Wolfowitz 'Tried to Censor World Bank on Climate Change'

The contemeporary global warming context, that changes in our climate are anthropogenic, is perhaps the greatest fraud in modern human history. The climate change/global warming scheme is structured to ensure the World Bank's foreign nation-building activities not become total losses. The United Nations is almost certainly using the mantra to justify its continued existence through carbon tax programs, promoting governance on a global, one-world scale. It's another fiery hoop that consumers must jump through to ensure that the well-established corporation, and the well-positioned socialist (i.e., Al Gore et al), remain in the black at our common expense. To believe the environment is at stake is naive. We are losing the cause of liberty to smoke and mirrors employed by charlatans. The saving grace of the United States of America is that we, the people, are guaranteed the right to changes governments any time we want. And we will ultimately prevail.

obmaj's initial statement is correct. The suppression of the actual facts surrounding global warming is the real crime. While it may be true that human activity has decimated species, ruined distinct and important ecosystems, caused disease and polluted our atmosphere, I'm afraid that the fact of a warming planet is far beyond our control. It is much more likely, based upon real science, astrophysics and astronomy, that Earth our Sun and our solar system are undergoing changes that have occurred over the millenia, during which periods continents moved and the planet heated and cooled to extremes that radically altered (or killed)most flora and fauna. Unfortunately, the current hysteria on climate change is based upon recorded observations from only a century and a half at most - a blip in Earth history. I do not in any way support the manipulation of humankind for the benefit of the elitist class, but they are delusional if they believe they can survive catastrohpic changes to the environment on Earth by amassing vast amounts of "wealth." In the meantime, we should focus our energies on reducing our consumerism, encouraging population stabilization, ensuring that we do not destroy capacities for food production just to drive bigger vehicles, and change our political system to the extent necessary to enable people of integrity, honesty and vision to become our leaders.

Has anyone ever noticed how much Paul Wolfowitz looks like Richard Nixon?

That neocons mug is so repulsive!

Back in the dark ages before neo-whatevers existed, the Bolsheviks executed those guilty of financial crimes and gave murders and mugger prison terms to mull over their bad behavior.

The theory was that the financial criminals killed and injured far more when they stole the life savings of the workers and pensioners, then the muggers did when they stuck a gun in your back and whispered 'Your money or your life!'

The muggers even gave the victim a choice, something that never happened with Ken Lay and Wolfowitz. They just took your money, ruined your life, and expected your thanks if you showed up at the next shareholders meeting [the one before the bad news hit the headlines].

Yeah, the old-time Pinko-Commies at least knew the difference in scale between the two crimes.

Now that Rove is gone Bush will be open to others for his idiotic policy decisions. Perhaps he would be more open to the global warming concept if it could be spun into a war. Say the "War on Warming". Now I'm sure the gutless kiss-ass generals will go along. The concept would be that we would try to destroy/blow up 1%-2% of the sun. The president would be viewed as a, "bold visionary" by republicans. The defense contractors lead by Halliburton could build trillions of $'s of weapons and they could even send up manned explosives so the Blackwater terror groups could play a part.

The republican slogan could be, "Vote republican for a less bright tomorrow".

A Background Research Paper on Corn Ethanol and Unintended Consequences For California

Prepared by Juliette Anthony, M.A., M.S.
August 2007

Growth of the corn ethanol industry in California is fraught with unintended consequences, none of which are beneficial to the economy or the environment of the state. The consequences include major impacts on our overcommitted water resources, on the price of food, on our air quality and on the financial burden to citizens while private investors profit. Assembly Bill 118 in its present form (a reworking of the defeated Prop. 87), and other promised subsidies for the development and deployment of alternative fuels here in California, will develop a Food for Fuel program, affecting our food prices, our water use, and even aspects of our air quality.

