Skeptical Environmentalist and critic of climate scientists,Bjorn Lomborg, is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the World today.’ According to him, $100bn a year is needed to fight climate change. Source: The Guardian, August 30, 2010

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‘So long, middle class: Dreams of average Americans dashed by taxes, higher costs and little job security.’

25 statistics prove ‘that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existance in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate.’

Some examples:

· ‘According to a 2009 poll, 61% of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.

· 36% of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.

· The number of Americans with incomes below the official poverty line rose by about 15% between 2000 and 2006, and by 2008 over 30 million US workers were earning less than $10 per hour.

· According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

· For the first time in US history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

· As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

· The average federal worker now earns about twice as much as the average worker in the private sector.

· The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

· More than 40% of Americans who are employed now work in often low-paying service jobs.

· For the first time in US history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the US Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

· Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the US rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.

· About 21% of all children are living below the poverty line in 2010 — the highest rate in 20 years.’

Source: Michael T.Snyder, New York Post, August 1, 2010

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New in Unraveling the human puzzle:

The Brotherhood of the Serpent

(Sumeria, 3000 BC)

Liberation and spiritual awakening

'Among all the animals worshiped by the humans of prehistory, the serpent has always been the most distinct and significant, because the serpent was the symbol of a group that had acquired a big influence during the first civilizations on both the hemispheres of our planet. The Brotherhood of the Serpent had great knowledge and aimed at the spreading of their spiritual understanding as well as at liberation on the spiritual level. This brotherhood acted against human slavery and tried to liberate humanity. (…) In the Bible, the original word used for serpent was ‘nahash’. Nahash comes from NHSH, meaning ‘decipher, decode, discover’.

The founder of the Brotherhood of the Serpent was the rebel prince EA (Enki). In the ancient Mesopotamian tablets we can read that EA and his father Anu had also a great ethical and spiritual vision (…)

Unlike what is written in the Bible, Ea didn’t revolt against ‘God’ but against the cruel acts of his congeners. But in spite of their honorable intentions, Ea and the Brotherhood of the Serpent didn’t succeed to liberate humanity (…) Subsequently, Ea was banished and defamated by his opponents who wanted to be sure that Ea would never again find new adepts among humans. In this way, Ea, ‘prince of the Earth’, became a ‘prince of darkness’.' (Source : Appendice dans Sociétés secrètes et leur pouvoir au 20ème siècle )

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From our new Kundalini pages:

'Kundalini provides the only avenue for a bloodless total revolution in all spheres of human activity and thought to bring about those healthy social and political changes all over the earth which are absolutely necessary now to provide a congenial milieu for the collective evolutionary progress of humankind.’ Gopi Krishna

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New online publication: Unraveling the human puzzle. (online since June 7, 2010)

Daily life within human society is strongly conditioned by just occasionally questioned hypotheses and theories regarding our common origins and history. But What if there is much more to human history then generally accepted? In 'Unraveling the human puzzle' we suggest some alternative building blocks for a new human history.

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BP Spills Coffee video

BP: Rich Fish video

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Plunged into Chaos: Europe on the Eve of the Bilderberg Conference

Olga Chetverikova, Assistant Professor at Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Foreign Ministery of the Russian Federation, reports on the June 4-7, 2010 Bilderberg Conference in Sitges, Spain. The issues topping the agenda of the club’s meeting are “the global recession and the approaches to provoking such economic breakdowns that can help justify the establishment of a full-scale world economic governance,” she writes. “The debt crisis in Greece that currently puts in jeopardy the entire European financial system provides a pretext for drastic measures, and both the crisis and the measures are vivid illustrations of the strategy that employs chaos to reorder the existing arrangements. The deliberately generated chaos is tightly controlled by financial institutions, major banks, and hedge funds and serves as an efficient mechanism of governance and social restructuring.” (…)

“Importantly, once again we are witnessing the creation of mechanisms of centralized supranational control over national economies, and the crisis acts as a catalyst for a guided fast transition to tighter integration within the EU, which is necessary to build a close-knit Western bloc. The plan imposed on Europe by elite financial circles implies countering the indebtedness problem with the help of new borrowings, which will exacerbate rather than remedy the budget problem. (…)

“Other, yet more ambitious projects like full control over Eurozone national budgets by a triumvirate comprising the European Commission, the European central bank, and the Euro Group are also discussed.The downsides of the rescue packages are the worst part of the problem. Invoking the threat of financial collapse, the EU countries serially introduced extremely unpopular austerity regimes with salary and pension freezes for state employees, welfare cuts, increased retirement ages, etc. Greece was the first but not the only country affected. The German government plans to cut spending by Euro 10b annually in 2011-2016. France abolished the annual pension for low-income families. Under the IMF pressure, Spain is launching a comprehensive reform including pension indexing freeze, pay reductions and employment cuts in the state sector, the abolition of payments to support families with recently born children, etc. Great Britain, Italy, and others are following the lead.”

