Liberate in poetry, govern in prose

Why should anyone have to sustain a 100-year struggle for their freedom? (GW)

ANC celebrates its centenary trading on past glories

South Africa's governing party, born in a township church in 1912, found it could liberate in poetry but had to govern in prose

By David Smith

guardian.co.uk
December 30, 2011

The South African president, Jacob Zuma, will be joined by foreign heads of state where it all began: a Wesleyan church in Waaihoek, Bloemfontein. At the stroke of midnight, he will step forward to light the "centenary flame" symbolising the resistance that gave hope to all of Africa.

The African National Congress, the oldest liberation movement on the continent, turns 100 years old on 8 January. A year of celebrations costing at least 100m rand (£7.9m) will kick off with a "centenary golf day", a dinner, a church service, a centennial address by Zuma, a performance of the ANC's history in song and dance and a shindig for 100,000 people.

Under the black, green and gold banner reading "100 years of selfless struggle", there will be much lionising of heroes such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. But in some quarters there will also be nostalgia for old certainties, a suspicion that today's leaders do not measure up to the titans of old, and a fear that South Africa's governing party enters its second century tarnished and poised to tear itself apart.

"One hundred years should be the ANC's biggest celebration, to have survived this long and be in government, but it's now a party in crisis," said William Gumede, author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. "It's a bittersweet victory. This may be the pinnacle but now it's all downhill."

Symbolically perhaps, the ANC has been forced to covertly buy its own birthplace at a hugely inflated price so it can take centre stage in the commemorations. In July, it spent 10m rand (£800,000) of public funds to regain the Wesleyan church in Waaihoek from a man who acquired it for just 280,000 rand (£22,000) eight years ago, according to South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. There is now a race to complete costly renovations before the centenary flame is lit.

The church stands in what used to be a black township in Bloemfontein in Free State province. It was here in 1912, before the death of Scott of the Antarctic and the sinking of the Titanic, that a gathering of businessmen, clergymen, journalists, lawyers and teachers held a political meeting that laid the foundations of the South African Native National Congress, renamed the ANC in 1923.

The party's cause came from unlikely DNA in the shape of Britain, and Mahatma Gandhi. The latter arrived in South Africa in 1893 and blazed a trail with resistance campaigns against colonial rule. "This was the progenitor in a sense of the ANC," said Allister Sparks, a veteran journalist and political analyst.

Britain had angered the black activists and intellectuals by handing power to Afrikaners (descended from Dutch and German settlers) when the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910. "It was the betrayal of black people," Sparks added. "This is the only instance when Britain granted independence to a minority group, because it was stricken with guilt about the Boer war.

"If one is looking for an original sin in the South African story, it was that. The granting of independence to the white minority created a problem that led to apartheid."

The 1913 Natives Land Act carved up territory along racial lines, in effect giving 90% of land to white people. The ANC's first political action was to petition Britain to intervene but in vain. In 1914, Afrikaner nationalists founded the National party, also in Bloemfontein. It introduced racial apartheid (meaning "apartness" in Afrikaans) in 1948.

The ANC was banned in 1960 and began an armed struggle, carrying out 200 acts of sabotage in 18 months. The apartheid regime hit back, arresting and jailing key figures including Mandela, who would spend 27 years behind bars. Other leaders, notably Tambo, went into exile and campaigned tirelessly for international support.

The corrosive effect of sanctions, and township unrest were among pressures that brought the edifice crashing down. In 1990, the ANC was unbanned and Mandela released. The first democratic polls followed in 1994, with Mandela becoming the country's first black president. Paradoxically, Africa's first liberation movement was the last to take power.

But critics believe it is trading on past glories because the present is increasingly unbearable. Like its counterparts elsewhere in Africa, it has found it could liberate in poetry but must govern in prose, with the glue that held it together fast disappearing.

Moeletsi Mbeki, a political economist whose brother Thabo succeeded Mandela as president from 1999 to 2008, said: "A liberation movement has one project, which was to get rid of apartheid. Everybody could agree on that. A government has a multiplicity of choices. Once you have to make choices, the different schools of thought say not this choice but that one. The ANC is in a very rickety state right now."

Crime and HIV rates soared but, once in office, some veterans seemed determined to line their pockets and demonstrate the timeless truth that power corrupts. The biggest stain was a 1990s international arms deal costing an estimated 70bn rand (£5.5bn) of taxpayers' money. A decade later, with much of the military equipment redundant, official inquiries continue into allegations that bribes worth more than 2bn rand (£159m) were paid to individuals and the ANC itself.

