Thursday, January 31, 2013

Ancient Earthwork Was Built with Surprising Speed

A group of school students visits the
Washington University excavations
of Mound A at Poverty Point.

CREDIT: WUSTL Photo
Ancient Earthwork Was Built with Surprising Speed
Jan 31, 2013 | Megan Gannon | Live Science

The enormous earthen monument Poverty Point, built on a Mississippi River bayou some 3,200 years ago, is an impressive feat of engineering. Hunter-gatherers moved more than 26.5 million cubic feet (750,000 cubic meters) of dirt to create concentric ridges and several large mounds in what is today northern Louisiana.

Now researchers say one of the most impressive earthworks at the site likely took shape in fewer than 90 days, built by thousands of Native American laborers using a "bucket brigade" system.

Archaeologists excavating parts of Poverty Point, which is now in the running to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, analyzed core samplings and sediments from one of the massive earthen features known as Mound A. Curiously, they found no traces of rainfall or erosion during the construction phase of the mound.

"We're talking about an area of northern Louisiana that now tends to receive a great deal of rainfall," said researcher T.R. Kidder, an anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "Even in a very dry year, it would seem very unlikely that this location could go more than 90 days without experiencing some significant level of rainfall. Yet, the soil in these mounds shows no sign of erosion taking place during the construction period. There is no evidence from the region of an epic drought at this time, either."

Mound A, which stretches across 538,000 square feet (50,000 square m) at its base and rises 72 feet (22 m) above the river, is thought to be the last addition to Poverty Point's altered landscape. If it were built today, it would take a 10-wheel dump truck more than 30,000 loads to move the estimated 8.4 million cubic feet (238,500 cubic m) of dirt that make up the mound, Kidder and his colleagues said. But hunter-gatherers likely did it with bushel baskets.

"The Poverty Point mounds were built by people who had no access to domesticated draft animals, no wheelbarrows, no sophisticated tools for moving earth," Kidder explained in a statement. "It's likely that these mounds were built using a simple 'bucket brigade' system, with thousands of people passing soil along from one to another using some form of crude container, such as a woven basket, a hide sack or a wooden platter."

The researchers believe to complete such a feat in such a short amount of time would have required about 3,000 laborers. This suggests that as many as 9,000 archaic Native Americans might have flocked to Poverty Point for the huge construction project, assuming that many of the workers were accompanied by their wives and children, the team said.

"Given that a band of 25-30 people is considered quite large for most hunter-gatherer communities, it's truly amazing that this ancient society could bring together a group of nearly 10,000 people, find some way to feed them and get this mound built in a matter of months," Kidder said.

"These results contradict the popular notion that pre-agricultural people were socially, politically, and economically simple and unable to organize themselves into large groups that could build elaborate architecture or engage in so-called complex social behavior."

Poverty Point was recently nominated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its cultural significance. Artifacts excavated at the site come from as far away as the Ohio and Tennessee river valleys and the Appalachians of Alabama and Georgia, indicating the Poverty Point civilization was heavily involved in trade, the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development's Division of Archaeology noted in its UNESCO application.

The new research was detailed online last month in the journal Geoarchaeology.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging - Full Movie (Documentary)

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging - Full Movie (Documentary)
Jan 30, 2013 | YouTube | derekw6826



This video provides the facts about psychotropic drugs and the huge profits they create for the pharmaceutical industry. These drugs are not safe and have not been on the market long enough to provide sufficient long term studies regarding their effects. These drugs do cause addiction, however most "doctors" would call this dependence because you do not have to take an increasing dose over time. They are completely fine with you being addicted to the same amount of any given drug on a daily basis. Over half of the people that commit suicide in the United States are prescribed to psychotropic drugs. (Ex: Paxil (Paroxetine), Zoloft (Sertraline), Prozac, Wellbutrin (Bupropion), Effexor, Seroquil, Ultram (Tramadol), etc.)

Fluoridegate - the film that will absolutely obliterate any remaining credibility of chemical fluoride pushers

© Fluoridegate An American Tragedy
Fluoridegate - the film that will absolutely obliterate any remaining credibility of chemical fluoride pushers
Jan 30, 2013 | Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) Have you ever wondered why most major municipal water utilities across America continue to artificially fluoridate public water supplies when inexpensive fluoride toothpastes are readily available for those who choose to use them? Or why governments and medical groups continue to force fluoridated tap water on the public in spite of the fact that it has many known and proven health risks? These and many other pertinent questions find their answers in the hard-hitting documentary Fluoridegate: An American Tragedy, one of the most powerful documentaries ever made about the fluoride fraud.

A sordid narrative that recaps the dirty history of fluoride and how it came to be an officially recommended water additive, Fluoridegate delves deep into the completely unscientific and blatantly corrupt process by which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced fluoride onto the public via the National Program for Water Fluoridation. The film also exposes how Dr. William Marcus, a now-retired senior scientist at the EPA, was targeted and fired for leaking critical information back in the 1990s about the many dangers of fluoride, none of which were being publicly shared in accordance with the EPA's mission and purpose.

"Exposing a child to (fluoride) chemicals in the first six years of life ... will harm that child's learning capability, self control, and have effects on his brain function that are lifelong," explains Dr. Roger D. Masters, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College about the fluoride scam. "To permit that to happen when you know it's happening, and not to interfere by stopping the use of something like silicofluoride, which makes it worse, is immoral."

You can access the film for FREE here: http://www.fluoridegate.com/


Fluoride whistleblowers targeted for bringing truth to light


Concerning Dr. Marcus, his honest work in evaluating the effects of fluoride on human health, and in recommending that the issue of water fluoridation be investigated further, were never taken seriously by his superiors, who ultimately had him fired. And this pattern of corruption is persistent throughout fluoride's ignominious history in the U.S., representing the true impetus behind its continued use and recommendation by many public health officials today.

"[Dr. Marcus] had recommended additional research be conducted within the [EPA] to make sure that the amount of fluoride that was added to drinking water was safe. And he showed me other documents that indicated that the agency was very upset with him for this recommendation, and had initiated a campaign to fire him," explains Stephen M. Kohn of the National Whistleblowers Association (NWA) about the persecution Dr. Marcus received from the EPA for simply trying to do his job.

