Scientists shocked to discover the true toxicity of fracking fluids; it's worse than we've been told

© Natural News

Natural News | Aug 23, 2014 | Julie Wilson

Earlier this month, scientists presented groundbreaking research at the American Chemical Society's (ACS) 248th National Meeting and Exposition regarding the potential dangers of hydraulic fracking.

The meeting featured nearly 12,000 presentations on a range of scientific topics. A team of researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of the Pacific disclosed information they obtained from reviewing the contents used in the hydraulic fracking process.

Led by William Stringfellow, Ph.D., the study's results raised concerns about several ingredients used in the controversial drilling process. Stringfellow conducted the review in hopes of solving public debate over the controversial drilling.

It was confessed that "very little is known" about the potential health and environmental effects associated with the nearly 200 chemicals used to crack geological formations in the ground, releasing profitable natural oil and gas.

Almost nothing is known about one-third of the compounds. Eight of them are toxic to mammals, according to Stringfellow.

Fracking involves high-pressure injection of millions of gallons of water mixed with chemical additives into rock formations deep underground, making it possible to extract previously unreachable oil and gas reserves.

Industry spokespeople have insisted that fracking is completely safe despite a lack of research dedicated to the long-term effects on people and the planet.

"The industrial side was saying, 'We're just using food additives, basically making ice cream here,'" said Stringfellow.

"On the other side, there's talk about the injection of thousands of toxic chemicals. As scientists, we looked at the debate and asked, 'What's the real story?'"

The research team compiled a list of ingredients used for fracking, which included "gelling agents to thicken the fluids, biocides to keep microbes from growing, sand to prop open tiny cracks in the rocks and compounds to prevent pipe corrosion," as reported in a press release by ASC.org.

Their report confirmed that fracking fluids "do contain many nontoxic and food-grade materials," but just because they're edible or biodegradable doesn't mean they can easily be disposed of.

"You can't take a truckload of ice cream and dump it down the storm drain," said Stringfellow. "Even ice cream manufacturers have to treat dairy wastes, which are natural and biodegradable. They must break them down rather than releasing them directly into the environment."

The team of scientists "identified eight substances, including biocides, that raised red flags," all of which are particularly toxic to mammals.

"There are a number of chemicals, like corrosion inhibitors and biocides in particular, that are being used in reasonably high concentrations that potentially could have adverse effects," Stringfellow said. "Biocides, for example, are designed to kill bacteria -- it's not a benign material."

Additionally, the research found little information about the toxicity and physical and chemical properties for at least one-third of the fracking fluids. "It should be a priority to try to close that data gap," Stringfellow said.

Fears about possible water contamination are prevalent throughout the country, despite the industry's claims that fracking drills much deeper than groundwater set aside for drinking. However, a recent Stanford study discovered that energy companies are fracking at far shallower depths than widely believed, and sometimes through underground sources of drinking water.

Fracking and health risks

In January, a new study suggested that fracking sites increase the risk of birth defects by 30 percent, affecting more then 15 million people residing within a mile of a well.

Fracking is so profitable that it's unlikely we'll see adjustments any time soon. The industry is expected to continue to defend the lucrative process similar to the way biotech companies defend GMOs. It wasn't until public awareness reached an international scale that some companies began taking steps toward producing cleaner foods.

Additional sources:

http://thinkprogress.org

http://www.acs.org

http://oilprice.com

http://thinkprogress.org

http://america.aljazeera.com

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov [PDF]

Astronauts find living organisms clinging to the International Space Station, and aren’t sure how they got there

© Extreme Tech

Extreme Tech | Aug 22, 2014 | James Plafke

During a spacewalk intended to clean the International Space Station, Russian astronauts took samples from the exterior of the station for a routine analysis. The results of the experiment were quite surprising. 

Astronauts expected to find nothing more than contaminants created by the engines of incoming and outgoing spacecraft, but instead found that living organisms were clinging to outside of the ISS. The astronauts identified the organisms as sea plankton that likely originated from Earth, but the team couldn’t find a concrete explanation as to how these organisms made it all the way up to the space station — or how they managed to survive.

A colorized scanning electron micrograph
of a tardigrade. Yes, they look amazing.

Though NASA has so far been unable to confirm whether or not the Russians truly did discover sea plankton clinging to the exterior of the station, there is some precedent for certain creatures being able to survive the vacuum of space. Tardigrades, water-dwelling microscopic invertebrates, are known to be able to survive a host of harsh environments. They can survive extreme temperatures (slightly above absolute zero to far above boiling), amounts of radiation hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, pressure around six times more than found in the deepest parts of the ocean, and the vacuum of space. The organisms found on the ISS aren’t tardigrades, but the little invertebrates show that some living organisms from Earth can indeed survive the harshness of space.

The bigger mystery is not that the plankton survived, but how they made it all the way up there, 205 miles above Earth. The scientists have already dismissed the possibility that the plankton were simply carried there on a spacecraft from Earth, as the plankton aren’t from the region where any ISS module or craft would’ve taken off. The working theory is that atmospheric currents could be scooping up the organisms then carrying them all the way to the space station, though that would mean the currents could travel an astonishing 205 miles (330 km) above the planet.