Andrew Feinstein, an ANC MP, resigned after the party asked him to collude in a coverup of the scandal. He emigrated to London soon after and has written a book, The Shadow World, exploring the global arms trade. "In order to hide the corruption, the ANC were prepared to undermine the very institutions of democracy that they had so courageously fought to establish," he said.

"There's a strong sense that parliament has never recovered, that this was the moment at which parliament became nothing more than a rubber stamp for the ruling party. This really was the moment at which the ANC was prepared to say, 'Yes, we are prepared to sacrifice these institutions to protect ourselves, to protect the party.' It reflects a profound lack of transparency and accountability in the way the ANC operates – the corrupt core of the party. In that sense it had a devastating impact on our democracy."

For Feinstein, who had been a member of the party for much of his adult life, it was a betrayal of the basic principle. "It was an organisation that I revered and I was incredibly disappointed at how quickly South Africa had gone from this notion of the politics of the impossible, exceptional because of the personalities involved, to adopting the global norms of politics.

"I was devastated personally and in a sense of an organisation's ideals thwarted. It was a wrenching thing for me. Today it feels as though the organisation no longer has any moral fibre, and personally I find that very sad."

Along with charges of cronyism and patronage, the ANC is fractured by internecine warfare. The party's broad church of members, a strength during the struggle years, has become unwieldy, a weakness in trying to run one of the world's most unequal societies. There are battles between left and right, between African nationalists and pro-western liberals, between big egos vying for power and the riches it brings. One of Mbeki's favourite literary quotations is recycled endlessly in the South African press: "The centre cannot hold."

Poison in the bloodstream was evident when the autocratic Mbeki was ousted after an unseemly power struggle. Now Zuma, seeking re-election at the end of the centenary year, is facing an insurgency from youth leader Julius Malema. But party stalwarts play down talk of imminent implosion, noting the ANC has weathered previous internal storms.

Pallo Jordan, a former government minister and ANC member for nearly half a century, said: "One has heard it all before and one by one the prophets of doom have always been proved wrong. There is misunderstanding of the character of the movement, especially by the commentators you get in the daily press. Many of them have never been in political movements, political parties, so when they hear a heated argument, they assume, 'This is it, he'll never survive this one.' Well, the argument ends and people carry on."

Jordan added: "In a living, radical movement, as opposed to one that's conservative, there are always those tensions and there's always argument and ferment. The ANC in that respect was no different. In Britain, until Tony Blair, the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour party was one of cordiality and quarrelling. The ANC will celebrate its centenary in very good health."

Recent election results, however, suggest a gradual erosion of the support that the ANC once took for granted. The patience of voters who still lack electricity, water and other basic services is wearing thin. A growing educated middle class is losing touch with apartheid history and seeking alternatives. Some commentators predict that the party could lose its parliamentary majority within a decade.

And with the trauma of public rejection would come the greatest test of all: to avoid the example of revolutionaries such as Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, with their assumed divine right to rule.

Asked how the ANC would handle election defeat, Jordan replied: "As far as I can judge, that's so far in the future I hate to speculate because I don't know who would be the leadership of the ANC at that time. But the ANC today would hand over power gracefully and let whoever was coming into office come into office."

The party born in a township church in 1912 is at a crossroads, looking back on a proud heritage beyond praise, but contemplating an uncertain and perilous future. One man who will never criticise its actions is the retired Mandela who, just seven years younger than the ANC, remains an unswervingly loyal party man – leaving it to others to speculate whether it has failed his legacy.

"I would love to know his thoughts about that," said Amina Cachalia, 81, a struggle veteran and friend of Mandela for more than 60 years. "I'm sure he would rejoice, like I would rejoice, in a hundred years of the ANC. But I often wonder how he would relate to it today and to what is happening in the ANC.

"Not that there's a great deal that he would probably find wrong, but he was a man who always felt there should be no fighting between people wanting to be in power, and that in those years everybody was so dedicated, nobody got paid for their dedication or commitment to the struggle. I think Nelson would feel that people should be like that continuously: dedicate yourself to the people of South Africa without having a little agenda."

Top 10 Wind Energy Stories of 2011

December 29, 2011 By Zachary Shahan 6 Comments

As the leading organization of the U.S. solar energy industry has done, the folks most in the know when it comes to U.S. wind energy, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), have put together a great end-of-the-year wrap-up of the top 10 wind energy stories of 2011. Rather than try to 1-up them, which would be pretty darn hard to do, I’m reposting their wrap-up here:

WASHINGTON, DC, December 27, 2011– Wind power hits 20 percent overall in two states. It contributes a record 50 percent for a period of time in another. And the turbines that pump out all those electrons? Their cost has dropped 33 percent.

