Climate Change is Reality, Bad Weather is Getting Worse and worsened by Libertarians and Republicans • NRA Gun Nuts Are Racist • Republican Mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh Doesn't Want Women to Vote • Pigeons Know You! • Vegan Diet Healthiest • more

- Climate Disasters' Toll Worsened by Sustained Attacks on Public Sector, Science and Regulation

As we discuss the spate of extreme weather in the United States, the author and professor Christian Parenti argues that the Republican-led assault on the public sector will leave states more vulnerable to global warming's effects.

- Bill McKibben: The Politics of Global Warming

MSNBC's "Up" host Chris Hayes and his guests talk to Bill McKibben, one of the earliest prophetic voices on global warming, about the recent heat records set across the country.

- Sea Level Rise Unstoppable, say Scientists

Even if nations manage to mitigate carbon emission levels, oceans will continue to rise throughout 21st century

- Sizzling Heat, Storms, Wildfires: 'This Is Just the Beginning'

"This is just the beginning," warns Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, of what life with the impacts of climate change will look like. His message follows a week in which 2000 heat records were matched or broken and the month of June in which over 3200 heat records were matched or broken.Yet during that time, with little exception, there was no mention of climate change during weather broadcasts in which viewers were told to expect little relief from steamy temperatures.

- STUDY: Media Avoid Climate Context In Wildfire Coverage

Only 3 Percent Of Wildfire Coverage Mentioned Long-Term Climate Change Or Global Warming. The major television and print outlets largely ignored climate change in their coverage of wildfires in Colorado, New Mexico and other Western states. All together, only 3 percent of the reports mentioned climate change, including 1.6 percent of television segments and 6 percent of text articles.

- This summer is 'what global warming looks like'

Climate scientists suggest that if you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, take a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks.

- Colorado's table was set for monster fire

n the past two years, record-breaking wildfires have burned in the West — New Mexico experienced its worst wildfire, Arizona suffered its largest burn and Texas last year fought the most fires in recorded history. From Mississippi to the Ohio Valley, temperatures are topping record highs and the land is thirsty.

- Rate of Climate Change's 'Evil Twin' Has Scientists Worried

Climate change's "evil twin" -- ocean acidification -- has been increasing at a rate unexpected by scientists, says Dr. Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).Lubchenco told he Associated Press that surface waters, where excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been concentrating, "are changing much more rapidly than initial calculations have suggested." She warns, "It's yet another reason to be very seriously concerned about the amount of carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere now and the additional amount we continue to put out."

- Helium stocks run low – and party balloons are to blame

The world supply of helium, which is essential in research and medicine, is being squandered, say scientists

- Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 'Clearly Man-Made', says Parliamentary Panel

A parliamentary panel investigating the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan last year have placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of plant owner TEPCO and government regulators by saying the crisis was "clearly man-made." Though the plant was crippled by an enormous tsunami generated by a powerful earthquake, the panel concluded that key warnings were ignored and preparations that could have been implemented were disregarded out of self-interest.

- Study: Pigeons Can Recognize Familiar Human Faces

This means that birds not usually thought of having higher cognitive processes — like pigeons — can recognize a person they have encountered before, based strictly on facial characteristics.

- Environmental Study: Eat Less Meat to Fight Deforestation

A new study on the environmental impact of meat production has resulted in a call to reduce meat consumption in order to fight deforestation.

- The Healthiest Diet of All

The world's most important health advisory bodies are now in agreement – a balanced vegetarian diet can be one of the healthiest possible. And it seems the fewer animal products it contains such as milk and cheese, the healthier it is. In other words, the closer it is to being vegan, the healthier it becomes. These are some of the health statements that have been made over the past few years.

- Limbaugh Wants to Extend Vote Suppression to Women

Republicans like Coulter and Limbaugh believe that groups who vote Democratic shouldn't have the right to vote. The available mechanisms they are using, such as voter ID laws, target Democratic-leaning groups such as African-Americans, young people, city dwellers and poor people. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "More than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk in the November election." That's 9.2 percent of Pennsylvania's 8.2 million voters.

- National Rifle Association spokesman Ted Nugent: "I'm Beginning To Wonder If It Would Have Been Best Had The South Won The Civil War"

In today's column for the Washington Times, National Rifle Association board member and prominent Mitt Romney endorser Ted Nugent wrote, "I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War."

Colorado's emergency-response teams burned by anti-tax attitudes
Because of conservative and libertarian sentiments and a no-tax pledge passed statewide 20 years ago, Colorado police and disaster-response teams are stretched thin as a virulent wildfire ravages land near Colorado Springs.
Published July 2 2012 in the Seattle Times
By Amanda J. Crawford

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. —
As Colorado Springs battles a rash of robberies after a wildfire that still licks at its boundaries, it does so with fewer police and firefighters and a limited tax base that may hamper its rebound.

