Heat is Online

[msfreeh]

Still don't understand how FBI agents control Congress and the US Senate through voter fraud and blackmail?
Then you won't understand how taxpayer funded FBI agents control the media and have limited any dialogue
about Global Warming and Climate Change. It is ok.
Any species who cannot protect themselves is not going to survive, eh?
Record Wettest Day in Philadelphia*
see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/news/record ... y-20130728" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
July 29, 2013
Philadelphia International Airport recorded 8.02 inches of rain, most of which fell in just four and a half hours Sunday afternoon, smashing an all-time one-day record of 6.63" set during Hurricane Floyd on Sept. 16, 1999. Detailed records for Philly date to 1872. The radar rainfall estimate below from the National Weather Service - Mount Holly, N.J. shows how localized the deluge was. The Northeast Philadelphia Airport only managed 0.64 inches of rain. So, while this goes down as a record, only parts of the Philly metro were affected.

[Jnewby]

Still don't understand how FBI agents control Congress and the US Senate through voter fraud and blackmail?
Then you won't understand how taxpayer funded FBI agents control the media and have limited any dialogue
about Global Warming and Climate Change. It is ok.
Any species who cannot protect themselves is not going to survive, eh?
Record Wettest Day in Philadelphia*
see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/news/record ... y-20130728" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
July 29, 2013
Philadelphia International Airport recorded 8.02 inches of rain, most of which fell in just four and a half hours Sunday afternoon, smashing an all-time one-day record of 6.63" set during Hurricane Floyd on Sept. 16, 1999. Detailed records for Philly date to 1872. The radar rainfall estimate below from the National Weather Service - Mount Holly, N.J. shows how localized the deluge was. The Northeast Philadelphia Airport only managed 0.64 inches of rain. So, while this goes down as a record, only parts of the Philly metro were affected.

I understand very well how the media is manipulated, I suspect to a far greater degree than most could ever imagine since I work in the media and understand the methods quite well. There are many subjects that I struggle with and maybe don't know as much as I should. However, when it comes to weather, with my weather background along with my current media exposure, I am 100% sure of what I believe. The facts simply don't support any sort of global warming to ANY degree and anyone that believes otherwise is the one that is been fooled and manipulated by the media.

If one wants to learn more, another trick is to follow the money trail. The trail leads anyone with open eyes to hoax of carbon credits and so forth. If they can convince the sheeple of warming, then we can convince the world the only way to solve is through the carbon credit scam. Of course the likes Al Gore and company are already entrenched to make billions off the scam.

[msfreeh]

With Too Much Rain in the South, Too Little Produce on the Shelves

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/us/to ... ?ref=earth" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Still don't understand how FBI agents control Congress and the US Senate through voter fraud and blackmail?
Then you won't understand how taxpayer funded FBI agents control the media and have limited any dialogue
about Global Warming and Climate Change. It is ok.
Any species who cannot protect themselves is not going to survive, eh?
Record Wettest Day in Philadelphia*
see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/news/record ... y-20130728" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
July 29, 2013
Philadelphia International Airport recorded 8.02 inches of rain, most of which fell in just four and a half hours Sunday afternoon, smashing an all-time one-day record of 6.63" set during Hurricane Floyd on Sept. 16, 1999. Detailed records for Philly date to 1872. The radar rainfall estimate below from the National Weather Service - Mount Holly, N.J. shows how localized the deluge was. The Northeast Philadelphia Airport only managed 0.64 inches of rain. So, while this goes down as a record, only parts of the Philly metro were affected.

I understand very well how the media is manipulated, I suspect to a far greater degree than most could ever imagine since I work in the media and understand the methods quite well. There are many subjects that I struggle with and maybe don't know as much as I should. However, when it comes to weather, with my weather background along with my current media exposure, I am 100% sure of what I believe. The facts simply don't support any sort of global warming to ANY degree and anyone that believes otherwise is the one that is been fooled and manipulated by the media.

