Do we really care about GLOBAL WARMING ???

[Vishal Trivedi]

We people don't care about tomorrow, we don't care whats going to happen after 100 yrs, and in every warning given to us about G.W (Global Warming) by everyone around the planet says that if we don't start taking initiative to protect the world today it will affect us tomorrow. But the tomorrow will come after 100 yrs?? who among us or of this generation will be there after 100 yrs... to see what is going to happen at that point of time.
So, my advice to all the authorities and to all the people around the world who warns us about GW would be that if you want to awake this generation don't show whats going to happen after 50-60 yrs show us whats going to within 50-60 yrs.

[Silver Shaman]

Michelle, we do not have to defend our ancestoral past. The fact remains, the US government broke over 2,500 treaties with the Native American Tribal Communities just to stop the killing.
The indigenous culture should be something our country would find a precious gem of human example of people should live. Our country spends more money worried about loosing a historical old housing district that, the Heritage a great people.
Plus all the valuable history, artifacts and the wonderful ways in which the varied tribes lived. The American Geographic spend all of it's time going around the world looking a cultures, when we have a gold mine in our on soil.
That is real tragedy that we are still such an ignorant arrogant and spoiled nation that we can not appreciate what we have and go everywhere else in the world to exploit the even weaker underdeveloped (underfunded) often just people that have had very bad breaks from, draught, earthquakes and civil wars and other countries experimenting on their children with vaccines that used monkey parts that contains the aids virus, which has now caused a pandemic of AID world wide. Hawaiians did no have disease till white man arrived and just about wiped them out with venereal disease and TB and on and on.
Yes, we own those Islands now and their Race is about extinct due to out breeding. They will not exist in another 100 years.
It is also happening with the American Indians as they are forced to mix with the out populations to have incomes they can live on. I am not opposed to any type of mixing of person marrying any one of any race. It just seems rather sad to loose all the history and heritage of such pure ancestory that was rich with its unique culture and history.
Greed, the one thing man can not over come, the Karma of Fire.
Namaste
Silvershaman
Metta

[Michelle]

Thank you Silvershaman for your kindly respects for my ancestors. The true respect that is gone IS respect for each other. All peoples argue over petty differences because of their different belief systems. I don't address this to you personally Silvershaman but to all peoples the following message.

In order to be a TRUE follower of God, there is one requirement.

TO BE OPEN-MINDED AND LEARN SOMETHING NEW!

Re-member, we all are connected to each other, we are all a divine part of God, the Source energy that powers our physical bodies. Re-member it is our Light energy bodies that powers the physical body.

Think of the physical body like a robot. The robot does not work UNTIL it either has a charged battery or is plugged in to an electrical outlet. In this sense, we are not our physical bodies. The physical body is a tool we use while we live on planet earth. The reason I mention this is to help people to look past the physical bodies to God realities. When the true seeker/follower of God begins to do this, only then will he/she understand how we need each other. Because God is in everything including yourself. You want God, look within. Be quiet, be open-minded, learn something new. Listen to the soft still voice within.

It is when we listen to this voice that we will begin to learn how to clear out the noise in our heads to clearly follow God all the way home. And deep down, that is what we all want.

Love one another, play well together.
Lots of Love to All,
Michelle

[Michelle]

I could get really point blank on the fact that my Indian ancestors used horses to get around or we'd walk everywhere. I could mention the fact that pilgrims stole our farm lands & how we couldn't grow enough alfalfa/hay for our horses nor the Buffalo. You pilgrims took alot from us! We didn't have alcohol then or the things pilgrims pushed on us when we were trying to trade with the pilgrims our weapons & skins for food. You pilgrims took our land forcing us onto lands that were unfit for growing anything. We died before the land could be made fertile again because of your mining operations. You want to even begin to point out to me that I have fatalistic views?!!!!!!
I & my ancestors have NEVER been the problem!!!!!
It is the fault of the pilgrims & their ancestors in whom simply forgot or chose to ignore the fact that if it hadn't been for MY INDIAN ANCESTORS, you would have starved to death that first winter. We saved your ungrateful little asses. And what did you do in exchange? You pushed us off our lands instead of sharing it as we were willing to do with you! It was the ignorance of the pilgrims that was the problem in the first place.
We gave you the solutions since you "pilgrims" hit ground here! Only, you refused to listen! Now you take up land that should be used for farming for business that go bankrupt & pollute the environment. It is your own damn fault why we are in this mess.
So, if you think I have a fatalistic view, I have every right to those views! Like I said before, instead of being angry, I'm just thankful that you "pilgrim ancestors" are finally coming together in Brotherhood/Sisterhood/Family to figure out the solutions. I just hope now that you will follow suit. Because in my opinion talk is cheap. Lipservice gets nowhere fast!
I have two acres currently. I work hard so I can buy enough acres eventually to grow my own alfalfa hay for a future horse plus have a child. I do my part, now I ask you to keep doing yours. I hope you will keep an open mind & accept the tips I may give you every now & again. Lots of Love To You, Alex. Michelle (By Indians "The Eagle")

