Comedy is a Dangerous Business

It has been said that the damage done in the name of religion is vast. The Koran and Muslims, the Bible and Christians, have precipitated much of this in our modern society......all morphing into distorted political positions. This intellectual movement over time has given birth to the concept of court jester. Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift, T.S. Elliot, Samuel Clements, Bill Maher, Michael Moore and many others have worn the Jesters Garb.

This piece was written by Michael Moore but heavily edited for space and reading convenience by me.

It has given me an opportunity to rale about our loss of freedoms first in the Patriot Act and later in the subtle nudges that come mostly from conservatives and the wartime nature of our 20th and 21st centuries.

This country has been at war 87% of the time I have been alive and I don't like what has come with it. 

With that said, here is an edited version of Michael Moore's piece re: Bill Maher.

  

Bill Maher is a friend of mine. He stood up for me when I was attacked after my Oscar speech (given on the fourth night of the Iraq War, a war Bill publicly opposed while 70% of the country, including the majority of Democrats in the U.S. Senate, supported it), and I stood up for him when ABC fired him and cancelled his show when he attempted to stop the hysteria and fear-mongering after 9-11

I, for one, am glad there's at least one top comedian who isn't afraid to say the word "capitalism" or give credence to the good of socialism.
You may not agree with Bill on everything. Yet I'm guessing you love it when he goes after the Uterun Police/Protectors of Child Rapists (also known as The Vatican), or when he brilliantly satirizes the Christian Right whicholled much of our politics for the past 33 years. I certainly do.

But when Bill goes after Islam, or crazy people professing to be Muslim, we grow uncomfortable. Why is that? Because when he bravely ridicules and attacks Christian assassins of abortion doctors who cite the Bible as justification for their evil acts, we heartily applaud him. But when he mercilessly stomps on Islamic assassins who cite the Koran, we grow uneasy.

I have, when I'm on Bill's show, told him there are far more examples historically of the death and destruction that Christians have brought to the planet, from the Crusades to the Inquisition to the wiping out of Native Americans to the Holocaust.  Which religion is now doing most of the terrorizing?

Though I would maintain that it is still the Judeo-Christian West whose armies and banks and institutions keep much of the third world under a heavy economic boot, resulting in a lot of hunger, suffering and death,

I can't speak to Bill's drawing skills, but it's safe to say that in the USA he can draw whatever he wants. In fact, other than those murdered abortion doctors, a hundred bombed or ransacked Planned Parenthood clinics and a few people like me, there are not many activists or artists who have to worry about Baptists blowing up their homes.

Sure, I can make a daily list of all the horrible things so-called Christians still do in this country. Rarely, though, do their actions involve decapitation.

1. We have witnessed, since 9/11, Arabs and Muslims in this country undergoing huge amounts of prejudice, bigotry and sometimes outright violence. .

2. Liberals are intensely fed up with these two wars against mostly Muslim populations (not to mention the indiscriminate drone strikes on at least four other nations). And now the party that won the elections last Tuesday would like a war with Iran. An ignorant American public was manipulated with fear and lies to start and maintain the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars -- and that manipulation continues today in order to justify things like the mass spying by the NSA on our entire citizenry.

So we liberals don't want to hear another word about an "Islamic threat" or some non-existent Iranian nukes or... or whatever! We know we're being set up to get behind another war effort, another arms race, another diversion intended to make the point-one-percenters even filthier rich.

NASA Finds Water Loss Greater than Anticipated

NOTE:  This post is taken verbatim from a recent NASA publication.  

A new study by NASA and University of California, Irvine, scientists finds more than 75 percent of the water loss in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin since late 2004 came from underground resources. The extent of groundwater loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United States than previously thought.

This study is the first to quantify the amount that groundwater contributes to the water needs of western states. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal water management agency, the basin has been suffering from prolonged, severe drought since 2000 and has experienced the driest 14-year period in the last hundred years.

