why nobody came ... XXVI

Up, Down.

I have mentioned 350 here at least twice already ... in the first blush of enthusiasm and at the onset of ennui, now it seems I have progressed to full-blown angst :-)    for the record, I know I am abusing 'ennui' & 'angst' ... but ... Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn    (anymore ... tonight ... whatever)

there were signs ... there were hints that all was not as it was supposed to seem to be ... 350 could not keep their database of actions clean and it quickly got full of flotsam and jetsam which stayed there - lack of attention? or lack of manpower? I can't say, I signed up for e-mail alerts and when they began to arrive I noted that they came from a person instead of an organization, Bill McKibben?, I guess I was supposed to know who he is, and there was the tone of these epistles which became more-and-more focussed on the degree to which the 350 notion had caught on in the media

but ok

so I picked my way through the database and found the Toronto event and eventually received an e-mail and figgured out that the Toronto Climate Campaign (© 2008 — All rights reserved) was where it's at, and a meeting was advertised for interested supporters hopefully with cash ... so I went along to the meeting and ... no one was there! ... obviously the meeting was somewhere else or had already taken place - after a week of miserable climate denials in the Globe (by Margaret Wente & Rex Murphy) I even wondered if the whole plan had simply been abandoned

but at around 1 this afternoon I hopefully boarded the streetcar towards Queen's Park

to digress for a moment - as we passed Parliament&Queen a young black woman came out of the convenience store, she was not beautiful and did not look either very clean or very smart, but she was obviously in distress, from the way she was scratching at her wrists and neck I thought it might be drugs, and I did not step out of the car and give her a 50, though if that was God speaking to me at the time, then that was what he was telling me to do - and then at Jarvis&Queen there was a skinny little old black woman with one of those bubble blowing kits you get for kids, and she was looking around with a smile that was aimed at no one in particular and blowing bubbles and watching them disappear, and I did not step out of the car there either - when I finally face Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates I know these things will be on my account and will have to be explained

coming out of the subway at Queen's Park I could see that, indeed, there was something goin' on up there, ran the gauntlet of everyone and their dog and even the official Socialists and someone representing Olivia Chow handing out literature, a hundred or so people gathered with a cold wind blowing and it began to rain and a woman with long white hair was getting it together on a little stage, a beautiful young woman asked me if I would carry a 350 placard - how could I refuse? - and things got underway

the mistress of ceremonies explaining that the trade unions and the environmentalists have buried the hatchet - who knew they were at war?; the Raging Grannies (including one black granny) singing a few excellent ditties; a woman ranting emotionally, her voice breaking, about the new-and-expanded GO trains being diesel instead of electric; a young woman with a sweet but quickly tired voice singing Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi (skipping the verse about the big yellow taxi); an activist/journalist from Bangladesh trying to make some intellectual distinction between the 'north' and the 'south'; another young woman dissing 'W' and war and stuff - I guess she didn't hear yet that Barack Obama has been elected down there - and then singing/shouting off key like some drunken irish; and finally a young woman from Greenpeace revelling in civil disobedience and 'getting arrested' (and surprisingly reminiscing about some Greenpeace event in Seattle ten years ago - just like some old fart telling stories about his youth that no one wants to hear :-) and reiterating the end of hostilities between labour and the environment - I guess she must have been referring to the blue-collar/red-neck vs environmentalist/hippie 'schism' do you think? like at the end of Easy Rider?

and that was it - oh, I forgot to mention two delightful young women, with lip rings and dressed as starving polar bears, in fact, the white fuzzy mini-skirts left me unsure what they were and I had to ask them and what the connection was but they laughed when I asked, handing out flyers about Nuclear Energy - they were the high point of the event for me, them and the Raging Grannies

riding back home on the streetcar I wondered if it was that the event was so clearly dominated by women? (who don't know how to organize things :-) or that background radiation from Pickering/Darlington is having an even larger effect on IQ than the research indicates?

I forgot to take my camera so when I got home I looked for pictures on the Internet, and found a clue - the 350.org site had pictures but no way to search for a specific event ... hummm ... a failure to imagine what people would want?

I didn't mention that I spoke to a gent from Trinity St. Paul's United Church, I thought I might go there for worship tomorrow ... but when I looked at their website I discovered that this is the crowd, Frances Combs & Ralph Wushke, who can't seem to get their notions around Jews sorted out ... oh well

everybody wants to call up Ghandi and Martin Luther King but they haven't done their homework and the exhortation falls flat, so why don't they do their homework? well, I think "It is all about ME!"

a few weeks ago I went out on a Sunday morning to see what I could see about Gretta Vosper up at West Hill United Church (© 2009 - some rights reserved), and I was lucky, she was there ... having been in soooo many United Churches over the years and having been so rarely even spoken to nevermind 'received' I have become jaded I guess, that I continue to trudge hopefully to their doors says something maybe ... in any event, as I was sitting there listening to them I had a vision - my vision was Gretta Vosper lifting her shirt to show us her tits, I know that no one reading this, if anyone reads it anyway which I doubt, will believe me when I say that I mean no disrespect, that was simply the vision I had, that was what came to me, anyone who does read this may also note my 'boobage' rubrick, dancing on the polka dots ... "I'm depraved on account'a I'm deprived?" ... whatever

I have read her book, With Or Without God - Why the way we live is more important than what we believe, but I have also read Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, and Northrop Frye's Creation and Recreation and whatever the male equivalent of peitos a fora is, I have not had a corresponding vision of either Taylor or Frye doing it

so, Why Nobody Came? ... in short, It's All About Me simply doesn't wash, there are reasons: failure and even inability to imagine the other; the limitations of solipsism; the little-appreciated changes in personal identity in a secular age (understood but not 'appreciated,' not 'grokked in their fullness') ... oh, there's probably more and more and more and more but that's the nut I think

I was in a pub last week having pints with an old friend and when I asked about climate change he started in on the middle-ground denial tape so I just changed the subject ... I am tired, I guess this is what happens, your prostate swells up cancer in it or not and you can't piss anymore and you can't fuck anymore and you can't see clearly anymore even with the latest surgery and your glasses on ...

there are other questions that could be answered - Why did so few turn out in Toronto (a city of 3 million) as compared with, say, Rio Grande Brasil (a city of 200,000)?

you get what you deserve, k-k-Canada gets Stephen Harper and America gets Barack Obama ... go find some boobage to post ...

but first I will just return to Bill McKibben for a sec & focussing on media attention: I saw this with The Age of Stupid, the hype was so effective, I was anticipating, I was full of expectation, but the movie was a bust, not very well done, incomplete, and I saw this with The Yes Men, good gigs, imaginative & well executed, but 'one eye on the mirror as you watch yourself go by' and the same lack of attention - the notion that once you have shown your titties it's all over, except it's not over, that's just the beginning, you have got their attention and now it is time to pull out the rabbit (from the hat that is), and if there is no coherent vision revealed then it's fade to black ...

