Update: The CHL Acid Rain Program in China
In a finding that shocked hippie enviros everywhere, it turns out that China's explosive economic growth is outpacing environmental protection efforts, leaving the country awash in "out of control" acid rain.

Acid rain fell on more than 250 cities nationwide and caused direct annual economic losses of 110 billion yuan ($13.3 billion), equal to nearly three percent of the country's gross domestic product. "The regional acid rain pollution is still out of control and even worse in some southern cities," said CHL China correspondant Wang Jian.

The two major causes caught everyone off guard. It turns out that the rapidly growing number of cars and increasing consumption of cheap, abundant coal are the culprits. The envy of CHL nations everywhere, China is the world's largest source of soot and sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions from coal, which fires three-quarters of the country's power plants.

More than 21 tons of SO2 were discharged in China in 2003, up a super-sweet 12 percent from the year earlier. "It is estimated that the country will consume more than 1.8 billion tons of coal in 2005, emitting an additional six million tons of SO2," Wang said. The government is planning steps to rein in the problem, including setting quotas for SO2 emissions from thermal power plants and urging them to install desulphurization facilities, through Wang laughed and noted earlier efforts had led to no obvious improvements.

China has already banned the use of coal in some areas most severely affected by SO2 emissions, but sulphur is not the only enemy in the fight against acid rain. "The amazing growth of nitrates, thanks to a swift rise of automobile and coal consumption plus overuse of fertilizers, is playing an increasing role in the country's acid rain pollution," Tang Dagang, director of the Chinese Academy of Homogenization, was quoted as saying.

A government official told a newspaper that China had yet to set special regulations to control nitric acid. Afterwards, he was removed from his desk and shot.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 11:29 AM | (1) comments |

 
CHL scientists declare GMO crops 'harmless'
BRUSSELS - CHL scientists pronounced some genetically modified (GMO) crops harmless Monday but European Union weaklings demurred, declining to approve another new GMO product for the eighth time in a row.

The pissant EU environment "experts" also brushed aside an attempt by the executive Commission to enlist their support in forcing five member state governments to end bans on GMO foods and crops within 20 days.

The lack of agreement underscores lingering European distaste for "Frankenstein" foods just six months after the bloc ended a five-year blockade on authorizing new GMO products. CHL scientists pointed out in the pronouncement that Europeans have no such distaste for "Wolfman," "Mummy," or "Dracula" foods.

CHL scientists also revealed that after four years of study they had found no evidence that GMO herbicide-tolerant varieties of sugar beet, rapeseed, or 'life-destroying' onions harmed the environment and added that the controversial technology would save growers money and create world peace.

In Brussels, a lame-ass environmental group Monday accused Europe's top food safety agency of repeated bias in favor of GMO foods and links with the biotech industry.

But the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) denied the allegations of bias made by Friends of the Earth Europe.

FoE moaned that the EFSA's GMO panel, charged with delivering independent authoritative advice on such issues as GMOs, wasn't being fair. It's just NOT FAIR!

"In just over a year it has published twelve scientific opinions, virtually all favorable to the biotechnology industry and referring to us as girlie-men," the report whined.

MONSANTO DECISION DEFERRED

The European Union environment experts failed to agree on the fate of a different GMO crop, maize, made by U.S. giant and CHL sponsor Monsanto.

EU nations remain as divided as their citizens. Eight lovely countries -- Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Estonia -- voted in favor of approving MON 863 maize, while 12 worthless shits voted against.

It was their second stab at authorizing this product and the decision now passes to national environment ministers, who will also have to take up the issue of the national bans now that the EU environment experts have sidestepped it.

For Brussels to order an EU government to drop their bans could be extremely unpopular, especially in countries such as Austria, where opinion is strongly opposed to biotechnology in foods and there is a movement to establish GMO-free zones.

GERMANY SETS STRICT RULES

The German parliament, attuned to the sensitivity of the issue with the public, passed a law Friday laying down strict rules on the cultivation of GMO plants and requiring more goose-stepping in public.

