Money from thin air: British breezes sells for £80 a pop in China

There was a time when basic necessities of life were free for all, Then, healthy food became something to be purchased. Then, rather recently, clean drinking water became the next necessity of life to be sold & purchased, & now, bottled Air from UK & Canada going to cities that are suffering from pollution & smog.

Result of this: cheap food lacks proper nutrients & hence, increases the likelihood of illnesses like obesity, diabetes, heart problems, etc.; polluted & dirty water is available for free, but full of pollutants & harmful carcinogens in some cases, & now, poor people who lack enough money to buy bottled air, will be inhaling polluted air full of carcinogenic materials.

Next thing up for sale: life. If you want more life, buy more life.

Essentially, poor people will keep fighting for the mere scraps -- the necessary scraps to live -- while, the wealthy people will be able to buy everything to live; food, water, air, life ...

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https://www.rt.com/uk/331438-bottled-british-air-china/

A UK businessman is making a fortune selling British air to wealthy Chinese buyers for £80 ($115) a bottle.

Leo De Watts, 27, harvests fresh air from rural locations across the UK, including Dorset, Somerset, Wales, Wiltshire and Yorkshire.

His team use specially adapted fishing nets and run through fields to collect the breeze. The nets are left for 10 minutes to absorb the local aroma, before being bottled in 580 ml containers.

De Watts, who is from Dorset but now lives in Hong Kong, described his product as the “Louis Vuitton or Gucci” of fresh air.

Commenting on the difference between the areas where English air is harvested, he said: “I would say on the whole that Dorset air seems to pick up a few more scents of the ocean, as the breeze flows up the Jurassic Coast and over the lush pastures.

“Whereas air from the Yorkshire dales tends to filter its way through much more flora, so the scent captures the subtle tones of the surrounding fields, giving different qualities to the collection. We go up to a hilltop, for example, and collect all the products there which are all packaged and bottled up, sent to Dorset and then directly to China.”

De Watts said the Chinese demand for Great British gusts stems from the country’s terrible pollution problem, especially in urban areas.

“Our customers all have high disposal incomes and want to buy gifts for someone or someone wants to use it,” he said.

“There is a serious point to this though as Beijing, Zhuhai, and Shanghai are the major places where pollution is quite bad, whether it is the fault of the rest of the world or its China’s responsibility, we have a case of people living in smog.”

De Watts’ company Aethaer – the Greek word for pure fresh air – is one of at least two companies selling bottled air to China. A company from Canada is already selling bottled Rocky Mountain air to smog sufferers in Beijing and elsewhere.

De Watts admits he originally dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

“I saw a few reports of people importing bottles of air and thought it was a bit ridiculous myself, and then I thought about it,” he said.

“When someone bottled water everyone thought it was ridiculous, now you have Evian and Volvic – why not bottle air?”

If We Remain Predators, the Planet Will Cast Us Off - Lawrence Wilkerson on Reality Asserts Itself

A good discussion on how the leaders of our world have to find common grounds (& we all have many common grounds than a few differences) to find & implement solutions for much much bigger problems in all our lives. These problems of climate change, hunger, thirst, fatal diseases etc. are only increasing in the absence of a true & honest leadership, who is willing to work together towards a common goal, instead of creating more opportunities to fight one another.

As Larry Wilkerson says near the end of the interview that if we keep being predators (i.e. if we keep fighting each other & always looking to take more than share equally), then "let's just keep being predators and watch the planet cast us off, because the planet is going to cast us off, or at least a sizable majority of us. There's no question in my mind about that. The planet will go on as it went on after the dinosaurs, but human life might not. And that's the nature of the challenge that we confront in this century."

This world needs the leadership who is willing to improve humanity's condition in several ways on many fronts. Will the world ever see such kind of leadership?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6TUcOsAwd0

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: So there seems to be kind of two parallel processes going on. And I'm talking about--I mean, it relates to U.S. foreign policy almost with all countries, but right now I'm interested and I think everyone's interested in relations with China, even though the heat is with Russia right now. Certainly President Obama's Asian pivot in the long-term strategic thinking of the United States is: how do you manage the relationship with China?

And what I mean by two different processes. There's a tremendous amount of economic integration. China holds more U.S. Treasury bills, I think, than anyone--any single place on earth. They have massive amounts of U.S. cash, tremendous integration in terms of the labor, Chinese labor providing commodities for the American market, and so on and so on, a great deal of economic integration, you can say even codependence on each other. On the other hand, over here there's the Asian pivot on the American side. There's the strategy--what most people call an encirclement of China. ... Well, hedging on both sides is pretty massive, the buildup of the American military and the buildup of the Chinese military. ... And if this Cold War with the Russians gets even hotter and the sanctions start to really threaten Russia's ability to export its energy, the obvious thing is we'll sell it all to China.
...

But in terms of the danger of war, which process is kind of more dominant? 'Cause it each has its own logic. You would think the commercial integrations logic would trump that there ever really would be that kind of confrontation. On the other hand, when you have these enormous military buildups, the logic is somehow, someday, something happens.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: I think you're right, and it's something to watch very carefully and something to try to form policies to prevent, I think. Hedging strategies can get out of hand on both sides. China's almost preposterous, grandiose claims in the South China Sea can get out of hand. These sorts of things have their own momentum, and before you know it, you're staring at something that looks like you can't get out of it, whether it's over Taiwan, the most likely fire point, or whether it's over something else we can't even see now, like, for example, Filipino occupying a rock in the South China Sea. It's not a situation that I would say is fraught with danger and potential for danger right now, but it could be easily. It doesn't have the in-your-face aspect of Ukraine, this sort of great-power standoff, Russia or Moscow and Washington, but it has, I think, a much longer term ability to ruin not only U.S.-China relations, ultimately, but to impact the entire globe.

JAY: And how much is this driven by a real concern that this rivalry with China over ... markets, over raw materials, and such and such really requires a military alternative versus how much is this driven by what you were saying in the first segment, oligarchs (on both sides, really, but I would say here it's more the American side) who just need another place to have a military buildup, because everybody makes a killing out of this?