[Silver Shaman]

Do we care about Global warming : Yes will we do anything No.
This country set out on a mission called manifest destiny at the beginng which ment "genocide of the native inhabitants" a plan to gain full control. It is not like there was not enough room. There is so much space now in this country it is crazy. To think the early immigrants needed even take part of Mexico also is insane. The problem is still greed at the expense of choosing to make profits. Corporate or Privately owned business owners for I owned a business before while I when to high school. Most greed is just what it is taking the part you are not supposed to take, ethics do not exist, over doing the "right thing" such as not paying workers a decent wage and adding on their work as they cut back till they become so frustrated they don't care any more because they can do prideful work. Businesses cut back on services promised to people when they signed contracts, it is just done under the table by subtle means such as not washing the laundry as long, using cheaper cleaning products. Not cleaning as freguently, hiring people that are not really trained professionally but providing on the job training and paying them less, cutting back staffing, reducing the security a little, reducing portions of food just a little. The people that want more money will do what ever they can to make more. The excuse will always be, the economy or everything else is going up or some way to justify their taking larger salary shares a good business man or corporation can grow a business by any type economy however; they take the stupid lazy way by hurting the workers instead of working on better business plans and working out solutions. The fast food industry is the worst example of pollution with all the plastic, styrofoam cups going into the environment. Worse, they produce what is called food which is paramount to the equivalent to Cigarettes not being addictive or dangerous. While the food is mostly fat and non-nutrient calories. This industry has triggered a terrible obesity epidemic. It takes time to prepare good food, however; the industry does not make people eat it. However; the thought process if it is for sale it must be safe to eat. After all we pay taxes for our great FDA to protect us! Mercury in the vaccinations and all, not worried about terrorists, for I have seen them and we are our own terror and it caused from greed. One Nation Under Greed and Instant Satisfaction and more money for the insecure.
Namaste
Silvershaman
Metta

[Gordon Couger]

Michelle,

Before you put in hay make sure you have someone reliable lined up to cut it. Get some one recommended by several people with operations the same size as yours. There is great deal more to getting good hay in the barn than growing it. Cutting, drying, baling and hauling are all very time sensitive operations that come at a very busy time of year.

Unlike welfare I believe we still owe a debt to the Native Americans over the treaties made in good faith and not kept by the US Government. Also the Indian Affairs outfit has not idea how much they owe you as their book keeping has been and still is so bad there is no way to find out.

What the Government pays you today isn't drop in the bucket to what it owes you. The USA takes foreign governments to court, imposes sanctions and even go to war over treaty violations and won’t live up to it own with it’s own people. A treaty with what we recognize as sovereign nation is different than a campaign promise but the treat the pretty much the same inside the USA.

You need to study your history better. The Spaniard’s brought both the horse and Alfalfa to the Americas. The brought Alfalfa to South America in the 1700’s and then into Mexico the first known introduction into the USA was 1854 in the San Francisco area. So it was the white man that showed the Indian how to use them.

From a life time experience raising alfalfa hay getting hay put up in the condition you need for horses is difficult. If you live in an area that has blister bugs you either have to spray the alfalfa and kill almost all of them or risk loosing horses to colic http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef102.asp. or not use hay for horses after the blister bug come out. In Southwest Oklahoma most buyers of hay for horses or people selling hay for horses will only buy or sell hay cut before blister bugs come out. That is normally the first and possibly the second cutting. This year it will probably be only the first cutting of hay. When blister bugs become a problem depends on where you grow hay.

Another very serious problem for alfalfa is the alfalfa weevil. The weevil is all over the USA. I am near a area it is considered less of problem than most and we still spray for it at least once every spring or loose the stand in 3 or 4 years in spite of using every biological management and control practice we know of.. The best one we have found is to gaze off everything above ground about 3 or 4 week after a killing frost. Eating many of the eegs and any weevil that come out on warm days and removing the cover that protects the eggs in the ground from cold dry winds of winter.

