The Guardian
Sea level rise doubles in 150 years
· Increase blamed on fossil fuel use since 19th century
· Cut in greenhouse gases futile, researchers say
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian
Global warming is doubling the rate of sea level rise around the world, but attempts to stop it by cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be futile, leading researchers will warn today.
The oceans will rise nearly half a metre by the end of the century, forcing coastlines back by hundreds of metres, the researchers claim. Scientists believe the acceleration is caused mainly by the surge in greenhouse gas emissions produced by the development of industry and introduction of fossil fuel burning.
Today's warning comes from US researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey who analysed cores drilled from different sites along the eastern seaboard. By drilling down 500 metres through layers of different sediments and using chemical dating techniques, the scientists were able to work out where beaches and dry land were over the past 100m years.
The analysis showed that during the past 5,000 years, sea levels rose at a rate of around 1mm each year, caused largely by the residual melting of icesheets from the previous ice age. But in the past 150 years, data from tide gauges and satellites show sea levels are rising at 2mm a year.
"The main thing that has happened since the 19th century and the beginning of the modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gases," said Professor Kenneth Miller, who led the study. "We can say the increase we're seeing is much higher than we've seen in the immediate past and it is due to humans."
The rising tide is expected to make oceans 40cm higher by 2100. "This is going to cause more beach erosion. Beaches are going to move back and houses will be destroyed," he said. Rising sea levels will also add to the destructive power of storm surges triggered by hurricanes such as Katrina which battered New Orleans and surrounding areas this year.
The research, published in the US journal Science, comes a week before the countries that embraced the Kyoto protocol meet for the first time in Montreal to discuss future agreements for cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions further. While Britain has adopted the protocol, the government has suggested that voluntary targets rather than the mandatory cuts demanded by Kyoto could be a more practical way to trim greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Prof Miller, there is little chance of slowing the rising tide caused by global warming. "There's not much one can do about sea level rise. It's clear that even if we strictly obeyed the Kyoto accord, it's still going to continue to warm. Personally, I don't think we're going to affect CO2 emissions enough to make a difference, no matter what we do. The Bush administration should stop asking whether temperatures are globally rising and admit the scientific fact that they are, but then turn the question around politically and say: 'We can't really do anything about this on any kind of cost basis at all'," he said.
In two further studies, also published in Science, a team of German researchers put figures on the extent to which the climate is warming compared with any time during the past 650,000 years. They report that levels of the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are rising 200 times faster than could be caused by any natural process. Carbon dioxide levels are now 380 parts per million, some 27% higher and methane levels 130% higher than at any time over the period they analysed.
The researchers measured levels of greenhouse gases locked into a core of ice drilled from Antarctica. At more than 3km long, the ice core holds pockets of air that were in the earth's atmosphere from nearly 1m years ago until the present day.
The cores are the best record left on the planet of the earth's environmental history. By analysing the gases locked up in 10cm chunks of ice, the researchers can reconstruct the gases that made up the atmosphere at any time from present day until before the four previous ice ages.
"If you really want to make a case for global warming, you just have to look at the past 1,000 years, because the current increase in carbon dioxide stands out dramatically," said lead author Dr Thomas Stocker at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Ed Brook, a climate scientist at Oregon State University said the rise in greenhouse gases ... was a stark indication of the influence industry was having on the environment. "The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the industrial revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years. There is now no question this is due to human influence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1650444,00.html
100 tonnes of pollutants spilled into Chinese river
Staff and agencies
Friday November 25, 2005
A local resident fills a teapot from a public tap in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP
Around 100 tonnes of pollutants flowed into the Songhua river in the chemical spill that forced a Chinese city to cut off water supplies to almost four million people, it was reported today.
The reports came as another industrial accident brought fears of a new pollution crisis hundreds of miles away.
Chinese media said the Songhua spill, caused by an explosion at a chemical factory in the city of Jilin on November 13, resulted in an 80km (50 mile) stretch of benzene flowing down the river to the north-eastern city of Harbin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1650786,00.html
London transport chief quits after row
Hugh Muir
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian
Bob Kiley, the capital's transport commissioner, has quit after a power struggle with Ken Livingstone over the stewardship of the body responsible for the London's roads, buses and tubes.