The research team used data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission to track changes in the mass of the Colorado River Basin, which are related to changes in water amount on and below the surface. Monthly measurements of the change in water mass from December 2004 to November 2013 revealed the basin lost nearly 53 million acre feet (65 cubic kilometers) of freshwater, almost double the volume of the nation's largest reservoir, Nevada's Lake Mead. More than three-quarters of the total -- about 41 million acre feet (50 cubic kilometers) -- was from groundwater.

The Colorado River Basin (black outline) supplies water to about 40 million people in seven states. Major cities outside the basin (red shading) also use water from the Colorado River.

Image Credit: 

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

"We don't know exactly how much groundwater we have left, so we don't know when we're going to run out," said Stephanie Castle, a water resources specialist at the University of California, Irvine, and the study's lead author. "This is a lot of water to lose. We thought that the picture could be pretty bad, but this was shocking."

Water above ground in the basin's rivers and lakes is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and its losses are documented. Pumping from underground aquifers is regulated by individual states and is often not well documented.

"There's only one way to put together a very large-area study like this, and that is with  satellites," said senior author Jay Famiglietti, senior water cycle scientist at JPL on leave from UC Irvine, where he is an Earth system science professor. "There's just not enough information available from well data to put together a consistent, basin-wide picture."

Famiglietti said GRACE is like having a giant scale in the sky. Within a given region, the change in mass due to rising or falling water reserves influences the strength of the local gravitational attraction. By periodically measuring gravity regionally, GRACE reveals how much a region's water storage changes over time.

The Colorado River is the only major river in the southwestern United States. Its basin supplies water to about 40 million people in seven states, as well as irrigating roughly four million acres of farmland.

"The Colorado River Basin is the water lifeline of the western United States," said Famiglietti. "With Lake Mead at its lowest level ever, we wanted to explore whether the basin, like most other regions around the world, was relying on groundwater to make up for the limited surface-water supply. We found a surprisingly high and long-term reliance on groundwater to bridge the gap between supply and demand."

Famiglietti noted that the rapid depletion rate will compound the problem of short supply by leading to further declines in streamflow in the Colorado River.

"Combined with declining snowpack and population growth, this will likely threaten the long-term ability of the basin to meet its water allocation commitments to the seven basin states and to Mexico," Famiglietti said.

The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, which posted the manuscript online Thursday. Coauthors included other scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado. The research was funded by NASA and the University of California.

For more information on NASA's GRACE satellite mission, see:

http://www.nasa.gov/grace

and

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace

GRACE is a joint mission with the German Aerospace Center and the German Research Center for Geosciences, in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin. JPL developed the GRACE spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

To learn more about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

-end-

New Mine Waste Coming to Jerome, Arizona

The history of mining in Jerome Arizona has a checkered past.  Millions of dollars were earned by the mining companies and some of the towns (at least in Arizona) received a public building or two.  But the destruction of people and the environment carried a horrible toll.  

An open pit with a head frame half hidden behind shrubbery.
 Head frames were used to lower and raise miners from the
 88 miles of below-ground tunnels.

Myths, legends and a few factual stories have survived about the brothels, legendary madams, some of the saloons and epic fist and gun fights.  What is never questioned is why nothing has grown for sixty years on these piles of waste.

Mines in Jerome ceased operation in 1953.  The scale of these
 waste "layers" can be determined by the apparent size of
the 2-story houses at the lower right of the photograph above.

Despite airborne pollution (toxic dust) and ground water toxicity due to 60 years of rainfall percolating through these piles, mining may begin again in West Jerome .

NOTHING has grown on this waste material in 60 years.

If Cornerstone Metals, Inc. indeed comes to Jerome it may well find a mixed reception.

Price Will Provide Solution to Water Resources

I remember the surprise one day when I found that the local Safeway in Cottonwood was selling gallon jugs of water for less than it was being sold in Cleveland, OH (bottled, of course, in New York).

About that time I read Charles Bowden's Killing the Hidden Waters and realized I wasn't crazy...at least there was one other person thinking as I was.

Water is a diminishing resource and should be taxed or priced as such.

The small town of Clarkdale, Arizona, has restructured its water rates and found that usage dropped by 50%.

Growing population in the state is part of the problem and, candidly, I've thought endlessly for a solution of how one would control population in Arizona.

Part of the problem will have to rest on price or rate structure...not a popular solution these days.

Tax water use to a level that prohibits lush lawns in Phoenix, tax it to a level that prohibits economical establishment of cotton farms in southern parts of the state, tax it to the extent that makes stock/stock tanks uneconomical, tax it so you question flushing the toilet every time you pee.

Charge enough so that makes an 8,000 gallon swimming pool in Phoenix a true luxury

.

The first year or two I was out here, water wasn't an issue.  I've noticed, increasingly, that one water issue or another is becoming a factor in mining or, less so, the weather. 

Realistically, a water inventory for the state needs to be established and maybe the results will point the way to a solution.

Skies Remain Dangerously Blue

Jerome is a small town . . . its population somewhere under 500 . . . and it's forms of communication with its residents  borders on colloquial.  A sign in the post office asked residents to please conserve water because the overflow from storage tanks was running only intermittently.  When I drove past yesterday the overflow was dry.

Jerome is an old copper mining community that once boasted a population of 15,000.  With a current population of only 400-plus
the town is experiencing the initial indications of a water crisis.

Jerome's water comes from an aquifer beneath Cleopatra Hill, captured in 3 water storage tanks and gravity fed to the town below.  The aquifer is replenished by precipitation.

In the last 6 weeks there has been about 1/8 inch of rain, hardly enough to reach the aquifer let alone replenish it.  As I've said in previous posts, if you want to see what the desert will support, "Just look out your backdoor."  It isn't much, yet the tree planting, car washing, and yard/garden watering go unabated.

This on 3 - 10 inches of rain annually.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly of Water Wars

There ain't much water in the desert, by definition.  What little there is, its use is plagued with confusion and mistrust.  Let's take a look at some of these . . . 

1. The Good: Everyone in Arizona currently has sufficient water to care for yards, cars, and swimming pools.  They may not in the future but, what the hell, the future is uncertain.

2. The Bad: A piece in the Verde Independent recently characterized the relationship between several northern Arizona communities over a decade long study by the U S Geological Survey groundwater model as "evolving", filled with the confusing terms of "collaboration", "acrimony", and the unwillingness of various parties of the Water Advisory Committee to meet in something other than a hostile environment.

3. The Ugly:  Local rancher, Andy Groseta, has created a gravel diversion dam across the Verde River blocking nearly 99% of the river's flow.  Why? Because he can under "first rights" fill his ditch system and because there's a buck to be made.  It's called greed . . . at least in some circles and, in others, called stupid.  The river always wins!

2011 version of Cottonwood Diversion Dam

2013 version of Cottonwood Diversion Dam. Photo: Bill Regner.

Arizona Mine Threatens North America’s Only Jaguar

from Wildlife Promise
0 1/3/2013 // Nic Callero// Clean Water Act, endangered species, endangered species act,Endangered Species Coalition, Global Warming, jaguars, mining, Pacific Northwest, Pebble Mine, pollution, rosemont mine, water pollution,Wildlife, Wildlife Watch

There is only one Jaguar in the entire United States, which explains why it took sportsman Jack Childs five years using ten different motion sensor trail cameras to get a single picture of one of the most powerful cats in the entire world. Jack initially spotted the cat on a hunting trip.




Flickr photo by Jerry Oldenettel.Jaguars are the third largest species of cat after lions and tigers and are the largest species of cat in the western hemisphere. They used to call the western Unites States home, but as human development encroached on their habitat they migrated primarily to the uninhabited deserts of South America. That is until now, as Jack Child’s photo proves that one brave young male Jaguar adorned with black rosettes is back to re-claim his American territory.

The return of this Jaguar to its previous U.S. habitat is somewhat of perfect timing. After years of lawsuits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a plan to recover the endangered species to its native North American terrain. FWS proposed designating 838,232 acres as critical jaguar habitat—covering four stretches of mountains in southeastern Arizona, a section of the Peloncillo Mountains on the Arizona–New Mexico border, and a tiny piece of New Mexico’s San Luis Mountains.

Despite this critically important step forward there still exists a potentially frightening roadblock to the Jaguar recovery. Not too far from where Jack Childs photo was taken and smack dab in the middle of the recently designated “critical Jaguar habitat” is a pending proposal to develop a large scale copper mine.

Rosemont, the local subsidiary of a Canadian mining corporation, is requesting permits to dig a mile-wide, half-mile deep pit and dump waste rock and tailings on more than 3,000 acres of National Forest land.

In addition to threatening the recovery of the Jaguar other issues with the mine proposal already highlighted by EPA, DEQ and the Forest Service include: Serious impacts to drinking water to local residents, potential violations to Arizona aquifer water quality standards and the mine is expected to damage historic and cultural sites from the massive pits dug to extract the minerals.



Utah mine similar to Rosemont Mine proposed in Arizona- photo EarthworksToday’s industrial-strength mines involve the blasting, excavating, and crushing of thousands of acres of land and the use of huge quantities of toxic chemicals such as cyanide and sulfuric acid. Moreover, hardrock mines are notorious for polluting adjacent streams, wetlands, and groundwater.

In this dry arid environment where water is arguably more precious than any metal, Rosemont Copper is proposing to dump untreated mining waste on 10–15 miles of streams and desert springs.

If you care about clean water and responsible energy development, and if you care about helping the endangered jaguar recover to its native North American range, please speak up today and ask the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to prevent mining companies such as Rosemont Copper from endangering our fish, wildlife, and communities with industrial pollution.

Let’s give this magnificent jaguar a fighting chance!

An Ignorant Attitude

The use of water for many in the Southwest elicits a head in the sand, nearly schizophrenic, reaction from some people.   In the face of naturally occurring water scarcity aggravated by global warming [see Krugman comment, below] there is sentiment that all sectors of the environment are the same.

. The facts, however, bring us back to reality.

The Verde River has toxic waste emptied 
into it at many points along its flow through 
Arizona.

Living conditions in the desert are different than the conditions of living in the Midwest. Concessions must be made for a desert environment where precipitation is below 12 in. per year, water resources that are being over-used, and struggling with a high component of toxic waste.

As a point of reference, the Ogalalla Aquifer in the Midwest forces water upward to within 2 ft. of the surface. It is one of the key reasons for the veto of the Keystone Pipeline and a resource that distinguishes the Midwest environment from that of the Southwest.

A common response from residents of Arizona :

"Yikes! Thanks for speaking up on this, Katie! Just the idea of looking at water as a COMMODITY scares the beejeezus out of me... and i agree, taxing the shit out of those of us who have gardens just seems so wrong. I agree that wasting water is bad, and i try to collect rainwater to water my garden, but for fruit trees and other trees, there's usually not enough. This is a huge issue. Clarkdale doesn't want anybody to water anything so they can continue to grow their population...."

In other words, "C'mon, guys, all I want are a few fruit trees. It's not so bad...I use rainwater for my other plants."

The presence of rivers often gives people the idea that
water is plentiful.

Our "Yikes!" comment continues. . . for "those who can afford to continue watering, the price of water won't matter. So once again, the poorer will suffer... the rich will have their lawns and pools, the poor will be robbed of growing decent food. And yes, there are just too damn many people already for sustainability."

In the column, "This Tribal Nation," by Paul Krugman in the NY Times:". . .having a college degree didn’t appear to make one any more open to what scientists have to say (on global warming). On the contrary, better-educated were more skeptical of modern climate science than their less educated brethren."

Water issues are not social issues, hobby farms and ranches excluded. The availability of water for non-essential uses simply subtracts from the amount that will be available for essential ones in the future.

When Major Rivers Run Low

from the LaCrossTribune.com

The Army Corps of Engineers on Friday began reducing the flow from a Missouri River reservoir, a move expected to worsen low-water conditions on the Mississippi River and potentially bring barge traffic to a halt within weeks.

The Missouri flows into the Mississippi around a bend just north of St. Louis. One result of this year's drought, the worst in decades, has been a big drop in water levels on both rivers.

The corps announced earlier this month that it would reduce the outflow from the Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, S.D., to protect the upper Missouri River basin. That drew an outcry from political leaders and businesses downstream, who warned that allowing the Mississippi to drop more could have devastating economic consequences.

Corps spokeswoman Monique Farmer told The Associated Press on Friday that the reduction began as scheduled that morning. By midday, the flow that had started at 37,500 cubic feet per second had been cut to 35,500 cubic feet per second.

Farmer said plans call for a gradual reduction down to 12,000 cubic feet per second by Dec. 11 because of the drought.

Florence Loses Her Water -- Part 2

Fracking Florence for Copper

Curis Resources is using a controversial "hydraulic fracturing" process, otherwise known as fracking, to obtain copper in an electro-deposition mining operation in a largely residential area of Florence, Arizona. (see previous post)  The fracking process jeopardizes the potability of Florence's water supply.  Although Curis claims that the sulfuric acid/water solution used to dissolve copper is no stronger than vinegar, I'd challenge Curis executives to pour it over their holiday salads.  

Curis Resources Florence Copper Project will use a fracking 

process which has been shown to create misery and severe

 health concerns for nearby residents.

Among the list of players, below, the first two are principals in this drama...the last three are prophetic icons of what may occur if the promises of safety made by Curis Resources go awry. 

Curis Resources Ltd., a Canadian company and subsidiary of Hunter Dickinson Inc., with operations in the United States. The firm is beginning an in-situ copper mining process that entails injecting a water/sulfuric acid mixture into a copper ore body and extracting the mixture through an otherwise pure aquifer. First, however, the ore is pulverized or fracked to make it more available to the acid solution.

 

Florence, Arizona, a quiet small town known for ranching and farming and on the verge of development that would make it as large as Tucson. Florence uses the aquifer through which Curis Resources is drilling/fracking.

_______________________

Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson, has been out slightly over 50 years.  First published in September, 1962, the book created a sea-change in the ecological infra-structure of America.

Orion Magazine, an eclectic publication with a subtitle of “NATURE / CULTURE / PLACE” used its September/October issue as a loose celebration of Rachel Carson, broad environmental issues, and commentary on the relationship between people, corporations, and their relation to the environment.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon off-shore drilling platform had an unanticipated blowout killing 11 people and subsequently paid the largest fine of its type in US history.

Where will this situation end?  Despite all good intentions, Florence will get fracked, all for a $2.50 / lb. metal.

Florence Loses Her Water

Curis Resources is in the process of exploiting a major copper discovery within a residential area of Florence, Arizona.  The mining company plans to do this with a controversial "in-situ" process that may destroy potability of the aquifer that supplies water to this major community of Arizona.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality granted Curis a permit to inject "billions of pounds of sulfuric acid into the subsurface in close proximity to an aquifer that supplies drinking water wells presently servicing approximately 83,000 people, and that will ultimately supply drinking water to thousands of more residents of a master-planned residential subdivision..."

The facts are straight forward; the implications, less so.

Curis Florence Copper Mine Project "in-situ" mine site.
 Curis employee inspects wellheads that inject "recovery 
solution" (sulfuric acid) and retrieve "copper-bearing" 
solution.

As claimed by Florence residents, "...uranium  mining companies using similar extraction methods in Texas, Colorado and other states have never been able to restore the aquifer to pre-mining conditions....There is no enforceable backup plan to save our water aquifer if it is damaged or destroyed and, if the company goes bankrupt, there is no way to get our water back."

Curis employee explains that Curis' mining payroll will 

benefit Florence residents.  Curis will gain copper and the

city of Florence will lose it's water.  

The "Florence Copper" mine project might be more palatable to residents if the activity of the mining company was held, not to design specifications, but to performance specifications.  In other words, if drilling specifications were set out in such terms as, 1. we plan to drill in such a way as not to harm the aquifer or, 2. we will re-mediate any damage we cause. Instead, representations of the well are shown below.

 Probable arrangement of injection/retrieval wells.

Mining activity was triggered when copper reached $2.50/lb. The question is whether copper is worth more than water?

Where Water Meets Sun

This photo of a remarkable project in India was recently sent to me by Richard M. Hileman, a Facebook friend who obtained it from Occupy Wall St. It came with his comment, "This would be good for Arizona."

This solar panel laid on the vast stretches of agricultural channels 

in Gujarat India generates 1 Megawatt of electricity per km and 

prevents evaporation of 1 crore (10,000,000) liters of water 

every year.

While it might prove impractical for the mountainous regions of northern Arizona, it would seem a workable solution for clean power generation and water distribution in the southern part of the state which has higher proportion of largely flat land.

The concept would particularly suit irrigation projects and diversion canals which are already level and suffer high levels of water loss due to evaporation.

Has the Aquifer Run Dry?

In a recent news note in the VerdeNews.com, Tom Whitmer of Cottonwood, Arizona, had been nominated for a position on the Technical Advisory Committee with the Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee.

Photos taken from verdenews.com

His nomination was questioned by Doug Von Gaussig because Mr. Whitmer serves on the board of that organization and the conflict of interest was all too apparent . . . especially with respect to an appointee who would, in effect, report to himself.


I congratulate Mr Von Gaussig whose foresight has otherwise addressed many of his communities difficult problems.


I would like to see either principal in this local scuffle, begin to answer Jerome, Arizona's, water difficulties.
  
Here in this ex-mining, tourist town we drink from an aquifer via a couple of large storage tanks.  But the overflow from these tanks has stopped...which means that 1.) the tanks aren't full or 2.) the aquifer has stopped charging the tanks. 


We've had little rain, the Verde River is at record lows and a Jerome town council member is talking about the installation of water meters.  What if there just ain't any water?

Which Will Win. . . Water or Uranium

You just know it will be uranium because it's worth more...

"Washington’s decision to bar new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and other federal policies on energy and resource issues," says the Casa Grande Dispatch, "are barriers holding back Arizona and its residents from prosperity," Gov. Jan Brewer told a congressional hearing Friday.

"Further", the Republican governor said, "the January decision by the Obama administration to block new uranium mining near the national park deprives a rural area of needed jobs and ignores that there are safeguards that would protect the environment. She also criticized federal policies and regulatory actions involving forest management and power plant emissions."

"Unlike in decades past when the federal government and the state partnered on dam and aqueduct projects, use of natural resources is at risk due to red tape and overregulation from Washington, Brewer said."

“We all love Arizona. We all treasure the Grand Canyon. We all support clean water and clear skies,” Brewer said. “But Westerners need a federal government that will work with us to achieve our shared goals of a strong economy and a sound environment.”

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the 20-year prohibition that covers more than 1 million acres rich in high-grade uranium ore reserves in the region of the Grand Canyon. Uranium is used in nuclear power plants."

"Salazar said he took the action to protect the Grand Canyon, which he called a natural treasure."


Clever...if she had said "Stop the mining",  her reason would have been the natural requirements of the Grand Canyon...had she said, "Go for the water...," her excuse would have been jobs.  


Gov. Brewer ought to swallow her tongue and make up her mind.

A Canary in the Mine

Not a drop of water that can be imagined.  Not even a trickle of a seasonal or intermittent  stream that might provide water.  Y'know, the kind on topo maps that are designated with dashed blue lines.

Water in Arizona is scarce, often a matter of life or death. 

However, we read this.... 

"Ohio will soon be in the business of selling water to industry throughout shale-gas regions," a blogger claims.  Speaking of native amphibians of the Ohio River watershed, this blogger continues with the thought, "let's not forget who resides in that water."

"Amphibians are the canaries in the aquatic 'coal-mines.'  Their health should be important to us, as they are bio indicators for our future.  We should all be thinking about this a little more," she continues.

If the supply of water in the Ohio River is being questioned because mining operations require water, what solution do we have in Arizona where mining companies are tapping underground aquifers?  Just a thought . . . . .