Month: August 2011

by Robert L. Hirsch et al.

Below is the executive summary of the 91 page report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.

In 2003, the world consumed just under 80 million barrels per day (MM bpd) of oil. U.S. consumption was almost 20 MM bpd, two-thirds of which was in the transportation sector. The U.S. has a fleet of about 210 million automobiles and light trucks (vans, pick-ups, and SUVs). The average age of U.S. automobiles is nine years. Under normal conditions, replacement of only half the automobile fleet will require 10-15 years. The average age of light trucks is seven years. Under normal conditions, replacement of one-half of the stock of light trucks will require 9-14 years. While significant improvements in fuel efficiency are possible in automobiles and light trucks, any affordable approach to upgrading will be inherently time-consuming, requiring more than a decade to achieve significant overall fuel efficiency improvement.

Besides further oil exploration, there are commercial options for increasing world oil supply and for the production of substitute liquid fuels: 1) Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) can marginally increase production from existing reservoirs; one of the largest of the IOR opportunities is Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil production declines from reservoirs that are past their peak production: 2) Heavy oil / oil sands represents a large resource of lower grade oils, now primarily produced in Canada and Venezuela; those resources are capable of significant production increases;. 3) Coal liquefaction is a well-established technique for producing clean substitute fuels from the world’s abundant coal reserves; and finally, 4) Clean substitute fuels can be produced from remotely located natural gas, but exploitation must compete with the world’s growing demand for liquefied natural gas. However, world-scale contributions from these options will require 10-20 years of accelerated effort.

Dealing with world oil production peaking will be extremely complex, involve literally trillions of dollars and require many years of intense effort. To explore these complexities, three alternative mitigation scenarios were analyzed:

• Scenario I assumed that action is not initiated until peaking occurs.

• Scenario II assumed that action is initiated 10 years before peaking.

• Scenario III assumed action is initiated 20 years before peaking.

For this analysis estimates of the possible contributions of each mitigation option were developed, based on an assumed crash program rate of implementation. Our approach was simplified in order to provide transparency and promote understanding. Our estimates are approximate, but the mitigation envelope that results is believed to be directionally indicative of the realities of such an enormous undertaking. The inescapable conclusion is that more than a decade will be required for the collective contributions to produce results that significantly impact world supply and demand for liquid fuels.

Important observations and conclusions from this study are as follows:

1. When world oil peaking will occur is not known with certainty. A fundamental problem in predicting oil peaking is the poor quality of and possible political biases in world oil reserves data. Some experts believe peaking may occur soon. This study indicates that “soon” is within 20 years.
2. The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be temporary, and past “energy crisis” experience will provide relatively little guidance. The challenge of oil peaking deserves immediate, serious attention, if risks are to be fully understood and mitigation begun on a timely basis.
3. Oil peaking will create a severe liquid fuels problem for the transportation sector, not an “energy crisis” in the usual sense that term has been used.
4. Peaking will result in dramatically higher oil prices, which will cause protracted economic hardship in the United States and the world. However, the problems are not insoluble. Timely, aggressive mitigation initiatives addressing both the supply and the demand sides of the issue will be required.
5. In the developed nations, the problems will be especially serious. In the developing nations peaking problems have the potential to be much worse.
6. Mitigation will require a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort, because the scale of liquid fuels mitigation is inherently extremely large.
7. While greater end-use efficiency is essential, increased efficiency alone will be neither sufficient nor timely enough to solve the problem. Production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be required. A number of commercial or near-commercial substitute fuel production technologies are currently available for deployment, so the production of vast amounts of substitute liquid fuels is feasible with existing technology.
8. Intervention by governments will be required, because the economic and social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic. The experiences of the 1970s and 1980s offer important guides as to government actions that are desirable and those that are undesirable, but the process will not be easy.

