Good Morning Real NEO - something to think about over a good meal... "Steep Oil Prices and Food Shortages Will Likely Spark Deadly Riots This Year."

That's from TomDispatch - "A Regular Antidote To The Mainstream Media"... a project of The National Institute... "Dedicated to Free and Independent Press".

Perhaps the mainstream media has covered this... "we’ve entered the age of resource revolts and there’s no turning back"... "From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world."

Ready for more war... we all need to change many things about how we live just to reduce some of the horror of this, in years to come. For this year, full horror show:

It is funny how things work out.

I went to the Hemp Industry Association conference looking for hemp-based energy solutions, to help address our pollution crisis in Northeast Ohio, and I found a delicious, healthful hemp dessert, too - Hemp I Scream.

As I learned more about the inventor of Hemp I Scream - the founder of Hemp Sources, Inc. - Agua Das, I discovered he is a world leader in hemp innovation, including for energy - "Agua was the first person to make hemp bio-diesel fuel in the modern hemp era in 1993; made from virgin hemp oil he pressed himself."

As I got to know Das better, I learned he studied engineering at Case, and still has good feelings for the school and Northeast Ohio. He lived on Hessler, and was involved in starting up the Street Fair, in the beginning... we know some of the same people still there, from way back.

So the expert with the energy solutions we need in Northeast Ohio studied engineering in Northeast Ohio... and makes awesome desserts, too. Nice coincidences.

Joe Romm reports extremely bad climate news on Climate Progress. Sit down, take a breath (drink... hit...), and read on.... baby, it ain't cold outside! Canada sees staggering mildness as planet’s high-pressure record is “obliterated” - Climate Progress - January 23, 2011

Surface temperature anomalies for the period 17 December 2010 to 15 January 2011 show impressive warmth across the Canadian Arctic….

The largest anomalies here exceed 21°C (37.8°F) above average, which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month.

The disinformers and many in the media love to focus on where it is cold in the winter.  It has been cool where many people live.  Brr!

Unfortunately for homo sapiens, it’s been staggeringly warm where the ice is.  I’ll do a post on Greenland shortly, but the NSF-sponsored researchers at UCAR/NCAR  have posted some staggering data on just how warm it has been in northern Canada:

The Climate Zombie Caucus Of The 112th Congress

by Brad Johnson, ThinkProgress Wonk Room Climate Editor

Updated 11/23 with elections of Ann Buerkle and Blake Fahrenthold.

One year ago, the right-wing media machine smeared climate scientists with the “Climategate” conspiracy theory, even as the climate itself continued to get hotter and more destructive. Although the National Academies of Science says “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change,” the Republican Party is now dominated by fossil-funded ideologues who repeat zombie myths about global warming. An exclusive survey by the Wonk Room, with research support by Daily Kos blogger RL Miller, has identified the members of Congress from nearly every state in the union that are on record challenging the scientific consensus.

On the January 27, 2011 YouTube Ask The President moderated broadcast, Obama was asked who was his favorite person in math and science. Obama said one of the things he loves about being President is "having access to math and science" and the White House is committed to using technology well. "Serious brainpower out there."

He highlighted his PCAST team and its Director Eric Lander - says he helps make complex science understandable. From MIT - "President-elect Barack Obama on Friday named Eric Lander, the founding director of the Broad Institute, a co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group that assists the president in making science and technology policy decisions".

BP Energy Outlook 2030 - London, January 2011

Welcome to BP’s Energy Outlook 2030.

The outlook for global energy is not just a matter for energy companies: it’s an issue for all of us. Around the world, there is a lively and important conversation taking place on the choices that face us all – as consumers, producers, investors and policy-makers. By sharing this Energy Outlook, we hope to contribute to that discussion.

Our starting point in contributing to this debate has been BP’s work on the Statistical Review of World Energy, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary. The Statistical Review, which documents trends in the production and use of energy, started out as an internal BP document and was made public for the first time in 1956.