If one wants to learn more, another trick is to follow the money trail. The trail leads anyone with open eyes to hoax of carbon credits and so forth. If they can convince the sheeple of warming, then we can convince the world the only way to solve is through the carbon credit scam. Of course the likes Al Gore and company are already entrenched to make billions off the scam.

I have little interest in converting people to a point of view. I do have an interest in seeing them become critical thinkers,eh?

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/atmo ... head-16286" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Atmospheric Rivers Grow, Causing Worse Floods Ahead

Published: July 27th, 2013


By Paul Brown, Climate News Network

LONDON – Heavy and prolonged rainfall will cause both more frequent and more severe flooding across the United Kingdom and the rest of north-west Europe as the atmosphere continues to warm, say British and American scientists.

A study in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters of what are known as atmospheric rivers pins the blame for the increasing flood risk firmly on man-made climate change and says the same problem will afflict other parts of the planet.

[msfreeh]

TWO STORIES BROUGHT TO YOU BY EXXON MOBIL


see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/news/histor ... y-20130731" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China Shatters Records in Historic Heat Wave

Published: July 31, 2013




Hundreds of millions of Chinese residents are sweating out an exceptional heat wave, with major cities such as Shanghai recording new all-time record high temperatures.

Weather historian Christopher C. Burt of Weather Underground reports that Shanghai, China's largest city, has broken its all-time record high in records reaching back to 1873, reaching 105.1ºF on July 26. The misery has been compounded by brutally warm nights; the city's low July 30 only dipped to 88ºF, with the heat index dropping no lower than 99ºF.

Shanghai, where average July highs are in the mid 80s to low 90s, hit the century mark 14 different days in July, including the last nine days in a row.

China's Xinhua news agency reported at least 10 deaths from heat stroke in Shanghai alone as of July 30.


2nd read
see link for full story
http://www.wunderground.com/news/puerto ... y-20130801" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Puerto Rico Drenched by Tropical Rains; More on Way

Published: August 1, 2013

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Ricans are used to wet tropical weather, but the past few weeks have unleashed a series of storms of almost biblical proportions, destroying hundreds of homes, sweeping away cars and leaving tens of thousands without power.

It has been the wettest July ever recorded in the U.S. island territory, with 14 inches (36 centimeters) so far drenching the capital. More rain fell on July 18 than had ever come down in a 24-hour period.

[msfreeh]

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
WEEKEND SPECIAL,EH?

see link for thermo map and full story
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/sun ... ires-16313" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Sunburned in Siberia: Heat Wave Leads to Wildfires

Published: August 2nd, 2013, Last Updated: August 2nd, 2013
An intense heat wave in Siberia has contributed to an unusual flare up of wildfires across the fragile and carbon-rich landscape. Smoke from the fires is lofting high into the atmosphere, and is drifting toward the Arctic, where soot can hasten the melting of snow and sea ice.

The map above shows land surface temperature anomalies for July 20–27, 2013, collected by the MODIS imager on NASA's Terra satellite.
Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

The Siberian city of Norilsk, the most northerly city in the world with a population greater than 100,000, recorded temperatures above 83°F over eight consecutive days starting on July 18, according to blogger Chris Burt of Weather Underground. During that timespan, Burt reported, the mercury hit 90°F, breaking the record for the hottest temperature recorded for the city. For comparison the average July high temperature in Norilsk is a comparatively chilly 61°F.


see link for full story
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... -for-kids/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


‘Frack Gag’ Bans Children From Talking About Fracking, Forever

By Andrew Breiner on August 2, 2013 at 12:23 pm
When drilling company Range Resources offered the Hallowich family a $750,000 settlement to relocate from their fracking-polluted home in Washington County, Pennsylvania, it came with a common restriction. Chris and Stephanie Hallowich would be forbidden from ever speaking about fracking or the Marcellus Shale. But one element of the gag order was all new. The Hallowichs’ two young children, ages 7 and 10, would be subject to the same restrictions, banned from speaking about their family’s experience for the rest of their lives.