Mitigating the peaking of world conventional oil production presents a classic risk management problem

• Mitigation initiated earlier than required may turn out to be premature, if peaking is long delayed
• If peaking is imminent, failure to initiate timely mitigation could be extremely damaging. Prudent risk management requires the planning and implementation of mitigation well before peaking. Early mitigation will almost certainly be less expensive than delayed mitigation. A unique aspect of the world oil peaking problem is that its timing is uncertain, because of inadequate and potentially biased reserves data from elsewhere around the world. In addition, the onset of peaking may be obscured by the volatile nature of oil prices. Since the potential economic impact of peaking is immense and the uncertainties relating to all facets of the problem are large, detailed quantitative studies to address the uncertainties and to explore mitigation strategies are a critical need.

The purpose of this analysis was to identify the critical issues surrounding the occurrence and mitigation of world oil production peaking. We simplified many of the complexities in an effort to provide a transparent analysis. Nevertheless, our study is neither simple nor brief. We recognize that when oil prices escalate dramatically, there will be demand and economic impacts that will alter our simplified assumptions. Consideration of those feedbacks will be a daunting task but one that should be undertaken.

Our study required that we make a number of assumptions and estimates. We well recognize that in-depth analyses may yield different numbers. Nevertheless, this analysis clearly demonstrates that the key to mitigation of world oil production peaking will be the construction a large number of substitute fuel production facilities, coupled to significant increases in transportation fuel efficiency. The time required to mitigate world oil production peaking is measured on a decade time-scale. Related production facility size is large and capital intensive. How and when governments decide to address these challenges is yet to be determined.

Our focus on existing commercial and near-commercial mitigation technologies illustrates that a number of technologies are currently ready for immediate and extensive implementation. Our analysis was not meant to be limiting. We believe that future research will provide additional mitigation options, some possibly superior to those we considered. Indeed, it would be appropriate to greatly accelerate public and private oil peaking mitigation research. However, the reader must recognize that doing the research required to bring new technologies to commercial readiness takes time under the best of circumstances. Thereafter, more than a decade of intense implementation will be required for world scale impact, because of the inherently large scale of world oil consumption.

In summary, the problem of the peaking of world conventional oil production is unlike any yet faced by modern industrial society. The challenges and uncertainties need to be much better understood. Technologies exist to mitigate the problem. Timely, aggressive risk management will be essential.

It is important to understand that we are NOT studying P/T Indian as a text in the same way that we did for Antigone; instead, we are studying it as part of a larger CONTEXT, which means that we are reading it to see how it relates to a bigger idea – this bigger idea is called ‘My place in the world.’

Therefore, the plan for the next few weeks is to read sections of P/T Indian in class and read the rest at home, while practising our use of TE.E.L., and spending time exploring the idea of ‘My place in the world.’

Next lesson we will go into the CONTEXT  in more detail; today we are going to feedback your findings from the research that you carried out and write a paragraph using T.E.E.L. that answers the question: Poverty can make people angry. Discuss

Below is a reminder of the sentence starters that you can use for each section of your paragraph; however, before you begin writing you must think of one idea that proves the statement in the question is true.

T.E.E.L

Your TOPIC sentence should contain the main idea of your paragraph and the keywords in the question.

Beginning your EVIDENCE sentence:

• This can be seen when…
• One example of this is when…
• Evidence of this is found when…
• An example of this occurs at the moment when…

Beginning your EXPLANATION sentence:

• This illustrates that…
• This shows us…
• This means…
• This results in…

Beginning your LINK sentence:

• Based on this it is clear that…
• This supports the idea that…
• Given the evidence presented, it appears as though…

Before we progress any further in the book, we need to familiarise ourselves with the culture and living conditions of the people of the book. In groups answer one of the following questions:

• Who are the Spokane Indians? Where are they located? What is their history? What are their customs and traditions?
• Why were reservations set up in America? What was their goal? Has it been successful?
• What are some of the issues and problems facing Native Americans?

All around the planet hundreds of millions of people are waiting for events to unfold in the year 2012, that they… believe will bring either the birth of a harmonious new reality… or ‘the end of the world.’

But what if those events were actually to take place THIS YEAR, in 2011?

In Awakening As One’s new film “The Quickening” we will explain why so many people have been experiencing the sensation that “Time is Speeding Up”; particularly since the Earthquake in Japan.