WILKERSON: Yeah, well, the president of China right now is having a hard time trying to go after some of his oligarchs, who are just too corrupt for his own liking. And this is reaching a point where it may be destabilizing for the Communist Party in and for China ultimately. So I'm watching that very closely.

But at the same time, you have a situation here that's ripe for a great-state relationship. What do I mean by a great-state relationship? Well, you sort of had that in 1648 with Westphalia, which sort of set the road for monarchs and their peoples to be sovereign and to exercise some tolerance and so forth, a state system you could argue we're still operating under. You had the Atlantic Charter, too. The Atlantic Charter was--here's the greatest empire in the world, receding, to be sure, and the nascent empire meeting and saying, we're going to get together and have a great-state relationship to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. And it worked. And the world had sort of a Pax Americana for half a century, virtually.

We need some sort of relationship like that between Washington and Beijing today, I think. And I do not mean in any way that we should rule the world together. What I mean is the challenges that we're going to confront in the 21st century, challenges that could be existential, challenges like climate change, challenges like enough water to drink, enough food to eat, and so forth--I've seen some projections that say--by climatologists whose views I respect, that say by the end of this century we could have only arable land and water enough for some half-billion people. What we do with the other 9 billion? Where do we bury them, even? How do we deal with that kind of massive change in human relationships with this planet? So these are huge challenges. So what I'm saying is you need this kind of great-power relationship, this great-state relationship to begin to lead the way for others to follow, others who are already doing a good job of it, like Germany, for example, to meet these challenges which are much bigger than whether or not Taiwan is a part of China or whether or not Ukraine is a part of Russia. These are tactical skirmishes on the fringes of challenges that may have major impact on human life on this planet, and yet we don't seem to be able to get the leadership to move to face and confront these challenges.

JAY: ... I guess the question came down to is capitalism as we know it out of these kinds of answers and not capable of producing this kind of leadership. This concentration of ownership, and so much in the hands of a section of capital that's essentially parasitical, betting on derivatives markets and just gambling with no interest in really strengthening the real economy of the United States and taking advantage, wherever they can, around the world, the politics that reflects that, I mean, to get to what you're talking about, that kind of relationship between states that will face up to climate change and, I think, a looming, very deep economic crisis that's going to hit that's going to be, you know, 1930s styles or worse--.
...

So in terms of the discussion, discourse that ordinary people need to start getting their heads around, I mean, does it not--you have to start talking about who owns stuff, who has power in the United States, and what to do about it.

WILKERSON: Adam Smith's invisible hand in Wealth of Nations is now not an invisible hand. It's the hand of oligarchs. So if you want a succinct answer, if capitalism is going to help--going to be the economic, philosophical engine of this, meeting these challenges, it's going to have to return to Adam Smith, but not just in Wealth of Nations, but also in his moral sentiments. You've got to have a different version of capitalism. It cannot be predatory capitalism, which both China and the United States are exemplifying massively today, China like the U.S. did in the 1890s, 1880s, 1890s, and the United States in this new form of collateralized debt obligations and all the rest of these financial innovations that do nothing but make the rich richer and the poor poorer. So it's got to be a different brand of capitalism or it's got to be a new economic system.

JAY: Yeah. And do we not have to then jettison all the baggage and shadow of the Cold War rhetoric--McCarthyism, House un-American activities committees, all the stuff that has such weight to stop you from discussing a new economic system?

WILKERSON: This is the huge component of a great-state relationship that would have to be--it would have to manifest itself and it would have to do so before you get into the challenges and the way you're going to meet them. And what do I mean by that? I mean what Malcolm Byrne and John Tirman--at MIT, Malcolm at George Washington--have called empathy: you have to understand the other person's side. Think of the Ukraine today. Think of Iran today. You have to crawl into the other person's shoes and understand their side. And that means you have to recognize their culture. You have to, to certain extent, honor the right they have to have that culture. You have to honor the right they have to design their own political system and so forth, and quit this messianic desire to bring these people down, those people down 'cause they're evil and contemptible. You have to eliminate the politics of fear as much as possible. And you have to work together. You have to genuinely work together.

That doesn't mean--Admiral Locklear said this recently, United States commander in the Pacific, probably the most influential man in terms of immediate U.S.-China policy, U.S.-Asia policy: he said China and the United States have more in common than they do have differences. It's not a large majority, but it's a majority. The problem we have, the challenge we have is to deal with the friction created by that minority of issues where we don't agree. Well, that's what a great-state pact does. It says, we are going to push those issues aside, work on them if we can in the corridors, and try to fix what we can. But we've got to have a relationship that basically begins together (because you can't do it alone; you can't; no country can do it alone), meets the challenges that we're confronting in this century, which are huge.

JAY: But is part of the problem is that the people that are making policy here in the United States, they do put themselves in the other shoes, in this sense? They look at themselves and they said, well, you know, we're predatory, so they are too, so let's just do worst-case scenarios dealing with predatory supposed allies that we know eventually--like we did with with the Germans, we may have economic integration, we may trade with them, but we're also ready to go to war with them because we're all really predators and that's what predators do.

WILKERSON: If that's the case, then let's just keep being predators and watch the planet cast us off, because the planet is going to cast us off, or at least a sizable majority of us. There's no question in my mind about that. The planet will go on as it went on after the dinosaurs, but human life might not. And that's the nature of the challenge that we confront in this century.

In this century, in my grandchildren's lifespan, major, major impacts will begin to occur, indeed may already be occurring. Pacific nations, for example, like Palau understand they're going to be underwater and they have to relocate their whole populations. These kinds of things are going to happen with a frequency and a drama that is going to convince everyone. But is it going to be too late?