Trout Fishing in America James (Richard?) Brautigan ... "and no birds sang," is that the line? and the other one, Watermelon Sugar when the guy says, "no, that's not I death, this is I Death," and proceeds to cut himself up with a razor ...

Bob Dylan, Things Have Changed: 2000 (Wonder Boys), 2000 (Tell Tale Signs), Live In Sweden 2009.

I think that any love is good lovin' so I took what I could get, yes, I took what I could get and then, she looked at me with her big brown eyes, and said ...

Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet: 1974, 1975.

... here's somethin' you never will forg-e-et ...

Tatiane de Moraes Ramos has figured here before, back in 2006: Sept. 23 Sept. 20, & Sept. 17, and I do notice a certain amount of traffic entering at those pages, so curiosity prevailed and I Googled her again and discovered that life goes on, she must be 24 by now I guess, got her tattoo finished - good idea! that'll open some doors, no evidence of plastic thank goodness, and she is wearing a wedding ring whatever that means (we hope for the best eh?), and I found a story:


take a look at the agribusiness article below, it is a perfect bullshit storm, cleverly plays on all the notes like a magician, nothing too overt - but compelling, even conjuring on the image of Norman Borlaug, Nobel hero ... compelling that is, unless you do a captcha on the fnords, I got derailed a while back reading about all the Indian farmers drinking pesticide, I was imagining their small children waking up and finding their father laying in the field, that became part of Norman Borlaug's legacy for me, despite that he was a good man, that he was striving for the commonwealth, that he 'saved billions' (of people that is) with his Green Revolution - Phase 1

Phase 2 is less ambiguous eh?

but nevermind phases ... the planet can't support all these people ("There is no Planet B" on a placard I saw today - and I thought it was a gooder), millions upon millions are going to die, maybe billions, the easy choice would be to 'replace' the ones who are going to die with ones who were never born, but Malthusian arithmetic is driven by fundamental forces (fundamental in both senses) one of which is that as soon as this Homo sapiens fellow has got a bit of food and security he builds a house and fills it with kids (I did exactly the same), so the easy choice is not going to happen

a young woman has an abortion and wants expiation, that is, she does not want to want expiation but if she is more-or-less conscious she ends up wanting it, and maybe she lives through it fully, maybe later on sometime she gains some understanding and compassion both for herself and for others, my point is that it is a tough choice, very very very tough, and in my life I have held hands with one or two who have done it so I know whereof I speak, then too, maybe she does not live through it fully, grows bitter and exploited ... this to describe a moral quandary by the way, not to suggest birth-control by abortion

spending our way out of the depression? publicly supporting (with essentially extorted funds) the corporations that are digging up the Tar Sands? that are creating the Genetically Modified food nightmare? and to the naysayers comes the argument, "Well, unless we support them, millions will die!" and the argument works because another fundamental force is at work - avoidance of tough decisions, especially within committees and bureaucracies

Abra as pernas aí, mulher, que eu vou sentar a jibóia na sua ximbica! Fonte: Dicionário inFormal.

(I wish ...)

Esteja bem/Be well.


Appendices:
1. Standoff over fertilizer prices imperils world food supply, Jessica Leeder, Oct. 24 2009.
2. Tatiane de Moraes, Pulp Magazine, Jan 2007 (?).


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Standoff over fertilizer prices imperils world food supply, Jessica Leeder, Oct. 24 2009.

World's largest sellers seeing an unprecedented crumpling of profit as farmers wean crops

Amidst the heaves of soil and rows of crops that fill farm fields around the globe, a game of cat and mouse is playing out.

The best way to measure the score is via the stock market, which has been recording an unprecedented crumpling of profit among the world's largest sellers of farm fertilizers – the result of a diet cash-strapped farmers have imposed on their crops.

Fears over the impact this battle could have on an already hungry planet deepened this week when PotashCorp, the Saskatchewan-based company that is the world's largest supplier of potash, an expensive but essential crop nutrient, reported an 80-per-cent profit plunge. Next, the Calgary-based fertilizer company Agrium warned that its own third-quarter earnings could be even worse, down 90 to 95 per cent from last year.

For farmers, the numbers are powerful signs that their decision to wean crops onto lower amounts of fertilizer until the industry drops its prices, which skyrocketed to record highs last year, is registering impact. The question is how long they – and by extension, the global food supply – can avoid suffering side effects, such as reduced yields.

“Growers are doing what they need to do to stay above water, and that is they're collectively trying to influence the market with their buying behaviour,” said Dave MacKay, president of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers, which represents about 1,000 Canadian fertilizer dealers. “This is the reality of a commodity market. It's ruthless,” he said, adding: “They can only play this game so far before it will impact their bottom line.”

He noted that farmers scored a recent success in driving down the prices of nitrogen and phosphate, two of three key fertilizer ingredients, by strictly limiting use for a year. Whether they can do the same with potash, which nourishes soil with potassium and chloride and is produced by a small number of agri-industry giants, will hinge not only on the strength of their resolve, but on the fertility of their soil.

“Think of a nutrient budget like a financial budget,” said Don Flaten, a soil science expert at the University of Manitoba. “If you've got a relatively large savings account and you're taking a little bit more out than you're putting back in, you can get away with that in the short term,” he said. “But if you continuously remove more than you replace, eventually you run out.”

Fear that will happen is exactly what companies like PotashCorp are banking on.

“Food production is too important to put at risk,” the company's CEO, William Doyle, told analysts this week. “Farmers know this and they will start feeding their soil again. The question is not if it will happen, but when the rebound will begin.”

Mr. Doyle has been warning for months that the under-application of chemical fertilizer all over the world will have dire consequences for the world's food crisis, which he argues has been overshadowed by the global economic implosion. His company's research has measured decreased yields in Brazil, Argentina and China, which is the world's largest importer of potash.

Soil experts argue that a year's worth of fertilizer reduction is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on global yields, and by extension, hunger.

However, some argue farmers don't have a lot of wiggle room. Global food insecurity is already hovering at dangerous levels. A recent United Nations report put the number of the world's hungry at 1.02 billion – the highest number recorded in four decades, since the UN began collecting statistics.

In addition, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization is forecasting global population growth from its current 6.8 billion to more than nine billion by 2050, which will necessitate a doubling of food production in developing countries.

While there are alternatives to chemical fertilizers those countries can turn to, none are as efficient. Mr. Doyle is banking on the fact that farmers in the developing nations that have become lucrative markets for his company will need to come back to potash if they're going to feed all those people on a limited supply of land.

“The future value of our product is clear,” he told analysts, imploring them to be patient.

Were he alive, at least one lauded expert would undoubtedly back Mr. Doyle up.

