Public Intelligence Blog

Berto Jongman

Experts unearth concerns over ‘peak soil’

In the past 40 years, 30 percent of the planet’s arable land has become unproductive due to erosion, scientists say.

Reykjavik, Iceland - Soil is becoming endangered, and this reality needs to be part of our collective awareness in order to feed nine billion people by 2050, say experts meeting in Reykjavík.

And a big part of reversing soil decline is the use of carbon, the same element that is helping to overheat the planet.

“Keeping and putting carbon in its rightful place,” needs to be the mantra for humanity if we want to continue to eat, drink and combat global warming, concluded 200 researchers from more than 30 countries.

“There is no life without soil,” said Anne Glover, chief scientific adviser to the European Commission.

“While soil is invisible to most people it provides an estimated $1.5tn to $13tn dollars in ecosystem services annually,” Glover said at the Soil Carbon Sequestration conference that ended this week.

The dirt beneath our feet is a nearly magical world filled with tiny, wondrous creatures. A mere handful of soil might contain a half million different species including ants, earthworms, fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms. Soil provides nearly all of our food - only one percent of our calories come from the oceans, she said.

Soil also gives life to all of the world’s plants that supply us with much of our oxygen, another important ecosystem service. Soil cleans water, keeps contaminants out of streams and lakes, and prevents flooding. Soil can also absorb huge amounts of carbon, second only to the oceans.

“It takes half a millennia to build two centimetres of living soil and only seconds to destroy it,” Glover said.

Read full article.

Allen Roland, Ph.D.

Prophet for a Dying Empire

Every dying Empire has its truth telling prophet and America had its own with Chalmers Johnson. Johnson correctly compared the decay of the American empire, with its well over 600 overseas military bases, with the fall of the Roman Empire whereas the Senate becomes a wealthy corporate club and irrelevant compared to the ruling Military Industrial Congressional Complex

by Allen L Roland

Chalmers Johnson was a truth teller and prophet in a political environment where few would stand up to the interests and secrecy of the Pentagon and the intelligence community ~ and since his passing in November of 2010, many of his prophetic fears have been realized in the Obama administration.

Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis,The Last Days of the American Republic, talks in this video interview about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the very same symptoms ~ overextension, corruption and the inability to reform. (Watch at least the first 20 minutes and also the very end where he predicts an economic collapse)

Johnson’ s main points were; The United States is treading the same three steps as the former Soviet Union;

• Inability to deal with corporate corruption.
• Imperial over-stretch is leading to fiscal insolvency ( 600 plus bases throughout the world )
• Inability to reform, thus accelerating the inevitable fall.

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Who? Who?

The real story here is not whether Obama will survive five Watergate-type scandals, but it is rather about his response to scandals in his administration will lead to WWIII. Here are key take-aways from this first article:

“In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses.  Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency…”

Click on Image to Enlarge

Syria is key to attacking Iran:

“On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops intervention.  If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short and medium range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops ability to intervene in Iran.  If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted a enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold.  And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is above to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran.  For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad with so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US led forces.  However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.”

Intervening in Syria may result in some remarkable black swans if this author’s contacts are correct:

“My military and intelligence sources were telling me last year that Alaska and Taiwan were at risk of a Russian invasion with regard to this conflict as is the North Pole if we intervened directly in either Syria or Iran. The North Pole?  The North Pole’s melting glaciers has exposed the world’s greatest oil supply as well as untold amounts of gold and other precious metals. This is another story for another time except to illustrate that the Russians are talking world war if we topple Assad and invade Iran.  This means WWIII is near and this reality is evidenced  by the fact that the Russians are drawing a clear line in the sand and this is why Obama is not concerned about any thought of impeachment. The one thing that will distract the country from the five present “Watergates” will be the commencement of World War Three.”

More:

Why Obama Will Survive the Equivalent of Five “Watergate Scandals”

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Michael Ostrolenk

Meanwhile, 22 veterans a day (up from 18) commit suicide and this is beneath notice by the President of the United States of America.

Phi Beta Iota:  Complete story below the line.

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses 

It’s not every day that a scientist creates such intense drama on Capitol Hill.

Kelly Vlahos

The American Conservative, 10 May 2013

Veterans of War Betrayed by Their Own Government

But Dr. Steven S. Coughlin’s charges that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials hid, manipulated, and even lied about research pertaining to Gulf War Illness (GWI) and health problems plaguing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are still causing fallout a month after his stunning testimony before a key House subcommittee.

“The implications of his testimony are profound,” declared Anthony Hardie, 45, a Gulf War veteran who serves on the congressionally appointed Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC).

Veterans and their advocates, as well as many in the scientific community, have long believed that the VA avoids responsibility for veterans’ care by downplaying or outright ignoring evidence linking wartime experiences—such as exposure to Agent Orange, chemical weapons, or toxic pollution—to veterans’ chronic medical issues back home.

Coughlin, a senior epidemiologist with the VA’s Office of Public Health (OPH), gave the VA’s critics what they say is a smoking gun: after conducting major surveys of 1991 Gulf War veterans and “New Generation” veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan, Coughlin told the committee he quit his post in December. He claims the VA is hiding important survey results about the health of veterans and that his colleagues watered-down analysis that might have shed light on whether recent vets got sick from open-air trash-burning pits on overseas bases.