The International Space Station

Living organisms have been found far above Earth before, such as microbes and bacterial life discovered 10 and 24.8 miles, respectively, into the atmosphere — though those numbers are a far cry from 205 miles.

For now, we’ll have to wait to see if the Russian team confirms the findings with NASA. Then, maybe the two factions can work together in order to figure out how plankton made it all the way up into space, and perhaps even discover exactly why the plankton can survive. The organisms aren’t alien life, but they did pose another fascinating mystery.

H/T Blacklisted news

Why underwater homeowners won't be saved by Bank of America's $17bn deal

Under the latest settlement, Bank of America must
allocate a minimum of $2.15 billion to principal reduction.

Press TV | Aug 22, 2014

Since law enforcement officials first began pursuing banks for misdeeds related to the housing collapse, the stated goal has been the same. The objective, the Justice Department has said, is to hold banks accountable and to aid people most harmed by the financial crash that destroyed home prices and led to an epic wave of foreclosures.

Yet after more than two years of multi-billion dollar deals involving Wall Street's elite, including Thursday's $17 billion settlement with Bank of America, most distressed homeowners have no chance of obtaining the form of help considered the gold standard of borrower aid -- principal reduction, or the forgiveness of mortgage debt.

"Very rarely does principal reduction happen," said Ken Falvey, a housing counselor in Ft. Myers, Florida.
"We're not sure where all that money goes."

Though rising home prices have restored the lost value of millions of homes, about 9 million homeowners in the second quarter of 2014 were underwater, meaning the borrower owes more on the mortgage than the home is worth. For these homeowners, shedding excess mortgage debt can mean the difference between abandoning a house and investing in it again. Principal reduction also frees money for shopping and other purchases that can stimulate the broader economy, and relieves a huge psychological burden.

Under the latest settlement, Bank of America must allocate a minimum of $2.15 billion to principal reduction. Loan modifications will result in "numerous homeowners no longer being underwater on their mortgages and finally having substantial equity in their homes," the Justice Department said in a press release.

But there's little reason to expect that more than a few underwater Bank of America homeowners will receive a loan reduction. That's because the nation's top housing regulator continues to refuse to allow write-downs on loans controlled by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the vast majority of outstanding mortgage debt. In the past, Bank of America has chosen to offer big write-offs to relatively few homeowners with expensive mortgages, rather than give principal reductions to a larger number of homeowners with smaller loans.

Two leaders of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, have refused to allow write-downs. Former FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco said reducing loan principal would encourage other borrowers to intentionally default, so they, too, could take advantage of a reduction. DeMarco stuck to this "moral hazard" argument, even though independent studies found that writing off debt would save taxpayer money, because fewer people would default.

Because of this stance, DeMarco was vilified by housing activists -- and scolded by the Obama administration, which was pushing for principal reduction in a package of assistance included with the landmark $25 billion mortgage settlement reached with lenders in 2012.

At one point, housing groups picketed DeMarco's home in suburban Maryland.

Mel Watt, a former Democratic congressman from North Carolina, replaced DeMarco in January. Housing activists expected him to quickly reverse course on principal reduction.

That didn't happen. Watt has made other moves to aid low-income borrowers, but he hasn't changed on forgiving mortgage debt. Because Fannie and Freddie control well over half of all outstanding loans, this stance means that the majority of homeowners simply don't qualify for principal reduction -- no matter how many dollars are pledged as part of multi-billion dollar settlements like the one inked by Bank of America.

Housing groups have not complained about Watt as loudly as they did about DeMarco, though they still argue for a change.

"We are pushing for principal reduction because housing is still a drag on the economy and communities are still in distress," said Enrique Lopezlira, senior policy advisor at the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights group that advocates for low-income borrowers.

Loperzlira said that while the housing market has improved, the recovery hasn't been evenly distributed. Nationally, about 17 percent of mortgages are underwater. But that figure jumps to 30 percent for lower-cost homes.

The FHFA's restrictions have kept principal reduction from reaching most of these people. So, too, has Bank of America policy.

As part of the 2012 national settlement, Bank of America forgave $4.6 billion in outstanding homeowner debt, for 28,630 people. That averages $160,905 per borrower. By way of comparison, the median home price in the U.S. is about $188,000.

In Ft. Myers, where housing counselor Falvey lives, the median home price is about $160,000 -- the average amount forgiven by Bank of America under the last deal. To Falvey, the conclusion is obvious: "They aren't helping us."

Rick Simon, a Bank of America spokesman, said using national housing prices to evaluate the bank's efforts "provides a faulty analysis."

Most relief offered under the national mortgage settlement was provided in states with much higher average home prices, Simon said. For example, about 30 percent of the principal reduction was in California, where average home values are among the highest in the country, he said. "Obviously, that pushed up the national average."

The bank has agreed to offer other forms of assistance, such as restructuring mortgages, and aid for buyers, as part of the new settlement.

Simon said most of the assistance in the new settlement likely will target homeowners who didn't qualify under the national mortgage settlement. Simon said the bank will begin reaching out to customers who may qualify at the end of the year.