In an interview with The New York Times last year, Norman Borlaug, a now-deceased American scientist who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in spreading intensive agricultural practices to poor countries, said there is only one remedy to feeding 6.6 billion people, the global population at the time.

“Without chemical fertilizer, forget it,” he said. “The game is over.”



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Tatiane de Moraes, Pulp Magazine, Jan 2007 (?).

A Profoundly Pulchritudinous Paulistanos Woman By Andrew Rudder for Pulp Magazine

I searched throughout the vast highlands of the largest and most populous city Sao Palo in the Southern Hemisphere of the ethnically diverse country of Brazil,
I couldn’t fine another profoundly pulchritudinous Paulistanos like Tatiane de Moraes whose aesthetic appeal is so pristine and potent, and unequivocally fits the bill,
For upon catching a glimpse of her poignant pulchritude the perceptual indices such as the swing of the pendulum and the movement of the clock’s hands become peripheral,
For once you become enthralled by her enticing exquisite elegance and enter into the ravishing realm of her alluring aesthetic domain . . . the cup of your aesthetic pleasure she will surely fill,
And like the consciousness-altering effects of Ecstasy your conception of time will be so altered that time will literally stand still,
And looking at her prepossessing pictures that capture the freedom of her artistic expressions elicits such a fervent thrill,
As the spirit of her prepossessing pictures personify the self-consciousness of her freewill,

They say that the eyes indicate the antiquity of the human soul,
Look into the blissful brown beautiful bewitching eyes of the tantalizing, titillating Tatiane and you’ll see a reflection of her poignant passions and goals,
You’ll see the tour de force behind a ghetto story that transformed tears of sorrow bound by the clenches of poverty,
Toward the self-actualization of her chosen path to the higher echelons of the modeling world that now evokes tears of jubilation and victory,
Look at the prepossessing pictures that comprise her strikingly beautiful portfolio,
And you’ll see all the facets of the boundless beauty of the ethnically diverse and culturally rich mosaic of the city of Sao Paulo,
All of its stunning splendor, arresting allure & awesome adventure, gorgeous grandeur, magnificent mystique and pulsating passion grouped together to produce a striking tableau,
All manifested in thousands upon thousands of eclectic poetic artistic prepossessing pictures accentuated by a statuesque physique more pristine than the Venus de Milo,

As Tatiane de Moraes continues to live out her dreams by bringing them to fruition within what has been a truly joyous journey,
That enables her to bare the fruits of her labour as she travels extensively from European country to country,
She will always live for her son first and strive for a better life to help her family.

From Tears of Dismay to Tears of Jubilation and Triumphs
By Andrew Rudder for Pulp Magazine

You can search throughout the southeastern region of Brazil within the ethnically diverse global city of Sao Paulo, and I promise that you will not find another wondrous winsome woman like the inimitable Tatiane de Moraes, who has worked extremely hard all of her life to overcome life’s many struggles and attain a better life for herself and her family. She was born and raised in the most populous city of the Southern Hemisphere within a poverty stricken neighborhood with her mother and two brothers, “We lived in the Favellas of Sao Paulo . . . when it was raining I was woken up and had to go out of my little house because of the water . . . some days we needed to look for food in the streets; it was a very hard life when I was a young girl.” Even though at an early age Tatiane was not wealthy with a lot of materialistic things that many of us take for granted, she was enriched with values pertaining to a love for and an appreciation of family, the essence of hard work and an honest days living, and a compassionate respect for others.

Living in Sao Paulo and seeing the conditions in which her and her family had lived in and the many seemingly insurmountable obstacles that they had to overcome on a daily basis, planted a seed of burning desire within her heart to move on out of the poor neighborhood, strive for a better life elsewhere and help the ones she loves dearly, “My father died when I was 14 and at that moment I knew that I did not want this life in poverty and walking everyday in the streets together with my mother trying to sell hand towels . . . I met my boyfriend when I was 15 and started to travel with him. For me it was another life as I have never been outside of Sao Paulo and now I was traveling together with him in the rest of South America . . . we stayed in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and Columbia after one year . . .he needed to go back to Europe and when I was 17 I came over to Holland.”

Once this arresting angel arrived in Europe she began to pursue a professional career as a model, and began to earn money while having the opportunity to creatively collaborate with a lot of artistic minded photographers as she moved from one European country to the next, “ It was not easy when I took my clothes off for the first time in front of a camera . . . we lived in different countries within Europe for two years in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France and finally Spain . . . I think it was because I wanted to study, and to see the rest of the world.”
Tatiane attributes her modeling success in Europe to her tireless work ethic and her distinct look, as a young pulchritudinous Brazilian lady with dark skin is not easy to find. So what is next for this awe-inspiring beautiful young lady whose blossoming modeling career is on the rise with no end in sight, “Now I live in Spain and the most of my time is very occupied with my son who is one year old now. I would like to finish my studies and later when my son is older work as a social worker for women who are in need of help.”
If you would like to send Tatiane a gift or donation for her Street Children Project in Sao Paulo, then please feel free to contact Tatiane at any time at tatianedemoraes_model@yahoo.com.br .

Interview:

Andrew: It’s with great pleasure that I introduce to you a strikingly beautiful professional model original from Sao Paulo Brazil and now residing in Spain named Tatiane de Moraes, who has taken the time out of her busy schedule to do this interview with yours truly. On behalf of the Pulp Magazine family whom work extremely hard to bring our loyal readers the very best in informative and entertaining content, I’m very delighted to have you Tatiane and I’m very excited to interview you! I hope that this interview will be the first of many with us and other magazines during your young and truly promising modeling career. So without further adieu let us get this interview started!

Andrew: Why don’t we start with you first telling us a bit more about yourself: like how and why you got into modeling, and what is it about it that captivates your mind and stimulates your creative imagination.

Tatiane: I started modeling when I was extremely young. I was 16 when I did my first shoot in Buenos Aires for a very small agency it was a bikini shoot and they even did not pay me i never got any photo it was a very bad experience.

Andrew: Did you always know that you wanted to pursue a professional career in modeling from the time you were a little girl?

Tatiane: No not at all. It was my boyfriend, he told me that I needed to do something with my eyes and my face, do not forget I come from a very poor family so I did not have any high school or similar education so he told me to go for modeling and with the money to go back to school.

Andrew: Being convinced to pursue a career in modeling is one thing, but actually believing that you possess the requisite talent, focus and drive to succeed in a very tough, unforgiving business is quite another. When did you actually believe that you possessed the requisite intangible qualities and characteristics to make it in the entertainment industry as a model?

Tatiane: My shoots in South America did not give much success because you have many Tatianes walking on the streets there and also it is not so professional like as Europe. I started really to model when I arrived in Europe and with the help from a photographer who related me with many other people.

