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Ghost Dog

Ghost Dog's Journal
Ghost Dog's Journal
August 20, 2019

Also, Scotland is an historical nation, which entered into a voluntary

parliamentary union with England. The Crowns of Scotland and England are separate, although held in personal union by one Monarch at the moment. Scotland is not and has never been an English region, never having been conquered even by Rome.

Catalonia is a Spanish region. Before the political union of the kingdoms of Castille (incorporating León, Asturias, ...) and Aragon (which had conquered the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily and Naples, and had been subject under the kingdom of Navarra...) it was a county of the latter, and before that it was a feudal county under the Dukes of Aquitaine and Carolingian France, following al-Andalusi and earlier Visigothic rule, following Rome.

Beware of unlikely parallels and false equivalences.

August 19, 2019

Seen from sea-level:

August 19, 2019

Tamadaba is starting to burn. The most natural zone in the archipelago,

one of the most ancient Canarian Pine forests and the area "least altered by the hand of man". It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.





https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/sociedad/Parque-Natural-Tamadaba-Gran-Canaria-incendio-Pinar-pulmon_verde_0_932656988.html





August 19, 2019

He is at least aware, because told, that the Arctic is warming.

The consequences of that are, truly, enormous on every level.

Climatologically: Stimulates positive feedback forcing further global atmospheric and oceanic warming with all the consequences that will bring... But he doesn't want to have to think about that. To be fair, the same applies to so many, still.

Geostrategically (the Arctic as true center of gravity of the world):



Militarily: It's Russia over there, with just Canada and Greenland and water in between...

Mineral Resource extraction and associated contamination opportunities: enormous.

Value as political theater in the forthcoming elections: Hmmm. A simple issue his base can understand. Why not 'do a deal' and take Nunavut too?

August 19, 2019

At least the Wires and so MsM are reporting fairly accurately,

within narrative limits...

https://apnews.com/b37d4f169c31449fb57e619195e9d758

... The Iran-flagged Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, set course for Kalamata, Greece, with an estimated arrival on Aug. 25, according to ship tracking service MarineTraffic... Gibraltar said it had been assured by Iran that the tanker wouldn’t unload its cargo in Syria. Iranian government officials have yet to publicly acknowledge the ship’s next destination, or where it will discharge its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of crude oil. Iran has denied it was ever headed for Syria...

... Analysts had said the Iranian ship’s release by Gibraltar might mean that the Stena Impero could go free. But Iranian officials denied there was any link between the two ships. “There is no specific relation between these two ships,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said of the Stena Impero and the Adrian Darya 1. “We are glad that our stance about the unlawful and illegal seizure of our tanker has been proven.” ... “Regarding the release of the law-breaking British tanker (Stena Impero), we have to wait for the court’s ruling,” he added. “This tanker has committed two to three nautical violations that are being investigated. We hope that these investigations will finish as soon as possible and a verdict will be issued and if the verdict orders its release, it can continue to sail its path.”

In a last-ditch effort to stop the release, the U.S. unsealed a warrant Friday to seize the Adrian Darya 1 and its cargo, citing violations of U.S. sanctions as well as money laundering and terrorism statutes...

... The Iranian spokesman warned Monday against any order by the U.S. Justice Department to have the renamed ship seized again. “If such an action is taken or even if it is stated verbally and not done, it is considered a threat against the maritime security in international waters,” said Mousavi. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has given necessary warnings to the U.S. officials through official channels, especially the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, not to commit such a mistake which (could) bring them severe consequences.”...

https://apnews.com/b37d4f169c31449fb57e619195e9d758


https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-iran-tanker/iran-tanker-heads-to-greece-after-release-iran-warns-u-s-against-seizure-attempt-idUKKCN1V90DS

... U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in May last year, while the European Union is still part of the accord, which allows Tehran to sell its oil. Washington wants to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero and re-imposed U.S. sanctions which place heavy penalties on any breaches even for non-U.S. citizens and companies, including asset freezes and being cut off from the U.S. financial system.

While EU regulations still allow for companies and citizens in the bloc to engage in trade with Iran, falling foul of U.S. sanctions has meant most banks are unwilling to process even authorised transactions such as for food and medicine, finance sources say. This is likely to be the first major foreign policy challenge for Greece’s new Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis since he took office in July if the vessel enters Greek territorial waters...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-iran-tanker/iran-tanker-heads-to-greece-after-release-iran-warns-u-s-against-seizure-attempt-idUKKCN1V90DS


https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/iran-warns-us-against-seizing-tanker-doc-1jm3sa6



... The Iranian spokesman said the Gibraltar court order for the release of the tanker was a blow to US "unilateralism". "The Americans have not been very successful with their unilateral sanctions that have no legal basis. They should come to their senses that bullying and unilateralism cannot get anywhere in the world today." Mousavi urged other countries not to accept sanctions the United States has imposed on Iran "because they're not legitimate and have no legal basis".

