[ NWO goals ] [ Environmentalism ] [ Shadow government ] [ Secret budget ] [ M12 ] [ Globalisation ] [ Corporations ] [ Cartels ] [ Unemployment ] [ Compounds & boxcars ] [ U/g bases ] [ WMD ] [ Population control ] [ Bar Association ] [ Water agenda ]

Climate change and water wars
http://www.oilempire.us/water.html  

"To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war."
-- Hans Blix, UN weapons inspector

Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 by the Independent / UK
Armed Forces Are Put on Standby to Tackle Threat of Wars over Water
by Ben Russell and Nigel Morris

Across the world, they are coming: the water wars. From Israel to India, from Turkey to Botswana, arguments are going on over disputed water supplies that may soon burst into open conflict.
Yesterday, Britain's Defence Secretary, John Reid, pointed to the factor hastening the violent collision between a rising world population and a shrinking world water resource: global warming.
In a grim first intervention in the climate-change debate, the Defence Secretary issued a bleak forecast that violence and political conflict would become more likely in the next 20 to 30 years as climate change turned land into desert, melted ice fields and poisoned water supplies.
Climate campaigners echoed Mr Reid's warning, and demanded that ministers redouble their efforts to curb carbon emissions.
Tony Blair will today host a crisis Downing Street summit to address what he called "the major long-term threat facing our planet", signalling alarm within Government at the political consequences of failing to deal with the spectre of global warming.
Activists are modelling their campaign on last year's Make Poverty History movement in the hope of creating immense popular pressure for action on climate change.
Mr Reid used a speech at Chatham House last night to deliver a stark assessment of the potential impact of rising temperatures on the political and human make-up of the world. He listed climate change alongside the major threats facing the world in future decades, including international terrorism, demographic changes and global energy demand.
Mr Reid signalled Britain's armed forces would have to be prepared to tackle conflicts over dwindling resources. Military planners have already started considering the potential impact of global warming for Britain's armed forces over the next 20 to 30 years. They accept some climate change is inevitable, and warn Britain must be prepared for humanitarian disaster relief, peacekeeping and warfare to deal with the dramatic social and political consequences of climate change.
Mr Reid warned of increasing uncertainty about the future of the countries least well equipped to deal with flooding, water shortages and valuable agricultural land turning to desert.
He said climate change was already a contributory factor in conflicts in Africa.
Mr Reid said: "As we look beyond the next decade, we see uncertainty growing; uncertainty about the geopolitical and human consequences of climate change.
"Impacts such as flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure.
"More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water; climate change will worsen this dire situation."
He added: "These changes are not just of interest to the geographer or the demographer; they will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer.
"Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely... The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign."
Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The science of global warming is becoming ever more certain about the scale of the problem we have, and now the implications of that for security and politics is beginning to emerge."
He said the problems could be most acute in the Middle East and North Africa.
Charlie Kornick, head of climate campaigning at the pressure group Greenpeace, said billions of people faced pressure on water supplies due to climate change across Africa, Asia and South America. He said: "If politicians realise how serious the problems could be, why are British CO2 emissions still going up?"
Tony Blair will be joined by the Chancellor Gordon Brown, the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, at today's talks in Downing Street.
They will be meeting representatives of the recently created Stop Climate Chaos, an alliance of environmental groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Oxfam. It will also meet opposition parties.
The alliance will call for the Government to commit itself to achieving a 3 per cent annual fall in carbon dioxide emissions.
The facts
* On our watery planet, 97.5 per cent of water is salt water, unfit for human use.
* Most of the fresh water is locked in the ice caps.
* The recommended basic water requirement per person per day is 50 litres. But people can get by with about 30 litres: 5 litres for food and drink and another 25 for hygiene.
* Some countries use less than 10 litres per person per day. Gambia uses 4.5, Mali 8, Somalia 8.9, and Mozambique 9.3.
* By contrast the average US citizen uses 500 litres per day, and the British average is 200.
* In the West, it takes about eight litres to brush our teeth, 10 to 35 litres to flush a lavatory, and 100 to 200 litres to take a shower.
* The litres of water needed to produce a kilo of:
Potatoes 1,000
Maize 1,400
Wheat 1,450
Chicken 4,600
Beef 42,500
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