The American, instrumental in the mayor's congestion charge scheme and bus network expansion, stood down after a clash over a member of staff that he wanted removed but whom the mayor wanted to keep. "It got to the stage of either he goes or I go," a source close to the mayor told the Guardian. "The mayor's answer was not what Kiley expected."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,2763,1650614,00.html
BBC governors overturn ruling on Arafat report
Tara Conlan
Friday November 25, 2005
The BBC's governors have overturned a ruling that cleared a From Our Own Correspondent reporter over an emotional dispatch on the departure of Yasser Arafat from his Ramallah home.
Hundreds of listeners complained to the corporation about the Radio 4 broadcast in October 2004, in which BBC correspondent Barbara Plett admitted to crying as an ill Arafat was airlifted to hospital.
The BBC head of editorial complaints originally ruled that the report did not breach the corporation's impartiality guidelines.
However, one of the complainants appealed to the board of governors. And today the governors' programme complaints committee ruled that the Radio 4 show had in fact broken the rules.
The committee rejected some elements of the complaint, which accused the report of being "a tearful eulogy" and a "flagrant violation" of the impartiality guidelines.
But the committee also "concluded that one element of the item - the reference to the reporter starting to cry - did breach the requirements of due impartiality as the complainant had suggested".
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1650855,00.html
Britain tops EU league for cocaine abuse
· UK closing in on levels seen in American cities
· Deaths involving drug double in three years
Alan Travis in Brussels
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian
Britain is now top of the European "league table" for cocaine abuse and is fast approaching levels seen in America, according to the EU's drug agency. Nearly 12% of all young adults under the age of 35 in Britain have tried the drug at least once.
But the arrival of cocaine as the "stimulant drug of choice" for many young Europeans is bringing in its wake a growing death toll and health problems as it spreads from middle class dinner tables to the backstreets of council estates.
In Britain the latest figures show that drug deaths involving cocaine have risen from 85 in 2000 to 171 in 2003.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,1650615,00.html
History
Queen star dies after Aids statement
Paul Myers
Monday November 25, 1991
The Guardian
Freddie Mercury, rock's showman incarnate, died last night, 24 hours after he confirmed that he was suffering from Aids.
Mercury, lead singer with the band Queen, had become a recluse at his home in Kensington, west London, over the past two years, fuelling speculation that he was suffering from the disease. He was 45.
A brief statement by his publicist, Roxy Meades, said: "Freddie Mercury died peacefully at his home. His death was the result of bronchio-pneumonia, brought on by Aids."
Mercury was born Frederick Bulsara in Zanzibar, the son of a government accountant.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1650611,00.html
The Seattle Times
Volcano erupts, threatens villagers in Bogotá, Colombia
DIARIO LA REPUBLICA / AP
Sixteen people were killed when a passenger bus, traveling through a mountainous area 60 miles east of Lima, Peru, plunged into the Rimac River on Thursday. Another 16 passengers survived the crash.
A volcano erupted Thursday in southwestern Colombia, spewing smoke and ash and raising fears for the safety of nearby villagers, officials said.
Police and emergency officials were on high alert after the 14,110-foot Galeras volcano became active at dawn and dumped ash on Pasto, 12 miles away.
A 1993 eruption killed nine people, including five scientists who had descended into the crater to sample gases at the moment it blew.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002645357_wdig25.h
Defense hawk Dicks says he now sees war as a mistake
By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — It was after 11 p.m. on Friday when Rep. Norm Dicks finally left the Capitol, fresh from the heated House debate on the Iraq war. He was demoralized and angry.
Sometime during the rancorous, seven-hour floor fight over whether to immediately withdraw U.S. troops, one Texas Republican compared those who question America's military strategy in Iraq to the hippies and "peaceniks" who protested the Vietnam War and "did terrible things to troop morale."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002645321_normdicks25m.html
Schwarzenegger mulls clemency for Williams
By DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that he would consider granting clemency to Crips co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams.