The Hallowich family’s gag order is only the most extreme example of a tactic that critics say effectively silences anyone hurt by fracking. It’s a choice between receiving compensation for damage done to one’s health and property, or publicizing the abuses that caused the harm. Virtually no one can forgo compensation, so their stories go untold.

[msfreeh]

News you can trust
brought to you by Exxon Mobil

TWO STORIES


see link for full story

http://phys.org/print294576022.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Climate strongly affects human conflict and violence worldwide, says study
August 1st, 2013 in Space & Earth / Environment
clouds


Shifts in climate are strongly linked to human violence around the world, with even relatively minor departures from normal temperature or rainfall substantially increasing the risk of conflict in ancient times or today, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University.

The results, which cover all major regions of the world and show similar patterns whether looking at data from Brazil, China, Germany, Somalia or the United States, were published today in the journal Science. By amassing more data than any prior study, the authors were able to show that the Earth's climate plays a more influential role in human affairs than previously thought.

The study data covers all major regions of the world and show similar patterns of conflict linked to climatic changes, such as increased drought or higher than average annual temperature. Examples include spikes in domestic violence in India and Australia; increased assaults and murders in the United States and Tanzania; ethnic violence in Europe and South Asia; land invasions in Brazil; police using force in Holland; civil conflicts throughout the tropics; and even the collapse of Mayan and Chinese empires.

The new study could have critical implications for understanding the impact of future climate change on human societies, as many global climate models project global temperature increases of at least 2 degrees Celsius over the next half century. Refining the lens

Although there has been a virtual explosion in the number of scientific studies looking at how climatic impacts shape human conflict and violence, especially in in recent years, the research stems from disparate research fields ranging from climatology, archaeology and economics to political science and psychology.

"What was lacking was a clear picture of what this body of research as a whole was telling us," said Solomon Hsiang, the study's lead author, who was a postdoctoral fellow in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at Princeton during the research project and is now an assistant professor of public policy at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. "We collected 60 existing studies containing 45 different data sets and we re-analyzed their data and findings using a common statistical framework. The results were striking."

The latest study adopted a broad definition of conflict and used the latest research methods to re-evaluate what they found to be the most rigorous quantitative studies released since 1986 to examine aspects of climate such as rainfall, drought or temperature, and their associations with various forms of violence.

To determine if a link between climate and conflict existed at multiple levels of social organization, the UC Berkeley-Princeton researchers looked at whether evidence of a linkage was consistent within each of three broad categories of conflict:

Personal violence and crime such as murder, assault, rape, and domestic violence;
Intergroup violence and political instability, like civil wars, riots, ethnic violence, and land invasions;
Institutional breakdowns, such as abrupt and major changes in governing institutions or the collapse of entire civilizations.


2nd story
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... e-climate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Lobster Bubble: Maine’s Lobster Boom, And Why Experts Predict A Dramatic Bust
August 4, 2013



When Adam Campbell first moved to North Haven in Penobscot Bay, Maine, in his early twenties, he was told that if he ever saw more than three cars in a driveway, it was a party and he should invite himself over.

North Haven is one of Maine’s fourteen islands that is only connected to the mainland by fair-weather ferries. There are only about 350 people who call the island home year round, so even as an outsider who had just moved to Maine to paint boats in the hopes of getting on some, Campbell was warmly welcomed as a fresh source of stories and jokes. Now, he is the proud owner of a thirty-foot lobster boat and one of about 5,500 lobstermen in Maine. Last year these men hauled in a lobster catch worth well over three hundred and fifty million dollars.

Lobsters make up 80 percent of the value of Maine’s fisheries. The idyllic postcard scene of lobster boats bobbing in a harbor isn’t staged for the enjoyment of summer tourists; it’s a working waterfront that is the lifeblood of entire communities that have called Maine home since colonial days.

Many years ago, there were magnificent ground fisheries in the Gulf of Maine, teeming with cod, haddock, pollock and hake. These popular species were essentially fished to the point of local extinction, though, and, released from the pressure of predators, lobsters started taking over. Now, lobsters have become something of a monoculture which supports not only the fishermen, but also the boat builders, mechanics, bait sellers and tourists industry.