"This document was properly prepared within the context of his job as a Senior Science Advisor, meaning the highest level scientist within EPA who's non-supervisory. He's [essentially] the guru scientist you go to for the tough issues. And Dr. Marcus reviewed the literature, reviewed the materials before him, and set forth basic scientific facts in this document to his supervisors and said, 'We need to study this matter because if fluoride does pose a health risk, we have to monitor how much we put in the drinking water, or if we should put in any at all.'"

To watch the film for FREE, visit: http://www.fluoridegate.com/

Fluoride as forced medication on a non-consenting public


In other words, key public figures who should have supported Dr. Marcus' efforts to protect public health instead retaliated against him by launching a sinister campaign to get him fired. These crooks not only succeeded in destroying Dr. Marcus' career through lies and deception, but they also paved the way for the fluoride agenda to continue onward without obstruction.

Since that time, many other fluoride whistleblowers have come forward with the truth -- and some progress has been made in removing the toxic chemical from public water supplies. But there is still considerable work to be done by those who know the truth about fluoride, as fluoride advocates continue to spread lies and misinformation in order to perpetuate the scam.

"This is forced medication of the public, because the government says so," explains Peter F. Vallone, an outspoken New York City councilman who is currently working on removing fluoride from New York City's public water supply. "What's next, they don't think we're happy enough so they put some Xanax in our water supply because they're allowed to, because they're the government? It's outrageous."

Fluoridegate is packed with powerful testimonies from other key insiders privy to how fluoride became an integral part of water treatment policy, and how the public was manipulated into accepting this forced medication in the name of preventing tooth decay. And the best part is that the film is completely FREE to watch, as its creator, the distinguished Dr. David Kennedy, actually encourages people to share it with their friends and circles of influence.

"It's not just children who are affected -- everyone is affected," adds Dr. Yolanda Whyte, M.D., a pediatrician who opposes water fluoridation. "Even for unborn children, fluoride can cross the placenta and it can cross the blood-brain barrier. And when it does that, it can lower I.Q., and even affect other neuro-developmental outcomes, so this is very serious."

To access this powerful film for FREE, visit: http://www.fluoridegate.com/

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Is the Sun Dying ? Eric Dollard reveals 3 secrets about the Sun

Is the Sun Dying ? Eric Dollard reveals 3 secrets about the Sun
Jan 26, 2013 | TechZ Z

Government to Dispose of Radioactive Waste By Putting It In Our SILVERWARE

Government to Dispose of Radioactive Waste By Putting It In Our SILVERWARE
Jan 28, 2013 | Washington's Blog

Department of Energy Wants to Let Radioactive Scrap Metal Back into Consumer Products 

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that any amount of radiation – no matter how small – can cause cancer and other serious health effects.

(Current safety standards are based on the ridiculous assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s – and that radioactive particles ingested into the body cause no more damage than radiation hitting the outside of the body. In the real world, however, even low doses of radiation can cause cancer.

Moreover, small particles of radiation – called “internal emitters” – which get inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation. See this and this. And radiation affects small children much more than full-grown adults.)

But the Department of Energy – the agency which is responsible for the design, testing and production of all U.S. nuclear weapons, promotes nuclear energy as one of its core functions, which has been covering up nuclear accidents for decades, and has used mutant lines of human cells to promote voodoo, anti-scientific arguments – proposes letting radiation into our silverware.

Read more..

Monday, January 28, 2013

A $14 Trillion Extortion for a Global Warming Scam

A $14 Trillion Extortion for a Global Warming Scam
Jan 28, 2013 | Veterans Today | Sartre Batr

The latest megalomaniacal threat from the financial globalists wants to saddle the world economy with a cost of trillions of dollars that benefits favorite corporatists. The phony global warming cult has a core purpose. Their objective is to drive down the standard of living for non-elites and prevent the use of fossil fuel energy. The fallacious science used to create a disinformation scare for politically unsophisticated “True Believers” is a direct result of transnational money manipulators. The Davos crowd sponsors the educational and media institutions that trump up junk research and manufacture idealistic solutions.

Make no mistake about it, the Davos Elites Enjoys the Global Depression, and love corporate welfare. They greatly profit from government subsidized “Green” ventures, which drive up energy costs and line the pockets of compadre companies, under the control of the financial barons. As the rest of us struggle to survive, pronouncements declare an every greater burden to bear. Note the ominous future in Davos Report Calls For Additional $14 Trillion To Restrain Global Warming.

“The world must spend an additional $14 trillion on clean energy infrastructure, low-carbon transport and energy efficiency to meet the United Nations’ goal for capping the rise in average global temperatures, according to a World Economic Forum report released on Monday.”

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon states the globalist viewpoint.

“Economic growth and sustainability are inter-dependent, you cannot have one without the other, and greening investment is the pre-requisite to realizing both goals.”

What can be expected from these “greening investment” projects? In order to anticipate future plans, a comprehensive understanding of the past and present shady business practices is crucial.

Examine the industrial wind and solar model in detail. The Washington Post reports in, Sting operations reveal Mafia involvement in renewable energy, is just the tip of the iceberg.

“The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming that huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. China-based Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel maker, last month said it would need to restate more than two years of financial results because of allegedly fake capital put up to finance new plants in Italy. The discoveries here also follow “eco-corruption” cases in Spain, where a number of companies stand accused of illegally tapping state aid.

Because it receives more sun and wind than any other part of Italy, Sicily became one of Europe’s most obvious hotbeds for renewable energies over the past decade. As the Italian government began offering billions of euros annually in subsidies for wind and solar development, the potential profitability of such projects also soared — a fact that did not go unnoticed by Sicily’s infamous crime families.

Roughly a third of the island’s 30 wind farms — along with several solar power plants — have been seized by authorities. Officials have frozen more than $2 billion in assets and arrested a dozen alleged crime bosses, corrupt local councilors and mafia-linked entrepreneurs. Italian prosecutors are now investigating suspected mafia involvement in renewable-energy projects from Sardinia to Apulia.”

The in-depth analysis, Big Wind Energy Subsidies: A Hurricane of Carnage, Cronyism and Corruption is a good primer on the way plungers game the system and pay off politicians at the taxpayers’ expense.

“Lewis “Lew” Hay, III is executive chairman of NextEra Energy, Inc., and it is estimated by Forbes, that CEO “Hay earns nearly $10 million in total compensation from NextEra.” Despite the fact that Hay was actually a “major political contributor to Sen. John McCain in 2008,” he quickly learned which side his power company could generate the title of the “Third Largest Recipient of DOE Risky Loans.” Hay too joined wealthy Democratic donors on Obama’s Jobs Council in 2011, along with the other two I have tackled in this series, “Spreading the Wealth to Obama’s Ultra-Rich Job Council” –– Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt CEO of General Electric has raked in $3 billion and counting, meanwhile John Doerr, along with his “climate buddy” Al Gore’s, VC firm Kleiner Perkins is tied to at least $10 billion of stimulus funds. Both General Electric and Doerr were key contributors to what went into the 2009 Stimulus.

