An American narrative through pictures & text. An ASX Project.

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AN EXCERPT:   Parts of America’s Arctic waters, long a battleground between environmentalists and the energy industry, will be open for oil and natural gas drilling in four years, the Obama administration said Tuesday — the same day Shell announced it had successfully tested a new spill containment system for its planned Arctic exploration this summer. 

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http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/26/12422295-some-offshore-arctic-waters-to-be-leased-for-energy-drilling-us-says?lite

AN EXCERPT:   The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency….The gifts from the company, Chesapeake Energy, have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. “Sleeping with the enemy” was a comment much forwarded on Twitter posts about the undisclosed arrangement.

Carl Pope was the Sierra Club executive director when the group accepted $26 million in gifts from Chesapeake Energy.

ZEPHYR COMMENT:   So if this blatant hypocrisy makes the New York Times, why don’t gifts from venture capitalists like DAVID BONDERMAN  to grassroots green groups like the Grand Canyon Trust and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance cause concern with the mainstream media, even on the local and regional level?

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One of my favorite scenes from the film…

“I’m a loner.  Clear down deep to my very guts.”

The Dec/Jan Issue (click the cover)

AN EXCERPT:   A former U.S. president is accusing the current president of sanctioning the “widespread abuse of human rights” by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists.

Jimmy Carter, America’s 39 th president, denounced the Obama administration for “clearly violating” 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”

“Instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends,” Carter wrote….While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 . Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources.

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http://news.yahoo.com/jimmy-carter-accuses-u-widespread-abuse-human-rights-154057442–abc-news-politics.html

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AN EXCERPT:  Two Op-Eds in The New York Times this morning both warn of the precipitous decline of American credibility on matters of human rights and peace ushered in by the Obama presidency. Taken together, they explain much of why I’ve been writing what I’ve been writing over the last three years.

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http://www.salon.com/2012/06/25/collapsing_u_s_credibility/singleton/

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AN EXCERPT:  More than 100 science academies around the world have called on world leaders to take action on population and consumption at the Rio+20 summit. They say past failures on these issues threaten the natural world and prospects for future generations….”The overall message is that we need a renewed focus on both population and consumption – it’s not enough to look at one or the other,” said Prof Charles Godray from the Martin School at the University of Oxford, who chaired the process of writing the declaration….”We need to look at both, because together they determine the footprint on the world.”

“Global consumption levels are at an all time high, largely because of the high per-capita consumption of developed countries.”   If the billion poorest people are to have adequate access to food, water and energy, the academies say, developed countries will have to reduce their own consumption of natural resources.

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The developed world is mainly responsible for the world's record consumption levels, the scientists say

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18422619

AN EXCERPT:   (CNN) — At the start of the 1980s there were more than a million elephants in Africa. During that decade, 600,000 were destroyed for ivory products. Today perhaps no more than 400,000 remain across the continent, according to Samuel Wasser of the University of Washington, who is widely recognized as an authority on the subject….It is a tragedy beyond reckoning and humanity needs to pay attention to the plight of the elephants before it is too late.

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http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/world/africa/elephants-extinction-africa/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

AN EXCERPT:  Thousands of women representing social and farm movements marched in central Rio Monday to rail against the “green economy” advocated by the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development…Behind a large banner from the international peasant movement Via Campesina proclaiming “the peoples are against the mercantilization of nature”, they marched several miles to the Flamengo park, the venue for the “People’s Summit” organized by civil society groups on the sidelines of the Rio+20 event…Several hundred men closed off the march to show their solidarity….Perched atop a truck fitted with loudspeakers, a female activist howled: “This is a march of urban and rural women against this Rio+20 charade.”

“No to green capitalism! Yes to an economy based on solidarity, yes to people’s sovereignty,” she added.

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TO READ ABOUT TOM ARNOLD’S REMARKABLE LIFE, CLICK HIS CARTOON…

HERE IS A PART OF TK’S LEGACY…

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