When it comes to war in space, US has the edge

This article gives us a little taste of how the world's major powers, financially & militarily, are in a race to spend trillions upon trillions to conquer their global rivals in space & show to the world how they "won" the race. Ironically, those trillions are coming from people taxes; the same taxes people of a country pay, voluntarily or involuntarily, to receive basic necessities to fulfill their basic human needs.

Trillions of those taxes are being spent on something which most of the world's population will never use. All these space military hardware is not helping anyone improve billions of lives right here on Earth.

We humans want to take a giant leap towards Moon settlement & Mars colonization, but we forget very easily that billions of humans are living a miserable & wretched life right in our backyard, right here on this very planet.

Our fellow humans are dying of thirst because water is becoming a shortage, but trillions are not being spent to come up with cheap technologies to solve this impending crisis.

Our fellow humans are dying of hunger or suffering from eating unhealthy foods because feeding everyone in the world a healthy diet would require billions in funding, but billions are not being spent on research to improve agriculture & food accessibility for billions of poor.

Our fellow humans are living without a roof over their heads & homelessness is only increasing. But billions are not being spent on building affordable housing to provide a decent living space to our own fellow human beings.

Similarly, there are thousands more issues where trillions can be spent easily to improve human & animal lives; fatal diseases, climate change, animal welfare, sustainable energy etc. & make our little planet a living utopia for all. But, instead of improving lives for billions on this little planet of ours, trillions are being spent, of people's own money, on advancing technologies to destroy more lives & wreck more havoc on this little planet.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS224889314220150810

Quietly & without most people noticing, the world’s leading space powers — the US, China & Russia — have been deploying new & more sophisticated weaponry in space.

Earth’s orbit is looking more & more like the planet’s surface — heavily armed & primed for war. A growing number of “inspection” satellites lurk in orbit, possibly awaiting commands to sneak up on & disable or destroy other satellites. Down on the surface, more & more warships & ground installations pack powerful rockets that, with accurate guidance, could reach into orbit to destroy enemy spacecraft.

A war in orbit could wreck the delicate satellite constellations that the world relies on for navigation, communication, scientific research & military surveillance. Widespread orbital destruction could send humanity through a technological time warp. “You go back to World War Two,” Air Force General John Hyten, in charge of US Space Command, told 60 Minutes. “You go back to the Industrial Age.”

It’s hard to say exactly how many weapons are in orbit. That’s because many spacecraft are “dual use.” They have peaceful functions & potential military applications. With the proverbial flip of a switch, an inspection satellite, ostensibly configured for orbital repair work, could become a robotic assassin capable of taking out other satellites with lasers, explosives or mechanical claws. Until the moment it attacks, however, the assassin spacecraft might appear to be harmless. And its dual use gives its operators political cover. The US possesses more space weaponry than any other country, yet denies that any of its satellites warrant the term.

When 60 Minutes asked the Air Force secretary whether the United States has weapons in space, Secretary Deborah Lee James answered simply: “No, we do not.”

Still, it’s possible to count at least some of the systems that could disable or destroy other satellites. Some of the surface-based weaponry is far less ambiguous & so easier to tally. Even taking into account the difficulty of accurately counting space weaponry, one thing is clear: The US is, by far, the world’s most heavily armed space power.

But not for a lack of trying on the part of other countries.

New Cold War in space

Earth’s orbit wasn’t always such a dangerous place. The Soviet Union destroyed a satellite for the last time in an experiment in 1982. The US tested its last Cold War anti-satellite missile, launched by a vertically flying F-15 fighter, in 1985.

For the next 3 decades, both countries refrained from deploying weapons in space. The “unofficial moratorium,” as Laura Grego, a space expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, described it, put the brakes on the militarization of space.

Then in 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew the US from a treaty with Russia prohibiting the development of antiballistic-missile weapons. The move cleared the way for Bush to deploy interceptor missiles that administration officials claimed would protect the US from nuclear attack by “rogue” states such as North Korea. But withdrawing from the treaty also undermined the consensus on the strictly peaceful use of space.

5 years later, in January 2007, China struck one of its own old satellites with a ground-launched rocket as part of a test of a rudimentary anti-satellite system. This scattered thousands of potentially dangerous pieces of debris across low orbit. Beijing’s anti-satellite test accelerated the militarization of space. The US, in particular, seized the opportunity to greatly expand its orbital arsenal.

US companies & government agencies have at least 500 satellites — roughly as many as the rest of the world combined. At least 100 of them are primarily military in nature. Most are for communication or surveillance. In other words, they’re oriented downward, toward Earth.

But a few patrol space itself. The US military’s Advanced Technology Risk Reduction spacecraft, launched into an 800-mile-high orbit in 2009, is basically a sensitive infrared camera that can detect the heat plumes from rocket launches &, presumably, maneuvering spacecraft. It then can beam detailed tracking data to human operators on the ground.

The risk-reduction satellite works in conjunction with other spacecraft & Earth-based sensors to keep track of Earth’s approximately 1,000 active satellites. The telescope-like Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite, launched in 2010, “has a clear and unobstructed view,” according to an Air Force fact sheet, “of resident space objects orbiting Earth from its 390-mile-altitude orbit.”

“Resident space object” is military speak for satellites.

A network of around 30 ground radars & telescopes complements the orbital sensors. Together, these systems make “380,000 to 420,000 observations each day,” Space Command explains on its Website.

Observing & tracking other countries’ satellites is a passive & essentially peaceful affair. But the US military also possesses at least 6 spacecraft that can maneuver close to enemy satellites & inspect or even damage them.

In 2010, the Air Force launched its first X-37B space plane. A quarter-size, robotic version of the old Space Shuttle, the X-37B boosts into low orbit — around 250 miles high — atop a rocket but lands back on Earth like an airplane.

The two X-37Bs take turns spending a year or more in orbit. Officially, the Air Force describes the maneuverable mini-shuttles as being part of “an experimental test program to demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform.” But they could also attack other spacecraft.