AGB/AGB

Large Holes Forming Near The New Madrid Fault And A Giant Crack In The Earth In North Mexico

End of the American Dream | Aug 21, 2014 | Michael Snyder

Did you know that the number of big earthquakes during the first three months of 2014 was more than double the yearly average of what we have experienced since 1979? And did you know that the number of earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. has quintupled in recent years?  If you do not believe this, just keep reading.  We live at a time when earthquakes are increasing in frequency and severity.  And we are starting to see some very unusual activity in places that have been quiet for a very long time.  For example, large holes are starting to mysteriously appear in Indiana near the New Madrid fault zone.  And a giant crack in the ground nearly a kilometer long has appeared in northern Mexico.  Could these be indications that even greater earthquake activity is on the way?

Most Americans don’t realize that the greatest earthquakes in U.S. history happened along the New Madrid fault zone.  Back during the early part of the 19th century, a series of immensely powerful earthquakes rattled the entire eastern half of the nation.  Documents that we have from that era say that those earthquakes were so powerful that they were felt more than 1,000 miles away.  And there are many that believe that if we had a similar earthquake today that the damage caused would almost be incalculable.

That is why what has been happening in Indiana is so alarming.  According to reports, half a dozen mystery holes have been discovered on Mount Baldy…

More than a year after a 6-year-old boy was almost buried alive in a popular sand dune, more holes are appearing and scientists still aren’t sure why. The 126 foot sand dune, called Mount Baldy, in Indiana, remains closed as new potentially dangerous holes are appearing. Three geologists arrived last week with high tech equipment in the hope of using radio waves and core samples to see if they can determine what’s causing the holes. Their plan? To eventually build a three dimensional map of the dune to try and see it’s internal structure.

You can view a video news report about these mysterious holes right here…


So what should we think about all of this?

Well it could be something or it could be nothing.

But any weird activity near the New Madrid fault always gets my attention.  This fault is so dangerous that it could literally change the shape of the country overnight.  For much more on how dangerous the New Madrid fault is, just check out this video.

Most Americans never even give the New Madrid fault a second thought, but the federal government considered it important enough to hold a major five day simulation known as “National Level Exercise 11″ just a few years ago…

In May, the federal government simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly, and forced more than 7 million people out of their homes. At the time, National Level Exercise 11 went largely unnoticed; the scenario seemed too far-fetched — states like Illinois and Missouri are in the middle of a tectonic plate, not at the edge of one. A major quake happens there once every several generations.

…

National Level Exercise 11, or NLE 11, was, in essence, a replay of a disaster that happened 200 years earlier. On Dec. 16, 1811, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit the New Madrid fault line, which lies on the border region of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. It’s by far the largest earthquake ever to strike the United States east of the Rockies. Up to 129,000 square kilometers [50,000 square miles] were hit with “raised or sunken lands, fissures, sinks, sand blows, and large landslides,” according to the U.S. Geological Service. “Huge waves on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed others high onto the shore. High banks caved and collapsed into the river; sand bars and points of islands gave way; whole islands disappeared.” People as far away as New York City were awakened by the shaking.

More quakes, of a similar size, followed. But the loss of life was minimal: Not too many people lived in the area at the time. Today, there are more than 15 million people living in the quake zone. If a similar quake hit, “7.2 million people could be displaced, with 2 million seeking temporary shelter” in the first three days, FEMA Associate Adminsitrator William Carwile told a Congressional panel in 2010. “Direct economic losses for the eight states could total nearly $300 billion, while indirect losses at least twice that amount.”

And officials at the U.S. Geological Survey recently released a report that stated that the New Madrid fault zone has the “potential for larger and more powerful quakes than previously thought“.

That certainly sounds quite chilling.

In addition, retail powerhouse Wal-Mart is so concerned about the potential for a major quake that it “participated in an exercise to prepare for an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line” earlier this year…

Walmart Stores Inc., with its huge network of stores and facilities, has also taken note. “We are seeing increased earthquake activity in the central U.S. That is an area we are focusing on even more,” said Mark Cooper, senior director of emergency management at Walmart, in an interview. He explained that Walmart takes an “all-hazard” approach to emergency preparedness, but focuses on specific risks in areas of the country where those risks are particularly relevant, such as hurricanes in Louisiana. “A few weeks ago, we participated in an exercise to prepare for an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line,” he said.

You can read much more about all of this in my previous article entitled “Why Is Wal-Mart Preparing For A Major Earthquake On The New Madrid Fault?”

But the New Madrid fault zone is certainly not the only area to be keeping an eye on.

Down in north Mexico, a giant crack in the ground about a kilometer long has recently appeared.  It is estimated to be approximately 16 feet across and 8 feet deep.  You can view some stunning aerial footage of this giant crack in the Earth right here…


Some believe that an earthquake along the San Andreas Fault may be to blame for this giant fissure.

Others believe that it is being caused by an underground stream.

While footage of giant cracks in the Earth such as you have just seen can be quite spectacular, what is far more alarming to me personally are the cold, hard earthquake numbers.

For example, as I mentioned above, the number of big earthquakes that we have seen this year has been far higher than usual.  The following is from a recent CBS News report…

If you think there have been more earthquakes than usual this year, you’re right. A new study finds there were more than twice as many big earthquakes in the first quarter of 2014 as compared with the average since 1979.