http://itemonline.com/articles/2005/01/06/news/local/news2.txt

The Huntsville Item

Hot issues light up meeting
By Tom Waddill/News Editor

Lois Kolkhorst expects fewer fireworks during the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature. There might not be any lawmaker walkouts or billion-dollar shortfalls like in 2003, but there will be plenty of challenges for those headed to Austin next week.
On Thursday, Kolkhorst talked about many of the state's hottest issues with people from the Huntsville area during a town hall meeting at the Walker County Courthouse. A near-capacity crowd came out on a chilly evening to listen to the state representative from District 13.

....

Sam Houston State political science professor John Holcombe questioned Kolkhorst about one of her pet projects and wondered if there were going to be any water issues to watch during the next few months.
"What's going on in water is pretty incredible," Kolkhorst replied. "Water will be one of the top five issues for the next five to 10 years, and it probably should be No. 1. We fight wars over oil, I wonder if we'll ever fight wars over water."
East Texas, she explained, has a tremendous amount of surface water from lakes like Livingston, Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend, but East Texans don't want to trade their water yet. Kolkhorst said people in East Texas are starting to see the value in their surplus of water, and soon might be willing to share it for a price with metropolitan areas that need it.
"Water is very interesting. It's contentious," she said. "People don't like their water to be taken away. If you move water from rural areas, you should be compensated for it and compensated handsomely."

www.csmonitor.com/2004/1230/p13s01-sten.html

from the December 30, 2004 edition

Forget OPEC. The next cartel may export drinking water.

Already, companies are locking up resources and selling abroad.
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Forget OPEC. Some experts say the next cartel will be an organization of water-exporting countries. Others see more danger in local privatization of water, which could restrict access to the poor within nations.
"Water is blue gold, it's terribly precious," says Maude Barlow, who chairs for the Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based citizens' watchdog. "Not too far in the future, we're going to see a move to surround and commodify the world's fresh water. Just as they've divvied up the world's oil, in the coming century there's going to be a grab."

www.ifg.org/bgsummary.html   #1 Project Censored story for Year 2000

www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=20020902&s=barlow  - Who owns water?

www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/index.html   CIA's "2015" report predicts water shortages, increasing inequities and public health emergencies

Billions of people may suffer severe water shortages as glaciers melt: WWFMILAN (AFP) Nov 27, 2003
Billions of people will face severe water shortages as glaciers around the world melt unless governments take urgent action to tackle global warming, the environmental group WWF said Thursday, ahead of a UN conference on climate change.
"Increasing global temperatures in the coming century will cause continued widespread melting of glaciers, which contain 70 percent of the world's fresh water reserves," it warned in a new study.
"An overall rise of temperature of four degrees Celsius before the end of the century would eliminate almost all of them," it said.
Average temperatures have risen between 0.6 and 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1860, according to WWF, which urged countries to curb emissions of carbon dioxide to ensure the increase stays well below a threshold of two degrees.
The Switzerland-based conservation group released its study on climate change and global glacier decline in Milan where more than 180 countries are due to gather from December 1-12 for the UN Climate Change Convention to assess progress in addressing problems concerning global warming.
"The melting of glaciers will lead to water shortages for billions of people, as well as sea levels rising and destroying coastal communities worldwide," WWF said.
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where major cities rely on glaciers as their main source of water during dry seasons, would be worst affected, it predicted.
In the Himalayas, there was a grave danger of flooding, the group said, noting that glacier-fed rivers in the region supply water to one third of the world's population.
"Glacial meltdown is a clear sign that we must act now to fight global warming and stop the melting," said Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF's climate change programme.
The environmental organisation called on the ministers who will attend the Milan conference to act faster to combat global warming, urging those from developing nations in particular to demonstrate their will to tackle the issue.
WWF wants strong rules governing the use of forests, which play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide.
The group also asked governments to ensure Russia ratifies the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which establishes a set of goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Already ratified by 119 countries, the text just needs a commitment from Moscow to become international law, it said.
On Tuesday, Italian officials said the European Union has pledged 390 million dollars (325 million euros) a year to help developing countries from 2005 fight the damaging effects of climate change.
In 2001, 20 countries including the 15 EU members pledged to provide 410 million dollars annually to poorer countries until 2005.
All rights reserved. © 2003 Agence France-Presse.

