Plan to reverse global warming could backfire
But such cooling would come with unintended side effects. She said sulfate injections could react with chlorine gasses in cold polar regions, triggering a chemical reaction that would further deplete atmospheric ozone.
Tilmes and colleagues looked specifically at the impact of plans to repair holes in the ozone over the poles and concluded that regular injections of sulfates over the next few decades would destroy between one-fourth to three-fourths of the ozone layer above the Arctic.
That would affect a large part of the Northern Hemisphere because of atmospheric circulation patterns, they said. The impact would be less during the second half of the century because of international pacts to ban the production of ozone-depleting chemicals.
In the Antarctic, a sulfate-injection scheme would delay the recovery of the ozone hole by 30 to 70 years, or at least until the last decade of this century.
Tilmes and colleagues used different measurements and computer models to make their predictions.
She said her findings did not close the door on the idea of artificially cooling the planet in that way but raised a flag of caution.
“We need people to have atmospheric models to understand the process in more detail,” she said in a telephone interview.
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2435161220080424?pageNumber=2&virt
We Are Change UK – Phil Hayton and WTC7
Members of We Are Change UK interview ex BBC World presenter, Phil Hayton.
World might be heading towards Ice Age
CANBERRA: Scientists have warned that the world might once again be heading towards an Ice Age, with global warming approaching a possible end.
Evidence in support of this theory has come from pictures obtained from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which showed no spots on the sun, thus determining that sunspot activity has not resumed after hitting an 11-year low in March last year.
A sunspot is a region on the sun that is cooler than the rest and appears dark.
Some scientists believe a strong solar magnetic field, when there is plenty of sunspot activity, protects the earth from cosmic rays, cutting cloud formation, but that when the field is weak – during low sunspot activity – the rays can penetrate into the lower atmosphere and cloud cover increases, cooling the surface.
According to Australian astronaut and geophysicist Phil Chapman, this might have caused the world to cool quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.
“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” said Dr Chapman.
“If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over,” he added.
Dr Chapman has proposed preventive, or delaying, moves to slow the cooling, such as bulldozing Siberian and Canadian snow to make it dirty and less reflective.
“My guess is that the odds are now at least 50:50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades,” he said
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Are_we_heading_to_ice_age/articleshow/2975016.cms
How the Pentagon Spread Its Message
David Barstow, an investigative reporter for The Times, examines primary source documents detailing the Pentagon’s response to criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld by a group of prominent retired generals
Bush, Harper, Calderon Defend Trade Amid Backlash
April 21 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush and the leaders of Canada and Mexico are using a summit meeting today in New Orleans to defend free trade and $930 billion in cross-border commerce against a political backlash. It won’t be easy.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon have each made lowering trade barriers, cutting regulation and supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement a hallmark of their administrations and will make the case with Bush for those policies.
“All three governments want to push back on the perception that Nafta is a disaster,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a business-backed group that will meet with the leaders tomorrow. “The overriding political imperative is the support of Nafta.”
Bush and Calderon reopened the Mexican consulate in New Orleans today, a move they heralded as a sign of both the recovery following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and of the close economic ties between the two countries.
“Mexico and the United States are working together to build a future of prosperity and opportunity for people on both sides of the border,” Bush said.
`Three Amigos’
Each leader faces opposition related to Nafta, the world’s largest free-trade agreement. Analysts are predicting more symbolism than tangible results from this fourth summit of the “three amigos” dealing with security and commerce.
“They will have some jambalaya, eat some gumbo and send the right signals, but don’t expect much,” said Michael Hart, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
One goal of the meeting, which wraps up tomorrow, is to harmonize standards in areas such as fuel efficiency and automobile testing, Dan Fisk, director for Western Hemisphere affairs on Bush’s National Security Council, told reporters on April 18.
Bush, Calderon and Harper will also pledge greater cooperation on seizing fake products, Fisk said.
