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Earth ' will expire by 2050 ' * Fatal Innocence, Ours
09 July 2002
1) Earth 'will expire by 2050'
2) Fatal Innocence, Ours
Editor's Notes:
Item 1 should be distributed on the front pages of all information services. It reveals a report detailing the evidences that Earth 'will expire by 2050.' Yet the looney profiteers will try to spin this information to justify those claiming an interest in colonizing other planets, like Mars. Yeah, Right! They should first try to colonize the top of Mt. Everest, which is much less hostile, never mind the impossibility of getting there in time with a rapidly depleting oxygen balance in Earth's atmosphere. Meanwhile, as reported in the 27 June 2002 issue of Flyby News, a project is still being delayed due to lack of funding that can convert waste heat and gases for power. The ecosystem is crashing and those in power want to keep things as they are for as long as possible; yet time for all of us is running out! These are strange unsettling times.* In New England the weather patterns fluctuate from humid hot southwest winds, or cooler smoke-laden-haze from fires coming down from the northwest in Canada. Our planet is clearly being managed by those supporting of an environment to hell!
Item 2 is an excellent commentary by Marc Ash, called "Fatal Innocence, Ours." Since we have space limitations, a follow-up Flyby News issue will be forthcoming, which will provide a clear overview of the Bush 911 scandal and what we can do about it.
Note: See previous Flyby News issue regarding Yucca Mountain; Senate vote expected momentarily.
HELP STOP THE INSANITY ! ! !
* For a stranger than fiction account, "When the Army Owns the Weather," see following Flyby News Archives URL:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1013706954,22312,m
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1) Earth 'will expire by 2050'
The world's ticking timebomb
Earth 'will expire by 2050'
Observer International - The Guardian Limited
"The report, based on scientific data from across the world, reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades."
Our planet is running out of room and resources.
Observer Worldview
Mark Townsend and Jason Burke
Sunday July 7, 2002
The Observer
Earth's population will be forced to colonise two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a report out this week.
A study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), to be released on Tuesday, warns that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life.
In a damning condemnation of Western society's high consumption levels, it adds that the extra planets (the equivalent size of Earth) will be required by the year 2050 as existing resources are exhausted.
The report, based on scientific data from across the world, reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades.
Using the image of the need for mankind to colonise space as a stark illustration of the problems facing Earth, the report warns that either consumption rates are dramatically and rapidly lowered or the planet will no longer be able to sustain its growing population.
Experts say that seas will become emptied of fish while forests - which absorb carbon dioxide emissions - are completely destroyed and freshwater supplies become scarce and polluted.
The report offers a vivid warning that either people curb their extravagant lifestyles or risk leaving the onus on scientists to locate another planet that can sustain human life. Since this is unlikely to happen, the only option is to cut consumption now.
Systematic overexploitation of the planet's oceans has meant the North Atlantic's cod stocks have collapsed from an estimated spawning stock of 264,000 tonnes in 1970 to under 60,000 in 1995.
The study will also reveal a sharp fall in the planet's ecosystems between 1970 and 2002 with the Earth's forest cover shrinking by about 12 per cent, the ocean's biodiversity by a third and freshwater ecosystems in the region of 55 per cent.
The Living Planet report uses an index to illustrate the shocking level of deterioration in the world's forests as well as marine and freshwater ecosystems. Using 1970 as a baseline year and
giving it a value of 100, the index has dropped to a new low of around 65 in the space of a single generation.
It is not just humans who are at risk. Scientists, who examined data for 350 kinds of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish, also found the numbers of many species have more than halved.
Martin Jenkins, senior adviser for the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, which helped compile the report, said: 'It seems things are getting worse faster than possibly ever before. Never has one single species had such an overwhelming influence. We are entering uncharted territory.'
Figures from the centre reveal that black rhino numbers have fallen from 65,000 in 1970 to around 3,100 now. Numbers of African elephants have fallen from around 1.2 million in 1980 to just over half a million while the population of tigers has fallen by 95 per cent during the past century.
The UK's birdsong population has also seen a drastic fall with the corn bunting population declining by 92 per cent between 1970 and 2000, the tree sparrow by 90 per cent and the spotted
flycatcher by 70 per cent.
Experts, however, say it is difficult to ascertain how many species have vanished for ever because a species has to disappear for 50 years before it can be declared extinct.
Attention is now focused on next month's Earth Summit in Johannesburg, the most important environmental negotiations for a decade.
However, the talks remain bedevilled with claims that no agreements will be reached and that US President George W. Bush will fail to attend.
Matthew Spencer, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said: 'There will have to be concessions from the richer nations to the poorer ones or there will be fireworks.'
The preparatory conference for the summit, held in Bali last month, was marred by disputes between developed nations and poorer states and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), despite efforts by British politicians to broker compromises on key issues.
America, which sent 300 delegates to the conference, is accused of blocking many of the key initiatives on energy use, biodiversity and corporate responsibility.
