Copenhagen & Economic Growth - You Can't Have Both
Chris Martenson, chrismartenson.com
Before and during Copenhagen (and after, too, we can be sure), politicians and central bankers across the globe have worked tirelessly to return the global economy to a path of growth..But the consensus coming out of Copenhagen is that carbon emissions have to be reduced by a vast amount over the next few decades. These two ideas are mutually exclusive. You can't have both. (Martenson's website and "crash course" provide an excellent introduction to the intertwined issues of energy/environment/economy. - Bob)

"Glacier gate" - how the Murdoch press have got it wrong on the Himalayan big melt
Damien Lawson and David Spratt, Climate Action Center
Recently, the Murdoch press have continued their campaign of climate denial and delay by giving front-page prominence to a five-day-old story attacking the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions of glacial melt in the Himalayan-Tibetan ranges by 2035.."The Times" (UK) and subsequently "The Australian" and other Murdoch papers have tried to shift from a debate about TIMING to a questioning of global warming.

Biophysical economics: Putting energy at the center
Kurt Cobb, Scitizen
Many scientists have long complained that standard economics fails to account for the biological and physical systems that form the basis of the economy. In short, the economy is a subset of the environment and governed by the same biological and physical laws as every other system on the planet.

Saudi Arabia and the oil bank
Chris Cook, Asia Times
I believe that it is macro manipulation by oil producers, funded by cheap money from investors, which has been the principal reason for recent movements in the oil price. The advantage producers have over oil traders is that producers are able to store their oil in the ground for free.

My View: Zygote fanatics push Personhood Amendment
Gary J. Whittenberger and Richard Hull, Tallahassee Democrat 
According to legend, one night in 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride and shouted, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" inspiring the Sons of Liberty to action. Today, in similar manner, we declare, "The zygote fanatics are coming! The zygote fanatics are coming!" These fanatics constitute a small, vocal group of Floridians and outsiders trying to get 670,000 registered voters to sign a petition aimed at placing an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot in November 2010. If approved by 60 percent of voters, this amendment would cause the word "person" to be applied to all "human beings" from the "beginning of biological development." The beginning is the formation of a single-celled human zygote, resulting from the union of a sperm and an egg, which is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. The zygote fanatics want every human zygote to be treated legally as if it were an adult human being! This ludicrous idea that would have devastating effects on our state.

What effects?

Women who had abortions and the medical staff who assisted them would be treated as murderers, facing capital punishment or long terms of incarceration.

Women would seek secret and unsafe abortions, leading to injury and death.

The use of Plan B contraceptives would be a criminal act.

Women who had made reproductive mistakes would not be able to correct them through abortion.

The "right to life" of a zygote, blastocyst, embryo or early fetus would take priority over the right of a grown woman to control her own body.

Fetuses with serious disorders, deformities, or defects, such as anencephaly, could not be aborted.

The privacy of the relationship between a pregnant woman and her doctor would be impaired.

Within 10 years of enactment, at least 1 million babies would be born to women in Florida who did not want to be mothers. This would lead to increased infant mortality, child abuse and neglect, poverty, unemployment, welfare payments, domestic violence, and teenage delinquency.

An increased population in Florida would lead to more stress on the already overworked infrastructure.

Embryonic stem cell research in Florida would be paralyzed, hampering economic development in the bioengineering area.

The taxpayers in Florida would be saddled with the enormous costs of litigation as the state attempted to defend an indefensible amendment in the courts.

The reputation of our state would once again be tarnished.

Most Floridians do not want these results, and we urge you to refuse to sign the misguided petition.

As participants in a democratic state, we must decide the point in the development of a human being when it should be considered, for legal purposes, to be a person entitled to "human rights," including the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The problem is that the zygote fanatics have simply proposed the wrong point when this should happen - they have chosen the point when sperm unites with egg. They have no valid scientific or religious justification for this.

The proper stage in fetal development during which "personhood" should be assigned is when the mind begins to operate, roughly between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation. Our complex brains are what distinguish us from other animals. An important marker of the beginning of an operating mind is the exhibition of preference behaviors in the fetus. Human fetuses begin to show preferences for voices they hear in the womb and for foods ingested by their pregnant hosts. They also begin to exhibit a type of rudimentary learning called "habituation." Storage and retrieval of memories, conceptualization, association, feelings, pain perception, consciousness and preference behaviors appear to originate during this stage of fetal development. Not only is there sound scientific justification, there is even strong Biblical support for that view.

We are fortunate that the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade set a precedent that essentially legalized abortion before the "viability" of the fetus, roughly within the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Underlying this decision is the view that legal personhood should be assigned to human fetuses somewhere around the 26th week of gestation, overlapping with the period of 20-28 weeks suggested above. Passage of the Personhood Florida amendment would be a step backward and a disaster for our state. We urge all registered voters in our state to be Friends of Liberty, to refuse to sign the petition now being circulated, and to encourage your family and friends to do the same. Let’s nip it in the bud.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Gary Whittenberger (whittfamily@comcast.net) is a retired psychologist, and Richard Hull (rthull62@hotmail.com) is a philosopher specializing in bioethics. Both are leaders in the Tallahassee Community of the Center for Inquiry, which fosters a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values.