“The consequences of the measures are hard to gauge considering that Europe is already facing serious poverty and unemployment problems (the unemployment has reached 10% of the economically active population and continues to grow, and at least 80 mln people are currently below the poverty line).”

“Most likely, the shadow world government - the Bilderberg group – will administer to the public the doze of social problems carefully calculated to enable the elites “to offload troubled assets”, retain control over the situation, and divert protests from the actual sources of problems that trigger them.”

“From Russia's perspective, the conclusion is obvious: any deepening of its integration into the ‘free’ Europe strengthens the financial and informational control over Russia exercised by the global elites seeking to strip it of the status of an independent geopolitical player.” Source: Global Research, June 3, 2010

Additional information: Euro 'will be dead in five years'. According to the bulk of economists taking part in a wide-ranging economic survey for The Sunday Telegraph, the euro will have broken up before the end of the present British Parliamentary term. “Of the 25 leading City economists who took part in the Telegraph survey, 12 predicted that the euro would not survive in its current form this Parliamentary term, compared with eight who suspected it would. Five declared themselves undecided.” Source: The Telegraph, June 5, 2010

Euro will fall to parity with U.S. dollar before ‘inevitable’ breakup, CEBR says. “The euro will drop to parity with the U.S. dollar in 2011 before the “inevitable” breakup of the currency that is now used by 16 nations, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said. The euro’s decline will accelerate because the U.S. Federal Reserve is likely to begin raising interest rates at the end of this year while the European Central Bank will keep its benchmark lending rate on hold, the London-based group said in a report published today.” Source: Businessweek, June 12, 2010

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‘Where can I put the meter? …’ Free Energy Magnet Motor Demonstrated at Delft University. ‘Free Tesla Energy is possible says Turkish inventor Muammer Yildriz at the university of Delft, presenting energy from magnetism. Muammer Yildiz, recently demonstrated his magnet motor that he alleged runs on the power of magnets alone at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. ‘The motor is shown turning a fan at a high speed, and no wires can be seen going to the device; then the device is disassembled in front of the group.’ Source: x-journals.com / Youtube video / Pesweki.com: Muammer Yildiz Magnet Motor

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Economist Paul Krugman about the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: “If Obama can seize the moment, this oil spill could help reverse the slide of US environmentalism. (…) The catastrophe in the gulf offers an opportunity, a chance to recapture some of the spirit of the original Earth Day. And if that happens, some good may yet come of this ecological nightmare.” Source: The Guardian, May 3, 2010

Read also: ‘Scientists find vast unreported oil leak from Deepwater Horizon.’ Times online, May 16, 2010

BP's CEO Tony Hayward Takes a Walk on Oil Covered Beach, 'manipulating a press conference'. (Source: Firedoglake.com / De Morgen, May 31, 2010) video

‘US Congress to tell BP boss: you broke rules, cut costs and it ended in disaster.’ Source: The Guardian, June 15, 2010

‘Gulf oil spill: BP faces $34bn in fines as Senate smashes estimates.’ Source: The Guardian, June 14, 2010

Barack Obama's pound of flesh: $20bn compensation and no BP dividends. ‘The payout is only the start of BP's pain. The White House is insistent that the $20bn (£13.5bn) is not a cap.’ Source: The Guardian, June 16, 2010

‘Efforts to Repel Gulf Oil Spill Are Described as Chaotic.’ Source: The New York Times, June 14, 2010

In 2008, BP Touted New Tech to Measure Oil Flow. “For seven weeks, BP has insisted that measuring exactly how much oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico is a daunting -- perhaps impossible -- task. The depth of the well, and the volume of natural gas emitting from it, has made the flow rate ‘very, very difficult to estimate,’ BP has said, while its chief operating officer has emphasized the ‘huge amount of uncertainty’ surrounding the question. But back in 2008, the company was singing a very different tune. In an in-house magazine, BP bragged about sophisticated technology it had developed to measure precisely the flow of oil and gas through pipelines.” (…) “There's a reason the oil giant is being so cagey about the spill's true size. The amount that the company will eventually have to fork out in civil penalties will be determined by how much oil they've dumped into the Gulf. On Thursday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called on BP to grant independent scientists direct access to the spill site in order to figure out the flow rate. Of course, if BP's technology is as ground-breaking as that 2008 magazine article would have us believe, the oil giant should be perfectly capable of undertaking this complex calculation itself. Where's that cutting-edge research now?” Source: theatlantic.com

A message from President Obama: “Stand with me in backing clean energy.”

On June 14, 2010, President Obama sent a message to the ‘Organization for America’ supporters asking them to stand with him in support of clean energy.