A business advisory group made up of executives from United Parcel Service Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and General Motors Corp., which all have operations in Mexico and Canada, will meet with the leaders tomorrow.
In the U.S., the loss of jobs due to international competition has become an issue in this year’s presidential election campaign as Republican Bush comes to the end of his presidency. The Democratic presidential candidates are squabbling over who dislikes Nafta more, and Congress voted to delay consideration of a similar trade accord with Colombia.
Clinton Versus Clinton
While campaigning in Pittsburgh last week, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York renewed her pledge to renegotiate Nafta to beef up labor standards and environmental protection provisions, and she took a swipe at her husband Bill Clinton for pushing the agreement through Congress.
“As smart as my husband is, he does make mistakes,” Clinton said April 14. “We’ve now had 15 years of experience with Nafta, and the evidence is clear that we have to change the basic provisions.”
Her rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, counters that he has always opposed Nafta; he says Clinton only became disenchanted as part of the election campaign.
Protesters
As he arrived in New Orleans, Bush was greeted by a few dozen protesters waving signs against Nafta and complaining that the real aim of the three leaders is to create a North American political union.
The opposition isn’t just in the U.S.
In Mexico, 150,000 farmers shut down Mexico City’s main boulevard during a Jan. 31 march against cheap food imports, saying they are being put out of business by subsidized U.S. crops, especially corn.
They say Nafta will push more Mexican farmers off their land, forcing them to try to enter the U.S. illegally looking for better work.
In Canada, which sells about 75 percent of its exports to the U.S., attention is focused on what the next administration in the U.S. might do to weaken Nafta.
Congress has already been moving to restrict trade and immigration among the nations. They tried to block a requirement that Mexican trucks be allowed on American roads, and scuttled efforts by Bush to allow in more temporary workers from Mexico, which has soured relations between the nations.
`Integral Vision’
“Immigration is a natural economic phenomenon between the neighboring economies,” Calderon said today. “That’s why we should have an integral vision on the issue.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed requiring passports to travel to Canada, a move that has drawn similar howls of protest from leaders in Ottawa.
Congress is also moving forward with legislation to require country-of-origin labeling of meat, which might destroy the cross-border coordination of hog producers.
In Manitoba, hog farmers are beginning to euthanize hundreds of thousands of young pigs because U.S. farmers, scared by the proposal, are breaking contracts and refusing to buy them, the National Post reported.
“Protectionist forces have been gathering steam for some years and they’re showing no signs of abating,” Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson said April 2.
`Gathering Steam’
Yet when the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership began in Waco, Texas, in March 2005, Bush and his counterparts pledged to improve the flow of people across the borders, cooperate on regulatory standards and promote collaboration on transportation and other issues.
Since then, the three leaders have met with business leaders each year and affirmed their support for the concept. After their last summit in Montebello, Quebec, they announced a joint plan to fight avian flu, and agreed to cooperate on energy and protect copyrights and patents.
Future joint summits might end up being transformed into forums that a new U.S. president could use to seek changes to the trade accord.
Instead of scrapping Nafta, the forum “could be adapted” to deal with the labor and environmental issues raised by Obama and Clinton, said Christopher Sands, a senior fellow at the non- partisan Hudson Institute in Washington.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a2RNeBDbqSu0
Carter Says Hamas May Accept Right of Israel to Exist
April 21 (Bloomberg) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who helped broker peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978, said that Israel’s enemy Hamas may accept, under certain circumstances, the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Hamas leaders told Carter that the group would accept a peace agreement negotiated by the leader of the rival Fatah group, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, on condition that the agreement is submitted to the Palestinian people for approval, the former president said in a speech in Jerusalem.
“Hamas leaders said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 border and the right of Israel to live as a neighbor, provided the agreement was submitted to the Palestinian people for overall approval,” Carter said.
Hamas later said it wouldn’t necessarily accept the results of a peace referendum, the Associated Press reported, and Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal said from Damascus the group won’t recognize Israel. Mashaal offered Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from lands seized in 1967, AP added.