“For decades, the lobster catches in the Gulf of Maine were very steady at about 20 million pounds per year,” said Robin Alden, Executive Director of Penobscot East Resource Center. “Then they jumped to 40 million pounds per year and last year we landed a record 125 million pounds of lobsters. In Stonington, where I work, we landed 20 million pounds. The catch just about outweighed the population on this island.”

While experts agree that the summer of 2012 was something of an anomaly with freakishly warm water, two to three degrees above average, it may also be a foretaste of what warming waters in the Gulf of Maine will bring in future years. Record-breaking lobster catches may sound like one of those few happy side effects of a warming planet, but as with most such cases, the story of the lobster is not that simple.

[msfreeh]

Hybrids Better for Climate than Leaf, Tesla in Most States

Published: August 8th, 2013

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/a-ro ... 2013-16318" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Ever wonder why your mother and father never investigated
the President Kennedy assassination?
Did you know that Texas Oil companies funded the assassination?

in other news...... Don't worry be happy , Moose Today you Tomorrow courtesy
of your elected officials. Next time you fill up your SUV thank a Moose,eh?


With warmer winters, ticks devastating N.H. moose population

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
also see
http://www.heatisonline.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



http://www.salon.com/2013/08/08/the_fos ... s_partner/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Friday, 09 August 2013 17:19
The fossil fuel industry’s secret war on environmental activists



The fossil fuel industry’s secret war on environmental activists

“In mid-June, Bold Nebraska — a grassroots environmental organization opposed to construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — obtained documents that detail how local and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as the company responsible for building the pipeline, are working together to undermine peaceful political protest. The documents revealed that the company, TransCanada, had briefed the FBI as well as law enforcement officials — district attorneys, attorney generals and county sheriffs — in Oklahoma and Nebraska on the potential threat posed by environmental activists and local landowners. In their PowerPoint presentation the company suggested that district attorneys should explore “state or federal anti-terrorism laws” in prosecuting activists and provided a crude dossier on the key organizers. They also included a list of individuals previously arrested for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience in Texas and Oklahoma.

There is a long history of corporations and the state acting in concert to suppress environmental activism. But in recent years the relationship has deepened. This is in part a function of the post-9/11 national security state, which has placed a premium on information sharing between Department of Homeland Security fusion centers, local law enforcement officials and the private sector. In fact, on the same day that TransCanada delivered its presentation to Nebraska law enforcement officials, a representative of the Nebraska Information Analysis Center, a Department of Homeland Security fusion center, also briefed participants on the agency’s information-sharing network. According to emails exchanged before the meeting and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, “The NIAC will brief on our intelligence sharing role/plan relevant to the pipeline project and provide an overview of a project we are working on.”

At the same time, the privatization of intelligence gathering has ballooned with many private security firms now working directly for corporations — most of which already have their own in-house intelligence gathering and security operations. Annual spending on such services is estimated at $100 billion.

“When those entities merge, and they begin to exchange information, there are extremely serious legal ramifications as well as civil rights consequences to those activities,” said Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. “And now I would say we’re really seeing gray intelligence [the blurring of public and private intelligence gathering] taken up a notch.””

[msfreeh]

An Ominous Forecast: Black Rain
Posted On: Aug 8, 2013

http://fairewinds.org/podcast/an-ominou ... black-rain" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Scientists Say Nature ‘Is Better at Carbon Farming’

Published: August 11th, 2013
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scie ... ming-16329" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Maybe you can ask your US Senators
Whaddya say we give a big shout out to Senator Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee
and see if we can borrow their umbrella, eh? How about asking them in person?

https://www.kscbnews.net/news/?nk=26672" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

August Rainfall Breaks 144 Kansas Records
08/11/2013

The recent rainfall in Kansas has shattered records across the state and has helped ease drought conditions in some sections.

