Only Connect: Environmental Justice

Melissa's post on Van Jones made me sit straight up; I hit the links and discovered a whole network I didn't know. In Britain we don't hear much talk of environmental justice; it tends to be a term buried in policy papers, not a rallying point for action. The government is officially committed to green jobs, cutting emissions, the UN's green "New Deal"; climate change is a cross-party issue here. But that doesn't mean there's agreement about what to do--or the political will to do it.

The economist Nicholas Stern, Gordon Brown's man on the impact of climate change, issued his most desperate warning yet this week from an emergency meeting in Copenhagen, where 2,500 scientists had yet more terrifying news to report. Politicians, he said, aren't getting it. Unless we do something now, climate shift could be "abrupt or irreversible." A temperature rise of 4 degrees centigrade--which seems increasingly likely--could see southern Europe reduced to a desert and 85% of the Amazon forest lost. I won't go on--the scenarios make me numb.

Of course, that's part of the problem. The predictions are so dire they don't bear thinking about. So we go on driving the kids to school, leaving the laptop on, eating raspberries in winter. We've got no narrative, no handle on this thing. If China keeps building coal plants, how much difference can my low energy light bulb make? It's a commonplace now that the recession is a golden opportunity to green our economies. There are vital conversations to be had, about international equity, about jobs, about energy choices, about fair carbon trading. But we're not having them publicly or urgently enough.

Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown's conscientious climate secretary (and a former Nation intern), said in December that halting climate change will take an international mass movement. Here in the UK, those bitten by the recession and the new wave of green activists have yet to make common cause. In the last few weeks, for instance, we've seen demonstrations by power station workers against the use of foreign labour, and protests by Plane Stupid, anti-aviation activists who've shut down airports and, last week, threw a cup of green custard at Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair's fixer recalled from political exile when the polls and the markets crashed. (Mandelson met the custard en route to a low-carbon summit; in the end the mess got more media than the message.) On the one hand, workers trying to save their bacon, trapped inside the politics of competing interests. On the other, the committed young with the courage and energy to risk creative actions, caught in the one dimensional rhetoric of protest. The gap between them is the distance we have to cross if we're going to save the planet.

Comments (71)

1. In due time, every part of the globe will become desert, end up below sea level, become North/South Pole or soar to the level of today's Mt. Everest......

   Plate Tectonic, cool stuff, check it out!

   Posted by Happy at 03/13/2009 @ 3:48pm

2. Magnetically the North Pole used to be in the Sahara desert, but now it is headed to Siberia ever so slowly easily trackable in the last 300 yrs.

   Global warming in the 14th century melted all the glaciers and there was NO snow in the Alps so using the current climate schemes there must have been a great industrial society that just vanished without a trace! I think it was Aliens!

   Posted by comancheamerican at 03/13/2009 @ 3:59pm

3. " A temperature rise of 4 degrees centigrade--which seems increasingly likely--could see southern Europe reduced .."

   Really? According to whom?

   That fraud and idiot ALGORE?

   That is an increase of 5.4 degrees F ...by when?

   and you can stop this by cap and trade to shut down US industry while China doubles their output un abated?

   No one will buy that deal here and you may have the policy wonks in Washington driven out with pitch forks as you collapse our industry with new regs....

   and gun violence erupts when the govt guys come around your house to fine you for carbon usages above allowed limits..64 F degrees in winter...

   I believe I saw a poll that says 41% now believe GW is not a manmade problem.

   People are starting to catch on that GW/GC/Whatever this year is horseshit used to get into the wallets..of the working class and familys....

   to save the planet, of course.

   All I can hope for is you all keep doing what you are doing...

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 4:42pm

4. "environmental justice; "

   would be defined for me if ALGORE could be found frozen ...

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 4:43pm

5. in his front yard of one of his energy carbon creating mansions..

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 4:48pm

6. I believe I saw a poll that says 41% now believe GW is not a manmade problem.

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 4:42pm

   This is funny. You don't cite a poll before this. Which means it could be that before THIS poll 51% believed it was manmade and now only 41% believe it's manmade OR it could be the reverse and 31% believed it was mandmade and not 41% believe it was manmade. You have to cite more information than that for that poll to be relevant. Basically you need to cite whether that is an increase or a decrease.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/13/2009 @ 5:03pm

7. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/13/2009 @ 5:03pm

   I saw trhe poll on a Drudge link..Rassmussen...

   Personaly, I threw it up there for BUSHFOOLS who can't use a mens room with out a poll...

   I personally think polls at this point,mean nothing...even if Obamas poll numbers are lower than Bush at this time in his tenure...what matters is the election polls in 2 and 4 years..