No matter how you slice it, whether we are sending money abroad or fueling corporate welfare here in the United States as well as the egregious practice of crony capitalism, the 2009-Recovery act is a lie, a travesty and a scam, favoring wealthy financial backers of President Obama and the Democratic Party as well as those with influential political connections to both. And with a president that’s dead set on pushing a fierce and radical climate change agenda and funding green energy with taxpayer money, no matter the long list of failures, there is no end in sight to this green corruption scandal.

Besides NextEra Energy taking full advantage of the federal production tax credit (PTC), we now can confirm that the Bank of Obama has rewarded this conglomerate of a power company, and his millionaire job council buddy Lewis Hay, with two large DOE loans ($2.3 billion); one large stimulus smart-grid grant ($200 million); and six 1603 stimulus grants totaling $398.5 million. Thus NextEra’s green tab is on its way to $3 billion of taxpayer money, and that’s not factoring in the PTC.”

With this background and sorry record of corruption to build upon, the World Economic Forum at Davos sets the agenda for the global economy.

Davos 2013: Green Governance To ’Save the World’ is all about enacting their Agenda 21 authoritarianism.

Elizabeth Leafloor from RedIceCreations.com writes:

“The WEF suggests a crisis of leadership and debt are some of the biggest challenges facing the world, and that ’global governance’ is the key to stabilization. Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, said: ‘We need proper global governance that has the necessary tools, power and energy to create a more level playing field at the international level.’

At the end of the day, a push for increased global governance and an environmental agenda is on the table for Davos 2013, under the banner of ’Resilent Dynamism’:

“Mr. Klaus Schwab (WEF Founder and executive chairman) said that the world is seeing “a new reality of sudden shocks and prolonged global economic malaise, particularly in major economies experiencing economic austerity”. He also mentioned, “Future growth in this new context requires dynamism – bold vision and even bolder action.

Either attribute – Resilience or Dynamism – alone is insufficient, as leadership in 2013 will require both”.

The “Greening” leadership translates into forcing upon the world a “Cap and Trade” dictatorship. The Calderon bandits that sip champagne from their Swiss chateau want to extend their aristocratic bondage upon a gullible public. The proper dictum is “Save the World” from the New World Order elites.

Read the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act – S. 2191, for the vision of the controlled carbon-trading scheme.

“The L-W CSA allows covered facilities to satisfy up to 15% of their compliance obligation with specific domestic offsets. An additional 15% can be covered using international emission allowances. Unlimited banking is allowed and owners and operators of covered facilities can borrow up to 15% of their annual compliance obligation from future years. The L-W CSA also creates a Carbon Market Efficiency Board to monitor the carbon trading market and implement specific cost relief measures, including increased borrowing and use of offsets.”

What a boondoggle for the consumer and a windfall for organized crime. If you worry about mob infiltration into this extortion racket, you had better focus on the true mafia; namely, the globalist plutocrats.
If the disclosed goal is to extract $14 Trillion from the distressed world economies, one can only reasonably conclude that the surreptitious objective is to widen the income gap between the ultra-rich and the peons. People pay the costs of taxation exploitation. The privileged elites view the masses as useless eaters, destined to be herded into pens of servitude.

The fake global warming panic is pure political propaganda, used to bolster a guilt complex to justify insider theft. A Cap and Trade ploy is designed to push up the costs of fossil fuel with full knowledge that “Greening Dreams” are no substitutes to real energy.

Research projects into technological alternative sources, based upon efficiency and reliability standards are valid. However, allowing governmental cronyism to impose limits on cheap energy, distorts the marketplace. The Davos crews of corporatist gangsters fly into their feast on private jets. The sycophant media reporting by the business toadies that attend the gala celebration of global autocracy should be indisputable evidence that the globalist own the public relations spin.

Even so, such distorted coverage does not blind those who understand the true nature of the planetary struggle. The monopolist plan for adding unwarranted tolls on your family budget, sold as a noble necessity, will only accelerate the systematic impoverishment of your economic existence.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Nature’s Capital Is The Limiting Resource–Paul Craig Roberts

image
Nature’s Capital Is The Limiting Resource–Paul Craig Roberts
Jan 24, 2013 | Paul Craig Roberts

Life will perish as the environment perishes
21st century ecological economist


Only in science fiction can humans escape the consequences of destroying their own habitat. In Robert A. Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love, the “Great Diaspora of the Human Race” began “more than two millennia ago” and has spread to more than “two thousand colonized planets.” The once “lovely green planet” Earth is a slum planet barely able to support life where only the poorest live, Earth’s natural capital having been consumed over two thousand years ago. Humans have found the ability to rejuvenate themselves and to live almost endless lives, but they are unable to rejuvenate the planets whose natural capital they devour. Humans have not encountered “one race as mean, as nasty, as deadly as our own.” As homo sapiens use up the environments of colonized planets, “human intergalactic colony ships are already headed out into the Endless Deeps,” leaving their ruins behind them.

In his book, Collapse, University of California biogeography professor Jared Diamond describes the nonfictional past and present destruction of Earth’s natural capital. Surprisingly, Diamond begins his story of the self-destruction of Easter Island, Anasazi, and Maya civilizations with present-day Montana and ends with Australia. We think of these two lands as scenic, lightly populated, and largely untouched, but they have been brought to the brink of ruin. Diamond’s point is that modern scientific and technological man is no better at managing nature’s capital than previous societies.

Many associate ecological destruction with population pressure. However, the toxicity associated with mining, fracking, chemical fertilizer and GMO farming, and the adverse watershed effects of logging is turning even low density states such as Montana into an environment with ruined soil and water.

In Montana mining has produced a legacy of toxicity–mercury, arsenic, cyanide, cadmium, lead, and zinc. These toxic substances have found their way into Montana’s fishing rivers and into reservoirs. From reservoirs toxic substances have leaked into groundwater and into the wells that supply homes. In 1981 groundwater serving family wells in areas of Montana was found with arsenic levels 42 times higher than federal standards permit.