from Ross Gelbspan, "The Heat is On: the Climate Crisis, the Cover-up, the Prescription"

The Coming Permanent State of Emergency

Long before the systems of the planet buckle, democracy will disintegrate under the stress of ecological disasters and their social consequences.

Two different men independently expressed this chilling insight to me - William Ruckelshaus, the first head of the EPA and now CEO of Browning-Ferris Industries; and Dr. Henry Kendall of MIT, the recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize for physics ...

When I first heard the remark, it seemed shocking yet somehow irrelevant to the climate crisis. Only after the thought had burrowed its way into my consciousness did the connection become apparent: If we alter the balance of the natural relationships that support our lives, those changes will ripple through the complex relationships that make up our society. ....

Diminishing food and water supplies already pose a grave threat to the survival of democracy in the developing world. As climate instability intensifies, that threat is bound to become reality. "The world's food supply," says Kendall, "must double within the next thirty years to feed the population, which will double within the next sixy years. Otherwise, before the middle of the next century - as many countries in the developing world run out of enough water to irrigate their crops - population will outrun its food supply, and you will see chaos. All we need is another hit from climate change - a series of droughts or crop-destroying rains - and we're looking down the mouth of a cannon."

But even before the ravages of climate change have become widespread, Kendall believes, it may already be too late to head off pervasive famine and social disruption ...

The outcome of this deterioration is loaded with totalitarian potential. In the mid-1980s, a thirty-year growth in global food supplies reached its peak. Food production is now declining. Today only two of the world's 183 nations -- the United States and Canada -- are major exporters of grain. Yet as the world's population expands at an almost exponential rate, the earth is losing nearly 1 percent of its agricultural lands every year.

Nor is the situation with available water much better. In many arid parts of the world, freshwater resources are becoming overtaxed. They are depleted by industrial overuse and by the demands of growing concentrations of people in the cities of the developing world. United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali was deadly serious when he noted, a few years ago, that the next war in the Middle East will be fought not over oil but over water.

-- from Ross Gelbspan, "The Heat is On: the Climate Crisis, the Cover-up, the Prescription"

note: the "water wars" prediction for the Middle East was slightly premature, as the Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) was still fought over oil, although Iraq is the most water rich Arab country (except for Egypt). A detailed analysis of the simultaneous impacts of climate change and depleting fossil fuels on world food production does not seem to be in the public domain - but the outcome is unlikely to be a happy one under any scenario. Much of the grains grown in North America are fed to farm animals, which is the most inefficient method of food production. Clearly any future scenario that attempts to provide nutrition for everyone in the world will require a world-wide vegan (or close to it) diet. The days of heavy meat consumption by the wealthiest segment of the human family while billions are malnourished cannot be sustained into the era of expensive energy, climate change and increasing desertification. This is not about ideology - but rather, about survival.

Planting Trees Won't Save the Climate
November 15, 2000
www.sciam.com/article.cfm?SID=mail&articleID=00010234-09A9-1C68-
B882809EC588ED9F

