In the middle of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. Seemingly out of nowhere, a massive crater appeared in one of the planet’s most inhospitable lands. Early estimates said the crater, nestled in a land called “the ends of the Earth” where temperatures can sink far below zero, yawned nearly 100 feet in diameter.

The saga deepened. The Siberian crater wasn’t alone. There were two more, ratcheting up the tension in a drama that hit its climax as a probable explanation surfaced. Global warming had thawed the permafrost, which had caused methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode. “Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater,” one German scientist said at the time.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/26/the-siberian-crater-problem-is-more-widespread-and-scarier-than-anyone-thought/?tid=pm_pop

As ISIL's mobs of ignoramuses destroy ancient cultural treasures in Mosul, one could despair at the loss. As I wrote earlier: see the season for sharing is now...

"... in most situation, we also forget our past sins to point out others' sins..."

For example the Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues of Bamiyan in 2001 to everyone (except the Taliban) great horror. A great shame... Representations of gods and of humans in most cultures has been contentious... Islam forbids the depiction of such. And the Catholic church does as well, but for many years it was in need of ways to convert people by using "images" since no one could read. 

In the 17th century, puritans in England decided to destroy all representative images in churches and so forth...:

Sudbury, jan. 9, 1643. We broke down 10 mighty great Angels in glass. In all 80... etc... and 20 Cherubims to be broke down...

This was reported by William Dowsing in 1648...

The damage was immense and intense. Church stained glass windows, castles windows with godly references were being broken beyond repair, with fanaticism and sledge-hammers.

Now do we have to destroy images of our myths in order to destroy the myths? Well, the major problem here is that the destruction was not meant to destroy the concept of myths but to replace an old one with a new one, that decreed by Henry the VIII, a century before. 

"Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England – all to get his first divorce. This also allowed him to seize church land and property (a great help in financing costly European wars). Under Henry VIII, England witnessed the wholesale destruction of beautiful monastic buildings and libraries."

- See more at: http://www.hrp.org.uk/learninganddiscovery

/Discoverthehistoricroyalpalaces/monarchs/henryVIII#sthash.U9lW3CNP.dpuf"

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

Sad the way we destroy our own or others' precious things... But the saddest of all destruction is the one we cannot see too well — or do not want to see. We are destroying the planet. The planet is far more important than a few statues or some old manuscripts... It's an immediate recognition of destruction to video a couple of blokes bashing relics with sledge hammers... It takes a long time to convince people that we are smashing the planet with carbon dioxide. And unfortunately, we are. Our civilisation and method of trade (capitalism) need to be revised to take this into account. We need to do this if we want to survive the future. So far global warming has been benign. A few (many) bad storms, a few (many) melts of ice here and there and some very small incremental change that we cannot see by pointing a finger in the wind. Our instrumentation and prognosis tell us that change will accelerate dramatically. Some optimistic experts give us 30 years to sort out our emissions of CO2. The more pessimistic experts give us only 2 years to start being VERY serious about the problem. 

Now as we drive along at speed, and know that there is a wall in front of us, are we going to accelerate and try to demolish the wall or try to apply the brakes?... Should we brake when we hit the wall? 

Between powerful nature's laws and iffy capitalism, we should have a pretty good idea as to what will have to be done. Only idiots like Tony Abbott are in the way to do the right thing for humanity... 

A spokesman for the OEH said the current timetable was  to make the reports public by the second half of this year.

"There has been extensive land clearing in the region for a variety of uses over the past 150 years and there is benefit in proactively identifying desired conservation outcomes in advance of project-by-project applications for future coal mining," the spokesman said. 

While the specific areas to be mined were yet to be determined by the miners, the assessment would help improve environmental outcomes and provide "greater certainty for the community, industry and government", the spokesman said.

Environment Minister Rob Stokes said the government "is committed to a comprehensive independent assessment of the ecological sustainability of new development", with the UN's hierarchy convention of  "avoid, minimise, offset" applied.

"The intent of the strategic assessment is, in part, to identify species that are more vulnerable to loss of habitat," Mr Stokes said. "This will provide mining companies the opportunity to avoid impacts on sensitive areas, up front in the mine-planning process."

Fairfax Media also sought comment from Opposition Leader Luke Foley.

'Death' blueprint

The OEH study covered only part of the mining impacts from the planned projects. Other cumulative effects from the new mines would include impacts on water, air quality and noise levels.

A report released this week by the Climate and Health Alliance said burning coal for electricity generation in the Hunter Valley was already causing health impacts costing hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Coal output in the region could increase from about 145 million tonnes a year now to 243 million tonnes by 2022, the report said.

Greens mining spokesman Jeremy Buckingham said the coal mining plans amounts to "a blueprint for the death of the Hunter Valley and a climate suicide note".

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/revealed-major-new-coal-mines-planned-for-the-upper-hunter-20150227-13ki4a.html

At last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, GOP chairman Reince Priebus had some strong words about how President Barack Obama prioritizes threats to national security.

