Subject: NYC Premiere of Escape From Suburbia plus panel discussions a fund raiser for permaculture scholarships

Local Energy Solutions is pleased to present the New York City Premiere of Escape From Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and local activists.

Event Details:
Friday, February 1 and Saturday, February 2, 6:30 – 10:00 pm
Wollman Auditorium at Cooper Union
51 Astor Place
$20, $15 for students (ID required)
Purchase tickets at the door or online at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/25997
A moderated panel discussion and drawings for books and dvds will follow each screening.

Escape from Suburbia is the long awaited sequel to End of Suburbia, the movie that introduced the issue of Peak Oil to millions of people. With Escape From Suburbia, director Greg Greene and producer Dara Rowland, pick up where End left off: asking how peak oil and climate change are affecting us.

Following the film, Martha Ma, editor of Eater’s Digest, will conduct a discussion among panelists. Appearing both nights will be Greene and Rowland and from the film Tom Nielsen, Sara Williford of Regeneration Farm CSA, and Abu Talib and Bobby Watson of Taqwa Community Garden. Following the discussion, audience members will be able to question the panel.

Friday nights panelists:
§ Andrew Faust – Biohome Permaculture
§ Dan Holmes – Restoration Farm, Bethpage, L.I.
§ Eli Ishchayll – Black Socialist Organization
§ Paula Lukats – Just Food
§ Karen Washington – NYC Community Garden Coalition
Saturday night panelists;
§ Cleo Jones – For A Better Bronx
§ Ian Marvy- Added Value Farms, Brookyn
§ Owen Taylor – City Farms Training
§ Carol Zakaluk – Friends of Brook Park

Unfortunately one of our invited speakers, Mike Ruppert of “From the Wilderness” and author of “Crossing the Rubicon” was unable to attend the invite, but he sent a special message to be prior to the screening.

At each screening, attendees will also have the opportunity to enter a raffle for two gift packages containing books and DVDs by Richard Heinberg, Stephen Leeb, Bill Mollison, David Jacke, and John Howe. Winners will be announced prior to the panel discussion and must be present to claim their gift package.
This event is sponsored by Local Energy Solutions, a project of the Five Borough Institute (A Not For Profit Organization). A portion of ticket sales will be used for scholarships for low-income students for a Permaculture Design Certificate Course scheduled from March 2008 to February 2009. For more information about this course and Local Energy Solutions, visit our website at: www.localenergysolutions.org

AN OPEN LETTER TO NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS

Jan 25, 2008


Chris and Judith Plant
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189
Gabriola Island
BC, Canada V0R 1X0


Dear Chris and Judith:

For more than two years, based upon the expert advice of my agent, Ken Levine; a well-known Beverly Hills law firm specializing in literary and entertainment law; and ultimately a New York agent representing major authors. I held the belief that New Society had seriously underpaid me royalties for my book "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil".

In the summer of 2006 I openly charged New Society with underpaying me on my website, http://www.fromthewilderness.com, based upon what were then two separate, professional evaluations of your own accounting statements. Both of those evaluations concluded that I had been underpaid by close to $40,000. This was due to the fact that New Society commingled books sold to me with actual book sales, something that is such a deviation from normal accounting practices in the publishing industry that people with decades of experience didn’t even consider it.

I was quite outspoken about my dissatisfaction with New Society in the Peak Oil community based upon this and previous experiences. After paying several thousand dollars for accountings, including a recent one with the Claudia Menza, literary agency in NY, which initially concluded that I had been underpaid more than $59,000, I learned that we were all wrong when Claudia finally discovered your unusual accounting practices.

Inasmuch as I have been the victim of very serious and unfounded allegations about my own personal conduct and ethics, I know how painful such incorrect allegations can be, no matter how they originated. Now that I am certain that I was not underpaid I am correcting the record.

Sincerely,


Michael C. Ruppert

France to Establish Military Base in UAE
Just in case buying on the open market gets too hard.
State of Siege in Pakistan as "Al Qaeda" Tightens Grip [quotation marks added]
The War on Drugs (Iraq)
Guess how it's going since we got there.
Work for the government? Is your head one of the ones about to roll? Call now!
Global Warming Speeds up Race for North Pole
“There is a risk that the Northwest Passage will become attractive to those who wish to traffic in weapons of mass destruction, missile components, centrifuges and other things of both national and global security concern,” said Michael Byers, an Arctic expert at the University of British Columbia.
...there is no ban on weapons in the Arctic as there is in Antarctica. "
Dragonfly or Insect Spy?
Robobugs
Presidential Charade Promises Deepening of Criminality and Expansion of War
Presidential Charade Part 2: White House Bought by Big Money