Before Montana could find ways to retrieve its water resources from the toxic run-offs from mining, a new threat has appeared: hydraulic fracking. Fracking uses huge amounts of surface water, which it infuses with toxic chemicals to aid the extraction of underground gas and oil deposits that are otherwise unrecoverable. The energy industry and its media shills are touting “energy independence” in order to sway the public away from environmentalists, who are warning of the dangers.

Read complete article..

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Truth About Red Tide's Manmade Causes and Health Effects

The Truth About Red Tide's Manmade Causes and Health Effects
Jan 26, 2013 | Activist Post | Sayer Ji
"According to a Sierra Club report linking fertilizers to red tide blooms, residential fertilizer use in the state of Florida increased by 153,533.95 tons or 45% from 2003 to 2006 alone.[ii]"
If you consult the websites of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission or the Mote Marine Laboratory, both considered authorities on marine environmental issues in the state of Florida, red tide outbreaks associated with Karenia brevis are "natural phenomena," 'beyond our ability to control,' and explicitly not fed by nutrient pollution or causally linked to land-based, human activities. And yet, longtime residents of the Florida Gulf coast (the author included) can tell you from first-hand experience that the blooms have been getting progressively worse, closer to shore, and persisting for a greater length of time, indicating that if it is an entirely natural cycle, it has undergone concerning changes of late.

The reality is that authorities who deny the involvement of land-based activities and algae blooms are conveniently ignoring the science, which is peer reviewed and published, that instructs us on what is feeding red tide near shore.

Florida has only so many industries that sustain its fragile economy, many of which would have to enact substantial and costly reforms in order to improve the environmental situation. The tourism and real estate industries also have a vested interest in minimizing and/or denying the extent of the problem, at least in the short term. The long-term outlook, however, is dismal for these industries, who, failing to act, would see the primary attractor for tourists or potential buyers of real estate -- the Gulf of Mexico -- transformed into a Petri dish. It is for this reason that the truth about red tide must gain a wider audience, and we hope, widespread acceptance.

Read more..

Large aquifer found under Mexican capital

Image credit: EFE
Large aquifer found under Mexican capital
Jan 23, 2013 | Phenomenica

A team of geologists has discovered a large aquifer far beneath Mexico City that could supply potable water to the capital for many decades and serve as a reserve basin in times of drought, authorities said Monday.

“It’s a deep aquifer of significant proportions, but they haven’t been quantified yet and the next step is to carry out the necessary studies to see its real potential for sustainable extraction,” Mexico City’s water systems director, Ramon Aguirre, said in a radio interview.

Although news accounts have said the aquifer could supply the capital’s water needs for a century, Aguirre did not confirm that estimate.

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“That would be great,” Aguirre said, adding that the water basin is an important discovery because it could provide emergency supplies during droughts.

“Even if there’s more than 100 years of extractable water … that doesn’t mean it’s enough to supply the city for more than 100 years. That difference needs to be pointed out,” the official said.

He also noted that development of this new reserve will not affect other Mexico City aquifers or lead to sinkholes because clay layers separate one water basin from another.

Mexico City has been gradually sinking for centuries because water is drawn from underground aquifers faster than it can be replenished by rainfall and other natural sources.

Aguirre said exploration work began 18 months ago and that up to three more years of studies will be needed to determine the aquifer’s yield capacity.

The project has an estimated price tag of as much as 500 million pesos ($39.3 million).

IANS

Las Vegas Accused of Engineering Massive Water Grab: Is This the Future of the West? [With Photo Slideshow]

© Alternet
Las Vegas Accused of Engineering Massive Water Grab: Is This the Future of the West? [With Photo Slideshow]
Jan 25, 2013 | Alternet | Tara Lohan

Climate change is going to make life harder, water scarcer, and decisions about the future tougher.

 Las Vegas exudes an all-you-can-eat mentality. People walk between casinos carrying giant cups of slushy liquor; advertisements blare from speakers on the streets pitching the best shows, best food and best deals; escalators take you across streets and directly into malls. You spend your time buying something, eating something, or watching something. Either way, it’s consume, consume, consume.

But this hunger is hard to satiate and it takes its toll, revealing the city’s central dichotomy — it is a destination of both the high-brow and the down and out, the high rolling and the thrifty, a megaphone of riches and poverty. And nowhere is this more apparent then in one of Las Vegas’ most contentious relationships — with water. If you walk the Strip, you’ll see gondolas floating on canals of aqua pool water, misters spraying overheated tourists in the hot sun, pirate ships docked in rocky coves, and fountains everywhere you look.

The abundant water is a mirage, although it wasn’t always. Las Vegas got its name, meaning “the meadows,” after Spanish explorers found artesian springs in the area. And long before that, in the Pleistocene, much of Nevada was plunged under the depths of massive Lake Lahontan. There are only vestiges of that great lake left, and the early artesian wells found near Las Vegas have long ago quenched the thirsty, but nevertheless, the thirsty keep on coming.

When groundwater reserves ran low in the 1940s, the region turned to Lake Mead. Today, the Las Vegas area gets 90 percent of its water from the no-longer-very-mighty Colorado River as it is corralled behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead. And now that’s threatened. A new federal study released in December found that the over-allocated Colorado River will be further stretched by climate change, drought and climbing populations. By 2060, the river will be short of what its dependents in seven U.S. states need by 3.2 million acre-feet a year. (An acre-foot of water is roughly enough for one suburban family per year.)

So what’s a city -- or really, its water manager -- to do? A smart gambler wouldn’t bet on the Colorado.

Read more..

Even Insects Do Better with Organic Food

Drosophila melangaster, by Max Westby
Licensed by Creative Commons Share and Share Alike
Even Insects Do Better with Organic Food
Jan 18, 2013 | Gaia Health Blog | Heidi Stevenson

We are being deeply and intrinsically damaged by the system that now feeds us. Our lives are shortened and our ability to move into the future, to reproduce ourselves, is impaired. That is the primary message brought home by a study comparing conventional and organic food in fruit flies.


A new study published by PLoS investigated the health effects of organic foods on fruit flies, Drosophila melangaster, and found that even these insects do much better on organically-grown foods than on modern nutrient-destroying petroleum-based agriculture. The two most significant factors indicative of health, longevity and fertility, were shown to be significantly better on a diet of organic food than that produced by Agribusiness.

By the way, the study also clearly documented that soy is unhealthy—extremely so—though organic soy is still superior to conventional.

Read more..

certified organic flower bulbs

Friday, January 25, 2013

Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman?

