The Stream, June 12: Draft Text Shows Little Agreement Before Rio +20 Conference

Negotiations
The Guardian received a leaked copy of the draft negotiating text for the Rio +20 conference on sustainable development. Only about 20 percent of the document’s language has been settled, and critics of the process fear a weak agreement or even no agreement could be reached.

Water is part of the draft text, but it is not being integrated with other prominent sectors such as energy, according to an IPS News interview with a researcher from the Stockholm International Water Institute.

This week the first of two dams will be removed from the Penobscot River in Maine. NPR looks at the negotiations that made the dam removal possible.

Water Supplies
For its series “Pollution, Poverty, People of Color,” Environmental Health News talks with people in California’s Central Valley who worry about the safety of their tap water because of high levels of nitrates.

Despite the backing of a federal law, civil society groups in Indonesia’s capital have not been able to get financial information from the two private companies that manage the city’s water system, the Jakarta Globe reports.

An editorial from the San Antonio Express-News argues that if residents want to keep their lawns, the price of water must increase because new supplies are significantly more expensive and drought restrictions limit the cheap groundwater the city can pump.

The Stream is a daily digest spotting global water trends. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.

1 reply
  1. Ron McCune says:

    Want to stop global warming immediately? It’s easy — stop flying turbo jet engine airplanes. That’s right, do the math. If the new jumbo jets now being built can burn enough oxygen in two minutes to fill the Astrodome, then the planes of today are burning enough air to fill the Astrodome in approximately four minutes.
    There is 3,000 to 5,000 flights a day in the U.S. alone. I just heard on the news the other day that there was nearly 6,000 flights for that day. Now I’m hearing that there IS NEARLY 6,000 FLIGHTS A DAY IN THE USA!!! On T.V. they show at times during the news a picture that shows how many planes are up there flying and this picture goes on all day long!!!! I hear that us stupid humans are daily streaming the upper atmosphere with 41 MILLION MILES of hot air from these airplanes EVERY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus figure in all the heat exhaust from all those planes on the ground. Now taken together these planes probably average out to 3 hours of flight each and a few hours on the ground. So, figuring 3,000 flights daily, enough air to fill 135,000 Astrodomes is burned and heated up every day. Monthly 4,050,000 and yearly 49,725,000. Astrodome-size air pockets are destroyed and forever gone and are irreplaceable. Now that is on the low side and doesn’t include military flights. Also factor in that there is 40,000 flights worldwide daily. Averaging each flight at three hours means every day these planes are up there flying, enough air to fill approximately 900,000 Astrodomes is superheated and destroyed DAILY!!! Now lets talk miles. Every day airplanes fly 41,000,000 miles,weekly 287,000,000 miles, monthly 8,610,000,000, and yearly 103,320,000,000. And every decade that is 1,103,320,000,000 miles. THAT’S A LOT OF HOT AIR!!!!! N

    ow I do hope that someone out there will get the correct figures on how many airplanes are up there and how much airspace are they burning up. NOW I KNOW A LOT OF YOU ARE LOOKING UP AT THE SKY AND THINKING THAT THERE IS A LOT OF SPACE UP THERE SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT PUTTING 41,000,000 MILES OF HOT AIR UP THERE BUT THINK AGAIN AND PLEASE FACE REALITY!!!! IT IS NOT THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR DOWN HERE THAT IS OUR CONCERN, IT IS THE 32 DEGREES BELOW ZERO UP THERE THAT WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT. THE COLD AIR UP THERE IS WHAT WE HAVE TO INSURE IT STAYS COLD!!!! WE CAN’T DAILY KEEP HEATING UP OUR UPPER ATMOSPHERE WITH THESE TURBO JET ENGINES!! YOU CAN’T PUT A HEATER IN A ROOM AND NOT EXPECT THE ROOM TO HEAT UP!! THERE IS ONLY A LIMITED AMOUNT OF SPACE IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE. USE YOUR COMMON SENSE, ESPECIALLY YOU REPUBLICANS, WHO I’M SURE STILL DENY WE HAVE A GLOBAL WARMING PROBLEM. SO IF YOU REALLY WANT TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING ,STOP FLYING TURBO JET ENGINE AIRPLANES!!!