Mary Knapp, state climatologist, said that in the first nine days of August, 144 daily precipitation records were broken across the state.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/08/15/60334.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thursday, August 15, 2013
EPA Exemption for Shell Survives Federal Suit
A Shell drilling ship need not face federal air quality standards while it explores the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's North Slope, the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday.
A host of environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council, had challenged a permit that the Environmental Protection Agency reasonably granted Shell Offshore in 2011, allowing the Kulluk ship to "construct, operate, and conduct 'pollutant emitting activities'" in the Beaufort Sea.
The groups specifically objected to the EPA's refusal to require Shell to monitor "increment standards" to ensure overall air quality within the Kulluk's zone of influence during "preconstruction" activities. Under the agency's Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, an increment "is a measure of how much of a pollutant can be added to the ambient air before the air quality will significantly deteriorate."
Another element that drew protest from the groups was the permit's exemption of a 500-meter radius surrounding the vessel from ambient air quality standards.
The agency's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) rejected both claims, finding that increment analysis is not required for such "temporary sources" of emissions.
Giving the EPA wide deference, a unanimous federal appeals panel affirmed Thursday. The three-judge panel found the federal statute governing air quality permits for temporary sources of emissions to be ambiguous and accepted the agency's reading.
As for the ambient air quality exemption, the Anchorage-based appeals panel noted that it had decided a nearly identical case while the present appeal waited in line. In December's REDOIL v. EPA, which involved many of the same plaintiffs and a similar challenge to permits issued to Shell's drillship Discoverer, the 9th Circuit also bent to the agency and found the exemption "a permissible interpretation of its ambient air regulation and earlier letter ruling."

[msfreeh]

Incredible! Humans invent the Android i pad and choose to do nothing about climate change.
Darwin was right. If the species does not adapt it does not survive.
When I first moved to Maine it was coldddddddd! Never heard the word tropical disease in Maine.
Now we have the West Nile Virus and soon to be Asian Tiger Mosquito which is a carrier of Dengue(look it up)
and 29 other deadly viruses. Way to go CEO/Exxon Mobil. Bet you can't tell me his name and where he lives?
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013 ... itoes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Warmer winters have brought a troublesome pest to New Jersey: Asian tiger mosquitoes
August 18, 2013

TRENTON -- Recent warmer-than-usual winters that may be attributable to climate change have brought a troublesome and potentially dangerous new effect, according to a Mercer County scientist: expanding swarms of Asian tiger mosquitoes.

The subtropical species can harbor more than 30 viruses that can be dangerous to humans and has been in New Jersey since 1995. Thanks to the warmer weather, it has been surviving the winter months in far greater numbers in the last few years, said Ary Farajollahi, superintendent of Mercer County Mosquito Control.

“Our winters have been kind of mild the last few years, and that’s when we’ve seen the range expansion and explosion of this mosquito,” Farajollahi said.

“It’s creating a tremendous headache for us,” he said. “We’re basically begging for additional information to determine what the best measures are in controlling it.”

A research paper that Farajollahi co-wrote in April on climate change, the geographic expansion of the Asian tiger mosquito and the impact on public health, was recently chosen as one of the 16 most influential papers published in the journals PLOS One and PLOS Biology. It is part of a new collection, “The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change,” in the Public Library of Science.

Of the viruses carried by the mosquito species, one of the most common is the virus that causes dengue fever, which is characterized by high fever, severe headaches and joint pain, he said. The mosquito has been linked to West Nile virus as well. The first New Jersey resident diagnosed with West Nile this year, a 55-year-old Burlington County man, developed symptoms Aug. 5, state health officials said Friday.

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://desmogblog.com/2013/08/20/great-maysdorf-ii-scam" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Tue, 2013-08-20 14:02Ben Jervey
Ben Jervey's picture
Maysdorf II By the Numbers: BLM's Big Coal Giveaway Tomorrow


Tomorrow, the Bureau of Land Management will sell off roughly 148 million tons of coal. The BLM is opening the sealed bids for the so-called "Maysdorf II" tract in the heart of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. The coal will likely be sold to Cloud Peak Energy, which operates the adjacent Cordero Rojo mine, one of the nation's largest strip mine operations.