The X-37Bs “could be used to rendezvous and inspect satellites, either friendly or adversarial, and potentially grab and de-orbit satellites,” the Secure World Foundation, a space advocacy group, pointed out. The group stressed that the feasibility of the X-37Bs as weapons is low because the mini-shuttles are limited to low orbits & because the US operates at least 4 other maneuverable satellites that are probably far better at stalking & tearing up enemy spacecraft.

These include 2 Microsatellite Technology Experiment satellites that the military boosted into low orbit in 2006. The MiTEx satellites are small, weighing just 500 pounds each. This makes them harder for enemy sensors to detect — giving them the advantage of surprise in wartime.

The two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites are much bigger & higher up. From their stationary positions 22,000 miles above Earth, these spacecraft — in orbit since July 2014 — monitor other satellites & can, according to the Air Force, “maneuver near a resident space object of interest, enabling characterization for anomaly resolution and enhanced surveillance.”

Maneuverable space planes & satellites are one way of attacking enemy spacecraft. But there’s an older, less subtle method — blasting them out of space with a rocket.

In late 2006, an US spy satellite malfunctioned shortly after reaching low orbit. In early February 2008, the Pentagon announced it would shoot down the dead spacecraft. Officially, Washington insisted that the anti-satellite operation was a safety measure, to prevent the defunct craft’s toxic fuel from harming someone when the satellite’s orbit decayed & it tumbled to Earth.

But it appeared to more than one observer that China’s 2007 anti-satellite test motivated Washington’s own satellite shoot-down. A new Cold War was underway, this time in space.

On Feb. 20, 2008, the Navy cruiser Lake Erie, equipped with a high-tech Aegis radar, launched a specially modified SM-3 antiballistic-missile interceptor. The rocket struck the malfunctioning satellite at an estimated speed of 22,000 miles an hour, destroying it.

Today, the US has dozens of Aegis-equipped warships carrying hundreds of SM-3 missiles, more than enough to quickly wipe out the approximately 50 satellites apiece that Russia & China keep in low orbit.

“Aegis ships could be positioned optimally,” Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a 2011 paper, “ to stage a ‘sweep’ attack on a set of satellites nearly at once.”

As an anti-satellite backup, the US Army & the Missile Defense Agency also operate 2 types of ground-launched missile interceptors that have the power to reach low orbit — & the accuracy to strike spacecraft.

Against this huge arsenal, Russia & China possess few counterweights. China’s 2007 anti-satellite test, & a similar trial in early 2013, proved that Beijing can hit a low satellite with a rocket. In 2010, the Chinese space agency launched a cluster of small space vehicles, including 2 named SJ-6F & SJ-12, that slammed into each other in orbit, seemingly on purpose. In July 2013, China deployed a small inspection spacecraft, designated SY-7, in low orbit.

Like the US fleet of maneuverable inspection spacecraft, the tiny SY-7 with its remote-controlled claw could be orbital repair or inspection vehicle — or it could be a weapon.

“One could dream up,” Brian Weeden, a technical & space adviser at the Secure World Foundation, told the War Is Boring Website in 2013, “a whole bunch of dastardly things that could be done with a robotic arm in close proximity.”

But China lacks the space- & ground-based sensors to accurately steer these weapons toward their targets. Compared to the US space-awareness system, with its scores of radars & telescopes, China possesses a relatively paltry system — one consequence of Beijing’s diplomatic isolation.

Where the US can count on allies to host parts of a global sensor network, China has few formal allies & can only deploy space-awareness systems inside its own borders, on ships at sea or in space. The Chinese military can watch the skies over East Asia, but is mostly blind elsewhere.

By contrast, Russia inherited an impressive space-awareness network from the Soviet Union. Russia’s allies in Europe — in particular, the former Soviet & Eastern Bloc states — extend the network’s field of view. As a result, Moscow possesses “a relatively complete catalog of space objects,” the Secure World Foundation concluded.

But Russia is still far behind the US & China as far as space weaponry is concerned. There was a 31-year gap between the Soviet Union’s last anti-satellite test & Russia’s first post-Soviet orbital-weapon experiment. On Christmas Day in 2013, Russia quietly launched a small, maneuverable inspection spacecraft into low orbit, hiding the tiny spacecraft among a cluster of communications satellites.

2 more space inspectors followed, one in May 2014 & another in March 2015. Moscow hasn’t said much about them, but amateur satellite spotters have tracked the vehicles performing the kinds of maneuvers consistent with orbital attack craft. “You can probably equip them with lasers,” Anatoly Zak, the author of Russia in Space: Past Explained, Future Explored, said of the Russian craft. “Maybe put some explosives on them.”

They join a growing number of space weapons guided by expanding networks of Earth-based & orbital sensors on a new, distant battlefront of a so far bloodless neo-Cold War.

"Idiotic Behaviours" by Monte Wolverton

"Idiotic Behaviours" - Monte Wolverton, US

"Earth Home" by Jen Sorensen

"Earth Home" - Jen Sorensen, US

Breathing poison in the world's most polluted city

Whenever I come across these kinds of stories, about air pollution in major European or Asian cities, only one movie comes to my mind: Lorax.

As water is becoming a very precious commodity around the world, & companies like Nestle, are making billions from selling bottled water, there soon will be a time when clean oxygen tanks will be selling like bottled water.

First, food became unaffordable for millions around the world. Meat & meat-derived products are a luxury for millions of people who live below the poverty line (which in itself is very low). Even fruits, vegetables, & grains are becoming unaffordable now.

Next up was water. Well, be it US or Pakistan, Nigeria or Uganda, Sao Paulo (Brazil) or Peru, water is becoming the next gold or oil ... except, water is needed to live, unlike oil or gold. Bottled water is a billion-, or perhaps, trillion-$$$ business around the world.

After that, clean air is the next up to be bought & sold. Oxygen is even more precious than water or food. A human can live for days without food & a couple of days without water. Muslims fast in Ramadan around the world, during which, they don't eat or drink at all, during the day. But nobody can survive for a few minutes without oxygen.

