Even ‘Natural’ Sodas with ‘Real Sugar’ Being Sold with GMO Sugar

© Natural Society

Courtesy: Natural Society | Sep 19, 2014 | Christina Sarich

It should come as no surprise that companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi, and others are putting GMO sugar in sodas, and then calling them natural. These companies are involved with the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (the political front of biotech and food manufacturers that support GMOs). After all, they don’t even think you have the right to know what is in your food, so why should they label it as such – even if the word ‘natural’ is entirely misleading.

That’s exactly what companies like Pepsi Co are doing with the sale of ‘natural’ drinks like Sierra Mist that are full of sugar derived from GMO beets.

Sadly, food manufacturers like Pepsi Co, are not required to state that the sugar or sucrose used to sweeten their products comes from GMO sources.

Currently, over 95% of sugar beets grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, thanks to Monsanto. This has happened in part due to the complete de-regulation of the industry by our most ‘trusted’ government agencies.

Perhaps you have assumed that all those products with ‘natural’ on the label are sweetened with non-GMO, organic cane sugar. They aren’t. Is this really an improvement over high fructose corn syrup? Pepsi-Co was already sued once from calling Naked Juice ‘all natural’ when it was anything but that; should we really believe that they wouldn’t play this same marketing trick with other products they sell?

Other suspect drinks are from Blue Sky made by Hansen’s, which say on their cans ‘made from real sugar,’ meaning they aren’t using high fructose corn syrup. But they are likely using GMO beets to sweeten your favorite beverage.

There are other sodas that likely contain GMO beets as well, along with a host of other foods sweetened with this toxic crop.

And GMO beets are indeed toxic. The EPA continues to allow larger doses of glyphosate and other herbicides and pesticides to be sprayed on GMO beets and other GMO crops as the biotech industry tries to snuff out age-old agricultural practices.

Do you really want to consume glyphosate? That’s essentially what is happening when you purchase foods from these manufacturers who aren’t sourcing their beets organically.

List of Companies Using GMO Sugar in Beverages 

GMO Awareness.com lists the following sodas to eliminate if you want to be GMO-free, but realize there are other food manufacturers who also use GMO beets, so this list is not exhaustive:

Coca Cola Company

• Coca Cola
• Sprite
• Cherry Coke
• Fanta Exotic
• Barq’s Root Beer
• Minute Maid Orange
• Minute Maid Grape
• Surge
• Ultra

Pepsi Co.

• Pepsi
• Slice
• Wild Cherry Pepsi
• Mug Root Beer
• Mountain Dew

Cadbury/Schweppes

• 7-Up
• Dr. Pepper
• A & W Root Beer
• Sunkist Orange
• Schweppes Ginger Ale

The best way to be GMO-free and high fructose corn syrup-free is just to omit soda and processed drinks/foods completely or at least buy organic (or actually natural) beverages from health food stores. You could even brew your soda at home using ginger and other plant roots that taste delicious.

Additional Sources:

TakePart

NASA Was Given $36 Million To Find 90% Of Dangerous Asteroids — And It Failed

Shutterstock

Business Insider | Sep 15, 2014

CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. (Reuters) - NASA won't meet a congressionally ordered goal to find 90 percent of nearbyand potentially dangerous asteroids larger than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter, the agency’s Inspector General said on Monday.

The shortfall comes despite a 10-fold increase in NASA’s annual budget over the past five years – from $4 million in 2009 to $40 million in 2014 - to track and assess potentially dangerous asteroids and comets. So-called “Near-Earth Objects,” or NEOs, fly within about 28 million miles (45 million km) of Earth.

The agency’s efforts are poorly coordinated, ill-managed and under-staffed, according to a 32-page report titled “NASA’s Efforts to Identify Near-Earth Objects and Mitigate Hazards,” by NASAInspector General Paul Martin.

“NASA estimates that it has identified only about 10 percent of all asteroids 140 meters and larger,” Martin wrote. “Given its current pace and resources, (NASA) has stated that it will not meet the goal of identifying 90 percent of such objects by 2020.”

