Still filming in Johannesburg.  More info here.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Dark matter is a hypothetical construct of our universe. Scientists have possibly found evidence of dark matter in a mine in Minnesota.
Full story here.

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman
vanessa@greenowl.com

 Das Racist will host MinorityFest on Friday at 7 p.m. in one of my favorite Brooklyn venues: Glasslands, 289 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg; $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 

Music, art and a panel discussion of artists, academics, comedians and writers “discussing what they do and issues they face as artists of color” being moderated by Das Racist?? This promises to be both entertaining and educational. See you there.

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman
vanessa@greenowl.com

Today is "Young and Future Generations Day" here at the International Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, and I'm here with my wife Wahleah and our two-year-old daughter Tohaana. Along with thousands of other young people, we're doing everything in our power to convince world leaders to commit to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding international agreement based on a target of 350 parts per million (ppm), which is the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Less than 400 miles away in Oslo, Norway, President Obama is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." If ever there was a time and place to live up to that honor, now, in Copenhagen is it.Four former Nobel Peace Prize winners have endorsed a target of 350ppm. On December 12th, 2008, at the international climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Al Gore (2007 winner) said to a huge crowd: “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate. We need to toughen that goal to 350 parts per million.” On December 20th, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama (1989) wrote: "It is now urgent that we take corrective action to ensure a safe climate future for coming generations of human beings and other species. That can be established in perpetuity if we can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350ppm. Buddhists, concerned people of the world and all people of good heart should be aware of this and act upon it." On August 25, 2009, Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC said, "As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations. But as a human being I am fully supportive of [350ppm]. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target." And on October 23, 2009, two days before what CNN called the "most widespread day of political action in the planet's history", Archibishop Desmond Tutu, who has been an ambassador for the 350 campaign and won the Peace Prize in 1984, wrote in USA Today: "Many top scientists agree that there's a number the world needs to know. It's 350 — as in 350 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The growing consensus is that it's the most carbon we can have in the atmosphere without causing terrible climate havoc. Since we're already past that level, at 390 parts per million, it also implies that we need much swifter political action than governments have supported in the past to reverse this trend."It is time for President Obama to join them. It may not be the politically pragmatic path, but it is the only path with the potential to lead to peace and prosperity. The climate crisis is a unique challenge in human history and Copenhagen is a unique opportunity to rise to that challenge. As Bill McKibben writes, "the adversary here is not Republicans, or socialists, or deficits, or taxes, or misogyny, or racism, or any of the problems we normally face -- adversaries that can change over time, or be worn down, or disproved, or cast off. The adversary here is physics."The physics says the limit is 350 ppm. That is the upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if we want Earth to continue to resemble the planet we've come to know and love. Despite the fact that we are 390 ppm and climbing and his inaugural promise to "restore science to its rightful place" Obama and the US delegation are negotiating in Copenhagen with a stated target of 450ppm. Fortunately for us, there are some world leaders who do not view the climate crisis as a primarily political problem. Ninety-two nations, all poor and vulnerable to the early affects of climate change have endorsed a target of 350ppm. President Nasheed of the Maldives has stated "we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere." And Ambassador Lumumba, coordinator of the G77 and China Group in Copenhagen made it clear that the $10 billion of "aid" proposed for African countries by Europe and President Obama is 'not enough for Africa to buy the coffins to bury us in’ if the climate crisis is allowed to continue.This weekend, people are organizing candlelight vigils around the world calling on world leaders to break through the political logjam. Many will be outside American consulates and embassies, and at Senator's offices throughout the United States, because without U.S. leadership here, the negotiations will likely fail. On the Young and Future Generations Day, I look at Tohanna and wonder how she'll feel in 20 years. Will she look at me and my generation and ask why we didn't do more? What will I tell her? If we don't get this right, right now, what will you, President Obama, say to Sasha and Malia in 20 years? That it wasn't politically feasible? That we didn't know the extent of the challenge we were facing? We know the science. We know the consequences. The United States and you, President Obama, need to continue "to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and commit to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement based on a target of 350ppm. This entry is cross-posted at Grist.org.

Billy Parish is the Founder of the Energy Action Coalition, a national student clean energy coalition, and lives with his family in Flagstaff, AZ.