If you thought planting trees would take care of global warming, think again. The results of a new study, which looked at how increased carbon dioxide concentrations influence forest growth, are not as promising as some had expected. In the past, some people have argued that the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air would be partially offset by an increase in plant growth, caused by that additional (CO2): increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere should work like extra fertilizer and lead to increased plant growth. This growth in turn should bind to much of the CO2. In other words, the plant growth should act like a sink, absorbing the gas released into the air by burning fossil fuel.
But the new analysis, published in last week's issue of Science, found that although there has been an increase in biomass, most of it must be attributed to land use history. The authors, a team of scientists from Princeton University and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, uncovered plant growth rates of only 2 to 4.4 percent. These numbers stand in sharp contrast to some earlier studies, which suggested that rising CO2 concentrations would bring a 25 to 75 percent growth increase. The researchers used data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database, taking samples from more than 20,000 acre-size plots in Minnesota, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. To examine historical changes in growth and mortality rates of the vegetation there, the scientists looked at forest biomass, the cumulative result of past growth. "The U.S. has a fairly unique history in that a hundred years ago, a large fraction of the landscape was deforested," explains John Caspersen, who led the study. "Subsequently, there has been a reforestation of much of the eastern

People's Water Forum Urges World Water Parliament
By Vanya Walker-Leigh
FLORENCE, Italy, March 24, 2003 (ENS) - The Iraq conflict is partly about future control of Iraq's huge water resources, an Italian Catholic missionary told an alternative world water forum in Florence, endorsing the meeting's closing call for a new world water deal based on public sector control and a legal right to water for all by 2020.
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-24-01.asp

http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703A.shtml
(*Editor's Note: In all of the stories that have come and gone in recent months, this could well be the most offensive of them all. ''It's simple," says Evangelical Christian Army chaplain Josh Llano. "They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized." In so many ways, this represents the true mindset of the individuals who have pushed this war. It is right down the line with the actions of this administration over the past three years; recall that, when our airmen were being held in China back in 2001, Mr. Bush was only concerned with whether or not they had Bibles. - wrp)
Army Chaplain Offers Baptisms, Baths
By Meg Laughlin
Miami Herald
Saturday 05 April 2003
CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.
It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity.
''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,'' he said.
And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks.
''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said.
First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible.
''Regardless of their motives,'' Llano said, ``I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord.''
A blue-eyed 32-year-old with an abundance of energy, Llano goes out every day to drum up grimy soldiers for his pool.
He talks to truck drivers, tank drivers, computer specialists -- anyone and everyone. He goes out to the combat zone to the fighting soldiers and the combat support soldiers who keep them in supplies.
''You have to be aggressive to help people find themselves in God,'' he said.
He calls himself a ''Southern Baptist evangelist,'' and justifies the war and killing with a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, which he often recites: ``Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
''This means we are called upon by our government to fight and that is giving unto Caesar, as the Bible tells us,'' he said.
Earlier this week, word went out that portable showers might be installed here soon, but Llano was undaunted.
''There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes and fruit rolls to pull out,'' the chaplain said optimistically.

Deal to Sell Water All Wet, Critics Charge
by Richard Sisk
Broadcast on April 1, 2003 by the New York Daily News http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0401-14.htm

UMM QASR, Iraq - The U.S. military came up with a solution yesterday for the penniless people of this port town begging for water: Sell it.
Despite general mayhem at distribution points - including knife fights - the Army has struck a hasty agreement with local Iraqis to expedite distribution of water to the roughly 40,000 living here.
Under the deal, the military will provide water free to locals with access to tanker trucks, who then will be allowed to sell the water for a "reasonable" fee.
"We're permitting them to charge a small fee for water," said Army Col. David Bassert.
"This provides them with an incentive to hustle and to work," said Bassert, an assistant commander with the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade.
He said he could not suggest what constitutes a reasonable fee and did not know what the truckers were charging. He said the tradition here of haggling at markets would help the system work.
"People know when they're being gouged - we'll deal with it," Bassert said.
But with the population badly in need of water, food and medical supplies, the arrangement drew its share of critics.
'This is crazy'
Several Iraqi-Americans originally from this region, who are working as interpreters and guides with the U.S. military, were incensed at what they consider an attempt to jump-start a free-market economy during a crisis.
"This is bull----," said an Iraqi-American who asked to be identified only as Ahmed. "They are selling water and this is crazy. Nobody has any money, nobody knows what is money [to use] - Iraqi money, American money, nobody knows."
A British military spokesman angrily objected to the water deal. The British control the city of Umm Qasr while the Americans are in charge of the port.
"We're not going to have any charging for water. What kind of an aid plan would that be? These people don't even have shoes," the spokesman said.
Ahmed and the others said they had seen fights with fists and knives among desperate locals trying to get water from the truckers.
Ill at ease
The reports could not be independently confirmed because a promised military escort for reporters into town never took place.
Officers said the trip was canceled because of widespread clashes between remnants of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supporters and British troops, although no firing could be heard and the Iraqi-Americans who spent the afternoon in town said no clashes had taken place.
But the general situation was far from secure. A heavy mortar or artillery round launched toward the port shook buildings and rattled windows but exploded beyond the fence and caused no casualties.
Editor's Note: The military has confiscated the satellite phones of a certain make used by journalists traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq, including those used by reporter Richard Sisk and photographer Todd Maisel of the Daily News, for fear that Iraqi forces could intercept the signal and target U.S. positions. This dispatch has been sent by other means approved by the military, but military officials did not review or restrict its contents.
© 2003 Daily News, L.P.