Horses are also not very tolerant of moldy hay. Making most people feeding it to horses turn down all hay that has been rained on after it was cut and before it goes in the barn or any hay that is not bright green. If you really understand hay you can safely feed some hay that has had a light rain on it and is a little off color. But most people myself included won’t take the risk. Horses digestive system are to sensitive to take risks with unless you really understand what your doing.

Without your own equipment to cut, bale and haul hay it is very hard to get hay put up when you want it done. The fellow that has the equipment to put up hay does yours after he takes care of his. When I was farming the fellow that put up my alfalfa and I were partners in a number of ventures and he did the best he could putting up my hay. My hay field was closer to his house than any of his were. At best I only got 1 cutting in 10 that people with horses would buy. It had to one of the fist two cuttings to be sure blister bug weren’t in the hay. It had to put up with out being rained on at. It also had to be free of some weeds that horses find toxic or distasteful and most people that buy hay for horses by the time these conditions are met most buyer insist on on bright green hay with very little grass or weeds in it. At the price it brings I would too.

Just to make things more difficult Alfalfa needs to be cut before it blooms once it starts growing or its quality as feed rapidly goes down as soon as it starts blooming and moving the nutrients form the stalk and the leaves to what will be seed. The stems start to become hard an woody to hold up the seed heads making them much less digestible to horses. That works out were I am to ever 28 days. cutting that often even if you leave it on the ground goes al long way toward controling the weeds by cutting them back before they can go to seed.

For small holdings on small plots of land grass is much more forgiving as a hay crop having a much longer window for cutting while retaining its quality. It is much easier to control weeds in grass. If you have a problem you can cut the grass high or low in a way that benefits the grass at the expense of the weeds

While the price of alfalfa is outrageous so is the price of growing it. The fellow that farms my home place for me now is the best equipped hay framer I know of. He has been dealing in hay all his life . For the last five years he has made more money on the hay he buys from other farmers and resells to than the hay he grows himself and sells. This year he plowed up all his hay and put it to wheat.

Before my health, finances and drought forced me to quit farming I worked a number of small plots for people for a number of reasons. I farmed 10 aces for the Catholic Church because I would let anyone that wanted to from town put in a garden as long as marked them off on the edge or near a tree in the middle. I worked 6 acres for a fellow that I slowly took over first by plowing down his garden in the fall and then putting half of it in wheat when he no longer could put in that much garden. I am pretty sure I lost money on all of them but the work needed to be done and it gaining me a good deal of good will.

I don’t see people doing that today. So getting a seed bed prepared for planting alfalfa may be a problem. It is one of the most expensive operations in farming. The land need to be leveled enough no water stands anywhere on it as 8 hours of standing in water kills alfalfa. It also need to be very smooth and firm so once the seeds sprout they have firm soil to quickly grow down to soil that stay moist the year round and the harvesting and hauling machinery doesn’t track up the ground over the years.

When I was faming fifteen hundred acres and running 100 head of cows. It was cheaper to buy alfalfa hay from my neighbors than was to raise it myself. I can’t see how the times or size of your operation changes that.

Best wishes
Gordon

[Michelle]

Gordan, it is not the money I want. It is for all peoples to take action protecting Mother Earth & all her inhabitants realizing that nothing exists outside of God. Horses yes were brought into America by the Spanish. Spanish is not considered white. They are considered red because the twin role played by the skin - protection from excessive UV radiation and absorption of enough sunlight to trigger the production of vitamin D - means that people living in the lower latitudes, close to the Equator, with intense UV radiation, have developed darker skin to protect them from the damaging effects of UV radiation. In contrast, those living in the higher latitudes, closer to the Poles, have developed fair skin to maximize vitamin D production. So, in that sense the Spaniards were considered red meaning Indian. We considered Spaniards our own kind. Hence your Maya, Aztec, Tolec, Nahua, (etc.) culture for example. The majority of Mexicans/Spaniards ARE Indians. So, therefore Indians rode horses & farmed way before the pilgrims came here. One thing that has not been mentioned in history yet, is the fact that Norsemen were here way before Christopher Columbus.
Being that I live on two acres, I will not be able to grow my own hay until I buy bigger land which may not happen. I may build a light weight wooden cart with lawn mower tires on it & hook up my dogs to it. I'd have to buy 5 more dogs though. LOL...
I'd like to have a child before I'd own a horse again. That's very important to me. I'm waiting to hear about the new air cars. Have you heard about them yet, Gordan? I'm waiting to find out how much one would cost. I send an interest letter to the company, so hopefully I'll hear something soon. I'd like to get rid of my gas guzzlers for an environmentally safe & sound car/truck. I don't think there is a high demand for them yet & that may be the reason I haven't heard from them yet. The company might not have the funding to produce these cars/trucks. Here's the website address. Check it out. http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/air-cars.html