The wind power industry never sits still in any given year, and 2011 was no different, as it forged ahead with a slew of benchmarks, policy progress, and hard data that illustrate wind energy continuing its march forward as a mainstream, reliable and affordable energy source made in America.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has established a tradition of taking a look back in December at the events that shaped the year in wind power. Here’s a look at just some of the many happenings that made 2011 yet another big year in the continued evolution of the industry.

1 – Iowa, South Dakota reach 20 percent wind penetration overall. U.S. wind industry observers no longer need look to Europe for examples of huge wind power penetrations. Both Iowa and South Dakota reached the important milestone of 20 percent of their electricity coming from wind power, a first for the U.S. And more projects are coming.

2 – Xcel Energy shatters wind barrier with 50 percent at one time. While Iowa and South Dakota lead the nation with their 20 percent wind penetration overall benchmark, a utility system in Colorado made some noise on the integration front as well. Investor-owned utility Xcel Energy set a wind power world record on the morning of October 6, when subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado got 55.6 percent of the electricity on its system at one time from wind power, as reported in the Denver Post. The leading utility for wind power on its wires, Xcel Energy is proving once again that large amounts of wind can be successfully integrated onto the grid.

3 – Cost drop: Wind power gets leaner and meaner. Wind turbine prices have dropped sharply in recent years, and a government report released in 2011 highlights that trend with some telling numbers. According to the latest edition of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Wind Technologies Market Report,” turbine prices decreased by as much as 33 percent or more between late 2008 and 2010. As discussed in AWEA’s most recent industry Annual Report, more efficient U.S.-based manufacturing is saving on transportation, and technology improvements are making turbines better and more efficient.

4 – One-third renewables: California establishes landmark RES. In April, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law legislation that ups the state’s renewable electricity standard from an already strong 20 percent to an historic 33 percent by 2020. The renewables standard includes near-term and incremental targets (20 percent by the end of 2013 and 25 percent by the end of 2016), an approach that the wind industry considers to be an important component of RES legislation because it allows the industry to begin ramping up and generating economic development immediately.

5 – Offshore streamlining and project progress. The U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior made several important announcements that moved offshore American wind power forward, including: the unveiling of a coordinated strategic plan to pursue the deployment of 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2020 and 54 GW by 2030, the creation of high-priority “Wind Energy Areas” off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, the approval of Cape Wind project’s construction and operations plan and the commitment of $43 million over the next five years to help speed technical innovations, drive down costs, and reduce market barriers such as supply chain development, transmission and infrastructure.

6 – WindMade™ label announced. 2011 marked the launch of WindMade™, a new consumer label that will highlight companies getting a large portion of their electricity from wind power. Already 15 companies—including such names as Motorola Mobility, Deutsche Bank, and Bloomberg—have committed to attaining the new label by getting at least 25 percent of their electricity from wind energy.

7 – Momentum builds for PTC extension. The year is wrapping without the all-important extension of the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC), wind power’s primary policy driver, which expires at the end of 2012. But the PTC movement gathered momentum heading into next year, with bipartisan legislation recently introduced by Representatives Dave Reichert (R, WA-08) and Earl Blumenauer (D, OR-03) seeking to grant a four-year PTC extension (H.R. 3307, the “American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act”). This legislation has garnered the support of 36 cosponsors including 11 Republicans as well as a broad, nonpartisan coalition of over 370 members, including manufacturing, farm and business interests and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition comprised of 23 Republican and Democrat Governors from across the U.S.

8 – Wind power keeps the lights on. When more than 50 power plants totaling 7,000 MW unexpectedly went offline in Texas due to unusually cold weather early in the year, wind power was there to help stabilize the system and keep the lights on. Wind energy played a critical role in limiting the severity of the blackouts, providing enough electricity to keep the power on for about three million typical households. ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, confirmed that wind energy was providing between 3,500 and 4,000 MW of electricity (about 7 percent of ERCOT demand at that time)—roughly what it was forecast and scheduled to provide—during the critical two-hour window when the grid needed power the most. Said ERCOT CEO Trip Doggett, as reported in the Texas Tribune: “I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this timeframe.”

9- Southeast gets more clean, affordable wind power. Two new southern states will soon be powered by wind: Alabama and Louisiana. When Alabama Power secured a power purchase agreement for TradeWind Energy to provide 202 MW of power from an Oklahoma wind farm, Matt Bowden, the utility’s vice president of environmental affairs said it all: “This agreement not only boosts our use of renewable energy, it also provides real savings for our customers,” he said. “It benefits both the environment and the people we serve.”