Cloud Peak Energy's Tesoro Rojo mine, soon to be expanded. Video by Greenpeace.



According to Joe Smyth of Greenpeace, who penned a great post putting this sale (and another, even larger coal lease scheduled for next month) in the context of President Obama's recent climate announcements, the coal will be sold for roughly $1-per-ton. That represents a deep discount below market rates, which is what you'd expect from a lease auction with only one bidder.



The environmental groups aren't the only ones raising the red flags about this controversial auction process. The Interior Department's own Inspector General issued a report earlier this summer that criticized the agency for failing to consider the exports of Powder River Basin coal, and that Americans were losing hundreds of millions of dollars in these closed-bid (frequently single-bidder) auctions.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) carried the numbers out further, finding that Americans have been shortchanged nearly $30 billion for all of the existing leases in the Powder River Basin over the past three decades, because the BLM failed to set a fair value for the price of the coal to be mined. (It should be noted that the calculation of "fair market value" by the BLM is notoriously arcane and complicated. That IEEFA report does some incredible work explaining it. You can dig in for yourself if you'd like. Jump ahead to page 26.)

Seeing as the bidding will be opened tomorrow, let's piggy-back on Smyth's post and crunch some more numbers about this particular lease.

Maysdorf II, by the numbers

1,338 acres: Size of the "Maysdorf II" coal tract to be leased
148,565,000 tons: Mineable coal in the "Maysdorf II" tract
$163 million: Potential revenue generated by the lease (estimating price from last auction in the region)
$1.5 billion: Value of mined "Maysdorf II" coal on the open market
241 million metric tons: Carbon dioxide to be released by mined coal*
50 million cars: Equivalent emissions of "Maysdorf II" coal in American passenger car annual emissions
12.6 days: How long it would take China to burn through all of the "Maysdorf II" coal.

[msfreeh]

Japanese prefer to die from heat than turn air conditioning on
28.08.2013 | Source:
Pravda.Russia

http://english.pravda.ru/news/society/2 ... tioning-0/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


also see

Vicious Cycle: Extreme Climate Events Release 11 Billion Tons Of CO2 Into The Air Every Year

By Joe Romm on August 28, 2013

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... lease-co2/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

November 2, 2007

by CommonDreams.org

Mountaintop Removal and Kitty Genovese
by Robert Shetterly
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the
thickening center; corruption Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there
are left the mountains.
—- Robinson Jeffers

The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by
bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world;
the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin
of the soul.
—- Edward Abbey

Last week, as I drove north on I-64 in West Virginia from Beckley toward
Cabin Creek, I was stunned at how beautiful the Appalachian Mountains
appeared. The day was cool, gray, and rainy. Maple and oak and tulip trees
were in full color, glowing gold and rust against the dark green of pine and
hemlock. Tattered scarves of translucent clouds lay draped over the
mountains’ shoulders giving the steep heights an alluring look of exotic,
primeval mystery.

I was not in West Virginia, though, to gawk at the beauty strip of mountains
still standing along the interstate to entice tourists. I had come to see
Mountaintop Removal first hand. As I drove, I found myself remembering Kitty
Genovese. In 1964, 28 year old Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death and raped
on a street in Queens. Her murder prompted a national outcry because, as she
screamed for help, no one came to her rescue or even called the police. Why
were Americans so passively uncaring for the plight of their neighbor? As a
young idealistic person, I was nearly as ashamed as if I had failed to act
myself. Of course, I lived in Cincinnati and was somewhat out of earshot.
But I vowed that if ever I were witness to something like that, I would get
involved.

What’s happening in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia to our
mountains is rape and murder. If only the mountains had voices to scream,
the world would quake with the sound. The coal companies, like Nazi doctors
preparing a patient for an experiment, shave the mountains first, clear
cutting the oldest and most productive habitats in our hemisphere.
Frequently they dump entire forests into the valleys and bury them under the
blasted rubble of the former mountains. So hungry are they for the coal,
they don’t even have time to eat the lumber hors d’oeurve.