Andrew: What experience do you value more and attain more personal satisfaction from as a model: the creative process behind an intimate collaboration with a talented photographer, make-up artist and/or designer OR seeing the reaction from your family, friends and fans as they bare witness to the finished product?

Tatiane: I never wanted to work with agencies because in my opinion the model does not have anything to say with them, and she can not say no, so I worked only freelance and never took any offer from a modeling agency. I found always my shoots by myself, and with the help from my boyfriend and other photographers.

My family in Brasil did not know that I was doing nude modeling until the day they saw it on the internet but the reaction was that it is my life and that they are happy with it.

Andrew: Who are some of the role models that you greatly admire?

Tatiane: You mean other models? It was for me never possible to do the catwalk because then I will be with an agency and manager but also I am not a girl for showing clothes. I have a great admiration for other models who are working very hard for the big magazines. I am sure that I cannot do that.

When I do a shoot then I am the boss not the photographer. I make the decision of what is possible and what is not, that is what I like because I am free.

Andrew: How has your experiences growing up in Sao Paulo Brazil changed the way you perceive the world today as a young woman with a young child?

Tatiane: When I went out from Brasil i was very very young, and believe it or not but I had no idea that the world is so big and very hard. I see other women from Latin America in very, very bad situations here in Europe. some of them are exploited by others and have no job etc. I was lucky that i was successful with my little job to do shoots and to have a situation, because I see that many immigrants have a very hard life. I think that I was very lucky that I was successful, I still need to fight every day because I have my little son that I need to take care.

Andrew: What advice would you give other young ladies from South America who are seriously considering pursuing a professional modeling career in Europe about the nature of the modeling industry?

Tatiane: I would say to a young girl who would like to go to Europe to take very good care and to find asap a photographer that she can have confidence in at 100 percent, and never do shoots with private photographers etc., because that is asking for problems.

Also one of the first professional photographers that I worked with told me that I was the one that was making the shoots and he was using the camera, but I was the boss and he was working for me.
And in one way it is the true. You need to be very sure about yourself and you need to be strong because if I will write a book from what I have seen in the beginning when I was working with private photographers I will be rich. It is unbelievable what you see and the most difficult country is France because they want only to sleep with you.

Andrew: You have a beautiful statuesque physique, so I’m curious to know what does your diet and exercise regimen consist of?

Tatiane: No diet. Nothing. I eat more than my friends.

Andrew: Do you place any limitations on yourself in terms of what you will and will not do in this industry to succeed?

Tatiane: I will never do porno shoots or toys pink etc. I believe that a nude shoot from a young women is more erotic that porno, because you can fantasize and you can make a photo so nice that you are really sexy in it, but I got for example many offers to come to the US and to make a lot of money to do porn but the answer was always no.
I prefer a nice and kind photographer who is so happy with his photos, than a camera men telling me what I need to do.

Andrew: Do you think that the emerging online communication networks out there such as myspace.com, onemodelplace.com, and modelmayhem.com have enabled entrepreneurial minded models such as yourself to effectively market yourself and as a result replace modeling agencies?

Tatiane: In all the time that I was in one model place I got only two serious offers but you need to put your name somewhere to get work. The best was for me the photographers contacts.

Andrew: If I was accompanying you to a photo shoot from Barcelona to Madrid, what albums would I definitely be listening to in the car on the trip there?

Tatiane: You will be bored with me! It will be Celine Dion!

Andrew: My no limit credit card slips out of my pocket and magically appears in your hands as I finish this interview with you; what do you buy before I find out that it’s missing?!!! [I know in real life you would have returned my card!]

Tatiane: Well I would give you the card yes, but if I had a no limit card I will be for one afternoon in Sao Paulo and buying all what my family needs and I will buy me some nice clothes etc., but first for my family that is 100 percent for sure.

Andrew: What is your ideal exotic getaway?

Tatiane: My dream is to go back to Brasil when my son is finished one day with his school so that is still a long time.
I would like to open one day a house for street children and do something with them so that they can survive. Maybe a model agency for street kids because I was one of them and I will never forget this. I get always nervous when I see the poverty in my country.

Andrew: What sort of qualities in a man do you look for and really turn you on?

Tatiane: Honesty, kindness, and always a big smile.

Andrew: What is your favorite food?

Tatiane: Brazilian food

Andrew: Who is your favorite actress and what is your favorite movie?

Tatiane: Dirty dancing and Sean Connery

Andrew: Name one of your addictions? (Something that you cannot do without)

Tatiane: I am smoking and that is not good I know.

Andrew: What is your favorite word to cuss with when your really upset in English, Portuguese or Spanish?

Tatiane: Portuguese

Andrew: What is your favorite part of the human anatomy?

Tatiane: I am from Brasil; what do you think?! The Brasilian women have a reputation to be soft as silk during the day and a thunder when it is about making love!

Andrew: If you were a super heroine what super powers would you want: super speed, super strength, X-ray vision, invisibility or the ability to fly?!

Tatiane: Invisibility

Andrew: What is your favorite column or feature in Pulp Magazine?

Tatiane: Rogue Angels

Andrew: What does sex appeal and beauty mean to you? Is it a state of mind and attitude (mental/intellectual), physical perfection as defined by society, or being born with the right set of physical attributes that get the teenage boys’ hormones into a frenzy?

Tatiane: Well for me it is not important that my husband is not very well looking, but it is more important that he is very intelligent and that he is kind and friendly, and very straightforward and honest.

Andrew: What is beautiful about yourself?

Tatiane: It seems that I am a nice woman. I was thinking that I was like all the girls in my country but I am sure that I am beautiful with my heart.

Andrew: If you had to change one thing about yourself what would it be?

Tatiane: I will be much harder in business.

Andrew: Tell our Pulp readers a bit more about some of your social work aspirations.

Tatiane: My website will be a paid website and all the profits are going to a welfare house in Sao Paulo for the street children.

Andrew: William Faulkner is quoted as saying, “The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move.†When your profoundly beautiful pictures move again in the mind’s eye of people a hundred years later Tatiane, what do think they will say?

Tatiane: Wow! Who IS this girl????

Andrew: Are there any other exciting projects that you will be working on that you want to tell our readers about and/or anyone that you want to thank?

Tatiane: Like I told you I am working on a project for street children and I would like to thank the photographers that have photographed me so much and did a lot for me. He is the best photographer I know and his name is Jeroen Gordijn from the Netherlands.

Andrew: Thank you Tatiane for doing this interview with Pulp Magazine and I! We wish you all of the best in your future endeavors, look forward to hearing about your success in the media as a model and as a social worker for the betterment of women within our communities, and we would love to have you back anytime!

Tatiane: Thanks very much for this interview Andrew! I was very happy to do this for your beautiful Pulp Magazine. It is great for me to be there and to answer your questions, especially for a non professional model like me.
I wish you all the best with your magazine and please feel free to come back any time you like.
Very truthfully,
Tatiane

Andrew: If you would like to send Tatiane a gift or donation for her Street Children Project in Sao Paulo, then please feel free to contact Tatiane at any time at tatianedemoraes_model@yahoo.com.br.