“The BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast is the worst environmental disaster of its kind in our nation's history. (…)
We are working to hold BP accountable for the damage to the lands and the livelihoods of the Gulf Coast, and we are taking strong precautions to make certain a spill like this never happens again.
But our work will not end with this crisis. That's one of the reasons why last week I invited lawmakers from both parties to join me at the White House to discuss what it will take to move forward on legislation to promote a new economy powered by green jobs, combat climate change, and end our dependence on foreign oil.

The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a new future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything -- from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks -- more energy-efficient. It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.
Many businesses support this agenda because shifting to clean energy creates opportunities for entrepreneurship. This is how we will reinvent our economy -- and create new companies and new jobs all across the country.
There will be transition costs and a time of adjustment. But if we refuse to heed the warnings from the disaster in the Gulf -- we will have missed our best chance to seize the clean-energy future we know America needs to thrive in the years and decades to come.” Source & full text: my.barackobama.com / Obama’s tv-speech on video

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Rich nations could increase emissions under pledge loopholes, UN data shows. ”Developing countries were today shocked by new UN data showing that rich nations will be able to increase their carbon emissions by up to 8% if they take advantage of a series of major loopholes in their pledges. Instead of reducing emissions by a minimum of 30-40% by 2020 and holding temperatures to a rise of 2C – as many campaigners hoped the Copenhagen climate summit in December would achieve – many rich countries would not need to make any domestic cuts to stay within the legal limits of a new global climate deal being negotiated at resumed UN talks in Bonn this week. The figures, which are far higher than expected, could be achieved by a series of carbon accountancy tricks and devices.” The Guardian, June 9, 2010

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President of the Worldbank, Robert Zoellick about ‘The End of the Third World’: ‘For decades, students of security and international politics have debated the emergence of a multipolar system. It’s time we recognize the new economic parallel. We must support the rise of multiple poles of growth that can benefit all. (…) If 1989 saw the end of the “Second World” with Communism’s demise, then 2009 saw the end of what was known as the “Third World”: We are now in a new, fast-evolving multipolar world economy – in which some developing countries are emerging as economic powers; others are moving towards becoming additional poles of growth; and some are struggling to attain their potential within this new system – where North and South, East and West, are now points on a compass, not economic destinies.’ Source: Mo, April 14, 2010. Read more >>>

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Green food choice may not be so green. “If everyone became vegan and so ate only fruit and vegetables, then the reduction in greenhouse emissions for the whole of food consumption would be a mere 7%. The widespread adoption of vegetarianism would have even less impact, while organic food production actually leads to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Those are the conclusions of a research paper published in the journal Progress in Industrial Ecology.” ScienceDaily, April 1, 2010. Read more >>>

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“The key to democracy is control over the money by the people, not by a secret elite.”

“The source of poverty and environmental problems in the world is the people who own the Federal Reserve Board and their policies of prioritizing the rich and everything to the rich. That is the essence of the problem." (…)

Author, researcher and former Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief of Forbes magazines, Benjamin Fullford Source: Project Camelot interview with Benjamin Fulford by Kerry Cassidy and Bill Ryan. transcript 1, transcript 2, transcript 3 / Video 1, Video 2, Video3 / Read more >>>

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New on our global monetary powers page:

‘This country is the greatest debtor nation in human history now.’ Larry Wilkerson (Retired US Army Colonel and former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell) on the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex and the possible coming end of the American Empire. Video 1, video 2, video3

Former president Eisenhower warns of the military industrial complex. (January 17, 1961) Video

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Discover our new page about UFO's, Space & Extra-terrestrials. (last updated on Jan. 10, 2010)

Should government release files related to extraterrestrial beings?

“Mr. President, anyone who can cross millions of miles of space will be able to take care of themselves when they get there. Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

Albert Einstein

talking to President Truman about the “shoot-them-down” order of UFOs flying over Washington DC on July 19, 1952 - As quoted by national radio host Frank Edwards.

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Prof. Dr. Ervin Laszlo says he’s certain that contact with extra-terrestrials has been made. Video 1 / video 2

Laszlo: "I’m certain contact has been made. I know that in the U.S., Washington, the military establishment and Pentagon there is serious preparation going on." >>> read more

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UFO enthusiasts call on Obama to release classified documents about sightings of alien spacecraft, encouraged by support from within the President's own White House team. Stephen Bassett, Executive Director of the Extraterrestrial Phenomenon Political Action Committee, “believes that military and intelligence officials have studied the technology of alien spacecraft, material that would help the US develop new energy resources, as Mr. Obama wishes, that will lessen US dependency on Middle Eastern oil.” Source: The Telegraph, November 30, 2008

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“There's a VERY good reason why they don't disclose. If they do, they'll have to answer for holding back the human race from advancement while enslaving us to a false paradigm of corruption, pollution, war, and poverty while the elite made themselves FILTHY STINKING RICH off the suffering of BILLIONS of people.” source: vtcpdx here

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Why is the Government Covering Up the Truth? Article by Grant Cameron about ‘The Reasons Why the Government Might Have Chosen not to Disclose the ET Reality’, August 8, 2009

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Video UFO Disclosure Former Astronaut and Engineer Edgar Mitchell

Edgar Mitchell: “Have our visitors, the aliens, have they come to us? And all the evidence says: yes.”