After a private hearing with Williams' lawyers at his Sacramento office, Schwarzenegger said he would meet again on Dec. 8 with the lawyers, Los Angeles County prosecutors and others involved.
As governor, he has the authority to commute a death sentence to life without parole. He is not legally obligated to hold a public or private hearing.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/headlines/D8E3R6I87.html
Yakima Valley wineries worry about rockslides
The Associated Press
YAKIMA — Yakima Valley wineries are worried that a rockslide that's backing up traffic on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass could slow business over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Every year, wineries hold a three-day Thanksgiving in Wine Country event that draws hundreds of Puget Sound-area travelers. But state transportation officials have urged drivers to avoid the state's main east-west artery through the Cascades this year due to rockslides and continued cleanup.
Paul Portteus, owner of Portteus Vineyards in Zillah, Yakima County, estimates about 80 percent of his 1,500 to 2,000 visitors during last year's event journeyed from west of the mountains.
He worries that would-be buyers won't make this year's trip because of warnings from the Department of Transportation, which he calls "scare tactics."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002645304_wineries25.html
Hanford Reach elk-management options weighed
By SHANNON DININNY
The Associated Press
HANFORD REACH NATIONAL MONUMENT, Wash. — To folks driving by, the massive elk roaming freely across south-central Washington's rugged, federal land are a delightful sight.
To hunters, they are an enticing target. For Bud Hamilton, a wheat farmer whose property abuts the Hanford Reach, the large stands of elk pose a bust to his crop.
"They come out at night, eat my fields or trample my crops, and go back to the federal land in the morning," Hamilton said. "What am I supposed to do?"
Managing the rapidly growing herd has been a problem for state and federal wildlife managers for years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering new options in an elk-management plan for public comment, including hunting on federal property that hasn't been opened to the public in decades.
Former President Clinton created the Hanford Reach National Monument by proclamation five years ago. The monument stretches along a free-flowing leg of the Columbia River renowned for salmon runs, bird habitat and rare plant life on its banks.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002645303_elk25m.html
Canada pledges more than $4 billion to aid its aboriginal peoples
By The Associated Press
KELOWNA, British Columbia – Canada on today pledged $4.3 billion in a landmark deal with native Indian and northern Inuit communities to help lift them from the poverty and disease that has plagued their neglected reserves for more than a century.
The agreement commits federal funding over the next decade for widespread improvements in housing, health care, education and economic development for the nearly 1 million aboriginal peoples of the North American nation, namely Indian tribes known as First Nations and Inuits, the aboriginal Canadians of the northeastern and Arctic territories.
Prime Minister Paul Martin and the premiers of Canada's 13 provinces and territories announced the agreement after a two-day summit with five native organizations.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002646806_webcanada25.html
Ancient air bubbles yield greenhouse-gas concerns
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the past 650,000 years, says a major new study that let scientists peer back in time at "greenhouse gases" that can help fuel global warming.
By analyzing tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia, a team of European researchers highlights how people are dramatically influencing the buildup of these gases.
The remarkable research promises to spur "dramatically improved understanding" of climate change, said geosciences specialist Edward Brook of Oregon State University.
The study, by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, is published today in the journal Science.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002645356_greenhouse25.html
African poor to get further U.S. food aid
By The Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The United States has thrown a lifeline to six southern African countries, donating food aid valued at $45 million, the U.N. food agency said Thursday.
The 94,000-ton donation brings the U.S. government's total food contribution for the year to $150 million, the World Food Program (WFP) said.
The latest U.S. donation includes beans, peas, lentils, maize meal, corn-soya blend, sorghum, millet, vegetable oil and bulgur wheat, expected to start arriving in the region in January. The food will be distributed across Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
WFP is struggling to feed nearly 10 million people in the region, hit by the fourth straight year of drought and some of the world's highest HIV infection rates.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002645329_food25.html
Feds arrest Ohio imam, begin deportation
By Joe Milicia
The Associated Press
CLEVELAND – Federal authorities arrested an Islamic religious leader today as they began the process of deporting him for lying about ties to terrorist groups.
Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, was convicted in June 2004 of concealing ties to three groups that the U.S. government classifies as terrorist organizations when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994.
That conviction was upheld in March, clearing the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin deportation proceedings.
Damra, 44, was arrested early today without incident, the immigration office said.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002646599_webimam25.html
Achieving energy freedom for the people of Washington
By Hans Dunshee and Jeff Morris
WOULD you rather buy fuel grown by local farmers — or oil pumped from Saudi Arabia? We can have clean, renewable sources of fuel that aren't affected by whatever happens in Louisiana or Iraq. This is a bold vision. But if we take strong action, the people and businesses of Washington state can enjoy energy freedom.
Our economy is based on cheap oil. Yet, even Big Oil admits the world is running out of oil, with millions more people in developing countries trading their bicycles for cars. The era of cheap oil is over.
Watch out for quick fixes from politicians saying just drill for more oil in our parks, pass some tax breaks or build a refinery in Hoquiam — whether the people in Hoquiam like it or not. More of the same won't get the job done.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002644973_dunsheemorris25.html
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Mike is honored, delivers keynote at the first annual Paul Wellstone Memorial Dinner:
http://www.real.com/player/posttrial.html?src=rpinprod_trig_toolbar
Sorry, George, I'm In the Majority ...from Michael Moore
11/19/05
Dear Mr. Bush:
I would like to extend my hand and invite you to join us, the mainstream American majority. We, the people -- that's the majority of the people -- share these majority opinions:
1. Going to war was a mistake -- a big mistake. (link)
2. You and your administration misled us into this war. (link)
3. We want the war ended and our troops brought home. (link)
4. We don't trust you. (link)
Now, I know this is a bitter pill to swallow. Iraq was going to be your great legacy. Now, it's just your legacy. It didn't have to end up this way.
This week, when Republicans and conservative Democrats started jumping ship, you lashed out at them. You thought the most damning thing you could say to them was that they were "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party." I mean, is that the best you can do to persuade them to stick with you -- compare them to me? You gotta come up with a better villain. For heaven's sakes, you had a hundred-plus million other Americans who think the same way I do -- and you could have picked on any one of them!
But hey, why not cut out the name-calling and the smearing and just do the obvious thing: Come join the majority! Be one of us, your fellow Americans! Is it really that hard? Is there really any other choice? George, take a walk on the wild side!
Your loyal representative from the majority,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=188
Multinationals, not Iraqis, to reap oil fortune: report
LONDON (AFP) - Up to 113 billion dollars (96.6 billion euros) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group alleged.
The group known as Platform said that oil multinationals would be paid between 74 billion pounds (43 billion dollars) and 194 billion pounds (113 billion dollars) with rates of return of between 42.0 percent and 162.0 percent under proposed production-sharing agreements, or PSAs.
"The form of contracts being promoted is the most expensive and undemocratic option available," Platform researcher Greg Muttitt said Tuesday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4994
Bush, protesters, have dueling Thanksgivings
CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - While US President George W. Bush enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving meal at his Texas ranch, protesters against the war in Iraq held a rival feast down the road at their makeshift camp.
The dueling meals came as high-profile anti-war figure Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, was expected to return here late in the day and sign copies of her new book on Friday.
The president telephoned 10 people serving overseas in the US armed forces before dining on roasted free range turkey with gravy and whipped sweet potatoes, as well as pecan pie and pumpkin pie, according to the White House.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4999
Rice Optimistic on U.S. Troop Draw Down
Associated Preferences
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States will probably not need to maintain its current troop levels in Iraq "very much longer," though she declined to provide a precise timetable for reduction in U.S. forces.
Rice appeared to set the stage for such a reduction, saying the Iraqi forces are doing a better job of holding their own against insurgents.