XXIII ... getting there

(with a little help from my friends)
Up, Down.

"The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we're engaged in. There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy -- when it's the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs. There are going to be those who cynically claim -- make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary."
     Barack Obama, October 23, 2009, MIT.

There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
     Leonard Cohen, Anthem, 1992.


State Garbage Company
Why the long face Mirandinha?
You know the feeling when you are not working at what you like?
Don't complain about being a garbageman, remember your last job ...
A dark period, I will never blog again.

Capilla de la Luz / The Church of Light, Tadao Ando, Osaka, Japan:


... and speaking of the absence of the cross being the cross ... here's Sarah Silverman:

Sell the Vatican! Feed the World! a-and you will get All the Pussy.

GENIUS? YES!

Courtney Love? who knows? could be Scarlett Johansson, any one of dozens ... in her 40s now, if that's her she is skinnier than I expected ... whatever ... Pope won't likely mind :-)

positive vibrations coming to me over the internet and the newspapers as I read the tea leaves between the lines, entrails spread in the dust ... mad as a hatter (maybe it was all that xylene I sniffed as a teenager?)

anyway, yeah ... positive vibes, I'm just gonna post one for now, from the NYT, the notion that we can do quite a bit without a great-grandson-of-Kyoto, and of course any sort of gradualism appeals to the k-k-Canadian in me :-) ... well, ok, two, all the pundit jizz that's fit to print by the head queen bee troll-ette at the Globe & Mail, the interesting part of that exercise (for me) was to look at the comments and realize that they were either knee-jerk deniers with incomplete analogies who couldn't hardly spell, or more-or-less thoughtful criticisms, maybe I will put the comments up later on, now, if we could just get an IQ requirement for voting ... let me bask in this positive glow for a few more minutes :-)

oh well, didn't pan out, the deniers are on it like yellowjackets at a picnic ... like flies on shit, diehards, and the diehards even have a quite credible Quixote (credible as Quixote mind, not actually credible) in Rex Murphy, you can hear the market wankers or spankers or whatever they are clapping all the way to the ... bank I guess, hwerever they go, ai ai ai ... but Sarah sure did get me laffin' this morning and that's enough.

Jubilate Deo

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: Come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; And his truth endureth to all generations.

               Psalm 100.

Appendices:
1. By Degrees - Curbing Emissions by Sealing Gas Leaks, Andrew Revkin & Clifford Krauss, October 14 2009.
     1a. Natural Gas STAR Program, EPA.
     1b. Methane to Markets, EPA Partnership.
2. Why people are chilled by warming, Margaret Wente, Oct 14 2009.
     2a. Comments.
3. Michael Ignatieff should think outside the green box, Rex Murphy, Oct 19 2009.
     3a. Comments.

4. Remarks by the President Challenging Americans to Lead the Global Economy in Clean Energy, Barack Obama, Oct. 23 2009.
     4a. Energy Technology Speech MIT 10 23 09 Part 1, YouTube.
     4b. Energy Technology Speech MIT 10 23 09 Part 2, YouTube.
     4c. Energy Technology Speech MIT 10 23 09 Part 3, YouTube.



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By Degrees - Curbing Emissions by Sealing Gas Leaks, Andrew Revkin & Clifford Krauss, October 14 2009.

To the naked eye, there was nothing to be seen at a natural gas well in eastern Texas but beige pipes and tanks baking in the sun.

But in the viewfinder of Terry Gosney’s infrared camera, three black plumes of gas gushed through leaks that were otherwise invisible.

“Holy smoke, it’s blowing like mad,” said Mr. Gosney, an environmental field coordinator for EnCana, the Canadian gas producer that operates the year-old well near Franklin, Tex. “It does look nasty.”

Within a few days the leaks had been sealed by workers.

Efforts like EnCana’s save energy and money. Yet they are also a cheap, effective way of blunting climate change that could potentially be replicated thousands of times over, from Wyoming to Siberia, energy experts say. Natural gas consists almost entirely of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas that scientists say accounts for as much as a third of the human contribution to global warming.

“This for me is an absolute no-brainer, even more so than putting in those compact fluorescent bulbs in your house,” said Al Armendariz, an engineer at Southern Methodist University who studies pollutants from oil and gas fields.

Acting quickly to stanch the loss of methane could substantially cut warming in the short run, even as countries tackle the tougher challenge of cutting the dominant greenhouse emission, carbon dioxide, studies by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest.

Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the atmosphere a century or more once released, methane persists in the air for about 10 years. So aggressively reining in emissions now would mean that far less of the gas would be warming the earth in a decade or so.

Methane is also a valuable target because while it is far rarer and more fleeting than carbon dioxide, ton for ton, it traps 25 times as much heat, researchers say.

Yet while federal and international programs have encouraged companies to seek and curb methane emissions from gas and oil wells, pipelines and tanks, aggressive efforts like EnCana’s are still far from the industry norm.

As a result, some three trillion cubic feet of methane leak into the air every year, with Russia and the United States the leading sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s official estimate. (This amount has the warming power of emissions from over half the coal plants in the United States.) And government scientists and industry officials caution that the real figure is almost certainly higher.

Unless monitoring is greatly expanded, they say, such emissions could soar as global production of natural gas increases over the next few decades.

The Energy Department projects that gas production could rise nearly 50 percent over the next 20 years as companies race to discover and tap new sources. In the United States, 4,000 miles of new pipeline was laid last year alone.

But the industry has been largely resistant to an aggressive cleanup.

The Bush administration, which opposed mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, expanded an existing voluntary domestic program for capturing methane emissions and began a related international program — with both aimed at promoting profitable ways for businesses to cut methane emissions as a relatively easy first step to combat climate change.

In April the Obama administration signaled that it could adopt rules requiring the biggest American companies to report all of their greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and gas industry groups countered that the cost and complexity of dealing with some 700,000 wells were too great.

In September the E.P.A. announced that the obligatory reporting would begin in 2011 but that it excluded oil and gas operations, at least for the time being. (Agency officials say they plan to issue rules for oil and gas by late next year.)

Some scientists reject the industry arguments. “Further delay on finding and stopping such releases would be irresponsible, given the financial and environmental benefits,” said F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel laureate in chemistry at the University of California, Irvine.

Internationally, the amount of methane escaping from gas and oil operations can be only crudely gauged. But in 2006 the E.P.A. estimated that Russia, the world’s largest gas producer, ranked highest, with 427 billion cubic feet of methane escaping annually, followed by the United States at 346 billion, Ukraine at 225 billion and Mexico at 191 billion.