Here is the youtube video address about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

I think the video said that the cars get 40 miles or better on a full air tank. And that it take 3 minutes to fill it back up. Check it out it sounds really neat. Sorry to hear that your health & finances forced you to quit farming. Do you keep a small garden on your property at all? This year I didn't get to plant, my husband's home repair business & his health has been taking up alot of my time. So, I bought a bunch of dwarf fruit trees that will be the extent my garden this year.

P.S.
You will find in the next 20 years that alot of our history that will be very controversial will come to the surface. The book called, "Holy Blood Holy Grail" is an example. This book questions the possibility whether Jesus died on the cross or not, that Jesus was a father & that his bloodline still exists. You will hear about the "Celestial Prophesies." etc. You may even hear about the Norsemen that I briefly mentioned earlier. There will be information out there that will completely blow Christianity out of the water. But don't let that shake your love for God. Most men have not been able to describe the great mysteries of God. With time, you may learn more on this subject. I go back & forth whether I want a horse again or not. It hurt when I was laid off & had to sell my horse. I had a beautiful white horse. He was a mix of a paint & a palimino. He came out white with beautiful dark blue eyes which was very rare in a horse. Lots of Love to You, Michelle

[Gordon Couger]

Hi Michelle,

I thought I was using an editor that had a back up option turned on and lost a couple hours work. You seem concerned with the productivity of soil and the future of earth.

I lived making my living from the land most of my life as has my family before me as long as we can trace them back in England and Germany. My father father was one of the fist food chemist but ended up in the mines for lack of work until he went back to the the farm in 1908. My Great Grand parents on mothers side settle a ranch in North Texas in 1871 it is still in operation today very much like it was then. The only difference is better cattle and less people to run it.

I seldom take the time to make the case to discuss modern methods of agriculture on the internet. Most people here have converted to the New Green Religion. For they have taken what they believe on faith not not reason. You don’t seem to be on of them. But trying to discuss something with someone that believes their position is “True” on faith alone and doesn’t require the support of facts is waste of everyone involves time. For that reason I won’t address your comments on religion at all. Religion is matter of faith and based on writings written almost all second or third hand many years after the events they discuss took place. The Christian documents we follow today have been translated through several languages and even when they went back to the earliest text they could find the interpretation of the words and terms may be much different today than they were 1,500 to 2,500 years ago.

In my life I have seen enough charge in the English language to realize what a longer time could do. When I was a kid getting some fags and going out and having a a gay time with my buddies meant getting some cigarettes and have a good time smoking them. It has a very different meaning today. In civics I was taught the US was a Republic very different form a democracy something we should avoid at all cost. As the people tend to vote to give themselves all the money in the treasury. I think time has proved my teachers right.

We were taught the scope of the power of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President and the court system. The were put in place to keep one group from getting majority control and running rough shod over everyone else. Just what the House and Senate are trying to do today.

All vehicles and alternate energy schemes must be evaluated in light of the laws of thermodynamics. This is the simple version:

1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).

2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).

3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable).

I has also been stated like this
1. There's no such thing as a free lunch
2. There's no such thing as a lunch worth what you paid for it
3. Everyone needs to eat lunch

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae280.cfm
and the correct one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

The concept of entropy is the key. Every time something happens there is loss that can’t be regained except with a larger expenditure of energy than was lost resulting in losing even more energy.

That’s why things like the compressed air care don’t and won’t ever work.

If you see something that looks like it gets around these rules you don’t have all the information or you don’t understand the problem. Since Carnot made his observation 143 years ago no one has found a single exception.

Compressed air is just a way to store energy. It move the pollution from one place to another. It requires that something run pump to increase the pressure and greatly heat up the air in the process. When the compressed air is use it gets very cold taking heat from the environment. In both cases cooling the hot air and heating the warm air is a lot of wasted energy. Add to that the friction in the air compressor and the air motor and unlike any combustible fuel the only energy compressed air has is the pressure you need a lot of compressed air in vary large tank to get any were. A compressed air car is much less efficient in use of energy than an electric or internal combustion engine. The only place it is clean is where you use it.

