Benishek questioned on global warming, climate change – Upper Peninsula ABC 10

http://abc10up.com/benishek-questioned-on-global-warming-climate-change/

Whether you call it global warming or climate change–it’s not man-made, according to the Upper Peninsula’s Republican Congressman.

During a recent visit to a Skandia dairy farm, Dan Benishek (R-Crystal Falls) said he does not believe the many computer models and other climate change evidence.

ABC 10’s news director, Greg Peterson, spoke with Benishek

“The climate may be changing, but I don’t think man is contributing to it,” Benishek said.

“What do you think does it?” Peterson asked.

“Well, I think it’s just the natural course of things,” Benishek said. “There is no scientific evidence that shows any of that.”

“What do you think about the stuff in the air?” Peterson asked. “Do you think it just isn’t quite significant enough to affect it?”

“What stuff are you talking about?” Benishek asked.

“Pollution, in many of our big cities,” Peterson said. “China.”

“China is a major problem,” Benishek said. “We have to address the Chinese.”

“(What about) the whole scenario?” Peterson asked.

…(read more)

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‘Environmental Racism’ And The Fight For Green Space In The South Bronx

by Ari Phillips Posted on October 9, 2014 at 11:57 amUpdated: October 9, 2014 at 12:25 pm

SOUTH BRONX, NEW YORK — An undeveloped area couched between a waste transfer station and a FedEx shipping facility with the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge passing overhead is just about as wild of a place as exists in New York City. It’s the site Mychal Johnson, an environmental activist in the South Bronx, wants to turn into a waterfront park. There are other designs on the space, however, namely the new headquarters for FreshDirect, an online grocery delivery service, which would bring a massive warehouse and over 1,000 diesel trucks, plus a fueling station, to the site.

“When you have a space like this that’s undeveloped, don’t put a 500,000-square-foot warehouse on it,” said Johnson, a founding member of South Bronx Unite (SBU), a local environmental justice group, as he looked out over a wind-strewn parcel of land along the South Bronx waterfront in New York City in late September.

Johnson, 50, spends most of his time fighting this proposal. A real estate agent and former South Bronx Community Board member, he founded SBU over two years ago when FreshDirect initially announced it would relocate. In September, he was one of 37 civil delegates — only four of whom were from the U.S. — to attend the United Nations Climate Change summit for his work in environmental justice. Members of SBU were featured prominently at the front of last month’s historic climate march through Midtown Manhattan.

…(read more).

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Leaders Push to Speed Response to Ebola Crisis

World Bank

Published on Oct 9, 2014

Leaders of the World Bank Group, United Nations and affected African countries agreed at a critical meeting in Washington to work on speeding up the global response to the Ebola crisis. Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said they will reach out to countries around the world to send more health workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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Dow Average Has Biggest Drop of the Year

Associated Press

Published on Oct 9, 2014

It was another wild ride for the stock market as the Dow Jones industrial average had its biggest plunge of the year, dropping 334-points just a day after the Dow had its biggest gain of the year. (Oct. 9)

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“Ordination Services for Chris Hedges” at the Second Presbyterian Church Elizabeth, NJ

LeighaCohen

Published on Oct 9, 2014

©2014 Leigha Cohen Video Production http://www.leighacohenvideo… https://www.youtube.com/use…

This video includes almost the entire Ordination Services for Chris Hedges at the Second Presbyterian Church Elizabeth, NJ on October 5, 2014. There are many people who spoke on that afternoon including Dr. Cornel West, Dr. James Cone and Chris Smith and his wife Unice Wong. The service is directed around the many accomplishments of Chris Smith and praise from those who know and love Chris. The service lasted over two hours and this is a minimally edited video so please be prepared if one wants to sit through the days experiences.

Prison Ministry and Community Theater where Chris and currently teaches prisoners and where Cornell West and others have also volunteered their time. http://www.secpreseliz.org/ministries
.
“I was in prison and you visited me.” In response to God’s call in Jesus Christ in our time and context this project will develop new prison and immigrant ministries in greater Elizabeth/Newark. This will include organizing alternative worship and community theater on themes of incarceration, trauma and liberation. Educational ministry id led in a local prison. Community theater will be developed working directly with our brothers and sisters who were incarcerated to write, direct, and perform original plays with the community.

Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on in this video are copyrighted to Leigha Cohen Video, All rights reserved. No part of this video may be used for any purpose other than educational use and any monetary gain from this video is prohibited without prior permission from me. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system is prohibited. Standard linking of this video is allowed and encouraged.

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Suspected Ebola cases mount in Europe as virus fears grow

euronews (in English)

Published on Oct 9, 2014

As Europe gears up to deal with Ebola, more and more possible cases are emerging.

A Briton is suspected to have died from the virus in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

His hotel in Skopje has been sealed off, isolating a second Briton and staff.

It was unclear, however, whether the man had recently been to West Africa, where Ebola has killed nearly 4,000 people since March in the largest outbreak on record.

A third Ebola patient has arrived in Germany from Africa. The UN employee, …
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2014/10/09/su…

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“Ordination Services for Chris Hedges”: “Featuring Cornell West and Chris Hedges”

LeighaCohen

Published on Oct 9, 2014

©2014 Leigha Cohen Video Production http://www.leighacohenvideo… https://www.youtube.com/use…

This video includes a portion of the Ordination Services for Chris Hedges at the Second Presbyterian Church Elizabeth, NJ on October 5, 2014. This video is part of a longer video on youtube at http://youtu.be/KVEkVRIcV2o

This video features the laying of the hands on Chris Hedges with Cornell West preaching. It is followed by a 6 minute response from Chris Hedges. Chris has been a activist in many areas including working also towards changing the US issue of mass incarceration in its prisons. Chris currently teaches prisoners where Cornel West and others have also volunteered their time. http://www.secpreseliz.org/ministries. Chris earned a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School.

