The John James Newsletter 243

We humans are conducting a massive experiment with this planet..... It’s the only planet we’ve got …. We know that the consequences of unchecked global warming would be catastrophic …. We have a deep and abiding obligation to the generations to come

Malcolm Turnbull in 2010

We know with high confidence that the progressive disintegration of ice sheets and the transgression of other tipping elements are difficult to reverse after critical levels of warming are reached; Earth’s recent geological past suggest that a Hothouse Earth is likely at CO2 concentration either already realised or projected

Will Stephen

This is, by far, the biggest political issue in the world. It is the one thing that will affect everyone on the planet for centuries to come. Why isn’t everyone shouting it from the rooftops?

Nick Swindon

A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions ... control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Today, about 7 metric tons of fish are caught per 1,000 kilometers traveled by te fleets of 20 countries, less than a third of the more than 25 metric tons they caught in the 1950s

Mongabay

How old are your children, your grandchildren? How old will they be in a decade, or so? Then ask yourself, how many years will they be trying to live in this promised world?

Look on the web to find descriptions of what life will be like under these conditions ... and then put yourself in their place and reflect on how they will think of you and what you did (if significantly anything) to stop or deflect the future they are going to inherit.

We wont blame the Greedy until its all over.

Anyone interested in writing our epitaph? ?

Runaway global warming just decades away

Keeping global warming to within 1.5-2°C may be more difficult than previously assessed. human-induced global warming of 2°C may trigger other Earth system processes, often called “feedbacks”, that can drive further warming - even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases." Read more

A 'Hothouse' Future for Humanity

"This is, by far, the biggest political issue in the world. It is the one thing that will affect everyone on the planet for centuries to come. Why isn't everyone shouting it from the rooftops?" Warning of a possible domino effect as multiple climate feedback loops are triggered within a dynamic cascade of rising temperatures and warming oceans, scientists behind a frightening new study say that for the sake of humanity's future they hope scenarios explored in their new models do not come to pass. Read more

Hothouse Earth – Evidence for a demise of the planetary life support system

The study found the climate is heading for a tipping point that could make the planet uninhabitable. It could cause temperatures up to 5^oC higher than pre-industrial averages. Current global efforts to curb emissions are “unlikely” to prevent the dangerous situation. Homo “sapiens” is at an advanced stage of destroying the habitability of planet Earth. Read more

A valuable analysis by a strategic risk consultant who has spent a great deal of time in China. But where is any mention of climate change? The map shows the breadbasket of China where 400 million people live. Unless we stop heating the globe China will NOT be territorially intact by the end of the century.

Why West Fears ‘Made in China: 2025’

Current Washington strategy is to target both the growing cooperation between China, Russia and Iran, ironically a result of inept US geopolitics since the past decade, and most especially target the great industrial “rejuvenation” of Chinese manufacturing. The problem is that China 2025 is the very basis of China’s strategy for future existence. Beijing does not see it as an option but rather as the plan. Read more

There will be no Chinese century

In a world with a climate crisis, the North China Plain is at risk. If 45°N latitude is roughly the cutoff for livability in the latter half of the 21st century Beijing at 39°N will boil and will be essentially uninhabitable by century’s end without huge emissions cuts now. Unsurvivable heatwaves could strike the heart of China, humid heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours. Read more

Blue light from phone screens accelerates blindness - take care!

Light from digital devices triggers creation of toxic molecule in the retina that can cause macular degeneration. Prolonged exposure to blue light triggers poisonous molecules to be generated in the eye’s light-sensitive cells that can cause macular degeneration – an incurable condition that affects the middle part of vision. Blue light, which has a shorter wavelength and more energy compared with other colours, can gradually cause damage to the eyes. For protection they suggest you wear sunglasses that can filter both UV and blue light outside and avoid browsing on mobile phones or tablets in the dark. Read more

A very stable genius

You may enjoy this - thanks Emily Watch this one

Knockout Blows to US Imperialism: De-Dollarization and Hypersonic Weapons

If this strategy proves successful, it will only be natural to start offering other countries the opportunity to hop onto the Eurasian train, enabling those willing to shift their military, economic and diplomatic leaning from the Atlantic to the Eurasian world. Given the momentous significance of India and Pakistan’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as permanent members, it would seem that Moscow and Beijing are on track to eliminating the central role of the United States in international relations in favour of a multilateralism that will benefit everyone. Read more

"Israeli Intervention In US Elections Overwhelms Anything Russia Has Done"

If you’re interested in foreign interference in elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely weighs in the balance compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies - what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Trump's right about better relations with Russia - the fate of the world depends on it. Russia did nothing of note, Russian hacking is extremely marginal, Israel is the real meddler in US democracy. Read more

Not interference?

Israel Running Campaign Against Jeremy Corbyn

Evidence of an Israeli campaign of psychological warfare against the UK's main opposition party. Read more

Not interference?

Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at Direction of US and Israeli Governments Read more

Brazil, Peru and China and their Inter-oceanic Dream

in their eagerness to construct the railway, governments are overlooking the considerable social and environmental impacts along the proposed route such as large-scale deforestation and disruption to indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation. Read more

Chinese+Western financing of roads, dams lead to major Amazon deforestation

The Chinese are snapping up resources across the globe ...like that huge copper mine in Afghanistan. They are also buying land across the globe so as to feed the the growing Chinese population ... such as land in Africa. This effectively takes away agricultural produce from Africans who need it. ... Then again, Africa has desertification happening. Good luck getting agricultural product when it is too hot for plants to grow and there is spreading desertification in Africa and elsewhere located. Read more

Trump administration lifts ban on pesticides linked to declining bee numbers

The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation of genetically modified crops in dozens of national wildlife refuges where farming is permitted. Read more

Scientists Have Uncovered a Disturbing Climate Change Precedent

During the rise of mammals, Earth's temperatures spiked in a scary way that the planet may experience again soon. the most striking feature of this early age of mammals is that it was almost unbelievably hot, so hot that around 50 million years ago there were crocodiles, palm trees, and sand tiger sharks in the Arctic Circle. On the other side of the blue-green orb, in waters that today would surround Antarctica, sea-surface temperatures might have topped an unthinkable 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with near-tropical forests on Antarctica itself. There were perhaps even sprawling, febrile dead zones spanning the tropics, too hot even for animal or plant life of any sort. This is what you get in an ancient atmosphere with around 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. If this number sounds familiar, 1,000 ppm of CO2 is around what humanity is on pace to reach by the end of this century. That should be concerning. Read more

Indian independence? British Colonialism Replaced by a New Hegemony

India celebrates its independence from Britain on 15 August. However, the system of British colonial dominance has been replaced by a new hegemony based on the systemic rule of transnational capital, enforced by global institutions like the World Bank and WTO. At the same time, global agribusiness corporations are stepping into the boots of the former East India Company. By 2030, Delhi’s population will be 37 million: “The emerging mega-cities will rely increasingly on industrial-scale agricultural and supermarket chains, crowding out local food chains.” The drive is to entrench industrial agriculture, commercialise the countryside and to replace small-scale farming, the backbone of food production in India. Given the trajectory the country seems to be on, it does not take much to imagine a countryside with vast swathes of chemically-drenched monocrop fields containing genetically modified plants or soils rapidly degrading to become a mere repository for a chemical cocktail of proprietary biocides. The plan is to displace the existing system of livelihood-sustaining smallholder agriculture with one dominated from seed to plate by transnational agribusinesses and retailers. Read more

Size and Composition of Nuclear Arsenals Around the World

Though the United States and Russia have dismantled many weapons since the height of the Cold War stand-off, their arsenals remain formidable compared to the other seven nuclear armed nations – and they've actually got many of them on stand-by, called strategic deployment. Read more

Russia promises to save Iran nuclear deal

Russia said Tuesday it will do "everything necessary" to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and protect its shared economic interests with Tehran. Read more

China defends Iran business ties after Trump threat

"China's commercial cooperation with Iran is open and transparent, reasonable, fair and lawful, not violating any United Nations Security Council resolutions. China's lawful rights should be protected." Read more

US boycott of Iran risks being godsend for China and Russia

Both nations prioritize oil and gas interests over cooperation. Read more

John Pilger Excoriates Media on Assange Silence

I think there is collusion which amounts to an attempt to try to do a deal with Assange whereby he might be allowed free passage of return to Australia if he shuts down WikiLeaks. I think that is very, very likely. As I understand Julian, this is something he would not even contemplate. Read more

How the World Elites are Going to Betray us: Lessons from Roman History

The more I study the story of the Roman Empire, the more I see the similarities with our world. Of course, history doesn't exactly repeat itself, but as the Western Empire started to collapse, the Roman elites abandoned the people to build themselves strongholds in safe places. Something similar is starting to occur in our times and our elites may decide to seek safe havens while leaving us to drown, starve, or burn.

Reading the chronicles of the early 5th century AD, you get the impression of total mayhem, with barbarian armies crisscrossing Europe and few, if any, Roman nobles and commanders trying to defend the Empire. Most of them seemed to be manoeuvring to find a defendable place where they could find safety for themselves. We don't know what was the final destiny of Rutilius Namatianus but, since he had the time to finish his poem, we may imagine that he could build himself a castle in Southern France and his descendants may have become feudal lords. But not everyone made it. For instance, Paulinus of Pella, another rich Roman, contemporary of Namatianus, desperately tried to hold on his possessions in Europe, eventually considering himself happy just for having been able of surviving to old age.

We see a pattern here: when the rich Romans saw that things were going really out of control, they scrambled to save themselves while, at the same time, denying that things were so bad as they looked. We can see that clearly in Namatianus' poem: he never ever hints that Rome was doomed. At most, he says, it was a temporary setback and soon Rome will be great again. Read more