Iran's judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi called for legal action to be taken against Britain over the ship's detention. "Now following the release of the ship, the Islamic Republic of Iran should seek damages," he told state television.

But despite the tanker's release, Iran still faced a dilemma over its ultimate destination and that of its oil, said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch. "The tanker was renamed... but the problem with US sanctions remains," he told AFP. "I don't see any buyer in the Mediterranean apart from the sanctioned regime in Syria. Returning to Iran will be difficult since it would need to make the whole trip around Africa."...

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/iran-warns-us-against-seizing-tanker-doc-1jm3sa6

August 19, 2019

The ship will be in international waters shortly...

... “We can do something very fast, but they don’t quite know how to begin,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey.

Iran has denied the tanker was ever headed to Syria.

Tehran said it was ready to dispatch its naval fleet to escort the tanker if required.

“The era of hit and run is over ... if top authorities ask the navy, we are ready to escort out tanker Adrian,” Iran’s navy commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-iran-tanker-gibraltar/iranian-tanker-at-centre-of-standoff-with-west-leaves-gibraltar-shipping-data-shows-idUKKCN1V80A2
August 18, 2019

Grace 1, now Adrian Darya 1, is as I write underway and leaving

the waters claimed by the UK around Gibraltar, heading towards the strait and apparently out of the Mediterranean:



A US warship passed by four hours ago without interfering:

August 18, 2019

A USN vessel just passed by at around 18:00 GMT without touching Grace 1,

still at anchor in waters claimed by Gibraltar, while on its way out through the strait. I happened to be checking marinetraffic.com and made an image:

August 14, 2019

Green growth cannot be trusted to fix climate change

https://theconversation.com/green-growth-is-trusted-to-fix-climate-change-heres-the-problem-with-that-120785

... The IPCC’s Special Report, released in October 2018, gives 90 scenarios that would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, while also continuing with economic growth. So far, so good. But almost every single one of these scenarios relies on a negative emissions technology called Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) that’s completely untested at large scales. BECSS involves growing large plantations of trees, which draw down carbon from the atmosphere, then harvesting and burning them to generate energy. The CO₂ emissions from this process are then stored underground. To limit warming to 1.5°C, this technology would need to absorb 3-7 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year. That’s at least 2,000 times more than it’s currently capable of doing. In order to absorb that much carbon, an area two to three times the size of India would need to be covered with tree plantations. Think about the difficulty of acquiring that much land, the pressure it would put on other land uses, like food production, and how much natural habitat it could erase.

No one can say that these feats are categorically impossible. But the evidence suggests that the chances of meeting the 1.5ᵒC warming target alongside continued economic growth are, at best, highly unlikely. Can we really take this risk — relying on unproven technologies to rescue us from the threat of climate change? Given the consequences of getting the gamble wrong, surely the answer is no.

Where does this leave us?

Proposals for green growth that rely solely on technology to solve the climate crisis are based on a flawed idea. This is, that the limits to the world’s physical systems are flexible, but the structure of its economies are not. This seems entirely backwards and more a reflection of the importance of politics and power in determining what solutions are deemed viable, than any reflection of reality. So society should ask, are these global institutions promoting green growth because they believe it’s the most promising way of avoiding climate breakdown? Or is it because they believe it’s simply not politically feasible to talk about the alternatives?

If we can be optimistic about humanity’s ability to develop fantastical new technologies to bend and overcome the limits of nature, can’t we lend that same optimism to developing new economic structures? Our goal in the 21st century should be creating economies that allow people to flourish, even when they don’t grow.

https://theconversation.com/green-growth-is-trusted-to-fix-climate-change-heres-the-problem-with-that-120785


Decoupling Debunked, the report: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/

The EEB is Europe’s largest network of environmental citizens' organisations. We bring together around 150 civil society organisations from more than 30 European countries. We stand for sustainable development, environmental justice & participatory democracy. https://eeb.org/

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Hometown: Canary Islands Archipelago
Home country: Spain
Member since: Wed Apr 19, 2006, 01:59 PM
Number of posts: 16,881

About Ghost Dog

A Brit many years in Spain, Catalunya, Baleares, Canarias. Cooperative member. Geography. Ecology. Cartography. Software. Sound Recording. Music Production. Languages & Literature. History.
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