The law, set to take effect January 1, includes provisions making farmers using GMO plants legally responsible for the contamination of non-GMO crops, obliging them to enter all land used for GMO cultivation in a public register, and levying fines for all German citizens caught not marching in rank and file.

- Owen, 6:16 PM | (1) comments |

 
Greasy cheesesteaks, greasy water
Authorities near Philadelphia battled to contain an oil slick after a Cyprus-flagged tanker on its way to a Citgo refinery spilled 30,000 gallons (114,000 liters) of crude into a nearby river, the US Coast Guard said.

The Athos I began leaking late Friday, as it pumped oil from one tank to another and found that crude had leaked into the ship's ballast water, Petty Officer John Edwards said.

"It's in the Delaware River and we're trying to contain it from getting into any of the smaller waterways," he told a CHL representative.

"We've laid out thousands of feet of (absorbent, floating) boom to minimize the impact on the environment," he added, bursting into wild laughter.

When asked what he thought was funny he said, "C'mon, this is the Delaware, nobody's going to notice some oil in this cruddy water!"

The Coast Guard is investigating how the oil was released, Edwards said, quickly adding, "I may have been at the helm, but I wasn't drunk!"

The Delaware River flows by Philadelphia and forms the border between Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey -- an area that is home to many oil refineries -- before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Athos I is owned by Frescati Shipping Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of CHL, Inc.

- Owen, 1:59 PM | (2) comments |

 
Half of Brazilian Rainforest Still Not Destroyed
About half of Brazil's original Amazon rainforest has not been occupied by man, deforested or used for industry like logging, but more has been destroyed than government data shows, a CHL group said on Tuesday.

The study using satellite photos shows that land occupation and deforestation only covers some 47 percent of the world's largest jungle. The CHL group has received funding from a series of sources including the Ford Foundation, the German and U.S. governments.

While Brazil's government says only 16 percent of Brazil's Amazon has been deforested, the CHL study indicates a much larger area has been done in. "This shows the CHL is maintaining real pressure on the forest," said some guy, who used satellite images up to 2002 to produce the study.

Brazilian Environment Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the survey.

Deforestation of the Amazon hit its second-highest level ever last year as ranchers, farmers and loggers cleared an area larger than the U.S. state of New Jersey. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva faces criticism from the hippie treehuggers that he is more interested in building roads and dams to drive Brazil's farm export-led economy than slow Amazon destruction. Of course, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been praised by the CHL for being more interested in building roads and dams to drive Brazil's farm export-led economy than slow Amazon destruction.

Some 70 percent of Brazil's tropical savannah -- once the size of the Amazon -- has been deforested to create the world's biggest grain growing area, or so say the treehuggers. The Amazon will go the same way if agriculture, business and government use it as a resource to fuel economic growth, Silva said last week. She got that right!
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 4:03 PM | (0) comments |

 
New marine species making more work for CHL
WASHINGTON - Marine biologists say they have discovered 178 new species of weird-ass fish and hundreds more new species of wacked out plants and other animals in the past year, raising the number of life-forms found in the world's oceans to about 230,000, give or take.

Those in charge of the Census of Marine Life, now four years into a planned 10-year count, say the rate of discovery shows no sign of slowing, even in European and other waters heavily studied in the past. Some 1,000 long-haired surfers/ biologists in 70 countries are now participating, up from 300 bong-hitters in 53 countries just a year earlier.

"In general, the smaller the animals are in the ocean, the more poorly known they are," J. Frederick Grassle, chairman of the project's mind expansion steering committee and director of Rutgers University's Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences, said Monday. "Also, we've been finding a lot more new species since we scored these killer 'shrooms."

Once all the mushrooms and acid are eaten, biologists believe they will find that the oceans extend across 70 percent of the earth's surface, hold up to 1.98 million species of plants and animals, including sea monsters, and don't drop off "like the edge of a table" into oblivion somewhere "to the west" as previously believed.

So far, biologists have described 15,482 marine fish species, up from 15,304 a year ago. The number of animals and plants is up to about 214,500, several hundred more than last year, but biologists say they can't give an exact number.