   The point of this poll was to say the number of those who believe man is NOT the cause of GW as ALGORE bellars out is on the rise...

   we all know the earth warms and cools constantly.....

   no surprise there...

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 5:16pm

8. I personally think polls at this point,mean nothing...even if Obamas poll numbers are lower than Bush at this time in his tenure...what matters is the election polls in 2 and 4 years..

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 5:16pm

   Obama doesn't have the benefit of having been attacked during his Presidency. That makes the President popular.

   However yes. I generally agree with you. Polls don't really matter in the end.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/13/2009 @ 5:30pm

9. "and you can stop this by cap and trade to shut down US industry while China doubles their output un abated? "

   What's funny about this argument. Is when you ask China why they don't stop I'm sure they will say, well America has already created the problem so why should we have to stop?

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/14/2009 @ 12:24am

10. Posted by YourJomamma at 03/13/2009 @ 4:42pm

    Actually, MAASCH, I saw a poll that showed that those who don't believe in GW were about 10%...those who believe it is man-made AND natural was about 34%...those who believe it is man-made entirely is about 56%.

    Of course that's a....

    FOX NEWS/OPINION DYNAMICS poll...and you know FNC is just part of Algore's GW fraud/enviro-nut Liberal Media.

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2009 @ 07:22am

11. What's funny about this argument. Is when you ask China why they don't stop I'm sure they will say, well America has already created the problem so why should we have to stop?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/14/2009 @ 12:24am

    Actualy they say they need the power and need help in producing cleaner coal...and would like to buy the technology from us to help clean the coal...until then, their needs for power grow exponentialy..remember..the have 5 times the population as the US...and they are buying Buicks and new aprtments...they are growing while over here the govt hacks are coming up with new ways to have us contract on all levels...in the name of progress or progressiveness....we are burning dollars faster than they are buying oil, which is why they are concerned about our debts...Obama has exposed our necks even wider...and the world WILL come in for a bite...Russian bombers in Cuba and VENZ(would JFK or Reagan allow this to take place?)..

    Obama is destroying alot of our "invisible" safety zones that have been put in place at the cost of American sacrifice and blood...all so we wont be a super power any more..this cabal believes if the US pulls it pants down, the rest of the world will, too...but instead, they are smiling happilly inside(with a camera) as they get ready to geld US...with the US libs help..to be fair, of course.

    Obama is viewed by our enemies(if he even is aware that we have enemies)as the best that happened..to them. And they will praise and cheer the OBAMA Admin all the way, make the govt here and Obama as heroes..at state dinners the MSM will carry the story, but under the table, our enemies are quietly sawing the leggs of the chairs and the tables, while toasting goes on..

    How much of the $900 billion for Gazsa will go into...new rockets?

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/14/2009 @ 09:34am

12. FOX NEWS/OPINION DYNAMICS poll...and you know FNC is just part of Algore's GW fraud/enviro-nut Liberal Media.

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2009 @ 07:22am |

    I don't really never pay much attention to polls, except election polls after the election...your achives should tell you that..

    and the poll I fired at, I forget, who, was only a headline I saw on Drudge and I never read the story...since...I don't believe in polls that much...I live in Lincoln, the home of Gallop and I know many who work there...so I am aware what polling can say...or not say..

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/14/2009 @ 09:37am

13. The trends show things are cooling down for the last few years. Will it continue? No one knows. I just think man made climate change is a bunch of BS - a huge con job by the left to exert control on, and extort money from, everyone. The air and water are so much cleaner now, in this country, than it was in past decades. Most of you do not remember the 50s, 60s and 70s. Climate change is incredibly complicated, so much so that no one can predict what the causes are and what the future will bring, other than "it will change". The stupid simplistic computer models do nothing more than show how much they are wrong - yet we whnt to make drastic decisions based on them? That is the definition of insanity. The best course of action is to be reasonable - let society move on with life, use existing energy supplies until something better comes along that actually works and does not destroy our economy. Science will eventually find a way, it will just take time but there is no emergency.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/14/2009 @ 1:12pm

14. "The trends show things are cooling down for the last few years. Will it continue? No one knows. I just think man made climate change is a bunch of BS - a huge con job by the left to exert control on, and extort money from, everyone"

    at first you make the claim, "no one knows," and yet you then claim that "climate change is a bunch of BS."

    regarding so called 'global cooling', it is too early to tell, since the relative coolness of the past few years could easily be natural "noise" (weather) imposed on the long-term global warming trend. the fact that we've had a cold winter in eastern north america and in the uk--or any other anecdotal cold or snow-related record you may hear about--can't tell us whether global warming may be slowing down or not. everyone knows that, but from watching fox noise or cnn, it's no wonder why lay people like maasch and yourself think that we are now experiencing global cooling.

