GranolaFag Weekly

From Reuters

 Climate change could end globalization by 2040 as nations look inward to conserve scarce resources and conflicts flare when refugees flee rising seas and drought, national security experts warned on Monday.

Now that climate change is obvious and “all up in your business” you won’t ignore it, will you, guys? When all it did was kill poor non-white people it wasn’t a big deal, but now that it threatens profit? SOUND THE ALARM!

“Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalization as we have known it … as different parts of the Earth contract upon themselves in order to try to conserve what they need to survive,” said Fuerth, who was national security adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.

This may actually be one of the positive side-effects of all this madness: the end of globalization. No longer will America be able to rape foreign cultures in pursuit of the all-mighty dollar. I can’t wait for the day when money is worthless and we can all finally concentrate on what’s really important in life: love.

From CBS News

 Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award earlier this year, was awarded the prize earlier in the day along with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international network of scientists, for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.

Looks like the Nobel people could no longer take the pressure to award the prize to someone who can actually make a positive difference in the world.

WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

President Gore (yes, I used that title on purpose!) and the UN are unstoppable, they know how to get results (their record is undeniable) and this is exactly what their movement needed to shock the public into realizing what exactly is going on.  It’s all downhill for the corporate fat-cats and their money machines. The world is waking up and realizing they’re selling poison. Al Gore is no friend of George Bush and the oil industry, he’s kicking ass and taking names.

I eagerly await their next move.

From The L.A. Times

The Senate today approved a long-debated measure that would expand the federal hate crime law to cover violence against gays, and in an unusual gambit to make it difficult for President Bush to carry out his veto threat, attached it to a defense bill.

It’s about freakin’ time! How many of us would still be alive if this had been passed 10 years ago? It disgusts me.

I realize this isn’t really on-topic for GFW, but it’s something I feel strongly about (watch out for gay marriage news, too!) and something I feel is critically important to this country. For too long gay men and women have been victims to senseless, hateful violence at the hands of ignorant homophobes and rednecks.

Being a gay man in today’s US isn’t easy. If you survive the job discrimination, the constant harassment, the lack of political representation (until Hillary gets to be President!), the physical violence, and the outright persecution, you still face horrors of AIDS and the loneliness caused by the closure of all the decent gay clubs in this country. Not many people know what it’s like to live like that, especially the racist a-holes that make the laws.

The bill’s supporters said they hope the hate-crime legislation is included in a final defense bill. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has championed the legislation, noted that no president has ever vetoed a defense authorization bill. “We’re very hopeful that the president will sign it,” he said.

Ha! It’s so sweet that they attached a piece of good legislation to one of the President’s war-mongering bills. Try and veto that, George! You’d have to withdraw the troops from Iraq and Lord know we can’t have that! If Iraq was peaceful instead of overrun by your terrorizing hate troops I don’t know what we would do!</sarcasm>

From CNN

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday told delegates to a global climate change conference that countries around the world must work together to combat climate change, much as they cooperate against terror and the spread of disease.

Was that filed under “O” for obvious or “D” for Duuuhhhhh?

Climate change is the single most important crisis this planet has ever faced. Never before have we ever known anything like it, and these critical years have suffered incompetent and evil leadership. At least it looks now like at least one of them might kinda/sorta be “getting it.” Of course it’s Condie Rice, the one person in the administration who (I bet) actually had to work to get where she is in life instead of having everything handed to her on a silver platter. You go, girl! Of course, your boss is still pig-headed:

Bush said he believes every nation should set its own goals. The president expressed concern that setting strict targets would damage the U.S. economy. Instead, he said, industries should enact voluntary measures.

The US economy always has been and always will be fine. If we had universal health care and a decent welfare/social security system (like the rest of the civilized world) we wouldn’t even have reason to worry about the economy, anyway, the government would be shouldering their share of the burden.

Voluntary measures will not and cannot ever work. “Industry” is run by the same bunch of evil, greedy, straight, fat, white men that government is. They’ll never sacrifice a nickel to save the planet, they can never have enough. We need regulation by responsible parties: The government or the environmental protection organizations (Greenpeace, ELF, PETA, etc.) You don’t ask a fox to watch the henhouse, do you? No, you get the police to do it.