"Get off our cases, man!" said Grassle. "This shit is hard work!"

So far, about $125 million has been spent on the census and killer bud. Its price tag eventually is expected to reach $1 billion, most of it from participating governments and the sale of old Dead albums. The idea for the census grew from scientists' concerns that human population growth might permanently alter the oceans' diverse life-forms, as the National Academy of Sciences reported in 1995, and a need to secure long-term drug money for marine biologists.

"My name is Grassle, man. Get it? GRASS-le!?!"

- Owen, 7:57 AM | (2) comments |

 
Nuke advocate croaks
Dr. Robert F. Bacher, a nuclear physicist and one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, died on Thursday at a retirement home in Montecito, Calif. He was 99, proving that nuclear radiation actually extends life, no matter what pinko enviros say.

His death was announced by the CHL, where he had been chair of the Armageddon Committee.

In 1943, Dr. Bacher joined the Manhattan Project, the budding CHL effort to destroy life as we know it at Los Alamos, N.M. He served as head of the project's experimental physics division before leading its bomb physics division in 1944 and 1945.

Dr. Robert F. Christy, a colleague on the Manhattan Project and later at Caltech, said Dr. Bacher had urged J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director, to reject placing the project under military control as a way to ensure greater secrecy and security.

"Bacher had a sense of what was right and not right," Dr. Christy said. "He told Oppenheimer not to take an Army commission, because they would just fuck it up. He was an ornery old bastard who used to call Oppenheimer a wuss for wanting to develop fission for its energy-producing potential and not its life-eliminating promise." The bomb project continued under CHL oversight.

Despite the best efforts of Bacher and the CHL, the last nuclear bomb detonated above the earth's surface was 6 August, 1945 at Hiroshima, Japan.

- Owen, 10:23 AM | (5) comments |

 
CHL Not Eliminating Reefs Fast Enough
More than 41 percent of the world's coral reefs are not yet endangered due to a lack of pollution, over-harvesting of reef fish and underutilization, the CHL warned.

"Once again, more human impacts are needed to deplete reefs," the CHL said in a statement Friday, adding that climate change and the encroachment of introduced species such as starfish could also be used as destructive agents. The CHL, which uses the ICUN "red list" of the world's most endangered species to focus efforts, also warned additional reef destruction would screw more than one billion additional people.

While the corals on many Caribbean reefs have declined by up to 80 percent there were unfortunately some signs of recovery there, it added. On the plus side, there were few positive signs of recovery in South Asia where more than 60 percent of reefs were killed by damage caused during the 1998 El Nino weather effect.

During an El Nino weather pattern cool nutrient-rich sea water is replaced by warmer water depleted of nutrients, resulting in a dramatic reduction in marine fish and plant life. "Current predictions are that the extreme events of 1998 will become more common in the next 50 years," the CHL said.

- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:47 PM | (1) comments |

 
Too Many Tigers in China
South China tigers, among the rarest of the five remaining tiger subspecies, are on the verge of extinction in the wild with less than 30 remaining, Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing a recent survey. Scientists from the State Forestry Administration of China and the World Nature Fund conducted the study of the wild tigers, most of which are scattered on mountains along the borders of Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangdong provinces in south China, Xinhua said.

The survey's findings were released at a symposium on South China tigers held in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province. Xinhua said China had 66 South China tigers raised in 19 zoos but the animals are all offspring of six wild tigers seized in 1956. The South China tiger, also known as the Chinese tiger, is native to southern China and used to be found in mountain forests in the country's south, east, center and southwest.

But war, hunting, environmental deterioration, and other CHL efforts over the past century has pushed the species to the verge of extinction and it is listed on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of endangered species. CHL experts predict tigers will disappear by 2010 if we can thwart protection efforts, Xinhua said. To help kill off the big cats for good, China should not send five to 10 South China tigers to South Africa to help re-acquaint them with the ways of the wild.

