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Maldives cabinet meeting chaired by President, took place around table 16ft underwater, bubbles ascended from scuba masks

Maldivian president Mohammed Nasheed and his ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed swims to the first underwater cabinet meeting in the Maldives. Right, the president tries on diving gear before the historic meeting

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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.  read more »

Tribute to Verplanck Colvin, pioneer to protect Nature; David McClure: Forever Wild statute of 1885; & Wilderness Act of 1964...

Superintendent of New York State Land Survey. An early advocate for the preservation of the Adirondacks, Verplanck Colvin became a force behind passage of the Forever Wild statute of 1885 and the establishment of the Park itself in 1892. Bottom right: One of the surveyor's marks Colvin left on dozens of peaks in the Adirondacks, this one on Big Slide Mountain

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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.

Canada geese in a snowstorm over Hottes Lake, Iowa. Photograph: ruf_d/The Wilderness Society  read more »

"Thank you, Teddy (Edward Kennedy), for fighting for my civil rights." Farewell to all Kennedy brothers, all with courage!

Left: Kennedy brothers – 1960: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy & Edward Kennedy. Bottom right: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in his pilot's gear. The eldest of nine siblings, he died in a plane crash on a volunteer mission during World War II at age of 29.

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Remember Ted Kennedy, liberal icon, as he did Bobby: "My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." Ted Kennedy, a faithful Catholic & Lion of the Senate, politician fighting legislative battles for 47 years on behalf of the less fortunate, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C., next to his two brothers.

Chris Mason, of Cambridge, Mass., carries his hand written sentiments along the procession route, ‘Thank you, Teddy, for fighting for my civil rights.’ Bostonians lined up along the route to pay their respects to their senator & his family; Inset: Ted Kennedy, the ‘Lion of the Senate,’ died on Aug 25, 2009 at 77  read more »

The measure of a man's success in life is not the money he's made. It's the kind of family he has raised.- Kennedy

top left: Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.; top right: Rose Kennedy holding Joe Jr., presumably prior to 1921; bottom: Kennedy family visits Pope Pius XII in Vatican City, 1939. Young Ted Kennedy stands in front of his father Joseph

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Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, “bobby” & Ted Kennedy, was appointed by President Roosevelt in 1934 to be the 1st chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission. By 1935 Kennedy had helped to restore the economy. He said, “An organized functioning society requires a planned economy. The more complex the society the greater the demand for planning”, prudence, and responsible regulation. “Planned action is imperative, or else capitalism and the American scheme of life will be in serious jeopardy.” Bobby described his father’s mentality, “We were to try harder than anyone else, we might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best.” Kennedy family, through strict and loving disciplines, has become legendary.

three brothers: Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy (JFK)

The Kennedy Patriarchs  read more »

To fight deforestation, Kenya in poverty ($857 GDP/capita) pledges to spend $20 billion & plant 7.6 billion trees

Top left: pupils of Olkimitare School planting trees at the school yard, one of Kicheche's projects; top right: working to encourage a ‘tree-planting culture’ among Kenya’s Christians, one of the most practical ways to bring healing to degraded landscapes & renewed hope to people who depend on wood as a key resource; bottom: members of GBM plant trees on an eroding hillside

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*Update* 2019
Ranking/Country/GDP-capita
1 Luxembourg 114,234
2 Switzerland 82,950
— Macau 82,388
3 Norway 81,695
4 Ireland 76,099
5 Iceland 74,278
6 Qatar 70,780
7 Singapore 64,041
8 US 62,606
9 Denmark 60,692
10 Australia 56,352
11 Sweden 53,873
12 Netherlands 53,106
13 Austria 51,509
14 Finland 49,845
15 San Marino 48,946
— Hong Kong 48,517
16 Germany 48,264
17 Belgium 46,724
18 Canada 46,261
19 France 42,878
20 UK 42,558
21 Israel 41,644
22 New Zealand 41,267
23 United Arab Emirates 40,711
24 Japan 39,306  read more »

Tommy Douglas, Canada's father of Medicare, would import foreign doctors to make his plan work

Tommy Douglas as a social policy innovator - Social welfare, universal Medicare, old age pensions and mothers' allowances

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"My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea." - Tommy Douglas 1961

Tommy Douglas - for introducing free healthcare to Canada - was voted "The Greatest Canadian" of all time. He was hospitalized at the age of 10. Due to a bone infection suffered four years earlier, Douglas's knee required several operations. Without the money to pay for a specialist, Tommy Douglas’ parents were told that the only option was to amputate their son's leg before the infection spread to the rest of his body. But before that could happen, a visiting surgeon offered to operate on Douglas for free, as long as his students were allowed to attend. The surgery saved Douglas's leg - quite possibly his life - and would serve as his inspiration for his dream of universally accessible medical care.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, convalescing in Calgary from his gratuitous liver transplant, pays homage to Tommy Douglas  read more »

US could provide Medicare for all citizens as Canada does if some war spending ($891,971,525,495 since 2001) spared

US spending on war in the past 8 years, since 2001

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*update*
Spending in Iraq and Afghanistan stands at $6.4 trillion through fiscal year 2020, according to a new study from the Cost of War project at Brown University.

The health care system in Canada is funded by a mix of public (70%) and private (30%) funding. The U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation in the world, but is the only wealthy industrialized country in the world that lacks some form of universal health care. In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

Michael Moore’s film Sicko

All Canadian citizens are covered with a provincial Medical Services Plan, which receives funds from the federal government via tax transfers. The system is therefore a single-payer one, whereby everyone contributes to the care of all citizens. Individuals choose their own physicians, who decide what care is required - not the government, regardless of what you might hear on radio and TV talk shows - and they do not have to ante up large sums for emergency and intensive care or even for infant delivery. The system works very well.

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Photos courtesy of costofwar.com and docotube.com  read more »

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