"I do not think that American forces need to be there in the numbers that they are now because — for very much longer — because Iraqis are stepping up," Rice told Fox News in an interview Tuesday. "This is not just a matter of training numbers of Iraqi forces, but actually seeing them hold territory."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4992
Obama Calls on Bush To Admit Iraq Errors
'Limited' Troop Reduction Urged
By Peter Slevin / Washington Post
CHICAGO, Nov. 22 -- Sen. Barack Obama said President Bush should admit mistakes in waging the Iraq war and reduce the number of troops stationed there in the next year. But the Illinois Democrat, a longtime opponent of the war, said U.S. forces remain "part of a solution" in the bitterly divided country and should not be withdrawn immediately.
Without citing specific numbers, Obama called for a "limited drawdown" of U.S. troops that would push the fragile Iraqi government to take more responsibility while deploying enough American soldiers to prevent the country from "exploding into civil war or ethnic cleansing or a haven for terrorism."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4987
Thermostat wars: As natural gas prices rise, homeowners see how low they can go
By Anya Sostek / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Within every thermostat, there are fine lines separating comfortable from tolerable from downright unpleasant.
But in the face of sky-high natural gas prices, some homeowners are pushing the boundaries of "How low can you go?"
How about 58 degrees?
"When you move around, it's not so bad," said Ray Berquist of Oklahoma, Westmoreland County, who keeps his house at a brisk 58 degrees during the day in an effort to control energy costs.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4988
Hunger kills 6 mln children a year: UN
ROME (Reuters) - The United Nations' food and farming body on Tuesday renewed its plea for more effort to improve agriculture in poor countries to ease hunger and malnutrition which kill nearly 6 million children a year.
In its annual report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World", the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the world was way behind on hunger reduction goals for 2015 set at political summits over the last 10 years.
"If each of the developing regions continues to reduce hunger at the current pace, only South America and the Caribbean will reach the Millennium Development Goal target of cutting the proportion of hungry people by half," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf in the foreword to the report.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4977
Fox News Won't Show Ad Opposing Alito
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Fox News is refusing to air an ad critical of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, citing its lawyers' contention that the spot is factually incorrect.
A spokesman for the groups sponsoring the ad said the network's decision reflects the political right's effort to shield President Bush's choice for the high court.
The ad says that as an appellate court judge, Alito has "ruled to make it easier for corporations to discriminate ... even voted to approve strip search of a 10-year-old girl." Referring to a document Alito wrote in 1985 while seeking a job in the Reagan administration, it quotes him as saying that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4978
Iraqi Factions Call for Timetable for U.S. Withdrawal
By Hassan M. Fattah / New York Times
CAIRO, Nov. 21 - For the first time, Iraq's political factions collectively called today for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit to a pullout schedule.
The announcement, made at the conclusion of a reconciliation conference here backed by the Arab League, was a public reaching out by Shiites, who now dominate Iraq's government, to Sunni Arabs on the eve of parliamentary elections that have been put on shaky ground by weeks of sectarian violence.
About 100 Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, many of whom will run in the election in December, signed a closing memorandum on today that "demands a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, together with an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces," the statement said. "The Iraqi people are looking forward to the day when foreign forces will leave Iraq, when its armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and an end to terrorism."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4968
My Open Letter to George
...a message from Cindy Sheehan
George,
My family is spending our 2nd Thanksgiving without Casey thanks to you and your lies. I am spending the day crying on a plane on my way to come to Crawford to again ask you for a meeting.
I had been to Crawford for three weeks in the summer and to DC several times asking for a meeting with you and now I am returning to our vacation home to once again try and meet with you. I don't know why you like Crawford so much, but I love it because of the Camp Casey Peace Community that arose during August this year when you wouldn't meet with me. When I arrived back here at the Peace House I felt a sense of coming home and belonging to something that is far greater than any of us: a community that is filled with love, acceptance and peace. Is this what you feel when you return frequently to Crawford? Also, the beautiful Texas sunset stirred memories of our days at Camp Casey when we would close our activities each day with ex-Marine, Jeff Key playing taps among the crosses that honored our fallen. August was a miraculous time.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=549
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