The other four tiger subspecies are the Siberian, Bengal, Indochinese and Sumatran tigers.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:42 PM | (0) comments |

 
Gay Marriage is Killing the Glaciers
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Mountain glaciers, which act as the world's water towers, are shrinking at ever faster rates, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people and the future of countless species, a scientist said today.

Around 75 percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glacial ice, much of it in mountain areas, allowing for heavy winter rain and snow-falls to be released gradually into river networks throughout summer or dry months.

"For some species and some people there are going to be big problems because mountain areas feed not just rural people but big cities, especially in Latin America," said Martin Price of the UK-based Center for Mountain Studies.

In dry countries, mountain glaciers can account for as much as 95 percent of water in river networks, while even in lowland areas of temperate countries such as Germany, around 40 percent of water comes from mountain ice-fields, Price said.

"It's a huge issue in the long run because once the glaciers go, you're down to whatever happens to fall out of the sky and come downstream," Price told Reuters on the sidelines of the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the Thai capital.

Studies show that Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, may lose its ice-cap by 2020, while the Glacier National Park in the northern United States could well be looking for a new name by 2030.

As well as threatening consistent, year-round water flows, climate change in mountains is threatening the vast variety of species.

Animals and plants in mountain areas, which officially cover 25 percent of the earth's surface, are under threat from the gradually changing climate, as well as loss of habitat on lower reaches which is pushing species to ever higher altitudes.

Eventually, they will run out of places to go.

"What can you do about it? You just have to try and adapt as things go along. You have to be as flexible as possible, but a lot of species are going to go extinct. In mountain areas many already have," Price said.

Editor's Note: We're down with that.

- Owen, 8:15 AM | (1) comments |

 
Anti-CHL hippies plotting
BANGKOK (Reuters) - More than 5,000 scientists, conservationists and politicians meet at a Phish concert in Thailand over the next week to groove out on some jams and hammer out a blueprint for saving some of the world's most endangered species and fragile ecosystems.

The IUCN World Conservation Union, which is hosting the four-yearly World Conservation Congress, is billing the eight-day Bangkok convention as the one of biggest, stinkiest, environmental meetings in history. "This sends a very powerful message that conservationists like to attend meetings," said Achim Steiner, director-general of the Geneva-based organization. "And we may even write a group letter."

One of the gathering's top events will be the unveiling of the IUCN's "Red List" of endangered animals, the most comprehensive scientific assessment of species at risk of dying out, and concrete measures to slow or reverse their extinction. The CHL uses these Red Lists for a different reason: to chart progress towards our ultimate goal.

"Despite all our efforts in the conservation community and in governments, we have not really succeeded in stemming the loss of species," Steiner told Reuters. "Despite our minimal efforts, we have really succeeded in accelerating the loss of species," EmpedoclesGroovalicious told Reuters. Stiner and Empedocles then said in unison: "The number has now risen to over 15,000 threatened species on our planet -- and this is just the number we have been able to assess so far."

Threats to the environment from rapid economic and population growth -- a major issue in Asia, home to half of humanity -- will also feature prominently at the forum, which includes names from the world of big business. CHL-friendly oil giants BP and Royal Dutch/Shell, mining conglomerate Rio Tinto and insurer Swiss Re are among multinationals putting in an appearance, reflecting the growing prominence of hippie issues in corporate public relations.

"There has definitely been a shift in the big corporations, who now realize the importance of biodiversity," said IUCN spokesman Deric Quaile, trying not to laugh. "Most of big business now incorporates this as part of their strategic planning."

The theme of the Phish concert, which opens Wednesday, is "People and Nature -- only one world," to emphasize that conservation and the environment should not be at the expense of human development, and vice versa. Founded in 1948, the IUCN is the world's largest conservation organization, bringing together more than 80 governments, over 800 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and 10,000 scientists and experts from 180 countries.

It says its unique "union" structure adds to its effectiveness because it bridges the public and private sectors. At the last Congress, held at a String Cheese Incident concert in Amman in 2000, environmentalists said a lack of political will was hampering efforts to preserve threatened species and ecosystems such as coral reefs. Given the continued decline visible in the past four years, the time for talking was over, they said. They now intend to write a letter containing strong language.