The WWF report shames the US for placing the greatest pressure on the environment. It found the average US resident consumes almost double the resources as that of a UK citizen and more than 24 times that of some Africans.
Based on factors such as a nation's consumption of grain, fish, wood and fresh water along with its emissions of carbon dioxide from industry and cars, the report provides an ecological 'footprint' for each country by showing how much land is required to support each resident.
America's consumption 'footprint' is 12.2 hectares per head of population compared to the UK's 6.29ha while Western Europe as a whole stands at 6.28ha. In Ethiopia the figure is 2ha, falling to just half a hectare for Burundi, the country that consumes least resources.
The report, which will be unveiled in Geneva, warns that the wasteful lifestyles of the rich nations are mainly responsible for the exploitation and depletion of natural wealth. Human consumption has doubled over the last 30 years and continues to accelerate by 1.5 per cent a year.
Now WWF wants world leaders to use its findings to agree on specific actions to curb the population's impact on the planet.
A spokesman for WWF UK, said: 'If all the people consumed natural resources at the same rate as the average US and UK citizen we would require at least two extra planets like Earth.'
The world's ticking timebomb
Marine crisis:
North Atlantic cod stocks have collapsed from an estimated 264,000 tonnes in 1970 to under 60,000 in 1995.
Pollution:
The United States places the greatest pressure on the environment, with its carbon dioxide emissions and over-consumption. It takes 12.2 hectares of land to support each American citizen and 6.29 for each Briton, while the figure for Burundi is just half a hectare.
Shrinking Forests:
Between 1970 and 2002 forest cover has dwindled by 12 per cent.
Endangered wildlife:
African elephant numbers have fallen from 1.2 million in 1980 to half a million now. In the UK the songbird population has fallen dramatically, with the corn bunting declining by 92 per cent in
the past 30 years.
More global commentary, links -- Observer Worldview – Visit:
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,750783,00.html
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2) Fatal Innocence, Ours
Fatal Innocence, Ours
by Marc Ash
t r u t h o u t | Opinion
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/07.08A.ash.innocence.p.htm
Sunday, 7 July, 2002
"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
-Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II
As the 2000 Presidential election descended into a three ring media circus, Americans sat hypnotized by television broadcasts, reading chads as though they were tea leaves. We earnestly debated; 'would George W. Bush's Florida Campaign Chairwoman Katherine Harris really abuse her position as Florida Secretary of State to manipulate the results in favor of the man whose
campaign she had led?' For Americans somehow miraculously, this proved too confusing. We were alone.
The rest of the world saw right through it, there was never a moment of doubt. Abroad we were a laughing stock, it was a coup d'etat. America who had long preached to the world of its vaunted free elections had rolled over with out a fight. A small group of ruthless industrialists had rigged the White House and handed the nation a clumsy lie. American Democracy gone, and we were the only ones who refused to see it.
See no evil
It is difficult to imagine what it would take to make the case to the American center that Mr. Bush and his associates are up to no good. The information in the public record to date is so damning that it should have toppled this regime five times over.
Enron alone should have been the end of the road for Bush & Co. It is a criminal scandal of unparalleled scope. Hundreds of millions of dollars stolen, entire states economies impacted and thousands of workers pensions destroyed. George W. Bush was in bed with Ken Lay and did his bidding, on cue open-and-shut. Yet for some inexplicable reason we as a nation have decided that we do not want to see.
September 11th. : Did Gorge W. Bush Know? Every major news source in the country has presented enough evidence of the Bush administration's foreknowledge of the attacks that killed three thousand Americans to indict Mr. Bush and his top aids -- even without the benefit of a real investigation. The proof quite literally surrounds us. Mr. Bush stated flatly that he was personally aware that attacks involving hijacked aircraft were imminent. As early as mid August John Ashcroft was warned to stay off commercial aircraft. Not a single warning was issued to the American people. Outrage, public outcry? No, fear and silence.
When do we take the blinders off?
The White House has been hijacked. We have been terrified into supporting a war-for-profit, because, as Hermann Goering put it, 'they have told us we are being attacked.' Our economy is being bled dry, the constitution has been shredded and the only ones profiting are the Bush gang and their wealthy backers.
The harsh reality is; Mr. Bush and the shadowy bunch to whom he answers, do not respect elections, do not respect Congressional oversight, do not respect constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, do not respect Democrats and do not respect Republicans. In short they operate entirely above and beyond the law.
They preserve their public standing in spite of these transgressions by waging the most aggressive Public Relations assault ever launched from the oval office. And by holding the nation under the threat of war. They believe that while the threat of war is on the table we will never question their actions. As long as that is true, we will never be free from the threat of war.
The innocent spirit of this nation has allowed us to go forward into the world with an open hand and an open heart, it is one of our great strengths. But every child must eventually make the transition to adulthood.
We have waited too long.
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You can e-mail t r u t h o u t, Editor Marc Ash at: ma@truthout.com
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