Rich people will always find a way to survive, either by buying clean air or apparatus to clean the air in their homes & offices or moving to places with cleaner air. But what about the billions of poor around the world? They let go of their desires to have meat on their dinner tables. They are letting go of their desires to have clean water & hence, suffering terribly from drinking dirty & polluted water. But how will they let go of breathing clean air?

I am foreseeing a very bad future for the billions of poor, dying on the streets by the scores, because the rich have polluted the air. Poor didn't do anything to deserve such a painful life & death, but they will be the ones who will suffer the most.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32352722

Saharan dust, traffic fumes & smog from Europe may be clogging up London's air at present ... but in the world's most polluted city London's air would be considered unusually refreshing. That city is Delhi, the Indian capital, where air quality reports now make essential reading for anxious residents.
 
In London last week, the most dangerous particles - PM 2.5 - hit a high of 57 - that's nearly 6 times recommended limits.
 
Here in Delhi, we can only dream of such clean air.
 
Our reading for these minute, carcinogenic particles, which penetrate the lungs, entering straight into the blood stream - is a staggering 215 - 21 times recommended limits. And that's better than it's been all winter.
 
Until a few weeks ago, PM 2.5 levels rarely dipped below 300, which some here have described as an "air-pocalypse".
 
Like the rest of the world, those of us in Delhi believed for years that Beijing was the world's most polluted city.
 
But last May, the World Health Organization announced that our own air is nearly twice as toxic.
 
The result, we're told, is permanent lung damage, & 1.3 million deaths annually. That makes air pollution, after heart disease, India's second biggest killer.
 
And yet, it's only in the past 2 months as India's newspapers & television stations have begun to report the situation in detail that we've been gripped, like many others, with a sense of acute panic.
 
At first, we simply shut all our doors & windows & sealed up numerous gaps. No more seductively cool Delhi breezes could be allowed in.
 
We began checking the air quality index obsessively.
 
Then, we rushed out to buy pollution masks, riding around in our car looking like highway robbers. But our three-year-old wouldn't allow one anywhere near her face.
 
Despite our alarm, many Delhi-ites reacted with disdain. "It's just dust from the desert," some insisted. "Nothing a little homeopathy can't solve," others said.
 
But we weren't convinced.
 
When we heard that certain potted plants improve indoor air quality, we rushed to the nursery to snap up areca palms, & a rather ugly, spiky plant with the unappealing moniker, mother-in-law's tongue.
 
But on arrival, the bemused proprietor informed us that the American embassy had already purchased every last one.
 
In any case, we calculated that to make a difference, we needed a minimum of 50 plants.
 
..., we borrowed an air pollution probe from a friend to work out what progress, if any, we'd made.
 
Switching it on, our PM 2.5 levels registered an off-the-charts 44,000.
 
My husband scratched his head, consulting the manual.
 
"This says 3,000 is hazardous."
 
"It must be broken," I said.
 
But it wasn't, so we had to call in the experts.
 
One afternoon, a young man turned up with a small, free-standing air filter, specially modified for Delhi's dust. He pressed a button, which activated something called a "plasma cluster".
 
After 20 minutes, the numbers on our air monitor began to drop... precipitously.
 
My husband & I watched, ... as the readings went down from 44,000, to 20,000, then 11,000. Eventually, the probe settled around the 1,000 mark.
 
That's still worryingly high by global standards... & that's only the air inside our home. There's nothing we can do about the air outside.
 
The government has announced that it will install more air quality monitors in Delhi & that it will ban diesel-belching vehicles more than a decade old.
 
But that's a drop in the ocean compared to India's pro-growth economic policies, which still rely heavily on subsidised, dirty diesel.
 
The trouble is on many days, you can't see the pollution.
 
Right now outside my window is an intensely blue sky filled with flocks of lime green parakeets and frangipani trees just beginning to unfurl their waxy, fragrant blossoms & I find myself wondering if it isn't perfectly OK to take my kids out to play football.
 
But in the past few months, at least a dozen families we know have moved away, either to cleaner towns & cities, or outside of India.
 
And although I'm still lulled by the reassurances of long-time residents - "Don't worry - it's nothing," they chide - I am beginning to wonder if it isn't time to think about moving too.
 
Compared to Delhi right now, London & even Beijing are looking like pretty good options.

"Climate Conference" by Loujie

"Climate Conference" - Loujie, China Daily, China

New studies link pollution to a variety of health risks

Obviously, who suffers the most with air pollution & its related illnesses: the poor. And thanks to the government's cutting of the healthcare budgets, those poor can't even get proper healthcare. It's like a double whammy.
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http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/01/pollution-health-risks-epa-supreme-court-free-radicals

Since the US Clean Air Act’s passage in the 1970s, there have been a steady stream of reports correlating exposure to air pollutants with a variety of health impacts. But in the early days, much of that information was too rudimentary to be of much use. Monitoring technology has improved in the decades since, & state air-quality boards have amassed volumes of actionable data about air pollution.
 
The increase in available data coupled with advances in chemistry & 3D modeling over the past few years has enabled scientists to identify new particle systems within air pollution. Researchers are now able to determine all the various chemicals & particles that air pollution includes, & to study precisely how these various elements interact with, & in some cases fundamentally change, the human body.
 
Those advances have led to a rapid increase in published studies about air pollution over the past year, as researchers have focused their work on the interaction between pollution particles & human health. Multiple long-term studies of human health are beginning to produce results, as are ongoing studies of air pollution. 3 studies published just last week illustrate the state of rapidly advancing science around air pollution today.
 
In one study, Louisiana State University researcher Stephania Cormier reported that a particular type of free radicals (called environmentally persistent free radicals, or EPFRs), formed within the particulate matter emitted by cooking stoves, cars, factories, waste incinerators, wood fires, & cigarettes, can damage human cells.
 
The findings could have broad implications for businesses, considering that the Supreme Court is currently wrestling with how to interpret the Clean Air Act.
 