I was headed for Kayford Mountain, the home of Larry Gibson who has refused
to sell out to the coal companies. The mountains for three hundred and sixty
degrees around Kayford have been removed. Once Larry looked up at the
surrounding peaks. Now he looks 1000 feet down. It’s radical, mountain
mastectomy for as far as the eye can see. Mountaintop Removal is the
surgical mining technique that Massey Energy and Arch Coal and other
companies are inflicting on the Appalachians. The tops of the mountains
(euphemistically called “overburden”) are blown off. Then the
“overburden” becomes “valley fill,” mega tons of rubble shoved over
into the valleys, destroying lush habitat and burying over 1000 miles of
streams. Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch says, “We’re in a war
zone. We’re being bombed. They’re using 3 ½ million pounds of
explosives a day to destroy our mountains.”

People often say that the decimated area looks like the moon. It’s true
that where rounded, tree covered mountains once soared is now ragged, gray
plain. Two million acres blown to bits. An area the size of Delaware. But
nowhere in the moon’s Sea of Tranquility, not yet anyway, would you see a
twenty story machine with an insatiable appetite for coal gnawing at the
stripped ribs of a mountain side. Nor on the moon would you see a cavalcade
of coal trucks, each hauling 120,000 pounds of coal, rumbling through
switchbacks down the flanks of the remaining lower slopes and terrifying the
local drivers. The moon is placid and beautiful except for some garbage and
flags left by the Apollo astronauts. The moon doesn’t have billion-gallon
toxic, coal-slurry ponds precariously contained by earthen dams that can
fail suddenly and bury whole towns under twenty feet of poisonous sludge. (
It’s happened twice.) One is leaking right now above the Marsh Fork
elementary school. The moon isn’t causing incredible rates of asthma and
cancer, isn’t cracking the foundations and walls of poor people’s
houses, poisoning wells, filling their houses and lungs with coal dust, and
forcing them to move. The moon doesn’t have streams full of dead fish. And
the moon doesn’t have devastating floods that wash entire communities away
because all the vegetation and topsoil have been removed. And I don’t
think the moon has 450 of its mountains unaccounted for.
Compared to the destroyed mountains of West Virginia, the moon is a field of
dreams. One might complain that the moon is a little short on culture, but
the coal companies are making sure that southern West Virginia is, too.
It’s much easier for them to do their business if no one’s around. No
witnesses. The people flee for their lives and take the remnants of their
mountain lore, their knowledge of animals and medicinal plants, their
history, and sense of place. Larry Gibson calls it genocide.

So, what does it look like if not the moon? Like the mangled body of a
torture victim. Or, metaphorically, like our Constitution does now to anyone
who once believed in it. The Robinson Jeffers’ quote above comes from his
poem Shine, Perishing Republic. It seems sadly ironic to me that Jeffers
would advise his children that when corruption in the cities overwhelms
them, they can escape to the mountains. Where does one escape to when the
mountains are gone? When the mountains have been ground up for profit? Larry
Gibson says he used to laugh at people taking pictures of the mountains. He
told them, “Why take a picture of a mountain? It’s going to be there
forever.”

Where does Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, think that he is going to
escape to?

There are crimes and there are crimes. Here in Maine, where I live, we often
are appalled by paper company clear cuts. But, given enough time, poplar
will be succeeded by spruce and pine, and the softwoods in turn by maple,
birch, and oak. It’s even sadly comforting to imagine that if the human
species eradicates itself by its insistence on dominating and destroying
nature rather than living in harmony with it, nature will, after a good
scouring by fire and ice, recover. However, the Appalachian Mountains will
not recover. They will not re-grow. When we think of cannibalism, we think
of a ritualistic or desperate practice that is morally repugnant. But,
imagine a cannibal who eats portions of his own body. It’s hardly even a
question of morality. It’s psychotic. Such is the consumption of the
mountains.