The savings are not unique. Just this month in Louisiana, the state public service commission approved a 20-year contract that utility Southwestern Electric Power Co. of Shreveport signed for power coming from a Kansas wind farm. Commissioner Foster Campbell noted the deal will lower costs for consumers. And more wind power will soon be generated in the South, with North Carolina and Florida both having utility-scale wind farms under development.

10- Republican candidates literally sign on to wind power, which figures prominently at Iowa Straw Poll. As seen in item No. 1, Iowa gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind power. So when the nation’s eyes turned to the Hawkeye State for the Iowa Republican Presidential Straw Poll in August, they caught a glimpse of what wind power has already done for Iowans and what it can do for America. Candidates for President and Iowa voters had the opportunity to literally touch the economic power of wind energy at the Straw Poll, where wind component manufacturer TPI Composites displayed a 130-foot-long wind turbine blade made right in Iowa, at a factory in Newton. In addition to Gov. Terry Branstad (R) and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (R), signing the blade were then- and current presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, and Thaddeus McCotter. Candidate Rick Perry signed the very same blade just last week.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/151W5)

Top 10 Wind Energy Stories of 2011

December 29, 2011 By Zachary Shahan 6 Comments

As the leading organization of the U.S. solar energy industry has done, the folks most in the know when it comes to U.S. wind energy, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), have put together a great end-of-the-year wrap-up of the top 10 wind energy stories of 2011. Rather than try to 1-up them, which would be pretty darn hard to do, I’m reposting their wrap-up here:

WASHINGTON, DC, December 27, 2011– Wind power hits 20 percent overall in two states. It contributes a record 50 percent for a period of time in another. And the turbines that pump out all those electrons? Their cost has dropped 33 percent.

The wind power industry never sits still in any given year, and 2011 was no different, as it forged ahead with a slew of benchmarks, policy progress, and hard data that illustrate wind energy continuing its march forward as a mainstream, reliable and affordable energy source made in America.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has established a tradition of taking a look back in December at the events that shaped the year in wind power. Here’s a look at just some of the many happenings that made 2011 yet another big year in the continued evolution of the industry.

1 – Iowa, South Dakota reach 20 percent wind penetration overall. U.S. wind industry observers no longer need look to Europe for examples of huge wind power penetrations. Both Iowa and South Dakota reached the important milestone of 20 percent of their electricity coming from wind power, a first for the U.S. And more projects are coming.

2 – Xcel Energy shatters wind barrier with 50 percent at one time. While Iowa and South Dakota lead the nation with their 20 percent wind penetration overall benchmark, a utility system in Colorado made some noise on the integration front as well. Investor-owned utility Xcel Energy set a wind power world record on the morning of October 6, when subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado got 55.6 percent of the electricity on its system at one time from wind power, as reported in the Denver Post. The leading utility for wind power on its wires, Xcel Energy is proving once again that large amounts of wind can be successfully integrated onto the grid.

3 – Cost drop: Wind power gets leaner and meaner. Wind turbine prices have dropped sharply in recent years, and a government report released in 2011 highlights that trend with some telling numbers. According to the latest edition of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Wind Technologies Market Report,” turbine prices decreased by as much as 33 percent or more between late 2008 and 2010. As discussed in AWEA’s most recent industry Annual Report, more efficient U.S.-based manufacturing is saving on transportation, and technology improvements are making turbines better and more efficient.

4 – One-third renewables: California establishes landmark RES. In April, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law legislation that ups the state’s renewable electricity standard from an already strong 20 percent to an historic 33 percent by 2020. The renewables standard includes near-term and incremental targets (20 percent by the end of 2013 and 25 percent by the end of 2016), an approach that the wind industry considers to be an important component of RES legislation because it allows the industry to begin ramping up and generating economic development immediately.

5 – Offshore streamlining and project progress. The U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior made several important announcements that moved offshore American wind power forward, including: the unveiling of a coordinated strategic plan to pursue the deployment of 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2020 and 54 GW by 2030, the creation of high-priority “Wind Energy Areas” off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, the approval of Cape Wind project’s construction and operations plan and the commitment of $43 million over the next five years to help speed technical innovations, drive down costs, and reduce market barriers such as supply chain development, transmission and infrastructure.

6 – WindMade™ label announced. 2011 marked the launch of WindMade™, a new consumer label that will highlight companies getting a large portion of their electricity from wind power. Already 15 companies—including such names as Motorola Mobility, Deutsche Bank, and Bloomberg—have committed to attaining the new label by getting at least 25 percent of their electricity from wind energy.