"Democrats tell us they understand the world, but then they call climate change, not radical Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to national security," he said. "Look, I think we all care about our planet, but melting icebergs aren't beheading Christians in the Middle East."

The comment came after the president, in a lengthy interview with Vox, said that the media often overplays the danger of terrorism relative to climate change. It's not the first time Obama has made a point along those lines. In his State of the Union address in January, he said that "no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations" than climate change. A few weeks later, in his 2015 national security strategy, the president referred to global warming as an "urgent and growing threat" to national security.

But while Priebus's jab earned him a hearty round of applause at CPAC, new research indicates that his iceberg comment doesn't hold water.

For the last couple years, Middle East experts have pointed to the ongoing civil war in Syria as a prime example of how climate change can contribute to violent conflict. The country's worst drought on record arrived just as widespread outrage with President Bashar al-Assad's dictatorial regime was reaching critical mass; as crops failed, an estimated 1.5 million people were driven off rural farms and into cities. While grievances with the Assad regime are many, from economic stagnation to violent crackdowns on protesters, the impacts of the drought were likely the final straw.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/climate-change-syria-obama-cpac

"It is difficult for individual governments to control or affect the collective and cumulative impact of human activity globally, but there is a role for the Australian government to continue in its efforts in leading and co-ordinating domestic environmental policies to drive better environmental management and economic growth for the generations to come," the 2015 report says.

The 2010 report says something different:

"Climate change is the largest threat to Australia's environment and represents one of the most significant challenges to our economic sustainability. Failure to address this threat would have severe consequences for weather patterns, water availability in cities, towns and rural communities, agricultural production, tourism, infrastructure, health and Australia's unique biodiversity. The social and economic consequences of failing to act would be severe."

The contrast between the two documents represents an obvious difference in ideology, as well as policy. 

Intergenerational Reports are inherently political documents, with successive governments using them to justify their fiscal policy settings.

Former Treasurer Wayne Swan used his report in 2010 to warn of the dangers of climate change to promote the use of his government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (the 'cap and trade' emissions trading scheme) that it wanted to place at the centre of its fiscal policy.

But the Abbott government has criticised Labor for using the document in that way.

It says this 2015 Intergeneration Report focuses primarily on government expenses that are affected by "demographic change", and the level of Commonwealth government spending on the environment "is not directly linked with demographic changes."

So it has pulled the environment out of the centre of fiscal policy and pushed it to one side. It focuses attention on demographic changes only.

But the concept of environmental refugees is not considered in that discussion. 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-change-no-longer-a-budget-problem-for-future-generations-20150305-13vxxu.html

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

Apparently the Liberals (CONservatives) have not registered a razoo that the globe is warming up (FAST in geological terms) and that more CO2 is ADDING ENERGY in the atmosphere. Last year (2014) was the warmest ON RECORD and many of the last decades since the turn of the century have been above the record of the previous century (1998)... But fear not, the US eastern side was (and still is) in the grip of record cold snaps or vortexes, but no mention was made of the warming western side and that temperature in the Canadian wilderness were above usual cold misery. Meanwhile after a January second to one in warmer, the month of February was also the second warmest on record for Australia, with a hot bubble presently sitting in the western northern part of Queensland making a few people sweat (including THE LOWEST RAINFALL ON RECORD FOR FEBRUARY despite two cyclones). Notwithstanding that these two powerful simultaneous cyclones (a record in itself as well for size and timing) have destroyed a few things around, possibly increasing our insurance premiums in the long run. 

Fear not, global warming won't stop because the Liberals (CONservatives) are blind. From the middle of this century, global warming will be talked about far more than piddled terrorism... The climate terrorists then will be denounced as Joe Hockey, Tony Abbott and his mob of idiots. By then when the temperature hits another record in Sydney, these imbeciles will still deny the reality of science and pray to the old guy that does not exists in the sky to go easy on us with the heat. Idiots, idiots, they are all idiots... These guys are full of their own vanitous (glorified importance) shit. 

Please do not vote for Baird. He is on the same side as these idiots, even if he appears as a "nice" guy...

see also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27068

Because California mandates a specific standard of fuel, most of the output produced by refineries stays in the state, powering the state's 26 million cars and 1 million trucks. Even though California is the third-largest refiner in the nation—after Texas and North Dakota—the Golden State doesn't collect data on the water consumption of its refineries. So I reached out to the six companies that make up more than 90 percent of the state's refining capacity, asking how much water each California refinery consumes.

Three companies were forthcoming about their water use; ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, and Valero declined to comment. Let's assume that these three companies use 1.5 gallons of water per gallon of oil refined—an estimate provided by David Kujawski, at the consulting group Refinery Wastewater Associates, and one that matches up with water use of other refineries in the area. That means that at full capacity, the six companies together use about 94 million gallons of water per day in California—more than twice as much as the daily water use of San Francisco homes, or about a third of that of Los Angeles homes. When you're looking at the chart, keep in mind that companies often sell products to gas stations with different brands; gasoline that's refined at the Tesoro plant, for example, is often sold at Exxon, Shell, and ARCO stations.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/06/california-water-suck-you-never-heard