And this is not something that has just started happening.  As that same article explained, this is all part of a much longer trend…

The average rate of big earthquakes — those larger than magnitude 7 — has been 10 per year since 1979, the study reports. That rate rose to 12.5 per year starting in 1992, and then jumped to 16.7 per year starting in 2010 — a 65 percent increase compared to the rate since 1979. This increase accelerated in the first three months of 2014 to more than double the average since 1979, the researchers report.

In particular, things really seem to be heating up in the middle portion of the United States.  As I mentioned at the start of this article, the frequency of earthquakes in the central and eastern parts of the nation has quintupled over the past 30 years…

According to the USGS, the frequency of earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. has quintupled, to an average of 100 a year during the 2011-2013 period, up from only 20 per year during the 30-year period to 2000.

Most of these quakes were minor, but research published by the USGS earlier this year demonstrated that a relatively minor magnitude 5.0 quake caused by wastewater injection after conventional oil drilling triggered a much bigger, 5.7 magnitude quake in Prague, Okla.

“We know the hazard has increased for small and moderate size earthquakes. We don’t know as well how much the hazard has increased for large earthquakes. Our suspicion is it has but we are working on understanding this,” said William Ellsworth, a scientist with the USGS.

What we are watching happen is truly unprecedented.  Oklahoma alone has experienced more than 2,300 earthquakes so far this year.  Scientists don’t really know what to make of this alarming increase in seismic activity.

Could all of this be leading up to something really big?

And what will things look like if we do get hit by a magnitude 8 or a magnitude 9 earthquake in a very heavily populated area?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

World Bank and UN carbon offset scheme 'complicit' in genocidal land grabs

Torched Senger home. Photo: Justin Kenrick.

The Ecologist | Aug 20, 2014 | Nafeez Ahmed

Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 500 million acres of land in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean was acquired or negotiated under deals brokered on behalf of foreign governments or transnational corporations.

Many such deals are geared toward growing crops or biofuels for export to richer, developed countries - with the consequence that small-holder farmers are displaced from their land and lose their livelihood while local communities go hungry.

The concentration of ownership of the world's farmland in the hands of powerful investors and corporations is rapidly accelerating, driven by resource scarcity and, thus, rising prices. According to a new report by the US land rights organisation Grain:

"The powerful demands of food and energy industries are shifting farmland and water away from direct local food production to the production of commodities for industrial processing."

And now, the carbon market is joining the race

Less known factors, however, include 'conservation' and 'carbon offsetting'.

In west Kenya, as the UK NGO Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) reported, over a thousand homes had been torched by the government's Kenya Forest Service (KFS) to forcibly evict the 15,000 strong Sengwer indigenous people from their ancestral homes in the Embobut forest and the Cherangany Hills.

Since 2007, successive Kenyan governments have threatened Sengwer communities in the Embobut forest with eviction. A deadline for residents to leave the forest expired in early January, prompting the most recent spate of violence.

The pretext for the eviction is that the indigenous Sengwer - labelled wrongly as "squatters" - are responsible for the accelerating degradation of the forest.

Elsewhere in Kenya's Mount Elgon forest, however, the KFS' track record reveals a more complicated story. In 2010, the indigenous Ogiek were issued a deadline to relocate in the name of forest conservation and reforestation.

In February this year, Survival International reported that, like the Sengwer, the Ogiek continued to be violently evicted from their homes in violation of court orders, with reports of government officials and their supporters seizing their land.

Easy on the powerful, hard on the weak

While deforestation is undoubtedly linked to the activities of poor communities, the Kenyan government's approach illustrates favouritism toward parochial vested interests. In addition to the indigenous communities, the forests are also inhabited by many thousands of tea-planters, loggers, and squatters.

According to an internal report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2000, reviewing the Kenyan government's internationally-funded conservation programme, "the forests of Mt Elgon are not being sustainably managed."

The report highlighted "unsustainable harvesting of both indigenous and plantation forest on Mt Elgon", routine flouting of "regulations and procedures for sound management", "the rate of forest plantation harvesting" far exceeding "the rate of replanting", lack of supervision of controls on "forest harvesting operations authorised by the Forest Department", and consequently "extensive loss of forest resources."

The IUCN review also alluded to the role of the Kenyan government's relationship with RaiPly Ltd, a Kenyan company involved in manufacture of wood products:

"It is not known why or how RaiPly presumably received a license to harvest indigenous species, thus circumventing the ban on harvesting in indigenous forests."

The answer - persecute indigenous communities

Official Kenyan parliamentary records from May 1999 show that Kenyan political representatives have been concerned about these issues for some time.

One question put to Kenya's then assistant minister for natural resources, Peter Lengees, by a Kenyan MP pointed out that "trees are being cut in Mt. Elgon forest" threatening the region's rivers "from both sides". Local government officials, the MP accused, "have shared up the area between these two rivers" which are now "drying up".

Lengees denied any knowledge of this, prompting a further question from late politician George Kapten, who said that "lorries from Raiply" had been ferrying high-value teak timber from Mount Elgon forest.