    Also, since its introduction in the early 70′s, the turbo jets are heating up our upper atmosphere and the Earth cannot overcome this situation. We must go back to the propeller engine airplanes or kiss human life on Earth goodbye, because as temperatures rise, microbes will develop that will wipe us out. Also the melting of the ice in the north and south poles will lead to a world without much of a winter, which will wreck havoc on Mother Nature. Also, with all this melting of ice that was formed hundreds and thousands and millions of years ago, we are releasing all the bacteria and other unwanted who-knows-what things that was stored inside that ice into the ocean where it can wreck havoc on many kinds of fish and birds worldwide. Who knows if eating the fish will hurt us, so we better keep a close eye on the fish and birds to make sure that a problem doesn’t become worsened.

    So STOP flying or kiss your world goodbye! Now all of you who don’t believe that turbo engines are one of the causes of global warming, think about it: we had the fight of World War II and with all the planes flying around then and up to the 70′s and with all the coal-burning homes back then, we never experienced the climate changes and lack of winters we face now. Also look at the weather maps for the area around Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. You will see that, since the 70′s with the introduction of turbo jet engines, that the weather patterns were dramatically changed. I know, I lived there. I’ve seen how the amount of snow that fell when I was a kid during the 50′s and 60′s was not the same as the 70′s and thereafter. Even the amount or rain is down a lot since the 70′s. Look at cloud patterns as they approach Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. They just disappear right on the radar.

    Something’s happening. Something changed and that was the introduction of the turbo jet in the 70′s. We must simply get rid of them if we are to survive. Moisture in the atmosphere cannot sustain itself when it comes in contact with the forces of a turbo jet engine. It gets burned up. It’s as simple as that. Heck look at the exhaust of turbo engine jets: it looks like a heat wave in the desert. Well that’s what it’s doing to our atmosphere. Burning it up. Think of what that engine is doing nearly wide open up there in the sky sucking up the air and burning it up. Then think of the exhaust after it leaves the engine. It creates more damage on its own. Just as a fart is, but, though it’s a small amount of air, it has the ability to affect all the air in a room. Well when the exhaust molecules leave that turbo jet engine, it is heated to 500 DEGREES! The military turbo jets engine exhaust is much higher, I believe around 1800 to 2400 degrees. Rockets are much higher. I hear the space shuddle is the same temperature as a small star, like around 25,000 degrees!!! Those heated molecules JUST SIT UP THERE BLOWING IN THE WIND AND HEAT UP MORE MOLECULES AND ROB MORE MOLECULES OF IT’S MOISTURE AND COLD CONTENT!!! ONE FOOTBALL SIZE STADIUM OF TURBO HEATED AIR CREATES MANY, MANY MORE STADIUMS OF DRY, DRY HOT AIR! MOTHER NATURE CANNOT — REPEAT CANNOT — RECOUP FROM THIS DAILY ONSLAUGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    We can’t go on daily messing with Mother Nature and then try to say we are looking for ways to correct the world’s climate problems. WE ARE THE PROBLEM! We go way up there to 35,000 feet in these aluminum cans called airplanes and burn up the most critical layer of our atmosphere, the layer of air that was ALWAYS kept cold at 40 DEGREES BELOW ZERO! Because in all the centuries of us humans, the caretakers of this paradise, living down here on Earth, heating and polluting things down here, not one of us figured out how to warm the air up there. At least not till the INTRODUCTION OF THE TURBO JET!!! Then the climate change started. Slowly, over the years, our climate changed since the introduction of the turbo jet ,but in the last 15 years since air travel increased, our climate change for the worst has hastened.