The place where the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes and forced more than 34,000 residents to evacuate turned off one-third of its streetlights two years ago, halted park maintenance and cut services to close a $28 million budget gap after sales-tax revenue plummeted and voters rejected a property-tax increase.

The city, the state's second-largest, with a population of 416,000, auctioned both its police helicopters and shrank its public-safety ranks through attrition by about 8 percent; it has 50 fewer police officers and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago. More than 180 National Guard troops have been mobilized to secure the city after the state's most destructive fire. At least 32 evacuated homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees' cars were broken into, said Police Chief Pete Carey.

"It has impacted the response," said accountant Karin White, 54, who returned Thursday to a looted and vandalized home, with a treasured, century-old family heirloom smashed.
"They did above and beyond what they could do with the resources they had," she said. "If there were more officers, there could have been more manpower in the evacuated areas."
Since the start of the 18-month recession in December 2007, U.S. cities have faced shrinking revenue and diminishing state support, leading to budget cuts and reductions in services and workforces. Cities faced a fifth-straight year of revenue declines in 2011, according to the National League of Cities, which estimated that municipalities would have to fill budget gaps of as much as $83 billion from 2010-2012.

Colorado Springs, which depends on sales tax for about half its revenue, was hit harder than most. The city — the birthplace 20 years ago of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which later passed statewide and has been pushed around the country to restrict government spending — became a high-profile example of cost-cutting. The law restricts government spending to the previous year's revenue, adjusted only for population growth and inflation.
"People are going to be looking at the aftermath of this disaster to see what is possible," said Josh Dunn, an associate professor of political science at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. "How far can you go in cutting the size of city government?"

The city, home of the evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family, is known for being conservative and libertarian. It "was the tea party before the tea party was cool," Dunn said.
Six of the nine candidates in last year's nonpartisan mayoral election, including the victor, Mayor Steve Bach, signed the no-tax pledge pushed by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Richard Skorman, one candidate who didn't, was flooded with angry emails after saying in a debate why he opposed such a pledge.

What, he asked, if the city got hit by a major wildfire?

"Resources have been very stretched, and we were always worried," said Skorman, 60, a small-business owner and former city councilman who lost to Bach in an April 2011 runoff.

The costs of rebuilding combined with lost revenue from business closings and tourism could push the city to the point where it doesn't have revenue for essential services, he said.
Bach said the city is on the path toward financial implosion anyway because of overly generous pensions and too many parks.

It hasn't affected the handling of the wildfire, he said.

The Waldo Canyon blaze has killed two, engulfed a 29-square-mile area the size of Manhattan, has cost $11.1 million to fight so far and is now 55 percent contained. .
Carey and Fire Chief Rich Brown said they are facing the same kind of cuts and budget restrictions as public-safety forces across the country. The reduction in manpower hasn't affected their ability to respond to the wildfire, they said in interviews this weekend.
On June 26, when near-hurricane-force winds caused a firestorm that swept into the city, "I don't care if we had 2,000 people, there's nothing we could have done," Brown said. The city has 413 firefighters and recently graduated its first new class of recruits in five years, he said.

Carey said the staff reduction has forced police to work more closely with the Fire Department and other agencies.

"That's the emerging trend of public safety," Carey said. "We can't afford to have a surge capacity, maximum capacity every day for these kinds of situations. You have to think meaner and leaner, and have a plan that includes asking for outside help."

The city has been aggressive in applying for federal grants, too, which have funded wildfire-mitigation efforts, said Bret Waters, emergency management director.

Dunn notes that the city, where there is strong anti-federal-government sentiment, is now turning to the U.S. for assistance. Before visiting Colorado on Friday, President Obama declared the state a disaster area, which frees aid for communities affected by the wildfires.
"Ironically, Colorado Springs is going to rely heavily on federal funds for rebuilding," Dunn said. "But it won't cover everything."

Sean

Meat Killing Planet • Climate Change • Global Economic Collapse • Keychain Animals • BP OIl Spill Causes Deformities in Marine Life • US Trains Terrorists • Homophobes Secretly Gay • Republicans Think Only the Rich Matter • more

- Next Great Depression? MIT study predicting ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030 still on track

A renowned Australian research scientist says a study from researchers at MIT claiming the world could suffer from a "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace is still on track, nearly 40 years after it was first produced.

- Meds and Banned Antibiotics Routinely Fed to Chickens

Recently, a study from the University of Maryland determined that alarming levels of arsenic were found in chicken feed, but new data suggests that arsenic isn’t the only potentially hazardous substance present. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University have discovered that birds are also routinely fed illegal antibiotics, caffeine, and even chemical compounds found in common medications. Testing feather meal from factory-farm chickens, scientists found traces of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which are banned in poultry production due to their potential to breed antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Furthermore, researchers found evidence of the active ingredients in Benadryl, Tylenol, and even Prozac, found in Chinese chicken meal—all of which may be used to reduce anxiety among chicken, as stress toughens the birds’ meat and inhibits their growth.