WATER IMPACTS

"Food Grows Where Water Flows," –The billboard message flashes by on Route 5 through California's Central Valley. Water is a precious commodity in California. Our water delivery systems makes growing crops in California's Central Valley possible. The large amounts of water required to produce ethanol competes with agricultural needs and has been overlooked or deliberately ignored by leading proponents of ethanol. Corn ethanol requires 3.7 to 5 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol just in the manufacturing process which does not take into consideration the water needed to grow the corn.. (Full Fuel Cycle Assessment: Well to Tank Energy Inputs, Emissions, and Water Impacts, Prepared for the CEC, p. 6-17) According to BlueFire, a cellulosic ethanol producer, cellulosic ethanol requires 6 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol during the manufacturing process, though the energy output is said to be at least 4-5 times greater than for corn ethanol per gallon [telephone conversation with BlueFire, June 2007]. And the future of cellulosic ethanol is an indeterminate number of years into the future—possibly five, six or more depending upon research and costs.

"The ethanol industry is mining our groundwater," states the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. In several places ethanol plants have been shut down, and some granted only 3 year permits to operate because the groundwater supply has been so depleted. "'Mining water that is closer to the surface could result in dryer landscapes," says Bob Libra, a geologist with Iowa's Department of Natural Resources. 'Some of that stuff has been in place for hundreds of thousands of years. If you take that out of the bank, you don't know when you're going to get it back.'"(Minnesota Environmental Partnership). Many places in California, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, have already sunk down many feet because of groundwater mining. In Iowa and Indiana, The Sierra Club has sued ethanol plants which have caused neighbors to become ill from toxics in the air and water. Surely, the air quality effects of an ethanol plant, if toxic for people, will be toxic for nearby cattle as well. Ethanol plants do not make good neighbors. (The Indiana Sierran-hppt:www.indiana.sierraclub.org/Sierran/03-1/EthanolPlants.asp)

AB118, now before the State Senate, will provide subsidies of 130 million dollars a year from the citizens of California through additional car and boat registration fees to research and develop infrastructure for "alternative fuels." Although the AB118 does not specify corn ethanol, it is currently the only biofuel in the marketplace. Simply by default and timing, it will receive a lion's share of funding. The Governor, while extolling the virtues of a water intensive ethanol industry, promotes new dams and a peripheral canal to deal with our shrinking water supply. The Governor giveth and taketh away.

Perhaps the two most popular myths about corn ethanol are that 1) it is a renewable energy source, and 2) its use as a motor fuel substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions when compared to gasoline…If all the vehicles in California operated on E85 [the Governor and Legislature's policy], the ethanol required would consume 70 percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, but only 13.6 percent of the energy in the fuel would be renewable…" (Contra Costa Times 8/05/07)

Daniel F. Anthrop, Professor Emeritus at San Jose State writes in Ethanol No Panacea For Rising Energy Demand", "It is worth noting that approximately 14 percent of the U.S. corn crop is irrigated and that this irrigated acreage consumes almost 18 million acre-feet per year of water – much of which is overdrafted from the Ogallala aquifer in the Great Plains. To put this water requirement in some perspective, the average annual flow of the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry is only about 14 million acre-feet per year. Moreover, much of this corn acreage in the Great Plains is easily erodable land, and a number of studies have conclusively demonstrated that row crops, such as corn, result in much higher erosion rates than cereal grains or forage crops."

FOOD FOR FUEL POLICY

The potential consequences of growing "Food For Fuel" appear to be intentionally overlooked by the framers and supporters of AB118. Water flowing through the Central Valley enables California to produce "more than half the nation's fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts . . . Due to the vast size of the produce industry, minor problems with the distribution chain . . . can cause [consequences] throughout the nation's food system." as we saw with the e-coli episode in the Salinas Valley last year. (Life in the USA http://www.lifeintheusa.com/food/vegetables.htm)

Almost all of this agriculture is dependent on irrigation. Millions of gallons of water potentially diverted from California farms to ethanol could cause major disruptions in the food supply for the nation, and the move to growing corn, a very water intensive crop, will also add to the pesticide and fossil fuel fertilizer run-off polluting our waterways. Shifting our valuable farmland from vegetables to mono-cropping corn is already happening in Kern County, and could prove devastating to many low income families. This is a world-wide phenomenon which AB118 would only aggravate.

