Happy earth day, everybody! Let's have some quotes from Earth Day, 1970:
"We have about five more years at the outside to do something." - Kenneth Watt, ecologist
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." - George Wald, Harvard Biologist
"We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." - Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
"Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." - New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." - Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s." - Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation." - Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions....By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine." - Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
"Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support...the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution...by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...." - Life Magazine, January 1970
"At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable." - Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone." - Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones." - Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate...that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, `I am very sorry, there isn't any.'" - Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." - Sen. Gaylord Nelson
"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." - Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Now for your regularly scheduled links.
A bill that will supposedly be introduced next week in the form of two separate amendments is
The Safe Banking Act of 2010. This is essentially the "too big to fail" bill. It would mandate caps on leverage and size of financial institutions, forcing the breakup of mega-banks. The caps would limit the total assets of any financial institution to 3% of GDP and 2% of GDP for banks. To give you an idea of how drastic a cut we are talking, the six largest banks in the US currently have holding that equal 63% of GDP. I find this a very interesting idea, actually. I've long stated that it's my opinion that the only true and proper role of government is to ensure competition, and breaking the big banks into scores of little banks would be a big step toward that. I just wonder if 2% is too drastic a cut.. maybe start with 5%? But even moreso, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts..." there's not a single piece of major legislation that the democrats have put forward since obama took office that hasn't been crammed full of secret "gotchas" or so-called "unintended" consequences... and with the speed they're trying to ram all these "wall street reform" bills through, I really have to wonder what they're trying to hide in there that they don't want us to see until after it is passed.
Barack Obama is speaking in New York City today about Wall Street reform.
Some New Yorkers aren't too happy about this. New York City Mayor Bloomberg says
"The bashing of Wall Street is something that should worry everybody."
The testimony of a former Paulson & Co official could
undercut the SEC's fraud case against Goldman Sachs.
Could Goldman Sachs end up coming out ahead after all this?
It's hard to argue that our looming budget problems
derive from 'too little taxes' when by any historical standard taxes will rise to record levels even before the fiscal gap is addressed.
There is no such thing as liberty, if we apply Bill Clinton's latest logic on the potential violence of the tea parties.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is
giving the teachers unions hell right now. If you are going to send death threats,
at least bother to spell things correctly. Especially if you are a government school teacher.
A House candidate in Massachusetts declared The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate
to be a giant waste of taxpayer money.
An eminent domain battle is brewing in Auburn, New York. We haven't been doing too well on that front lately.
The number of sex change operations carried out on the taxpayer dime by the NHS
has almost tripled in the last eight years since sex changes became a "right" in the UK.
Should the Oregon middle school teacher who created the "Crash the Tea Party" website be fired?
Tea Partiers say no.
Uh oh, looks like
a scandal brewing in Florida politics.