- Tropical Depression: Your Saltwater Fish Tank May Be Killing the Ocean

Most tropical fish sold in pet stores come from reefs in Indonesia and the Philippines, where fishermen stun the colorful dwellers with squirts of sodium cyanide. The potent nerve toxin causes the fish to float up out of the reefs so they can be easily scooped up, but it can also injure or kill them as well as trigger coral bleaching.

- Local Media Fail To Cover Climate Denial, ALEC Link

Louisiana, South Dakota, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas -- passed measures or promoted  policies that would change the education curriculums in their states to begin teaching "different perspectives" in environmental science instruction. The major newspapers in each of these states gave varying coverage to the issue with some not even covering the issue at all. In addition a Media Matters investigation shows that, despite the appearance that these state proposals and model legislation by the conservative organization the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), not once did these newspapers mention ALEC or their model legislation in their coverage.

- U.S. Records Warmest March; More Than 15,000 Warm Temperature Records Broken

Record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the United States and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States, a record that dates back to 1895. More than 15,000 warm temperature records were broken during the month

- Pollution Playing A Major Role In Sea Temperatures

The new research appears in the journal Nature. If it's confirmed, it could foretell a warmer Atlantic, because the aerosol pollution has apparently cooled the Atlantic some. But new pollution controls are reducing the amount of those aerosols — that's good for public health, but it also means the ocean loses its sunblock.

- Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause.

- Is Meat killing the Planet? UN says diet change will slow climate change

The pink elephant in the room of global warming discussions is the link between animal agriculture and accelerating climate change. To put it frankly – if we stop eating meat, we will quickly slow down global warming.

- Warming climate reveals links to infectious disease

Researchers are gaining new insight into how pathogens will react to a warmer future: 'It's not just a summer disease. It's becoming a spring and fall disease now.'

- The Long, Hot March of Climate Change

The Pentagon knows it. The world’s largest insurers know it. Now, governments may be overthrown because of it. It is climate change, and it is real. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the hottest March on record for the United States since 1895, when records were first kept, with average temperatures of 8.6 degrees F above average. More than 15,000 March high-temperature records were broken nationally. Drought, wildfires, tornadoes and other extreme weather events are already plaguing the country.

- The Greatest Challenge of Our Species

While it is not as if nothing has been achieved in the interim or that scientific understanding has stood still, it is obvious that new science is not needed to conclude that humanity has failed to act at the scale and with the urgency needed.In the United States, in particular (but not exclusively), far too much attention has been given to the non-issue of whether climate change is real or not. In the meantime the heating of the atmosphere proceeds inexorably, the Arctic ice has thinned and retreated at its summer low to a point that it might be tied to the exceptionally warm spring in Europe and North America. Spring bloom has erupted early in North America and Europe. Most people just say how nice the weather is with no sense of the march of climate change.

- Live Animals Being Sold as Keyrings in China

Keyring ornaments are perhaps the most useless item you'll ever carry in your pocket or stuff in your purse -- but now, thanks to an increasingly popular item being sold in China, it can easily be the cruelest, too. For the price you might expect to pay for some kitschy trinket, Chinese street vendors are selling live animals, permanently sealed in a small plastic pouch where they can survive for a short while as someone's conversation piece. Apparently, these unimaginably inhumane keyrings are actually quite popular -- and worst of all, it's totally legal.

- Broadcast News Networks Misrepresent Intelligence On Iranian Nuclear Issues

Many in the media have long since repudiated their failures in the lead-up to the Iraq War, acknowledging that they were too quick to accept the false notion that Iraq possessed a sizable and dangerous cache of weapons of mass destruction. The question today is whether they have learned from those mistakes.

- Report: U.S. trained terror group

When the U.S. wants to fund, train, arm or otherwise align itself with a Terrorist group or state sponsor of Terror — as it often does — it at least usually has the tact to first remove them from its formal terrorist list (as the U.S. did when it wanted to support Saddam in 1982 and work with Libya in 2006), or it just keeps them off the list altogether despite what former Council on Foreign Relations writer Lionel Beehner described as “mounds of evidence that [they] at one time or another abetted terrorists” (as it has done with close U.S. allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with the El Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras armed and funded in the 1980s by the Reagan administration). But according to a new, multi-sourced report from The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh, the U.S. did not even bother going through those motions when, during the Bush years, it trained the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) at a secretive Department of Energy site in Nevada...

- Updated Review Finds Little U.S. Military Risk in Nuclear Test Ban

Any move toward ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, an agreement designed to end the testing of nuclear weapons permanently, will require a lengthy debate in the U.S. Senate, which has not been scheduled and would be improbable in an election year. But according to the U.S. National Academies, there is no technical reason why the United States should not sign on the dotted line right now. In a report released last week, an expert panel said it would be possible to keep America's stockpile of nuclear weapons safe and reliable without testing, and that treaty-monitoring technologies now make it impossible for states to hide a test big enough to be useful.

