April 14, 2004

Global Climate Change and Peak Oil: The Sword of Damocles Has Two Edges (Part I) by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

- Like the withdrawal symptoms endured by an addict, the effects of the coming petroleum crisis will ravage the American body politic and work necessary but painful changes in the life of the entire human community. "Peak oil" is the crisis of getting off petroleum: "Climate change" is the almost irreversible legacy of two hundred years of fossil fuel pollution. At their center is an oil economy bound to militarism by the petrodollar money system. But wealth and weapons are not much use under seven meters of melted glacial seawater. The education of the public is the key to a safer world - so we're educating each other. In part one of this story, FTW energy editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer sets out a detailed picture of the climate change issue and its paramount importance.

Read now at:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/041304_climate_change_pt1_summary.html

http://www.fromthewilderness.com

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RICO LAWSUIT

An important petition needs your signature: 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani and her attorney, Philip J. Berg, are driving a lawsuit using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act,18 U.S.C. § 1964(a) and (c), Mariani and Berg are fighting back against the big lie.

You can help by signing their petition at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/911ftt/petition.html

Their website is full of excellent information, including news, updates, audiop interview and transcripts, the text of the RICO statute, and the text of the legal complaint in the lawsuit.


FTW’s Newest Feature Story

By Benjamin Spillman
The Desert Sun
April 14th, 2004

http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/local/20040414014648.shtml

It's tough to fault seismologists for earthquakes that rocked the Los Angeles basin in 1994 and the Bay Area in 1989.

But the group of researchers who in both years held conferences near those memorable temblors are now in Palm Springs -- and some are predicting a major quake along the desert's slice of the San Andreas.

The expectation that the southern portion of the famous fault is likely to rupture is based on more than a scheduling quirk or the fact that this is Earthquake Preparedness Month.

But the annual conference of the Seismological Society of America comes at a time when earthquake prediction is a hot topic in the field.

The conference, described by an organizer as an event "for the real purists" of seismology, includes a highly anticipated forum with one forecaster who is predicting a 6.4 magnitude or greater quake in the desert by Sept. 5.

Another researcher will present data he says indicates the San Andreas fault is set to enter a period of especially frequent and more intense shaking.

"It seems perfect," said University of Oregon professor Ray Weldon of the conference location. "That is going to be about the center of the rupture if we are all right."

Weldon will speak today at the event about data he and student researchers have spent 18 years gathering from the San Andreas fault near Wrightwood.

They say data from the site shows the fault has had varying levels of stress in the past 1,500 years. Today, the fault shows high levels of stress, suggesting a period of strain release, via earthquakes, is near, he said.

The research generally applies along the fault from about Palmdale to the Salton Sea.

Although Weldon doesn't offer a quake prediction per se, he said the work complements a prediction by Russian scientist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, the UCLA researcher forecasting the 6.4 magnitude or greater quake in the desert.

"You could consider that support," Weldon said. "But I don't lend any insight or support to a window of time."

The Keilis-Borok earthquake prediction window has been a major topic of conversation among seismologists this year.

Keilis-Borok and his team used a mathematical formula based on past seismic activity to predict a temblor somewhere in an approximately 12,000 square-mile swath of desert that includes the Coachella Valley.

"Even two years back it was practically a dirty word to say earthquake prediction," said Nancy Sauer, a conference organizer.

The buzz around predictions this year is reminiscent of earlier enthusiasm for earthquake forecasting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said John McRaney, associate director of the Southern California Earthquake Center.

But for the most part those efforts fizzled, McRaney said.

"It was so unsuccessful Š people sort of shied away for about 20 years," he said.

Rich Eisner, manager of earthquake programs for the California Office of Emergency Services, recalls trekking to the tiny California town of Parkfield around 1988 in response to a high-profile earthquake prediction.

Parkfield, population 37, was then known for its proximity to the site of the car accident that killed actor James Dean, Eisner said.

However, when researchers predicted a major temblor would occur in the area within a three-day window, scientists and media flocked to the area, he said.

"It became an opportunity to catch the earthquake," Eisner said. "Most of the time earthquakes occur and the instruments are in the wrong location."

The quake never materialized, but Parkfield emerged with the self-proclaimed title "earthquake capital of the world" and the Office of Emergency Services still has an earthquake response plan it formed around the time of the old prediction.

"From our standpoint, it was a productive and successful exercise," Eisner said.

Now, with Keilis-Borok scheduled to speak Thursday afternoon, the one-time dirty word could be the highlight of the society's conference, an event they've held almost every year since 1907.

"There is something going on," Sauer said. "People are at least willing to entertain the idea. It is not seen so much as junk science."

Keilis-Borok isn't talking about his work right now because he wants it to appear in a journal that discourages researchers from speaking to the press before publication of a scientific article.

The conference, which was scheduled more than a year before the desert quake prediction, represents a confluence of an opportunity to listen directly to Keilis-Borok at a location well within his prediction zone.

"Everyone is talking about it," said Lisa Grant, a University of California, Irvine geologist who will attend the conference. "Earthquake prediction is the holy grail of earthquake science."


Informant: NHNE

April 15, 2004

As Americans stream into post offices across the country today to mail their tax returns, their task will be made even less palatable when they learn that the Bush administration is now charging the public -- rather than polluters -- for the clean-up of Superfund sites.