A one-person office manages a “loosely structured conglomerate of research activities that are not well integrated and (which) lack overarching program oversight, objectives and established milestones to track progress,” the report said.

NASA has found about 95 percent of the largest and potentially most destructive asteroids, those measuring about 0.62 mile (1 km) or larger in diameter.

About 66 million years ago, a 6.2-mile (10-km) -wide object hit what is now Mexico’s Yucatanpeninsula, triggering global climate changes that are believed to have led to the demise of the dinosaurs and most other species alive at that time.

More recently, a fragment of an asteroid estimated to be just 59 feet (18 meters) in diameter exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The force of the Feb. 15, 2013, explosion matched the energy released in 30 atomic bombs, blowing out windows and destroying buildings. More than 1,000 people were injured by flying debris.

“Recent research suggests that Chelyabinsk-type events occur every 30 to 40 years,” the Office of Inspector General report said, adding that most impacts would occur in the ocean rather than in populated areas.

Since 1998, NASA has spent about $100 million on programs to find, assess and mitigate potentially threatening space neighbors.

As of July 2014, the agency has discovered about 11,230 NEOs, including 862 of the largest asteroids. That figure includes only about 10 percent of the smaller nearby asteroids that are about 460 feet (140 meters) wide, far short of the agency’s goal to find 90 percent by 2020, the report said.

The report made five recommendations for beefing up NASA’s asteroid detection efforts, including adding at least four to six employees to help manage the program and coordinating projects with other U.S. and international agencies and with privately funded initiatives.

NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld said in a letter to Martin he expects a new NEO program to be in place by Sept. 1, 2015.

(Editing by David Adams and Eric Walsh)

World Leaders To Emit Promises of Hot Air at UN Climate Summit

The Real News | Sep 22, 2014

Professor Chris Williams says a solution to the climate crisis requires a restructuring of the global economy, but when the last opportunity to do so came after the 2008-9 financial crisis, world leaders saved the banks instead

Mutated Ebola virus could spread like flu, says Purdue University biologist

The Extinction Protocol | Sep 20, 2014

September 2014 – HEALTH – There is a real possibility that Ebola could mutate into a virus that is as spreadable as the flu, one of the nation’s top Ebola researchers tells Newsmax Health. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but the possibility of Ebola becoming an airborne virus clearly has to be taken into account,” said David Sanders, associate professor of biological sciences at Purdue University.  “Ebola does share some of the characteristics of airborne viruses like influenza and we should not disregard the possibility of it evolving into something that could be transmitted in this way,” added Sanders, whose work on Ebola led to his participation in the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program. U.S. health officials have largely dismissed Ebola as posing a major threat inside American borders. Testifying before a Congressional subcommittee this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top White House infectious disease advisor, said it was very unlikely Ebola would mutate in a way that would make it transmittable through the air like flu. That’s “not something I would put at the very top of the radar screen,” he said. But Sanders disagrees. “I want the facts to be clear. It’s important that we not get the idea that this can’t happen,” he said, adding, “When people say that it is impossible for this virus to mutate, this is simply not true.”

According to Sanders, a key factor in the successful mutation of a virus centers on how it enters and exits the body. Sanders led a research team that established the Zaire form of the Ebola virus, which is the one involved in the West Africa epidemic, could enter the mucus-lined cells that line the human airway in much the same way the flu virus does. He pointed to the flu as an example of how a virus can mutate so that it can infect different species and be transmitted in different ways. Originally, flu was a virus that lived in the gastrointestinal tract of aquatic birds, like ducks and geese. But it mutated into a disease that spread easily among humans, gaining entry to the human body through airways, which have a mucus lining that is similar to that in the gastrointestinal tract of birds. To pose a major threat in the U.S., the Ebola virus would have to mutate so that it could survive outside the body for a significant length of time like influenza can, Sanders said. “This is not how the Ebola virus is currently known to spread, but there is evidence that it has some of the necessary components for respiratory transmission,” he said.

