No more coal power, says NASA

From correspondents in Washington
February 27, 2007
A MORATORIUM on coal-fired power plants is key to cutting carbon dioxide emissions that promote global warming, NASA's top climatologist says.

"There should be a moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until the technology to capture and sequester the (carbon dioxide emissions) is available," said James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"This is a hard proposition that no politician is willing to stand up and say it's necessary," he said at the National Press Club in Washington.

The build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases in the atmosphere increases the so-called greenhouse effect, which warms Earth by letting light in, but blocking the heat from escaping the atmosphere, much like glass in a greenhouse.

Mr Hansen said the technology to capture carbon dioxide "is probably five or 10 years away".

By then, "all coal-burning power plants that don't capture the CO2 will have to be bulldozed".

Electric power plants and transportation are top emitters of CO2, which has been largely responsible for increasing Earth's temperature since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, which brought a sharp increase in the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Recent dramatic photographs of Earth's melting polar ice caps have convinced many sceptics that global warming is here to stay.

"The assumption that it takes thousands years for ice sheets to change is very wrong," Mr Hansen said.

"Because of the melting of the ice sheet, the sea level is now rising at the rate of about 35cm per century," he said.

"But the concern is that it is a very non-linear process that can accelerate," he said.

"The West Antarctic ice sheet in particular is vulnerable and if it collapses, that could make the sea level rise by 5 or 6m - possibly on a time-scale of a century or two."

Other articles:

Palestine: How to live with Hunger
Irish Bishops: Israel has turned Palestine into a large prison (Haaretz)

Julia Butterfly-Hill

This is a wonderful short video of Julia Butterfly Hill talking about sustainable solutions in our world. I know of many exuberant environmentalists in Australia, who embody their love of life in their actions. Julia reminds me of them.

Glimpses of a better world

I'm planning to maintain a list of inspiring initiatives that create better social relationships, that I will add to as time progresses:

1. Initiative:Alternative currencies in Europe Why? Because this currency encourages local consumption, and discourages the accumulation of funds, and supports local NGO's. There are fundamental problems with our current monetary systems, which i will outline at a later date.

2. Initiative:Community garden networks in Australia. Why? Community gardens fulfil many purposes: encouraging urban agriculture, building local communities among them.

Some recent Indig articles:

John Tracey: Greenies and Murries. Paradigm Oz.

John Pilger: Mourning a secret Australia
Z Magazine.

ANTAR : winding back native title rights- again InterContinental Cry

Gould's Book Arcade

Here is a composite picture of Goulds Book Arcade in Newtown: amalgamated from 6 photos.


And see if you can spot Bob Gould himself (it's like wheres wally!)

Actually I just found an excellent article by Bob about the rally against the bombing of Lebanon last year...

creativity

here is an interesting article about the power of creating new worlds through acting in the world.

George Bush and many other movers and shakers have learnt a lot from Marx: that whilst the philosophers have interpreted the world, the point is to change it. By changing and acting on the world, you alter reality (often in unexpected ways).

But (perhaps) in contrast to Marx, the basis of Bush's success was to recognise that logic is relatively unimportant in shaping human aspirations and understanding of the world (maybe i'll take that back- actually... Marx was quite an artist- it was his followers who were ultra-rationalist).

In many ways, the intellectual tools needed for living and acting in the world are quite different to what the enlightenment logic toolbox equips us with. In terms of global power relationships, surrealist theatre can sometimes depict a recognisable reality better than empirical analysis.

Most human thinking is associative rather than rational. And that's not necessarily bad. Most people's motivations for doing things are not primarily rational- usually people act because of their relationships with other people, their gut reactions, or because of a common consciousness. Yet this doesn't mean such motivations are non-valid. They just need to be grounded from time to time with feedback and evidence.

Effective activists can be like ARTISTS in many ways- deepening or interrogating peoples' associative frameworks (making them better connected to the world), and creating the imaginative and practical infrastructure needed for possible futures. This is where utopian thinking has played a role in the past...

One example is a collective of activists who see themselves as artists (in their role in developing peoples' associative logic) : the group "Platform London".

A.