© N/A
Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman?
Jan 25, 2013 | ICH | Eduardo Galeano

History Never Ends
I Hate to Bother You


I’d like to share with you some questions–some flies that keep buzzing in my head.

Is justice right side up?

Has world justice been frozen in an upside-down position? 

The shoe-thrower of Iraq, the man who hurled his shoes at Bush, was condemned to three years in prison. Doesn’t he deserve, instead, a medal?

Who is the terrorist?  The hurler of shoes or their recipient?  Is not the real terrorist the serial killer who, lying, fabricated the Iraq war, massacred a multitude, and legalized and ordered torture?

Who are the guilty ones–the people of Atenco, in Mexico, the indigenous Mapuches of Chile, the Kekchies of Guatemala, the landless peasants of Brazil—all being accused of the crime of terrorism for defending their right to their own land?  If the earth is sacred, even if the law does not say so, aren’t its defenders sacred too?

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Somalia is the most dangerous place in the world.  But who are the pirates?  The starving people who attack ships or the speculators of Wall Street who spent years attacking the world and who are now rewarded with many millions of dollars for their pains?

Why does the world reward its ransackers?

Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman?  Wal-Mart, the most powerful corporation on earth, bans trade unions. McDonald’s, too.  Why do these corporations violate, with criminal impunity, international law?  Is it because in this contemporary world of ours, work is valued as lower than trash and workers’ rights are valued even less?

Who are the righteous and who are the villains?  If international justice really exists, why are the powerful never judged?  The masterminds of the worst butcheries are never sent to prison.  Is it because it is these butchers themselves who hold the prison keys?

What makes the five nations with veto power in the United Nations inviolable?   Is it of a divine origin, that veto power of theirs?  Can you trust those who profit from war to guard the peace?

Is it fair that world peace is in the hands of the very five nations who are also the world’s main producers of weapons?  Without implying any disrespect to the drug runners, couldn’t we refer to this arrangement as yet another example of organized crime?

Those who clamor, everywhere, for the death penalty are strangely silent about the owners of the world.  Even worse, these clamorers forever complain about knife-wielding murderers, yet say nothing about missile-wielding arch-murderers.

And one asks oneself: Given that these self-righteous world owners are so enamored of killing, why pray don’t they try to aim their murderous proclivities at social injustice?  Is it a just a world when, every minute, three million dollars are wasted on the military, while at the same time fifteen children perish from hunger or curable disease? Against whom is the so-called international community armed to the teeth?  Against poverty or against the poor?

Why don’t the champions of capital punishment direct their ire at the values of the consumer society, values which pose a daily threat to public safety?  Or doesn’t, perhaps, the constant bombardment of advertising constitute an invitation to crime?  Doesn’t that bombardment numb millions and millions of unemployed or poorly paid youth, endlessly teaching them the lie that “to be = to have,” that life derives its meaning from ownership of such things as cars or brand name shoes?  Own, own, they keep saying, implying that he who has nothing is, himself, nothing.

Why isn’t the death penalty applied to death itself?  The world is organized in the service of death.  Isn’t it true that the military industrial complex manufactures death and devours the greater part of our resources as well as a good part of our energies?  Yet the owners of the world only condemn violence when it is exercised by others.  To extraterrestrials, if they existed, such monopoly of violence would appear inexplicable.  It likewise appears insupportable to earth dwellers who, against all the available evidence, hope for survival: we humans are the only animals who specialize in mutual extermination, and who have developed a technology of destruction that is annihilating, coincidentally, our planet and all its inhabitants.

This technology sustains itself on fear.   It is the fear of enemies that justifies the squandering of resources by the military and police.  And speaking about implementing the death penalty, why don’t we pass a death sentence on fear itself?  Would it not behoove us to end this universal dictatorship of the professional scaremongers?  The sowers of panic condemn us to loneliness, keeping solidarity outside our reach:  falsely teaching us that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, that he who can must crush his fellows, that danger is lurking behind every neighbor.  Watch out, they keep saying, be careful, this neighbor will steal from you, that other one will rape you, that baby carriage hides a Muslim bomb, and that woman who is watching you–that innocent-looking neighbor of yours—will surely infect you with swine flu.

In this upside-down world, they are making us afraid of even the most elementary acts of justice and common sense. When President Evo Morales started to re-build Bolivia, so that his country with its indigenous majority will no longer feel shame facing a mirror, his actions provoked panic.  Morales’ challenge was indeed catastrophic from the traditional standpoint of the racist order, whose beneficiaries felt that theirs was the only possible option for Bolivia.  It was Evo, they felt, who ushered in chaos and violence, and this alleged crime justified efforts to blow up national unity and break Bolivia into pieces.  And when President Correa of Ecuador refused to pay the illegitimate debts of his country, the news caused terror in the financial world and Ecuador was threatened with dire punishment, for daring to set such a bad example.  If the military dictatorships and roguish politicians have always been pampered by international banks, have we not already conditioned ourselves to accept it as our inevitable fate that the people must pay for the club that hits them and for the greed the plunders them?

But, have common sense and justice always been divorced from each other?

Were not common sense and justice meant to walk hand in hand, intimately linked?

Aren’t common sense, and also justice, in accord with the feminist slogan which states that if we, men, had to go through pregnancy, abortion would have been free.  Why not legalize the right to have an abortion?  Is it because abortion will then cease being the sole privilege of the women who can afford it and of the physicians who can charge for it?

The same thing is observed with another scandalous case of denial of justice and common sense: why aren’t drugs legal?  Is this not, like abortion, a public health issue?  And the very same country that counts in its population more drug addicts than any other country in the world, what moral authority does it have to condemn its drug suppliers?  And why don’t the mass media, in their dedication to the war against the scourge of drugs, ever divulge that it is Afghanistan which single-handedly satisfies just about all the heroin consumed in the world?  Who rules Afghanistan?  Is it not militarily occupied by a messianic country which conferred upon itself the mission of saving us all?

Why aren’t drugs legalized once and for all?  Is it because they provide the best pretext for military invasions, in addition to providing the juiciest profits to the large banks who, in the darkness of night, serve as money-laundering centers?

Nowadays the world is sad because fewer vehicles are sold.  One of the consequences of the global crisis is a decline of the otherwise prosperous car industry.  Had we some shred of common sense, a mere fragment of a sense of justice, would we not celebrate this good news?

