TELESUR—The Venezuelan president ordered the Vice-President, Delcy Rodríguez, “to lead a process of reforestation, afforestation and recovery of environmental balances; for which the Council of Vice-Presidents and the Presidential Council for Science, Technology and Innovation must be summoned.” According to the president, a team of scientists and experts of the highest level and from different disciplines will work in the area to achieve its reforestation and the recovery of the environment.
SAVING THE PLANET
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GARLAND NIXON—Garland analyses how the global strategic balance has changed to forbid US military hegemonist ambitions and the possibility of a victory against China or Russia, and even less against both combined. This is evident in the cautious words of US Gen Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council. Milley warns that a war between the superpowers will be a military, economic and civilisational disaster for all participants, and that the US should basically quit its supremacist warmongering. Garland’s analysis suggests that the Pentagon may in fact harbor voices that will push back against further Neocon insanity.
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Viewed by many as an “eco-terrorist”, and certainly as an “annoying obstacle to human progress”, Tompkins, a onetime dedicated capitalist, eventually embraced the rights of all species, and the right of nature not to be exploited to death, with total equanimity. His transformation had profound consequences. Now Tompkins’ legacy—attained with his wife Kristine’s collaboration and support—will be the single biggest philanthropic gift in history, with an ecological footprint twice as large as Yellowstone Park in the US.
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DMITRY ORLOV—Although some people claim that wind and solar farms have an EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of 5 or even 7, it is trivial to prove that this just isn’t so. If, for each 1 kWh of energy invested in their design, marketing, production, installation, maintenance, removal and safe disposal, they were to return 5 or even 7 kWh over their useful lifetime of, optimistically, 20 years, and assuming a constant (inflation-adjusted) cost of energy, they would produce at least 400% of pure profit! Compare that to a bank deposit or a guaranteed income investment yielding 3% over inflation (if you can find one!). Over the same 20 years it would produce a mere 80% profit, which is equivalent to an EROEI of just 1.8. If wind and solar installations were so lucrative, their promoters would not be asking for government subsidies; they would be running away from frenzied mobs of investors shouting “Shut up and take my money!” Such a huge, and guaranteed, rate of return, is something to die (or at least risk going to jail) for.
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JOE BIDEN IS CONTINUING DONALD TRUMP’S DEFORESTATION PLANS
18 minutes readWALKER BRAGMAN—On Tuesday, president Joe Biden was one of 100-plus world leaders who pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. His Build Back Better framework, similarly, pledges “historic” investment in forest management.
Unfortunately, in the meantime, Biden has been plowing ahead with his predecessor’s approach to deforestation of public lands in the Kootenai National Forest.
On Biden’s watch, the US Forest Service is quietly moving forward with a series of Donald Trump–era plans to open up commercial logging in the Kootenai, despite the fact that the impacts of these projects were never subjected to rigorous analysis.