He told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on March 13 that millions of dollars are invested in veterans’ heath studies each year, yet “if the studies produce results that do not support [OPH’s] unwritten policy, they do not release them.” And “on the rare occasions when embarrassing study results are released, data are manipulated to make them unintelligible.”

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Sepp Hasslberger

Analysis Finds Monsanto’s GM Corn Nutritionally Dead, Highly Toxic

Is GMO corn nutritionally equivalent to non-GMO corn? Monsanto will tell you the answer is a big ‘yes’, but the real answer is absolutely not. And the simple reality is that they are continuing to get away with their blatant misinformation. In fact, a 2012 nutritional analysis of genetically modified corn found that not only is GM corn lacking in vitamins and nutrients when compared to non-GM corn, but the genetic creation also poses numerous health risks due to extreme toxicity.

With the recent passing of the Monsanto Protection Act, there is no question that mega corporations like Monsanto are able to wield enough power to even surpass that of the United States government. The new legislation provides Monsanto with a legal safeguard against federal courts striking down any pending review of dangerous GM crops. It is ironic to see the passing of such a bill in the face of continuous releases of GMO dangers.

Non-GMO Corn 20x Richer in Nutrition than GMO Corn

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300 Million Talons…

GM food toxins found in the blood of 93% of unborn babies

By Sean Poulter

UK Daily Mail, 20 May 2013

GM firms claimed toxins were destroyed in the gut

A landmark study found 93 per cent of blood samples taken from pregnant women and 80 per cent from umbilical cords tested positive for traces of the chemicals.

Millions of acres in North and South America are planted with GM corn containing the toxins, which is fed in vast quantities to farm livestock around the world – including Britain.

However, it is now clear the  toxins designed to kill crop pests are reaching humans and babies in the womb – apparently through food.

It is not known what, if any, harm this causes but there is speculation it could lead to allergies, miscarriage, abnormalities or even cancer.

To date the industry has always argued that if these toxins were eaten by animals or humans they would be destroyed in the gut and pass out of the body, thus causing no harm.

Food safety authorities in Britain and Europe have accepted these assurances on the basis that GM crops are effectively no different to those produced using conventional methods.

Who? Who?

This offers a brilliant analysis, a “connecting of the dots,” of why Petreaus was set up to leave CIA. But that’s not the main story. The general’s affair was cover used by Obama for getting rid of Petraeus to install Brennan for a special purpose:

“If Brennan were to succeed Petraeus at the C.I.A., the White House would not only install Obama’s first choice in that office, no small matter in itself. Of far greater importance is the fact that, aside from Obama himself — and in certain respects, probably more than Obama — Brennan is the single most critical person in the design and implementation of the government’s Murder Program, as I recently discussed. If Brennan does finally head the C.I.A., do you think that would be a coincidence? I do not for a moment believe in coincidences of that kind, especially not with an administration as determined in its lethality as this one. Think of it: John Brennan, who now is Obama’s chief adviser on domestic security and counterterrorism goes to head the C.I.A.

I’ll tell you what that means to me: Obama and his fellow murderers are absolutely determined to bring the Murder Program home to America, and probably even more quickly than I had previously thought. I described the steps by which that might happen in the second half of the preceding post. The unfolding nightmare that I described might very well lie in your future, America — and in the not too distant future at that. Do you care?  To be sure, the administration could achieve the same end with another candidate if it wished, Vickers for example. But to be able to unleash the Murder Program on an even greater scale with the man who knows everything about it, and from his lofty perch at the C.I.A. … it’s a dream come true for these bastards. And that may well be the reason they decided to get rid of Petraeus.”

And Congress’s approving Brennan will enable Obama to say Congress approves of using drones what this writer calls the “Murder Program”:

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Scientific American’s list of 10 ideas about to change the world

6. A single sustainability index for products

How do you compare the environmental impact of, say, a bottle of laundry detergent versus an LCD screen? The Sustainability Consortium, a group of 10 universities, non-profits and 80 international companies including Walmart and Coca-Cola, are creating an index that includes every step of the supply chain. The group has already released the measure it will use to evaluate its first 100 products.

Right now, a similar rating system, Good Guide, is based solely on public information. The new system would take into account “emissions, waste, labor practices, water usage and other sensitive factors that will become available only as large corporate players exert pressure on suppliers to disclose them,” says Scientific American.

Read full article with 9 Other Ideas

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Robert David STEELE Vivas

Press Release

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 – The World Bank today announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank’s knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

“Knowledge is power,” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more.”

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

Event 21 May 2012 1230-1400 Washington DC

Join us for an Open Discussion: What the Bank’s Open Access Policy Means for Development

Monday, May 21, 2012 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET/16:30 – 18:00 GMT

The World Bank will be adopting an Open Access Policy as of July 1. In addition, the Bank recently launched the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) and became the first major international organization to adopt a set of copyright licenses from Creative Commons. As a result, a wealth of Bank research and knowledge products are now freely available to anyone in the world for use, re-use, and sharing.

• Why is this so significant?
• How can open access contribute to the goal of eliminating poverty?
• How does the new policy impact the Bank’s researchers and authors?
• How will the OKR benefit users of Bank knowledge, in particular those in developing countries?

Join us in person at the World Bank or online for a lively conversation about these and other aspects of open access to research, and its potential for development progress.

See Also:

The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point