The BE SAFE Network, a joint project of several national, state, and local environmental groups, is organizing community events in 26 states to highlight how the Bush administration is using tax dollars to clean up contaminated sites, rather than follow the traditional practice of collecting fees from corporate polluters. Despite federal law mandating that the polluters should pay, the public is underwriting toxic cleanups.[1]

A new tax analysis by U.S. PIRG, a member of the Be Safe network, has determined that taxpayers will spend upwards of $1.27 billion for toxics cleanups this year, compared to $303 million in 1995. In Ohio, for example, the state paid $9.9 million towards cleanup of 29 Superfund sites in 1995; in 2004, Ohio will pay nearly $41.3 million. Pennsylvania, with 92 Superfund sites, will spend nearly $50.7 million in 2004, compared to $12.2 million in 1995.[2]

"On Tax Day, Americans are especially concerned about how their tax dollars are being spent. Unfortunately, with the Superfund toxic waste program, the Bush administration is using tax dollars instead of making corporate polluters pay to clean up their toxic messes," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, another member of the network. "Americans are paying twice: once with their health and again with their taxes."

Local groups are distributing "polluter pay" stickers at over 40 events around the country, for taxpayers to place on their envelopes to the IRS. "We're reaching out to our neighbors this Tax Day," said Kendra Kimbirauskas of the Sierra Club in Oregon, "to let people know that whether or not there is a Superfund site in your backyard like we have in Portland, all taxpayers are now footing the bill for toxic waste cleanups."[3]

As reported by BushGreenwatch (Mar. 1, 2004),
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000063.php Congress established Superfund in 1980. It empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to order polluters to clean up sites contaminated by their business activities or other ventures. Polluters also funded a trust to pay for cleanup of sites where a responsible polluter could not afford to pay, could not be found, or was no longer in existence. These mandates constitute the "polluter pays principle."

The Bush administration is opposed to restoring industry fees to Superfund. U.S. PIRG and Sierra Club report that under the Bush administration, funding to the program has dropped by 25% in the last three years compared to levels during the 1990s; the rate of cleanups has fallen by over 50%; and, the number of sites being listed has declined from an average of 30 per year from 1993-2000 to an average of 23.[4]

TAKE ACTION
Send a letter to the editor or your senators through Be Safe or attend a Polluter Pay Tax Day event in your area.

http://www.besafenet.com/superfundaction.htm

SOURCES:
[1] Sierra Club Press Release, April 14, 2004.
[2] U.S. PIRG, Cost of Superfund to Taxpayers 2004.
[3] Sierra Club Press Release, op. cit.
[4] BushGreenwatch, Mar. 1, 2004.

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000063.php

A.N.S.W.E.R. Response to Bush press conference
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/195134/

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Condi Rice Wouldn't Admit Mistakes
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Jensen0413.htm

Laziness in the Face of Mortal Danger
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Eland0413.htm

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Do-it-yourself government
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/pj20040411.shtml

Democracy explodes over Iraq
http://fredoneverything.net/IraqExplosion.shtml

What brought on the French Revolution?
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1489

Hired guns
http://slate.msn.com/id/2098571/

Big think
http://tinyurl.com/26vao

Bush war lords to critics
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk04102004.html

Civil offense
http://www.reason.com/links/links041204.shtml

Unasked questions
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10232

The Iraqi resistance: a new phase
http://www.counterpunch.org/ali04102004.html

Footsoldier: The Achilles heel in America's quest for empire
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/herman/herman12.html

A failure of the welfare state
http://tinyurl.com/36fyg

Not ready for prime time
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/14/bush/

30,000 American dead? No problem!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/unz1.html

Promises, promises...
http://www.libertyforall.net/2004/april25/Promises.html

Bush administration slow to issue official apology
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?news_id=32240


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Shiite uprising taking political toll on U.S. Iraq policies
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/102/world/U_S_drive_to_deal_with_insurge:.shtml

While our troops remain on Iraq's streets there is no hope
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1190110,00.html

U.S. government debt jumping by trillions
http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/business/8403594.htm

Nearly Half of Every Tax Dollar Goes to Military, National Debt
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0409-03.htm

Soldier's wife says husband died for ``lost'' cause
http://cbs4boston.com/massachusetts/MA--SoldierKilled-gn/resources_news_html

Cheney Took in $178,437 from Halliburton in 2003
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4816533&section=news

Former Congressmen Assess U.S. Foreign Policy
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2004/0404020.html

Australian defence adviser 'sacked for refusing to sex up WMD reports'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,12070,1190665,00.html

Keystone Kounter-Terror
http://www.thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?bid=6&pid=1372

Senior officials received different memo than Bush
http://www.heraldnews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11301291&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=6


From Information Clearing House

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One, Two, Many Messes
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Lobe0412.htm

Intifada, Iraqi Style
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Klein0412.htm

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Defiant US Says Falluja Dead Were Rebels; Hospital Says Vast Majority Were Women, Children and the Elderly

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0412-01.htm

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR: IRAQ AND VIETNAM
http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume8/v8n11.html

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New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_6481.shtml

Informant: kevcross5

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Ashcroft's Record of Lying to Congress About 9/11
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df04132004.html