Gwynne Dyer, reporter for The New Zealand Herald, wrote the following on July 10, 2007:

"We are entering a period when three separate factors are converging to drive food prices up. The first is simply demand…the global population is continuing to grow – about an extra Turkey or Vietnam every year – but as Asian economies race ahead, more people in those populous countries are starting to eat meat. The animals will need a great deal of grain, and meeting that demand will require shifting huge amounts grain-growing land from human to animal consumption – so the price of grain and of meat will both go up. …If the price of grain goes up, some of them will starve…the mania for bio-fuels is shifting huge amounts land out of food production…This attraction of biofuels for politicians is obvious: they can claim that they are doing something useful to combat emissions and global warming – although the claims are deeply suspect… The amount of United States farmland devoted to biofuels grew by 48 percent in the past year alone and hardly any new land was brought under the plough to replace the lost food production." (http:www.nzherald.july 10, 2007)

Because the cost of a bushel of corn has doubled since September of 2006, hog and cattle farmers are bringing their animals to market early in efforts to save money on feed. Even though last year's harvest of corn was 10.6 billion bushels, the third largest crop ever, the corn is increasingly transformed into fuel for cars, leaving the farmers short and food prices rising in the supermarkets.

"If all the scores of factories under construction or planned go into operation, fuel will gobble up no less than half of the entire corn harvest by 2008." And "Corn is . . . is a lousy raw material for fuel because producing 10 gallons of ethanol consumes the energy equivalent of about 7 gallons of gasoline, and greenhouse gas reductions are minuscule." (businessweek.com/7/30/2007) This from a conservative business magazine, not an environmentally biased treatise on the definite downsides of corn ethanol.

The first step is to limit the extent of corn ethanol's subsidies. Further planting of fossil fuel intensive fertilized corn fields should be discouraged. Let the Venture Capitalists who are seeking subsidies have the privilege of risking their own funds to research better non-food crop solutions and bring them to market when they are ready. Vinod Khosla claims that "only 49 million acres could (italics are the editor's) supply 139 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2030." (Business Week, July 30, 2007).

If a reporter in The New Zealand Herald and a reporter at Business Week understand that there are real problems with biofuels in general and corn ethanol in particular, why has the California Press only written a few articles about AB118, and its stealth movement through the California Assembly and through two California Senate Committees? The Sierra Club, The Coalition for Clean Air, and The American Lung Association, are all aligned with Vinod Khosla and the oil companies in favor of AB118. This is reminiscent of what happened with MTBE in the late eighties and early nineties when major environmental groups backed the use of MTBE. They all, including Bluewater Network and its spin-off in D.C., the Renewable Energy Action Project (REAP), fought to preserve the oxygenate mandate so that ethanol could move in seamlessly to replace MTBE. MTBE was removed in January of 2007 and replaced by corn ethanol in all the areas of California mandated by the Clean Air Act to use an oxygenate. This includes the San Joaquin and SacramentoValleys, and the Los Angeles Basin down to the Mexican Border.

Only after many wells in California were contaminated, did NRDC and the Sierra Club realize that MTBE was a serious water quality problem and support its removal. We want to avoid a repeat of such an environmental error. Ethanol presents a considerably larger problem than MTBE. The demand for corn for ethanol production already has global effects on food supply. There were riots in June because people were not able to afford corn for tortillas, and the NPR morning news reported on August 9th that countries in Central America were speaking out against President Bush's corn ethanol policy because it is playing havoc with their food supplies.

