Archive for December, 2011
The cost of petrol and oil – This is a stunning revelation
Dec 31st
The cost of petrol and oil: How it breaks down
8 November 2011 Last updated at 00:00
By Richard Anderson and Damian Kahya Business reporters, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15462923
“We all know petrol costs a lot, but how many of us actually know why, and who profits from selling the stuff?
The cost of petrol and diesel can actually be broken down fairly precisely, and it’s immediately obvious who the primary beneficiary is: the government.
Well over half, in fact about 60%, of the £1.34 odd we pay for a litre of unleaded is fuel duty and VAT.
Less than 5% goes to the petrol retailer, in some cases more like 1%, which helps in part to explain why so many are struggling despite recent rises in fuel costs.
Next to tax, the single biggest component in the price of petrol is… well, the petrol itself, which accounts for about 30% of the overall cost.
For example, a bog standard barrel of oil fromSaudi Arabiacosts about $2-$3 to extract from the ground, whereas a barrel taken from tar sands in Albertacan cost more than $60.”
Looks like the taxpayers are subsidizing tar sands, doesn’t it?
Possible Organ Failure – Genetically Engineered Corn
Dec 31st
Huffington Post Katherine Goldstein/Gazelle Emami First Posted: 03/18/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 04:10 PM ET
Organ Failure, Study Reveals
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html
“In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, [http://www.biolsci.org/] analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.
Also see Food Freedom [ http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/]
Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however.”
Background of the Hockey Stick and Climategate controversies
Dec 29th
I think you will find this article very interesting.
Sky
Michael Mann, hounded researcher
http://www.skepticalscience.com/MichaelMann.html
Posted on 30 December 2011 by Andy S
“Here is a translation of recent article (December 25th, 2011) in the French newspaper Le Monde by science journalist Stéphane Foucart. He reports on a talk that Michael Mann gave at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, in which Mann introduces his forthcoming book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. Foucart interviews Mann and discusses the background of the Hockey Stick and Climategate controversies. What is refreshing is the absence of the false balance, both-sides-of-the-story, style of reporting that is found so often in English language newspapers. ”
“Those who attack us have won in the sense that they have succeeded in delaying any action on global warming by ten, twenty, maybe thirty years,” he concedes with worry as he sees his country succumbing to anti-science. “Denying either anthropogenic climate change or evolution has become a condition of admission to the Republican Party. That’s something quite new and very scary”.
Restoring European Growth
Dec 29th
Restoring European Growth
http://www.nationofchange.org/restoring-european-growth-1325085064
“Despite the new agreement reached at the European Union’s summit in December, strengthening financial markets’ confidence in the eurozone remains an elusive goal. In the aftermath of the summit, the euro’s exchange rate sank to its lowest level of the year (around $1.30), while yields on Italian five-year bonds hit a new high (almost 6.5%). InFrance, Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande flatly declared that the latest agreement ‘is not the right answer,” because “without economic growth we will achieve none of the targets on deficit reduction.’”
I get very confused with the financial opinions I read. For instance, unlimited economic growth is an oxymoron, an apparition, a concept with no physical reality or one might say impossible when the necessary materials are finite. Don’t I have this right? If so, then how can economic growth be the answer to being broke? On a more personal level, in the past when I have been broke, I had to stop spending on everything but the essentials to maintain a roof over my head, food and taxes. It seems to me that with so many people in so many countries, gain with no pain has become a kind of birthright. Again, getting personal here, I, along with my employers, contributed for all my working life; this is thousands of American dollars, to a pension fund. Gainfully invested, this fund would have become immense. But no, the American government spent it as fast as I contributed it. Now, I am looked at as THE problem. Hold on, I didn’t spend it and wasn’t given a choice as to where to invest it.
When a business borrows more than it can pay back, it goes out of business; the investors lose their investment and the managers lose their jobs. But actually, what we have seen in the last two or three years [perhaps since the dawn of civilization] is a rich upper management letting their greed get ridiculously out of hand and forcing governments to pass the costs down to the poor who have no power to refuse. They talk of losses, well the money went somewhere and it certainly was not distributed to the middle and lower economic classes was it? How about Forbes list of billionaires. (2011) There are 1,210 names in this year’s list.
“Mega bank Credit Suisse uses a different definition, however, denoting anyone whose net assets exceed $1 million a millionaire. In those terms, there are 24.2 million millionaires on the planet – about 0.5% of the world’s adult population, or more than the entire population ofAustralia. [22,328,800 – 2010] 41% of them live in the U.S., 10% in Japan and 3% inChina.”
Let’s see now, there are 1,000 millions in an American billion. So that means the number of billionaires [1,200] is equivalent to 1,200,000 more millionaires in the world. So we have then, 25.4 million millionaires in the world.