The more the West Africa epidemic spreads, the more likely it is that the virus will mutate. This is why it is important the outbreak be contained now, even though it hasn’t yet reached American shores, he said. “When people have looked at the current outbreak, the virus really hasn’t changed much,” Sanders said. “However, this research was done when there were 1,500 cases and now it’s up to 4,000 and if it gets to be 100,000 cases, there is more and more of a chance for mutations to occur.” There is no way to forecast when or if Ebola will dangerously mutate, he said. “I can’t calculate you the probability of this happening. I can just tell you that from the way the virus enters the body, this is a possibility and that clearly has to be taken into account,” Sanders added. –Newsmax Health
 

NASA Sound of the Sun Miracle

David Sereda | Sep 16, 2014

The Sound of the Sun is the Great Mantra OM in Rig Veda! Jesus truly prayed to LOGOS as God in the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic. Find out in this short video!

War Is Destroying Syria's Ancient Treasures, Satellite Photos Show

Live Science | Sep 19, 2014 | Laura Geggel

Three years of heavy fighting have taken a toll on Syria's archaeological treasures. Five of the country's six World Heritage sites "exhibit significant damage," and some buildings are now "reduced to rubble," according to high-resolution satellite images examined by the nonprofit and nonpartisan American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

World Heritage sites are rigorously selected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and must "represent a masterpiece of human creative genius," among other criteria, according to UNESCO's website.

Satellite images show how much destruction has
happened in Syria between December 2011 and
July 2014. The Ministry of Justice building
(red arrow) is damaged, as is the Khusriwiye
Mosque (green arrow). The Carlton
Citadel Hotel (blue arrow) is destroyed.
Credit: Credit: Images ©2014, Digital
Globe|Analysis AAAS.
Coordinates 36.19N, 37.16E.

The AAAS' report is the first to offer a thorough look at the damage caused to Syria's heritage sites. [See satellite images of the damage in Syria]

"Only one of Syria's six World Heritage sites — the ancient city of Damascus — appears to remain undamaged in satellite imagery since the onset of civil war in 2011," Susan Wolfinbarger, director of the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project at AAAS, said in a statement. And "the Damascus site also could have damage not visible in satellite images."

Damage to the other five sites is extensive, the AAAS said. These sites include the ancient city of Aleppo, the ancient city of Bosra, the ancient site of Palmyra, a site with two castles (Crac des Chevaliers and Qal'at Salah El-Din), and the ancient villages of northern Syria (Jebel Seman, Jebel Barisha, Jebel Al A'la, Jebel Wastani and Jebel Zawiye.

The analysis showed widespread damage in Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world, which dates back to the second millennium B.C.

"In satellite imagery, massive destruction is obvious throughout the city, and especially at the World Heritage site of the ancient city [of Aleppo]," Wolfinbarger said.

A before-and-after analysis from 2011 to 2014 indicates new damage to historic mosques, Koranic schools called madrasas, the Great Mosque of Aleppo, the Souq al-Madina, the Grand Serail of Aleppo, the Hammam Yalbougha an-Nasry, the Khusruwiye Mosque, the Carlton Citadel Hotel, the Khan Qurt Bey caravanserai and other historic buildings south and north of the citadel. [5 Surprising Cultural Facts About Syria]

The Great Mosque has extensive damage. Satellite imagery showed destruction of the roof and a destroyed minaret, or tall spire, as well as two craters on the mosque's eastern wall. Researchers saw the heaviest damage south of the citadel, but the area to the north, which has buildings from the late Mamluk to Ottoman periods (13th to 19th centuries) also showed signs of destruction.

The other World Heritage sites have damage ranging from mortar impacts near an ancient Roman theater in Bosra to newly constructed military compounds on an archaeological site. New roads and mounds of earth are scattered through the Northern Roman Necropolis in Palmyra.

Palmyra sits in a desert just northeast of Damascus. Its ruins combine Greco-Roman art with Persian influences, and UNESCO said it "contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world."