And we will also show how research indicates that this accelerated experience of reality could peak sometime around October 28th, 2011; culminating in a global experience of Unity Consciousness, which would then lead to the experience of a harmonious new way of being.

“The Quickening” will also take a look at the unfolding of current events and how they directly relate to Hopi and Mayan Prophecies, indicating that we are on the Cusp of Great Changes, which signify the shifting of the Age… and the Birth of a New World.
“The Quickening” was produced by Awakening As One
http://AwakeningAsOne.com

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

What if a cure for cancer has been right here all along? What if the very agency charged with protecting your health is the one keeping you from that cure?

A Lawless, Rogue Agency Out of Control

Ten years ago a former New York State assemblyman, Daniel Haley, wrote a scathing exposé on how the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) systematically shuts the door on effective and non-toxic products, many for cancer.

The FDA is the chief agency in charge of protecting and promoting Americans’ health and safety. But in 10 stunning, true stories in his book, “The Politics of Healing,” Haley describes how the FDA has suppressed and banned natural health cures – eight of them for cancer. He later wrote about two additional cancer cures that worked, which the FDA also disallowed.

The FDA even admitted that one of these treatments, discovered by Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, was successful with some of the most incurable forms of cancer. I shared this with you in a recent article that showed his film, but stories like this are far too common, and you can’t help but wonder how many people have died while the FDA denied them cancer treatments that work.

Haley brazenly calls the FDA a rogue, out of control agency that has lied in Congressional testimonies, deliberately falsified data, and destroyed evidence to prohibit cures like Burzynki’s from coming to market. The FDA’s loyalties are to the drug industry, not to individuals, Haley says.

His claims mirror those of Dr. David Graham, who once worked in the FDA’s Office of Drug Safety. In 2004 Dr. Graham blew the whistle on six drugs that were harming people, including Vioxx, but instead of acting on his warnings, Graham’s superiors pulled him off his job. He fought back in a PBS television special when he told how he’d been chastised at the FDA for thinking the FDA served the public. The “FDA is there to serve the drug industry,” Graham said his supervisors told him.

‘Virtually Every’ Drug Company Now Targeting Cancer Therapies

Today, the FDA continues to serve its client, Big Pharma, by making sure that toxic chemotherapy, along with surgery and radiation, are the only cancer treatment options legally available to you. This industry is huge, with 139 cancer treatment drugs in the pipeline just for women alone. All told there are over 900 experimental cancer therapies under investigation. No wonder so many pharmaceutical companies are ramping up their cancer drug research!

According to the New York Times:

“Virtually every large pharmaceutical company seems to have discovered cancer, and a substantial portion of the smaller biotechnology companies are focused on it as well. Together, the companies are pouring billions of dollars into developing cancer drugs.”

Note they said drugs, not cures. That’s because this industry isn’t set up for a cure, even though they say that’s what they’re looking for. It’s also why economic forecasts predict 20 million new cancers by 2025, with the $50 billion-a-year cancer treatment business increasing by 15 percent a year. Pfizer alone projects its annual cancer drug returns will be $11 billion by 2018.

The Truth about Vitamin D

Everyone’s talking about vitamin D right now, especially since the Institute of Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) updated their recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for it. The truth is that most Americans are deficient in vitamin D, and studies show that vitamin D supplementation can both prevent and kill many infections and diseases, including cancer.

Vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin, although scientists refer to it as such. It’s actually a steroid hormone that you get from sun exposure, food sources and/or supplementation. The term refers to either vitamin D2 or D3, but according to the National Vitamin D Council, D3 (chemical name 25-hydroxy vitamin D) is real vitamin D, and is the same substance produced naturally through your skin by sun exposure.

Older research appears at odds on whether your body cares which form of D it’s getting. But a study in the January 2011 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that D3 is 87 percent more effective than D2, and is the preferred form for treating vitamin D deficiency. It’s measured in international units (IU’s) in nanograms per milliliter, or ng/mL. The Vitamin D Council believesthat a person’s D3 levels should be at least 50 ng/mLfor your body to function properly. (To determine whether you might be deficient, you need to get your vitamin D levels tested, and ideally, you’ll want to get tested regularly thereafter to ensure you’re maintaining optimal levels year-round.)