"To the Networks, Tiger Woods Gossip 15 Times More Newsworthy Than ClimateGate" 

Yes, in Copenhagen, delegates from all over the world are trying to find a solution to Climate Change. Here in the USA we are tracking Tiger's text messages.

I'm not trying to preach. Even I was amused by 'the voicemail'. But we are missing out on serious debate as to whether or not science is being upheld in the fight to save our planet. Most people on the street know at least one of Tiger Woods' mistresses names, but they don't know that e-mails have leaked (or been hacked) from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) indicating a possible prevention of skeptical work appearing in scientific journals for the purpose of peer review.

We have a responsibility to reverse the damage we have done to our planet, as well as to preserve the world we live in for the generations to come. Whatever the solutions, we will only reach them through scientific integrity and innovation. For those of us not lucky enough to be in Copenhagen this month, it means actively finding facts on the internet that are more "news" related than "the news".

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman
vanessa@greenowl.com

Angelbert Metoyer is a Creole born artistic genius who has been reviewed as "similar to Basquiat" and as a "shamanistic seer".

This week Metoyer debuted War~Beau 2009 in Miami at Giovanni Rossi Fine Art Gallery. More of his work can be viewed by exploring the gallery's website. The artwork above is from the Heaven Sees collection of 2006, shown in the Paul Rodgers gallery in NYC, while work currently on display incorporates sounds and political motivation and requires viewer interaction. 

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman

One of the major draw backs to carbon capture is what to do with the C02 once you capture it from the atmosphere. Some of the ways this is done is by either piping it underground and storing it, or use it to pump oil out from deep within the earth. Neither are great solutions. One of the more interesting methods is by capturing the C02 in concrete. A company in Halifax has been developing a method that "consumes CO2 to manufacture more durable precast concrete products in far less time". Now if we could only get our policies on point....

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.com

Love is real, real is love...

Beautiful Boy...

Today marks the 29th Anniversary of John Lennon's death. I don't need to remind anyone of what a legend he is, I don't need to reiterate any of his messages of peace in order for you to remember the infinity of light and love that lived inside this one man's soul. Just listen to his music, may it live forever.

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman

Last time I checked out duttyartz.com I found a remixed version of In Your Line from Telepathe's Dance Mother by Brooklyn duo DJ Rupture and Matt Shadetek... they've added it to their new album Solar Life Raft  and it looks to me like they'll all be surviving rising sea levels with deep bass and exciting melody.

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman

Ok I couldn't help myself....I like whiskey and I like electronics...Check out this Ballantines bottle that reacts to sound. Now if we could only apply this to something useful. All I could find is marketing applications.

Posted by Stephen Glicken
stephen@greenowl.com

On December 4th Democracy Now covered the 40th anniversary of the death of the Black Panthers' Fred Hampton by speaking with attorney Jeffrey Haas about his book The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. Below is an excerpt of a speech by Fred Hampton. See the full speech and the interview at Democracy Now .

"So we say—we always say in the Black Panther Party that they can do anything they want to to us. We might not be back. I might be in jail. I might be anywhere. But when I leave, you’ll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary. And you’re going to have to keep on saying that. You’re going to have to say that I am a proletariat, I am the people. 

A lot of people don’t understand the Black Panthers Party’s relationship with white mother country radicals. A lot of people don’t even understand the words that Eldridge uses a lot. But what we’re saying is that there are white people in the mother country that are for the same types of things that we are for stimulating revolution in the mother country. And we say that we will work with anybody and form a coalition with anybody that has revolution on their mind. We’re not a racist organization, because we understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is just—it’s a byproduct of capitalism. Everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we’re going to have to put it back in the hands of the people.

With no education, the people will take the local foundation and start stealing money, because they won’t be really educated to why it’s the people’s thing anyway. You understand what I’m saying? With no education, you have neocolonialism instead of colonialism, like you’ve got in Africa now and like you’ve got in Haiti. So what we’re talking about is there has to be an educational program. That’s very important. As a matter of fact, reading is so important for us that a person has to go through six weeks of our political education before we can consider himself a member of the party able to even run down ideology for the party. Why? Because if they don’t have an education, then they’re nowhere. You dig what I’m saying? They’re nowhere, because they don’t even know why they’re doing what they’re doing. You might get caught up in the emotion of this movement. You understand me? You might be able to get them caught up because they’re poor and they want something. And then, if they’re not educated, they’ll want more, and before you know it, they’ll be capitalists, and before you know it, we’ll have Negro imperialists.