State Senator Tom McClintock (R) summed it up as follows: "The CARB regulations [to enforce the low carbon fuel standard] will undoubtedly hit Californians hard—but they will hit starving third world populations even harder. Basic foodstuffs are a small portion of the family incomes in affluent nations, but they consume more than half of family earnings in third world countries." (Blog: Citizens for the California Republic, 06-18-07)

The details of the Food for Fuel policy are beautifully delineated in the publication "Rush to Ethanol" from Food and WaterWatch (foodandwaterwatch.org/food/pubs/reports/rush). Mono-cropping, fossil fuel fertilizers, air and water contamination, and the financial detriments to the economy are laid out in no nonsense language, supported by meticulous scientific research. The need to be careful with new cellulosic crops is clearly stated. If not farmed sustainably, cellulosic ethanol crops like switch grass can also wreak havoc with our soil and previously protected land reserves. "Loss of protected acres to energy crop production would be a major setback for water, soil, plant, and wildlife conservation efforts." Cutting down of any forest anywhere in the Globe only increases global climate change, the very thing all these subsidies are supposed to curtail. Increasing sugar imports from Brazil means more rainforest degradation. Burning the forests outside Singapore to plant palm oil trees for biofuel destroyed air quality there for months.

And what of our air quality here in California? Biofuels are not quite as clean as they would have us believe.

NEGATIVE AIR QUALITY IMPACTS

The myth that ethanol is "clean" needs to be dispelled. While the Governor would like us to focus on a Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which makes the use of ethanol "look good" next to gasoline for reduction of the carbon greenhouse gasses in fuel, there are other negative air quality impacts with the use of ethanol—increased VOCs, Nox and ozone. "Overall, the results tend to support that the ozone impact of permeation VOC (volatile organic compounds) relative to CO is overwhelming and significant." Ethanol molecules escape the gas tanks and hoses because they are microscopically small enough to permeate the walls of the tanks and the hoses. (Dongmin Luo, Research Division, CARB, January 2006:"Draft-The Ozone Impact of Permeation VOC relative to Carbon Monoxide).

Ethanol increased NOx by 5%, and for every 18 Degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature, evaporative emissions doubled, according to a presentation at South Coast Air Quality Management District, Oxygenate Issues and Options on June 15, 2006. "As a matter of public health policy, we believe that ARB is obligated to address the full range of possible adverse ozone air quality effects…" said the SCAQMD to the California Air Resources Board in a letter dated June 13, 2007. "Ozone is the prime ingredient of smog in our cities and other areas of the country…When inhaled, even at very low levels, ozone can cause acute respiratory problems, aggravate asthma, . . . impair the body's immune system defenses, making people more susceptible to respiratory illnesses, including bronchitis and pneumonia . . .Ground level ozone interferes with the ability of plants to produce and store food, so that growth, reproduction and overall plant health are compromised" states the Federal EPA on its Fact Sheet for Health and Environmental Effects of Ground level ozone. http://www/epa.gov/ttn/naaqsfin/o3health.html.

While the ARB is required by state law to ensure that control measures do not increase emissions (SB989), ethanol is being used throughout the state while plans for mitigation are underway, but not yet implemented. In truth it could be several more years before these mitigations have jumped through all the enforcement hoops and reach the California consumer. Meanwhile ethanol with its permeation problems is present in our gas tanks. The SCAQMD presentation concluded, "Low level blends of ethanol create excess emissions and air quality impacts." Low level blends are all that is widely available currently and for the foreseeable future in California

FINANCIAL BENEFITS TO INVESTORS

AB118 is Proposition 87 repackaged. The alternative fuels plan in Prop 87 was to be paid for by taxes on profits from oil extracted in California. It was defeated on the November 2006 Ballot. Since the cost will now be paid for by extra fees on the registered owners of cars and boats, the citizens will not be happy when they discover that not only has the Legislature passed what they voted against, but is also making them pay for it. Back in October of 2003, Governor Schwarzenegger promised to repeal the car tax that he inherited from Governor Davis. "I campaigned that I will not raise taxes and I say this again: I will not raise taxes," www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/09/recall.main/index/html Whether it is called a tax or a fee, the citizens of California will pay, and the low-income and disadvantaged will be the hardest hit.