Another World Heritage site, the Crac des Chevaliers castle, has "moderate structural damage," the AAAS analysis found. The castle, an example of a Crusader stronghold, has a 20-foot-long (6 meters) gash on its southeast tower and crater marks on the ground.

One of northern Syria's ancient villages, the Jebel Barisha Ancient Village Park, shows three new military buildings, including two within the park's boundaries.

"From our contacts and sources in Syria, we knew that there was damage to World Heritage sites," said Brian Daniels, director of research and programs at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. "But this report surprised us by revealing just how extensive the destruction actually is."

The AAAS released the analysis yesterday (Sept. 18), a day before the Smithsonian Institution's meeting to honor the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property. Researchers plan to discuss the damage and intervention efforts in Syria at the meeting.

"There is hope, and it lies with our Syrian colleagues because they are the stewards and caretakers of these sites, and they see the value in preserving and protecting them for future generations," said Corine Wegener, cultural heritage preservation officer for the Smithsonian Institution. "What they need from their international colleagues is some help to do that — training, materials and other support in the international arena for the notion that it is possible to mitigate and prevent damage to cultural heritage, even in the midst of conflicts."

The AAAS will continue to assess damage to Syria's archaeological sites, Wolfinbarger said. UNESCO placed all six of Syria's Cultural Heritage on the "List of World Heritage in Danger" in 2013. The Syrian crisis has killed 100,000 people and displaced millions, according to the United Nations.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Hidden cave system of Rouffignac is millions of years old

SOTT | Sep 15, 2014 | Source

© Getty Images/Lonely Planet Source: Getty Images
Rock art in Rouffignac Cave.

The train cart rattles along the track. Leaving the bright sunshine behind, you plunge deep into the dank, subterranean world.

The guide points out scratch marks on the wall - made by bears, who fortunately don't live in the caves anymore. Venturing deeper, you pass some engravings and drawings of a rhino, horses and a procession of mammoths. They are impressive. Not simply childish drawings of animals, but skilled works of art.

Two kilometres in, the train grinds to a halt. You get out and start to walk, hoping the movement will warm up your limbs. You stumble into a hidden gallery, darkness engulfing the group. The guide explains in hushed tones why these caves are so magnificent.

At last, you're allowed to switch on your head-torch. Gazing upwards, you now understand what the guide was on about. Animals of all shapes and sizes adorn the ceiling. Some intricately painted, others simple line drawings. No wonder this is known as the "Great Ceiling".

Welcome to Rouffignac Cave.

© www.leperigordnoir.fr
Painting of a mammoth c. 13,000 years old

Around two to three million years ago, this vast network of caves in Dordogne, France was created when water penetrated along fractures in the bedrock, dissolving the soft limestone. The cave system reaches 10 kilometres underground, through a mind-boggling maze of tunnels and shafts.

Over 250 prehistoric artworks litter the walls of this cave system, which is accessible only aboard the electric train that zips visitors 13,000 years back in time.

In fact, after 100 artworks of the woolly mammoth were initially discovered here, Rouffignac Cave was nicknamed 'Cave of the 100 Mammoths'. Over 150 have now been found, accounting for 70 per cent of all the animals represented in the cave.

© www.artehistoria.jcyl.es
Two figures from a massive mammoth frieze.

But most of the artworks show great skill, with different techniques used to paint the red, ochre and black figures. However, it's where the images are located that is most intriguing.

Most of the paintings and engravings are tucked deep in the interior.

It is still unknown quite why Stone Age humans ventured so far into the cave system, sometimes having to crawl on their fronts, just to create these works of art. While the caves guard this secret, the paintings they protect are truly magnificent.

Much later, during WWII, the caves also protected people, serving as a hide-out for French Resistance fighters.

The caves are hidden in woodland 15km north of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in the Dordogne's Vézère Valley.

Some of the signs are thought to have been made by children as young as three years old - the "finger flutes" created by dragging three digits down the wall.