Cormier & her team divided a population of mice into 2 groups, exposing one to EPFRs & the other to no pollution. They then infected both groups with a flu virus.
 
The pollution-exposed mice were rendered virtually defenseless to the virus: 20% more of them died from the flu. Instead of fighting off the disease, their bodies reacted by triggering an anti-inflammatory signal, Interleukin-10, & switching on both an immune-regulating protein called aryl hydrocarbon receptor & immune cells called regulatory T cells, both of which turn off the body’s defenses against infection.
 
The researchers also found that the EPFRs caused oxidative stress, an imbalance between the production of free radicals & the ability of the body to counteract or detoxify their harmful effects.
 
What that means for similarly exposed communities is that asthma & the flu will be more severe for vulnerable members, like infants & the elderly.
 
More & worse allergies
 
Another study, published on 22 March by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, found that common traffic-related air pollutants may make allergies more severe.
 
The study’s authors conducted lab tests & computer simulations to study the effect of ozone & nitrogen dioxide on a primary birch pollen, Bet v1, & found that both pollutants affected how proteins in the pollen bound together, potentially creating a more potent allergen.

“Our research is showing that chemical modifications of allergenic proteins may play an important role in the increasing prevalence of allergies worldwide,” Christopher Kampf, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement.
 
Impact on the brain
 
Yet another study released last week, this one a collaborative effort between researchers at the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles & at Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health, found a connection between common pollutants found in a wide range of emissions & cognitive & behavioral impairment.
 
The study looked at the effects of airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), a molecule prevalent in emissions from motor vehicles, oil & coal burning, wildfires & agricultural burning, hazardous waste sites, & tobacco smoke as well as charred foods.
 
The research team selected 40 minority youth, born to Latina or African American women, that Columbia researchers have been following from birth, & used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure their brains.
 
The Columbia researchers had previously reported that PAH exposure during gestation in this group was associated with multiple neurodevelopmental disturbances, including development delay by age 3, reduced verbal IQ at age 5, & symptoms of anxiety & depression at age 7.
 
In the group of 40 studied in the MRI test, the researchers found a loss of the brain’s white matter surface, which correlates to slower processing of information & severe behavioral problems, including ADHD & aggression.
 
Postnatal PAH exposure – measured at age 5 – was found to contribute to additional disturbances in development of white matter in a separate area of the brain, one associated with concentration, reasoning, judgment, & problem-solving ability.

“This sample of 40 was quite ‘pure,’ in that their exposure to other known neurotoxicants was minimal, so we have more confidence in being able to attribute the brain abnormalities to the effects of prenatal & early childhood exposure to PAH,” Peterson said.
 
While the study group was small, Peterson said these results emphasize what we already know about the harmful effects of tobacco & add to the growing base of knowledge about the impacts of other sources of air pollution. Given the mounting evidence, he said, clinicians should educate prospective parents about these risks, especially in early pregnancy.
 
Peterson said that in less urban areas, exposure to pollutants from wildfires, agricultural burning & hazardous waste sites might be more relevant, & that women & children should remain indoors & use air conditioners as much as possible to avoid the airborne products of these fires.

“As the link between air-borne pollutants & adverse brain changes is linear & seems not to have any threshold that defines safe & unsafe exposure, any reduction in exposure during the most active periods of brain development – in fetal life & in early childhood – will be helpful.”

Translating research into action
 
According to the most recent American Lung Association State of the Air report, more than half of Americans live in areas with dangerously high levels of air pollution.
 
Children are the most severely impacted by air pollution, both in utero & in early childhood.
 
Air pollution also remains an issue of class & race. The dominant sources of pollution – traffic, industrial emissions, energy-related emissions (from oil refineries & coal plants), & hazardous waste – all disproportionately affect low-income & minority communities.
 
The quickest way to improve the air quality of all communities is increased state & federal regulation of the sources of air pollution. To that end, the US Supreme Court is due to address 2 major Environmental Protection Agency rules this summer, one that aims to regulate cross-state air pollution & one that would require better pollution controls on coal power plants.
 
Both have been criticized for being expensive & onerous to implement, but Supreme Court justices in favor of the rules have pointed to the EPA’s obligation to protect public health, not private profits.
 
Judge Judith W Rogers wrote as much in the majority opinion on the EPA’s mercury rule, which would require coal power plants to install scrubbers that would limit mercury emissions, costing them $9.6bn a year. Rogers said the EPA’s focus on “factors relating to public health hazards, & not industry’s objections that emission controls are costly” should motivate Congress to make appropriate & necessary regulatory rules.
 
Moreover, because the scrubbers required would also reduce other air pollutants, the EPA has estimated that the rule would save $26bn to $89bn per year in healthcare costs. The latest batch of air pollution research helps support that claim.

Human right to water: Salvodoran NGOs & a global campaign

We may have heard such a phrase recently, "Water is the new oil." What I disagree with such a statement is that water is much more valuable than oil & it's so valuable, because it's that much more required to live. We can't survive couple of days without water. We definitely can live without oil.

Cruel irony is that although, the earth consists of 75% water, clean, drinking water is a tiny fraction of that 75% water mass on Earth. And, billions of $$$ have been, & still being, spent in creating weapons of mass destruction, by, none other than, developed countries, instead of developing technologies to filter that 75% of sea water.

In the midst of 4-year-long drought, California just planned to start its seawater filtration system. Although, it was developed & built the last time California went through a year-long drought, it was never used. The biggest problem with that filtration system, beside being energy-intensive, is that the salty & briny water as the by-product of the clean water it will provide. That briny water will be discarded back into the sea. If the drought continues on for long, then more & more of that seawater will be processed through that filtration system & more systems may be put on the Californian coast.

As you can imagine what will happen to the seawater when one or more of these machines keep throwing back that very salty, briny water back in it. It will disturb the delicate balance of salt & other minerals in the seawater. Besides, adversely affecting the marine life & the aquatic environment, that seawater will eventually start to turn more & more salty (ratio of salt will increase in less water). In that case, more energy will be required to filter that much water for a lot less of clean water. It's an imperfect technology, & it will only create adverse reactions later on.

