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Guru Of Science Czar Holdren Called For Doubling CO2 Emissions

Guru Of Science Czar Holdren Called For Doubling CO2 Emissions 110709top2

Paul Joseph Watson
December 8, 2009

The guru of President Barack Obama’s science advisor, John P. Holdren, who in his 1977 book Ecoscience called for draconian population control measures including sterilizing the water supply and introducing forced abortions, wrote that large amounts of carbon dioxide should be pumped into the atmosphere in order to aid plant growth and solve the food crisis.

Lamenting on page 140 of his 1954 book The Challenge of Man’s Future, Harrison Brown – a geochemist who supervised the production of plutonium for the Manhattan Project, wrote that “the earth’s atmosphere contains only a minute concentration – about 0.03 percent” – Brown observed, “It has been demonstrated that a tripling of carbon-dioxide concentration in the air will approximately double the growth rates of tomatoes, alfalfa, and sugar beets.”

Brown was a guru to White House science czar John Holdren, who co-edited a 1986 book in his honor.

“There are between 18 and 20 tons of carbon dioxide over every acre of the earth’s surface,” Brown noted on page 142. “In order to double the amount in the atmosphere, at least 500 billion tons of coal would have to be burned – an amount six times greater than that which has been consumed during all of human history.”

The fact that Holdren was a disciple of Brown again goes to show how dramatically Holdren’s convictions about climate change have flip-flopped in order to accommodate whatever scientific fad holds sway at the time.

In the 70’s, Holdren was busy talking up the drastic threat of global cooling, warning that it would produce giant tidal waves and environmental devastation.

In a 1971 essay entitled “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide,” Holdren and his co-author Paul Ehrlich wrote that global cooling would ensue as a result of , “a reduced transparency of the atmosphere to incoming light as a result of urban air pollutions (smoke, aerosols), agriculture air pollution (dust), and volcanic oil.”

Holdren and Ehrlich predicted, “a mere 1 percent increase in low cloud cover would decrease the surface temperature by .8C” and that “a decrease of 4C would probably be sufficient to cause another ice age.”

They continued: “Even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”

Of course, Holdren and his ilk were spectacularly wrong with their doomsday predictions about global cooling, but almost entirely the same crowd are now telling us that global warming is a gargantuan threat and that only a carbon tax paid directly to the World Bank can stop it.

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December 8, 2009 Posted by | Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

The US cash behind extremist settlers

  • Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt
  • guardian.co.uk, December 8, 2009 12.30 GMT

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets‘ stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: “A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007.” Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention’s prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron’s Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron’s Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund’s extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that “[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs”, “Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run” and “[y]ou’ll never get the truth out of an Arab”. Hebron’s chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B’Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein “an extraordinary person” in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors “heroes”.

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to “promote social and educational wellbeing”, in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: “There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners.”

A 2007 appeal explained: “Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron … waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron.”

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at “racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth”.

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is “racist”, regardless of the settlers’ severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron’s settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government’s self-defeating policy, writing that “critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns”.

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

• Andrew Kadi is an IT professional and a member of the Middle East rights organisation, Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East. Aaron Levitt has volunteered as a human rights monitor in Hebron and is a member of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC

December 8, 2009 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

‘If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it’

By Cade Metz in San Francisco • 7th December 2009 19:56 GMT

If you’re concerned about Google retaining your personal data, then you must be doing something you shouldn’t be doing. At least that’s the word from Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” Schmidt tells CNBC, sparking howls of incredulity from the likes of Gawker.

But the bigger news may be that Schmidt has actually admitted there are cases where the search giant is forced to release your personal data.

“If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines – including Google – do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

There’s also the possibility of subpoenas. And hacks. But if any of this bothers you, you should be ashamed of yourself. According to Eric Schmidt.

Gawker highlights the irony of Schmidt’s typically haughty proclamations. After all, this is the man who banned CNet for a year after the news site published information about him it had gleaned from, yes, Google.

But the larger point here is that Schmidt isn’t even addressing the issue at hand. Per usual. When the privacy question appears, Google likes to talk about the people asking the questions. But the problem lies elsewhere: with the millions upon millions blissfully unaware of the questions.

If you’re concerned about your online privacy, you can always put the kibosh on Google’s tracking cookies. You can avoid signing in to Google accounts. And, yes, you can avoid using Google for anything Eric Schmidt thinks you shouldn’t be doing. But most web users don’t even realize Google is hoarding their data.

CNBC asks Schmidt: “People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?” But he answers by scoffing at those who don’t trust Google at all.