Psychopaths Alert: The Georgia Guidestones Have Officially Been Updated with the Year 2014

TruthStream Media | Sep 21, 2014

The elite's cryptic monument to depopulation and world government just became more mysterious (and creepier) – somebody has officially updated it with an engraved cube marking the year 2014 inserted into the English/Spanish slab of the 'new 10 commandments' for the 'Age of Reason' desired by its creators.

The full GA Guidestones 2014 video at KafkaWinstonWorld on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K_cu...

The GA Guidestones Guidebook: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16750848/Th...

H/T Shane Bullis for sending us this...

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent sets new record, pierces 20 million square kilometer barrier

Watts Up With That | Sep 20, 2014 | Anthony Watts

Sunshine hours reports that the Antarctic Sea Ice Extent for September 19th, 2014 is 20.11297 million square kilometers, which is 1,535,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 climatological mean.

Another 58,000 sq km. was added since yesterday, making it the 7th All-Time Record in 7 Days.

This new record is 610,000 sq km higher than the previous daily record. The red line represents 2014 data.

Read more..

Shale Fracking Is a “Ponzi Scheme” … “This Decade’s Version of The Dotcom Bubble” … “A Lot In Common With the Subprime Mortgage Market Just Before It Melted Down”

image

Washington's Blog | Sep 19, 2014

A Losing Bet 

In 2011, the New York Times wrote:

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company,  wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company,  wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.

***

“And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment,” a retired geologist from a major oil and gas company  wrote in a February e-mail about other companies invested in shale gas.

***

Deborah Rogers, a member of the advisory committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, [and a]  former stockbroker with Merrill Lynch … showed that wells were petering out faster than expected.

“These wells are depleting so quickly that the operators are in an expensive game of ‘catch-up,’ ” Ms. Rogers wrote in an e-mail on Nov. 17, 2009, to a petroleum geologist in Houston, who wrote back that he agreed.

***

A review of more than 9,000 wells, using data from 2003 to 2009, shows that — based on widely used industry assumptions about the market price of gas and the cost of drilling and operating a well — less than 10 percent of the wells had recouped their estimated costs by the time they were seven years old.

***

“Looks like crap,” the Schlumberger official wrote about the well’s performance, according to the regulator, “but operator will flip it based on ‘potential’ and make some money on it.”

In 2012, the New York Times pointed out:

The gas rush has … been a money loser so far for many of the gas exploration companies and their tens of thousands of investors.

***

Although the bankers made a lot of money from the deal making and a handful of energy companies made fortunes by exiting at the market’s peak, most of the industry has been bloodied — forced to sell assets, take huge write-offs and shift as many drill rigs as possible from gas exploration to oil, whose price has held up much better.

***

Now the gas companies are committed to spending far more to produce gas than they can earn selling it. Their stock prices and debt ratings have been hammered.

Rolling Stone reported the same year:

Fracking, it turns out, is about producing cheap energy the same way the mortgage crisis was about helping realize the dreams of middle-class homeowners. For Chesapeake, the primary profit in fracking comes not from selling the gas itself, but from buying and flipping the land that contains the gas. The company is now the largest leaseholder in the United States, owning the drilling rights to some 15 million acres – an area more than twice the size of Maryland. McClendon [the CEO of fracking giant Chesapeake] has financed this land grab with junk bonds and complex partnerships and future production deals, creating a highly leveraged, deeply indebted company that has more in common with Enron than ExxonMobil. As McClendon put it in a conference call with Wall Street analysts a few years ago, “I can assure you that buying leases for x and selling them for 5x or 10x is a lot more profitable than trying to produce gas at $5 or $6 per million cubic feet.”

According to Arthur Berman, a respected energy consultant in Texas who has spent years studying the industry, Chesapeake and its lesser competitors resemble a Ponzi scheme, overhyping the promise of shale gas in an effort to recoup their huge investments in leases and drilling. When the wells don’t pay off, the firms wind up scrambling to mask their financial troubles with convoluted off-book accounting methods. “This is an industry that is caught in the grip of magical thinking,” Berman says. “In fact, when you look at the level of debt some of these companies are carrying, and the questionable value of their gas reserves, there is a lot in common with the subprime mortgage market just before it melted down.”