Bill McKibben has said that we no longer live in an environment, we live in
an economy. If the economy is your standard for reality, then it is also
your standard of ethics, just as nature would be if you lived in an
environment. If the economy is your reality, your ethic is profit. If your
reality is nature, your ethic is conservation and sustainability. Which
reality will actually determine whether our species survives?

As Judy Bonds says, Mountaintop Removal is a practice with which we cannot
compromise. It must stop. There is no nicer way to destroy the oldest
mountains in the world, mountains that began their lives three hundred
million years ago when North America and Africa were nudged up against each
other.

Many people in the West Virginian and Kentucky have heard the cry of the
mountains and the displaced people. They are courageously fighting King
Coal. Their lives are threatened frequently. Ever since Massey Energy
bulldozed his family cemetery, Larry Gibson has dedicated his life to saving
the mountains. Judy Bonds, a former Pizza Hut waitress, won the Goldman
Environmental Prize in 2002 for her efforts. Visit the website of Coal River
Mountain Watch (http://www.crmw.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
(http://www.ohvec.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) to find out what you can do. This is not just their fight.
The U.S. has plans to build 150 more coal burning plants. Coal is the worst
of the fossil fuels for CO2 emissions. The forests being buried in West
Virginia valleys once absorbed CO2 and mitigated climate change.

Kitty Genovese is now screaming in the West Virginia mountains. She’s screaming for our lives as much as hers. Judy Bonds says, “We’re selling our children’s feet to buy our fancy shoes.”

[msfreeh]

see link for full story
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Weste ... r_999.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Western Japan records hottest summer ever
Sept 02, 2013


The west of Japan had its hottest ever summer this year, official figures showed Monday after a season in which heatstroke reportedly killed hundreds and hospitalised tens of thousands nationwide.

The average temperature from June to August was 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than the seasonal norm, with the mercury hitting a record 41 degrees C (105.8 Fahrenheit) in the western city of Kochi on August 12, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

That broke the old high of 40.9 degrees Celsius registered in two central cities in August 2007.

One week in August saw temperatures of 40 degrees or more for three straight days in parts of Japan.

Of the nearly 54,000 taken to hospital suffering from heatstroke over the three months from late May, 87 people died, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.

Public broadcaster NHK, which did its own tally to include those found dead at home, said at least 338 died of heatstroke between late May and August, nearly 80 percent of whom were in their 60s or over.

Eastern Japan also had a hot summer, with average temperatures 1.1 degrees C higher than normal, making it the third hottest on record, the weather agency said.

The hot summer followed an early end to the rainy season, sparking fears over dwindling water supplies that saw scientists resort to cloud-seeding to top up reservoirs that serve the 35 million people of greater Tokyo.

However, in western Japan a number of days of very heavy rainfall caused problems, with landslides and flooding in places.

Yamaguchi prefecture in the west of Honshu island recorded 14.3 centimetres (5.6 inches) of rain in an hour on one occasion in July.

[msfreeh]

reFramed: In conversation with Edward Burtynsky

http://framework.latimes.com/2013/09/05 ... tynsky/#/0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

Boulder registers wettest 24-hour period, and month, on record
Devastating downpour now ranks as a 100-year flood 
09/12/2013



http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder ... nches-fell" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

http://dailyclimate.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msfreeh]

http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resourc ... h-kunstler" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Growth Is Obsolete - by James H. Kunstler

[msfreeh]

weekend special-two for the thought of one


http://dailyclimate.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Carcinogens emitted from Canada's main fossil fuel hub, study says.


A new study has detected air pollutants, including carcinogens, in areas downwind of Canada's main fossil fuel hub in Alberta at levels rivaling those of major metropolises such as Beijing and Mexico City. Los Angeles Times




North Dakota recorded 300 oil spills in two years without notifying the public.

[msfreeh]

Pacific Ocean Warming at Fastest Rate in 10,000 Years
Posted: 10/31/2013 2:11 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e ... 79583.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;