    no scientist, who "supports" global warming theories, has ever argued that each succeeding year will be warmer than the previous year. they argue an overall warming trend (which is far more supported by the available empirical data than a global cooling trend). something like 13 of the last 17 years are the warmest on record.

    and let's not forget that efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions are not just about mitigating the effects of global warming, they are also about REDUCING AIR POLLUTION and TRAFFIC CONGESTION.

    obviously, we should all be out walking or riding our bikes, as opposed to driving and flying. the ONLY people who deny this are hard core republicans with little education.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:06pm

15. each person here who claims that global warming theories are BS has absolutely no idea what he/she is talking about. no idea whatsoever.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:08pm

16. Obama is viewed by our enemies(if he even is aware that we have enemies)as the best that happened..to them. And they will praise and cheer the OBAMA Admin all the way, make the govt here and Obama as heroes..at state dinners the MSM will carry the story, but under the table, our enemies are quietly sawing the leggs of the chairs and the tables, while toasting goes on..

    How much of the $900 billion for Gazsa will go into...new rockets?

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/14/2009 @ 09:34am

    Again how much proof do you have of any of this? You are making opinionated assertions that could be the exact opposite of what you are saying. Maybe the reason diplomacy is so hard is because people like you don't realize that you can't ask the other person to give up everything if you are not willing to give up something equally. In order to increase our stance in the world and get out of this state of perpetual war that our country has been in we have to give something up.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 03/14/2009 @ 2:37pm

17. "Obama is viewed by our enemies(if he even is aware that we have enemies)as the best that happened..to them"

    unlike bush, who unnecessarily and recklessly put several hundred thousand of our troops, private contractors and state department employs, in harm's way, in two different countries; who lessened our moral and cultural standing in the world; who destroyed the economy; who stood by and did nothing as new york city was attacked; who tortured; who wiretapped; who lied about everything and then lied about lying; who continues to walk free despite having done all of the above and then some. THAT bush wasn't viewed by our enemies as the best that happened to them? 9.11 gave bush the incentive to over-react, and boy did he over-react.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:46pm

18. Darlaloon,

    I favor treatment for drugs...not jail.

    Nuff said.

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/14/2009 @ 3:55pm

19. obviously, we should all be out walking or riding our bikes, as opposed to driving and flying. the ONLY people who deny this are hard core republicans with little education.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    DarlaLOON, most people living in cities like having food trucked in occasionally and goods to buy; good luck getting cattle to market 150 miles away by bicycle! Most cities in the majority of the country are 50 to 100+ miles apart and only uneducated FOOLs would insist bicycle and walking traffic between them!

    You don't live in reality for any length of time so we understand!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 4:03pm

20. who lessened our moral and cultural standing in the world; who destroyed the economy; who stood by and did nothing as new york city was attacked

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Can't believe anyone stupid enough to think all this unsubstantiated, but then look at the 52% who voted for Obamanation and the Demoncrats! Yea, morality, that the strong point of these guys, sure!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 4:06pm

21. "You don't live in reality for any length of time so we understand!"

    actually, i do, comanche, you just didn't bother to try learning something: if all san franciscans walk or drove for their daily business, then all the pollution necessary would come from things like you mentioned (trucks hauling food into town, etc).

    i don't own a car. and never have. do the math, dude. or is that too "unrealistic" for you?

    "Yea, morality, that the strong point of these guys, sure!"

    not sure what your point is.

    "I favor treatment for drugs...not jail."

    nor yours.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 4:40pm

22. "I favor treatment for drugs...not jail."

    john, you are in a rapidly dwindling minority of people who believe that marijuana is a problem. in fact, the internets are abuzz with the talk of legalization.

    in less than 10 years, weed will be legal and taxed.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 4:56pm

23. " Most cities in the majority of the country are 50 to 100+ miles apart and only uneducated FOOLs would insist bicycle and walking traffic between them!"

    can this person even conceive of trucks which don't use fossil fuels?

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 4:57pm

24. Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 2:06pm:

    hard core republicans with little education? Poor child, you have no idea...