***

In February, Chesapeake announced that, because of low gas prices, its revenues will fall $3.5 billion short of its expenses this year.

Jim Quinn noted last year:

Royal Dutch Shell is one of the biggest corporations in the world, with financial resources greater than 99% of all the organizations on earth. Their CEO [Peter  Voser] probably knows a little bit more about oil exploration than the Wall Street systers and CNBC bimbos. His company has poured $24 billion into shale exploration in the U.S. It has been a huge failure. They have already written off $2.1 billion. They are trying to sell huge swaths of land in the Eagle Ford area. They are losing money in the shale oil and gas business. If Shell can’t make it profitable, who can?

Bloomberg noted in February:

Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back.

Oil Price reported in March:

Shell’s new boss, Ben van Beurden, said bets on U.S. shale plays haven’t worked out for his company.

***

“Some of our exploration bets have simply not worked out,” Shell’s Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said. It was bad management policy to commit close to $80 billion in capital on its North American portfolio and still lose money. Now, he said, it’s time to cut the loss and slash exploration and production investments by 20 percent for 2014.

***

Shell’s problems say more about the difficulties of shale exploration than they do about the company itself.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out in April:

These newly public companies are spending more than they make ….

Bloomberg wrote in May:

Shale debt has almost doubled over the last four years while revenue has gained just 5.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of 61 shale drillers. A dozen of those wildcatters are spending at least 10 percent of their sales on interest compared with Exxon Mobil Corp.’s 0.1 percent.

“The list of companies that are financially stressed is considerable,” said Benjamin Dell, managing partner of Kimmeridge Energy, a New York-based alternative asset manager focused on energy. “Not everyone is going to survive. We’ve seen it before.”

***

In a measure of the shale industry’s financial burden, debt hit $163.6 billion in the first quarter, according to company records compiled by Bloomberg on 61 exploration and production companies that target oil and natural gas trapped in deep underground layers of rock.

***

Drillers are caught in a bind. They must keep borrowing to pay for exploration needed to offset the steep production declines typical of shale wells. At the same time, investors have been pushing companies to cut back. Spending tumbled at 26 of the 61 firms examined. For companies that can’t afford to keep drilling, less oil coming out means less money coming in, accelerating the financial tailspin.

***

“Interest expenses are rising,” said Virendra Chauhan, an oil analyst with Energy Aspects in London. “The risk for shale producers is that because of the production decline rates, you constantly have elevated capital expenditures.”

And Tim Morgan – former global head of research at Tullett Prebon – explained last month at the Telegraph:

We now have more than enough data to know what has really happened in America.

***

If a huge number of wells come on stream in a short time, you get a lot of initial production. This is exactly what has happened in the US.

The key word here, though, is “initial”. The big snag with shale wells is that output falls away very quickly indeed after production begins. Compared with “normal” oil and gas wells, where output typically decreases by 7pc-10pc annually, rates of decline for shale wells are dramatically worse. It is by no means unusual for production from each well to fall by 60pc or more in the first 12 months of operations alone.

Faced with such rates of decline, the only way to keep production rates up (and to keep investors on side) is to drill yet more wells. This puts operators on a “drilling treadmill”, which should worry local residents just as much as investors. Net cash flow from US shale has been negative year after year, and some of the industry’s biggest names have already walked away.

The seemingly inevitable outcome for the US shale industry is that, once investors wise up, and once the drilling sweet spots have been used, production will slump, probably peaking in 2017-18 and falling precipitously after that. The US is already littered with wells that have been abandoned, often without the site being cleaned up.

Meanwhile, recoverable reserves estimates for the Monterey shale – supposedly the biggest shale liquids play in the US – have been revised downwards by 96pc. [Background and here; and see this.]  In Poland, drilling 30-40 wells has so far produced virtually no worthwhile production.

In the future, shale will be recognised as this decade’s version of the dotcom bubble. In the shorter term, it’s a counsel of despair as an energy supply squeeze draws ever nearer.