- Homophobes 'may be secretly attracted to people of the same sex'

Homophobes could be attracted to people of the same sex but are not admitting it to themselves, a series of psychology studies has found.Researchers in New York, Essex and California say they've found evidence that gays and lesbians remind homophobes of themselves  - which is why they develop an intense aversion and fear of them.
They claim homophobic people tend to repress their true sexuality as they've often been brought up in families where being gay is not acceptable.

- Seeking the Truth About U.S. Targeted Killing Strike That Killed Dozens of Women and Children in Yemen

Today the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information about a horrific U.S. missile strike that killed dozens of civilians in Yemen.

- Think Natural Gas Leasing Makes Homeowners Money? Think Again (Video)

From Texas to Wyoming to Pennsylvania, countless homeowners have learned the cruel truth that a home without clean water is essentially valueless. Many homeowners dealing with contamination have had their property values slashed by 75 or 80 percent by professional appraisers, but have been unable to find buyers—at any price. These families are often stuck paying mortgages on homes they can no longer live in safely, with no one to turn to for help. Gas companies have no obligation to compensate homeowners for the loss of their shelter, or the long-term loss of their “nest egg.” For some, destroyed land is also destroyed income. Farmers have watched as companies that told them at lease-signing, “You’ll never even know we’re here” instead built roads and toxic wastewater pools on their best fields, leaving their animals with no place to graze and their crop yields insufficient to pay their bills.

- NRA Chief Lobbyist Cox Says "We Will Defend" Stand Your Ground Laws

At an event during last weekend's National Rifle Association annual meeting, NRA chief lobbyist Chris W. Cox said that the group doesn't "apologize" for its support for "Stand Your Ground" self-defense legislation in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, adding, "We will defend our efforts. We will defend those laws."

- Romney's own hot-mic moment

At the fundraiser, Haake adds, both Romney and his wife Ann remained absolutely giddy about last week’s Hilary Rosen flap. "It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother, and that was really a defining moment, and I loved it," Ann Romney said. The candidate went further, calling the episode a "gift" that allowed his campaign to show contrast with Democrats in the general election's first week. But while Romney said last week that “all moms are working moms,” that doesn’t apply to mothers who are welfare recipients, the Boston Globe says. Romney said at a Jan. 4 campaign stop in Manchester, N.H.: “Even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work,” Romney describing his position as Massachusetts governor. “And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless,’ and I said ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving daycare to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

- Police condemned over student pepper-spraying

Campus police violated policy and used poor judgment when they used pepper spray against student demonstrators at a California university in November, according to a report into the incident.

- Rachel Maddow: Michigan GOP circumvents democracy with shady vote corner-cutting

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

- The ‘Voter Fraud’ Fraud

...conservatives continue to hype the extremely rare occurrence of election fraud as if it were something that happens every day and is somehow responsible for the election of Obama and Democratic candidates across the map. And there is evidence that they’ve been successful in pushing this fact-free narrative among the broader public.

- Disenfranchised in America

New legislation across the US could have a huge impact on the country's 2012 presidential elections. Largely Republican politicians have passed a range of new voting laws that groups fear could disenfranchise as many as five million American voters this year.

Troops Out, Now What?
Posted: 03/29/2012 on HuffingtonPost.com

March 19th marked the sad anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nine tumultuous years after "shock and awe," the people of Iraq struggle to rebuild their society while dealing with the aftermath of a disastrous occupation. When the last combat brigades pulled out in December 2011, putting Iraq in their rear-view mirrors, what was the legacy they left in their wake and the burdens they brought home with them?

As both an organizer active with Iraq Veterans Against the War and a student of anthropology, I have worked closely with U.S. military veterans who served in the so-called "Global War of Terror," particularly those involved in peace and social justice movements. Looking back, I see many lessons to be drawn from this costly debacle.

The Perils of Militarism


The first lesson is that militarism in the U.S. seems to have a gravitational force pulling a wide array of resources and sectors into its orbit. Our involvement with Iraq serves as a case study for how deeply rooted militarism is in American culture and political life. The Bush administration gambled on this fact as it made the case for war. The entire undertaking, however, was doomed from the outset given the well-documented false pretenses underpinning their arguments, inept leadership by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and rampant corruption of private contractors who operated with impunity, all with deadly consequences for the Iraqi population.

Even members of the academic community were drawn to the tremendous power and influence the military-industrial complex enjoys. Social scientists were employed as part of the U.S. military's Human Terrain System (HTS) program to assist combat commanders in getting a better understanding of Iraqi and Afghan culture and social structure as part of a larger counterinsurgency strategy. This program and articles published by anthropologists working in it prompted a heated debate within the American Anthropological Association, which had previously passed resolutions against the Iraq war and torture. The debate centered on the issue of professional ethics guiding anthropologists engaged in research involving human subjects.