    I completely stand by my words. A consensus of something is merely a guess - a backhanded admission that "we are going to say whatever the people who pay us tell us to say so we can continue to get paid". AGW theories are a bunch of political BS until they can be proved, which is getting harder and harder to do since the imperical evidence is pointing in just the opposite direction. To flush our economy with "cap and trade" and to submit to dictates from buracratic thugs based on junk science would be a crime. Ah but you see, the left really doesn't care if the science is real or not. They just don't want to waste this opportunity to attempt to impose their perverted view of life on the whole country - or world for that matter. Well, a lot of us are saying thanks but no thanks.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/14/2009 @ 5:37pm

25. Here is a story on the errors in ALGORES movie...

    if you can stand to watch...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJ5pHVKjiI

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/14/2009 @ 6:01pm

26. in less than 10 years, weed will be legal and taxed.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 4:56pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Enjoy dying of the cancer they have PROVED it causes and its much MORE dangerous than tobacco which is PROVEN!

    Once an idiot always an idiot!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 6:10pm

27. can this person even conceive of trucks which don't use fossil fuels?

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 4:57pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Yea, poluting more like ethanal, running a whooping 40 miles EMPTY on electic, and like Pelosi you probably think natural gas isn't a fossil fuel!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 6:12pm

28. comanche, imagine a 'low carbon' food distribution network of small business' (much like maaschssss') who use smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles in their fleets.

    ok? just *imagine* (remember lennon? no, not LENIN, but lennon??)

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:09pm

29. it's really not so difficult to embrace a new model of food distribution, or any other sort of distribution, which emits less carbon into the atmosphere, especially given the cost-saving measures it can give all businesses. it's just common business sense. and, as we know, business sense is dead last in the list of important senses.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:13pm

30. "Enjoy dying of the cancer they have PROVED it causes and its much MORE dangerous than tobacco which is PROVEN!"

    you have absolutely NO CLUE what you are talking about! anyone with even the most minute quantity of brain juice knows that marijuana is not more dangerous than tobacco.

    and that doesn't even begin to address the follow up question of: well, what if i EAT marijuana? or vaporize it? or, fuck, drink it in tea?

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:15pm

31. you can also spread it on toast in the form of butter.

    how's that? great small business one can have, and the government could TAX it?

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:16pm

32. Didn't take them long to jam this thread with half empty half trues about how unproven global warming is...

    ...but we seldom hear a peep out of them about fresh water issues, ocean acidification figures, permanent oil reserve depletion, overfishing the worlds oceans, chronic topsoil erosion, invasive short-platting of our most fertile bottom lands, the ever decreasing wildlands, the faulty bio-mechanics of clearcut forestry, the real residual toxicity of 'spent' nuclear weaponry, the true toll of health issues brought about by incessant inner city disfunction... etc... etc...

    ...or the inabilities inherent in the market forces of Capitalism to recognize ANY of these issues until we are way past the point of no return.

    I may not be on the global warming 'bandwagon'... but putting this goofy 'one size fits all' misnomer aside for a moment... Mr. Gore still had you guys beat two decades ago... and you're steadfastly trying to run out the clock on a stalemate... with your nitpicking over what name to give the hurricane that is tearing our world apart right before our eyes.

    Most of us love this world too much to let your system have its way with it much longer.

    Posted by ttr at 03/14/2009 @ 7:20pm

33. one quick thought on the economy: it's laughable for republicans, and even conservative democrats, to criticize obama for spending too much too soon.

    wall street, and its daddy on capitol hill, traded trillions for years and years. the ruling class, and their political paymasters, saw their fortunes grow.

    and now, when the bottom is falling out, and obama wants to provide some urgent relief, to the tune of less than 1 trillion. less than 1 trillion. ok, maybe 1.4 trillion. this is chump change compared to what has traded hands, which inflated the bubble....

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:54pm

34. and now, when the bottom is falling out, and obama wants to provide some urgent relief, to the tune of less than 1 trillion. less than 1 trillion. ok, maybe 1.4 trillion. this is chump change compared to what has traded hands, which inflated the bubble....

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:54pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Wake up! Obamanation has spent over 3 trillion already equal to the entire last year of bushes administration and we're not even two month in!!!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 9:52pm

35. you have absolutely NO CLUE what you are talking about! anyone with even the most minute quantity of brain juice knows that marijuana is not more dangerous than tobacco Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:15pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Well, maybe for you being hemale! Marijuana use may increase the risk of developing testicular cancer, in particular a more aggressive form of the disease, according to a U.S. study published on Monday.

    The study of 369 Seattle-area men ages 18 to 44 with testicular cancer and 979 men in the same age bracket without the disease found that current marijuana users were 70 percent more likely to develop it compared to nonusers.

    The risk appeared to be highest among men who had reported smoking marijuana for at least 10 years, used it more than once a week or started using it before age 18, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 9:53pm

36. ok? just *imagine* (remember lennon? no, not LENIN, but lennon??)