The least expensive way to get a vehicle that is very clean is convert what you have to burn propane. It puts out 3 or 4 time less CO2 than gasoline and almost nothing but CO2 and water. The simple 3 carbon chain burns very clean a gallon of propane gets 90% the milage of a gallon of gasoline but it goes 1.6 times as far a pound of gasoline as it weighs 4 pound to the gallon with 3 carbon atoms per molecule to the 7 pounds per gallon with 7 to 12 carbon atoms of gasoline.

Natural gas and hydrogen are cleaner buy you can’t get either one put in you car in almost any city or town in the USA as you can with propane. We have been using it since the 50’s and it’s the fuel of choice for forklift being run indoors because of the clean exhaust.

From a practical point of view if propane isn’t the cleanest fuel there is it is very close to it. There is not as much hidden pollution as with other schemes such a natural gas that uses a great deal of energy compressing the gas into the tank so you have enough to go some where, the pollution caused by the manufacture and disposal of batteries in and electric car or the energy to compress the air, friction and heat losses hidden form view in the air powered car.

Horses are expensive to keep. With the price of feed and hay today it is a lot worse. I read that people are turning them out to make it on their own if they can in the west as they can’t afford to feed them or dispose of them if they put them down. Very few will make it though the winter as the horses have never had to dig in the snow for food but only go to the bucket or hay rack. I find people that won’t care for their stock beneath contempt. Here they go to jail for treating animals like that. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0822591020080513?s...

Before the sword point conversion of the Moors and Jews in Spain the Christian Spaniards were for 25% to 50% blond hair and blue eyed. That’s less than further north but still a lot. I doubt Queen Isabella I, the driving force behind both the Inquisition and the Exploration of America sent the dark skinned Moors and Jews to do her work over here. But sent her light skinned Catholic subjects and and those Rome wanted sent instead. The exploration/exploitation of America was as much Catholic as it was Spanish. Spain wanted money and Rome claimed to want souls.

If you consider Spaniard your bothers the Pilgrims and those that followed treated you much better than the Conquistadors. Both were terrible by today’s standards but par for the course at the time. However, the diseases they unintentionally brought were worse than anything else.

Your ancestors did have problems. One thousand years ago a drought hit the Four Corners area that was at least part of what wiped out the Anasaz. South America has several instances of one culture killing of the one before for farm land. In the little Ice age American Indians had to work together so some of them could stay alive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age.

If we only had the population density of 200 years ago your methods might work baring a year like the one one they call The Year Without A Summer or Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death. And if the sun spot numbers don’t go quite as they did in the Maunder Minimum causing a minor ice age at it did in the 1600’s.

Unfortunately we have a world full of people to feed. Unless you believe starvation, disease, famine and war are the proper tools for population control and some do I see no road open but to feed them. When the two countries with the most people in the world about 20% of the world’s population each for China & India aren’t either one making enough food to feed themselves and China has improved their agricultural production as much or more than any other country in the world with the least land per per person of an major county and India has increased their food production less than almost any country in the world and have a great deal more farmland per person than China. What do you think will come to mind to Chinese Leaders when the Chinese people are rioting in the streets over to lack of food. When they look at all the land in India that Chinese leaders think could raise so much more food if the were in charge.

While I no longer farm I still have farmland. Using modern no till faming using crops resistant to herbicides is doing more for the soil than any method we ever used before. We are getting muchtechnology higher yields almost double, using 1/2 to 1/3 the fuel with less fertilizer that I used 30 years ago and rebuilding the organic matter at rate of 1 to 2% a year.

Before adding the gene to kill boll worms to cotton it was responsible for 25% of the insecticide sprayed in the world after the gene was added the use of insecticide in cotton with the gene went down 75% to 100% on the fields that used genetically modified cotton.

I also worked in research for 10 years in that time I developed a robotic sprayer that cuts the amount of nitrogen top dressed on wheat in half with out reducing the yield or it can be reprogrammed to cut the amount of herbicide in half and still kill all the weeds. It can do at least 5 time better on weeds as I trained people to do that well in the 70’s. It only took 20 minutes to teach the people and two years to teach the computer. So I see technology and modern ways of framing to be the answer.

I am glad we live in a country that has enough land and the freedom for you do as you wish with your land. But I can’t see the old ways as an answer to modern problems unless we set the population bake the same place they were two or three hundred or more years ago. A combination of a bad volcanic winter and a very bad flu epidemic might go a long way toward making that happen. However I don’t think anyone will advocate that openly as good policy.

