Sunday, March 30, 2008

CBS News Report On The Water Grab


Las Vegas' Eyewitness News I-Team's Chief Investigative Reporter, George Knapp, has produced an excellent 7-part special; "Crossfire: Water, Power, and Politics."

I highly recommend you watch this.

click here to see the videos

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Lying For The Man


Follow the money...


Sometimes that's how you find the truth. The obvious truth is that the environmental community doesn't have a fraction of billions and billions of dollars that the fossil fuel industry has – to influence pubic opinion.


  • I'm writing on an obscure blog, while you see fossil fuel ads daily on your television.

  • I occasionally write letters to the editor of our local newspaper, while the fossil fuel industry pays for full page ads.

  • I vote, while the fossil fuel industry gives millions in campaign contributions.

  • I quote mainstream scientists, while the fossil fuel industry buys their own – and funds “global warming skeptic” organizations to influence your opinion.


They're lying.

Many of them are being paid to lie.


The fossil fuel industry stands to make billions – at everyones' future expense (including their own). They don't want to stop mining until there's nothing left to mine. And they actually hope for the price of oil, natural gas, and coal to rise.


Don't believe me... check out these links:


Answers to Global Warming Skeptics

Even Skeptics Admit Global Warming is Real

Exxon Spent $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups

Exxon Secrets

The Doubters of Global Warming

Global Warming Skeptic Organizations

Funding a Global Warming Skeptic


One more thing. Many in the fossil fuel industry would be happy to switch over to alternative power generation, hydrogen, flywheels, etc. if everyone had to. But they can't compete with industries that don't pay the true costs for burning fossil fuels. The industry needs to pay the true costs for their actions. If they had to pay for the consequences of their just their pollution, they would immediately switch to alternative power. That's why we have governments... to see that justice is done, and to make rational transitions as smoothly as possible. And also, that's why we have citizens... to make our governments to do the right things.


Censoring Science


Do you ever get the feeling that our American government is lying to you?
Well, you might be paranoid. But more likely, you're right.

For years now, Bush Jr. government appointees have been reviewing scientific papers from Federal agencies to assure they “don't conflict with government policy.” Now you might be thinking; gee, shouldn't that be the other way around. Shouldn't government appointees be reviewing policy to assure that it doesn't conflict with science? And of course, you'd be right. But that's not the way things work here in US political world. Here; pseudoscience, mythology, and graft are more important than reality.

As an example; Dr. James Hansen has been the head of the NASA Goddard Space Center for the past 25 years. He is a highly respected scientist - with an attitude problem. You see; he just keeps bringing up that inconvenient reality about global warming. Doesn't he know that here in US political world that global warming isn't supposed to happen?

A new book has been recently published about the obstructions our own government has placed in his way – to keep him from informing us about the truth. And horrifically, this scientist is far from alone.

Here are links to interviews with him and the author of the book CENSORING SCIENCE:

Democracy Now!
National Public Radio

Saturday, March 01, 2008

The Longest Walk 2

What if you had something so important to tell that you were willing to walk across the country to say it? That's what the “Longest Walk” is about.


Native Americans across the country are joining together in sending a message to Washington. We intend to “bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth.”


The walkers just passed through Ely, Nevada. If you want to see what they are accomplishing; check out www.earthcycles.net


We in Nevada were glad to see them. We helped where we could. We even walked a couple of miles with them... Solidarity! We won't forget. When they reach Washington, we will be reminding the world to pay attention.


We also sent two messages with them. Here's one:


Conservation and Desalination First


The Great Basin is a vast, mostly natural area; smack-dab in the middle of the American West. Here you can find some of the last of America's open range. Here cattle don't live in pens. Here some wild horses still run free. Here is where the deer and antelope play – along with the elk, the lions, the cute little fuzzy animals, the migratory song birds, the sage hen, and the eagle.


The Western Shoshone (Newe) people have lived here for thousands of years. When the European immigrants showed up, they found this land healthy. We now fear that within less than 200 years to our first introduction to capitalism, our homeland will become uninhabitable. Why? To sustain unsustainable growth in Las Vegas.


Southern Nevada Water Authority intends to take a river of water from a place that has no rivers. The land area effected here will be larger than some of America's smaller states. And yet our own state laws are impotent to protect us. Would you consider the State of Vermont to be expendable? Just drain it? Turn it into a dustbowl? Of course not. But that's what greedy developers in Las Vegas want to do with an equivalent size of our home. And they want to do it without even considering sensible alternatives.


  • Las Vegas could learn to live within their means. They will have to someday.

  • Las Vegas could desalinate sea water and trade it with California and Mexico for a bigger allotment of the Colorado River. The desalination facilities could be built offshore so as not to harm coastal ecosystems.

Southern Nevada has better options than committing an environmental holocaust. But they complain that it's just too hard or too expensive. Sure it's cheaper to take than it is to make. But we should not make our decisions based upon how cheap it is to steal.


It is a humbling analogy to compare humanity's habitat destructing ways to a dangerous virus infecting it's host. But it is actually life on Earth that supports us. And all natural life on Earth is in decline. We all know what happens to a virus when it kills it's host. The virus dies too...


It is our duty to protect our host; life on Earth.

Help us influence Las Vegas to live sustainably.


Thank you,

concerned citizens of White Pine County, Nevada