CNN: “So, what is it that you want to see the Obama administration to release?”

CNN, April 21, 2009

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Video It’s time for disclosure. With former American Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edgar Mitchell and with Former Canadian Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer.

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Video Alien Contact with former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer: “Decades ago visitors from other planets warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visit as a threat and decided to shoot first and ask questions after.(…) In a story told by Dr. Steven Greer, President Clinton was asked a queston by White House reporter Sarah McClendon about why he didn’t do something about the disclosure. And Clinton replied: Sarah, there’s a government inside the government, and I don’t control it.” Paul Hellyer

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Former President Jimmy Carter promised to release Ufo Documents and talks about his Ufo Sighting.

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Former President Bill Clinton UFO Speech in Hong Kong (September 14, 2005).

Clinton: "I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that reveal things. And if there were, they were concealed for me too … I wouldn’t be the first president that underlings have lied to or that career bureaucrats have waited out."

Bill Clinton UFO files released by Clinton Library (November 12, 2007)

Records from the Clinton OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) related to UFOs, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Laurance Rockefeller Initiative. (Recent developments: click here)

Read also:’The Rockefeller UFO Report: Or, How a Millionaire and a Socialite New Ager are Trying to Influence World Leaders about UFOs’, article by Paul B. Thompson, and: ‘The Rockefeller – UFO Connection: An Alien Comspiracy?’, article by Dr. M. Sabeheddin.

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Copenhagen Climate Conference 2009.

read full information on our new climate page.

Full text of the Copenhagen Accord

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Economic news

Link to full Economic News page: click here

“Wall St. Helped Greece to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis” According to The New York Times “Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.” (…) “One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.” Source: The New York Times, February 13, 2010

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Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way. According to a new report from a group of leading economists, financiers, and former federal regulators, “another crisis – one that will be even worse than the current one – is looming.” In this report, “the panel, which includes Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren, warns that financial regulatory reform measures proposed by the Obama administration and Congress must be beefed up to prevent banks from continuing to engage in high-risk investing that precipitated the near-collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008. The report warns that the country is now immersed in a "doomsday cycle" wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management – and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government.” (…) "While manufacturers have developed iPods and flat-screen televisions, the financial industry has perfected the art of offering mortgages, credit cards and check overdrafts laden with hidden terms that obscure price and risk," Warren writes. "Good products are mixed with dangerous products, and consumers are left on their own to try to sort out which is which. The consequences can be disastrous." Frank Partnoy, a panelist from the University of San Diego, claims that "the balance sheets of most Wall Street banks are fiction." Source: abcnews Marc 2, 2010

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Universal Healthcare: a feasible economic project

2.5 billion humans –i.e. ca. 40% of the world population- still don’t have access to basic healthcare. At the end of the Global Earth Conference, organized in Brussels by the Hélène De Beir Foundation in October 2009, a group of 80 experts concluded that universal healthcare is a feasible economic project. All it would take is 100 billion dollar or 40 dollar per individual. According to top academic economist and director of the Earth Institute at the Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs, who was one of the participating experts, the writing is on the wall that we have difficulty in finding a few billion dollars to keep millions of children alive while bankers should run off with tens of billions of tax money. That’s something we should not let happen. Jeffrey Sachs states that it is only logical to demand that the Wall Street Bankers should give their bonuses back to the government at the end of this year, but … the political power of our banks is so huge that they usually carry their point … Source: De Morgen, Maarten Rabaey, October 24, 2009.

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From Jean-François Noubel’s

The Vow of Wealth

“I leave the current monetary system. I will not acquire or sell anything with conventional money anymore.

I leave every asset that I acquired in the past via this system. I will only keep what was offered to me as a gift.

I commit to use free currencies that liberate and catalyze wealth everywhere, in any community, for every being, in a universal manner.

Whatever I need to exchange with my fellow brothers and sisters will be done by means of these free currencies.”

http://noubel.com/vow/

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“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar.”

Robert Zoellick, World Bank President, September 2009

source: www.bloomberg.com / Tne New York Post, Sep. 28, 09

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Sarkozy: 'A great revolution is waiting for us ...'

Some days before the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked world leaders to 'join a ''revolution'' in the measurement of economic progress by dropping their obsession with gross domestic product to account for factors such as health-care availability and leisure time.' (…)

''A great revolution is waiting for us,'' Sarkozy said. ''For years, people said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth, only to discover one day that it accumulated so many risks that the world almost plunged into chaos.''