In a similar way, the Energy Outlook, which contains our projections of future energy trends, has been used only internally so far. However, we feel it is part of our responsibility as a company to make important information and analysis available for public debate – all the more so if the issue at hand is as vital to all of us as is energy, its relation to economic development on one side, and to climate change on the other.

In this outlook we seek to identify long term energy trends, and then add our views on the evolution of the world economy, of policy, and technology, to develop a projection for world energy markets to 2030. It is a projection, not a proposition, and this is an important distinction.

You will see, for example, that our outlook expects global CO2 emissions to continue  rising, along with import dependence in many key consuming regions. This does not mean BP downplays the importance of climate change or the role of energy security in international relations. Rather, it reflects a ‘to the best of our knowledge’ assessment of the world’s likely path from today’s vantage point. To me personally, it is a wake-up call, not something any of us would like to see happening.

Protocol for use of EJSEAT in circumstances in which it will have
an impact on current and future allocation of resources

Nationally Consistent Environmental Justice Screening Approaches - text included below, without Appendices - download full 5 MB /PDF Report here

A Report of Advice and Recommendations of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council - A Federal Advisory Committee to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - MAY 2010

Dr. Edgar J. Schoen

As the son of a physician, who grew up socializing with physicians and their families, I've always seen doctors - scientists - as regular human beings, who burn hot dogs, crash cars, fall down, make mistakes, and fade away. This makes me very aware of the fallibility of doctors and their diagnoses, to the core.

Lessons learned - not all scientists are created equal - all scientists are flawed - be an informed consumer and make certain all your science decisions are based on the best scientific data and scientists possible - always get a second opinion... more if the decision in truly important.

Having spent several years studying and addressing the lead poisoning crisis in Northeast Ohio and worldwide, as a subcommittee co-chair of the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council, and seeing lead poisoning from inside the healthcare and human services industries, as the parent of lead poisoning victims, I have become informed about the poor quality of healthcare industry attention to lead poisoning in America - historically and now - nationwide and especially in highest incidence regions like Northeast Ohio. The poor quality of healthcare response to lead poisoning is intentional and designed into government by the healthcare industry through corruption of scientists who are bad.

Legal Aid proudly announces the launch of our redesigned website.  Visit www.lasclev.org now to find resources, read success stories and learn how you can help Legal Aid provide access to justice.

Cincinnati Civil Rights leader Marian Spencer speaking at Taft STEM Elementary School MLK Day 2011

In early commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2011, 90-something Cincinnati civil rights and community leader Marian Spencer spent Friday afternoon, January 14, sharing with the students at Taft STEM Elementary School her experiences knowing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helping to lead the civil rights movement of her day, in her state of Ohio.

I strongly recommend subscribing to Greenversations - the Official Blog of the EPA - it is written by EPA staff with their personal observations and perspectives about the environmental world around them. The latest posting is about Environmental Justice and schools, which should interest all parents of school children, and school children.

I would be interested to see or help develop an environmental justice rating system for Northeast Ohio schools - that could be used to improve academic performance and the health and well being of students and staff region-wide. Does anything like that exist today, here? How is the environmental justice in Cleveland Schools?

Grace, how is the environmental justice in the schools down in Austin?

Principles of Environmental Justice

(Printable PDF version)

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.

PREAMBLE

WE, THE PEOPLE OF COLOR, gathered together at this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities, do hereby re-establish our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth; to respect and celebrate each of our cultures, languages and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves; to ensure environmental justice; to promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods; and, to secure our political, economic and cultural liberation that has been denied for over 500 years of colonization and oppression, resulting in the poisoning of our communities and land and the genocide of our peoples, do affirm and adopt these Principles of Environmental Justice:

1) Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.