With counter-insurgency strategy relying heavily on building relationships with the local population, critics argued these anthropologists were violating norms of obtaining informed consent from the Iraqi participants where they worked and that reporting their findings for use in military operations put civilian lives at risk. As a response, the Network of Concerned Anthropologists gathered signers for an online petition and initiated a number of editorials for academic and popular publications. Thus, while the pull toward militarism is strong there are always socially responsible people willing to fight against it.

Yellow Ribbons and Purple Hearts


The second lesson is that the logic of militarism shapes the national dialogue and makes going to and supporting war a primary responsibility of the citizenry. The mission to topple Saddam Hussein, driven by claims that he allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and connections to al Qaeda leaders, led many enlistees and service members to view service in Iraq as a just cause, likened to the fight against fascism during WWII. Calls for civilians to "Support the Troops" and do their part to ensure their service is honored in some way was the dominant rhetoric across the mainstream political spectrum. While I think veterans deserve our respect, it should not come at the cost of blindly accepting unjust wars or committing huge expenditures unquestioningly.

Yet, for the over two million troops and veterans who served a tour in Iraq, re-adjusting to life back home has not been a smooth transition. While the total number of troops who were killed or wounded in Iraq is far less when compared to previous major conflicts, the war is no less devastating for the troops, vets and their families. Multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both have left many veterans with serious physical and psychological injuries.

Impaired to the point of being unemployable, their capacity to function in a difficult economy for healthy people, much less a veteran with wrestling with rehabilitation and trauma, is severely limited. The recent revelations of a four-tour Army staff sergeant who allegedly massacred 17 civilians in Afghanistan highlight the depth of the problem. My organization has launched the Operation Recovery campaign to raise awareness about the widespread nature of trauma and to stop the deployment of traumatized troops.

Although improvements to the GI Bill came late in the war, many veterans still find it difficult to maintain a stable lifestyle conducive to completing a college education. Overcoming the effects of military sexual trauma, post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury can be a daunting task. Even when one seeks care at a Veterans Affairs (VA) health facility, many veterans face long wait times or bureaucracy that frustrates and makes getting care elusive. A plethora of veterans' organizations has sprung up to meet the demands of a new and growing veterans population.

The Long Shadow of War


The final lesson is that civilians have paid the biggest price for what U.S. militarism creates. The toll on Iraqi civil society has and continues to be tremendous. Estimates of civilian deaths between 2003 and 2011 because of coalition or sectarian violence range from 115,000 to 157,000 according to IraqBodyCount.org. The number of wounded is difficult to quantify accurately but is in the hundreds of thousands. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports the number of internally displaced people at over 1.3 million, while the number of Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries or elsewhere is over 1.6 million.

The amount of damage caused by air strikes and ground fighting has impaired basic services such as access to the clean water, reliable electricity and medical services. After years of sanctions and occupation, Iraqi society has been left to sort out the mess in the aftermath. Few acknowledge the widespread mental and emotional trauma that Iraqis face as they deal with the loss of their families, security, and communities. In spite of it all, pro-democracy movements critical of the U.S., the Maliki government, and in solidarity with the "Arab Spring" uprisings, have swept across Iraq according to a blog by Ali Issa, an Iraqi-American organizer with the War Resisters League.

The environmental devastation caused by coalition munitions and the prolonged occupation presence, has created a wasteland of nuclear and chemical waste ruining crops, water tables, and a compromising the gene pool. The city of Fallujah alone has seen a 15 fold increase in birth defects and cancer between 2008 and 2009 according to The Guardian, among a relatively young and healthy population before the occupation.

Iraqi and international physicians as well as U.S. military veterans have worked to draw attention to this important issue. Dubbed the "agent orange" of the 21st century, depleted uranium (DU) will continue to have a devastating impact on Iraqi society for generations to come. On the flip-side, veterans are suffering from a whole host of service-related health problems linked to DU exposure. Some have argued Gulf War syndrome -- a complex array of symptoms that defy conventional diagnoses -- is a result of DU or nerve agent exposure and combat veterans report a number of serious ailments including chronic fatigue, skins conditions, unexplained headaches, neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and menstrual disorders.

Although the outlook seems bleak, as the vast majority of people not directly affected by the war will quickly forget about Iraqis and the veterans, I take heart in the incredible human capacity for empathy with the "other," and the will to dedicate oneself to achieving justice.

Jose Vasquez is the Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He served fourteen years in the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged in 2007 as a conscientious objector. Jose was a key organizer of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan - Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations and represented IVAW in the editing process for the book published by Haymarket . He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center conducting research on the politics of veteran status in contemporary American society.