Could anyone deny that a decline in the number of automobiles is good for nature, seeing that she will end up with a bit less poison in her veins?  Could anyone deny the value of this decline in car numbers to pedestrians, seeing that fewer of them will die?

Here’s how Lewis Carroll’s queen explained to Alice how justice is dispensed in a looking-glass world:

“There’s the King’s Messenger.  He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t begin until next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.”
In El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero found that justice, like a snake, only bites barefoot people.  He died of gunshot wounds, for proclaiming that in his country the dispossessed were condemned from the very start, on the day of their birth.

Couldn’t the outcome of the recent elections in El Salvador be viewed, in some ways, as a homage to Archbishop Romero and to the thousands who, like him, died fighting for right-side-up justice in this reign of injustice?

At times the narratives of History end badly, but she, History itself, never ends.  When she says goodbye, she only says: I’ll be back.

Translation from Spanish: Dr. Moti Nissani

Among his other achievements, in 1971, EDUARDO GALEANO wrote The Open Veins of Latin America and, in 1976, escaped death at the hands of CIA-financed Argentine death squads.   

Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Biggest Bubble In History: Fraud

Bursting Gas Bubble 60 Light
Years Across
. Courtesy of ESA
The Biggest Bubble In History: Fraud
Jan 24, 2013 | Washington's Blog

Forget the Housing, Bond or Derivatives Bubbles … Fraud Is the Biggest Bubble of All Time 

The housing bubble which burst in 2007 or so was the biggest bubble of all time.

Many argue that the bubble in U.S. bonds has surpassed the housing bubble as the largest ever.

Of course, given that the derivatives market is more than a thousand trillion dollars, and that is is backed by thousands of times less collateral, a good case can be made for arguing that derivatives are the biggest bubble.

But if you really think about it, the largest bubble in history is fraud, because it includes all of the above and more.

Specifically, the housing crisis was caused by fraud.  The government encouraged fraud, and helped cover it up.

Huge swaths of the derivatives market are manipulated by fraud.  See this, this, this and this. But instead of cracking down on the fraud, the government is backing it.

And the bubble in bonds was caused by super-low interest rates.  See this, this and this.

Low interest rates – in turn – are caused by the government’s zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing.

And how did the government sell these programs? By saying that they were necessary to help the economy and create more jobs.

But in reality, zero interest rate policy is just another stealth bailout for the big banks.  And quantitative easing only helps the super-elite … and hurt the economy and the little guy (Bernanke knew back in 1988 that QE doesn’t work for its advertised purposes.)

In other words, the government’s low interest rate policies were based upon a fundamental misrepresentation as to their purpose and probable effect.

Indeed, experts say that all bubbles are enabled by fraud.

But there are signs that the fraud bubble is collapsing.

Trust is falling to all-time lows as to many government and private institutions.  Why?  Because institutional corruption is so rampant that it is becoming obvious to everyone from Joe Sixpack to amateur and sophisticated professional investors.

While liberals tend to distrust big corporations and conservatives tend to distrust the federal government, we all agree that the malignant, symbiotic relationship between the two is the root problem.  Indeed, when government and corporatism merge, it is hard for anyone to trust what is going on.

When government officials are as corrupt as the criminal enterprises they are suppose to regulate, even the mainstream media can’t ignore it any longer.

And the people lose all trust in the system.

No matter how hard the boys work to cover up their ongoing misdeeds, the fraud bubble may finally be popping …

See examples of a popping fraud bubble here, here and here.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Nuclear Reactors & Weapons

Nuclear Reactors & Weapons
Jan 23, 2013 | chicantv

Whistleblower and nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates, discusses problems with nuclear power that he says began in 1942 and persist today, including secrecy, cost, and waste at the Ending the Nuclear Age Conference. This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).



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Team of Ex-NASA scientists concludes no imminent threat from man-made CO2

© Sott.net
Team of Ex-NASA scientists concludes no imminent threat from man-made CO2
Jan 23, 2013 | Anthony Watts | Watts Up With That?

More counterpunch to Obama's recent speech.

Rocket scientists -vs- James Hansen, "in God we trust, all others bring data"

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - A group of 20 ex-NASA scientists have concluded that the science used to support the man-made climate change hypothesis is not settled and no convincing physical evidence exists to support catastrophic climate change forecasts.

Beginning in February 2012, the group of scientists calling themselves The Right Climate Stuff (TRCS) team received presentations by scientists representing all sides of the climate change debate and embarked on an in-depth review of a number of climate studies.

Employing a disciplined approach of problem identification and root cause analysis honed from decades of dealing with life threatening safety issues in successfully sending astronauts up through Earth's atmosphere and returning them safely home, the TRCS team concluded that no imminent threat exists from man-made CO2.

TRCS team is comprised of renowned space scientists with formal educational and decades career involvement in engineering, physics, chemistry, astrophysics, geophysics, geology and meteorology. Many of these scientists have Ph.Ds. All TRCS team members are unpaid volunteers who began the project after becoming dismayed with NASA's increasing advocacy for alarmist man-made climate change theories.

H. Leighton Steward, chairman of CO2isGreen.org as well as the educational non-profit, PlantsNeedCO2.org, makes the following comments regarding the TRCS posting, which can be found at www.therightclimatestuff.com:

1. The science of what is causing global climate change or warming is clearly not settled and never has been.

2. There is no convincing physical evidence to support the man-made climate change hypothesis. The standard test of a hypothesis is whether it is supported by real observations, which seems to have been ignored by climate alarmists.

3. Claims made by proponents of catastrophic man-made warming are dominantly supported by non-validated computer models and the output of these models should not be relied upon by policy-makers. Some TRCS team members have been making critical decisions using complex computer models for decades.

4. There is no immediate threat of catastrophic global warming even if some warming occurs. The sea level is not going to suddenly begin a steep acceleration of its 18,000-year rate of rise. Global sea level rise is not currently accelerating despite what climate change alarmists claim.

5. The U.S. Government has overreacted to a possible catastrophic warming. The probable negative impacts to the economy, jobs and an increased cost of food, transportation and utilities will be severe and hurt the poor and middle class the most. Real experiments show that Earth's habitats and ecosystems could be damaged if CO2 levels are actually reduced. Environmentalists have been grossly misled to believe CO2 is a pollutant.

6. Empirical evidence shows that Earth is currently "greening" significantly due to additional CO2 and a modest warming.

7. Money saved by abandoning a premature rush to lower CO2 emissions could be better spent by continuing research on alternative energies that are not currently competitive or reliable.