"And I wish to add that the highest authority in this country has shares in RaiPly", he added. Lengees repeated his denial but admitted that RaiPly was "licensed to cut trees from some forests in Kenya."

Currently, RaiPly is among several major companies that are exempt from a partial government ban on logging. Effectively, the government is permitting powerful logging companies to accelerate deforestation to buoy the Kenyan economy while systematically persecuting indigenous communities whose environmental impact is comparatively negligible.

Behind it all, the World Bank

The devastating plight of Kenya's indigenous peoples is symptomatic of the flawed approach to conservation on the part of international agencies.

The World Bank's Natural Resource Management Programme (NRMP) with the Kenyan government, launched in 2007, has involved funding for projects in the Cherangany Hills under the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme, including "financing REDD+ readiness activities" some of which began in May 2013.

Under the REDD scheme companies in the developed world purchase carbon credits to invest in reducing emissions from forested lands. Those credits turn up on the companies' balance sheets as carbon reductions.

In practice, however, REDD schemes largely allow those companies to accelerate pollution while purchasing land and resources in the developing world at bargain prices.

A FPP background brief on the role of the World Bank claims that the implementation of NRMP - overseen by the very same KFS forces conducting a scorched earth campaign in Cherangany - violates the Bank's own operational safeguard policies

Burning homes and food stores

A formal Sengwer complaint to the Bank lodged in January last year alleged that human rights abuses by Kenyan forces were "a direct result" of the World Bank-funded programme. According to the FPP brief,
"One example of the harm caused by the project was that it changed the border of the Cherangany forest reserves such that Sengwer families, without any consultation or notice, found themselves on the inside of the forest reserve and therefore automatically subject to eviction by the KFS, evictions effectively funded by the World Bank. These evictions were customarily executed by burning homes and food stores in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013."

In a statement in February, the World Bank disavowed any link between its programme and the forced evictions, but also offered to the Kenyan government:

" ... to share best practices in resettlement in line with its safeguard policies. These seek to improve or restore the living standards of people affected by involuntary resettlement."

A letter to the Bank in March by No REDD in Africa network (Nran) - a group of African civil society organisations - signed by over 60 international NGOs accused the Bank with the above words of

" ... both admitting its complicity in the forced relocation of the Sengwer People as well as offering to collude with the Kenyan government to cover-up cultural genocide."

As "carbon credit financier and broker", the World Bank is "aiding and abetting the forced relocation of an entire Indigenous People through its Natural Resource Management Plan (NRMP) which includes REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), in the Cherangany Hills", said the letter.

World Bank paves the way for massive 'carbon  grabs'

The Sengwer's complaint is currently under investigation by the World Bank Inspection Panel. Although the report is now complete, a Bank spokesperson, Phil Hay, said that it would not be reviewed by the Board until August or September.

"The World Bank is not associated with the evictions and has not supported or financed resettlement in forest areas under the now closed Natural Resource Management Project (NMRP)", said Hay.

"Nonetheless we are not bystanders either. We have been concerned about how the evictions have been handled and have been in frequent touch with the Kenyan government."

Notably, the Bank's professed concern here is with "how the evictions have been handled", not with evictions being carried out in the first place.

A damning new report from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) based in Washington DC thus warns that the UN and World Bank approach to REDD is paving the way for large-scale "carbon grabs" by foreign governments and investors, putting at risk the land rights, livelihoods and lives of indigenous communities.

The report surveyed 23 low and middle income countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, covering 66% of the developing world's forests, concluding that REDD had not established laws or mechanisms by which indigenous peoples and local communities could profit from the carbon in the forests they inhabited.

"Their rights to their forests may be few and far between, but their rights to the carbon in the forests are non-existent", said Arvind Khare, RRI executive director.

A genocide in the making

At the United Nations climate negotiations in Warsaw in November 2013, delegates reached an agreement that would allow REDD to move forward which, however, excluded questions around who should control and benefit from the new carbon value found in standing forests.

Instead, the World Bank Carbon Fund's approach to defining carbon rights has been widely criticised by civil society groups for creating conflict between new property rights to carbon, and existing statutory and customarily held rights of local communities.

The lack of clear safeguards and measures opens up an unprecedented opportunity for corporate and government land grabbing.

Tony La Viña, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government and chair of the intergovernmental REDD negotiations at the climate conferences in Copenhagen and Durban, said:

"The carbon markets, when up and running, need to support the forest stewardship of the people who live there, and not provide national governments with yet another tool to dispossess their citizens from the natural resources they have cared for and depended on for generations."

According to the No REDD in Africa network, it is precisely because indigenous people and their rights are not factored into REDD principles that their implementation could lead to outright genocide.

Chris Lang, a British forestry expert who runs the REDD Monitor blog, agrees that under REDD schemes involving forested or agricultural land,

"the rights to the use of that land could be taken away from indigenous peoples who depend on their forests for their livelihoods. Destroying livelihoods on this scale could conform to the parts (a), (b), and (c) of the [UN Convention] definition of genocide."

---

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is an international security journalist and academic. He is the author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It, and the forthcoming science fiction thriller, ZERO POINT - set in a near future following a Fourth Iraq War.