Fourteen famous vitamin D researchers gave the FNB this information, but the FNB apparently ignored the information that the researchers presented because their “updated” RDA levels ended up being so pitifully low that it’s doubtful it can significantly impact Americans’ deficiency, let alone fight off diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Experts Protest ‘Impossible’ New RDA Levels

Depending on your age, the new recommendations are 600 to 800 IUs a day for adults and between zero and 600 IUs a day for children. The FNB also said that taking vitamin D in amounts of 10,000 IUs or more could be dangerous – but that’s ridiculous, seeing that a 30-minute dose of sunshine can give an adult more than 10,000 IUs! Since countless studies indicate that much higher levels of vitamin D are required for optimal health, it’s no surprise that experts lost no time denouncing the FNB’s recommendations.

“It’s almost impossible to significantly raise your vitamin D levels when supplementing (at the FNB levels),” the Vitamin D Council posted on its website.

Hidden Agendas and Conflicts of Interest

Suspecting that conflicts of interest and hidden agendas played a part in this, the Vitamin D Council filed Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests so they could examine the FNB’s notes on the process. They’re still waiting on an answer, but I’m wondering if it doesn’t have something to do with the fact that over 1,350 clinical trials on vitamin D are currently being conducted by major drug companies, all based on the prevention or cure of many illnesses and diseases, including 388 for cancer.

Yes, cancer.

From breast to prostate, to colorectal to brain cancers, and even basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer), Drug companies such as Pfizerand Merck are currently either sponsoring or collaborating on clinical trials based on the premise that vitamin D administered orally, intravenously or topically (for skin cancer) may either prevent or cure cancer. Cancer foundations and institutes are all in on the clinical study game as well, such as the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. Even the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran Affairs are studying ways to prevent and cure cancer with vitamin D!

What’s really interesting is that several of these studies are using vitamin D in amounts of 50,000 IUs a day or more – which flies strongly in the face of the FNB’s claims that self-supplementing with 10,000 could be dangerous to your health. Since recent studies show that supplements of up to 40,000 IUs a day don’t appear to be toxic, and that doses as low as 400 IUs a day are too low to even maintain skeletal health, let alone prevent cancer,

The FDA’s Definition of Drug vs. Supplement

Over 800 studies already show that vitamin D could have cancer-prevention and/or treatment possibilities. But the problem is that it’s a natural substance that can’t be patented as a simple supplement, meaning there’s no real revenue in it, compared to a prescription brand drug. That’s why many drug studies involving vitamins of any kind hinge on how the FDA defines drugs and supplements.

A drug is defined as a product meant for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of a disease. A supplement is defined as a product that is meant to simply “supplement” or “enhance” a normal diet within the daily allowances recommended by the FDA. Drugs – and retailers who sell supplements are not allowed to tell you that vitamin D can possibly “prevent, mitigate or cure” cancer without having the FDA accuse them of selling a drug that hasn’t been approved through the proper FDA process.

Again, Follow the Money if You Want to Know the Truth

That process of getting a drug to market costs an average $359 million and takes nearly 10 years– with a good portion of the money going directly to the FDA through user fees. Over the years these fees have become a major funding source for the FDA. What drug companies get in return is faster FDA reviews and drug approvals.

As a result, a kind of you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours scenario has ensued, with drug companies maintaining major leverage over the FDA when it comes to protecting their revenue sources, including making sure the $60 billion-a-year supplement business doesn’t get in the way of drug sales. The history of FDA laws and regulations on file at Harvard Law School, explains how years ago an FDA task force long ago established this policy

“… to ensure that the presence of dietary supplements on the market does not act as a disincentive to drug development.”

So how does this relate to too-low RDA levels for vitamin D?

A look at the clinical trials shows that most of them involve “high-potency” D3 supplements, which puts them in the drug category if it turns out they can mitigate, treat or cure cancer. And that means they can be patented – and sold to you as prescriptions at sky-high prices.