Environmental Justice leader/victim Barbara Miller speaking to panel at First White House Forum on Environmental Justice

In what I consider the most important positive environmental development in America in the 21st Century, on December 15, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley convened the First White House Environmental Justice Forum, where leadership of the recently-reconvened Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (EJ IWG) met with over 100 environmental justice leaders (typically long-suffering EJ victims), in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, at the White House complex, to develop new federal interagency strategies and interactions with citizens to right current EJ wrongs in America, in anticipation of worse to come as results of climate change.

This Forum was the public interface, and culmination of a year of expansive activity in the White House, throughout the Obama Administration, and nationwide, to advance EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to “expand the conversation on environmentalism and work for environmental justice” in America, in clear recognition of harm caused disadvantaged citizens by current Environmental Injustice (aka Environmental Racism... Environmental Genocide... from the mouths of victims), and showing clear US government concern over "Climate Gaps" (e.g. in Heat Islands), and over those worsening, causing more environmental injustices, to be exacerbated by future Climate Change and resulting Climate Injustices that will harm life on Earth, in this age of human-caused global warming.

’Mid glad green miles of tillage
And fields where cattle graze;
A prosy little village,
You drowse away the days.

And yet—a wakeful glory
Clings round you as you doze;
One living, lyric story
Makes music of your prose!

That start and conclusion to The Poet’s Town, penned in 1913 by past Nebraska Poet Laureate John Neihardt (complete poem below), well describes Gothenburg, Nebraska.

I stopped there one winter morning, not long ago, for some wakeful glory away from the drone of the interstate - to find some fresh, local character and better-than-truckstop coffee and donuts.

Located off I-80, the living, lyric story promised by Gothenburg's towering grain elevators and freeway signs is the "Pony Express Capital of Nebraska". Being in the modern-day Pony Express business, delivering communications via the Internet, I thought I'd connect with my roots and find some inspiration there.

Entrance to Press Briefing Room and media facilities at the White House (seen in the distance)

On December 15, 2010, Obama administration officials convened the first-ever White House Forum on Environmental Justice, and I felt it was important to attend. As an environmental injustice victim, and activist for environmental justice, I wanted my voice to be heard... and as a media representative of real NEO, where the mainstream media does not cover environmental injustice, I wanted to listen, learn, and help other citizens here and worldwide understand what is being planned in Washington to combat environmental injustice in Cleveland, America, and globally.

While I was covering what was happening inside the White House, I thought I'd share a few snapshots of the backstage workings of the "White House" itself, which is certainly one of the best known and most important places in world history... and a spectacular architectural masterpiece.

I have no doubt everyone interested in public health, planning, engineering, architecture, real estate development, cool stuff and local foods will find absolutely fascinating the feature and the following three videos from The Economist on vertical farming...

Three views of the vertical farm

GROWING crops in vertical farms in the heart of cities is said to be a greener way to produce food. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. But the concept is still unproven. Does it really stack up? To accompany our article on vertical farming in this week's issue, here are three videos offering different perspectives on the subject.

The new science about lead's effect on the brain may force policymakers to re-examine some social issues through a new prism. For example, if lead can cause aggressive behavior, learning disabilities and hyperactivity, might it not also be a contributing factor in poor educational performance among low-income blacks, who suffer the most lead poisoning? - Newsweek, 1991

Where Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders, and CMSD overall, have been completely ineffective, and so failed, is in their Strange Ignorance of The Role of Lead Poisoning in Failing Schools. Sanders is not alone in responsibility for this tragedy, as leadership of Northeast Ohio in general has been so incompetent as to make Cleveland the lead poisoning capital of America and the developed world.

Perhaps our politicians even hired Sanders with the specific direction to ignore the realities of lead poisoning here, as "there exists a body of medical research which demonstrates that politicians themselves are responsible for a conveyor-belt of tragedy that produces precisely those symptoms attributed to "failing schools.""

The good news for the future of Cleveland and education and students here is Eugene Sanders has announced he shall resign, as of February 01, 2011, meaning we may now select a CEO who may lift CMSD students off the "conveyor-belt of tragedy" caused by lead poisoning that literally guarantees the direct hardship of around 30% of CMSD students, guaranteeing the failure of CMSD and Cleveland.... greatly harming the economic competitiveness and sustainability of the state of Ohio.