Reflecting the uncertainty in such estimates, Gazprom, Russia’s giant state gas monopoly, estimated its annual emissions at half that figure last year.

An E.P.A. review of methane emissions from gas wells in the United States strongly implies that all of these figures may be too low. In its analysis, the E.P.A. concluded that the amount emitted by routine operations at gas wells — not including leaks like those seen near Franklin — is 12 times the agency’s longtime estimate of nine billion cubic feet. In heat-trapping potential, that new estimate equals the carbon dioxide emitted annually by eight million cars.

In the routine operations, great yet invisible plumes of gas enter the atmosphere when new wells are activated, old wells are invigorated to boost gas flows and wells are purged of fluids by letting out cough-like bursts of gas.

In many gas fields, said Roger Fernandez, a senior methane expert at the E.P.A., fluid-clogged wells are still purged the old-fashioned way, by opening valves or using outdated equipment in ways that release a misty burst of gas directly into the air.

For the E.P.A. and environmental scientists, the challenge is convincing gas and oil producers here and abroad that efforts to avoid such releases often more than pay for themselves.

The use of infrared cameras is expanding as word spreads of the payoff in saved gas, said Ben Shepperd, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, which represents 1,200 companies in the oil and gas business around West Texas.

“We would like to see more people doing it,” he said. “People are very surprised when they shoot their equipment with these cameras and they see that there are releases in places they wouldn’t have expected.”

The benefits are there not only for gas producers but also for companies handling oil. Thousands of oil storage tanks emit plumes of methane and other gases, said Larry S. Richards, the president of Hy-Bon Engineering in Midland, Tex., which is using infrared cameras to survey storage tanks in 29 countries and sells systems that capture the gas.

A clearer view of the worst methane emissions could come next year, when Japan plans to start releasing data from Gosat, a satellite that began orbiting the Earth in January. It may be able to identify the top hot spots within a few miles.

That may increase pressure on countries with particularly large leaks.

As the biggest methane emitter, Russia has begun seeking high-tech solutions. In April, for example, Gazprom, the Russian Defense Ministry and an Israeli aerospace company began discussing the potential use of miniature remotely piloted helicopters to monitor pipelines for leaks.

But gadgets alone will not halt the vast exhalation of methane from Russia, environmentalists say. There is some hope that a successor to the 1997 Kyoto climate change pact will include more incentives for money to flow to Russian methane-reduction projects.

Western companies that have captured methane point out the money that is often to be made by doing so.

Starting around 2000, BP began introducing methane-catching techniques at 2,300 well sites in New Mexico. At well after well, gas that would have otherwise escaped now flows through meters that field crews affectionately call the “cash register.”

Among other actions, BP engineers have fine-tuned a system for purging fluids that can stop up wells. The process uses the pressure of gas in the well to periodically raise a plunger through the vertical well pipe. This removes the liquids but typically allows gas to escape.

The new computerized process, which BP calls smart automation, tracks well pressure and other conditions to more precisely time the plunger cycles in ways that avoid gas emissions. From 2000 to 2004, emissions from BP wells in the region dropped 50 percent, the company says. By 2007, they had essentially ended.

On average, installing the systems has cost about $11,000 per well, but they have returned three times that investment, said Reid Smith, an environmental adviser for BP working on the project.

“We spend a lot of money to get gas to the surface,” Mr. Smith said. “It makes a huge amount of sense to get all of it through the sales meter.”



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Why people are chilled by warming, Margaret Wente, Oct 14 2009.

The apocalyptic language of environmentalists doesn't go down well with the public

Tim Flannery, the well-known Australian environmentalist, was on CBC Radio the other day to issue more alarms about global warming. He was more pessimistic than ever. “It's now or never,” he said. “We have about 20 years to address climate change or else our entire future is in jeopardy.” He painted an apocalyptic picture of drought, flooding, famine and war.

But global warming – or rather, the massive action demanded to address it – has become a tougher sell. First came the financial crash. Now, there's another problem. Average global temperatures plateaued in 1998, and haven't gone up since. Climate scientists explain that this pause doesn't change long-term warming trends, and will probably end soon. Still, it's hard to instill a sense of urgency when warming's been on hold for a decade.

A poll of urban Canadians conducted by Ipsos Reid last month found global warming is far down the list of people's concerns, somewhere below crime, health care, taxes, municipal spending, transportation and the economy. Not only that, but 41 per cent of respondents said the threat of global warming has been “overblown and exaggerated.” (This view is prevalent among middle-aged men, and in the energy-fuelled West.) In an Ipsos Reid survey last spring, 45 per cent of Canadians said “serious action on climate change should wait until the recession is behind us.”

An international survey of 11 nations, co-sponsored by environmental groups, found that fewer than half of those surveyed (47 per cent) were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent before the crash. Most people said their governments should be doing more, but only 27 per cent wanted them to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements. Only one in five said they were willing to spend extra money to fight global warming.

Why are people cooling on warming? One reason is surely the apocalyptic language of Mr. Flannery and others. When they say we are doomed unless we radically change our way of life by the end of next week, people figure the problem is exaggerated – or else far too big to fix. They're being “stunned into inaction,” said Nigel Winser of Earthwatch. And when the World Bank announces that the developed countries must start transferring $100-billion a yearto developing countries so they can cope with climate change, what are we supposed to think? Who believes that's about to happen?

Simple human psychology is another factor. Unlike oil-soaked ducks or tailings ponds, you can't see global warming. Its bad impacts are all far in the future, and there's not yet any tangible evidence that something bad is going to happen. People find it hard to react to invisible, distant threats. Even when they're confronted with a real near-term threat – such as floods, or forest fires – they continue to build houses in flood and forest-fire zones.

People are also confused and skeptical about solutions. They don't see how green taxes or carbon trading will reduce global warming. That skepticism helped to sink the hapless Stéphane Dion – and it's hurting other politicians, too. In Britain, there is a widespread revolt against green taxes. In Australia, an opposition coalition has blocked the labour government's much-touted emissions trading scheme because of worries that it will be too costly to both individuals and the economy. On top of that, a new book on global warming, Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth , has become a popular Australian bestseller. It argues that man-made global warming is a dangerous fiction with no basis in scientific fact.

The CBC's interviewer didn't raise any of these practical issues with Mr. Flannery, who went on to blast the Canadian government for its “position of almost studied indifference.” Instead, she expressed puzzlement about the “disconnect” between the sense of urgency among climate scientists and the lamentable lack of political will to tackle climate change. But it's no puzzle, really. The government has just been reading the polls.



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Michael Ignatieff should think outside the green box, Rex Murphy, Oct 19 2009.

Following the global-warming herd doesn't show courage – quite the opposite, in fact

It's rather daring that Michael Ignatieff is putting “green policy” at the centre of his party's pitch during the next election, whenever that longed-for bliss occurs. Daring, for the obvious reason that it was Stéphane Dion's “green shift” – purest idealism built on a mud field of impenetrable prose – that so wounded his predecessor in the last election.