    We have to go back to the propeller airplanes. They did not affect the climate then and they shouldn’t now. I don’t remember seeing the heat wave effect emitting from propeller planes. I don’t think they burn up the air’s moisture content either. Perhaps we can get an electric power engine that could fly airplanes. That would help a lot. IN FACT THIS IS THE WAY TO GO!!! With the power potential of the new batteries we could create a small airplane that anyone can fly or at least create a new kind of electric-flying plane. But in the meantime, WE HAVE TO STOP FLYING TURBO ENGINE PLANES!!!!!! EVEN IF IT MEANS WE WILL NOT FLY!!!! I challenge any country or state or county around the world to outlaw these planes entirely or a set amount of days each week when they are allow to fly. BUILD up your country’s air moisture and lower your heat waves and hot days!

    What I would like to see is for ALL of you to make a copy of this article about turbo engine’s affect on global warming and pass it out at every airport worldwide so we can get the movement started and succeeded. Perhaps even hire people to pass out the fliers as they wait for flights, or as they go legally repeatedly into the airport making many numerous inquiries. We could make it a movement, if legal, to have a car party at the or near the roads leading to the airports and the roads going through the airports. Let’s legally logjam the airports around the world while we are having a party in the airports. We the taxpayers pay for the airports so we — meaning ALL of us — get to use the airport’s restaurants and restrooms and bars, which we’ll turn into a new hangout for all those looking to PARTY HARDY!!!! Then as our chauffeurs LEGALLY drive around the airport picking up and dropping off their numerous passengers to use our taxpayer-supported airport facilities, we do hope they are courteous as they stop traffic after bumper bumping someone and having to exchange the MANY MANY hard to find documents that need to be exchanged. Traffic-jam City folks, that’s the goal.

    If folks can’t get to their airplanes in time, the whole system SHUTS DOWN and then we’ll have no more global warming. If that’s what it takes to end global warming, then that is what we must do if we legally can!!! I mean, face the facts folks, WE ARE NEVER GOING TO GET RID OF GLOBAL WARMING UNTIL WE GET RID OF TURBO JET ENGINES FLYING UP THERE!!!!!!! And I want you kids to start telling your parents that YOU ARE NOT FLYING ANYMORE ON TURBO JET AIRPLANES!!! SAVE YOUR PLANET, KIDS!!! We are now faced with another situation that may hasten the end of the climate that enabled us humans and many other species to live. As the temperature rises, changes will happen that us humans will not biologically survive. So we have to be careful not to create any more damage to our environment than we have already.

    TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE FROGS AND THE BIRDS AND THE FISH AROUND THE WORLD. THEY ARE THE CANARIES IN THE CAGE IN THE COAL MINE, AND THEY ARE DYING BECAUSE OF A DISEASE THAT THRIVES IN THE NOW WARMER WATERS OF THE OCEANS THAT WE CREATED WITH GLOBAL WARMING!!! YET VIRGIN AIRLINES WANTS TO NOW OPEN UP THE SKIES AROUND THE EARTH TO SIGHT SEEING SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE MONEY!!! Virgin Airlines is trying to create, with the money that you give them, a new kind of jet that can fly around in space thus heating up more of our atmosphere.

    WE MUST STOP THEM BY BOYCOTTING VIRGIN AIRLINES AND ALL OF IT’S AFFILIATED COMPANIES!!! LET’S DRY UP THE FUNDS THAT ENABLE THEM TO DO THIS!!! And we better do something quick!! Because, if you go down to near the last part of this web page, you will see an article about how the Earth will be like Mars in about 100 years!!! Yes folks, in about 35 to 50 years, all life on Earth will be experiencing the beginning of the end of life on Earth. In 35 to 50 years, when the snow-covered mountain tops are gone, the sun will dry up all rain clouds and then the sun will bake the Earth. We’ll have no rain, which means no crops, which means mass starvation and chaos. That’s your future!!!!

    Read http://www.mybetteramericaplan.com for more about this and other ideas that will help the environment.

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