Dr. Harold Doiron, team leader for TRCS and former NASA scientist, along with H. Leighton Steward, will be participating on The Hard Question panel debate on climate change tonight at 5:00pm at The National Press Club, Holeman Lounge (13th floor) , 529 14th Street, Washington, DC.

More information can be found at www.CO2isGreen.org.

Supporting scientific information can be found at www.PlantsNeedCO2.org.

Rupert Sheldrake at EU 2013—"Science Set Free"

Rupert Sheldrake at EU 2013—"Science Set Free"
Jan 22, 2013 | ThunderboltsProject

A talk by Rupert Sheldrake at the conference ELECTRIC UNIVERSE 2013: The Tipping Point, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Many scientists like to think that science already understands the ways of the natural world. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. The impressive achievements of science seemed to support this confident attitude. But recent research has revealed unexpected problems at the heart of physics, cosmology, biology, medicine and psychology.

Dr. Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and 10 books, including Science Set Free (September 2012).



Tuesday, January 22, 2013

1/22/2013 -- ☢ Radiation Test -- Snow -- St.Louis Missouri -- 66.4 CPM ☢

1/22/2013 -- ☢ Radiation Test -- Snow -- St.Louis Missouri -- 66.4 CPM ☢
Jan 22, 2013 | dutchsince



My youtube channel dedicated to covering Radiation Testing: http://www.youtube.com/dutchsinCe

Temp: 16F / -8C -- Winds out of the NW between 5-10 mph , Humidity 77%

Location, South Saint Louis, Missouri

Alert Level from the Radiation Network is approx. 100CPM (counts per minute)

Results in St. Louis today: 66.4 CPM and 60.0 CPM

The counter on the left picked up a bit more than the counter on the right hand side.. I suppose this is due to uneven distribution of radioactive elements in the snow or on the ground beneath the snow.

---------------------------

I have assembled radiation links from around the world to use here, plus two good charts to show exposure level limits:

http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/4252012-radiation-monitoring-links/

special thanks to International Medcom for donating the 2nd Inspector Alert digital Geiger counter: here is the full post with their information ..

http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/122012-many-thanks-to-internationa...

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convert CPM to uS/v or mS/v here:

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/GM/converting_CPM_mRhr.html

quote:

"For those who prefer to use Sieverts, 108 CPM is about 1 uSv/hr for C060, and for Cs137 it is around 120 CPM per 1 uSv/hr. "

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how much radiation is too much? here is a chart to see:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/how-much-radiation-is-too...

Also, Thanks to my viewers back in March/April 2011 -- who donated to get the other set of geiger counters !!!

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USA and global coverage:

http://www.radiationnetwork.com/

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html

German Radiation:
http://www.bfs.de/en/ion/imis/spurenmessungen.html

http://odlinfo.bfs.de/
http://www.dwd.de


http://www.bfs.de/en/elektro

http://www.umweltnet.at/article/articleview/87717/1/7032/

http://www.umweltnet.at/article/articleview/81383/1/29344

http://transport.nilu.no/products/fukushima?searchterm=fuk

http://www.eurad.uni-koeln.de/

http://eurdeppub.jrc.it/eurdeppub/home.aspx#

http://www.csn.es/index.php?option=com_maps&view=mappoints&Itemid=32

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

http://www.epa.gov (click on radiation update)

http://www.irsn.fr/EN/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.nucleartourist.com/

http://www.stuk.fi/index_en.html

http://www.mext.go.jp/english/radioactivity_level/detail/1303962.htm

http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/index.html

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/html/P867_02.html

http://www.mapion.co.jp/topics/genpatu/

http://strahlenbelastung.wo-wann-wer.de/

dutch radiation monitoring:

http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/dossier/meetnetten/radioactiviteit/resultaten/

swiss radiation monitoring:

https://www.naz.ch/en/aktuell/zeitverlaeufe.html

Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare

Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare
Jan 22, 2013 | Democracy Now




Premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the new documentary "Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield" follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films. "We’re looking right now at a reality that President Obama has essentially extended the very policies that many of his supporters once opposed under President Bush," says Scahill, author of the bestseller "Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army" and a forthcoming book named after his film. "One of the things that humbles both of us is that when you arrive in a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family," Rowley says. "We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. ... Finally we’re able to keep those promises." [includes rush transcript]

Geoengineering Schemes: Destroying the Earth to Save It?

The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has
received criticism for backing a group of
climate scientists lobbying for geoengineering
experiments.
(Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)
Geoengineering Schemes: Destroying the Earth to Save It?
Jan 22, 2013 | Common Dreams | Jon Queally

The promotion of ideas like dumping mineral dust across the oceans continue to receive traction, but critics warn of unintended consequences

If world leaders refuse to follow the sane advice of climate scientists and innovators in sustainable energy and agriculture much longer, it should be noted that there's a group of people out in the margins willing to perform planetary experiments to halt the progress of climate change by whatever strange, outlandish or dangerous means necessary. Geoengineers.

 As another new report in The Guardian shows Tuesday, a new study shows that geoengineering advocates would consider sprinkling billions of tons of "mineral dust" across the surface of the world's oceans in order to offset the carbon pollution of today's modern industrial society.

Ignoring the law of unintended consequences and despite that the effort would "require a mining effort on the same scale as the world's coal industry and would alter the biology of the oceans," supporters of continued research into the idea say that such plans should be retained in case other efforts to forestall greenhouse gas emissions fail.

But, as author and activist Naomi Klein worried last year after reports of a "rogue geoengineer" operating in British Columbia surfaced, was that "serious scientists" backed by "deep pockets" appeared ready and willing to "actively tamper with the complex and unpredictable natural systems that sustain life on earth."

Klein wondered if the repeated appearance of scientific voices calling for complext schemes such as these shouldn't urge the world's citizens and policy makers to stop and have a conversation about their deep implications. She wrote:
The appeal is easy to understand. Geoengineering offers the tantalizing promise of a climate change fix that would allow us to continue our resource-exhausting way of life, indefinitely. And then there is the fear. Every week seems to bring more terrifying climate news, from reports of ice sheets melting ahead of schedule to oceans acidifying far faster than expected. At the same time, climate change has fallen so far off the political agenda that it wasn’t mentioned once during any of the three debates between the presidential candidates. Is it any wonder that many are pinning their hopes on a break-the-glass-in-case-of-emergency option that scientists have been cooking up in their labs?