Sean

Bush Officials Downplayed Ground Zero Health Risks - US Backed Forces Commit Human Rights Abuses - Women Elected Officials More Pro-Environment - Arctic Sea Ice Melting FAST - Climate Change - Cheney the Criminal - Obama the Conservative

- US-backed Afghan militias accused of human rights abuses

US-backed Afghan militias are committing murder, rape, torture and extortion, risking increasing support for the insurgent groups they were designed to fight against, a prominent human rights group has said.

- Climate and weather: Extreme measures

Two studies published last February in Nature  showed links between extreme weather and climate change — one looking at the catastrophic flooding in the UK in 2000, the other at the late-twentieth-century increase in intense rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere.

- U.S. sweltered through the hottest summer in 75 years

The USA just endured its hottest summer in 75 years and the second-hottest summer on record, according to data released Thursday afternoon by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

- Arctic sea ice drops to record low

Arctic sea ice extent last week dropped to a new record minimum. At 4.24 million square kilometers, sea ice cover on 8 September was 27,000 sq km below the previous record low, observed in 2007.

- Researchers Find Arctic Sea Ice at Lowest Levels on Record, and more bad news

Meanwhile, a leading United Nations scientist says coral reefs are on course to become the first ecosystem that human activity will eliminate entirely from the earth.

- Are women in elected office more pro-environment than men?   Yes.

Rachel's Network, our partner in efforts to elect more women in 2012, reviewed Congressional voting patterns over the last ten years and found that women, regardless of party, voted consistently more in favor of pro-environmental policies than men. 

- Ten Reasons to Move Cheney’s Book to the Crime Section

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was given a multi-million contract to write a book about his political career. According to Cheney’s media hype, the book, called In My Time, will have “heads exploding all over Washington.” The Darth Vader of the Bush administration offers no apologies and feels no remorse. But peace activists around the country are stealthily gearing up to visit bookstores, grab a stack of books, and deposit them where they belong—the Crime Section.

- Obama's job speech may save just one: his own

The president's new jobs initiative is too little, too late - and has little chance of congressional approval.

No doubt this not-so-new Obama is aware that his declining polls and the growing disenchantment of weary supporters requires a new, more militant public tone.
But The Hill newspaper that covers Congress reported that many Democrats "say that President Obama is great at delivering speeches, but they claim that if he is going to govern effectively, he must walk the walk and not just talk the talk".

- NRA (National Rifle Association) Fundraises Off 9-11

Yesterday, on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, the National Rifle Association (NRA) sent out an e-mail titled "Remember September 11."  The e-mail sent from NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre began by recounting the bravery of fireman on 9-11 and American troops in Afghanistan, some of whom "share their memories" in the next issue of one of the NRA's many magazines. Then it asked people to text donations to the NRA Foundation...

- Invasive Insects Take Big Cash Bite

Insects that hitch rides in shipping containers cost local governments and homeowners $2.5 billion each year.

- Rebuilt Ground Zero Billed as National Symbol, But Costly Construction Projects Outsourced Overseas Democracy New video

This weekend, thousands of people will gather at the site of the former World Trade Center to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On Sunday, a dedication ceremony will be held for the 9/11 Memorial, which will open to the public on Monday. However, construction continues on 1 World Trade Center, which is far from complete. While the 10th anniversary has made international headlines, little attention has been paid to some controversial aspects of the rebuilding at Ground Zero. At a time when President Obama is launching a massive jobs initiative, key parts of the construction project were outsourced overseas.

- The unsung heroes of 9/11 with video

Thousands of low-wage workers who mopped up toxic dust of World Trade Centre face illnesses with little government help.

The tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, has inspired a reflective mood in New York and much of the nation. While everyone looks back and recalls where they were when the towers fell, those who are sick as a result of the devastation are looking forward – and they do not like what they see.

New documents detail how officials downplayed Ground Zero health risks
Documents examined by ProPublica, including White House emails, show how potentially disturbing information was kept from the public

Published in The Guardian, Friday 9 September 2011

PHOTO:Excavators converge on an area of smouldering debris at the site of the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001. Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AP

In the dark and uncertain days after 11 September 2001, the sight of thousands of shaken New Yorkers returning to their apartments, offices and schools in Lower Manhattan seemed to signal a larger return to normality.

Now new documents have emerged showing that federal officials in Washington and New York went further than was previously known to downplay concerns about health risks, misrepresenting or concealing information that ultimately might have protected thousands of people from the contaminated air at Ground Zero.

In one instance, a warning that people should not report to work on a busy thoroughfare in the financial district – Water Street – was rewritten and workers instead were urged to return to their offices as soon as the financial district opened on 17 September.

In another, federal officials declared that testing showed the area was safe when sampling of the air and dust – which ultimately found very high levels of toxic chemicals – had barely begun.