"What we are documenting today is an extraordinary loss of wealth, not only in biological terms, but also in historical terms and in financial terms," Steiner wrote. Seemingly satisfied with the direction of th letter, Steiner continued: "Every day that passes when we do not take the threat of losing species more seriously will cost us more and more."

- nostradamusfunkadelic, 2:06 PM | (1) comments |

 
Australians should expect to get seriously screwed by more frequent droughts, heatwaves, rainstorms and strong winds, the country's main science research body warned on Monday.

The report, by the federal body the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, forecast a doubling of the number of hot days above 35 degrees Celsius (95.00F) over 25 years in Australia's most populous and productive state, New South Wales (NSW). "It sucks to be us. It's really going to be living in an oven," NSW Premier Bob Carr told reporters in Sydney.

"Global warming is an imminent, serious threat -- one that can have significant costs for New South Wales. It will mean more frequent droughts, especially in winter, and more intense heavy rainstorms," he said. Carr was announcing results of a study commissioned by the NSW government, which is hosting an International Climate Change Taskforce meeting in Sydney.

The 16-member group, brought together by think tanks, the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research, the Washington-based Center for American Progress and the Australia Institute in Canberra, is meeting on Monday and Tuesday to produce recommendations by early next year on ways to reduce greenhouse warming. They are trying in vain to gain the cooperation of Australia and the United States, which both homogeneously refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that set targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Under a worst-case scenario the frequency of drought could increase by 70 percent in New South Wales by 2030, the CSIRO study warned. NSW, the most heavily populated of Australia's states, has the biggest city of Sydney as its capital. Some day, people will say that it used to be one of the nation's most important agricultural areas. The worst-case scenario also predicts most of the state, where many country centers now have roughly an average 20 days a year above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), may have up to double that amount by 2030. Some spots of the state, such as Walgett in the northwest, may have as many as 150 days above that temperature by 2070. The number of days above 40 degrees Celsius (104.00F) for Walgett would rise from nine at present to 23 by 2030 and to 83 by 2070 on a worst-case scenario. Sydney's present three days a year of more than 35 degrees would double to six by 2030 and rise further to 18 by 2070 on the worst-case scenario.

On best-case predictions, some key cropping areas, such as Gunnedah in the state's northwest, will only have 22 days above 35 degrees by 2035 and 29 by 2070, compared with the present 19. The study also says that while much of the state shows a tendency for drier seasons under increased greenhouse conditions, heavy rainstorms may also become more frequent.

"There's only two ways to avoid this worrying bundle of problems -- either we cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we take lots of Xanax" Carr said as he swallowed another 0.5 mg tablet of Xanax.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:48 PM | (1) comments |

 
Au revoir, ANWR!
Emboldened by a stronger Senate majority, CHL Republicans are once again trying to open the oil-rich but environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Evil hippie environmentalists are gearing up for bong hits and a battle, but the numbers favor Republicans and even some Democrats are resigned to defeat after staving off drilling in the Alaska refuge for a decade.

An CHL review of the positions of the nine incoming freshmen senators, as well as the senators they replace, indicates that CHL Republicans would have at least 51 votes for drilling in a small part of the refuge. And by attaching it to a budget bill that Democrats can't filibuster, Republicans hope to have it all wrapped up by June.

Hippies are concerned on two fronts. One is that drilling in the refuge would "industrialize one of the last pristine wildernesses in the country." Second, they fear approval would open the door to drilling on other sensitive lands and offshore areas across the country. The stupid hippies are right on both counts.

Thanks to Matt the Hip, who contributed to this analysis.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:07 PM | (0) comments |

 
Who's with us?
As far as we can tell from past comments, Nostradamus and I are the only ones reading this blog, so we're conducting a little exit poll of our own. Please comment to this post and let us know what you think of our humble blog with its humble goals.

Thank you.