www.oildepletion.org/roger/Solutions/solutions.htm
All industries will be affected, beginning with air transport and related sectors, including tourism which, taken as a whole, is, surprisingly, the world's biggest employer. Transport in all its forms is also in the front line of risk; massive fuel price increases, and actual interruptions in supply would threaten a breakdown of distribution systems and have economic consequences far in excess of any experienced in the developed economies in modern times. These consequences would include high unemployment and inflation.
Secondly, there are implications for the costs, and perhaps even availability, of food. The food chain is massively hydrocarbon-dependent at every stage: fertilisers, chemicals, equipment, transport and processing. A rise in the price of oil will knock-on immediately to a comparable rise in the price of food. Political and social instability as a consequence cannot be ruled out.
Thirdly, the coming oil shock transforms the climate-change agenda. The Kyoto process has been built on the assumption that oil supplies will not be the constraint that will limit carbon emissions in the future, and that if the latter are to be reduced, this will have to be through deliberate limitations on demand. In this new situation, however, the problem is transformed: reductions in affordable oil may turn out to be faster than the most ambitious targets that have been conceived in the context of climate change. The CO2 implications of reduced conventional oil use, vs. the increased use of gas, non-conventional oils, coal, and perhaps nuclear, need examination.

Kurds Gassed / Iraq or Iran? + War for Water?

A War Crime or an Act of War?
by Stephen C. Pelletiere
Editorial/Op-Ed 31JAN2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. - It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."
The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.
But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.
I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how
the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.
And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.
The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent - that is, a cyanide-based gas - which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.
These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran.
I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.
In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America's impetus to invade Iraq.
We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East.
In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region.
Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change.
Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades - not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.
All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition - thanks to United Nations sanctions - Iraq's
conventional forces threaten no one.
Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people.
And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.
Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

Stephen C. Pelletiere is author of "Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

www.ourstolenfuture.org  toxics harm human reproduction

www.purefood.org  pesticides & genetically tampered phood www.mad-cow.org

www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html  

www.eces.org  Earth Crash Earth Spirit

the latest trend for conspicuous overconsumption of dwindling resources is the
Hummer Stretch Limousine
http://www.limousine-denver.com/hummer-limos.htm
has some nice photos of these behemoths
no mention of how many gallons per mile they require
(if you are concerned about their fuel consumption, you probably won't be renting a Hummer Stretch Limo)

One assumes their manufacturers and owners are completely clueless about oil depletion.