Follow Ahmed on Facebook and Twitter.

This article was originally published on Guardian Environment, and is reproduced by kind permission via the Guardian Environment Network. It was inspired by a blogpost by British film-maker Dean Puckett who is travelling to Kenya this month (August 2014) to investigate the plight of the Sengwer.

Water crisis can't get any worse? Wait until the aquifers are drained!

© Peter Essick, National Geographic
In ten years, the Colorado River Basin has lost the equivalent
of two Lake Meads, the largest reservoir in the U.S., pictured
here at dusk with Las Vegas in the background.

Sott.net | Aug 19, 2014 | Dennis Dimick

We're pumping irreplaceable groundwater to counter the drought. When it's gone, the real crisis begins.

Aquifers provide us freshwater that makes up for surface water lost from drought-depleted lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. We are drawing down these hidden, mostly nonrenewable groundwater supplies at unsustainable rates in the western United States and in several dry regions globally, threatening our future.

We are at our best when we can see a threat or challenge ahead. If flood waters are rising, an enemy is rushing at us, or a highway exit appears just ahead of a traffic jam, we see the looming crisis and respond.

We are not as adept when threats - or threatened resources - are invisible. Some of us have trouble realizing why invisible carbon emissions are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and warming the planet. Because the surface of the sea is all we see, it's difficult to understand that we already have taken most of the large fish from the ocean, diminishing a major source of food. Neither of these crises are visible - they are largely out of sight, out of mind - so it's difficult to get excited and respond. Disappearing groundwater is another out-of-sight crisis.

Groundwater comes from aquifers - spongelike gravel and sand-filled underground reservoirs - and we see this water only when it flows from springs and wells. In the United States we rely on this hidden - and shrinking - water supply to meet half our needs, and as drought shrinks surface water in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, we rely on groundwater from aquifers even more. Some shallow aquifers recharge from surface water, but deeper aquifers contain ancient water locked in the earth by changes in geology thousands or millions of years ago. These aquifers typically cannot recharge, and once this "fossil" water is gone, it is gone forever - potentially changing how and where we can live and grow food, among other things.

© Peter Essick, National Geographic
California's Central Valley has seen a dramatic rise
in well-drilling this year to compensate for
surface water lost from the drought.

A severe drought in California - now approaching four years long - has depleted snowpacks, rivers, and lakes, and groundwater use has soared to make up the shortfall. A new report from Stanford University says that nearly 60 percent of the state's water needs are now met by groundwater, up from 40 percent in years when normal amounts of rain and snow fall.

Relying on groundwater to make up for shrinking surface water supplies comes at a rising price, and this hidden water found in California's Central Valley aquifers is the focus of what amounts to a new gold rush. Well-drillers are working overtime, and as Brian Clark Howard reported here last week, farmers and homeowners short of water now must wait in line more than a year for their new wells.

In most years, aquifers recharge as rainfall and streamflow seep into unpaved ground. But during drought the water table - the depth at which water is found below the surface - drops as water is pumped from the ground faster than it can recharge. As Howard reported, Central Valley wells that used to strike water at 500 feet deep must now be drilled down 1,000 feet or more, at a cost of more than $300,000 for a single well. And as aquifers are depleted, the land also begins to subside, or sink.

Unlike those in other western states, Californians know little about their groundwater supply because well-drilling records are kept secret from public view, and there is no statewide policy limiting groundwater use. State legislators are contemplating a measure that would regulate and limit groundwater use, but even if it passes, compliance plans wouldn't be required until 2020, and full restrictions wouldn't kick in until 2040. California property owners now can pump as much water as they want from under the ground they own.

California's Central Valley isn't the only place in the U.S. where groundwater supplies are declining. Aquifers in the Colorado River Basin and the southern Great Plains also suffer severe depletion. Studies show that about half the groundwater depletion nationwide is from irrigation. Agriculture is the leading use of water in the U.S. and around the world, and globally irrigated farming takes more than 60 percent of the available freshwater.

The Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to 40 million people in seven states, is losing water at dramatic rates, and most of the losses are groundwater. A new satellite study from the University of California, Irvine and NASA indicates that the Colorado River Basin lost 65 cubic kilometers (15.6 cubic miles) of water from 2004 to 2013. That is twice the amount stored in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S., which can hold two years' worth of Colorado River runoff. As Jay Famiglietti, a NASA scientist and study co-author wrote here, groundwater made up 75 percent of the water lost in the basin.

Farther east, the Ogallala Aquifer under the High Plains is also shrinking because of too much demand. When the Dust Bowl overtook the Great Plains in the 1930s, the Ogallala had been discovered only recently, and for the most part it wasn't tapped then to help ease the drought. But large-scale center-pivot irrigation transformed crop production on the plains after World War II, allowing water-thirsty crops like corn and alfalfa for feeding livestock.