Timber Thieves
NYC Evacuation Plan: Flotilla to New Jersey
How about a flotilla to Spain instead?
Big Bird Flu
Brought to you by the letter P for Pandemic

New York CIty Council Bill Would Prevent Independent Environmental Disaster Testing

Jenna Orkin*


It is by now a truism that at the height of the environmental disaster of 9/11, the federal government proclaimed, "The air is safe to breathe." New York City's Department of Health followed suit, telling residents to clean their apartments using a wet rag. As a result of these fatally seductive lures, tens of thousands of Ground Zero workers are now sick as are uncounted residents, office workers and students. Some victims have already died.

What was the excuse for the government's lies to the public? Repeatedly, we have been told of the need to prevent "panic" and "anxiety."

Using the same rationale, a bill before the New York City Council would ensure not only that history repeats itself; it goes beyond that, plugging those leaks that allowed fragments of truth to seep out in the fall of 2001.

In the chaos following the attacks, when the world was focussed on the devastation of Lower Manhattan and the rallying cry was to "show the terrorists" by getting back to business as usual, relatively few people focussed on the environmental conditions that prevailed.

But independent testing performed by the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project, among other organizations, led to a seminal cover story in the Daily News which laid out the hideous truth, thereby landing its author, Juan Gonzalez, in journalistic purgatory (the next article this writer saw by him was on page 32) for the next several years.

A bill before the New York City Council, Intro 650, is designed to ensure that should another terrorist attack occur and should the government once more determine that the public's ignorance is bliss or at least better than the alternative, no one will be allowed to redeem the situation.

In order to prevent "excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety," Intro 650 would require the New York Police Department to okay any independent environmental testing with permits.

The bill does not discuss what to do when the anxiety is warranted. As pointed out in testimony by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) and the New York City Central Labor Council, "neither press reports nor the scientific literature nor the city's own web site provides any support for the assertion that the 'excessive alarms and unwarranted anxiety' have been or are real-world problems."

Just how wrongheaded is Intro 650? It would render immediately illegal tens of thousands of safety devices including carbon monoxide detectors and legally required smoke detectors.

The sheer brazenness of submitting Intro 650 at the epicenter of one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of this country and with the government's recklessly indifferent history in handling that disaster, is alarming in itself. The bill is a scaled down environmental equivalent of the Patriot Act. The difference is that we're not fresh from a terrorist attack; there's no 'emergency' now. We have no excuse to allow the wool to be pulled over our eyes.


*Jenna Orkin is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the EPA.

McCain Asserts He Could Beat Obama
Looking beyond the drama of the "surprise" upsets in Iowa, the rise of John McCain is the trend to watch. The day after the Iowa caucus, the top picture on the front page of the New York Times was not of the winner from either party but of McCain whose foreign policy experience will be touted as chaos spreads in Pakistan and beyond. The CIA torture chaos also seems to cry out for someone whose c.v. will cast America in a more humane light. J.O.
Atrocity-Linked Advisors to Democratic Frontrunners
Obama as Fraud
Important Links on Pakistan
Superbugs
Shock Doctrine
Interesting insights into the origins and psychology of "shock and awe" among other phenomena. The wizard behind this particular curtain turns out to be Milton Friedman.
What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?
The Bush Regime: A Prognosis
"....... In order to provide marginally more fuel to the over-consuming industrialized nations, untold millions will starve in the third world, in addition to those untold millions that are already starving. The marginal energy gain is so small by comparison, that we must accept that the biofuels agenda is primarily about genocide. However when we begin reading about new famines breaking out, perhaps in Brazil where biofuels are now going into massive production, the headlines will blame it on droughts, or crop failures, or some other excuse, as they always do. We will meanwhile feel a ‘green glow’ every time we fill up our Prius with biofuels, unaware of what damage we are doing. And perhaps we’ll donate to Oxfam, or adopt some third world child and send them letters."
Arctic Warming Faster Above Ground Level
Clearcutting the Climate Conference
Military Planning for the End of the Grid
Money as Debt (video)
Iran to Open Oil Bourse During 10-Day Dawn Ceremony

The Shell Game
Novel by New York Times best-selling author, Steve Alten, which relies heavily on Mike Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon.
Did My Gold Analysis Spot Informed Buying Before Bhutto Assassination?
Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity and the Rishe and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network
Air of Uncertainty: Pakistan in Turmoil

The US has also become singularly focused on individual leaders like Bhutto. Her murder is a tragedy, and Musharraf has called for a three- day mourning period. As the world remembers her contributions, it should also keep her record in perspective. Under Bhutto, Pakistan provided support to the Taliban in the 1990s. Some observers note that Bhutto was not the saviour of democracy she claimed to be, including Bhutto's niece in a recent, biting op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. And it was also in part on Bhutto's watch that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father Pakistan's nuclear programme, built an international network that led to dangerous transfers of nuclear technology.