Prison Ministry and Community Theatre:

“I was in prison and you visited me.” In response to God’s call in Jesus Christ in our time and context this project will develop new prison and immigrant ministries in greater Elizabeth/Newark. This will include organizing alternative worship and community theatre on themes of incarceration, trauma and liberation. Educational ministry will be organized and led in a local prison. Community theatre will be developed working directly with our brothers and sisters who were incarcerated to write, direct, and perform original plays with the community.

Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on in this video are copyrighted to Leigha Cohen Video, All rights reserved. No part of this video may be used for any purpose other than educational use and any monetary gain from this video is prohibited without prior permission from me. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system is prohibited. Standard linking of this video is allowed and encouraged.

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Gaming Carbon Must End to Solve Global Warming

Can economic incentives evolve to combat climate change?
Oct 6, 2014 |By David Biello

CARBON PRICE: A tax on carbon is popular among some as a solution to global warming.
© David Biello Good Chinese communists now trade a commodity that can neither be seen nor felt, yet is responsible for changing the climate. The country has set up seven markets for trading carbon dioxide to test whether such a market can help restrain China’s growing pollution problem. Taken together, the markets are the second largest in the world—after the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Early results from one of the markets, in the burgeoning city of Shenzhen, are promising, including reductions of 2.5 million metric tons of pollution, according to Vice Mayor Tang Jie. That’s in contrast to China as a country’s failure thus far to cut carbon intensity—the amount of pollution emitted as industry works—as promised in its 12th Five Year Plan, which ends next year.

“We desperately need speed and scale and action on climate change,” says Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s special envoy for climate change. “Carbon pricing is a necessary if insufficient first step in [a
country’s] transformation toward an economy that is competitive and creating jobs, but is decarbonizing and on track for zero net emissions by the second half of the century.”

In other words, the World Bank wants a price on carbon, like that occurring in these seven regions of China, because its team of economists and financiers thinks that climate change is an outcome of getting the prices of different sources of energy wrong. Fossil fuels are too cheap, and various alternatives—whether nuclear or solar—are too expensive. As Kyte notes, it’s all about “getting prices right.”

That phrase really means raising the price of fossil fuels. If coal, gas and oil are more expensive, then geothermal, hydropower, nuclear, solar and wind power become relatively cheap. “You clearly have to put a price on carbon so there is a level playing field and the cost of renewable energy is actually less than fossil-fuel generated electricity,” says Ted Roosevelt, a managing director at global bank Barclays. That is the only way to encourage the massive investment in deploying the clean energy technology that is necessary to combat climate change. The “price” can be a direct tax, an allowance in a cap-and-trade scheme, or some other financial mechanism.

…(read more).

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Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world

The Copenhagen Accord reiterates the international community’s commitment to ‘hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius’. Yet its preferred focus on global emission peak dates and longer-term reduction targets, without recourse to cumulative emission budgets, belies seriously the scale and scope of mitigation necessary to meet such a commitment. Moreover, the pivotal importance of emissions from non-Annex 1 nations in shaping available space for Annex 1 emission pathways received, and continues to receive, little attention. Building on previous studies, this paper uses a cumulative emissions framing, broken down to Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 nations, to understand the implications of rapid emission growth in nations such as China and India, for mitigation rates elsewhere. The analysis suggests that despite high-level statements to the contrary, there is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature at or below 2°C. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2°C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2°C now more appropriately represents the threshold between ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ climate change. Ultimately, the science of climate change allied with the emission scenarios for Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 nations suggests a radically different framing of the mitigation and adaptation challenge from that accompanying many other analyses, particularly those directly informing policy.

…(read more).

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Glasgow becomes first university in Europe to divest from fossil fuels

University court votes to divest £18m from fossil fuel industry in what campaigners call ‘dramatic beachhead’

• Fossil fuel divestment: a brief history

The Guardian, Wednesday 8 October 2014 11.20 EDT

Glasgow University students hold a silent protest to raise awareness of the divestment from fossil fuels campaign. Photograph: Courtesy People & Planet

Glasgow University has become the first academic institution in Europe to divest from the fossil fuel industry, in a turning point for the British arm of the student-led global divestment movement.

After 12 months of campaigning, led by the Glasgow University Climate Action Society and involving over 1,300 students, the university court on Wednesday voted to begin divesting £18m from the fossil fuel industry and freeze new investments across its entire endowment of £128m.

Describing the result as “a dramatic beachhead for the divestment movement”, American environmentalist Bill McKibben said that it sent a powerful signal that Europe would be “just as powerful in this fight as Australia and North America”.

The founder of climate campaign group 350.org added: “That it comes from Glasgow, which has as much claim to birthing the industrial revolution as any city on Earth, makes it that much more special. Everyone from the Rockefellers on down is realising it’s time to move on.”

As of last month, more than 800 global investors – including foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers, religious groups, healthcare organisations, universities and local governments – have pledged to withdraw a total of $50bn (£31bn) from fossil fuel investments over the next five years as a result of the campaign which began on college campuses in the United States three years ago.

….(read more).

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