The oil companies fought Proposition 87 vigorously, and with citizen participation successfully overcame the 146 million dollars that Vinod Kohsla, Steven Bing and other ethanol entrepreneurs had invested in this ballot measure. Now the oil companies have joined the ethanol Venture Capitalist group of Vinod Kholsa, Steven Bing and Pacific Ethanol's Koehler Brothers, along with the Sierra Club, Coalition for Clean Air, Union of Concerned Scientists, and NRDC in supporting AB 118. Apparently what the oil companies didn't like in Proposition 87 was that they were going to have to pay the bill. Now that the citizens will pay, the plan is fine. While the press heavily covered Prop 87, there has been almost no coverage of AB118. With Speaker Nunez sponsoring the bill and with all the big environmental groups supporting, legislators are expected to vote positively. The voters, however, may have reservations come election time when they assess the damage to their pocket books, and to their air and water supply.

Very much like the original backers of MTBE, who adamantly ignored the warnings regarding MTBE's propensities to contaminate drinking water, these same people are avoiding the unintended consequences of changing California's crop structure and diverting millions of gallons of water into ethanol plants. They also fail to mention that across the Midwest the Sierra Club and local communities have mounted lawsuits to oppose the building of ethanol processing plants. "Already there are 235 ethanol plants under construction or in planning stages across the county, in addition to 111 operating plants…The problem: There just isn't enough corn to go around. " (Los Angeles Business Journal, 7/09/2007)

The Federal Government is financially propping up this industry from beginning to end. The major agribusinesses, ADM and Cargill, are subsidized to grow corn, the entrepreneurs are given funds to build plants, and the refiners are given 51 cents a gallon for blending ethanol into our gasoline. Now they want California's citizens to add their hard earned money to already well-subsidized private ventures, and then pay more at the pump and supermarket.

A gallon of ethanol is less expensive than gasoline, but we must pay exactly the same amount for it at the pump. The oil companies profit by selling us a gallon of less expensive fuel for the same amount per gallon that we are now paying for gasoline. In addition, we get less gas mileage from that gallon of ethanol, so we have to purchase more gasoline to drive the same number of miles. Everywhere the money is flowing out of our pockets into theirs. And those who will be harmed the most are those who are always harmed the most by corporate welfare, the poorest citizens.

News organizations all over the country are just beginning to put out wake-up calls in their headlines and articles. "Think you're paying more for milk? Well, you are…When milk prices go up it's devastating…People who supplement their grocery budgets with food stamps also are affected", said Tom Shanahan, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Families receive a set amount of money in food stamps and do not receive more when milk or other food prices rise. (IdahoStatesman.com, July 15, 2007) Even Robert J. Samuelson, writing an article Prius Politics for the Washington Post, July 25, 2007, says, "Driven by demand for feed and fuel, corn prices have soared. With food costs increasing, inflation has worsened. The program is mostly an income transfer from consumers to producers and ethanol refiners."

CONCLUSION

Professor Donald F. Anthrop cited above in the Contra Costa Times says it best. "Ethanol is not going to solve this problem, and it is time for the politicians and environmentalists to stop pretending it will… These people need a reality check."

There are alternatives to biofuels if we understand that an alternative source of energy for transportation does not have to be a liquid fuel. Photon International Magazine in their April 2007 issue offered an interesting comparison between the renewable effectiveness and environmental impacts of plug-in hybrid vehicles powered by PV solar panels versus biofuels. Once a PV panel has been installed, it will supply energy for twenty-five or more years with very little maintenance. Any crop that is grown for ethanol requires energy annually, expensive processing and distribution. Why not put PV panels on carport structures on the top open air layer of public garages, with outlets for recharging. Use subsidies for this long lasting low environmental impact fuel rather than for corn ethanol. Specific subsidies for a single PV panel on private homes for hybrid vehicles could also be suggested.

It would be most helpful for as many people as possible to notify their respective Assembly person or State Senator that AB118 and SB210 are not acceptable in their current form, that developing ethanol plants and changing our vegetable and fruit crops into corn will raise prices to levels prohibitive for many people, and that restricting our water usage so that Venture Capitalists can use it for their benefit is not beneficial to the majority of Californians.

Juliette Anthony is an environmental research consultant, former twelve year Board Member of The Coalition for Clean Air, and research consultant on MTBE for Communities for a Better Environment.