It's a bandaid solution to a much larger water crisis. There are lots of these solutions going around. Another stupid solution state of Nevada came up with is building a large pipeline to transfer water from a municipality in northern Nevada to Vegas, since Hoover Dam (the primary water provider to Vegas) is quickly drying up.

Solutions are supposed to be beneficial to all, not depriving one set of humans from water, so another set can thrive. Or one set of animals (marine) die, so humans can survive. Solutions to water crisis need to be sustainable & long-lasting. That will need research & scientific collaboration. That research needs financial resources. But, governments of developed countries are putting their financial & human resources to come up with the latest breakthrough in how to kill other people (or other living beings, from animals to plants, i.e. deforestation).

Remember, more people die of preventable diseases & human-caused problems in developed countries than terrorism, foreign or domestic. For instance, per CDC, almost 35,000 people died of gun-related deaths in 2013, in US, or the fact that in North America, over 59,000 women die each year from breast cancer. That's almost 100,000 North American deaths, in North America, in only 1 year (2013) by only 2 causes of death. How many North Americans have been killed by terrorists in the past 20 years? I would suggest a number around 10,000 (civilian & military combined).

So, if all those financial resources are diverted towards preventing these unnecessary deaths in our own countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia, & any number of European countries), foreign terrorists would lose their interests in trying to kill us. We don't meddle in their business & they won't meddle in us. Our problem is preventing people from carcinogenic materials in our water, food, & air. Our problem is to provide our own people with clean water.

Do I see this as a hopeless situation? Yes. Do I see humans will ever turn away & learn from their mistakes? Yes, but it will be too late by the time they come around. Water has already become a crisis. We can already see how climate change has already become a huge, world-wide, crisis, but is it stopping US from fracking & polluting clean drinking water? Did that stop the government from allowing Shell to exploit Arctic for its fossil fuel reserves? Is it stopping Canada from turning away billions of $$$ in fossil fuel investments in Alberta? Canadian government got out of Kyoto protocol & recently came up with its own set of emissions cutting targets, but investing in green economy ... oh no, that won't happen. By the way, most of the mining companies, which contributed to the contamination of water sources in South America, are Canadian. 

I urge anyone who will read this post to watch the 2011 documentary, "Last Call at the Oasis." These ideas & problems are discussed in it & how, we humans, are digging our own graves by ignoring these crises, for example, this water crisis. At this point, I can only hope that influential people around the world wake up to these crises & start to do something, per their abilities, before it's too late. There is no point in regretting when you have deliberately crossed the point of no return.

By the way, as an update, on the said constitutional reform vote in El Salvador in the article (6th paragraph below), that vote was defeated on April 30th, & hence, international business interests won their right to exploit water & land for their own use. (That's why, I said above, I am much more hopeless than hopeful that we will change our situation).
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/25/human-right-water-salvadoran-ngos-global-campaign

“We saw a group of strangers & asked what they were doing. When they said they were looking for mines, we told them naively that there were no landmines here,” says Felipe Tobar, the mayor of San Jose Las Flores.
 
This was his community’s first encounter with Aurora Mineral Resource Group, a large mining company that began exploration in the Salvadoran town in 2005. After learning that the government had permitted exploration for a gold mine without their consultation, the communities were anxious to protect their water sources from the mines. In Latin America’s most water-scarce country, 98% of fresh water is contaminated; metal mining has long been one of the contributing factors.
 
The villagers took matters into their own hands. They took away the markings that the prospectors had been putting into place & rebuffed company representatives. “They sent public relations people to speak to us, but each time they were escorted out by dozens of community members & eventually the company gave up,” says Tobar. For this community, as for many others in El Salvador, the need to protect water resources was far more vital than any employment that the mine might offer.
 
In terms of access to water, El Salvador is the third most unequal country in Latin America & the Caribbean, according to a 2010 report by the UN. But now a powerful coalition of NGOs & community groups is attempting to get access to water enshrined in law as a human right. El Foro del Agua, a water coalition of more than 100 organisations & community groups, is calling for a national ban on metal mining, a constitutional amendment recognising the human right to water, & a general water law that would legally establish social control of water resources & services. Through consultation & research with communities on the front line of the water struggle, these strategies are aimed, in part, at shifting the power dynamics to strengthen the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people to determine their own freshwater future.
 
Binding national laws to protect community water rights would help other local communities that have been less successful in their struggles to protect water from harmful developments. It is no small miracle that environmental strategies developed at the grassroots level have been introduced for debate at the Salvadoran legislature. Yet despite support from the ruling Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front party, opposition parties defending the interests of transnational corporations have blocked these strategies at the legislative assembly.
 
And now a constitutional amendment for El Salvador to recognise water & food as human rights is set to expire. In 2012, the Salvadoran legislative assembly voted unanimously in favour of the amendment. But Salvadoran law states that a vote for constitutional reform must be supported by 2 consecutive legislatures – the bill is introduced by one legislature & ratified by the following one. If the amendment is not ratified by the current legislature by 30 April 2015, it becomes void. Even if the new legislature were to reintroduce the bill, it would take another 4 to 6 years to ratify.
 
If passed, however, the formal recognition of water & food as human rights would provide a strong tool in the struggle to protect water in El Salvador. It would affirm the primacy of local access to water supplies & ecosystem needs over foreign interests. Although the current government has vowed to maintain a de facto moratorium on metal mining that has been in place since 2008, without binding legislation environmental groups fear that this stopgap measure will not provide the long-term water strategy the country needs.
 
The human right to water is increasingly serving as a tool for communities throughout the world. In Uruguay, formal recognition of the human right to water & sanitation resulted in the banning of private water & sanitation services. In Indonesia on 24 March, weeks after the constitutional court deemed a World Bank-imposed water law to be anti-constitutional for allowing the privatisation of water, the Central Jakarta District Court annulled a 17-year old private-public-partnership arguing that it violated the human right to water. As in El Salvador, campaigns in Uruguay & Indonesia were led by people’s coalitions.