7 – Momentum builds for PTC extension. The year is wrapping without the all-important extension of the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC), wind power’s primary policy driver, which expires at the end of 2012. But the PTC movement gathered momentum heading into next year, with bipartisan legislation recently introduced by Representatives Dave Reichert (R, WA-08) and Earl Blumenauer (D, OR-03) seeking to grant a four-year PTC extension (H.R. 3307, the “American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act”). This legislation has garnered the support of 36 cosponsors including 11 Republicans as well as a broad, nonpartisan coalition of over 370 members, including manufacturing, farm and business interests and the bipartisan Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition comprised of 23 Republican and Democrat Governors from across the U.S.

8 – Wind power keeps the lights on. When more than 50 power plants totaling 7,000 MW unexpectedly went offline in Texas due to unusually cold weather early in the year, wind power was there to help stabilize the system and keep the lights on. Wind energy played a critical role in limiting the severity of the blackouts, providing enough electricity to keep the power on for about three million typical households. ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, confirmed that wind energy was providing between 3,500 and 4,000 MW of electricity (about 7 percent of ERCOT demand at that time)—roughly what it was forecast and scheduled to provide—during the critical two-hour window when the grid needed power the most. Said ERCOT CEO Trip Doggett, as reported in the Texas Tribune: “I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this timeframe.”

9- Southeast gets more clean, affordable wind power. Two new southern states will soon be powered by wind: Alabama and Louisiana. When Alabama Power secured a power purchase agreement for TradeWind Energy to provide 202 MW of power from an Oklahoma wind farm, Matt Bowden, the utility’s vice president of environmental affairs said it all: “This agreement not only boosts our use of renewable energy, it also provides real savings for our customers,” he said. “It benefits both the environment and the people we serve.”

The savings are not unique. Just this month in Louisiana, the state public service commission approved a 20-year contract that utility Southwestern Electric Power Co. of Shreveport signed for power coming from a Kansas wind farm. Commissioner Foster Campbell noted the deal will lower costs for consumers. And more wind power will soon be generated in the South, with North Carolina and Florida both having utility-scale wind farms under development.

10- Republican candidates literally sign on to wind power, which figures prominently at Iowa Straw Poll. As seen in item No. 1, Iowa gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind power. So when the nation’s eyes turned to the Hawkeye State for the Iowa Republican Presidential Straw Poll in August, they caught a glimpse of what wind power has already done for Iowans and what it can do for America. Candidates for President and Iowa voters had the opportunity to literally touch the economic power of wind energy at the Straw Poll, where wind component manufacturer TPI Composites displayed a 130-foot-long wind turbine blade made right in Iowa, at a factory in Newton. In addition to Gov. Terry Branstad (R) and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (R), signing the blade were then- and current presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, and Thaddeus McCotter. Candidate Rick Perry signed the very same blade just last week.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/151W5)

Environmental readers

This list of most-read articles dealing with environmental issues reflects the interests of online readers of the UK's "The Independent". I'm curious to see how this compares with some popular U.S. newspaper sites. (GW)

The 12 most-read 2011 articles in Environment

The environment section covers issues which raise debate such as those concerning climate change, green living and nature. Here we take a look at the most popular articles of the year followed by an insight from our environment editor as he chooses his favourite story.

By Majid Mohamed
The Independent
December 28, 2011

The world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters, China, the US and India, agreed to a legally bound treaty to cut their emissions for the first time at the UN climate conference in South Africa earlier this month. The deal is surely the most significant environment related story of the year.

The 12 most read are those environment articles published in 2011 that have been visited by the greatest number of separate users to date.

Interesting fact: The top three most read articles this year in this section were published on a Tuesday.

The list (click the headlines to read articles in full)

1. Global warning: climate sceptics are winning the battle

By Michael McCarthy, Tuesday 11th October

Father of the green movement, James Hansen of Nasa, says scientists lack PR skills to make public listen. Dr Hansen believes "a gap has opened between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community, and what's known by the people who need to know – and that's the public."

2. Oceans on brink of catastrophe

By Michael McCarthy, Tuesday 21st June

A panel of 27 scientists concluded that marine life is facing mass extinction 'within one human generation' with the state of the seas degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted according to their report.

3. YouTube sensation fuelling trade in an endangered species

By Adam Sherwin, Tuesday 22nd March

The slow loris, a species of primate native to South-east Asia, stardom on YouTube has been stoking demand among children to turn the wild animal into must-have living toys. But the primate is no pet.