''The crisis doesn't only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.'' (…)

‘Governments' addiction to inflating the GDP of their economies has endangered the planet by encouraging risky behavior and as overconsumption triggers environmental concerns,’ Sarkozy said.

''GDP is an attempt to measure one part of what is going on in our society which is market production. It is what I call GDP fetichism to think success in that part is success for the economy and for society,'' he said. Source: Associated Press / New York Times, September 14, 2009

At the beginning of 2008, President Sarkozy has decided to create The Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress. The Commission is chaired by Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University). Its members are renowned experts from universities, governmental and intergovernmental organizations in several countries.

These are the recommendations from the Commission’s Report:

1: When evaluating material well-being, look at income and consumption rather than production

2: Emphasise the household perspective

3: Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth

4: Give more prominence to the distribution of income, consumption and wealth

5: Broaden income measures to non-market activities

6: Quality of life depends on people’s objective conditions and capabilities. Steps should be taken to improve measures of people’s health, education, personal activities and environmental conditions. In particular, substantial effort should be devoted to developing and implementing robust, reliable measures of social connections, political voice, and insecurity that can be shown to predict life satisfaction.

7: Quality of life indicators in all the dimensions covered should assess inequalities in a comprehensive way

8: Surveys should be designed to assess the links between various quality of life domains for each person, and this information should be used when designing policies in various fields

9: Statistical offices should provide the information needed to aggregate across quality of life dimensions, allowing the construction of different indexes.

10: Measures of both objective and subjective well-being provide key information about people’s quality of life. Statistical offices should incorporate questions to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities in their own survey.

11: Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard of indicators. The distinctive feature of the components of this dashboard should be that they are interpretable as variations of some underlying “stocks”. A monetary index of sustainability has its place in such a dashboard but, under the current state of the art, it should remain essentially focused on economic aspects of sustainability.

12: The environmental aspects of sustainability deserve a separate followup based on a well-chosen set of physical indicators. In particular there is a need for a clear indicator of our proximity to dangerous levels of environmental damage (such as associated with climate change or the depletion of fishing stocks.)

Source: Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress; Professor Joseph E. STIGLITZ, Chair, Columbia University; Professor Amartya SEN, Chair Adviser, Harvard University;Professor Jean-Paul FITOUSSI, Coordinator of the Commission, IEP

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A Values-Based Operating System

‘To get ourselves out of our current mess and create the world we want, we must reboot the economy with a new, values-based operating system designed to support social and environmental balance and the creation of real, living wealth.’

David Korten

Source: Yesmagazine, David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy

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The Solidarity Economy Network is a group of socially responsible businesses, non-profits, and cooperatives that collaborate with one another —at local, regional, and national levels— to create a more just economy. “The Solidarity Economy is an alternative development framework that is grounded in practice and the in the principles of: solidarity, mutualism, and cooperation; equity in all dimensions (race/ethnicity/ nationality, class, gender, LGBTQ); social well-being over profit and the unfettered rule of the market; sustainability; social and economic democracy; and pluralism, allowing for different forms in different contexts, open to continual change and driven from the bottom-up.”

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Bonus time as banks pay out £40bn. ‘The world's biggest investment banks are expected to pay out more than $65bn (£40bn) in salaries and bonuses in the next two weeks, reinforcing the view that it is business as usual on Wall Street and in the City barely a year since the taxpayer bailout of the banking system.’ Source: The Guardian, January 8, 2010

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Ecological news

Link to full Ecological News page: click here

Launch of the Bloom box fuel cell. At the heart of the device, developed by American Company Bloom Energy, “is a thin fuel cell made from a plentiful resource, sand. The size of a floppy disk, it is painted with proprietary inks that allow the fuels to react with oxygen from the air, a chemical process that produces electricity.” According to inventor Sridhar, “a single cell can produce about 25W, enough for a low-energy lightbulb, and a stack of cells the size of a brick will power an average home. A single Bloom box, a unit the size of a chest freezer and which contains several stacks of fuel cells, will produce 100KW, enough for 100 homes.” Source: The Guardian, February 22, 2010 / Video

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Could salt water fuel cars? Youtube video / Howstuffworks / video

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Uruguay: ‘Dry Toilets’ provide ecological solution in slums. Source: IPS, December 28, 2009

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Bright future for lighting technology with glowing OLED wallpaper. ‘OLEDs may soon replace lightbulbs in homes and offices with panels of energy-efficient light built into walls. Wallpaper that can glow with light and bendable flat-panel screens are a step closer thanks to research into organic LEDs (OLEDs), which are widely hailed as the next generation of environmentally friendly lighting technology. OLEDs use very little power to produce light, even compared with modern energy-saving bulbs.’ Source: The Guardian, December 30, 2009