It's daring for another reason, too. I do not know if Mr. Ignatieff visits the BBC News website these days. He was once an ornament of that venerated service, so perhaps he does. He may read there an interesting article on the precious topic of global warming. The BBC has been very friendly and supportive of AGW – so-called man-made (anthropogenic) global warming – and it is therefore a little surprising for those of us who follow the fortunes of the crusade to see this headline on a BBC story: What Happened to Global Warming?

It is not a headline that will please the pious. “Rank heresy,” I hear some of them sniff. Nor will they be pleased with the body of the story, which proceeds to offer, in this the Advent period of the great Copenhagen global warming conventicle, a highly inconvenient truth: “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on?”

Carbon dioxide has increased, temperatures have not: The models did not predict that incongruity. This is, or may be, the church of global warming's Galileo moment – when observation of what is happening trumps the gloomy choir of consensus on what may.

Galileo didn't work from consensus. Those who opposed and persecuted him worked on the consensus of centuries – that the Earth was the centre of the universe. The consensus multitude who tormented him are now a byword for folly and ignorance.

The BBC story makes many more interesting points that Mr. Ignatieff should read before he chains himself to another Liberal platform built around a response to global warming. Not least is the observation “that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.” But let's jump to the last paragraph.

That paragraph blisters with the heresy of heresies: “One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over.” Is this possible in 2009? The debate is not over! I picture Al Gore reaching for the holy Evian water and loosing a jeremiad: “Out, apostates! By my hemp underwear, and in the name of Kyoto and the IPCC, by the heel and toe of the carbon footprint, I declare thee excommunicate and anathema. In the name of bicycle paths, twisty bulbs, windmills and slow-flush toilets, carbon offsets and compost heaps, I declare the BBC heretical.” Or something like that.

The BBC is not the only voice showing sprigs and shoots of independent thinking on global warming. From Ian Plimer, the Australian scientist, to Canada's Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, brave men who debunked the infamous “hockey stick” graph, there are minds outside the herd.

There are many warning that the great rush to fix the planet, and re-engineer its economy in the middle of a huge recession, on the basis of incomplete science and vastly overblown advocacy from the world's swarm of environmental lobbyists, NGOs, foundations, action groups, Greenpeace acrobats and UN politicians, may be terribly ill-advised. For those with eyes to see, and ears to hear, there have been throughout this whole global warming enterprise serious and well-informed minds asking for a second look, proposing alternative explanations, or qualifications to the idea that man-made CO2 is the sole or main driver of an impending apocalypse.

There are intellectual bubbles as often as there are economic ones. Y2K was a computer hysteria that cost billions. We even had, 30 plus years ago, a mini-bubble of “global cooling” anxiety. These are not hospitable grounds for a national party, in opposition, with a new leader, on which to build a platform for a coming election. A little intellectual hardihood on Mr. Ignatieff's part, a little resistance to the cries of doom coming from the overheated zealots of the global warming consensus, would signal a streak of courage in his leadership.

Throwing the word “green” around, or building a national policy on its vague and trendy seductiveness is an escape from thinking, rather than an exercise in it. It is a genuflection to politically correct conventional wisdom. A little intellectual and political boldness would do Mr. Ignatieff a world of good right now, and right now is when he needs it most.



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Remarks by the President Challenging Americans to Lead the Global Economy in Clean Energy, Barack Obama, Oct. 23 2009.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT CHALLENGING AMERICANS TO LEAD THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IN CLEAN ENERGY

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Boston, Massachusetts

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Please, have a seat. Thank you. Thank you, MIT. I am -- I am hugely honored to be here. It's always been a dream of mine to visit the most prestigious school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hold on a second -- certainly the most prestigious school in this part of Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I'll probably be here for a while -- I understand a bunch of engineering students put my motorcade on top of Building 10.

This tells you something about MIT -- everybody hands out periodic tables. What's up with that?

I want I want to thank all of you for the warm welcome and for the work all of you are doing to generate and test new ideas that hold so much promise for our economy and for our lives. And in particular, I want to thank two outstanding MIT professors, Eric Lander, a person you just heard from, Ernie Moniz, for their service on my council of advisors on science and technology. And they have been hugely helpful to us already on looking at, for example, how the federal government can most effectively respond to the threat of the H1N1 virus. So I'm very grateful to them.

We've got some other special guests here I just want to acknowledge very briefly. First of all, my great friend and a champion of science and technology here in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, my friend Deval Patrick is here. Our Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray is here. Attorney General Martha Coakley is here. Auditor of the Commonwealth, Joe DeNucci is here. The Mayor of the great City of Cambridge, Denise Simmons is in the house. The Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, is not here, but he met me at the airport and he is doing great; he sends best wishes.

Somebody who really has been an all-star in Capitol Hill over the last 20 years, but certainly over the last year, on a whole range of issues -- everything from Afghanistan to clean energy -- a great friend, John Kerry. Please give John Kerry a round of applause.

And a wonderful member of Congress -- I believe this is your district, is that correct, Mike? Mike Capuano. Please give Mike a big round of applause.

Now, Dr. Moniz is also the Director of MIT's Energy Initiative, called MITEI. And he and President Hockfield just showed me some of the extraordinary energy research being conducted at this institute: windows that generate electricity by directing light to solar cells; light-weight, high-power batteries that aren't built, but are grown -- that was neat stuff; engineering viruses to create -- to create batteries; more efficient lighting systems that rely on nanotechnology; innovative engineering that will make it possible for offshore wind power plants to deliver electricity even when the air is still.

And it's a reminder that all of you are heirs to a legacy of innovation -- not just here but across America -- that has improved our health and our wellbeing and helped us achieve unparalleled prosperity. I was telling John and Deval on the ride over here, you just get excited being here and seeing these extraordinary young people and the extraordinary leadership of Professor Hockfield because it taps into something essential about America -- it's the legacy of daring men and women who put their talents and their efforts into the pursuit of discovery. And it's the legacy of a nation that supported those intrepid few willing to take risks on an idea that might fail -- but might also change the world.

Even in the darkest of times this nation has seen, it has always sought a brighter horizon. Think about it. In the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln designated a system of land grant colleges, including MIT, which helped open the doors of higher education to millions of people. A year -- a full year before the end of World War II, President Roosevelt signed the GI Bill which helped unleash a wave of strong and broadly shared economic growth. And after the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, the United States went about winning the Space Race by investing in science and technology, leading not only to small steps on the moon but also to tremendous economic benefits here on Earth.