But severe drought threatens the southern plains again, and water is being unsustainably drawn from the southern Ogallala Aquifer. The northern Ogallala, found near the surface in Nebraska, is replenished by surface runoff from rivers originating in the Rockies. But farther south in Texas and New Mexico, water lies hundreds of feet below the surface, and does not recharge. Sandra Postel wrote here last month that the Ogallala Aquifer water level in the Texas Panhandle has dropped by up to 15 feet in the past decade, with more than three-quarters of that loss having come during the drought of the past five years. A recent Kansas State University study said that if farmers in Kansas keep irrigating at present rates, 69 percent of the Ogallala Aquifer will be gone in 50 years.

© George Steinmetz, National Geographic Creative
The Ogallala Aquifer supplies the water for
center-pivot irrigation on farms in western Kansas.

This coincides with a nationwide trend of groundwater declines. A 2013 study of 40 aquifers across the United States by the U.S. Geological Survey reports that the rate of groundwater depletion has increased dramatically since 2000, with almost 25 cubic kilometers (six cubic miles) of water per year being pumped from the ground. This compares to about 9.2 cubic kilometers (1.48 cubic miles) average withdrawal per year from 1900 to 2008.

Scarce groundwater supplies also are being used for energy. A recent study from CERES, an organization that advocates sustainable business practices, indicated that competition for water by hydraulic fracturing - a water-intensive drilling process for oil and gas known as "fracking" - already occurs in dry regions of the United States. The February report said that more than half of all fracking wells in the U.S. are being drilled in regions experiencing drought, and that more than one-third of the wells are in regions suffering groundwater depletion.

Satellites have allowed us to more accurately understand groundwater supplies and depletion rates. Until these satellites, called GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), were launched by NASA, we couldn't see or measure this developing invisible crisis. GRACE has given us an improved picture of groundwater worldwide, revealing how supplies are shrinking in several regions vulnerable to drought: northern India, the North China Plain, and the Middle East among them.

As drought worsens groundwater depletion, water supplies for people and farming shrink, and this scarcity can set the table for social unrest. Saudi Arabia, which a few decades ago began pumping deep underground aquifers to grow wheat in the desert, has since abandoned the plan, in order to conserve what groundwater supplies remain, relying instead on imported wheat to feed the people of this arid land.

Managing and conserving groundwater supplies becomes an urgent challenge as drought depletes our surface supplies. Because groundwater is a common resource - available to anyone with well - drilling equipment-cooperation and collaboration will be crucial as we try to protect this shrinking line of defense against a future of water scarcity.   

Further information on the water crisis can be found here and here

Source: National Geographic

30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed

Economic Collapse Blog | Aug 20, 2014 | Michael Snyder

The 30 statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a staggering pace.  Yes, the stock market has soared to unprecedented heights this year and there are a few isolated areas of the country that are doing rather well for the moment.  But overall, the long-term trends that are eviscerating the middle class just continue to accelerate.  Over the past decade or so, the percentage of Americans that are working has gone way down, the quality of our jobs has plummeted dramatically and the wealth of the typical American household has fallen precipitously.  Meanwhile, we have watched median household income decline for five years in a row, we have watched the rate of homeownership in this country decline for eight years in a row and dependence on the government is at an all-time high.  Being a part of the middle class in the United States at this point can be compared to playing a game of musical chairs.  We can all see chairs being removed from the game, and we are all desperate to continue to have a chair every time the music stops playing.  The next time the music stops, will it be your chair that gets removed?

And in this economy, you don't even have to lose your job to fall out of the middle class.  Our paychecks are remaining very stable while the cost of almost everything that we spend money on consistently (food, gas, health insurance, etc.) is going up rapidly.  Bloomberg calls this "the no-raises recovery"...

Call it the no-raises recovery: Five years of economic expansion have done almost nothing to boost paychecks for typical American workers while the rich have gotten richer.

Meager improvements since 2009 have barely kept up with a similarly tepid pace of inflation, raising the real value of compensation per hour by only 0.5 percent. That marks the weakest growth since World War II, with increases averaging 9.2 percent at a similar point in past expansions, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by Bloomberg.

There are so many families out there that are struggling right now.  So many husbands and wives find themselves constantly fighting with one another about money, and they don't even understand that what is happening to them is the result of long-term economic trends that are the result of decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Without middle class jobs, we cannot have a middle class.  And those are precisely the jobs that have been destroyed during the Clinton, Bush and Obama years.  Without enough good jobs to go around, we have seen the middle class steadily shrink and the ranks of the poor grow rapidly.

The following are 30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed...

1. In 2007, the average household in the top 5 percent had 16.5 times as much wealth as the average household overall.  But now the average household in the top 5 percent has 24 times as much wealth as the average household overall.

2. According to a study recently discussed in the New York Times, the "typical American household" is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

3. One out of every seven Americans rely on food banks at this point.

4. One out of every four military families needs help putting enough food on the table.

5. 79 percent of the people that use food banks purchase "inexpensive, unhealthy food just to have enough to feed their families".

6. One out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is "in collections".

7. Only 48 percent of all Americans can immediately come up with $400 in emergency cash without borrowing it or selling something.

8. The price of food continues to rise much faster than the paychecks of most middle class families.  For example, the average price of ground beef has just hit a brand new all-time record high of $3.884 a pound.

9. According to one recent study, 40 percent of all households in the United States are experiencing financial stress right now.

