The w in recession beyond a reasonable drought foments unhappy mischief

If you abuse capitalism as badly as American Corporate greed did with their weapons of mass financial destruction, then it takes time to explode out the other end, the height of the Great Depression wasn’t until 4 years after the stock market plunge, we are 2 years into the great recession. What Adam Smiths invisible hand gives, it also takes…

Korean recovery exaggerated: Paul Krugman
Krugman also warned that the global economy may face "a lost decade" as a result of hasty exit strategies. "We have a rising tide of people saying, 'Ok we've done enough. Time to start pursuing an exit strategy. Time to take away the punch bowl ...' Central bankers want to take away the punch bowl before the party has even started," he said at a lecture at the forum. "There is a strong risk that we can have a global lost decade something that is like what happened to Japan in the 90s, only much worse because Japan never had the kind of mass unemployment that we have now in the United States and much of Europe," he said. He said the United States should not start an exit strategy until unemployment falls to around 7 percent, which will take at least two years. The current U.S. unemployment rate is 9.8 percent…Krugman also said the world economy faces the risk of a double dip with fiscal stimulus support set to fade out early next year. "It is not implausible that we are going to actually see a double dip next year," he said during the speech. "We stepped back one or two paces from the edge of the abyss. We have avoided the plunge into total catastrophe. But that's a very long way from a full recovery."

…and the fallout of trillions written up based on a house of card financial structure creates unemployment and instability all being fended off with massive hits of Government stimulus cash…

Many worried about where to find next meal
One in 10 New Zealanders are hungry, malnourished or nervous about where their next meal is coming from, according to a recent report. Ideas being explored in Canterbury to combat low nutrition and hunger include community gardens and kitchens, where people can pool resources and grow and cook healthy food together. A Canterbury Community and Public Health report says 10 per cent of households had "low food security". Author Susan Bidwell said this could mean family members were hungry or had a poor diet because they could not afford nutritious food. Such people might rely on emergency assistance, scrounging or stealing, or not be able to access culturally acceptable foods, she said. "The recession's probably made it quite a bit more important and brought home to people that there's quite a lot of deprivation out there," she said. "It's the kind of thing we like to think doesn't happen in New Zealand."

…and this is a global trend in developed countries…

One billion hungry says UN
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has pushed more than 1 billion people into hunger in 2009, UN agencies say, confirming a grim forecast released earlier this year. The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said 1.02 billion people - about 100 million people more than last year - are undernourished in 2009, the highest number in four decades. "The rising number of hungry people is intolerable," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf as the new annual report on world hunger was released. "We have the economic and technical means to make hunger disappear, what is missing is a stronger political will to eradicate hunger forever," he said. The increase in the number of hungry people is not a result of poor harvests but is due to high food prices - particularly in developing countries - lower incomes and lost jobs.

…and this crises of capitalism is occurring at a time when capitalism’s Achilles heel, the unsustainable pollution created by consumer culture Uber Alles, is threatening to collapse the biosphere…

Time running out for climate solution
…there is compelling evidence that as the world warms, humanitarian disasters will be more frequent, more severe and more devastating. Violent tropical cyclones like the one that pounded the Philippines will become more frequent and more intense. Changing rain patterns will tend to make wet areas wetter, meaning more floods, and dry areas drier, meaning more droughts. Rising temperatures will bring heat waves and make new regions susceptible to tropical diseases, such as malaria. Melting of glaciers will cause declining water availability for the more than one billion people dependent on their steady flow. And sea-level rise will result in land loss, an increase in flooding due to storm surges and, most profoundly, the extinction of entire island nations. Such effects are a recipe for hunger, thirst, mass migration, conflict and misery. These are the projections of careful, peer-reviewed science and cautious institutions.

…imagine this suffocating the oceans, a pus filled septic sore reacting to our pollution…

Mucus blobs threaten marine life
Giant blobs of jelly-like mucus are spreading in the Mediterranean Sea, threatening marine life and posing a potential disease threat to humans. The sheets of dead and living organic matter, known as marine mucilages, resemble blobs from science fiction stories and comprise microscopic organic matter joined together, The National Geographic reports. Only some of the animals are visible to the human eye, such as small shrimp and crustaceans. These blobs have been known to exist at least since 1729, but a recent study found a link between mucilage outbreaks and warmer sea temperatures. Study leader Roberto Danovaro, from the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy, says it is of concern because the blobs attract bacteria and viruses, including e-coli. That would make the blobs harmful to swimmers, and an e-coli presence can force closure of beaches. Danovaro says the mucilages are largest in the summer months. His study found that the number of mucilage outbreaks increased almost exponentially in the last 20 years in the Mediterranean, The National Geographic says on its website. He cautions that it's a good example of what can happen if climate warming continues. The bacteria can be deadly to fish and other marine organisms and the noxious mass also traps animals, coating their gills and suffocating them. The biggest blobs can sink to the sea floor, acting like a blanket, and smothering life at the bottom.

…and yet the right wing’s response in this country is an ETS that subsidizes their big polluter corporate chums and we have David Farrar on Kiwiblog praising more climate skeptic junk. Hot Topic tear David a new one and exposes his ignorance and down right lies over global warming.