With the deceptive headline "68% in poll say parents, not teachers, are to blame for students' poor performance" the Cleveland Plain Dealer published today results of a "poll", paid for by eugenics champions and world's richest "humans" Bill and Melinda Gates, which misrepresents poorly-surveyed, poorly-reported opinions of 1,001 Americans about public education in America as significant indicators regarding the failure of the American public schools system, and reports "68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what's wrong with the U.S. education system -- more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions."

In fact, "government" was not a category in this poll... and, statistically, these Americans placed the same level of blame on State Education Officials (65%, with +/-3.9% sampling errors) as on parents... and all these answers are irrelevant.

Science proves a primary cause of failure in education in America is lead poisoning and other toxins put in the environment by the industrialists partnered with the Gates to control the world.

Did You Pay Homage and Taxes To One Of The Most Heinous Humans Ever To Walk The Earth, Today? Did You Turn on Microsoft today! If you use Microsoft, you turned on the Bill Gates fortune and all the harm that causes the world, today and forever hereafter. If you use a computer running any Microsoft products, you must know how your Microsoft addiction and dollars work for the world today, via perversely enriched micro-psychopath Bill Gates... from AlterNet's "5 Awards For the World's Most Heinous Climate Villains":

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet

Misdeeds: Pretend to be friends while engaged in a vicious competition to see who ends up with the most expensive coffin. Flew together to inspect the Alberta Tar Sands and ponder investments, looking to add to Buffet's $34 billion Burlington Northern Santa Fe coal-hauling railroad purchase and the Gates Foundation Nigerian oil portfolio. Gates is dumping cash into geo-engineering as a way to "hack" the climate, instead of getting off oil and coal. The duo insist that the government should be responsible for clean energy development, but that we need to tax our citizens to pay for it. They can't be bothered, since they're too busy banking on sure things like fossil fuels.

Corporate Teat: They're the tits, not the pups. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, much of it tax sheltered by the Gates Foundation.

I never miss a chance to see the work of - and celebrate - Cleveland-based artist Julian Stanczak... a father of Op Art and one of the great artists of all time. So, during a tour of downtown Cincinnati (VERY NICE) last week, I was thrilled to unexpectedly be walked right past Stanczak's landmark 2008 work "Additional", on the Fifth Third bank and parking complex at Fountain Square. My host in Cincinnati seemed pleasantly surprised I was familiar with a work of public art in his Queen City, as I proudly exclaimed "Wow, there's the Stanczak mural... he's from Cleveland" and ran off to take pictures to share with realNEO.

If the art-superstar status of Julian Stanczak was ever to be challenged - for his life-work or his late-career accomplishments, as he remains productive in his 80s - Julian's most recent and important mural-scale public art masterpiece enforces his position at the top of the "art world" forever.

Study Will Recommend Ways to Strengthen Sustainability at EPA

Science Wednesday: The Future is Sustainability - Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 - By Paul Anastas

Wow! November 30th was an amazing day for the EPA. Not only are we in the midst of commemorating four decades of accomplishments in protecting the health and the environment, but Administrator Jackson also made a landmark speech at the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Science on the future of the EPA. That future is sustainability. The Administrator laid out her vision to a packed house of luminaries from across the spectrum, from academia to industry, to environmental groups.

2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement

"Well-conceived, effectively implemented environmental protection is good for economic growth… A clean, green, healthy community is a better place to buy a home and raise a family; it’s more competitive in the race to attract new businesses; and it has the foundations it needs for prosperity." – EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, March 8, 2010

Location

More valuable than all the steel we mill, Cleveland has forged from our blighted, industrial, rustbelted, toxified, sprawling fruited-plains some of the most innovative, transformational music ever heard on Earth, since long before we gave birth to Rock and Roll.