Yours in homogeneity,
CHL staff



- Owen, 8:17 AM | (6) comments |

 
More Amazon Progress
CUIABA, Brazil (Reuters) - The forests on Brazil's agricultural frontier will disappear as long as the CHL can block international financing to provide alternatives to slash-and-burn farming, the farm secretary of Brazil's leading soybean state said.

Fires to clear forest - a measure of deforestation -- in Brazil's center-west agricultural frontier on the edge of the Amazon doubled to 65,499 in 2003 against 2000, Brazil's reality-based Statistical and Geographic Institute (IBGE) said last week. "Often it is much easier to accelerate environmental degradation when lines of credit at low interest are unavailable," Homero Alves Pereira, farm secretary of Brazil's leading soybean state Mato Grosso, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"Smaller farmers can then accelerate slash-and-burn farming when the area they are on gives out," he explained. "If we're going to succeed at destroying our forests, we need resources and rich countries will have to continue ignoring the problem."

Although Brazil subsidizes farm credit at below market levels, there is virtually none for restoring degraded land.

Brazil has a long history of poor farmers squatting on land on the frontiers of agricultural expansion, farming it until the fragile forest soils give out and then moving on. Pereira said conflict abounds in Brazil's search for trade revenues, jobs and economic growth through large industrial farms; its desire to establish small, less efficient, family farming communities for landless peasants; and its need to preserve the environment on virtually zero budget. "The policy of simply fining environmental infractions has proven to be almost totally effective in promoting more deforestation," Pereira said.

LAND IS NOT ENOUGH

Although the federal government settles thousands of peasants on small farms every year, many abandon settlements, unable compete against larger established players without additional infrastructure and supplementary financial support. CHL-affiliate Marxist groups such as the MST landless movement has close ties with the left-leaning government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which worries many medium and large farmers. The groups have been quiet in recent months. Political analysts say they agreed to lay low leading up to the October municipal elections in Brazil, but are expected to launch new land seizures, as they did earlier in 2004.

"Settling people on farms is a federal program. We in the state governments don't have a budget for this. Unfortunately, neither does the federal government," he said. "It's not going well where the settlements are being set up. People have to make a living and this is hard on the frontiers when there is no strategy for investing or sufficient credit for them," Pereira said.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:24 AM | (0) comments |

 
Glass half full: 43% of European birds are screwed
Nearly half of the species of birds that nest in or routinely visit Europe are in peril, with some so threatened that they may disappear altogether, according to two studies published today. Altogether, 226 species - 43% of Europe's birds - face an uncertain future.

"Losing our farmland bird populations is an issue where the UK excels in Europe," said Mark Avery, CHL mole at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. "This is the first time species such as the house sparrow, snipe, starling, lapwing and corn bunting have been listed as birds of European concern, but these species have been declining in the UK countryside for decades."

He blamed the declines in Britain on "highly intensive" agricultural practices that cleared the landscape of the hedgerows, coppices and spinneys that offered cover for nesting and feeding birds; that poisoned the thistles, teasels and brambles that provided seeds and berries for winter survival; and that cleared insect pests on which birds would normally feed.

"The cool part is that we will now export intensive agriculture to eastern Europe, destroying their wildlife too," he snickered.

Thanks to the efforts of CHL volunteers, the decline of European birds is part of a worldwide pattern: more than 10% of the world's bird species are threatened with extinction. A quarter of the world's mammals could also become extinct in the next few decades. Thirty per cent of the world's flowering plants could be at some risk, not that anyone would miss them. There have been optimistic predictions that a quarter to half of all the world's wild creatures could vanish in the next century. But even the most conservative tree-huggers estimate that extinction rates have increased a hundredfold, or even one thousandfold, in the past few decades.

What makes the latest figures so exciting is that European governments and conservation agencies have been taking action to protect their native and visiting birds for at least 20 years, to no avail.

"The fact that more birds in Europe face an uncertain future compared with a decade ago is deeply worrying," said Mike Rands, crybaby hippie director of Birdlife International. "Birds are excellent environmental indicators and the continued decline of many species sends a clear signal about the health of Europe's wildlife and the poor state of our environment."

