Tuesday, April 26th, 2016
Arthur Neslen, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Real geopolitical power rests not with national governments, but with virtual corporate states, who control national governments as this report spells out. May I suggest that the correct response is to never buy a BP product, nor vote for an official beholdened to BP, and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint.
The EU abandoned or weakened key proposals for new environmental protections after receiving a letter from a top BP executive which warned of an exodus of the oil industry from Europe if the proposals went ahead. (emphasis added)
In the 10-page letter, the company predicted in 2013 that a mass industry flight would result if laws to regulate tar sands, cut power plant pollution and accelerate the uptake of renewable energy were passed, because of the extra costs and red tape they allegedly entailed.
The measures “threaten to drive energy-intensive industries, such as refining and petrochemicals, to relocate outside the EU with a correspondingly detrimental impact on security of supply, jobs [and] growth,” said the letter, which was obtained by the Guardian under access to documents laws.
The missive to the EU’s energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, was dated 9 August 2013, partly hand-written, and signed by a senior BP representative whose name has been redacted.
It references a series of “interactions” between the two men – and between BP and an unnamed third party […]
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Tuesday, April 26th, 2016
Stephan: The amount of food that is wasted would see everyone in the world fed. Here is some wonderful news about entrepreneurs who are producing wellness and making a successful business by repurposing food waste.
Credit: Shutterstock
Food waste is bad for our wallets. It’s also bad for the environment — the equivalent of throwing away the water, energy, and other resources that go into growing it in the first place. But as interest in reducing food waste grows, so does innovation to make it happen. Take a look at what some creative businesses are doing to turn trash into treasure.
Food’s wild west
US company Food Cowboy has developed an app that allows food companies to donate surplus food to nearby charities and organic waste to composters, farmers, and biogas generators.
Currently, the app has over 400 charity users and 200 donors. While the donor list is made up of growers, shippers, and wholesalers, co-founder Barbara Cohen says the app can also be used to support food recovery programs bringing food from stores, restaurants, or other food establishments to local charities.
“Current and proposed responses to food waste, including banning food waste from landfills and requiring retailers to donate 100 percent of their unsaleables, are not grounded […]
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Tuesday, April 26th, 2016
Stephan: I wrote about Hanford Nuclear Reservation the other day, in my commentary on the Chernobyl report. As it happens the the next day I found this. Please take special note of the comment by the Hanford worker that the leaks are occurring in tanks, thought to be the "savior of all saviors." Then remember nuclear waste sites are scattered all over the country. As these installations age they are going to be an unending problem costing billions and billions of dollars. This is a huge problem that only a tiny group of people seem to know is happening.
Hanford Nuclear Reservation where nuclear waste is leaking
The amount of radioactive waste that has been leaking between the two walls of one of the underground tanks at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State for several years grew dramatically on Sunday, April 17, with up to 13,000 liters (3,500 gallons) of new waste.
The leak occurred at the double-shell storage known as AY-102, which has been leaking small amounts of nuclear waste since 2011. It is estimated that about 265 liters (70 gallons) of waste leaked from the tank in recent years.
Although it’s unclear exactly how much waste spilled out over the weekend, estimates place the amount at somewhere between 11,300 and 13,200 liters (3,000 and 3,500 gallons).
“This is catastrophic,” Mike Geffre, former Hanford worker who first discovered the leak, told King5 News. “This is probably the biggest event to ever happen in tank farm history. The double-shell tanks were supposed to be the saviors of all saviors (to hold waste safely from people and the environment).”
According to King5 News, after Geffre first […]
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Fiona Macrae, Science Correspondent - The Daily Mail (U.K.)
Stephan: I am a 50 year daily meditator, as well as a scientist who has studied and written about meditation and I will state unreservedly that developing the daily practice of meditation is the best gift you will ever give yourself. I have a CD/online download,
Meditation for Modern Minds that is based on the latest research, and can be obtained for a few dollars. But whether you use that approach or some other do yourself a favor and develop the daily practice -- all meditation techniques do one thing, they teach you to hold intentioned focused awareness -- which produces powerful psychophysical changes in the practitioner and allows them to open to the nonlocal aspect of their consciousness.
Meditation doesn’t just free the mind, it could also keep it young.
Regular meditation knocks seven and a half years off the middle-aged brain, a study found.
The researchers said that the combination of intense concentration and relaxation may trigger the growth of new brain cells.
And while they didn’t look at whether the meditators were also smarter, brain shrinkage is linked to Alzheimer’s and other memory-robbing diseases.
The scientists scanned the brains of 50 American men and women who regularly meditated and 50 non-meditators.
Meditation can make the brain younger, according to a study which found a 50-year-old who meditated had the brain age of
The scans were fed into a computer program that analysed the images and provided an age for each brain based on its physical condition.
The results were striking.
In general, the non-meditators’ brain age and actual age were the same, so a 55 year old’s brain looked like it was 55.
However, the meditators’ brains were younger than their years, with the average 50-year-old having a brain that belonged in a 42 or 43 year-old’s body.
The benefits were particularly great […]
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Marlena Fitzpatrick García, - Alternet (U.S.)
Stephan: According the the National Center for Health Statistics, "In 2014, there were 42,773 deaths by suicide in the United States, making it the 10th leading cause of death. That’s more than twice as many people as have died from Parkinson’s disease or by homicide." I have been following the suicide trend in the U.S. for some time, because in gun deaths suicides are close to 2 to 1 to homicides, and that struck me as a very important datapoint that was telling us something important. This report does a good job of presenting the data and some of the major tropes. Basically this is another trend line, another alarm telling us that our society is sick. The media should be asking Presidential candidates about what they propose to do to understand why this is happening, and present policies to bring wellness to this situation.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Suicide deaths are identified with codes U03, X60–X84, and Y87.0 from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision.
Credit: Centers for Disease Control
The rate of death by suicide in America increased by 24 percent from 1999 through 2014, according to a new report by the National Center for Health Statistics. (emphasis added)
The report breaks down suicide by age groups and gender, showing an increase among all groups, said Sally Curtin, one of the report’s authors. This increase has been steady since 1999, after a consistent decline since 1986, she said.
In 1999, 10.5 of every 100,000 people committed suicide. In 2014, that number increased by 24 percent, or 13 out of every 100,000 people. In the 1980s, however, the suicide rate had been dropping. The most eye-catching increases were among middle-aged people.
In 2014, there were 42,773 deaths by suicide in the United States, making it the 10th leading cause of death. That’s […]
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