On The Australian's opinion page: just about all ideologically right wing (especially global warming deniers) articles except perhaps one:

Editorial: Cool heads needed on red-hot topic
Pamela Bone: The Left is onside with hate
Nick Minchin: Prosperity is no accident
Mike Steketee: Iemma's banana republic
Cut & paste: Tim Flannery's baseless hysteria over global warming
Editorial: Judges should not be their own juries
John Hirst: An unaffordable luxury
Daniel Donahoo: Kindy no place for the three Rs
Wesley Aird: Key to unrest is policy failure
Jennifer Marohasy: Reef may benefit from global warming
Cut & paste: How a right-wing, pro-Howard cabal is stifling debate

sydney...

Sydney has been described as possibly the most vacuous city in the world!!!

I always knew we would make the grade.


here is an article (smh) about it (and another one, and below are some quotes from the smh blog:


Of course there are grounded, generous, happy people in Sydney - I'm sure I met one once - but, generally speaking, I think James has hit the nail on the head. I've lived in cities all over the English-speaking world - in London, in Cape Town, in Auckland -and I can truly say Sydney is the most beautiful, and the most vacuous.
Posted by: John at February 2, 2007 7:13 AM

"It reminds me of a quote from Clive Hamilton (didn't his Affluenza book come out 2 years ago?) about "people doing jobs they hate, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like". That's Sydney isn't it?
I have been living outside of Australia for a couple of years now. From the outside looking in, the perspective is frightening.
However, even leaving the shores is no guarantee of immunity. I find it funny that you meet ex-pats who are overseas expressly to make enough cash to go home and get a mortgage!"

When my husband and I first moved into the neighbourhood, I baked cakes and offered it to various neighbours hoping to make friends and to get to know my neighbours. People were happy to accept the cake and ocassionaly the organic home grown herbs but never once we were invited for a drink or a BBQ. It has been more than two years now and we still don't know our neighbours. People are polite and civilised but there is no real interest to interact as neighbours. I have lived in many big cities much much bigger than Sydney and in all these places I have always known my immediate neighbours. We socialised. I have a personal relationship with my fruit and veggie vendors as well as the people at the bank. It felt like living in a community. I feel very alienated here in Sydney to the point that I want to move back overseas.

I grew up in Sydney, left for 16 years, came back couldn't stand it because of the pinning of meaning onto possessions, contacts or activities driven by a fear that any sort of meaning to life would collapse under scrutiny. There is a lso a terrible rigidity of thought and people think they are sophisticated if they order the right sort of coffee. Nobody questions anything and ignores what doesn't suit them.

without a doubt sydney is the most vacuous city i have ever been to. just getting out and travelling makes you realise how shallow and pointless most sydneysider's lives are.

Oh he is so right. Combine that with the vacuous generation Y and wow what a sad city.
And why on the subject of vacuous there is Iemma to consider as well.
Sydney has so far to go till it becomes even remotely sophisticated and world class.
Posted by: Paul at February 2, 2007 6:28 AM

Years living in Sydney as well as the other capitals have convinced me that it the most vacuuous city in Australia. Some overseas, however, cities would be much worse; Hong Kong is a prime example.
Posted by: PCN at February 2, 2007 6:30 AM

Yep.
Or at least, one of them.
Wherever you find a city, or a country for that matter that is being run by a bunch of deluded economists, who operate on the highly flawed theory of infinite growth in a finite world, then you will have a profound lack of humanity, as evidenced in Sydney.
Time for a big change human race.
A big change.
Posted by: daz at February 2, 2007 7:01 AM

train of intention

in the library, at a desk. They are typing, the aircon a constant white noise.

pursuing their rational endeavours.

balancing on the narrow track of their academic disciplines.
perhaps one day emerging from the long tunnel
but submitting to what rationality prescribes for them today.

may i interrupt?
may i interrupt your silence? can i say the unthinkable?

can i involve you in a common subjectivity?
can i bring into being the 'we' that still does not recognise itself?

"What are we going to do?" what are we going to do? what can we do? what do we have the motivation to do? what kind of work is to be done?

the question buzzing between the lines of the newspapers
the question in the hopeless naming of crisis.

the question of madmen in train carriages.

can we democratise the train carriages?
can we animate the libraries?
can we live and let live?
can we emerge from this hole?