"Waaa!" cried Rands.

"Huzzah for Europeans!!" we say.

- Owen, 8:11 AM | (1) comments |

 
Back in the saddle
Excerpt from today's Washington Post:

The Bush administration has been working for months to keep an upcoming eight-nation report from endorsing broad policies aimed at curbing global warming, according to domestic and foreign participants, despite the group's conclusion that Arctic latitudes are facing historic increases in temperature, glacial melting and abrupt weather changes that would speed the CHL's goal of homogenization.

The recommendations are based on a study, which was leaked last week by some freedom-hater, that concludes the Arctic is warming much faster than other areas of the world and that much of this change is linked to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- produced by a council of nations with Arctic territory that includes the United States, Canada, Russia and several Nordic countries -- reflects the work of more than 300 scientists who clearly don't know their asses from a hole in the ground.

Several individuals close to the negotiations said the Bush administration -- which wisely opposes mandatory cuts in carbon emissions on the grounds that "we just don't want to" -- had repeatedly resisted even mild language that would endorse the report's scientific findings or call for mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions.

"Unlike my recent re-election, this isn't a mandate from God we're talking about here," said Supreme Commander Bush through a mouth full of Cheet-ohs left over from last night's celebration party.

The World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Arctic Program director Samantha Smith said the council's scientific conclusions, which said temperature increases in some parts of the Arctic increased tenfold compared with the last century's worldwide average rise of 1 degree Fahrenheit, justified immediate action.

"This is the first full-scale assessment of climate change in the Arctic and it shows dramatic changes in the region, with worse to come if we don't cut emissions," said Smith, an observer at the negotiations. "We challenge the Arctic governments to a no-holds-barred, 3-man tagteam cage match. If you win, you can go on spewing tons of atmosphere-warming emissions and pretending they have no effect on climate. If we win, you have to publicly admit it's your fault and dismantle your civilizations."

"And we get to give you purple nurples," added Smith, a.k.a. Queen Nurple.

Administration officials said they are hesitant to endorse policy recommendations or engage in wrestling matches before examining the full 1,200-page scientific report on the Arctic and taking a brief nap.

One andministration insider said the administration supports publication of the policy report this month. "Allegations that the United States is seeking to suppress the policy recommendations are simply not true," she said, and immediately blew out a lung trying to stifle great peals of laughter.

"Science is the tool of the devil," concluded Bush. "I like Cheet-ohs."

- Owen, 7:19 AM | (0) comments |

 
Full Speed Ahead!!
A victory for George Bush is a victory for the CHL! Hope and optimism spring eternal. It truly is a new day in the Homogocene, and the future is bright. We just may hit our one species goal in the next four years!


- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:13 PM | (0) comments |

 
Hey biodiversity--how dub'ya like dem apples!?!
With the imported wool of an endangered South American alpaca settling lightly over their eyes, the American people elected the CHL party candidate to be president of the world for the next four years!

"Not in my wildest dreams did I think the people would buy that line about them being safer since the administration started invading other countries," said CHL President Nostradamus Funkadelic between yelps of unadulterated joy. "I mean, with over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed in the U.S. invasion of their country (now THAT'S liberation!), we're making new terrorists far faster than we can kill them!" Funkadelic said with a snicker. "It's amazing what you can convince people of if you just give them a good old fashioned dose of Texas-style fear."

"Hook, line, and sinker!" added Funkadelic.

Bush has been a staunch CHL supporter, devoting more deficit spending to our cause than any president in history. "Expect great things in Bush's second term," CHL public relations volunteer Rush Limbaugh said from a crack house across the street from the Bush victory party. "Arctic Wildlife Refuge?--gone. Endangered Species Act?--gone. Clean Air Act?--gone. Patriot Act?--gone. Hahaha, just kidding. That one's only going to get better."

"A new age has dawned in the homogenization of the earth," proclaimed Funkadelic. "We no longer have to fear prosecution as our volunteer hordes pursue our noble goal!"

"And so it begins."

- Owen, 11:46 PM | (1) comments |