“The thousands of people organising to defend water in El Salvador are writing the shared history of the continent,” says Marcela Olivera, coordinator of La Red Vida, a coalition representing groups working on water issues from across the Americas. “They are showing the world that from El Salvador & Mexico to Argentina & Uruguay, we are not only capable of resisting the neoliberal agenda, but also of building concrete alternatives.”

In the meantime, the communities of San Jose Las Flores & Nueva Trinidad are not taking any chances. They are among a growing number of municipalities in Chalatenango who are declaring themselves as territories free of mining through municipal laws. In Central America, where environmental health & public policy decisions are dominated by the interests of big (primarily Canadian) mining companies, places like Chalatenango show that it is still possible to assert local power & maintain “liberated territories”.

Meera Karunananthan is international water campaigner for the Blue Planet Project & co-author of a new report on El Salvador’s water struggles.

Indonesia facing overpopulation crisis

The problem with limited resources for an increasing population, in Indonesia & around the world, are not anything to do reproducing more people or family planning. There are more than enough resources in this world to easily sustain an increasing population, because the nature keeps the population of the world in a balance. If people are being born, then people are also dying at an increasing rate, through natural or human causes (gun violence, car accidents, airplane crashes etc.).

Primary problem is the resources are concentrated in a few hands & those hands keep amassing more resources without letting any go. Some of those resources are being controlled by the governments & politicians around the world are corrupt career politicians. They all either take lobbying payments (legal) or bribes (illegal) to essentially do the same thing; favour one party's benefits over another's.

Green economy is touted around the world but no country, except very few, e.g. some European countries, Asian superpowers (China & India), & some Southeastern countries (e.g. Singapore) are actually doing something in this regard. Most countries are not doing anything either because they don't have financial power or fossil fuel industries are way too strong in their countries.

Green economy would have reduced or mitigated the adverse effects of climate change by now, if these efforts would have started a few decades ago. These efforts would have also provided jobs, increased GDP, & positively supported the economies. But, for this to happen, all countries need to work together towards a common goal, instead of fighting like little kids in the playpen (this usually happens in those trade & climate change conferences every year, & hence, after so many gatherings of the "bright minds" of our world, we still are headed head-long into a worldwide disaster).

Another problem is consumerism of the masses. Instead of reducing unnecessary increase in consumption, thanks to slick marketing efforts of multinational corporations around the world, everyone wants everything at any cost.

Financial resources are, as I said earlier, concentrated in a few hands. These elites keep amassing fortunes at the expense of the general public of their own race & ethnicity. They have no compassion for their own people.

We can apply the same idea to housing, food, & water shortages. Clean water is already very little in the world & even then, it is getting polluted, through fracking, for instance, in US. California is in a 4-year drought & there is no let up in its condition. Food production & affordable housing availability; all can be attributed to limited resources not being deployed in a proper efficient & effective manner. If these limited resources could have been or still can be deployed in a responsible manner, then these crises can be easily averted.

I believe you got the general idea what I am trying to say. Resources, be they be financial, food, water, housing, transportation, energy etc. are keep getting concentrated in a few hands. The general public is left to fight for a few scraps at the bottom of the barrel. Instead of working collaboratively towards a common goal of creating a thriving worldwide economy & life for everyone, regardless of our differences, we all are headed for worldwide disaster & human suffering.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2015/03/indonesia-facing-overpopulation-crisis-150319200635063.html

You know a country is overpopulated when people cannot afford to queue. In Indonesia this is visible every day at bus & train stations.
 
Transport facilities have long lost their battle with exploding demand.
 
Even the most polite people turn into animal-like creatures when a bus or train arrives. Something that might have looked like a queue disappears instantly & the best & most aggressive pushers are getting on board. Unless every inch inside the vehicle is taken already.
 
I have learned this the hard way. Trying to be polite will cost you many hours of waiting on a weekly basis. The only real queues are the long lines of cars queuing patiently day-in, day-out on nearly every stretch of road in every major city. Yes, it is that bad.
 
Onboard a bus or train, the situation is hardly any better. I cannot help thinking about sardines. Passengers, deep in each other’s private space, have one thing in common: An empty gaze on their faces revealing their attempt to temporarily exit from humanity.
 
These daily scenes remind me of those ahead of the Eid festival when rich people hand out money to the poor who die fighting for a few dollars. Or those of children offered candy. Rarely-seen aggression on their innocent faces when they are trying to get their share. Politely waiting for your turn is only affordable to those who know there is enough for everyone.
 
Demographic experts warn this is just the beginning. If the population boom continues, Indonesia will face problems a lot worse than transport nightmares or people fighting for small cash.
 
Already Indonesia is facing housing, water & food shortages & massive natural destruction. For years now, the country has imported basic food like rice because there are not enough fields to grow food for its 250 million people. These food shortages will only get worse according to experts.
 
Not many Indonesians would blame overpopulation for these problems. Ineffective government, corruption, God or nature - anything but the size of their families is to blame. An important credo says "many children means many benefits". The idea that children are the safest retirement plan is still prevalent. And with democratisation the country has given its people the liberty to produce as many as they like.
 
Meanwhile, the government proudly keeps citing statistics. Indonesia, the fourth largest country in the world, the third largest democracy, the tenth largest economy.
 
The word overpopulation has turned into a much more friendly term: demographic bonus; hundreds of millions of people are an interesting crowd for investors, or when it comes to power on a geopolitical level.
 
But what about quality of life? A term more frequently used now. When are Indonesians finally getting tired of battling for survival or simply struggling to get to work every day?
 
With a fast-growing middle class, the demand for quality of life is increasing around the country. Fresh air, clean drinking water, proper education, efficient public services will all be just a dream for most Indonesians as long as the credo "more children, more benefits" still exists.