4. Japan uses tsunami victims' cash to shield whalers from activists

By David McNeill, Friday 9th December

Report by David McNeill from Tokyo on how the £19 million from fund set up to rebuild coast stricken by the devastating tsunami, has been diverted to provide security for japan's whaling fleet.

5. Letters to a heretic: An email conversation with climate change sceptic Professor Freeman Dyson

By Steve Connor, Friday 25th February

Steve Connor, our science editor, asks world-renowned physicist Professor Freeman Dyson why he's one of the few true intellectuals to be so dismissive of the global-warming consensus.

6. Giant ozone hole found above Arctic

By Paul Cahalan, Monday 3rd October

Not again! Scientists have discovered a hole five times the size of Germany in the ozone layer above the Arctic which is similar to the hole over the Antarctic.

7. Why build-up of fresh water in Arctic could spell trouble for Britain

By Steve Connor, Wednesday 6th April

The consequences if this discovery could affect the warm Gulf Stream that keeps Britain mild in winter and cool in summer. Studies have shown that a surface layer of fresher water in the Arctic Ocean has increased in volume by about 20 per cent over the past two decades.

8. The plastic found in a single turtle's stomach

By Adam Sherwin, Thursday 24th March

This story revealed the threat to wildlife from debris floating in our seas. Environmentalists examined the stomach of a juvenile turtle found off the coast of Argentina discovered that, over the course of a month, the animal's faeces had contained 74 foreign objects.

9. Exclusive: BP to risk worst ever oil spill in Shetlands drilling

By Michael McCarthy, Wednesday 12th October

Our environment editor landed this scoop from internal company documents. The worst-case scenario for a spill from BP's new well would involve a leak of 75,000 barrels a day for 140 days – a total of 10.5 million barrels of oil, comfortably the world's biggest pollution disaster.

10. Victory in the campaign to ban circus animals

By Martin Hickman, Friday 24th June

The Government conceded defeat as MPs of all parties unanimously backed a ban after The Independent campaigned to ban wild animals in circuses. A petition set up by The Independent was backed by over 30, 000 signatures.

11. Ex-climate sceptic now backs global warming

By Steve Connor, Saturday 22nd October

A change of mind by a climate sceptic proved popular. Professor Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, said that there is little doubt in his mind the phenomenon of rising land temperatures is real.

12. The secret life of animals

By Guy Adams, Thursday 3rd March

The Smithsonian released a vast database of more than 202,000 "candid camera" shots, from seven major projects around the world. A moment from these animals' hidden existence was captured for posterity.

Editor's choice

Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, The Independent

Although I spent much of the year writing about major issues like global warming and nuclear power, the 2011 story which most captured my imagination (and I like to think, perhaps the imaginations of a few other people too) concerned cuckoos, those birds with a famous call and notorious behaviour (laying eggs in other birds’ nests). Cuckoos are migrants, coming to us from Africa every spring to breed, before heading back; what has never been known is where in Africa they go.

Five cuckoos, caught in Norfolk by the British Trust for Ornithology last summer and fitted with ultra-light satellite transmitters, are now showing us exactly where they wander (currently, they’re all in the Congo rainforest). The revelation of their journeys have been wonderfully exciting for anyone interested in birds, new discoveries appearing before our very eyes. See http://www.bto.org/cuckoos

---

"We can't let the city run out of money"

The governor of Michigan is preparing to take over the city of Detroit before it goes broke. This is bad news for poor people of color - especially those deemed "undesirable". Governments have used both natural (Katrina) and financial disasters to move in and eradicate communities and displace segments of the population in the name of "urban renewal" or some other convenient euphemism.

As they do, they deny any responsibility for creating the "deplorable" situation they ride in on their white horses to make right. (GW)

Michigan a step closer to Detroit takeover

Governor names team to review city's finances; new state law would allow intervention

msnbc
December 27, 2011

DETROIT — Heading down a path that could lead to the state of Michigan taking over the running of Detroit, Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday appointed a team to review the city's finances.

The team was named after a preliminary review of city finances showed "probable financial stress" after Detroit was unable to tackle its mounting deficits.

The team, which includes State Treasurer Andy Dillon and other local officials, has 60 days to complete its work. The formal review was announced last week.

The appointments are the next step in the review process, which is driven by expectations that Detroit will run out of cash by April.

"Given urgent and time-sensitive financial issues facing Detroit and the need to ensure critical services continue to be provided to city residents, the next step simply necessitates the appointment of a financial review team," Snyder said in a statement.

The formal review could have various results. If a financial emergency is declared to exist, the governor would have to decide on an emergency manager. But if the stress levels are considered mild, the current city management could carry on.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has said he will cooperate with the review process but says his budgets are the remedy to the city's financial crisis.