Best Wishes
Gordon

[Bhavesh Ahir]

Vishal you are great.
We should care about world.
Just keep up the good work doing....
Thanks

[Vishal Trivedi]

Is Water Becoming ‘The New Oil’?



Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water - and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.0530 05
Population, pollution, and climate put the squeeze on potable supplies – and private companies smell a profit. Others ask: Should water be a human right?
Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.
Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”
Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies - notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company. Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.
But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say. “We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need - water - is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”
Will “peak water” displace “peak oil” as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising. “What’s different now is that it’s increasingly obvious that we’re running up against limits to new [fresh water] supplies,” says Peter Gleick, a wat­­­er expert and president of the Pacific In­­­sti­­tute for Studies in Development, En­­vi­­­ron­­ment, and Sec­­ur­­ity, a nonpartisan think tank in Oak­land, Calif. “It’s no long­­er cheap and easy to drill another well or dam another river.”
The idea of “peak water” is an imperfect analogy, he says. Unlike oil, water is not used up but only changes forms. The world still has the same 326 quintillion gallons, NASA estimates. But some 97 percent of it is salty. The world’s re­maining accessi­ble fresh-water supplies are divided among industry (20 percent), agriculture (70 per­­cent), and domestic use (10 percent), according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, fresh-water consumption worldwide has more than doubled since World War II to nearly 4,000 cubic kilometers annually and set to rise another 25 percent by 2030, says a 2007 report by the Zurich-based Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) group investment firm. Up to triple that is available for human use, so there should be plenty, the report says. But waste, climate change, and pollution have left clean water supplies running short. “We have ignored demand for decades, just assuming supplies of water would be there,” Dr. Gleick says. “Now we have to learn to manage water demand and - on top of that - deal with climate change, too.”
Population and economic growth across Asia and the rest of the developing world is a major factor driving fresh-water scarcity. The earth’s human population is predicted to rise from 6 billion to about 9 billion by 2050, the UN reports. Feeding them will mean more irrigation for crops.
Increasing attention is also being paid to the global “virtual water” trade. It appears in food or other products that require water to produce, products that are then exported to another nation. The US may consume even more water - virtual water - by importing goods that require lots of water to make. At the same time, the US exports virtual water through goods it sells abroad. As scarcity drives up the cost of fresh water, more efficient use of water will play a huge role, experts say, including:

• Superefficient drip irrigation is far more frugal than “flood” irrigation. But water’s low cost in the US provides little incentive to build new irrigation systems.
• Aging, leaking water pipes waste billions of gallons daily. The cost to fix them could be $500 billion over the next 30 years, the federal government estimates.
• Desalination. Dozens of plants are in planning stages or under construction in the US and abroad, reports say.
• Privatization. When private for-profit companies sell at a price based on what it costs to produce water, that higher price curbs water waste and water consumption, economists say.

In the US today, about 33.5 million Americans get their drinking water from privately owned utilities that make up about 16 percent of the nation’s community water systems, according to the National Association of Water Companies, a trade association. “While water is essential to life, and we believe everyone deserves the right of access to water, that doesn’t mean water is free or should be provided free,” says Peter Cook, executive director of the NAWC. “Water should be priced at the cost to provide it - and subsidized for those who can’t afford it.”
But private companies’ promises of efficient, cost-effective water delivery have not always come true. Bolivia ejected giant engineering firm Bechtel in 2000, unhappy over the spiking cost of water for the city of Cochabamba. Last year Bolivia’s president publicly celebrated the departure of French water company Suez, which had held a 30-year contract to supply La Paz.
In her book, “Blue Covenant,” Maude Barlow - one of the leaders of the fledgling “water justice” movement - sees a dark future if private monopolies control access to fresh water. She sees this happening when, instead of curbing pollution and increasing conservation, governments throw up their hands and sell public water companies to the private sector or contract with private desalination companies.
“Water is a public resource and a human right that should be available to all,” she says. “All these companies are doing is recycling dirty water, selling it back to utilities and us at a huge price. But they haven’t been as successful as they want to be. People are concerned about their drinking water and they’ve met resistance.”
Private-water industry officials say those pushing to make water a “human right” are ideologues struggling to preserve inefficient public water authorities that sell water below the cost to produce it and so cheaply it is wasted - doing little to extend service to the poor.
“There are three basic things in life: food, water, and air,” says Paul Marin, who three years ago led a successful door-to-door campaign to keep the town council of Emmaus, Pa., from selling its local water company. “In this country, we have privatized our food. Now there’s a lot of interest in water on Wall Street…. But I can tell you it’s putting the fox in charge of the henhouse to privatize water. It’s a mistake.”