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Japan: Solar trend catches fire among households. According to the Japan Photovoltaic Expansion Center, the solar energy battery shipments for regular homes between April and September 2009 more than doubled, with a combined generating capacity of 205,833 kilowatts, from the same period in 2008. ‘The Japan Federation of Housing Organisations has observed a similar trend during the same period – new home buyers installing solar panels on their roofs at a rate double or triple the corresponding figure in years past.’ Source: December 29, 2009

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‘With its vast renewable energy potential, South Asia can lead the world in achieving energy security. But sources within the region said it needs technological and financial support from the developed countries before it can tap its rich energy resources’. Source: IPS, January 7, 2010

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Environment: Invasion of the Little Green Molecules. ‘While the world's climate negotiators were getting ready for Copenhagen earlier this month, a meeting was taking place in Mumbai to discuss progress in green chemistry, a field that – like the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – has the potential to greatly enhance the world's environmental health and sustainability. (…) The aim is to prevent chemical pollution – and by extension, related adverse health impacts – by eliminating potential chemical hazards of new materials at the design stage. The fundamental idea is that eliminating chemical hazards at the outset – rather than trying to contain or treat these problems after they've occurred – is the best way to prevent such toxics from being released into the environment and of protecting people from exposure to such substances.’ Source: IPS, December 31, 2009

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Towns Rush to Make Low-Carbon Transition. ‘More and more neighborhoods are making the transition to a climate-friendly community.’ Source: Yesmagazine, December 01, 2009

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Transition Albany: A Local Response to Climate Change. Catherine Sutton is ‘the initiator of Transition Albany—the effort of a 1.7-square-mile California town (population 16,500+) to transform itself into a self-reliant and resilient community.’ Source: Yesmagazine, January 6, 2010

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Transition Towns – preparing for a self-sufficient community-based future. ‘In over 150 cities in 14 countries, ‘Transition Town’ communities are raising awareness of the threats associated with peak oil and climate change, and taking practical steps to prepare for a post-industrial future…’ Source: Eartheasy.com, November 9, 2009

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No Need to Wait (or Pay) for Climate Technology. ‘The Global Innovation Commons is a massive interactive archive of energy-saving technologies already in the public domain.’ Source: Yesmagazine, December 04, 2009

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Shell accused of abandoning solar power buyers in the developing world. ‘Shell has become embroiled in a major row with the World Bank and green energy companies after allegations that it is unfairly refusing to honour warranties on solar power systems sold to the developing world.’ Source: The Guardian, January 10, 2010

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North Sea countries plan vast clean energy project: ‘Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy 'supergrid'.’Source: The Guardian, January 10, 2010

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Egypt: Rooftops empower the poor. ‘Solar CITIES is a development initiative spearheaded by U.S. urban planner Thomas Culhane. The project leverages local experience and innovation to develop cheap and robust clean energy technologies adapted to the rigorous operating environment of Cairo's poorest neighborhoods.’ Source: IPS, January 3, 2010

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According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) a total investment of 10,500 billion dollars is needed from 2010-2030 to curb carbon emissions and to avoid irreparable damage to the planet’s climate. Source: http://en.cop15.dk/news

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According to a leading economic report of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), the cost of biodiversity loss fluctuates between US$ 2.5 and 4.5 trillion a year. "We cannot continue our stewardship of this planet if we keep looking at public benefits and public wealth as somehow subordinate to private wealth," said economist Pavan Sukhdev, who heads up TEEB. Source: Climate Ark, November 17, 2009

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“Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year.”

Dr. Gerhard Knies, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the DESERTEC Foundation

Global company Siemens estimates that an area of 300 square kilometres in the Sahara fitted with parabolic collectors would be enough to meet the planet's entire energy needs. Source

In June 2009 some 15 German companies and institutions have expressed interest in joining a consortium to formalize the so-called Desertec concept. This project calls for a string of solar thermal power plants in the North African desert to provide electricity for European households. This venture is ‘expected to cost 400 billion euro’s (552 billion U.S. dollars) and start providing the first electricity in 10 years.’ Greenpeace welcomes the initiative, calling it ‘one of the most sensible responses to the global environmental and economic problems of our time.’ Participant Siemens estimates that an area of 300 square kilometres in the Sahara fitted with parabolic collectors would be enough to meet the planet's entire energy needs. Source

‘It is high time for electric cars to fully flourish after 100 years of development.’