Last Thursday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., joined religious and civil rights leaders to promise protests and possible civil disobedience against Michigan's new emergency manager law that could lead to a takeover of Detroit government.

"We are prepared to go from education, mobilization, litigation, legislation, demonstration and civil disobedience," Jackson said as he and others held a news conference at Detroit's Bethany Baptist Church.

"We want a positive commitment to restoring democracy and economic justice for all citizens." Jackson said.

Snyder has called for Bing and Detroit's City Council to come up with their own financial rescue plan so Michigan can stay out of the city's business.

But Snyder has also highlighted what he said was the seriousness of the city's money problems, citing Bing's statement that Detroit could run use up its available cash in April.

"We can't let the city run out of money," Snyder said. Besides Detroit's cash-flow problem is a long-term structural deficit that needs a fundamental solution, he said. "Detroit's been in a financial crisis of some kind for decades."

The Detroit Public Schools and the cities of Flint, Pontiac and Benton Harbor already have state-appointed emergency financial managers.

Michigan recently enacted a law expanding the state's power to push aside elected local government and school officials whose agencies get in financial trouble.

Conyers said the expanded law is "seriously flawed" and said it unfairly targets communities with large numbers of minority group members.

Jackson, a Chicago-based activist, said emergency managers are like dictators with the power to override local democracy, discard union contracts and cut vital public services. He said he is seeking U.S. Justice Department intervention.

Detroit, with a population of 714,000, has faced hard times with auto industry contraction and falling revenue. More than 36 percent of its residents are below the poverty line, according to the Census Bureau.

The city was once one of the most populated in the United States. But it lost 25 percent of its residents between 2000 and 2010, the fastest decline for any municipality with more than 100,000 residents besides New Orleans.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Climate research stands at a crossroads

Let it suffice to say that their is a serious lack of Comprehensive Anticipatory Planning within the federal government when it comes to the greatest challenge facing society. (GW)

Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year

By Justin Gillis
New York Times
December 24, 2011

At the end of one of the most bizarre weather years in American history, climate research stands at a crossroads.

Scientists say they could, in theory, do a much better job of answering the question “Did global warming have anything to do with it?” after extreme weather events like the drought in Texas and the floods in New England.

But for many reasons, efforts to put out prompt reports on the causes of extreme weather are essentially languishing. Chief among the difficulties that scientists face: the political environment for new climate-science initiatives has turned hostile, and with the federal budget crisis, money is tight.

And so, as the weather becomes more erratic by the year, the public is left to wonder what is going on.

When 2010 ended, it seemed as if people had lived through a startling year of weather extremes. But in the United States, if not elsewhere, 2011 has surpassed that.

A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.

“I’ve been a meteorologist 30 years and never seen a year that comes close to matching 2011 for the number of astounding, extreme weather events,” Jeffrey Masters, a co-founder of the popular Web site Weather Underground, said last month. “Looking back in the historical record, which goes back to the late 1800s, I can’t find anything that compares, either.”

Many of the individual events in 2011 do have precedents in the historical record. And the nation’s climate has featured other concentrated periods of extreme weather, including severe cold snaps in the early 20th century and devastating droughts and heat waves in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

But it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for so many extremes to occur in such a short span. The calamities in 2011 included wildfires that scorched millions of acres, extreme flooding in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley and heat waves that shattered records in many parts of the country. Abroad, massive floods inundated Australia, the Philippines and large parts of Southeast Asia.

A major question nowadays is whether the frequency of particular weather extremes is being affected by human-induced climate change.

Climate science already offers some insight. Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen.

For instance, scientists have long expected that a warming atmosphere would result in fewer extremes of low temperature and more extremes of high temperature. In fact, research shows that about two record highs are being set in the United States for every record low, and similar trends can be detected in other parts of the world.

Likewise, a well-understood physical law suggests that a warming atmosphere should hold more moisture. Scientists have directly measured the moisture in the air and confirmed that it is rising, supplying the fuel for heavier rains, snowfalls and other types of storms.

“We are changing the large-scale properties of the atmosphere — we know that beyond a shadow of a doubt,” said Benjamin D. Santer, a leading climate scientist who works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. “You can’t engage in this vast planetary experiment — warming the surface, warming the atmosphere, moistening the atmosphere — and have no impact on the frequency and duration of extreme events.”

But if the human contribution to heat and precipitation is clear, scientists are on shakier ground analyzing many other events. Tornadoes, the deadliest weather disaster to hit the country this year, present a particularly thorny case.