Water and war: Will scarcity lead to conflict?
Cherrapunjee, a town in eastern India, once held bragging rights as the “wettest place on earth,” and still gets nearly 40 feet of rain a year. Ironically, officials recently brought in Israeli water-management experts to help manage and retain water that today sluices off the area’s deforested landscape so that the area can get by in months when no rain falls.
“Global warming isn’t going to change the amount of water, but some places used to getting it won’t, and others that don’t, will get more,” says Dan Nees, a water-trading analyst with the World Resources Institute. “Water scarcity may be one of the most underappreciated global political and environmental challenges of our time.” Water woes could have an impact on global peace and stability.
In January, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon cited a report by International Alert, a self-described peacebuilding organization based in London. The report identified 46 countries with a combined population of 2.7 billion people where contention over water has created “a high risk of violent conflict” by 2025.
In the developing world - particularly in China, India, and other parts of Asia - rising economic success means a rising demand for clean water and an increased potential for conflict. China is one of the world’s fastest-growing nations, but its lakes, rivers, and groundwater are badly polluted because of the widespread dumping of industrial wastes. Tibet has huge fresh water reserves.
While news reports have generally cited Tibetans’ concerns over exploitation of their natural resources by China, little has been reported about China’s keen interest in Tibet’s Himalayan water supplies, locked up in rapidly melting glaciers. “It’s clear that one of the key reasons that China is interested in Tibet is its water,” Dr. Gleick says. “They don’t want to risk any loss of control over these water resources.”
The Times (London) reported in 2006 that China is proceeding with plans for nearly 200 miles of canals to divert water from the Himalayan plateau to China’s parched Yellow River. China’s water plans are a major problem for the Dalai Lama’s government in exile, says a report released this month by Circle of Blue, a branch of the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
Himalayan water is particularly sensitive because it supplies the rivers that bring water to more than half a dozen Asian countries. Plans to divert water could cause intense debate. “Once this issue of water resources comes up,” wrote Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Affairs, to Circle of Blue researchers in a report earlier this month, “and it seems inevitable at this point that it will - it also raises emerging conflicts with India and Southeast Asia.”
Tibet is not the only water-rich country wary of a water-poor neighbor. Canada, which has immense fresh-water resources, is wary of its water-thirsty superpower neighbor to the south, observers say. With Lake Mead low in the US Southwest, and now Florida and Georgia squabbling over water, the US could certainly use a sip (or gulp) of Canada’s supplies. (Canada has 20 percent of the world’s fresh water.)
But don’t look for a water pipeline from Canada’s northern reaches to the US southwest anytime soon. Water raises national fervor in Canada, and Canadians are reluctant to share their birthright with a United States that has mismanaged - in Canada’s eyes - its own supplies. Indeed, the prospect of losing control of its water under free-trade or other agreements is something Canadians seem to worry about constantly.
A year ago, Canada’s House of Commons voted 134 to 108 in favor of a motion to recommend that its federal government “begin talks with its American and Mexican counterparts to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA.”

[Vishal Trivedi]

Don't worry: Climate changes naturally

By Steven Milloy

President Bush can expect intense lobbying this week from European leaders, who want him to relax his opposition to the Kyoto treaty to cut "greenhouse gas" emissions that they believe cause global warming. The treaty is expected to be a major issue at the summit of leading industrial countries that starts Friday in Genoa, Italy.

The meeting comes not long after the release of a significant National Academy of Sciences report on global warming that was reported as saying unequivocally that the Earth's atmosphere is getting warmer and we humans are to blame.

So, should we be sweating global warming?

Not really. Global warming is a lot less damaging than most people think — and in some cases can be beneficial. And, as a closer inspection of the report reveals, the warming trend is less certain than some scientists claim.

Among the good effects that could come from global warming:

• Global agriculture will likely benefit. More areas will be frost-free longer, leading to longer growing seasons.

• A warmer climate will bring increased rainfall. Higher levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide will lead to more rapid plant growth.

• It is wildly preferred over the alternative: global cooling, which was alarmists' worry 25 years ago.

The Vikings farmed Greenland about a thousand years ago. Then the climate cooled. Today, Greenland is a frozen wasteland. Department of Agriculture maps developed in 1990 show that the U.S. area where crops are at risk of frost has moved south by more than 100 miles during the past century.