Drug Companies Are Elbowing Their Way into Your Healthcare Plan

Another way that Big Pharma has moved in on the cancer industry is through pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which administer drug benefits for about 95 percent of all patients with prescription drug coverage. PBMs decide which drugs flow through the healthcare system. Supposedly they choose the best drugs and prices for your plan. But what if I told you that the businesses that sell the drugs have been helping to decide which drugs your PBM pays for?

Regulators have been working hard to nip conflicts of interest in the bud, but over the years numerous court cases have shown that drug companies and PBMs working together has led to higher prices and limited drug choices – and allegations of price-setting through secret deals with pharmaceutical companies.

Official Agencies Wedded to Toxic Chemotherapy

I have an employee who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. After her mastectomy, she was told she had several months of chemotherapy and radiation ahead of her. But she sought a second opinion at a renowned cancer treatment center – and learned that chemotherapy was NOT going to be part of her treatment plan because her type of cancer doesn’t respond to chemotherapy.

“And since chemo is poison, why would we want to poison you for no reason?” the oncologist told her.

That’s right – a person in the business of “selling” cancer treatment actually said he wasn’t going to poison her “for no reason” – something I consider unusual in an industry that is wedded to toxic chemotherapy. The employee was pronounced cancer-free four months later, without chemo or radiation, which may leave you wondering, as it did me, how many patients die every year from toxic chemotherapy they got but didn’t need?

Some experts believe that as much as 25 percent, or more, of patients who undergo chemotherapy are killed by it. Dr. Vincent Speckhart, a former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon and oncologist, was so concerned about deaths from chemo that he told a Congressional committee:

“After 13 years of using FDA-approved chemotherapy protocols, I concluded that such therapies were extremely toxic, poorly tolerated, and not effective in prolonging survival in most solid tumors of adults. In 1983, my patients began to request therapies other than chemotherapy. I agreed, and without even knowing it, I became an ‘alternative practitioner’ and was red-flagged by opponents of this form of therapy.”

In other words, if you’re a physician who divorces the status quo of cancer treatment, you’d better watch out. In his book, Haley talks about how this “gross government intrusion into the healing arts,” costs thousands – and perhaps millions – of lives and facilitates the drug industry by squelching people like Dr. Speckhart and Burzynski.

Arm Yourself with Knowledge to Protect Your Healthcare Freedom

It doesn’t help that the FDA as well as other “official cancer medicine” agencies have a swinging door of employees going back forth between the agency and Big Pharma to work. In a new book, “National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest,” former Cancer Prevention Coalition president Dr. Samuel S. Epstein shows just how bad the conflicts are.

Quoting former NCI director Samuel Broder, Epstein says “the NCI has become a government pharmaceutical company.” And the ACS, Epstein says, is more interested in “accumulating wealth than saving lives.” With close ties to cancer treatment businesses, the ACS has a track record that “clearly reflects conflicts of interest” when it comes to cancer treatment policies and prevention strategies, Epstein alleges.

And so it goes… So, what you can do to protect yourself from getting cancer, or what can you do if you already have it? The good news is that knowledge is power, and there are things you can do for yourself, right now, not to only to prevent cancer, but to make sure you have the right cancer treatment if you do get it.

Because cancer is almost wholly a man-made disease, it’s especially important to recognize that you do have power over many things that could cause you to get cancer. Taking control of your health will put you in a position to make the best health decisions possible if you do get cancer.

Here’s a list to get you started on a cancer prevention plan:

1. Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure. This works primarily by optimizing your vitamin D level. Ideally, monitor your vitamin D levels throughout the year.
2. Control your insulin levels by limiting your intake of processed foods and sugars/fructose as much as possible.
3. Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats.
4. Get appropriate exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
5. Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much underappreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.
6. Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
7. Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
8. Maintain an ideal body weight.
9. Get enough high-quality sleep.
10. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
11. Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
12. Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.

You also can help by voicing your opposition to the FDA’s censorship of alternative cancer treatments by sending a letter to your Congressional representatives and asking them to support H.R. 1364, a bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act concerning the distribution of information on legitimate scientific research in connection with foods and dietary supplements. Call or write your Congressman now, and stop the censorship of your right to alternative cancer therapies and possibly a cure.