Jacqueline Cramer, Dutch Minister of Environmental Affairs

Source: www.happynews.nl

On June 26, 2009 Bernard Piccard and André Borschberg unveiled at Dübendorf airfield close to Zurich, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA, the first aircraft designed to fly both day and night without fossil fuel or pollution. ‘The HB-SIA is the first prototype of the Solar Impulse project. Its mission is to demonstrate the feasibility of a complete day-night-day cycle propelled solely by solar energy. After fine-tuning on the ground, the aircraft should make its first test flights between now and the end of 2009, first of all at Dübendorf airport (canton of Zurich) and then from Payerne air base (canton of Vaud). A first complete night flight is programmed for 2010 and will take place over Switzerland.’ Source / www.solarimpulse.com

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Social news

Link to full Social News page: click here

United States: House passes Obama’s historic healthcare overhaul. “House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years.” (…) “We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things,” Mr. Obama said. “This isn’t radical reform,” he added, “but it is major reform.” New York Times, March 21, 2010 “The House’s passage of health care legislation late Sunday night assures that whatever the ultimate cost, President Obama will go down in history as one of the handful of presidents who found a way to reshape the nation’s social welfare system. (…) Whether it was a historic achievement or political suicide for his party — perhaps both — he succeeded where President Bill Clinton failed in trying to remake American health care.” New York Times, March 21, 2010. Read also: In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality

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Paraguay: Public health care almost entirely free of charge. ‘The measure was one of the campaign promises of centre-left President Fernando Lugo, a former bishop who took office in August 2008. (…)Seven percent of Paraguay's population of 6.1 million currently have private health coverage, 20 percent are covered by the health services of the social security institute, the Instituto de Previsión Social, and the rest depend on the public health system. But an estimated 40 percent of the population were unable to afford health care of any kind. "What we are doing is making health care a right, regardless of a person's ability to pay," Diego Gamarra, director general of health services in the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare (MSPBS), told IPS.’ Source: IPS, January 6, 2010

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Agriculture: 75% of hungry are rural poor. ‘Climate change, associated with a four-fold increase in natural disasters in the last decade, and the growth of world population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, pose new challenges for aid initiatives like those of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). (…) The WFP report titled Climate Change and Hunger: Responding to the Challenge says that "By 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger as a result of climate change is expected to increase by 10 to 20 percent more than would be expected without climate change.”’ Source: IPS, January 8, 2010

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Many Will Not Feel Effect of Health Care Changes. ‘What about the roughly 160 million workers and their dependents who already have health insurance through an employer? For many people, the result of the long, angry health care debate in Washington may be little more than more of the same. As President Obama once promised, “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”That may be true even if you don’t like your health plan. And no one seems to agree on whether the legislation will do much to reduce workers’ continually rising out-of-pocket costs.’ Source: The New York Times, December 24, 2009

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United States: Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics. “Some children from poor families may be receiving powerful drugs not because they need them but because it is deemed a cheaper way to treat a problem. New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows. Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?” Source & full article: The New York Times, December 11, 2009

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Read in The Lancet: The right to health in times of economic crisis: Cuba's way.

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According to a new report by the US census bureau, “the world is about to cross a demographic landmark of huge social and economic importance, with the proportion of the global population 65 and over set to outnumber children under five for the first time.” The US census bureau “highlights a huge shift towards not just an ageing but an old population, with formidable consequences for rich and poor nations alike. The transformation carries with it challenges for families and policymakers, ranging from how to care forolder people living alone to how to pay for unprecedented numbers of pensioners – more than 1 billion of them by 2040. The report, An Ageing World: 2008, shows that within 10 years older people will outnumber children for the first time. It forecasts that over the next 30 years the number of over-65s is expected to almost double, from 506 million in 2008 to 1.3 billion – a leap from 7% of the world's population to 14%. Already, the number of people in the world 65 and over is increasing at an average of 870,000 each month.” Source: The Guardian, July 20, 2009

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≈ -♥->

New Kundalini pages

(online since July 22, 2010)

New Links.

The Ecovaproject recommends the New Z-Land Project.

‘The New Z-Land Project is to be a prototype, experimental community. This experimental community will be offered as a service to experience eco-friendly living while enjoying the luxury of the latest technologies.’ The New Z-land Project addresses to those who would like to experience a Resource Sharing Society.

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“Several basic income networks and community organisations in Europe have decided to progress the development of a more social Europe. An unconditional basic income, an addition to other necessary political measures, is an important step in this direction. We would therefore like to ask you to support the introduction of an unconditional basic income.” www.basicincomeinitiative.eu

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From Thomas Greco’s beyondmoney.net:

The End of Homo Economicus. ‘This video with Dan Pink summarizes recent behavioral research that blasts the myth of homo economicus totally away. Once basic needs are met, what motivates people in performing complex cognitive tasks is NOT more pay, but autonomy, mastery, and purpose.’ Thomas Greco, June 4, 2010

Emergence of the Empathic Society. ‘An amazing video by Jeremy Rifkin in which he sketches the evolution of human civilization and posits a vision of a world in which empathy has become the dominant motivating force and human unity is the global reality.’ Thomas Greco, June 3, 2010