More Liquidity Without Inflation?
Replace Dollars With An Even More Imaginary Currency
Iran Stops Selling Oil in Dollars
Emergency Alert System Glitch Prompts City Action
This pratfall as the new emergency alert system ran out of the gate is being billed as a success since the purpose of the test was to catch just such glitches.

Superbugs Reaching Epidemic Stage
Can the World Survive China's Emulation of the U.S.?
However hypocritical it may be of us to engage in China-bashing, the following still gives us pause.

China is:

• The world’s largest consumer of coal, grain, fertilizer, cell phones, refrigerators, and televisions
• The leading importer of iron ore, steel, copper, tin, zinc, aluminum, and nickel
• The top producer of coal, steel, cement, and 10 kinds of metal
• The No. 1 importer of illegally logged wood
• The third-largest producer of cars after Japan and the United States; by 2015, it could be the world’s largest car producer. By 2020, there could be 130 million cars on its roads, compared to 33 million now.

More Facts:

• China produces half of the world’s cameras, 1/3 of its television sets, and 1/3 of all the planet’s garbage.
• There are towns in China that make 60% of the world’s button supply, 1/2 of all silk neckties, and 1/2 of all fireworks.
• China uses half of the world’s steel and concrete and will probably construct half of the world’s new buildings over the next decade.
• Some Chinese factories can fit as many as 200,000 workers.
• China used 2.5 billion tons of coal in 2006, more than the next three highest-consuming nations—Russia, India, and the United States—combined.
• It has more than 2,000 coal-fired power plants and puts a new one into operation every 4 to 7 days.
• Between 2003 and 2006, worldwide coal consumption increased as much as it did in the 23 years before that. China was responsible for 90% of the increase.
• China became the world’s top carbon dioxide emitter in 2006, overtaking the United States.
• Russia is China’s largest timber supplier; half of all logging there is illegal. In Indonesia, another timber supplier to China, up to 80% of all logging takes place illegally.
• 90% of all wood products made in China are consumed in the country, including 45 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks each year.
• The value of China’s timber-product exports exceeds $17 billion. About 40 percent go to the United States.
• More than 3/4 of China’s forests have disappeared; 1/4 of the country’s land mass is now desert.
• Until recently, China was losing a Rhode Island-sized parcel of land to desertification each year.
• 80% of the Himalayan glaciers that feed Chinese rivers could melt by 2035.
• In 2005, China’s sulfur-dioxide emissions were nearly twice those of the United States.
• Acid rain caused by air pollution now affects 1/3 of China’s land.
• Each year, at least 400,000 Chinese die prematurely of air-pollution-linked respiratory illnesses or diseases.
• A quarter of a million people die because of mo tor-vehicle traffic each year—6 times as many as in the United States, even though Americans have 18 times as many cars.
• Of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, 16 are in China.
• Half of China’s population—600 to 700 million people—drinks water contaminated with human and animal waste. A billion tons of untreated sewage is dumped into the Yangtze each year.
• 4/5 of China’s rivers are too polluted to support fish.
• The Mi Yun reservoir, Beijing’s last remaining reliable source of drinking water, has dropped more than 50 feet since 1993.
• Overuse of groundwater has caused land subsidence that cost Shanghai alone $12.9 billion in economic losses.
• Dust storms used to occur once a year. Now, they happen at least 20 times a year.
• Chinese dust storms can cause haziness and boost particulate matter in the United States, all the way over to Maine.
• In 2001, a huge Chinese storm dumped 50,000 metric tons of dust on the United States. That’s 2.5 times as much as what U.S. sources produce in a typical day.
• Currently, up to 36 percent of man-made mercury emissions settling on America originated in Asia.
• Particulate matter from Asia accounts for nearly half of California’s annual pollution limit.
• Environmental damage reportedly costs China 10 percent of its GDP. Pollution-related death and disability heath care costs alone are estimated at up to 4 percent of GDP.
• In 2005, there were 50,000 pollution-related disputes and protests in China.
• China’s middle class is expected to jump from 100 million people today to 700 million people by 2020.
[Summary by http://www.dailyreckoning.com/]

Arctic is Screaming