Daily Archives: February 21, 2015

The UN, the UNA and Climate: Looking Ahead to Paris COP 21 in December 2015 | EV & N – 176 – CCTV

EV&N-176-Titlew500

http://ecoethics.net/2014-ENVRE120/20150222-EV&N-176b-Link.html
https://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/283099
https://www.cctvcambridge.org/user/ccra

To download slides for Professor Weiskel‘s presentation click here:

For individual references within Professor Weiskel‘s presentation see:

For further elaboration of “Transition Studies” see:

Links to Cambridge Community Television include:

For full sequence of UNA presentations see:

 

Harvard’s high-profile alumni join fossil fuel divestment campaign in open letter

University faces hearing in a lawsuit that argues Harvard has a duty to fight climate change by dumping fossil fuel companies from $36bn endowment

In an open letter, released as the university was being taken to court by its own students, more than 30 former Harvard students signed on to a campus campaign. Photograph: Lisa Poole/AP

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

Friday 20 February 2015 12.06 EST Last modified on Friday 20 February 2015 12.23 EST

Some of Harvard’s most prominent graduates – from Hollywood star Natalie Portman to environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr and the scholar Cornel West – called on the world’s richest university to dump fossil- fuel companies from its $36bn endowment.

In an open letter, released on Friday as the university was being taken to court by its own students, more than 30 former Harvard students signed on to a campus campaign calling on the university to fight climate change by divesting from coal, oil and gas companies.

The alumni included Maya Lin, the architect of the Vietnam war memorial, Nobel laureate Eric Chivian, Pulitzer prize-winning author Susan Faludi, academics, preachers, former US senators and Securities and Exchange commissioners as well as Bill McKibben, the founder of the group 350.org, which has driven the campus divestment campaign.

“As Harvard’s own researchers have done so much to show, global warming is the greatest threat the planet faces,” the letter says. “From the typhoon-battered Philippines to the disappearing islands of the Pacific to the water-starved towns of California’s drought-ridden Central Valley, this issue demands we all make changes to business as usual – especially those of us who have prospered from the systems driving climate change.

The letter, released just hours before the university faced a hearing in a lawsuit filed by students arguing that Harvard has a duty to fight climate change by pulling out of fossil fuel investments, suggests Harvard will face continued pressure in the months ahead over its endowment policies.

The alumni called for an old-style teach-in at Harvard on 12 April, followed by several days of sit-ins and rallies.

Over the last two years, the university has faced rising demands from students and faculty to set an example by winding down its direct investments in coal, oil and gas companies, thought to be worth at least $79m. It is believed indirect investments in fossil fuels are much greater.

Since then, a number of other universities have taken steps to divest. Stanford last May announced it would get rid of investments in coal companies. The heirs to the Rockefeller oil fortune decided to move out of fossil fuels last September.

…(read more).

Global Climate Change
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Natalie Portman Joins Calls for Harvard to Sell Off Stocks in Big Energy Firms

Charlotte Alter @charlottealter
Feb. 20, 2015

Pascal Le Segretain—Getty Images Actress Natalie Portman attends the ‘As We Were Dreaming’ premiere during the 65th Berlinale International Film Festival at Berlinale Palace on February 9, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. (Pascal Le Segretain–Getty Images)
Notable Harvard alumni including Natalie Portman and RFK Jr released a letter Friday calling on their brethren to join current students in demanding that Harvard sell off stocks in companies that deal in fossil fuels.

Harvard students have been engaged in a long battle to get the university to divest its $35.9 billion endowment from coal, gas, and oil companies that students say contribute to global warming.

On Friday, lawyers for the university asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by Harvard students demanding that the school has a duty to stop financially supporting companies that contribute to climate change.

…(read more).

Harvard Extension School
Global Climate Change
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Keystone XL needs a one-two punch


MoveOn.org

Published on Feb 19, 2015

President Obama says he’ll veto the latest attempt by Congress to push through the Keystone XL pipeline but he hasn’t yet committed to rejecting this dangerous proposal outright. That’s where we come in. Robert Reich says, “Tell President Obama that he should stop Keystone XL for good and do it now.”

Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
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The Prosecution of an American President


thomhartmann

Published on Dec 16, 2014

Thom Hartmann talks with Vincent Bugliosi, Renowned Prosecuting Attorney / Author of several books, including his exposé The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, now a documentary feature film “The Prosecution of an American President”, who lays out the case for prosecuting former President George W. Bush on murder charges.