But will these benefits be outweighed by the calamities we've heard about? Probably not. They've been greatly exaggerated:

• The North Pole isn't melting. Last summer, The New York Times caused a stir with a story that visitors to the North Pole said the ice was melting, thanks to global warming. Later, The Times acknowledged that polar melting is not at all unusual during the summer.

• Glaciers aren't disappearing. "Many glaciers seem to be shrinking, but others are growing," a U.S. Geological Research Service report said in June. Researchers could not say what's causing the shrinkage, but glaciers shrink and grow naturally.

Rising sea levels aren't causing flooding. Some fear warming will cause rising sea levels through the thermal expansion of water and melting of non-polar glaciers. New analyses suggest the opposite.

"Sea level has been going up about 7 inches per century for reasons other than climate change," says physicist S. Fred Singer. "But what the data show is that when temperatures get (higher), the rate of rise slows considerably."

• Global warming isn't causing more severe weather. The longer we accumulate weather records, the more likely we are to find extreme weather, such as the coldest day or driest month.

• Epidemics aren't spreading. Global warming is supposedly going to improve living conditions for mosquitoes and other pests that spread infectious diseases. But Centers for Disease Control scientists discount these predictions.

Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist D.A. Henderson, who led the international smallpox eradication program from 1966-1977, says the claims are based on "a lot of simplistic thinking, which seems to ignore the fact that as climate changes, man changes as well."

These scientists argue that breakdowns in public health are to blame for the recent disease outbreaks.

Often overlooked in the global-warming debate is that climate changes naturally. Even the National Academy of Sciences report said we can't rule out that some significant part of these changes are a reflection of natural variability.

Our climate is changing. It always has and always will. Let's not worry — or worse, panic — about it. Cooler heads and higher temperatures are better than the reverse.

[Larry D. Matyas]

I really wasn't worried....Al Gore is just trying to creat significant income for himself with a goal of not having to actually work or be elected to anything......

[Vishal Trivedi]

Global Warming Man Made or Natural Cycle?

Over the last hundred years the Earth has been warming. This warming is believed to lead to many issues such as drought, weather extremes and famine. The man made global warming theory states that man made CO2 is causing Earth to warm at an alarming rate; thus, the warming will continue.by Adam Rink
(Libertarian)
Thursday, June 12, 2008

Over the last hundred years the Earth has been warming. This warming is believed to lead to many issues such as drought, weather extremes and famine. The man made global warming theory states that man made CO2 is causing Earth to warm at an alarming rate; thus, the warming will continue. While some scientists believe CO2 is the culprit, other scientists believe the world’s warming and cooling happens in cycles due to various factors. Some of these scientists believe that Earth is starting a cooling trend after a long warming trend. Therefore, the trillion dollar question is global warming caused by CO2 or is this Earth’s natural cycle?

Carbon dioxide is the gas that is responsible for global warming under the man made global warming theory. CO2 is also a part of everyday life. Therefore, this gas should not be confused with smog, which creates a low level ozone layer that can be harmful to humans. CO2 is less than 2% of the world’s atmosphere. Meanwhile 93% of all CO2 is stored in the world’s oceans; the rest is stored the biosphere in things like plants. Oceans move CO2 into the atmosphere and then remove it as continual cycle. Warmer waters, like tropical waters, store less CO2 than colder arctic or deep waters. As CO2 increases in the Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans work harder to remove it. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased 30% since the pre-industrial era. The ocean has also increased its absorption of CO2 from roughly 2.0 Pg of CO2 in the 1980s to 2.4 Pg in the 1990s. Along with the oceans increased CO2 absorption, plants and trees also take in more CO2. This extra absorption of CO2 increases crop yields and plant growth.

The question arises if man is increasing the CO2 significantly or if the oceans are naturally warming and releasing more CO2 as a part of a cycle? Unfortunately, most graphs shown in news articles only go back 120 years, starting in the 1880s. One glance at these graphs and a person could easily deduce that man and industrialization has caused global warming. Many seem to forget that the last ice age was over 100,000 years ago, so looking at the last 120 years for temperature change seems inadequate. Archeologists have found cities under the oceans, such as the one in India that is 9500 years old. This indicates that the Earth must have been warming for some time, possibly including many warming and cooling cycles. Going back 2000 years paints a better picture than the 120 year "hockey stick" graph. In the Middle Ages the temperature deviation was the same as today. This period did not have industry that created man made CO2.

Images are from GlobalWarmingArt.com, red line is the most recent reconstructed model. Darker lines indicate older models.