The Islamic group which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June is sworn to Israel’s destruction, and launches regular rocket attacks against Israeli towns, killing and maiming citizens. Israel has imposed a military and economic blockade on Gaza in a bid to stop the rockets and undermine Hamas rule, and has fired missiles into Gaza aimed at those launching rockets and at terrorist leaders, sometimes inadvertently killing or injuring citizens.
`Actions, Words’
The Bush administration said it didn’t support Carter’s meeting with a terrorist organization and was skeptical about what it accomplished. “You have to look at public comments and actions. Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters traveling with President George W. Bush today on Air Force One to New Orleans.
Abbas, who is in control of the West Bank, renewed negotiations with Israel in December about a framework peace agreement that Bush wants by the end of the year. The two Palestinian factions don’t recognize each other’s right to rule.
A cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is imminent, Ahmed Yousef, a spokesman for the Islamic organization said today. Hamas sent its proposals to Israel and is now awaiting a response.
“We expect a real development in this regard in the coming few days,” Yousef said. Carter said that Hamas had rejected his proposal for a 30-day unilateral cease-fire.
Syria’s Role
Syria believes that nearly all its differences with Israel have been resolved and that talks “just need to be reconvened,” Carter said in Jerusalem after meeting with Syrian officials in Damascus. Syria is eager that the U.S. play a “strong role” in talks with Israel, while in the meantime, the U.S. is opposing talks, Carter said.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed his country exchanged messages with Israel via third parties about the possibility of resuming peace talks, Syria’s state-run SANA news service reported today. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the daily Yediot Ahronot last week that the two countries, which failed to sign a peace accord after the Six-Day war in 1967, clarified what they expect from a potential peace accord. Each side now understands what the other wants, Olmert said.
Carter said that, while he is glad that Bush is committed to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, there is a general feeling that no progress is being made of any significance in the talks.
`Just Isn’t Working’
The Israeli-U.S. strategy of excluding Syria and Hamas from peace negotiations “just isn’t working,” and they would have to be involved in order to make progress, Carter said.
Hamas leaders said that they are making progress in Egyptian-mediated talks about a prisoner exchange that would include Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian gunmen in June 2006. Hamas has agreed to allow Shalit to send a letter to his parents, Carter said.
Carter’s speech came after meeting with exiled Hamas leader Mashaal in Damascus and other Hamas officials in Cairo over the past week.
By meeting with Hamas officials, Carter went against the policy of the Bush administration, which says Hamas must be sidelined until it recognizes Israel and ends violence, and ignored Israeli objections. The U.S. considers the group a terrorist organization.
Hamas won 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections and ousted forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas from the Gaza Strip in June last year. Abbas heads the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization and controls the West Bank.
`Obstacle to Peace’
During a visit to Israel on April 11, U.S. Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice told reporters that she found it “hard to understand what is to be gained by having discussions with Hamas when Hamas is, in fact, an obstacle to peace.”
Fifty members of the U.S. Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, wrote an appeal to Carter on April 14 not to meet with Hamas.
In Carter’s visit to Israel, President Shimon Peres told him it was a “mistake” to meet with Hamas. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declined to receive the former U.S. leader. Israel barred Carter from crossing into the Gaza Strip.
Since his 1977-1981 presidency, Carter has occasionally embarked on private diplomacy. In 1994, he visited Pyongyang and persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program. The agreement collapsed when the CIA discovered, in 2002, that North Korea ran a covert uranium-enrichment program. Carter also visited U.S. adversaries Iraq, when it was ruled by Saddam Hussein, and Cuba.
Egypt navigates a delicate path with Hamas: it has called for Israel to lift a trade and travel blockade of the Gaza Strip, while declining to open its own border to Gazans, which has been forcibly breached in the past. Instead, Egypt has tried to mediate in the Abbas-Hamas dispute.
Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peaceful solutions to conflicts and social and economic justice.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaYzQyps6Bwo&refer=home
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