Global Climate Change
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FRONTLINE “News War” (Part III)


PBS

Uploaded on Feb 22, 2007

Watch the full series at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontli…

“Daily Show” executive producer David Javerbaum talks with FRONTLINE about the state of television news. Part 3 of “News War: What’s Happening to the News” puts viewers on the front lines of an epic battle over the future of news, examining the forces which are remaking the economics of the business and challenging the very definition of news. Watch it on air and online at http://www.pbs.org/frontline/ beginning February 27.

In “News War: What’s Happening to the News,” coming Feb. 27, 2007, at 9 pm on PBS (check local listings). America’s major network news divisions and daily newspapers are under siege, facing mounting pressure for profits from corporate owners, and growing challenges from cable television and the Internet. FRONTLINE talks to network executives, journalists, Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and key players at Google and Yahoo! who are all battling for survival and market dominance in a rapidly changing world of news. FRONTLINE also goes inside the embattled newsroom of “The Los Angeles Times,” one of the last remaining papers in the country still covering major national stories. Under severe pressure from Wall Street to cut costs and to compete for “eyeballs” in a new media world, editors at the paper are urgently trying to figure out what this means for their future news coverage and their public service mission.

Global Climate Change
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News War part 1


wordgeezer

Published on May 30, 2012

Global Climate Change
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Bush Administration Convicted of War Crimes – Dr. Francis Boyle


NextNewsNetwork

Published on May 29, 2013

Former U.S. President George W. Bush recently dedicated his Presidential Library in Dallas. The ceremony included speeches by President Obama, ex-President Bush, and every other living ex-president. But none of the speeches so much as mentioned to Iraq war — the undertaking that dominated George W. Bush’s presidency, and will define his historic legacy.

This omission might be due, at least in part, to the fact that Mr. Bush is now a convicted war criminal who dares not travel abroad out of fear of being arrested.

In February 2011, Bush was forced to cancel a scheduled appearance in Geneva, Switzerland after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint charging him with violating international treaties against torture.

His trouble increased dramatically a year ago when Bush — along with former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and several other top Bush administration officials — were convicted of war crimes in absentia by a special war crimes tribunal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission was convened and conducted according to internationally recognized procedures and rules of evidence, and the week-long hearing ended with the five-member panel unanimously delivering guilty verdicts.

What is the significance of that tribunal? Is its verdict legally binding? Are there troublesome aspects to the idea that a foreign tribunal can sit in judgment of a U.S. President — whatever we may think of his actions? We will discuss these vitally important questions with Dr. Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He served as a prosecutor at the tribunal.

Global Climate Change
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Mayor Of London Warns George Bush He Might Face Arrest As A War Criminal


SuchIsLifeVideos

Uploaded on Nov 19, 2010

Keith Olbermann talks with Jonathan Turley (law professor) about a piece in the conservative Daily Telegraph where Boris Johnson, Mayor Of London, advises George W. Bush not to bring his book tour to Britain, because he could face arrest as a war criminal.

Global Climate Change
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The Dirty Secrets of George Bush


The Film Archives

Published on Jun 22, 2012

A number of allegations have been written about and several local, state, and federal investigations have taken place related to the notion of the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport as a CIA drop point in large scale cocaine trafficking beginning in the latter part of the 1980s. The topic has received some press coverage that has included allegations of awareness, participation and/or coverup involvement of figures such as future presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well future Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Saline County prosecutor Dan Harmon (who was convicted of numerous felonies including drug and racketeering charges in 1997). The Mena airport was also associated with Adler Berriman (Barry) Seal, an American drug smuggler and aircraft pilot who flew covert flights for the CIA and the Medellín Cartel.

A criminal investigator from the Arkansas State Police, Russell Welch, who was assigned to investigate Mena airport claimed that he opened a letter which released electrostatically charged Anthrax spores in his face, and that he had his life saved after a prompt diagnosis by a doctor. He also claimed that later, his doctor’s office was vandalized, robbed, and test results and correspondence with the CDC in Atlanta were stolen,

An investigation by the CIA’s inspector general concluded that the CIA had no involvement in or knowledge of any illegal activities that may have occurred in Mena. The report said that the agency had conducted a training exercise at the airport in partnership with another Federal agency and that companies located at the airport had performed “routine aviation-related services on equipment owned by the CIA”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegati…

Global Climate Change
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