Hummer limos are one of our civilization's parallels to the social reaction to ecological overshoot on Easter Island, whose inhabitants stripped the forests, reducing the island's capacity to support their society. As ecological collapse accelerated, the society's elites developed fancier and fancier methods of showing off their wealth with distractions (giant statues) that diverted energy from looking at their problems. When it was all over, their descendents couldn't remember a time when the island was forested.
How will our great-great-great-great-grandchildren remember the age of oil? Will we use some of the remaining oil as a "bridge" toward a more harmonious, less unsustainable society? It takes energy to make solar panels and windmills, and it will take energy to relocalize food production.

www.eco-action.org/dt/eisland.html   Easter Island deforestation - a warning
www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html   more on Easter Island

The Israel / Palestine war is in large part being fought over water.  The West Bank sits over a large aquifer.  In addition, the Golan Heights - annexed by Israel from Syria - is the headwaters of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.  In a desert, control of water is as vital as control of oil for modern societies.

www.counterpunch.org/gancarski1031.html

October 31, 2002
All's Well That Ends Wells:
Parching the Palestinians
by ANTHONY GANCARSKI

March 14, 2003
<http://sfgate.com/chronicle/>
San Francisco Chronicle
Water is a Matter of Public Debate
by Dennis Kucinich
Every human being has the right to clean water. In the United States, water has long been considered a vital resource and thus managed in the public interest by local governments accountable to their constituents.
The mission of a public water system is simple: Deliver safe, clean and affordable water to you and your family. Public works projects funded and built our existing water infrastructure, which has served us well during the last century. But our water infrastructure is beginning to show signs of age. Pollution, decaying pipes, depleted aquifers and other problems pose real threats to the U.S. water supply and communities across the nation are looking for ways to bring water systems up to safe and modern standards.
Privatizing water systems, however, is not the answer. Private companies, seeking to extract profits from municipal water systems, dangle lofty promises in order to gain control of local water systems. Corporations want people to believe that only they can efficiently manage water systems.
They seek monopoly contracts to run water systems for generations, or to expand the outright corporate ownership of water supplies and infrastructure.
Yet, from Atlanta to the United Kingdom to Huber Heights, Ohio, private water providers have charged higher rates, deteriorated water quality and failed to make assured investments. In fact, privatization failed so miserably in Atlanta that the city ousted United Water, only four years into a 20-year contract. Four years of broken promises and managerial debacles was more than enough.
Residents in many California communities are increasingly concerned with local water systems falling into the hands of a distant corporation. In Stockton, where city officials recently voted to privatize the public water system, citizens are responding by going door-to-door to collect signatures in an effort to nullify the City Council's decision.
I strongly believe that public control and public administration of the public's water supply is the only way to guarantee the universal human right of access to clean water. A grassroots movement of people is working to protect water from privatization by offering many alternative solutions to solve the global water crisis. Direct citizen participation should be encouraged when basic services such as water are being discussed. I hope that at the World Water Forum, which begins Sunday in Kyoto, Japan, this international movement of people will be heard.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is the ranking member of the House National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee. For information on the World Water Forum, see <http://www.world.water-forum3.com>www.world.water-forum3.com.

This is
LONDON
23/12/03 - News and city section
UK cold snap kills 2,500 in a week
By Alexa Baracaia, Evening Standard
The cold spell has killed more than 2,500 people across England and Wales in the past week, experts today revealed.
New research shows that a higher proportion of the British population dies as a direct result of winter weather than in Russia or Finland.
Between 15 and 22 December there are estimated to have been more than 540 deaths in London and the South-East alone and it is predicted that the number of people dying " unnecessarily" from the cold could rise to 50,000 this season.
"The UK remains one of the worst countries in the world at coping with unseasonal temperatures," said Professor Sian Griffiths, President of the Faculty of Public Health which carried out the study along with the Met Office.
The findings come after it was revealed that an elderly couple in Tooting were found dead in their flat 13 weeks after their gas supply was cut off.
The bodies of George Bates, 89, and his wife Gertrude, 86, were found huddled in the living room of the home they had shared for 64 years.
British Gas, which was owed £140.62 by the couple, said the Data Protection Act had prevented them from passing information to social services.
But David Hinchcliffe, chairman of the Government's health select committee, said: "I don't think there are any excuses."
The new research, which calculates the number of deaths caused by the cold in England and Wales over the past week, claims that the victims will have died from treatable ailments.
Professor Griffiths warned: "All of us must be vigilant to look out for family, friends and neighbours who may be suffering. Often illnesses develop after a cold snap has finished."
Find this story at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/8306085?version=1
©2003 Associated New Media