The documents do not reveal how – or whether – federal officials explicitly weighed the competing goals of ensuring New Yorkers' safety and projecting an image of a city and nation unbowed. But taken as a whole, the records – which include email messages from the White House's Council on Environmental Quality to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as inter-agency correspondence – give the most detailed account yet of how officials kept potentially disturbing data about health risks from the public.

Last year, Congress approved $4.3bn to treat and compensate people with health issues related to exposure to Ground Zero dust.

"The misleading communications by civic leaders and their failure to insist on respiratory protection in the days, weeks and months after the initial rescue operation ended undoubtedly contributed and will continue to contribute to sickness in the rescue and recovery workers and in the citizens of Lower Manhattan," said Dr Philip J Landrigan, chairman of the Department of Community and Preventative Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Mount Sinai has screened more than 25,000 Ground Zero responders for illnesses suspected of being related to the dust and treated many of them.

In response to questions about the way the disaster was handled, the EPA issued this statement: "The federal response to 9/11 has been thoroughly examined, including by EPA's own inspector general. What is clear is that dedicated EPA staff worked tirelessly under nearly impossible conditions to respond to an unprecedented disaster."

The statement goes on to note that the events of 9/11 tested the agency in many ways "and it is clear that some things could have been done better. Our focus every day since 9/11 has been on working to improve and expand our capacity to respond to emergencies."

As the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, questions continue to arise over the way government agencies assessed risks at Ground Zero and communicated what they knew to the public.

In some respects, the documents examined by ProPublica, which were obtained through freedom of information requests filed by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), a health union, expand upon what has come out before about the White House's role in shaping the information about Ground Zero contamination.

In 2003, the EPA inspector general issued a scathing report outlining how the agency recast some of its public communications at the behest of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a branch of the Executive Office of the President. The report concluded that the White House had at least indirectly influenced the wording of some statements by removing cautionary language about air safety downtown. It also found that the EPA had gone beyond what it knew in making general statements about the air in the first weeks after the attacks. In particular, the report harshly criticised Christine Todd Whitman, the EPA administrator in 2001, for telling people in New York that the "air is safe to breathe" before she had the facts to back it up.

Whitman declined to comment on the newly released documents. But in 2007, she strongly defended her agency before a congressional committee investigating the 9/11 response.
"It's utterly false then for EPA critics to assert that I or others at the agency set about to mislead New Yorkers and rescue workers," Whitman told the House judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and civil liberties, whose chairman, the Democrat representative for New York Jerrold Nadler, represents the area around Ground Zero. "Every statement I made was based on what experts, who had a great deal of experience in these things, conveyed to me,"

At the same hearing, Samuel Thernstrom, the associate director of communications for the environmental council, defended his role in coordinating the flow of information about Ground Zero, saying his goal had been simply "to help ensure that EPA's statements were as clear and accurate as possible."

But the new records, some of which were made available to the New York labour group as recently as this summer, depict an administration more set on projecting confidence and protecting itself against political attacks.

In an email dated 20 September, for example, John Henshaw, OSHA's chief administrator, said he had received a phone call from Thernstrom warning that several senators were asking questions about how OSHA was cooperating with the EPA at Ground Zero. In response, Henshaw directed his staff to gather details deflecting such concerns.

"I would like to have the information at hand before any inquiries come in, to nip any criticism in the bud," Henshaw wrote. "They have a history of taking pot shots at us and if we can respond quickly, in a positive, strong, well thought out way, we may take some wind out of there (cq) sails."

In several instances, the documents show, officials offered assurances about air quality before they even had test results or downplayed the degree of the contamination found.
Early on 13 September, a day and a half after the World Trade Centre towers collapsed, Thernstrom called OSHA's New York office to say Whitman was on her way to the city to talk to reporters about the agency's air testing "since all monitoring reports have been so positive thus far," according to an OSHA email.

But according to its own records, the EPA had only tested a handful of asbestos samples before 14 September and didn't get the results of tests for other contaminants until 23 September.

A joint press release put out by the EPA and OSHA said dust samples taken from cars and buildings on 13 September had asbestos levels "slightly above" the 1% level at which federal regulations apply. The new documents, however, specify that the samples contained 2.1 to 3.3% asbestos – or 200% to 300% higher than the trigger standard.

"These documents confirm that what happened at the World Trade Centre is that we proceeded with a minimalist approach in terms of caution and never really scaled it up as it became necessary, rather than assuming the worst case scenario and scaling it back as appropriate," said David M Newman, a workplace safety expert with NYCOSH.

Newman started filing public information requests several years ago to better understand how federal, state and city agencies made decisions affecting worker safety at Ground Zero. NYCOSH advocates for worker safety, in partnership with environmental and health groups, workers' rights organizations and unions whose members worked on the cleanup.

