The World on Fire: Record-Breaking Wildfires, Greenland Melting and the Hottest Month Ever Recorded on Earth

Monday, 31 August 2015 09:57
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report


When I go up into the mountains, I'm used to being afforded magnificent views of alpine meadows filled with wildflowers, crystal-clear mountain streams, glaciers tucked under the shoulders of high valleys, stratified ridges arcing into the sky, and views so far into the distance one can sense the curvature of earth.

But on August 22, as I carefully climbed my way toward one of the high summits of Eastern Olympic National Park, the solace of the mountains eluded me due to an ominous sign. The view east - toward what has now officially become the largest complex of wildfires in history for Washington State, where over one-quarter million acres have burned - was dominated by a large, greyish-white plume of smoke that stretched as far north and south as I could see.

At first it appeared as a large storm cloud layer, which was confusing given that the weather-folk had called for a stable high-pressure ridge over western Washington through the weekend. But as I continued through the morning, the large white wall neared and slowly began enveloping the entire eastern mountains of the Olympics, and my eyes began to burn as I smelled the smoke.


[font size="1"]Looking south from high up in the Eastern portion of Olympic National Park, wildfire smoke begins making its way into the park. (Photo: Dahr Jamail)[/font]

By the time I reached the summit of my climb, the view south was already obscured by the smoke as it began to fully infiltrate Olympic National Park.

.....(snip).....

A recently published study by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Reliance revealed that "major shocks" to worldwide food production will become at least three times more likely within the next 25 years due to increasingly extreme weather events generated by ACD. One of the coauthors of the report warned of a "very frightening" future due to the synthesis of ACD and food demands from a constantly growing global population.

Meanwhile, July officially became the hottest month ever recorded on the planet, setting 2015 on course to easily become the hottest year ever recorded. ...................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32556-the-world-on-fire-record-breaking-wildfires-greenland-melting-and-the-hottest-month-ever-recorded-on-earth

(Guardian UK) The FBI demanded that Scandinavian countries arrest and extradite Edward Snowden if he flew to any of those countries and claimed asylum, newly released official documents reveal.

In the summer of 2013 the whistleblower had left his hotel in Hong Kong and was holed up in Moscow airport applying to various countries, including Norway, for asylum after leaking to the Guardian a massive cache of documents disclosing the shocking extent of US and British surveillance of digital communications.

Suspecting that Snowden might seek asylum in Scandinavia, the FBI wrote from the US embassy in Copenhagen to the police forces of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland to inform them that the US Department of Justice had charged Snowden with theft and espionage, and issued a provisional warrant for his arrest, according to documents released by Norway’s national broadcaster NRK.

“The US Department of Justice is prepared to immediately draft the necessary paperwork to request the extradition of Snowden to the US from whichever country he travels to from Moscow,” the letter, dated 27 June, states. “The FBI expresses its gratitude … for any assistance that can be provided on this important matter.” ................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/28/edward-snowden-fbi-norway-extradite-julian-assange

Published on Aug 30, 2015
Donald Trump received the endorsement of a former presidential candidate today. Unfortunately that man is David Duke, who also is a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Trump was recently asked about this. Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz (Turner Classic Movies), John Iadarola (Think Tank), and Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show Podcast), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down on tonight’s TYT Power Panel. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke recently praised Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for his tough stance on undocumented immigrants, which Duke called the “greatest immediate threat to the American people...”

“And I think he realizes that his path to popularity toward power in the Republican Party is talking about the immigration issue,” the radio host continued. “And he has really said some incredibly great things recently. So whatever his motivation, I don’t give a damn. I really like the fact that he’s speaking out on this greatest immediate threat to the American people.””*

SHIV AROOR @shivaroor


My name is Bobby Jindle.
J-I-N-D-L-E.

That right there is the full story. Just those five words. Perfect because it says everything. Listen to the first ten seconds of governor Jindal's presidential campaign announcement speech last week.