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:09pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Keep daydreaming, but stop every once in a while and take a whiff of reality, although I know its hard for Obamanation followers it will help your perspective.

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 9:57pm

37. Have you ever lived not just visited outside a major metropolitan area in your life darlaloon?

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 9:59pm

38. by snowball666 at 03/14/2009 @ 9:26pm...

    There is, of course, indisputable evidence of precocious and stupid, however...;^)

    Posted by ttr at 03/14/2009 @ 9:59pm

39. comanche, imagine a 'low carbon' food distribution network of small business' (much like maaschssss') who use smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles in their fleets.

    ok? just *imagine* (remember lennon? no, not LENIN, but lennon??)

    Posted by darladoon at 03/14/2009 @ 7:09pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    How long will it take them to haul 80,000 pounds (40tons)of food from kansas city to San Fran not consuming the fuel of one diesel 18wheeler which can?

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 10:03pm

40. Darlaloon all you have is fantasy rhetoric, no practical mechanical or basic physics information to base your daydreams on!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 10:05pm

41. Just thought I'd shed some light on a subject wreathed in the smoke of misinformation and general "commanche-like" monumental ignorance.......

    From this weekend's edition of Counterpunch online:

    Cannabidiol Now!

    By FRED GARDNER

    Two plants strains relatively rich in cannabidiol (CBD) have been identified by an analytic test lab recently established to serve the medical cannabis industry in California. That's two major stories in one sentence. Let's take it from the bottom…

    In December a lab in the East Bay started testing samples of cannabis for pathogenic mold and the presence of three cannabinoids –THC, CBD and CBN (cannabinol). THC is the main psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant. CBD is a cannabinoid with intriguing medical potential that gets bred out of cannabis when the breeder's goal is high THC content (as it has been in California for generations). CBN is a breakdown product of THC, an indicator of time in storage.

    The lab has been testing about 10 samples a day provided by Oakland's Harborside Health Center, whose proprietor, Steve DeAngelo, helped plan and underwrite the venture. Results from the lab are posted on labels affixed to the strains in Harborside's display cases. Thus prospective buyers are informed that the sparkly nuggets of Raspberry Kush they are savoring in a Petri dish are free of dangerous aspergillus and contain 14.3% THC by weight. (Percent CBD and CBN almost always round off to zero. That's about to change.)

    DeAngelo's primary goal is to impose safety standards industry-wide. "We're giving the analytic laboratory project a beta rollout," he says, "to find the problems and eliminate them before seriously soliciting participation from other dispensaries. Then we'll see who's serious about the medical paradigm."

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 10:20pm

42. Running the lab are two 30-something entrepreneurs, D.L. and A.D, who spent about a year setting it up and refining their procedures under the tutelage of a sympathetic university-connected chemist. D.L. operates the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer. A.L. is liaison to the dispensaries. They are planning to add tests for pesticides and certain terpenes –aromatic compounds that contribute to the effects of cannabis.

    The advent of a test lab will change the medical cannabis industry in significant ways. For some growers and distributors thriving under the status quo, the documented presence of toxins in their products will force adjustments......

    CBD predominates over THC in cannabis that grows wild (ditchweed) and plants grown for fiber (hemp). When plants are bred for psychoactivity CBD is replaced by THC because the same gene codes for one or the other cannabinoid. According to research done in Europe and Israel, CBD has anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsant, anti-psychotic, anti-oxidant, and neuroprotective properties. It also has a direct inhibitory effect on certain cancer cells.

    Biologists at California Pacific Medical Center, Sean McAllister and Pierre Desprez, have determined that CBD inhibits breast cancer metastasis by suppressing a gene called Id-1. This winter they started working with mouse models of breast cancer, and if all goes well, they will be conducting clinical trial at CPMC in less than two years.

    A British company, GW Pharmaceuticals, has developed a high-CBD strain that it mixes with a high-THC strain to make Sativex, a plant extract formulated for spraying under the tongue that has been approved in Canada and elsewhere to treat neuropathic pain. CBD evidently bolsters the pain-killing effects of THC while moderating its psychoactivity.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 10:20pm

43. In various studies, patients with severe pain have reported getting significantly more relief from Sativex, the mixture, than from GW's high-THC extract.

    With a few notable exceptions the California cannabis samples tested to date have contained only trace amounts of CBD. The first notable exception exception occurred in late February when D.L. saw a spike on a computer-generated graph indicating a high level of CBD in one of the samples provided by Harborside. After some additional testing he confirmed that this strain, produced indoors in San Francisco, contained 4.2% CBD (and 8.9% THC) by weight.