10. The overall homeownership rate has fallen to the lowest level since 1995.

11. The homeownership rate for Americans under the age of 35 is at an all-time low.

12. According to one recent survey, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.

13. The average age of vehicles on America’s roads has hit an all-time high of 11.4 years.

14. Last year, one out of every four auto loans in the United States was made to someone with subprime credit.

15. Amazingly, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.

16. One recent study found that 47 percent of unemployed Americans have “completely given up” looking for a job.

17. 36 percent of Americans do not have a single penny saved for retirement.

18. According to one survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

19. More than half of all working Americans make less than $30,000 a year in wages.

20. Only four of the twenty fastest growing occupations in America require a Bachelor’s degree or better.

21.  In America today, one out of every ten jobs is filled by a temp agency.

22. Due to a lack of decent jobs, half of all college graduates are still relying on their parents financially when they are two years out of school.

23. Median household income in the United States is about 7 percent lower than it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.

24. Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

25. It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.

26. According to one study, there are 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity.

27. Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.  But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have jobs.

28. If the middle class was actually thriving, we wouldn’t have more than a million public school children that are homeless.

29. If you can believe it, Americans received more than 2 trillion dollars in benefits from the federal government last year alone.

30. In terms of median wealth per adult, the United States is now in just 19th place in the world.

45% of Americans Try to Include Organic Foods in their Diet…and 15% Try to Avoid Them

(AP Photo)

ALLGOV | Aug 20, 2014 | Noel Brinkerhoff, Steve Straehley

Nearly half of all Americans have embraced organic foods, according to a new national poll that shows that also found a small minority who actively reject this more natural option of eating.

As part of its annual Consumption Habits survey, Gallup for the first time asked respondents about their feelings on organic foods. The polling firm found 45% of respondents say they try to include organic foods in their diets. Thirty-eight percent expressed indifference towards organic, while 15% said they avoid the foods.

A breakdown of the results revealed organic foods are most popular out West, in big cities, and among younger Americans. Regionally, organic foods rated the highest in the West (54%), followed by 47% in the Midwest, 43% in the South and 39% in the East. Half of urbanities say they try to eat organic foods, while 46% of those in the suburbs said the same thing. Only 37% of rural and small-town residents try to include organic foods in their diets.

The organic industry does well among Americans 18-29 in age, with 53% actively trying to eat this way. Older respondents weren’t as enthusiastic about organic foods. Only 33% of those 65 years old or older try to include organic food in their diets.

Organic foods, because of the way they’re produced, often cost more than traditional products, so it makes sense that they’re more popular among wealthier respondents. Of those with household incomes $75,000 and greater, 49% sought out organic foods, while 45% of those with incomes from $30,000 to $74,999 did and only 42% of those with lower incomes trying to eat organic foods.

Organic food sales continue to climb, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). After dipping during the Great Recession, organic food sales rebounded, increasing 11% in 2012 over 2011’s figures, and the USDA expects similar growth to continue. 

Comment: A little wake up on the so-called recession:  
30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed

A birds-eye view of the bird scorching Ivanpah solar electric power plant

WattsUpWithThat | Aug 19, 2014 | Anthony Watts

At the start of the weekend, and quite by accident, I found myself aloft and looking directly into the glare of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. I can tell you that not only does it roast birds in mid-air, it certainly seems to be a hazard to aviation. First, a story today from AP, via my local newspaper. Photos follow.

Emerging desert solar plants scorch birds in midair-Chico Enterprise-Record

IVANPAH DRY LAKE (AP) >> Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.

The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

The deaths are “alarming. It’s hard to say whether that’s the location or the technology,” said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. “There needs to be some caution.”

The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.

“We take this issue very seriously,” said Jeff Holland, a spokesman for NRG Solar of Carlsbad, the second of the three companies behind the plant. The third, Google, deferred comment to its partners.

Read more..

Activists occupy UK govt building over heavily-redacted fracking report

As part of a nationwide day of direct action, campaigners have
occupied a government building and blockaded both entrances
to an energy firm. (Image from flickr.com / Reclaim The Power)

RT | Aug 18, 2014

A group of campaigners from Reclaim the Power are currently occupying the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) headquarters in London, following the government’s decision to censor a report on the potential impacts of fracking.

Three anti-fracking and climate justice activists superglued themselves to DEFRA’s main doors at approximately 8 am this morning, using reinforced arm tubes to prevent access. Another scaled the building and unfurled a large banner inscribed with the message: “What’s to hide DEFRA? – Don’t frack with our future.”

The activists wore black tape pasted across their mouths in an effort to convey the scale of censorship the government had recently employed prior to publishing its report.

'Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts,' which details the potential impacts of fracking on rural communities throughout Britain, was released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request tendered to DEFRA.

The document was published with extensive sections of the text missing – a total of 63 separate redactions. Redacted portions of the study spanned its executive summary, a section on “Hydrocarbon reserves,” another on “Investment and job creation,” a third documenting areas “likely to be affected by shale gas licensing,” a segment relating to fracking’s economic impacts on rural communities, and large segments on the “social impacts” of shale gas drilling on rural locales. A mere three paragraphs remained in the report’s conclusion.

Read more..