One batch of documents obtained by NYCOSH significantly amplifies a White House intervention described more generally in the 2003 Inspector General report. Within days of the twin towers' collapse, when the air was heaviest with asbestos and dioxin, a warning that office workers in New York's financial district might be at risk if they returned to their workplaces was removed from public statements at the request of the Council on Environmental Quality.

The original draft of the release that was going to be issued by the EPA and OSHA said "higher levels of asbestos" had been found in seven samples taken by OSHA on Water Street in the financial district. The Inspector General's office examined inter-agency emails and found that after the White House reviewed the draft and suggested revisions, the information about Water Street was removed, as was this warning to office workers: "The concern raised by these samples would be for workers at the cleanup site and for those workers who might be returning to their offices on or near Water Street."

The newly released documents show that, in place of the caution about Water Street, office workers were urged to return to work on Monday 17 September. "Our tests show it is safe for New Yorkers to go back to work in New York's financial district," OSHA's administrator says in the final version of the release.

Officials seemed to be sending two distinct messages: telling office workers and residents the air was safe, while repeatedly warning first responders and crews working right on the debris pile to wear protective gear. Those conflicting assurances and warnings given by federal officials left workers and residents unsure what steps to take to protect themselves.
Critics have accused officials of not levelling with the public about what they knew and didn't know in the aftermath of the attacks.

In July 2002, for instance, it was revealed that, despite assurances by EPA and OSHA officials, harmful dust remained on Wall Street well after it reopened because vacuum trucks had initially used the wrong filters.

The new documents show that in 2003 an investigator with the Inspector General's office asked Tina Kreisher, the EPA's chief spokeswoman on 9/11, whether she or anyone else at the agency considered acknowledging the misstep. Kreisher said she could not remember whether such a discussion had taken place.

Kreisher could not be reached for comment. In her interview with the Inspector General's office, she acknowledged that the EPA's choices reflected a conscious effort to reassure the public. "The emphasis came from the administration and the White House," she said.
Federal officials also opted not to sound alarms even after tests registered unprecedented levels of dioxin at and around ground zero, the NYCOSH documents show.

Dioxin, a pollutant that can cause cancer, damage the immune system and lead to developmental problems, is most harmful when absorbed through food. But it can also cause harm when inhaled. OSHA discussed the alarming test results internally: "Just received a sample taken at the WTC (in or near the plume I believe)," an OSHA employee wrote in an October 2001 email to John Henshaw, the agency's administrator. "The result was very high … EPA is saying it is one of the highest levels they have ever seen." The level was about 1,000 times higher than normal for dioxin.

Henshaw forwarded the message to Patricia Clark, regional administrator of OSHA's New York office, and asked what she knew about the dioxin sampling. By early that same afternoon, Clark wrote back calmly reminding her boss that OSHA does not have a standard for exposure to dioxin, and that the extremely high level "would drop off dramatically away from the plume."

A year later, the EPA acknowledged in a report that dioxin levels had reached "the highest ambient concentrations that have ever been reported," but discounted their significance because the dioxin had not been ingested.

Newman said he was shocked to find that OSHA had knowledge of this early on in the cleanup and did not issue a warning. "There is no evidence or indication that this information had any significant impact on their operation or the way they communicated risk to the workers," he said.
OSHA did not respond to requests for comment on the documents or its handling of this matter.
The NYCOSH documents make clear that, contrary to the claims of some critics, local officials recognised the extraordinary hazards of working on the pile and tried to address them, sometimes with little support from their federal counterparts.

City health officials consistently urged responders working amid the rubble to wear proper respiratory equipment, including specially fitted respirator masks, throughout the cleanup. Kelly McKinney, the associate commissioner of the New York City Department of Health in 2001, repeatedly asked OSHA to enforce orders for workers to wear respirators. OSHA officials responded that they were acting in an advisory role and would not issue fines because that would slow down operations. Instead, OSHA said it would encourage voluntary compliance with the regulations.

The voluntary approach had limitations. According to one email, when an OSHA representative tried to set up a mobile distribution point for respirator masks, he was reportedly told to leave by a city fire department battalion chief. "The Fire Department takes care of its own," the chief said. "We don't need any help from civilians."

As part of its response to the 2003 Inspector General report, the EPA promised to improve how it communicated risk in rapidly changing emergencies, such as the 9/11 attack.

An agency spokesman said that since then, the EPA had helped develop a government-wide plan for crisis response. The agency also has opened an emergency operations centre that provides the agency's data and expertise to other government agencies during emergencies.
Nevertheless, some 9/11 veterans, including Nadler, the Ground Zero congressman, say they would still question government assurances that air was safe in the aftermath of a similar disaster.

"I'd be very leery about believing it unless I saw real evidence," said Nadler. "There's always a pressure on government to say that things are better, there's always pressure to cover up the extent of a disaster, and depending on the character of the officials in charge they may or may not yield to that pressure."

Sean