But [...] it is a good time to pause and ask, collectively, whether we want to go down the geoengineering road. Because the truth is that geoengineering is itself a rogue proposition. By definition, technologies that tamper with ocean and atmospheric chemistry affect everyone. Yet it is impossible to get anything like unanimous consent for these interventions. Nor could any such consent possibly be informed since we don’t — and can’t — know the full risks involved until these planet-altering technologies are actually deployed.
As Common Dreams reported last year, the prowess of such efforts is often bolstered by some of the ideas' financial backers, such as Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates.

And additionally, as technology expert and critic of geoengineering schemes Diana Bronson has pointed out, "Some of geoengineering's most ardent advocates are best known for their arguments against climate action, including outfits like the American Enterprise Institute and individuals like Bjørn Lomborg of Denmark."

"Somehow they're now urgently calling for a massive techno-fix for a problem they have spent their careers saying is exaggerated."

The Guardian reports Tuesday:
Geoengineering – global-scale intervention to combat climate change – is a controversial idea because of the risk of unintended consequences on a planet-wide scale. But scientists argue it needs to be researched in case international efforts to cut the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities fail to prevent dramatic changes in climate and emergency measures are needed.

Dissolving mineral dust in the ocean makes sea water more alkaline and able to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The mineral olivine is attractive because it would dissolve within a year or two Рdelivering near-instant carbon reductions Рand is present below the Earth's surface around the world. K̦hler's research, published in Environmental Research Letters, found that sprinkling 3bn tonnes of olivine would remove almost 10% of man-made carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

More than 10% would be absorbed by the oceans, but the energy needed to grind and ship the mineral dust would result in carbon emissions. Up to one-third of that would be absorbed in the seas if coal-fired power stations were the source of the electricity. The mineral needs to be ground down to 1 micron size to prevent it sinking to the ocean floor before it dissolves.

Monday, January 21, 2013

It's snowing, and it really feels like the start of a mini ice age

It's snowing, and it really feels like the start of a mini ice age
Jan 21, 2013 | Boris Johnson | TheTelegraph.co.uk

"The Sun is god!" cried JMW Turner as he died, and plenty of other people have thought there was much in his analysis. The Aztecs agreed, and so did the pharaohs of Egypt. We are an arrogant lot these days, and we tend to underestimate the importance of our governor and creator. We forget that we were once just a clod of cooled-down solar dust; we forget that without the Sun there would have been no photosynthesis, no hydrocarbons - and that it was the great celestial orb that effectively called life into being on Earth. In so far as we are able to heat our homes or turn on our computers or drive to work it is thanks to the unlocking of energy from the Sun.

As a species, we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands - when the reality is that everything, or almost everything, depends on the behaviour and caprice of the gigantic thermonuclear fireball around which we revolve.

I say all this because I am sitting here staring through the window at the flowerpot and the bashed-up barbecue, and I am starting to think this series of winters is not a coincidence. The snow on the flowerpot, since I have been staring, has got about an inch thicker. The barbecue is all but invisible. By my calculations, this is now the fifth year in a row that we have had an unusual amount of snow; and by unusual I mean snow of a kind that I don't remember from my childhood: snow that comes one day, and then sticks around for a couple of days, followed by more.

I remember snow that used to come and settle for just long enough for a single decent snowball fight before turning to slush; I don't remember winters like this. Two days ago I was cycling through Trafalgar Square and saw icicles on the traffic lights; and though I am sure plenty of readers will say I am just unobservant, I don't think I have seen that before. I am all for theories about climate change, and would not for a moment dispute the wisdom or good intentions of the vast majority of scientists.

But I am also an empiricist; and I observe that something appears to be up with our winter weather, and to call it "warming" is obviously to strain the language. I see from the BBC website that there are scientists who say that "global warming" is indeed the cause of the cold and snowy winters we seem to be having. A team of Americans and Chinese experts have postulated that the melting of the Arctic ice means that the whole North Atlantic is being chilled as the floes start to break off - like a Martini refrigerated by ice cubes.

I do not have the expertise to comment on the Martini theory; I merely observe that there are at least some other reputable scientists who say that it is complete tosh, or at least that there is no evidence to support it. We are expecting the snow and cold to go on for several days, and though London transport has coped very well so far, with few delays or cancellations, I can't help brooding on my own amateur meteorological observations. I wish I knew more about what is going on, and why. It is time to consult once again the learned astrophysicist, Piers Corbyn.

Now Piers has a very good record of forecasting the weather. He has been bang on about these cold winters. Like JMW Turner and the Aztecs he thinks we should be paying more attention to the Sun. According to Piers, global temperature depends not on concentrations of CO2 but on the mood of our celestial orb. Sometime too bright the eye of heaven shines, said Shakespeare, and often is his gold complexion dimmed. That is more or less right. There are times in astronomical history when the Sun has been churning out more stuff - protons and electrons and what have you - than at other times. When the Sun has plenty of sunspots, he bathes the Earth in abundant rays.

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When the solar acne diminishes, it seems that the Earth gets colder. No one contests that when the planet palpably cooled from 1645 to 1715 - the Maunder minimum, which saw the freezing of the Thames - there was a diminution of solar activity. The same point is made about the so-called Dalton minimum, from 1790 to 1830. And it is the view of Piers Corbyn that we are now seeing exactly the same phenomenon today.

Lower solar activity means - broadly speaking - that there is less agitation of the warm currents of air from the tropical to the temperate zones, so that a place like Britain can expect to be colder and damper in summer, and colder and snowier in winter. "There is every indication that we are at the beginning of a mini ice age," he says. "The general decline in solar activity is lower than Nasa's lowest prediction of five years ago. That could be very bad news for our climate. We are in for a prolonged cold period. Indeed, we could have 30 years of general cooling."

Now I am not for a second saying that I am convinced Piers is right; and to all those scientists and environmentalists who will go wild with indignation on the publication of this article, I say, relax. I certainly support reducing CO2 by retrofitting homes and offices - not least since that reduces fuel bills. I want cleaner vehicles.

I am speaking only as a layman who observes that there is plenty of snow in our winters these days, and who wonders whether it might be time for government to start taking seriously the possibility - however remote - that Corbyn is right. If he is, that will have big implications for agriculture, tourism, transport, aviation policy and the economy as a whole. Of course it still seems a bit nuts to talk of the encroachment of a mini ice age.

But it doesn't seem as nuts as it did five years ago. I look at the snowy waste outside, and I have an open mind.