Chris D'Angelo, Associate Editor - Huffington Post Hawaii - Grist/HUffington Post
Stephan: The deoxygenation occurring in the world ocean. How often do you hear that talked about? Your life depends on it, civilization depends on it, but what is that compared to a week's coverage over whether Prince left a will?
Nationally we need to come together as we came together in World War II. That is what climate change is going to require. And it will do what it did before, recreate American society, vastly improving wellness by producing a vibrant middle class, leading the world in technology, and being respected.
Credit: Matthew Long/NCAR
It should come as no surprise that human activity is causing the world’s oceans to warm, rise, and acidify.
But an equally troubling impact of climate change is that it is beginning to rob the oceans of oxygen.
While ocean deoxygenation is well established, a new study led by Matthew Long, an oceanographer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, finds that climate change-driven oxygen loss is already detectable in certain swaths of ocean and will likely be “widespread” by 2030 or 2040.
Ultimately, Long told The Huffington Post, oxygen-deprived oceans may have “significant impacts on marine ecosystems” and leave some areas of ocean all but uninhabitable for certain species.
While some ocean critters, like dolphins and whales, get their oxygen by surfacing, many, including fish and crabs, rely on oxygen that either enters the water from the atmosphere or is released by phytoplankton via photosynthesis.
But as the ocean surface warms, it absorbs less oxygen. And to make matters worse, oxygen in warmer water, which is less dense, has […]
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Deirdre Fulton, Staff Writer - Common Dreams
Stephan: Greenpeace got hold of 248 pages of secret documents relating to the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (
TTIP) and has assessed them.. This reports tells the story, and illustrates what I mean by Obama's weakness.
Credit: Greenpeace
It is President Obama’s economic policies I think that history will judge to be his major weakness. This is just shameful.
Confirming that the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) amounts to “a huge transfer of power from people to big business,” Greenpeace Netherlands on Monday leaked 248 secret pages of the controversial trade deal between the U.S. and EU, exposing how environmental regulations, climate protections, and consumer rights are being “bartered away behind closed doors.”
The documents represent roughly two-thirds of the latest negotiating text, according to Greenpeace, and on some topics offer for the first time the position of the United States.
“Total secrecy was the only way the European Commission could keep the European people from learning the truth about these appalling negotiations, and now the cat is out of the bag.”
—John Hilary, War on Want
Before Monday, elected representatives were only able to view such documents under guard, in a secure room, without access to expert consultation, while being forbidden from […]
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Michael T. Klare, - Salon/TomDispatch.com
Stephan: This is a good assessment of the state of the oil industry. I see it as a step in our exit from the carbon era. So it is good news, although it is going to have a complicated geopolitical impact.
Sunday, April 17th was the designated moment. The world’s leading oil producers were expected to bring fresh discipline to the chaotic petroleum market and spark a return to high prices. Meeting in Doha, the glittering capital of petroleum-rich Qatar, the oil ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), along with such key non-OPEC producers as Russia and Mexico, were scheduled to ratify a draft agreement obliging them to freeze their oil output at current levels. In anticipation of such a deal, oil prices had begun to creep inexorably upward, from $30 per barrel in mid-January to $43 on the eve of the gathering. But far from restoring the old oil order, the meeting ended in discord, driving prices down again and revealing deep cracks in the ranks of global energy producers.
It is hard to overstate the significance of the Doha debacle. At the very least, it will perpetuate the low oil prices that have plagued the industry for the past two years, forcing smaller firms into bankruptcy and
erasing hundreds of billions […]
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Rebecca Gordon, - Salon/TomDispatch.com
Stephan: Today I was a Bernie Sanders delegate at the county Democratic caucus. I will have more to say about caucuses and the caucus vs. primary options at another time. What I want to share now is a conversation I had as I was leaving after a long day in an auditorium where it was dim and musty, while outside it was bright, warm, and beautiful. A woman in her late fifties or early sixties, who at a glance I would have guessed was a Republican, came up to me. She introduced herself, and said she was an SR reader. Before coming to the caucus she had read the piece I ran about Iraq in yesterday's edition. We talked about it for a moment when she suddenly said, "Why aren't they in jail? I ask myself that. It's like the banks. You can't run a country without honor. We're a military family. My youngest was killed on his second tour, my favorite nephew, his best friend, walks with a cane. Bush, Cheney and the rest; they're all happily retired. I particularly dislike Cheney because I know he's draft dodger. He never served in war, none of them did. They're murderers, they just got kids like my son to pull the trigger." I was struck by her passion, and I agreed with it. She walked away then turned and looked back, "And we're still at it. Why? What has it given us?"
I came home and sat down to do today's edition and saw this report -- a synchronicity I took seriously.
Credit: Reuters/AP/Jason Reed/Luis Alvarez/Kevin Lamarque/Filipe Frazao via Shutterstock/Photo montage by Salon
The allegations against the man were serious indeed.
* Donald Rumsfeld
said he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person” in al-Qaeda.
* The Central Intelligence Agency informed Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that he “served as Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps… He also acted as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of external contacts and foreign communications.”
* CIA Director Michael Hayden would tell the press in 2008 that 25% of all the information his agency had gathered about al-Qaeda from human sources “originated” with one other detainee and him.
* George W. Bush would use his case to justify the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” claiming that “he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained” and that “he helped smuggle al-Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan” so they would not […]
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George Hunter, Reporter - The Detroit News
Stephan: Here we are back in Governor Rick Snyder's world again. These Republican governors both as a group and as individuals are in my view competitors for the most incompetent elected executives in American history.
Snyder did not create the Detroit catastrophe, but his policies have certainly prolonged the suffering.
Detroit water bill lines
Credit: LATimes
DETROIT — Crews are set to begin on Monday shutting off water service to thousands of people who haven’t paid their bills, a city water official said Sunday.
There are about 23,000 people who owe money to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, with an average bill of $663, officials said. The utility on Saturday made a last-ditch effort to allow those in arrears on their water bills to enter payment plans.
About 1,000 people visited the utility’s main office on Randolph in downtown Detroit and the East Side Customer Service Center on E. McNichols on Saturday in a last-minute effort to avoid having their water service shut off.
“We’re not just going to shut people’s water off without giving them a chance,” spokeswoman Linda Clark said. “We’re doing what we can to help people. The last thing we want to do is cut off people’s service.”
People began lining up outside the center early Saturday morning, Clark said. The queue snaked out the door, […]
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