So the truth is, we have always been about innovation, we have always been about discovery. That's in our DNA. The truth is we also face more complex challenges than generations past. A medical system that holds the promise of unlocking new cures is attached to a health care system that has the potential to bankrupt families and businesses and our government. A global marketplace that links the trader on Wall Street to the homeowner on Main Street to the factory worker in China -- an economy in which we all share opportunity is also an economy in which we all share crisis. We face threats to our security that seek -- there are threats to our security that are based on those who would seek to exploit the very interconnectedness and openness that's so essential to our prosperity. The system of energy that powers our economy also undermines our security and endangers our planet.

Now, while the challenges today are different, we have to draw on the same spirit of innovation that's always been central to our success. And that's especially true when it comes to energy. There may be plenty of room for debate as to how we transition from fossil fuels to renewable fuels -- we all understand there's no silver bullet to do it. There's going to be a lot of debate about how we move from an economy that's importing oil to one that's exporting clean energy technology; how we harness the innovative potential on display here at MIT to create millions of new jobs; and how we will lead the world to prevent the worst consequences of climate change. There are going to be all sorts of debates, both in the laboratory and on Capitol Hill. But there's no question that we must do all these things.

Countries on every corner of this Earth now recognize that energy supplies are growing scarcer, energy demands are growing larger, and rising energy use imperils the planet we will leave to future generations. And that's why the world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century. From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation. It's that simple.

That's why the Recovery Act that we passed back in January makes the largest investment in clean energy in history, not just to help end this recession, but to lay a new foundation for lasting prosperity. The Recovery Act includes $80 billion to put tens of thousands of Americans to work developing new battery technologies for hybrid vehicles; modernizing the electric grid; making our homes and businesses more energy efficient; doubling our capacity to generate renewable electricity. These are creating private-sector jobs weatherizing homes; manufacturing cars and trucks; upgrading to smart electric meters; installing solar panels; assembling wind turbines; building new facilities and factories and laboratories all across America. And, by the way, helping to finance extraordinary research.

In fact, in just a few weeks, right here in Boston, workers will break ground on a new Wind Technology Testing Center, a project made possible through a $25 million Recovery Act investment as well as through the support of Massachusetts and its partners. And I want everybody to understand -- Governor Patrick's leadership and vision made this happen. He was bragging about Massachusetts on the way over here -- I told him, you don't have to be a booster, I already love the state. But he helped make this happen.

Hundreds of people will be put to work building this new testing facility, but the benefits will extend far beyond these jobs. For the first time, researchers in the United States will be able to test the world's newest and largest wind turbine blades -- blades roughly the length of a football field -- and that in turn will make it possible for American businesses to develop more efficient and effective turbines, and to lead a market estimated at more than $2 trillion over the next two decades.

This grant follows other Recovery Act investments right here in Massachusetts that will help create clean energy jobs in this commonwealth and across the country. And this only builds on the work of your governor, who has endeavored to make Massachusetts a clean energy leader -- from increasing the supply of renewable electricity, to quadrupling solar capacity, to tripling the commonwealth's investment in energy efficiency, all of which helps to draw new jobs and new industries. That's worth applause.

Now, even as we're investing in technologies that exist today, we're also investing in the science that will produce the technologies of tomorrow. The Recovery Act provides the largest single boost in scientific research in history. Let me repeat that: The Recovery Act, the stimulus bill represents the largest single boost in scientific research in history. An increase -- that's an increase in funding that's already making a difference right here on this campus. And my budget also makes the research and experimentation tax credit permanent -- a tax credit that spurs innovation and jobs, adding $2 to the economy for every dollar that it costs.

And all of this must culminate in the passage of comprehensive legislation that will finally make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy in America. John Kerry is working on this legislation right now, and he's doing a terrific job reaching out across the other side of the aisle because this should not be a partisan issue. Everybody in America should have a stake everybody in America should have a stake in legislation that can transform our energy system into one that's far more efficient, far cleaner, and provide energy independence for America -- making the best use of resources we have in abundance, everything from figuring out how to use the fossil fuels that inevitably we are going to be using for several decades, things like coal and oil and natural gas; figuring out how we use those as cleanly and efficiently as possible; creating safe nuclear power; sustainable -- sustainably grown biofuels; and then the energy that we can harness from wind and the waves and the sun. It is a transformation that will be made as swiftly and as carefully as possible, to ensure that we are doing what it takes to grow this economy in the short, medium, and long term. And I do believe that a consensus is growing to achieve exactly that.

The Pentagon has declared our dependence on fossil fuels a security threat. Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are traveling the country as part of Operation Free, campaigning to end our dependence on oil we have a few of these folks here today, right there. The young people of this country -- that I've met all across America -- they understand that this is the challenge of their generation.

Leaders in the business community are standing with leaders in the environmental community to protect the economy and the planet we leave for our children. The House of Representatives has already passed historic legislation, due in large part to the efforts of Massachusetts' own Ed Markey, he deserves a big round of applause. We're now seeing prominent Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham joining forces with long-time leaders John Kerry on this issue, to swiftly pass a bill through the Senate as well. In fact, the Energy Committee, thanks to the work of its Chair, Senator Jeff Bingaman, has already passed key provisions of comprehensive legislation.

So we are seeing a convergence. The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we're engaged in. There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy -- when it's the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs. There are going to be those who cynically claim -- make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.

So we're going to have to work on those folks. But understand there's also another myth that we have to dispel, and this one is far more dangerous because we're all somewhat complicit in it. It's far more dangerous than any attack made by those who wish to stand in the way progress -- and that's the idea that there is nothing or little that we can do. It's pessimism. It's the pessimistic notion that our politics are too broken and our people too unwilling to make hard choices for us to actually deal with this energy issue that we're facing. And implicit in this argument is the sense that somehow we've lost something important -- that fighting American spirit, that willingness to tackle hard challenges, that determination to see those challenges to the end, that we can solve problems, that we can act collectively, that somehow that is something of the past.

I reject that argument. I reject it because of what I've seen here at MIT. Because of what I have seen across America. Because of what we know we are capable of achieving when called upon to achieve it. This is the nation that harnessed electricity and the energy contained in the atom, that developed the steamboat and the modern solar cell. This is the nation that pushed westward and looked skyward. We have always sought out new frontiers and this generation is no different.

Today's frontiers can't be found on a map. They're being explored in our classrooms and our laboratories, in our start-ups and our factories. And today's pioneers are not traveling to some far flung place. These pioneers are all around us -- the entrepreneurs and the inventors, the researchers, the engineers -- helping to lead us into the future, just as they have in the past. This is the nation that has led the world for two centuries in the pursuit of discovery. This is the nation that will lead the clean energy economy of tomorrow, so long as all of us remember what we have achieved in the past and we use that to inspire us to achieve even more in the future.

I am confident that's what's happening right here at this extraordinary institution. And if you will join us in what is sure to be a difficult fight in the months and years ahead, I am confident that all of America is going to be pulling in one direction to make sure that we are the energy leader that we need to be.

Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.



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