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Copenhagen. Protest & climate call... "We're heading toward catastrophic consequences that'll be irreversible," Kofi Annan
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Unless we take steps to arrest climate change, we are heading toward catastrophic consequences that will be irreversible. With changing rain patterns, we have a serious problem of food production. Diseases are moving faster and farther. How do we get governments to act cooperatively in the common interest? We saw a bit of that during the financial crisis. Now that some people are rushing ahead and saying we are out of the crisis, we are falling back on the old habits of protecting our national interests.
Leader's vision & commitment. Oscar Arias & Costa Rica: planted 6.5 million trees by 2008 while spending $0 on military
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Costa Rican President Oscar Arias planted the 5 millionth tree of the year near his office in the capital San Jose, By the end of 2007, Costa Rica has planted nearly 6.5 million trees, which should absorb 111,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The goal for 2008 was to plant 7 million trees as part of the newly launched project in order to make the biodiversity nation carbon neutral. Costa Rica constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949.
Call to withdraw fr "futile & counter-productive war" as former USSR President Gorbachev ended Afghan war in 1988
BNP leader Nick Griffin: "We want to present a moral choice between those parties supporting a futile and counter-productive war and one that says we should be out of there immediately."
Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev: "I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution. What we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society."
US Senate candidate Alan Khazei: "We've lost our way, strayed from our mission", "This isn't in our interest as a nation, and it's not fair to our troops."
Gordon Brown hopes to fix Afghan pullout date.
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calling for immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, from a futile and counter-productive war
British National Party leader and parliamentary candidate, Nick Griffin - read more »
How far from awareness to action? reverse wheel of climate change? Cartoons: "go to Copenhagen" "shoe vs footprint" "awareness"
How far from awareness to action? Ice is now melting fast, sea level rising non-stop… When will pollution be decisively and extensively checked to reverse the wheel of climate change?
Canada to withdraw troops fr Afghanistan. Photographer's Personal Journey thru War: 'hell on earth' 'waiting' 'strays' 'grave'
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A Photographer's Personal Journey Through War
Like many of his contemporaries, American Peter van Agtmael felt compelled to cover the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I wish these pictures could convey more of what I experienced," van Agtmael writes. "They are harsh, despite the fact that I have great affection for many of the soldiers that I met as an embedded photographer. There is much that is left out, but I see no reason to romanticize war any more than it has been and always will be. If I found any truth in war, I found that in the end everyone has their own truth."
"Climate change hugely underestimated: we’ve lost more than half the Arctic summer sea ice cover decades ahead of predictions"
Most courageous & greatest swimmer, to swim beyond extreme, bearing excruciating pain, not for gold medals but for fragile Nature. "I have chosen to swim. It’s my way of drawing attention to the oceans, & the fragile state of our nature," Lewis Gordon Pugh said, "we’ve lost more than half the Arctic summer sea ice cover decades ahead of predictions, showing climate change has been hugely underestimated. We must insist our leaders take urgent action..sea ice is melting fast.." "I have done very, very cold swims in the North Pole which was so cold that your life is on the line and it took me four months to feel my hands again." "I can’t think of a better way to show that climate change is a reality than by swimming in a place that should be totally frozen over." "This is not just about protecting a pristine environment, it's about saving ourselves."
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Lewis Gordon Pugh is the first swimmer in history to complete a long distance swim in all 5 oceans of the world, a feat which many had considered to be the "holy grail" of swimming. He also became the first person to complete a long distance swim in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. read more »
World's first underwater cabinet meeting - Maldives ministers' eye-catching plea for climate change action
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Asked what would happen if Copenhagen fails, the president said, "we are all going to die."
The Maldives government has made an eye-catching plea for climate change action by holding the world's first underwater cabinet meeting.
Politicians from the Indian Ocean island nation donned scuba gear this morning to send a message to world leaders ahead of December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The meeting, chaired by President Mohamed Nasheed, took place around a table about 16 feet (5 meters) underwater. Bubbles ascended from the face masks the president and the Cabinet wore, and fish swam around them.
Tribute to Verplanck Colvin, pioneer to protect Nature; David McClure: Forever Wild statute of 1885; & Wilderness Act of 1964...
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"Unless the region be preserved essentially in its present wilderness condition, the ruthless burning and destruction of the forest will slowly, year after year, creep onward… and vast areas of naked rock, arid sand, and gravel will alone remain to receive the bounty of the clouds and be unable to retain it." - Verplanck Colvin, pioneer in environmental protection. The ‘Forever Wild’ Amendment was proposed by David McClure. This visionary accomplishment was the inspiration for those who drafted the 1964 Wilderness Act establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System.
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