surges. Hotter temperatures may cause tarmac to melt, restrict takeoff weights or require heavier aircraft to take off later in the day.

Now governments, companies and experts around the world are grappling with what could be a very expensive problem. Keeping the industry aloft requires colossal investment — $1.1 trillion in airport infrastructure projects are planned or underway, the CAPA Center for Aviation, a consulting firm based in Australia, said in July.

“Airports understand well that climate change could have some far-reaching effects and that they are not immune to them,” said Angela Gittens, the director general at Airports Council International’s headquarters in Montreal.


Suzanne / October 4, 2017
Correction…This was first published on September 30th…I just saw it this morning.


wili / October 5, 2017
Most of the ‘industry’ should just be shut down. Relatively few flights are absolutely necessary. What’s left of the carbon budget and the airlines budget should be saved for those, rather than the enormous numbers of frivolous flights now being taken.

I just celebrated my 13 year of not flying, by the way. Never regretted it for a day (especially as I hear the increasingly horrific stories of what airlines put you through and how passengers are sometimes molested and dragged of the plane by force…)


bostonblorp / October 4, 2017
“Solar Grew Faster Than All Other Forms of Power for the First Time”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... s-of-power


Jean Mcmahon / October 4, 2017
Moroccan city introduces Chinese electrical buses
The Moroccan city of Marrakech launched on Thursday electrical busses from China in a bid to improve transportation service and reduce pollution…http://www.china.org.cn/business/2017-0 ... FU.twitter


Apneaman / October 5, 2017



Dave McGinnis / October 5, 2017
Industry got us into this mess, only they can get us out of it. This is one way they’re doing it — satisfying consumer demand for green transportation. And look at solar sales.

P.S. Mr Scribbler, I really appreciated your OPAL story.


Andy_in_SD / October 5, 2017
As permafrost melts, cliff faces fall. In this instance in Greenland a Tsunami was the result.

A Landslide Was the Culprit Behind a Massive Tsunami in Greenland
This could be just the beginning.

Western Greenland doesn’t experience all that much seismic activity, so scientists were surprised when a 4.0 magnitude earthquake was recorded in the Karrat Fjord area on June 17, followed by one of the largest tsunamis in recorded history, which swept away 11 houses in the small village of Nuugaatsiaq. A closer examination of seismic data and the mountains surrounding the fjord reveals that it wasn’t an earthquake that caused the tsunami after all. Instead, it was a massive landslide that tripped seismic sensors and generated the unprecedented wave.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/gr ... rrat-fjord


Exposing the Big Game / October 5, 2017
Reblogged this on The Extinction Chronicles.


wili / October 5, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... rgy-agency
“Renewables accounted for two-thirds of new power added to world’s grids last year, says International Energy Agency (IEA)”

“The authority, which is funded by 28 member governments, admitted it had previously underestimated the speed at which green energy was growing.”


Allan Barr / October 5, 2017
The IEA is notorious for being wrong, they use straight line thinking appear to be unaware of the exponential function.


Abel Adamski / October 5, 2017
Slightly OT, but the gems you pick up along the way in the droppings
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/0 ... ger-243449

Marc Short, Trump’s director of legislative affairs who previously served as an operative for the Koch financial network,


Vic / October 5, 2017
A nice project going ahead in Norway – the world’s first battery powered container ship. Due to launch in 2018.




Vic / October 5, 2017
In other news from Norway, parts of the country’s south have witnessed their highest ever rainfall totals and flood levels in records dating back to 1890.



https://watchers.news/2017/10/04/norway-flood/


Abel Adamski / October 5, 2017
https://www.voanews.com/a/arabian-sea-i ... 57392.html

In news about Asia and the Indian Sub Continent

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msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/10/23/ ... -about-it/



Narragansett Bay is Being Impacted by Climate Change; Scott Pruitt’s EPA Says Scientists Can’t Talk About it
Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier who was tapped to head the EPA by a similarly myopic Trump Administration now appears to be wielding the powers of that government agency to suppress the voices of climate scientists.

A report out of the New York Times yesterday found that three scientists scheduled to discuss the impacts of human-caused climate change on the sensitive environment of Narragansett Bay were barred from speaking in a panel discussion today. The scientists are employees of the EPA and contributors to a 400 page report on the health of Narragansett Bay. The study found numerous climate change related impacts to the Bay region — which is a vital economic resource and home to more than 2 million people.



The study found that:

“Climate change is affecting air and water temperatures, precipitation, sea level, and fish in the Narragansett Bay region.”

The EPA, presently headed by Scott Pruitt, gave no reason why the scientists were barred from sharing their climate change related findings at the panel. An agency charged with protecting the clean air and water of the United States, the EPA has likely never housed an administrator so at odds with its institutional mission. Pruitt has opposed numerous agency actions and has worked throughout his career to undermine both the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Laws that aim to protect American citizens and wildlife from the harmful health impacts of polluted water and damaging particulates in the air.

Pruitt has also received criticism recently for spending $25,000 for a sound proof booth to mask his communications with who knows who, using considerable government funds to pay for round-the-clock personal security, and individually spending more than $58,000 for private charter jet flights.



(Scott Pruitt’s numerous ties to climate change denial and fossil fuel industries. Image source: Desmogblog.)

Pruitt was also one of a number of lawyers who directly challenged the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gasses in an effort to protect the U.S. from the harmful impacts of climate change during the Obama Administration. Pruitt has received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and is the direct beneficiary of strong political support from climate change denial promoting agencies like the Heartland Institute.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D) stated his opposition to this week’s nonsensical censoring of EPA funded scientists stating:

“Narragansett Bay is one of Rhode Island’s most important economic assets and the EPA won’t let its scientists talk with local leaders to plan for its future. Whatever you think about climate change, this kind of collaboration should be a no-brainer. Muzzling our leading scientists benefits no one.”

Links:

EPA Cancels Talk on Climate Change by Agency Scientists

Furor Erupts over EPA Decision to Pull Scientists From Panel Discussion

Desmogblog

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/11/15/ ... or-greece/


Sudden Severe Flood Leaves 14 Dead in Athens, Forecasts Show Up to 15+ Additional Inches on the Way for Greece
Extreme drought. Extreme floods.

Unfortunately, with human-caused climate change, these kinds of devastating events have become far more frequent. With the Earth warming by around 1.1 to 1.2 C above pre-industrial averages, there are now four times as many instances of extreme weather than there were as recently as the 1970s.


What this means is that anywhere around the world now, the hammer of severe weather and related damages is four times more likely to fall than in the past. That the tempo of such events is now greatly increased. All thanks to continued fossil fuel burning, atmospheric CO2 levels that will average around 407 ppm over the coming months, the heat that these greenhouse gasses are continuing to add to the Earth’s climate system, and a failure to transition swiftly enough to more sustainable practices and zero carbon energy sources to prevent ramping damages.

Major Rain Event Strikes Athens — With More Severe Weather in the Forecast

Today, the major blow appears to have fallen on Greece. To the west of this country, over the Mediterranean, a cut off low is creating instability throughout the region. An intense, thick, moist warm air flow is moving in from the south. This warm and very water dense air is then colliding with a colder air mass to the north. Upper level instability is feeding powerful convection erupting in the atmosphere above Greece. And this convection is producing some mountainous thunderheads.

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7683

Re: Heat is Online

Post by msfreeh »

https://weather.com/forecast/regional/n ... est-plains


REGIONAL FORECAST VIDEO
Dozens of Daily Record Highs Expected Through Tuesday From the Desert Southwest to the Plains
By Linda Lam7 hours agoweather.com

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