Done? Noticed the hard "D" sound to rhyme with "Kindle"? The studied pause for that crowd to soak in the sound of that name. Nice. With Mrs "Jindle" behind him, beaming in all that out-of-focus glory. Ahhh.

I love Bobby Jindal. No, seriously. In the days since he's taken the plunge into the US Presidential race, he's managed to tell us at least as much about ourselves as he has, unapologetically, about himself.

The only two things we Indians love more than an apna ladka making it in the big white world, are (a) apna ladka trying to do too much and landing on his backside, and (b) apna ladka embracing his new identity so completely that he denies his roots. In Jindal's case, it's not so much denial of roots as active hostility towards them. I'm not Indian-American, he would thunder without fail for years any chance he could. Over time, he has actually had to dilute that down to "there are no Indian-Americans or African Americans or Irish-Americans, only Americans". No doubt because someone tapped governor sa'ab on the shoulder and reminded him of the big bucks American desis could be pumping into his campaign. Dollars they wouldn't send his way if he was seen as someone trying to rip his brown skin off at every turn.

And that really is the thing. So complete is Bobby Jindal's denial of his roots, he refuses even to pronounce his own name correctly. So all-engulfing is his belief that his must be nothing short of a white Christian family to truly embrace the American dream, that he all but swipes at his Indian lineage. (Seriously, who pats on so much face powder for a game of Monopoly with the wife and kids?) ...............(more)

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bobby-jindal-indian-americangovernor-louisiana-white-house-us-republical-indian-american/story/1/4663.html

China Entering Ugly Recession, Not Just a “Hard Landing?”
by Wolf Richter • August 29, 2015


A “hard landing” would be tough for China. But it would still mean economic growth, if very slow growth by Chinese standards. At worst, it would mean stagnation. But now, evidence is piling up that the economy is actually shrinking.

There is practically universal agreement outside official Chinese reporting that the economy hasn’t been growing at anything near the official and for most countries awesome rate of 7% in the last two quarters.

In the US, we don’t know what our quarterly GDP growth is either. We get the first estimate, which may be negative, and then the second estimate, which may be worse. Then the third estimate may suddenly be positive, by which time people stopped paying attention. GDP continues to be revised years later. It’s tough to measure a big economy.

But China doesn’t even revise its GDP growth number. It comes out shortly after the quarter ends and stands as rock-solid as the Communist Party itself. And it always matches or exceeds the decreed target.

Hence no one believes it. ......................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/29/china-entering-a-recession-not-just-a-hard-landing/

WA: Low Pay, Long Pricey Commute Often Go Hand in Hand

JANET I. TU ON AUG 31, 2015
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY


Aug. 30--Simon Nakhale remembers the night his 20-year-old son, Leo, walked nearly three hours because he had missed the last bus home.

With no money for a cab ride, no family car or friends available to pick him up, Leo followed the map on his smartphone to their home in the Fairwood area of unincorporated King County.

"Oh my God, we felt so bad," Nakhale recalls of that late night. "We kept calling him until he got so exhausted, he couldn't answer."

That incident became one of the reasons the family, which had emigrated from Nairobi, Kenya, at the end of 2013, bought a used car for Nakhale earlier this year and is leasing one for his wife, Gladys Shivambo.

Now they spend about a third of their income on transportation -- and his commute to two jobs consumes plenty of time as well.

Priced out ......................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/12108984/low-pay-long-pricey-commute-often-go-hand-in-hand

It Gets Even Uglier In Canada
by Wolf Richter • August 30, 2015


The Province of Alberta, the epicenter of the Canadian oil bust, may be sliding into something much worse than a plain-vanilla recession. And it’s not exactly perking up the rest of Canada.

Layoffs are already cascading through the oil patch, as companies are retrenching and adjusting to the new reality. New vehicle sales are plummeting. And home sales are taking a broadside.

