March 20th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
JOIN CCPM AT THE PEACE VIGILS
EVERY SATURDAY, 11 A.M.-12 NOON
CORNER OF MARKET & HIGH STREETS
WEST CHESTER, PA.
Help us to end this war and invest at home.
The real majority is standing up.
Chester County Peace Movement needs you.
ccpeace.org
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May 14th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
There was good news and bad news for the polar bear today.
First, the good: after a three-year legal battle waged by NRDC and the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bush Administration announced that it will protect polar bears as a “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act.
This decision is a huge step forward in our long-term fight to save the bear from extinction — and I want to thank you and every single supporter who has made it possible for us to wage and win this uphill legal battle.
This is the very first time our government has used the Endangered Species Act to protect a species mainly threatened by the ravages of global warming. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 14th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
By David Brown
The Washington Post, Wednesday 14 May 2008, via Truthout The difference in death rates between highly educated and poorly educated people in the United States is very wide and growing wider, according to new research.
For Americans with less than a high school education, the risk of dying prematurely is on the increase - rising most quickly for white women in that category. In contrast, the risk of premature death among college graduates is falling - fastest of all for black men.
White high school dropouts are four times as likely to die young as white college graduates, up from a threefold difference in the early 1990s. Among blacks, the trend is similar but less dramatic.
The study, published online yesterday, is the second this spring to reveal an ominous trend toward worsening health and earlier death in disadvantaged segments of the population, especially in certain groups of women. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 13th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
By David Adam
The Guardian UK, via Truthout Tuesday 13 May 2008
Rise in chief greenhouse gas worse than feared. Earth may be losing ability to absorb CO2, say scientists.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control.
Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.
The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.
Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tonnes of CO2 each year. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 12th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
(letter in Daily Local News, 4/22/08, p. A4)
I believe that Dan Pourreau (“Perhaps practice what you preach,” Mon, 4/21) is a little confused. He writes the Chester County Peace Movement (CCPM) “accuse our soldiers of illegally occupying another country and killing innocent people in cold blood.”
Actually we believe, as many civilian and military experts do, that our brave men and women in Iraq are following orders. They were taken into Iraq by an inept administration for an illegal invasion on false pretenses. I and many intelligent and experienced congressmen believe that “the duly elected president of this great nation” has committed several crimes against the Constitution of this great nation and should be brought to justice for these crimes. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 12th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
from Truthout, 5/11/08
Protest Camps Against American Military Bases in Japan and Italy
By Ann Wright
Sunday 11 May 2008
The presence of the US military, 63 years after World War II, is a huge source of anger for the citizens of Japan, Korea, Germany and Italy. On the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the US military uses an artillery firing range known as Yausubetsu. The range is small in comparison to ranges in the United States and Germany - only 30 kilometers by 10 kilometers - but the source of irritation to Japanese farmers whose land was taken for the range and for those who live near the range is large. The peaceful rolling hills and valleys of the area are the home of the dairy industry of Hokkaido. The Japanese have used a cartoon of an angry dairy cow with boxing gloves as their symbol of protest of the US military’s use of the range.
The Japanese government pressured farmers in the area to sell their land when the artillery range was established in 1962. All but three families eventually sold out. Mr. Kawase refused to sell or move, and instead has built three structures that are used by activists year round to protest Japanese and American use of Yausubetsu for artillery practice. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 12th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
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May 11th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
(letter in The Kennett Paper, 5/8-14/08)
Barron displays ignorance of environmental issues
Two massive market failures of pricing are major culprits: prices of carbon-based fossil fuels, in general, and gasoline, in particular, do not capture key external costs.
Gas prices would be $5-10/gal or more, if all the subsidies, health and societal costs, and petrowar costs were captured.
Fossil fuel prices do not capture: Alaskan villages sliding into the ocean due to thawing permafrost; sea-level rise gradually submerging Bangladesh, low-lying Pacific islands, and endangering all coastal cities; extinction of thousands of species; melting of Himalayan glaciers that supply over 50 percent of the water for 40 percent of humanity. When they are gone, those people will have water only during the rainy season.
His claim that Pennsylvania “is not polluting the environment..” is dead wrong. Pennsylvania is the third worst GHG-polluting state in the country, behind only Texas and California. Pennsylvania produces 1 percent of all the global GHGs.
HB 2200 is one small step in the fight against global warming; encourage your state Senator to support it.
B. Gerard Bricks
Kennett Township
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May 11th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
By Gordon Bennett
column in Suburban and Wayne Times, 5/8/08
These days “Support the Troops!” is a ubiquitous phrase. You see it on banners, you hear the mantra invoked by any public figure who discusses the Iraq War, and even those who want to withdraw our troops use the phrase to make it clear that they want our soldiers to have everything they need until such a time as they are withdrawn.
But what does it mean to “support the troops”? Does it mean that I have to support the illegal, immoral war that our troops are fighting in Iraq? Does it require me to support the president, vice president and secretary of defense who concocted this for-profit enterprise and lied the American people into supporting it?
I would like to say that I support the troops but not the war. Indeed, the government that gave us the war hasn’t supported the troops all that well, especially in the early stages, when they lacked adequate body armor and armor-plated Humvees; nor at the end stage for veterans finishing their tours, as the wounded have returned to an inadequately staffed set of Veterans Administration hospitals. Timely and adequate therapy has been missing for many, especially those suffering from the deep psychological trauma of PTSD. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 10th, 2008 posted by 2CDC
When Mary Gade was appointed the Midwest EPA Administrator in September, 2006 she did something that the Bush Administration obviously didn’t expect — She took her job seriously. After decades of Dow Chemical dumping its toxic products into rivers nearby its Midland, Michigan plant, including Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. Dow has been avoiding its responsibility in cleaning up dioxin-poisoned soil and sediment in the 50 miles surrounding its plant for years, and after wrangling with Dow, and getting nowhere, Gade invoked “emergency powers” last summer so that she could order Dow to cleanup three of the worst dioxin “hotspots” affected by the dumping. Read the rest of this entry »
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