We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re still here to say we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys like this and reactionary state’s attorneys like Hanrahan with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.

Black people need some peace. White people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight. We’re going to have to struggle. We’re going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace, because the people that we’re asking for peace, they are a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers, and they don’t even understand what peace means. And we’ve got to fight them. We’ve got to struggle with them to make them understand what peace means."

- words by Fred Hampton, the Black Panthers

posted by Lee / Us&Them 

Moving to a new apartment, the beginning of the holiday season and a few other things left me with less time to listen to music and write. Even as this weekend approached, I was at a bit of a loss about what to focus on. And then Saturday night I read that Jack Rose died of a heart attack, and I thought that the very least I could do is throw together a paragraph to discuss someone who was a remarkable talent—someone whose work I have by no means fully explored but who nevertheless dazzled me on record and on stage.

I’m embarrassed to say it, but I’ve never heard any of the numerous albums by Pelt, the trio of which Rose was a core member since the mid-90s; my experience with his music was limited to his solo work on six- and twelve-string guitar. Drawn to him by a burgeoning interest in John Fahey and those he influenced, I appreciated how palpable the sense of history was in Rose’s music, how you could hear Fahey and Robbie Basho and others…but also noticeable was how unburdened Rose seemed by that history. Live, he was intensely focused, yet humble and funny…bit of a Falstaff vibe from his scraggly beard and hair. I only saw him twice but each time I got to a certain point in his set where the music opened up and it suddenly became exhilarating to hear where everything was going. Like Jerry Fuchs, drummer for the Juan Maclean, !!!, and Maserati who suddenly died last month, Jack Rose was someone who I didn’t follow closely but always held in high regard—and always hoped I’d see more of in future concerts, records, etc. A new album (which was completed before his death) will be released on Thrill Jockey in February. 

I’m attaching to this post the song “Spirits in the House” off of his self-titled album. It’s a fantastic performance and a gorgeous piece, one where you get a sense of how astonishing his talent was.

Posted by Ned Milligan
mistermilligan@yahoo.com

R&B isn't usually my thing but this slow jam has got me goin...

Posted by Vanessa Bronfman
vanessa@greenowl.com

Amazing new collection by Kali Arulpragasm: CRA$H: looking at the glitz and glamour of jewelry in a new light.

Benjamin Bronfman

by Billy Parish

We fight, even against insurmountable odds, because sometimes we win.

As I get ready to head to Copenhagen this Saturday for the international climate negotiations, I'm thrilled to see the success of The Leadership Campaign and their efforts to have Massachusetts use 100% clean electricity by 2020.

On Monday, Representative William Brownsberger will file their bill, An Act to Re-power Massachusetts, in the Massachusetts House, calling on Gov. Deval Patrick to create a task force to formulate a plan to get Massachusetts to100% clean electricity by 2020.

To draw attention to their campaign, they have refused to sleep in homes, dorms, apartments powered by dirty electricity until Massachusetts commits to 100% clean electricity in 10 years. Since October 25, hundreds of students, activists and engaged citizens have spent at least one night camping out. Some haven't slept in a bed in over a month -- [check out a personal account here].

Each Sunday, members of the campaign come together to camp out on the Boston Common. They face citations for violating the 11pm curfew, but each week they gladly except the consequences of their protests.

Last May, I wrote about how climate activists need to rethink the rules of engagement and not accept the "rules" of a rigged game. I'm thrilled to see the students and leaders of the Leadership Campaign doing just that. It's a great sign for our cause and an example we can all follow.

If you're in Boston this weekend, join the Leadership Campaign for their final sleepout on the Boston Common. They'll be joined by one of my favorite people, Rev. Lennox Yearwood of The Hip Hop Caucus. The rally begins at 3pm at the Boston Common across from the Statehouse.

Billy Parish is the Founder of the Energy Action Coalition, a national student clean energy coalition, and lives with his family in Flagstaff, AZ.