    DeAngelo promptly made arrangements with the grower to rev up production. Buds and clones from the strain of interest should be available at Harborside within months. "It would be immoral to try to hoard the genetic material," says Deangelo. As this story goes off to CounterPunch March 12, a second high-CBD strain has been identified, grown outdoors in Mendocino County. It is a little more than five percent CBD by weight.

    Thus the medical marijuana movement/industry is entering a new stage. Growers will develop strains with higher CBD to THC ratios. Pro-cannabis doctors, who have long awaited high-CBD strains, are already planning rudimentary clinical trials to determine whether and in what ways high-CBD cannabis is beneficial.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 10:20pm

44. Because CBD counters the anxiety induced by THC, a high-CBD strain might prove palatable to many people who dislike the way marijuana makes them feel. High-CBD strains might also enable patients who need megadoses to ingest them while remaining functional. According to Jeffrey Hergenrather, MD, "Patients with certain cancers, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease, seizure disorders... they all need to maintain a higher blood level of cannabinoids than is convenient with our high-THC strains. For them, development of a high-CBD strain could be a life or death matter."

    Whatever the outcome of clinical trials involving CBD, the effort alone -the attempt to produce and evaluate less psychoactive strains of marijuans- will refute the image of stoners paying lip-service to medical use that has tarnished the industry. And if and when the effectiveness of high-CBD cannabis in treating, say, rheumatoid arthritis, can be established, a wave of older Californians will be asking their doctors if cannabis is right for them.

    End quote.

    Have a fine weekend, all.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 10:20pm

45. We've been hearing a lot of criticism of Barack Obama in recent days from pro-Obama corners -- from celebrity investor Warren Buffett, from moderate conservative columnist David Brooks, from one of the Democratic Party's deepest thinkers, William Galston -- all along the same lines. Put aside your plans, announced in your budget, for national health insurance, for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, for effectively abolishing the secret ballot in unionization elections. And, they might have added, for higher taxes on, and a reduction in, their charitable deductions to channel money away from charities and nonprofits and toward the government. Pay attention to the first thing on your platter and the nation's, Buffett and Brooks and Galston say: the financial crisis.

    The answer Obama has given, in advance, is that we can only solve our economic problems by advancing these other programs. But the real answer came from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November: "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."

    None of the issues addressed in the Obama budget was in any way a cause of the financial crisis. We did not have a housing bubble collapse because we don't have a national health insurance program. We don't have toxic waste clogging the balance sheets of the banks and other financial institutions because of carbon emissions. The Bush tax cuts were not a proximate cause of the giant public debt being run up under the Toxic Assets Relief Program or the 2009 stimulus package.

    Moreover, as Galston points out, the New Deal doesn't provide a precedent for the Obama budget. In his first months in office, Franklin Roosevelt concentrated on repairing a financial system that was in much worse shape than ours is today, with most banks closed. Roos

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 10:23pm

46. Roosevelt got most of them open and running again. It was a couple of years later that the programs we remember the New Deal for were passed -- Social Security, the Wagner labor act, higher taxes on high earners. (Well, Roosevelt did sneak in repeal of Prohibition.) Even Roosevelt's first expansion of welfare rolls, at the end of 1933, was abruptly cancelled when the snows melted in spring 1934.

    We don't need more unreality and imagined crisis!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 10:24pm

47. End quote.

    Have a fine weekend, all.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 10:20pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    How do people fare driving trains, 18 wheelers, cars, Exxon oil tankers, and intricate tecnological equipment while puffing away on weed? Yea, let's get more of those responsible citizens out there legally!!!! You got wife kids loved ones you want to sacrifice for the right to smoke weed?

    Get a grip, you can hardly stop them from talking on cell phones or drinking and driving!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 10:30pm

48. Apparently "comanche" has gotten his education on the effects of marijuana from Reefer Madness.

    I don't personally advocate that anyone indulge themselves via imbibing in intoxicants, on the other hand perhaps "comanche" could use a lesson or two via firsthand experience before ranting absurdly as if he were under the influence of something even more intoxicating than the usual illicit substances --i.e. psychological illness, perhaps?

    "Comanche", you are a suitable case for treatment and counseling. I wish you well.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/14/2009 @ 11:05pm

49. Like I said, You got wife kids loved ones you want to sacrifice for the right to smoke weed? Ask cops how they see legalizing it after cleaning up the wrecks!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/15/2009 @ 01:10am

50. Knowing how the leftist love Cuba and Chavez I'm surprised the nation isn't devoting a column to friendly relations with Cuba Obamanation and the Demoncrats want! Here is the friendly response they plan!!!