In August so far, total home sales in Calgary plunged 28% from a year ago, on flat prices. Condo sales collapsed 39%, with the median price down 8%, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Year-to-date, total home sales in Calgary are down 25%; condo sales 30%. And those condos that did sell spent 30% longer on the market than condos did a year ago, as sellers hang on by their fingernails to the illusion of wealth, and sales are stalling.

And the Business Barometer Index for all of Canada, which measures the optimism among small businesses, dropped again in August for the third month in a row. An index level between 65 and 70 indicates that the economy is growing at its potential. But now it hit 56.7, the lowest level since April 2009. ....................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/30/it-gets-even-uglier-in-canada/

from truthdig:



by Chris Hedges


The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, creating vast economic inequality. The working poor, whose unions and rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing. Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate leviathans.

Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become the Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or slick, dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, if he follows through on his promise to support the Democratic nominee, even Bernie Sanders. The labels “liberal” and “conservative” are meaningless in the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or Republican, serve the demands of corporations and empire. They are facilitators, along with most of the media and most of academia, of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism.”

The attraction of a Trump, like the attraction of Radovan Karadzic or Slobodan Milosevic during the breakdown of Yugoslavia, is that his buffoonery, which is ultimately dangerous, mocks the bankruptcy of the political charade. It lays bare the dissembling, the hypocrisy, the legalized bribery. There is a perverted and, to many, refreshing honesty in this. The Nazis used this tactic to take power during the Weimar Republic. The Nazis, even in the eyes of their opponents, had the courage of their convictions, however unsavory those convictions were. Those who believe something, even something repugnant, are often given grudging respect.

These neoliberal forces are also rapidly destroying the ecosystem. The Earth has not had this level of climate disruption since 250 million years ago when it underwent the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out perhaps 90 percent of all species. This is a percentage we seem determined to replicate. Global warming is unstoppable, with polar ice caps and glaciers rapidly melting and sea levels certain to rise 10 or more feet within the next few decades, flooding major coastal cities. Mega-droughts are leaving huge patches of the Earth, including parts of Africa and Australia, the west coast of the United States and Canada and the southwest United States, parched and plagued by uncontrollable wildfires. We have lost 7.2 million acres to wildfires nationwide this year, and the Forest Service has so far spent $800 million struggling to control conflagrations in California, Washington, Alaska and other states. The very word “drought” is part of the deception, implying this is somehow reversible. It isn’t. .............................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_great_unraveling_20150830

I'm watching ESPN2's coverage of the Connecticut Open in New Haven -- Shriver and Renee Stubbs are the commentators. So Shriver is giving this list of facts about Yale University, including the names of the presidents that attended, which includes both Bushes and Bill Clinton. So Renee Stubbs says, "Did Hillary attend Yale? ... In a couple of years, we might be adding.....". Shriver immediately cuts her off and interjects, "I know for a fact that DONALD TRUMP (all excitedly) attended (whatever school).....BLAH BLAH"

I didn't know much about Shriver's political background, so I looked her up on Wikipedia. Yup, she's a winger.

And did I mention she's the most annoying, obnoxious tennis commentator ever?

.....(snip).....

Here we find, yet again, the enforcement of unwritten, very recent, distinctively corporatized rules of supposed “neutrality” and faux objectivity which all Real Journalists must obey, upon pain of being expelled from the profession. A Good Journalist must pretend they have no opinions, feign utter indifference to the outcome of political debates, never take any sides, be utterly devoid of any human connection to or passion for the issues they cover, and most of all, have no role to play whatsoever in opposing even the most extreme injustices.

Thus: you do not call torture “torture” if the U.S. government falsely denies that it is; you do not say that the chronic shooting of unarmed black citizens by the police is a major problem since not everyone agrees that it is; and you do not object when a major presidential candidate stokes dangerous nativist resentments while demanding mass deportation of millions of people. These are the strictures that have utterly neutered American journalism, drained it of its vitality and core purpose, and ensured that it does little other than serve those who wield the greatest power and have the highest interest in preserving the status quo. .........(more)

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/26/jorge-ramos-commits-journalism-gets-immediately-attacked-journalists/