Amy Goodman

Seymour Hersh on Iran’s nuclear capability, the Arab uprisings and Obama’s isolation

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is back in the news this week with another explosive article that is ruffling some feathers at the White House. Seymour Hersh says the United States might attack Iran based on distorted estimates of Iran’s nuclear and military threat—just like it did with Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. Hersh reveals that despite using Iranian informants and cutting-edge surveillance technology, U.S. officials have been unable to find decisive evidence that Iran has been moving enriched uranium to an underground weapon-making center.

Also in this interview are Hersh’s views on the growing independence of US intelligence agencies, Obama’s isolation and the impact of the Arab Spring. [Excerpts]

Dear Stephen King: an open letter to one American who really could scare the rest of us into action

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Given your influence and the speed with which you can turn out a blockbuster, Mr. King, you might take my feeble attempt to point out the error of our ways, turn the truth of it into fiction and a few million Americans into Committees of Correspondence, planners of a new Declaration of Independence, this time from the global economy and the Powers that run it and get the lion’s share of the benefit out of it.

Silence is deadly: I’m speaking out against Canada-U.S. tar sands pipeline

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The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline, known as Keystone XL to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now. If this project gains approval, it will become exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands monster.

Nuclear Fusion: the elusive genie

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The recent announcement by two Italian researchers of a new method of attaining energy from nuclear fusion has brought back hopes of an easy and inexpensive way of generating energy. It is almost if the nuclear genie that Walt Disney had created in the 1950s is back with new promises of energy “too cheap to meter.” But what exactly do we expect from fusion? Why do we think it could solve our problems? Perhaps, these possibilities have been much overrated.

A comment on: “Public Health Concerns of Shale Gas Production”

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A recent Post-Carbon Institute paper, “Public Health Concerns of Shale Gas Production,” (contained in: Natural Gas Report Supplements: Public Health Agriculture & Transportation) is plagued by irony: the authors’ (Brian Schwartz and Cindy Parker) commitment to protect public health nonetheless defaults into placing business interests ahead of the public interest.

ODAC Newsletter – June 3

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The inherent contradictions of the UK government’s approach to energy and climate policy were made clearly visible this week. On the one hand Thursday saw the release of further detail around the Green Deal, a fairly ambitious bill aimed at facilitating the retrofitting of private homes in order to improve energy efficiency. On the other, evidence emerged that the UK is one of just two EU governments (the other is the Netherlands) stalling on a new EU fuel directive which would see oil from the Canadian tar sands banned in Europe, due to their high emissions.

New book to inspire a redesigned, fair food system

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But Fair Food… is not a book primarily about the problems of our broken food system,” says Hesterman. “It is a book primarily about the solutions.” It serves as a guide to changing not only what we eat, but also how our food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed, and sold. The book starts by outlining the nuances of our food system, how it evolved the way it did, and why it is failing us.

Oxfam predicts climate change will help double food prices by 2030: “We are turning abundance into scarcity”

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Food prices may jump by as much as 180% by 2030, driven by poor policies and a changing climate. Already, the FAO estimates 1 billion people are starving and another 2.5 billion are malnourished. With food prices climbing, yield productivity flat lining, and the global population on track to hit 9 billion by 2050, it appears we are on the brink of major catastrophe.

Tranzicioni në prodhimin & furnizimin e ushqimeve – drejt një të ardhme pa burime fosile

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Krijimi i këtyre sistemeve është bërë i mundur nga burimet fosile të energjisë, burime të jashtëzakonshme energjie, një dhuratë që natyra ja bën vetëm një herë njeriut. Albanian translation of the Post Carbon Institute report ‘The Food and Farming Transition’.

Three strikes and you’re hot: Time for Obama to say no to the fossil fuel wish list

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The Obama administration is making its biggest decisions yet on our energy future and those decisions are intimately tied to this continent’s geography. Remember those old maps from your high-school textbooks that showed each state and province’s prime economic activities? A sheaf of wheat for farm country? A little steel mill for manufacturing? These days in North America what you want to look for are the pickaxes that mean mining, and the derricks that stand for oil.

A Field Guide To Farmers

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Now that farmer-watching has become more popular than bird-watching, urban people need a way to help them distinguish between the various breeds in case they want to rent one, or buy one for a personal pet. Farmers actually resemble other members of the human race in most respects. They walk upright if there is no wheeled vehicle available to ride, have cell phones hanging on their ears most of the time, and feed at short order restaurants more than in their natural environment of open fields… Zoologists distinguish several sub-types of the species…