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‘Why are we not going electric?’ … ‘Because the oil companies are in control. (…) So the people are tied to oil. And they have no choice.’ Source: Green Wheels: Solar Power, Discovery Science, video 1, video 2

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I am a movement. ‘I'm a movement is about green money, synergy landscaping and personal leadership.’ Eric Odinot Video

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Behrokh Khoshnevis, professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) and Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at The University of Southern California, has developed a house building robot. This real home fabricator allows to build a complete house –including plumbing and electricity in less than a day with Contour Crafting technology. This technology highly reduces construction costs and environmental waste. Video

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BASIC INCOME FOR CHILDREN IN NEW YORK STATE
‘New York State currently spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. An essay by Paul Fernhout suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child.’

See: www.pdfernhout.net/. Source : US BIG Newsletter Vol. 10, No. 54 Fall 2009

Slow Money: Bringing Money Down to Earth. Slow Money is a nonprofit that connects investors to local economies. Read article in Yesmagazine

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James Robertson's Newsletter

(November 2009)

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The Coming Currency Revolution: on this video Andy Jordan from the Wall Street Journal talks to currency renegades tired of big-government centralized cash, and desperate to make their own (legal) money systems.

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Ven Digital Currency used by members of Hub Culture to buy, share and trade knowledge, goods and services. Video

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Community Currency Magazine is a monthly online magazine with news and information related to the world of Community Currency.

Community Currency Magazine has published a first article about the Ecovaproject in their July 2009 issue, online at: http://www.ccmag.net/

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A circular economy is a ‘cradle to cradle’ holistic economic, industrial and social framework, modeling “human industry on nature’s processes in which materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. It suggests that industry must protect and enrich ecosystems and nature’s biological metabolism while also maintaining safe, productive technical metabolism for the high-quality use and circulation of organic and synthetic materials.” Source

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The Tax Justice Network promotes transparency in international finance and opposes secrecy. Interview with John Christensen from the Tax Justice Network: click here.

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Abundance economics: "I think scarcity is artificially created and maintained." Flemming Funch

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“The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.” http://www.storyofstuff.com/

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An open letter to President Obama: Ellen Brown

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‘How to Destabilize Countries Legally’ Part1 & Part2 John Perkins

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Terry Manning, a New Zealand lawyer and director of ‘Stichting Bakens Verzet / NGO Another Way’, designed a new Model for self-financing integrated development suitable for general application in rural and poor urban areas. His model proposes an original combination of local, social, financial, productive and services structures, enabling even the poorest to self-finance their own basic sustainable development. “Powerful cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free local economic environments are set up there where individual initiative and true competition are both free to flourish.”

You can get full information at: www.flowman.nl

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links.

About a moneyless society.

Resource-based Economy: proposed by Jacque Fresco as a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude.

Jacque Fresco in Zeitgeist Addendum 8/13

Jacque Fresco online videos:

http://www.youtube.com

http://www.jerrypippin.com

Jacque Fresco's Venus Project offers "a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium."

To support The Venus Project, please sign their petition at: thepetitionsite.com

“Zeitgeist Day” is an annual, global event day. The goal is to increase public awareness of The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project.

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freeconomy : ‘about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society’.

About abnundance.

Abundance economics Flemming Funch.

Michel Bauwens' Abundance bookmarks.

About the money system.

www.transaction net with permanent online 'money conference' (to compare insights on all kinds of money systems)

Link to Money as Debt video: 'Money is just an idea and in reality money can be whatever we make it'...

That was then:

video:The missing secrets of Nikola Tesla

And this is now:

Powerpedia: Wireless transmission of electricity.

May 2008: Wireless Power System Transmits Energy Over 148km.

Video: Eric Giler demos wireless electricity

Smart Sheet combines wireless power supply and wireless communications. Tokyo engineers mix MEMS and organic electronics in a flexible plastic substrate for low-power link and wireless power for portables.

About sustainability & the environment.

Top-100 list of the most promising new renewable energy technologies at: peswiki.com

The Pesticide Action Network, an international action group working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives, mentions that there were never before so many pesticides in our food than today.

One Planet Living is a global initiative based on 10 principles of sustainability developed by BioRegional and WWF.

1   Zero Carbon

2   Zero Waste

3   Sustainable Transport

4   Local and Sustainable Materials

5   Local and Sustainable Food

6   Sustainable Water

7   Natural Habitats and Wildlife

8   Culture and Heritage

9   Equity and Fair-trade

10 Health and Happiness

www.oneplanetliving.org

EfficienCity is a virtual ecocity that is created by Greenpeace to clarify the possibilities of sustainable, renewable energy.

friends of the earth international is the world's largest grassroots environmental network. They campaign on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.

This site contains the text of The Ecova project. A monetary alternative for worldwide social, economic and ecological security,