Here in Hartland, Devon, where I live, the Torridge District Council has decided that instead of supplying a portable tip 4 times a year, we all have to drive 50 miles round trip to the tip or pay out a steep fee to hire somebody else if we don’t run a car. They say they are saving money. Who’s money? Who’s pollution? Who’s petrol costs?
Who’s lost their mind here?
Additional Facts:
“Inequality, in all its repugnance, has become deeper and more entrenched. Today the richest 2% of adult individuals own more than half of global wealth, with the richest 1% accounting for 40% of total global assets. Although the gap in per capita income between the richest and poorest regions of the world fell from 15:1 to 13:1during the golden age of Keynesianism, it increased by 19:1 by 2002. And from 1970 to 2009 the per capita GDP of developing countries (excludingChina) averaged a mere 6.3% of the per capita GDP of the G8 countries (theUnited States,Japan,Germany,France, theUnited Kingdom,Italy,Canada, andRussia).”
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/wal-mart-larger-norway-exposing-myth-capital-competition-1322835390
Received the first copy of my book from the printer
Dec 23rd
Thursday, 22 December,
If you stop and think about it, shouldn’t 22 December be the first day of the Year? Surely there is no better beginning than the first day after the shortest day of the year when daylight begins to expand.
I must admit that it really is an ego trip to see your name on a book, especially when it contains just what you would like to tell people. When it contains words about one of your primary concerns of a lifetime.
What is it all about? Can I answer this in a sentence? Perhaps. However, if what I am on about can be condensed to a sentence, then why a 100 page book? No I can’t say it all in a sentence. Of course, most books are far larger than 100 pages. My idea when it comes to writing is that I want to get in, say what I want to say shortly and sweetly and then get out.
Oh well, I must say more about the book in this first post. We desecrate what we think is something outside of ourselves. We have been conditioned by our religious beliefs to see ourselves as having been somehow magically wafted down here from outside somewhere. Then, when we have suffered a lifetime, we – those who are somehow “saved” – are magically wafted off again out there somewhere. So, is it any wonder that many or maybe even most people don’t love the Earth? I wish to challenge others to think a bit more about some facts in physical reality.
We are earthlings. We are thus both physically and spiritually living IN a planet. Appreciating the miracle of life we may just begin to realize that we are the planet. What we are the planet? Of course, are the leaves the tree? Are the roots the tree? Are the limbs the tree? It is all the tree is it not? In the book Planet as Self, I try to justify what I have just said. I try to fully explain it, give examples. I ask only that the reader just consider that my story is really not any more improbable than the generally accepted story. My story appears improbable mainly because we are not taught that Gaia is a living, loving and lovable entity – being so to speak. In the book, I try to explain that also.
My ideas are not at all unique. I didn’t discover these ideas. I just don’t have a reputation to protect and can thus put the ideas out there. I believe I go further than most are willing – perhaps because they worry that they will be thought too far out. All of us can follow our intuitive knowing and develop a life story, a worldview that works for us. We don’t need anyone’s approval. Why should anyone give their intellectual and intuitive power to someone else?
A cat can look at a Queen!
Another warm year during a La Nina
Dec 2nd
The World Meterological Organisation
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/gcs_2011_en.html
reports their preliminary results for 2011. It should be regarded as shocking that although we were in a very strong La Niña state which usually results in .10 to .15C cooler temperatures than preceeding years, 2011 was warmer than most recent moderate to strong La Niña years. It seems obvious to me that we will now have an even hotter El Niño period.
“The 10-year average for the period 2002-11, at 0.46°C above the long-term average, equals 2001-10 as the warmest 10-year period on record.”
Artic Sea ice
Arctic sea ice extent was again well below normal in 2011. “Sea ice volume was even further below average and was estimated at a new record low of 4200 cubic kilometres, surpassing the record of 4580 cubic kilometres set in 2010.”
Droughts and floods
There was severe drought in the North American southwest, record-breaking inTexas, with the highest ever recorded temperature for any American state. “The January-October period was the wettest on record for several north-eastern states and for the north-east region as a whole, with precipitation totals widely 30-50% above normal.”
Hurricane Irene in August and Tropical Storm Lee in September brought extreme flooding. “Parts of the Mississippi River experienced the worst floods since 1933, and there was also major flooding in theMissouri Riverand several Canadian rivers.”
As if this wasn’t enough, “it was also one of the most active tornado seasons on record, with numerous major outbreaks, particularly in April and May. A tornado caused 157 deaths inJoplin,Missouriin May, the deadliest single tornado in theUnited Statessince 1947. 2011 (to date) has had the third-greatest number of tornadoes since 1950, after 2004 and 2008, and the fourth-greatest number of deaths (537) on record. There were also a number of major snowstorms, including the most significant October snowstorm on record in the north-eastern states.”
These were Global events
“For the second year in succession,Pakistanexperienced severe flooding in 2011. The floods were more localised than in 2010, being largely confined to the southern part of the country. It was the wettest monsoon season on record for theprovinceofSindh(247% above normal).”