She listed three points that she hopes delegates will focus on during the conference:

 

An agreement on a long-term goal for greenhouse gas reduction.

The establishment of midterm national targets and programs tailored to each country’s economic and energy needs to reach the broader goal.

The encouragement of work with private industry to develop new energy technology that doesn’t risk but accelerates economic growth.

That’s a good start, but it’s not nearly enough. We’re in crisis and we need to act accordingly. My plan:

• The United States will cease production of all carbon dioxide by the end of the year. Anyone or anything found to be producing CO2 will face huge fines and/or prison terms
• Half of the land that is currently being wasted on suburban sprawl (strip malls, Wal-Marts, NASCAR tracks, etc.) must be torn down and replanted as permanently protected National Forest by 2010.
• The US must dedicate 25% of it’s annual Federal budget to remediating the damage it has done to the planet. The UN will supervise the spending of the money so Bush and his cronies don’t steal all of it.
• Corporate profits will be capped at $1,000,000 and any excess will be added to the environmental remediation fund.
• No new corporations are allowed to be created, except non-profits.
• Any new car sold from now on must be a hybrid or an electric

These simple, relatively painless steps are not only what is necessary to save our planet, but it’s what the US owes the rest of the world. Our children (well, not mine!) will thank us.

From msnbc.com

Gulf Coast residents were on watch and oil companies evacuated hundreds of nonessential workers as forecasters said Thursday that a storm system now off Florida could strengthen as it moves west.

I love how the fact that another hurricane might not only kill thousands of innocent people, but it’s not a news story until THE OIL COMPANIES have to evacuate workers ( I have a question: If they’re not essential, why are the workers there in the first place?). God forbid the giant corporations should lose some of their billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. It would be areal shame if their CEOs had to sell one of their vacation houses because of severe weather their own companies are largely responsible for in the first place.

We never had hurricanes like this before, how can anyone face the evidence (Hasn’t everyone seen An Inconvenient Truth by now?) and still insist that we’re not in trouble?  How can anyone delude themselves like that? I’m not talking about backwoods rednecks, either, there are tons of people out there that live in real cities and have access to real newspapers and the Internet (the NYT just quit charging for content)  yet still fall victim to the lunatics and corporation-sponsored disinformation? Some people just refuse to face the truth and it makes me pity them.

The National Hurricane Center was sending an aircraft into the system later Thursday to get more precise data. 

Good plan, Einstein.  Burning fossil fuels are  what got us into this mess in the first place and now you want to put even more of them directly into the hurricane??? Who is in charge of the National hurricane Center?  Probably one of W’s idiot rich Yale buddies who doesn’t know the first thing about science or weather. Maybe we should dump some plutonium in there, too!

In New Orleans, emergency preparedness officials urged residents to begin making evacuation plans in case the system develops into a tropical storm or worse.

“We want citizens to understand their personal responsibility of developing their own plan,” said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director. He urged them to buy supplies and be ready to care for themselves.

Ha! Way to blame the victims and shift the burden to the poor people of New Orleans.  Isn’t that what they elected you to do, Col. Terry Ebbert? Now people are supposed to buy their own supplies and ride the storm out on their own? I bet if Halliburton sold buses there would be thousands of them ready to take the citizens to safety. Well, maybe not, since they’re black and, to quote my main man Kanye: George Bush doesn’t care about black people. He nailed it right there, anyone who doesn’t get it after that is a lost cause.

The weather system also led oil companies to fly nonessential workers off of offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, but only a small amount of production had been stopped so far.

Nice, the oil  company employees get first class treatment and a free flight home (except for the essential ones necessary to keep the blood money flowing) but the working class folks in New Orleans are left to fend for themselves with whatever supplies their food stamps will buy for them and their family. I am literally sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I like to end on a happy note,  but I don’t know if I can find a silver lining in this cloud of gasoline smoke. I’ll try, anyway:  If a few thousand MORE people get killed in this hurricane maybe this will be the wakeup call America needs and this whole disaster might have actually been worth it.