    "The Interfax news agency has reported that a Russian Air Force chief says Venezuela's president has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers.

    The agency reported that chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev said Saturday that President Hugo Chavez had offered "a whole island with an aerodrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers."

    The agency quoted Zhikharev as saying, "If there is an corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible."

    Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba could be used to host the long-range planes."

    Lets hear it for our new good friends so loved by the nation!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/15/2009 @ 01:19am

51. "Ask cops how they see legalizing it after cleaning up the wrecks!"

    ask the cops in civilized cities like new york, los angeles or san francisco. it is already decriminalized.

    and while you're at it, go ahead and ask the portugese, which already legalized all drugs, and not just weed.

    comanche, i know it's difficult for conservatives to embrace the concept of change, but you need to try a little harder to reach our universe.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/15/2009 @ 10:17am

52. "Enjoy dying of the cancer they have PROVED it causes and its much MORE dangerous than tobacco which is PROVEN!

    Once an idiot always an idiot!"

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/14/2009 @ 6:10pm

    Who are "they"? Why are "they" in disagreement with the rest of the medical community?

    How many tobacco related deaths every year? Cannabis related?

    "Ask cops how they see legalizing it after cleaning up the wrecks!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/15/2009 @ 01:10am

    OK. Done. They want to know WTF you are talking about.

    How many cannabis related traffic accidents can you document, in which the DRIVERS (Yes, some states count drunk passengers as being "alcohol related") WERE NOT under the influence of alcohol or other drugs?

    Final quote:

    "Once an idiot always an idiot!"

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/15/2009 @ 11:48am

53. Unless we do something now, climate shift could be "abrupt or irreversible." A temperature rise of 4 degrees centigrade--which seems increasingly likely--could see southern Europe reduced to a desert and 85% of the Amazon forest lost. I won't go on--the scenarios make me numb.

    Perhaps the funniest article I've seen on the Nation in years.

    I hope no one paid her to post this.

    Posted by antisocialist at 03/15/2009 @ 11:55am

54. Posted by antisocialist at 03/15/2009 @ 11:55am

    You have a bizarre sense of humor, Larry.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/15/2009 @ 12:02pm

55. At least he's spending it HERE instead of in the sands of Iraq like your boy Dubya!

    Posted by snowball666 at 03/15/2009 @ 08:35am

    Any evidence that:

    Hummers and the rest of our combat/support vehicles are made in Iraq or sourced mostly outside the US?

    Tanks, planes, drones, bombs, missiles, etc. procured from non-US vendors?

    Combat troop, support personnel, state & defense dept. staff & contractor salaries are mostly NOT being deposited w/US families & dependents?

    Ne thinks you have a snowball's chance to back up your BS!

    Posted by Happy at 03/15/2009 @ 12:30pm

56. I think we have kicked this dead horse around enough.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/15/2009 @ 1:10pm

57. Mexico's most wanted man – drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera – is one of just 38 people who managed to become new billionaires as much of the rest of the world lost wealth in 2009, according to Forbes magazine.

    Guzman, who built a drug empire for eight years from a Mexican prison before escaping in a laundry cart in 2001, has made his Sinaloa cartel into one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the United States. In the process, he has managed to build franchises in dozens of U.S. cities and trigger a drug war now considered more brutal than the war in Iraq.

    Not bad for a farm boy and career sociopath who operates without the benefit of a close-knit family. Instead, the man known as "El Chapo," or Shorty, heads a loose-knit confederation made up off of gangs he hires away from competitors and incorporates into his cartel, according to the magazine.

    An estimated 35 million people in the U.S. use narcotics or abuse prescription drugs, spending more than $64 billion annually. The Drug Enforcement Agency and other industry experts believe Guzmán, 54, has controlled anywhere from a third to half of the wholesale Mexican drug market over the past eight years, according to Forbes.

    In 2008 alone Guzman's cartel likely grossed 20 percent of the $39 billion earned by Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers off the wholesale drug shipments to the United States. That's the calculation that put him on the Forbes list.

    While the leftist cheer for the legalization of illegal drugs to make their self destruction complete, look how happy and rich they make the drug runners! Maybe you can get him a government contract to supply the nation!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/15/2009 @ 11:27pm

58. Posted by comancheamerican at 03/15/2009

    Uh, RIO...why are the drug runners rich and happy....NOW????

    Posted by Mask at 03/16/2009 @ 10:18am

59. "Environmental Justice"

    God, that is sooooo Whiny Baby Boomer.

    Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 03/16/2009 @ 10:40am

60. Posted by Happy at 03/15/2009 @ 12:30pm

    What about the $9 Billion that was just "lost" from the Baghdad Airport, HAPP?

    Posted by Mask at 03/16/2009 @ 11:53am

61. "While the leftist cheer for the legalization of illegal drugs to make their self destruction complete, look how happy and rich they make the drug runners! Maybe you can get him a government contract to supply the nation!"

    this has to be the dumbest "analysis" of the drug war i have ever encountered.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/16/2009 @ 12:04pm

62. Posted by darladoon at 03/16/2009 @ 12:04pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    From an unemployable Pot-head and Al Gore groupie that really carries a lot of weighted opinionated clout!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/16/2009 @ 12:22pm

63. Posted by comancheamerican at 03/16/2009 @ 12:22pm

    What's your escape plan, RIO?

    Posted by Mask at 03/16/2009 @ 12:46pm

64. Posted by darladoon : "I know it's difficult for conservatives to embrace the concept of change, but you need to try a little harder to reach our universe."

    You can keep your universe where insanity runs rampant.

    Posted by pyeatte at 03/16/2009 @ 12:49pm

65. "From an unemployable Pot-head and Al Gore groupie that really carries a lot of weighted opinionated clout!"

    so, tell us comanche, how is your "analsyis" a good one?

    btw, calling somone a "pot head" is hardly insulting.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/16/2009 @ 1:15pm

66. If something like 97% of climate scientists say that the earth is warming and it is caused by humans, I guess I'll go along with them. As far as I can tell, most of the people who disagree are either the same people who think that humans didn't evolve from lower animals, or people who have pegholed all environmentalists as touchy-feely liberals and will reject any science that supports an environmentalist perspective. I think that there is a significant link between the kind of mentality that believes in "creation science" and the kind of mentality that gives credence to the tiny number of climate scientists who think that there is no anthropogenic global warming.

    Many of these people have a limited technical education, but no familiarity with climate science or the biological sciences, especially the science of biological and physical systems called ecology. If they had a clue as to how complicated and touchy the systems we depend on are, they might be a little more worried.

    Last time I posted on this subject someone called me an Al Gore groupie. I'm not. I've never even seen that movie he made.

    Posted by cdlepthien at 03/16/2009 @ 2:34pm

67. Posted by cdlepthien at 03/16/2009 @ 2:34pm

    Just remind anybody calling you an "Al Gore groupie"...

    who THEY voted for in 2008 and his (not his dopey Veep's) position on GW. Unless it was Chuck Baldwin and even if it was, they've already lost the war.

    Posted by Mask at 03/16/2009 @ 2:39pm

68. Many of these people have a limited technical education, but no familiarity with climate science or the biological sciences, especially the science of biological and physical systems called ecology.

    Posted by cdlepthien

    The above statement reflects the majority of the U.N's IPCC.

    Posted by abell12ct at 03/16/2009 @ 7:54pm

69. btw, calling somone a "pot head" is hardly insulting.

    Posted by darladoon at 03/16/2009 @ 1:15pm

    I believe in treatment for driggies...not jail.

    Darlaloon may be beyond treatment. Too, late...brain is gone.

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/16/2009 @ 8:59pm

70. A new view from a University on Climate....

    MILWAUKEE -- The bitter cold and record snowfalls from two wicked winters are causing people to ask if the global climate is truly changing.

    The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.

    However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down.

    Scientists at the university used a math application known as synchronized chaos and applied it to climate data taken over the past 100 years.

    "Imagine that you have four synchronized swimmers and they are not holding hands and they do their program and everything is fine; now, if they begin to hold hands and hold hands tightly, most likely a slight error will destroy the synchronization. Well, we applied the same analogy to climate," researcher Dr. Anastasios Tsonis said.

    Scientists said that the air and ocean systems of the earth are now showing signs of synchronizing with each other.

    Think ALGORE should shut the studies down and not discuss anything since the "debate" is over? Or is he afraid he will be pointed out the fool and fraud that he is?

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/17/2009 @ 06:28am

71. Posted by YourJomamma at 03/17/2009 @ 06:28am

    I'd say the political debate is over, John.

    Your candidate for the GOP was onboard for GW being real, man-made, and needing addressing. Not ONE (including you) of our local right-wing posters has taken me up on my bet ($1000 if the GOP nominee for 2012 reverses McCain's position), and the "Ain't no such thing" polling number, even by SJCHER's BEST poll, is in the teens.

    Aside from a few ditto-heads and Hannitized....the debate is over.

    Posted by Mask at 03/17/2009 @ 07:30am