Not that you’d expect anything less. As always, Schmidt’s holier-than-thou attitude is wonderfully amusing. Except that it’s not. ®

Source

December 8, 2009 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak

COP15: A Haitian delegation during second-day session at the Bella center in Copenhagen

Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol‘s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks”.

A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;

• Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;

• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”

Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”

The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.

December 8, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Israel’s justice minister calls for Jewish law

December 8, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s justice minister reportedly called for basing the country’s judicial system on Torah laws.

“Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah, and we will turn halachah into the binding law of the nation,” Ya’akov Ne’eman said Tuesday morning at a Jewish law conference in Jerusalem, according to Ha’aretz. “We must bring back the heritage of our fathers to the nation of Israel. The Torah has the complete solution to all of the questions we are dealing with.”

Ne’eman received applause for his comments. Many rabbis and rabbinical judges were at the convention.

In a statement released later Tuesday, the Justice Ministry’s spokesman clarified Ne’eman’s comments.

“The minister clarifies that his address did not contain an appeal to replace the state’s laws with the laws of halacha, neither directly nor indirectly,” the statement said. “The minister spoke in general and broad terms about returning the glory of Hebrew law and the importance of Hebrew law in the state.” … continue

December 8, 2009 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Imperial Democrats Line Up for War

by John V. Walsh – December 08, 2009

In a scene replicated all over the country, a small, dispirited crowd protested on Boston Common following Obama’s West Point declaration of more war on the unfortunate people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama intends to out-Bush Bush on Af-Pak, which has finally thrown some cold water on his supporters.

The large printed placards ordered up for the demo called for an end to the war on Af-Pak, but only three scraggily handmade signs mentioned Obama. The speeches ordained by the organizers also made scant mention of Obama, with two exceptions, one from Vets Against the War and another from Military Families Speak Out. When one guy took advantage of an open mike, not readily yielded to him, to criticize both Obama and the antiwar leadership of United for Peace and Justice, “Progressive” Democrats of America, and their bedfellows, there was a quiet over the crowd. It was the only speech without at least token applause. One could only wonder where this “movement” was headed next.

A clue came if one listened to the buzz on the sidelines. It was all about another election, the Democratic Party primary today to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Each of the candidates has taken up an antiwar mantra as the polls have shown that the people of Massachusetts want no more of this game of empire in Central Asia. Michael Capuano, congressional representative from the Cambridge/Somerville/Boston area, had the early lead in establishing his antiwar bona fides, since he did vote against the Iraq war in his early days in Congress. But is he really a dove? Are Democrats with antiwar constituencies like Capuano’s in Cambridge genuinely against war and empire? The answer is no, and every now and then a vote comes along that shows how it all works.

One such crucial vote came in the winter of 2007, shortly after the Democrats took control of the House in the 2006 elections on a tidal wave of antiwar sentiment. Bush was at that time requesting another supplement for the wars on Central Asia, and the Democrats had inserted a dreaded “timeline” into the appropriation bill. This led the Republicans to vote against the bill, and if they were joined by enough Democrats, then funding of the wars would end at that moment: a golden opportunity if ever there was one. Faced with this potential debacle, Nancy Pelosi scrambled to get all the Democrats to vote for the bill to fund the war. Every vote was needed. What did Capuano do? What did other “antiwar” Democrats of the Massachusetts delegation do? The entire delegation voted for the bill, as Pelosi instructed, including Michael Capuano, James McGovern, Barney Frank – every member of the the most “liberal” delegation in Congress. There were only nine Democrats who stood up to Pelosi that day, including Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, Lynne Woolsey, and Barbara Lee. If the bill had had only one more opponent, the funding would have been cut off, so close was the vote. But that lone vote did not materialize from Massachusetts. So the funding bill passed, and the war was alive and well.

That is the way the game is played. So long as the war machine does not need the votes of congressmen with strong antiwar constituencies, these representatives are free to cast a vote to mollify their voters. But when the chips are down and every vote is needed, the charade is called to a halt and these counterfeit progressives cast their votes as instructed by Pelosi or whatever gauleiter happens to be in charge at the moment. Thus the empire rules by demanding loyalty to one of the two War Parties over the will of antiwar constituents. Of course, this emerges even more clearly in presidential elections, when each and every Democrat, even the nine mavericks of winter 2007 – Kucinich, Woolsey, Waters, et al. – line up to dutifully support pro-war candidates such as Kerry or Obama.

As the late Eugene McCarthy pointed out in 1968 in the snows of New Hampshire, drawing on the words of Daniel Webster, wars of empire continue because the people’s “representatives” put loyalty to party over loyalty to the people and to principle. Thus the Vietnam War ground on, and thus does the U.S. empire’s deadly game in Central Asia continue.

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December 8, 2009 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment