About Me

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For me it is All About Being of Service & Living the Life of the Give-Away....

Being Mindful of those who are unable to speak for themselves; our Non-Two Legged Relations and the Future Generations.

It's about walking on the Canka Luta Waste Behind the Cannunpa and the ceremonies.

It's about Mindfulness and Respect. It's about Honesty and owning up to my foibles.

It's about: Mi Takuye Oyacin

Monday, November 24, 2014

CA Water Shortage Maps

These Maps of California's Water Shortage Are Terrifying


| Thu Oct. 30, 2014 5:00 AM EDT
Images by J.T. Reager, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, from "The Global Groundwater Crisis," Nature Climate Change, November 2014, by James S. Famiglietti
















Just how bad is California's water shortage? Really, really bad, according to these new maps, which represent groundwater withdrawals in California during the first three years of the state's ongoing and epochal drought:
The maps come from a new paper in Nature Climate Change by NASA water scientist James Famiglietti. "California's Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 cubic kilometers of total water per year since 2011," he writes. That's "more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually—over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley."
Famiglietti uses satellite data to measure how much water people are sucking out of the globe's aquifers, and summarized his research in his new paper.
More than 2 billion people rely on water pumped from aquifers as their primary water source, Famiglietti writes. Known as groundwater (as opposed to surface water, the stuff that settles in lakes and flows in streams and rivers), it's also the source of at least half the irrigation water we rely on to grow our food. When drought hits, of course, farmers rely on groundwater even more, because less rain and snow means less water flowing above ground.
The lesson Famiglietti draws from satellite data is chilling: "Groundwater is being pumped at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished, so that many of the largest aquifers on most continents are being mined, their precious contents never to be returned."
The Central Valley boasts some of the globe's fastest-depleting aquifers—but by no means the fastest overall. Indeed, it has a rival here in the United States. The below graphic represents depletion rates at some of the globe's largest aquifers, nearly all of which Famiglietti notes, "underlie the world's great agricultural regions and are primarily responsible for their high productivity."
The navy-blue line represents the Ogallala aquifer—a magnificent water resourcenow being sucked dry to grow corn in the US high plains. Note that it has quietly dropped nearly as much as the Central Valley's aquifers (yellow line) over the past decade. The plunging light-blue line represents the falling water table in Punjab, India's breadbasket and the main site of that irrigation-intensive agricultural "miracle" known as the Green Revolution, which industrialized the region's farm fields starting in the 1960s. The light-green line represents China's key growing region, the north plain. Its relatively gentle fall may look comforting, but the water table there has been dropping steadily for years.
All of this is happening with very little forethought or regulation. Unlike underground oil, underground water draws very little research on how much is actually there. We know we're siphoning it away faster than it can be replaced, but we have little idea of how long we can keep doing so, Famiglietti writes. He adds, though, that if current trends hold, "groundwater supplies in some major aquifers will be depleted in a matter of decades." As for regulation, it's minimal across the globe. In most places, he writes, there's a "veritable groundwater 'free for all': property owners who can afford to drill wells generally have unlimited access to groundwater."
And the more we pump, the worse things get. As water tables drop, wells have to go deeper into the earth, increasing pumping costs. What's left tends to be high in salts, which inhibit crop yields and can eventually cause soil to lose productivity altogether. Eventually, "inequity issues arise because only the relatively wealthy can bear the expense of digging deeper wells, paying greater energy costs to pump groundwater from increased depths and treating the lower-quality water that is often found deeper within aquifers," Famiglietti writes—a situation already playing out in California's Central Valley, where some low-income residents have seen their wells go dry. In a reporting trip to the southern part of the Central Valley this past summer, I saw salt-caked groves with wan, suffering almond trees—the result of irrigation with salty water pumped from deep in the aquifer.
All of this is taking place in a scenario of rapid climate change and steady population growth—so we can expect steeper droughts and more demand for water. Famiglietti's piece ends with a set of recommendations for bringing the situation under control: Essentially, let's carefully measure the globe's groundwater and treat it like a precious resource, not a delicious milkshake to casually suck down to the dregs. In the meantime, Famiglietti warns, "further declines in groundwater availability may well trigger more civil uprising and international violent conflict in the already water-stressed regions of the world, and new conflict in others."

California's Water (or Lack Thereof)

Let’s Stop Calling It a Drought

The Crisis Over California’s Water

by JOSHUA FRANK
The following article appeared last August in the CounterPunch print edition, Volume 21, Number 7.
“Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.”
– Mark Twain
It doesn’t take long once you’ve left the greater Los Angeles area, away from all the lush lawns, water features, green parkways and manicured foliage to see that California is in the midsts of a real, and potentially deadly water crisis. Acres and acres of abandoned farms, dry lake beds, empty reservoirs—the water is simply no longer there and likely won’t ever be back.
What’s happening here in California is far more than a ‘severe drought’ as the media has dubbed the situation. The word ‘drought’ gives the impression that this is all short-lived, an inconvenience we have to deal with for a little while. But the lack of water isn’t temporary, it’s the new norm. California’s ecology as some 38 million residents know it is forever changing—and climate change is the culprit. At least that’s the prognosis a few well-respected climatologists have been saying for the last two decades, and their predictions have not only been accurate, they’ve been conservative in their estimates.
UC Santa Cruz Professor Lisa Sloan co-authored a 2004 report in which she and her colleague Jacob Sewall predicted the melting of the Arctic ice shelf would cause a decrease in precipitation in California and hence a severe drought. The Arctic melting, they claimed, would warp the offshore jet stream in the Pacific Ocean. Not only have their models proved correct, Prof. Sloan recently told Joe Romm of ThinkProgress she believes “the actual situation in the next few decades could be even more dire” than their study suggested.
As they anticipated ten years ago, the jet stream has indeed shifted, essentially pushing winter storms up north and out of California. As a result, snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas, which feeds water to most of Southern California and the agricultural operators of the Central Valley, have all but disappeared. Winters are drier and springs are no longer wet, which means when the warm summer months roll around there’s no water to be cultivated.
The Los Angeles basin is a region that has long relied on snowmelt from mountains hundreds of miles away to feed its insatiable appetite for development, but that resource is rapidly evaporating. It is, perhaps, a just irony for the water thieves of Southern California that their wells are finally running dry. Prudence and restraint in water usage will soon be forced upon those who value the extravagant over the practical. It’s the new way of the West as climate change’s many impacts come to fruition.
Not that you’d notice much of this new reality as you travel L.A.’s bustling streets. Pools in the San Fernando Valley remain full, while tanned Californians wash their prized vehicles in the streets and soak their green lawns in the evenings. A $500 fine can be handed out to residents who don’t abide by the outdoor watering restrictions now in place, but I’ve yet to see any water cops patrolling neighborhoods for water wasters. In fact, in Long Beach, where I live, water managers have actually admitted they aren’t planning to write any tickets. “We don’t really intend to issue any fines, at least right now,” said Matthew Veeh of the Long Beach Water Department.
Meanwhile up in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown has called on all those living in the state to reduce their water use by 20 percent. That’s almost one percentage point for every California community that is at risk of running out of water by the end of the year. Gov. Brown’s efforts to conserve water have fallen on deaf ears. A report issued in July by state regulators shows a one percent increase in water consumption across the state over the past 12 months, with the biggest increase occurring in Southern California’s coastal communities.
“Not everybody in California understands how bad this drought is…and how bad it could be,” said State Water Resources Water Control Board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus when the report was first released.  “There are communities in danger of running out of water all over the state.”
Perhaps there is a reason why people don’t understand how bad the water crisis really is—they’re daily lives have yet to be impacted. Unless the winter and spring of 2015 bring drenching rains, California only has 12-18 months of reserves left. Even the most optimistic of forecasts show a rapid decline in water reserves in the state in the decades to come. To put it in perspective, California hasn’t seen this drastic of a decline in rainfall since the mid-1500s.
“This is a real emergency that requires a real emergency response,” argues Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “If Southern California does not step up and conserve its water, and if the drought continues on its epic course, there is nothing more that our water managers can do for us. Water availability in Southern California would be drastically reduced. With those reductions, we should expect skyrocketing water, food and energy prices, as well as the demise of agriculture.”
While it’s clear that the decline in the state’s water reserves will have a very real economic and day-to-day impact on Californians in the near future, it’s also having an inexorable and devastating effect on the environment.
***
The distinctive, twisted trees of Joshua Tree National Park are dying. The high desert is becoming even hotter and drier than normal, dropping nearly 2 inches from its average of just over 4.5 inches of annual rainfall. The result: younger Joshua trees, which grow at a snail’s pace of around 3 inches per year, are perishing before they reach a foot in height. Their vanishing is a strong indicator that the peculiar trees of the park will not be replenished once they grow old and die.
After analyzing national climate data The Desert Sun reported, “[In] places from Palm Springs to Tucson, [we] found that average monthly temperatures were 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter during the past 20 years as compared to the average before 1960.”
This increase in temperatures and the decrease in yearly rainfall are transforming the landscape and vegetation of California. Sadly Joshua trees aren’t the only native plants having a rough time surviving the changing climate. Pinyon pines, junipers and other species are being killed by beetle infestations as winters become more mild. Writes Ian James in The Desert Sun, “Researchers have confirmed that many species of trees and shrubs are gradually moving uphill in the Santa Rosa Mountains, and in Death Valley, photographs taken decades apart have captured a stunning shift as the endangered dune grass has been vanishing, leaving bare wind rippled sand dunes.”
Plants aren’t the only living organisms being dealt a losing hand. “[California’s] Native fishes and the ecosystems that support them are incredibly vulnerable to drought,” Peter Moyle, a professor at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, noted at a drought summit in Sacramento last fall. “There are currently 37 species of fish on the endangered species list in California—and there is every sign that that number will increase.”
Of those species, some eighty percent won’t survive if the trend continues. Scientists have also attributed the decline in tricolored blackbirds to the drought, which are also imperiled by development and pesticide use.
Salmon runs, however, may be taking the brunt of the drought. According to to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, coho salmon may go extinct south of the Golden Gate straight in San Francisco if the rains don’t come quick. As environmental group Defenders of Wildlife notes, “All of the creeks between the Golden Gate and Monterey Bay are blocked by sandbars because of lack of rain, making it impossible for salmon to get to their native streams and breed. If critically endangered salmon do not get to their range to spawn this year, they could go extinct. This possible collapse of the salmon fishery is bad news for salmon fishermen and North Coast communities. California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually and about half that much in economic activity and jobs in Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon.”
And it’s not just the salmon fisheries that may dry up, so too may the real economic backbone of California: agriculture.
***
If you purchased a bundle of fresh fruits or vegetables in the U.S. recently, there’s nearly a 50 percent chance they were grown in California. And while we’ve become accustomed to paying very little for such goods compared to other Western countries, that may soon change.
A study released in July by the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California reported the ag industry in California in the first six months of 2014 has lost $2.2 billion and nearly 4% of all farm jobs—some 17,000 workers. As we’re only three years into what many believe is just the beginning of the crisis, those numbers are sure to increase.
“California’s agricultural economy overall is doing remark- ably well, thanks mostly to groundwater reserves,” said Jay Lund, who co-authored the study and directs the Center for Watershed Sciences. “But we expect substantial local and regional economic and employment impacts. We need to treat that groundwater well so it will be there for future droughts.”
The pumping of groundwater, which is being treated as an endless and bountiful resource, may be making up for recent water loss, but for how long remains to be seen. California is the only state in the country that does not have a framework for groundwater management.
“We have to do a better job of managing groundwater basins to secure the future of agriculture in California,” said Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “That’s why we’ve developed the California Water Action Plan and a proposal for local, sustainable groundwater management.” Currently Gov. Brown’s administration has allocated $618.7 million to fund the Water Action Plan for 2014-2015.
Nonetheless, without significant rainfall, groundwater will not be replenished, and the state’s agribusiness and the nation’s consumers will most certainly be hit with the consequences.
Rigid conservation and appropriate resource management may act as a bandaid for California’s water crisis, but if climate models remain accurate, the melting of Arctic ice will continue to have a severe impact on the Pacific jet stream, weakening winter storm activity in the state.
It’s a precarious situation, not only for millions of people and the nation’s largest state economy—but it could be the death knell for much of California’s remaining wildlife and iconic beauty as well.
JOSHUA FRANK is managing editor of CounterPunch. He is author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland and Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, both published by AK Press. He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter@brickburner

The New "F" Word



Heard of Flupyradifurone? We call it the new "F" word. This virtually unpronounceable new pesticide is about to get the green light in Canada -- and it's more bad news for bees. Help change Canada's "kill bees first, ask questions later" approach to regulating pesticides by submitting a comment today: http://action2.davidsuzuki.org/bees


Ban the new "F"-word

Thanks for taking action to protect the bees, birds and butterflies from potentially harmful pesticides like Flupyradifurone. The period for making comments about what we are calling the "new F-word" has closed.
Thanks to more than 100,000 concerned Canadians that submitted comments, we are hopeful that the federal government will err on the side of caution and not approve this pesticide.
Take action now to #SavetheBees!

Friday, November 21, 2014

You Call Me a "Liberal" As If It Were a Bad Thing



Conservatives:
You oppose Everything that gives help, Every Fix, Every expenditure for the Good of the Whole.

Obviously you have no idea that You are a part of the whole and in the long run all of these take-aways will also affect you.  

So I ask you: What are you going to do when there is Nothing left, not even for you? 
When you have no Social Security? 
No medicare or health care? 
When you can no longer afford your basic medications? 
No healthy or natural foods? 
No clean water to drink? 
No clean air to breathe? 
When the government/NSA spies on you? 
When the police abuse you on a routine traffic stop? 
When you are not allowed to vote because your D.L. has expired and you have no other form of "legal" I.D.? 
When you have no basic Human/Civil rights?
Whatever will you do? Who will you blame?

Will you be honest and blame yourselves? Because, after all, You are the ones who voted for these take-aways, not us "Flaming Commie Liberals".

You obviously forget (or are you too greedy to care) that a take-away is NEVER returned, and you are going to be as Big of a Loser as those of us you self-righteously believe you are taking away from.




Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Keystone & the Senate: Hell Frozen Over


Liked · 2 hrs · 
 

BREAKING: The Keystone XL approval bill just failed in the United States Senate. Thank you to the thousands of Sierra Club members and supporters who sent emails and made calls to urge their senators to vote against this bill!

(Thanks for sharing, C-SPAN)

DEAD Planet




Across the continent First Nations are uniting to defend SacredWater and defeat extreme energy projects like the Keystone XL.

From May 18- June 10, 2014, the Lakota Tour of Resistance will be embarking on a historic journey to the North to meet with Indigenous communities and Nations that are also resisting extractive industries.

This tour is being coordinated with Owe Aku and the grassroots Indigenous communities and Nations impacted by the Tar Sands. They are gathering to learn and teach skills needed in the fight against extreme energy.

Please consider supporting the tour with a donation here: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1l8X6/ab/43Kwz5

Check out their amazing work and dedication: http://www.oweakuinternational.org/

Also learn more about Owe Aku's Moccasins on the Ground direct action trainings and the important work you are supporting here: http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/moccasins-red-shirt/

EBOLA

Keystone: SPILLS




Monday, November 17, 2014

Man Arrested: Feeding the Homeless Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Man Arrested For Feeding Homeless Gets Arrested THIRD TIME This Month

B1sJn5DCEAAWtfE
The story about 90-year-old Arnold Abbott’s arrest for feeding the 
homeless in Fort Lauderdale, Florida went viral earlier this month. 
Then, on Tuesday – just two days after his first arrest – Abbott 
was arrested again. Just last Wednesday, he found himself in 
cuffs a third time, and the local mayor is not backing down 
from this totalitarian law.
The city’s ban on “public food sharing” went into effect October 
22nd. Abbott, the founder of Love Thy Neighbor Foundation, 
a local nonprofit organization that feeds the homeless, says that 
he never thought for a minute about complying with the 
dictates of the mayor.
The first confrontation occurred on November 2nd when an 
officer literally told the humanitarian hero to “’Drop that 
plate immediately.’ As though it were a weapon,” Abbott recalled.
Abbott has now decided to file a motion against the city to 
uphold a 1999 ruling that permits his organization’s 
feeding of the homeless.
In the meantime, Abbott says he will keep showing up to feed 
the homeless at 5:30 every Wednesday, regardless of how 
many times police arrest him.
“I appreciate all of your concern for my safety,” 
Abbott said to his supporters, “but I have faced 
the Klu Klux Klan on many occasions, and I have 
no fear of spending the night in a Fort Lauderdale 
jail,” Abbott wrote on Facebook. “I thank you all, 
and I pray that we all stay strong. We shall prevail!”
Watch the local report below…

If you agree that the police and local government 
have gone way too far, and that Mayor Seiler has 
overstepped his bounds and is regulating private, 
protected activity, the please take a minute share 
this article with your friends and family, and 
encourage them to contact the Mayor and let him
 know that you support Abbott and that private 
donations should not be punished!

To contact Mayor Seiler, please 
call (954) 828-5003 or 
send an e-mail to 
jack.seiler@fortlauderdale.gov.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Homophobia

...

http://www.tickld.com/x/lgbt/what-most-people-dont-realize-about-homophobia

Senate Approves Keystone


However they have no legal right to trespass on 
Treaty (Reservation) Lands.....

SHAME to Hell on Strabucks



Neil Young Boycotts Starbucks Over GMO Lawsuit

"I used to line up and get my 

latte everyday, but yesterday 

was my last one," 

rocker announces


Neil Young
Angela Weiss/Getty Images
Neil Young is boycotting Starbucks

Neil Young is seeking a new 
source for his daily latte. 
The rocker 
announced on his website this 
week that he's boycotting 
Starbucks over the coffee 
company's involvement in a 
lawsuit against the state of 
Vermont's new requirements 
to label genetically modified 
ingredients.

"There's much more at stake 
here than just whether GMO 
foods will be labeled in a single 
U.S. state. Vermont is the very 
first state in the U.S. to require 
labeling. Dozens of other states 
have said that they will follow 
this path -- in order to 
encourage this, we need to 
ensure that Vermont's law 
stands strong."
"Considering that 
Starbucks has been progressive 
on 
LGBT and labor issues in the past, 
it's disappointing that it is 
working 
with the biggest villain of them 
all, Monsanto," he continued.

Young closed his note by 
directing 
fans to the website of the 
organization SumOfUs to 
donate
or sign a petition, and asking 
them to "pressure and call out 
members of the Grocery 
Manufacturers Association."

This isn't the only recent instance 
of Neil Young rallying fans to 
join him in a boycott on 
environmental grounds. 
Back in August, he explained
 his reasons 
and 
urged fans to do the same.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-boycotts-starbucks-over-gmo-lawsuit-20141115#ixzz3JGp5bZkH
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook




Saturday, November 15, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Illegal to be Homeless: Manteca (Lard Asses)




Call #Manteca Mayor Weatherford (209) 456-8017 and tell him this is the wrong way to deal with poverty! Also Call Police Chief Nick Obligacion (mastermind of the whole ordinance): (209) 239-8401

SOLUTIONS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJf1o5G6HMY&list=PLQ9B-p5Q-YOP2OVnCPdYKLSmPkqLA2igT&index=3

UPDATE: Your calls are making a difference!http://fox40.com/2014/11/11/post-draws-international-attention-to-manteca-homeless-policies/

SIGN THE PETITION to END #HomelessHateLaws
http://www.bravenewfilms.org/endhomelesshate

 our page Brave New Films: Justice and join us to fight for a better world!
10 year box set: http://www.bravenewfilms.org/10thanniversary

#HomelessHateLaws #OverCriminalized