Global warming is fine with me. I do everything I can to increase the effects of global warming. It is always the poor and less fortunate that appears to be worried about global warming. What are they worried about?
If the United States continues on this, "War for Any-Reason" path, what kind of country/world will be left. It will be like a bad sci-fi movie. Who wants to live in a world run totally by and for the corporations? I say let speed up the global warming so the bastards that have caused it and their family will be suffering like the poor people.

On this topic I agree with O'reilly and his monkey (Miller), "I'm usually cold anyway, a degree or two warmer sounds nice".

I am in awe of how the whole immune system of our body politic has been numbed, dumbed down and shut down. It happened so quickly and with such compliant consent. We have arrived at a point that it no longer acts to defend our public body against such viral attacks. Sadly, its subverted communication centers now tell the collective body that the invasive and corrupted predators are our friends. As does a cancer, these insidious creatures metastasize and devour the best of our visions, our dreams, our resources and our lives.

Sad enough, the fleecing of America, which started a long time ago, generated these entities which are not interested in America and never made themselves accountable - their ideology being, grab all you can and run, fast, or make yourself unavailable

In plain words, a racket in our good name and Country Good Principles - as simple as that, and the fallout (forever debit) will be on us, the People, not these few delusional elitarians, chased from anywhere on Earth since ever

When a story like this appears on Yahoo, or MSN, or the front page of, say, The Houston Chronicle, then we'll be getting somewhere.

And how many times the media has described Wolfowitz as "BRILLIANT".

The world bank has been a force to cause greater poverty and more government corruption. It can't be fixed. Poor people need health care, education and renewable energy sources they can afford and operate themselves.

A small stipend and a medical school for the brighter students in these poor countries would help develop their own resources.

The important part of this article is not that Wolfowitz suppressed a climate change agenda, it's that insiders at the World Bank were pushing for one. The federal government can only hold this issue back for so long. Change is happening even faster at the regional and state level, spurred by groups like www.ClimateSolutions.org, who helped launch the Mayor's Challenge. Over 500 Mayors have now committed to the guidelines of the Kyoto protocol.

can you spell NEOCON AGENDA

Now that the whole warmie "science" is falling apart, Wolfie's wisdom shines through. Everyone here hang on to your entries to look back on as an indication of your naivety.

This guy was perhaps THE worst choice to head up the World Bank. I am glad they got rid of him, but as I understand it, the whole structure of that organization needs a complete overhaul. No time better than the present.

I agree with pizzdorf. Why should this surprise us??

The "now disgraced" Wolfowitz is still running in the same company that he enables; and, they in turn, cover up his crimes.

These lovers of war and murder, these who suck at the teats of greed and avarice, are the greatest threat to our peace and well-being. Study what they do and say the better to bring them to Justice.

Yawn...Should we really care about anything that either Wolfowitz or the World Bank says or does?

Last night, there was a show called "Lockdown" on cable, showing life at an overcrowded prision in California. Most of the inmates were just passing through, spending a few months for violating parole on petty drug possession raps. The prison that detained them was an inferno of race-inspired warfare, with regular stabbings, etc. In other words, for a very light offense, these men face great peril.

On the other extreme, we have Paul Wolfowitz and his ilk. These men use whatever power and influence they have to suppress evidence of and mute discussion of the greatest threat to all of humanity today. Millions of lives are at stake. Every time Wolfowitz acts to slow down the world response to climate change, perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional lives will be lost due to the stymie.

I think we need to get to the point that this sort of behavior is criminalized. It needds to be acknoweldged as a crime against humanity. In essence, this is supporting a form of slow burn genocide. It is a fact of science that if we continue down the current path millions will die.

I would have no problem with the state giving Wolfowitz and all like him the same treatment as Timothy McVie. In fact, Wolfowitz's crime is far worse, as it is far more reaching, potentially disrupting our entire way of life in addition to killing thousands of citizens.

America is the single greatest threat to world peace.

Islamo-fascists??? BAH!!!

Eco-terroristic corporations have killed more in the last 5 minutes than all the "terrorists" over the last 5 years.

May the revolution be as swift as it is peaceful.

The World Bank's strategy and operations director for sustainable development says, their biggest obsticle to climate change, is the 'political controversary'. The only controversary is, the ignorant and greed motivated neo-cons, who control everything,___ everything___ in our country. They don't want to reduce greenhouse gases, because it's not profitablle. I do believe, that "greed" is the primary sin that will destroy America.

Even with Wolfowitz leaving the WB, these serious structural problems will continue. If you are concerned about the Bank's environmental policies and the effects of their lending on communities around the world, consider coming to Washington, DC from October 19-21 to protest the WB/IMF fall meetings: http://octoberrebellion.org/

For more information on World Bank energy, climate and environment impacts, visit the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network: http://www.seen.org/

No surprise for anyone(again). How long will the US public continue to allow their 'elected' leaders to get away with killing our planet? What will inspire them to act, in order to end this nightmare for all but the few?

The suppression of the information on global warming is just another example of the purpose of the World Bank which is to increase the profits of the multinationals at the expense of the people of the world and the environment.

The World Bank is just another arm of the American corporate agenda of world domination. Their sole purpose is to get other nations in huge amounts of debt so that they then can be forced to cut services to their populations, sell us their resources and labor dirt cheap or be a dumping groung for our toxic wastes and banned chemicals.

It really does not matter who is the head of the WB. The only thing that would benefit the world would be for them to be closed down along with the IMF, another imperialist ploy, and for there to be international grassroots organizations and trade agreements which work to the benefit of the peoples of all Nations.

Mr Wolfowitz's actions as Bush's lieutenant, depict the Bush right wing's war on science, & our planet.

The dangerous manipulations of scientific data used by Bush's team to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has always been apparent--and all indicators show no change in their direction.

Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.

Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.

Contrary to right wing assertions, greenhouse gas reduction measures could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect resulting from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution.

The immeasurable environmental and social destruction from our indifference to carbon pollution and related environmental measures can only worsen if we allow this reckless and unlearned president, guided by special interests--to continue their war on our planet.

I am shocked. The Bush Administration associated with dishonesty? This denial despite factual evidence and more importantly a casual dismissal of an issue that has serious potential consequences for all of humanity clearly illuminates the perverted loyalties of the neo-con Bushites. How can a compassionate human being play Russian Roulette with the future of our entire planet. The elite are prioritizing their money over their own lives! When will the madness stop? We are living in strange times and I have trouble seeing a way out.
KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!!!

Charlie Peters. That may be the best and most informitive post I have read here at Common Dreams on any subject in a long time. Thank you sir.

The planet;s in no danger from us. It's HUMANS that are in danger. We could fire off every nuke and melt the surface of the Earth to shiny glass, and a million years from now life would arise from the muck. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for us to end the potential for life on this planet.

Ending human life on this planet is not the same thing. That'll be MUCH easier.

nice tom2323, very nice!! That will never happen. I hope everyone has obtained a copy of the Cpnstitution. It would seem the governments copy is no longer available. But the reality is what did we really expect from these people in power anyway? If you look back through our own US history, you'll discover sadly that not one civil right was ever freely given to the people by the government. The truth is that people had to die in the face of corporate and goivernment power since the inception of the United States. Freed slaves died on the run in swamps chased by dogs, in their own homes that they had purchased. Women were beaten anbd killed in the streets during the Suffrage movement. In the 1870's and 80's there was a large communist and socialist movement that eventually became the unions. People were agains beaten and killed inthe streets by hired thugs. Those in power would like you to believe this is called civilization. The reality is that we still live by kill or be killed, we just paved over the jungles and called it civilization. It is much akin to putting lipstick on a serial killer and calling him a clown. Can we all recognize that this nation was founded on hatred and bigotry with a touch of slavery and genocide? Until we are willing to make a real sacrifice then our freedoms will be taken away one by one until we return to the roots of capitalism... feudalism.