On their face, weather statistics suggest that tornadoes are becoming more numerous as the climate warms. But tornadoes are small and hard to count, and scientists have little confidence in the accuracy of older data, which means they do not know whether to believe the apparent increase. Likewise, the computer programs they use to analyze and forecast the climate do not do a good job of representing events as small as tornadoes.

Some scientists have offered theories about how increasing heat and moisture may have made tornado outbreaks more likely, but these have not yet been tested in rigorous analyses. Many other types of extreme weather fall into this category, with scientists lacking a strong basis for attributing increases to human activity, or for discounting a human effect.

The question can sometimes be answered with focused studies of a specific weather event, but these are often finished years afterward. Lately, scientists have been discussing whether they can do a better job of analyzing events within days or weeks, not years.

“It’s clear we do have the scientific tools and the statistical wherewithal to begin answering these types of questions,” Dr. Santer said.

But doing this on a regular basis would probably require new personnel spread across several research teams, along with a strong push by the federal government, which tends to be the major source of financing and direction for climate and weather research. Yet Washington is essentially frozen on the subject of climate change.

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it. The idea had originated in the Bush administration, was strongly endorsed by an outside review panel and would have cost no extra money. But the House Republicans, many of whom reject the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes of global warming, labeled the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

In an interview, Jane Lubchenco, the director of NOAA, rejected that claim and said her agency had been deluged with information requests regarding future climate risks. “It’s truly unfortunate that we are not allowed to become more effective and efficient in delivering that information,” she said.

NOAA does finance research to understand the causes of weather extremes, as do the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. But with the strains on the federal budget, Dr. Lubchenco said, “it’s going to be more and more challenging to devote resources to many of our research programs.”

Some steps are being taken. Peter A. Stott, a leading climate scientist in Britain, has been pressing colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic to develop a robust capability to analyze weather extremes in real time. He is part of a group that expects to publish, next summer, the first complete analysis of a full year of extremes, focusing on 2011.

In an interview, Dr. Stott said the goal was to get to a point where “the methodologies are robust enough that you can do it in a kind of handle-turning way.”

But he added that it was important to start slowly and establish a solid scientific foundation for this type of work. That might mean that some of the early analyses would not be especially satisfying to the public.

“In some cases, we would say we have a confident result,” Dr. Stott said. “We may in some cases have to say, with the current state of the science, it’s not possible to make a reliable attribution statement at this point.”

"If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot"

Thanks to Rebecca Todd for posting this article that appeared in The Independent back in 1995. It's an interesting follow-up to my previous post. Goes to show there's no denying the power of art. A power that government has no qualms about maniupulating.

Long live guerrilla art. (GW)

Modern art was CIA 'weapon'

Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War

By Frances Stonor Saunders
The Independent
22 October 1995

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex- com- munists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.

Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled "Advancing American Art", with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: "I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash." The tour had to be cancelled.

The US government now faced a dilemma. This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy's hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.

The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.

Until now there has been no first-hand evidence to prove that this connection was made, but for the first time a former case officer, Donald Jameson, has broken the silence. Yes, he says, the agency saw Abstract Expressionism as an opportunity, and yes, it ran with it.

"Regarding Abstract Expressionism, I'd love to be able to say that the CIA invented it just to see what happens in New York and downtown SoHo tomorrow!" he joked. "But I think that what we did really was to recognise the difference. It was recognised that Abstract Expression- ism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it was. And that relationship was exploited in some of the exhibitions.

"In a way our understanding was helped because Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another."

To pursue its underground interest in America's lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. "Matters of this sort could only have been done at two or three removes," Mr Jameson explained, "so that there wouldn't be any question of having to clear Jackson Pollock, for example, or do anything that would involve these people in the organisation. And it couldn't have been any closer, because most of them were people who had very little respect for the government, in particular, and certainly none for the CIA. If you had to use people who considered themselves one way or another to be closer to Moscow than to Washington, well, so much the better perhaps."

This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its "fellow travellers" in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter.

The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.

This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, "The New American Painting", visited every big European city in 1958-59. Other influential shows included "Modern Art in the United States" (1955) and "Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century" (1952).

Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.

The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members' board of the museum's International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency's wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA's International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.

Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.

"We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."

He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: "It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do - send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That's one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret."

If this meant playing pope to this century's Michelangelos, well, all the better: "It takes a pope or somebody with a lot of money to recognise art and to support it," Mr Braden said. "And after many centuries people say, 'Oh look! the Sistine Chapel, the most beautiful creation on Earth!' It's a problem that civilisation has faced ever since the first artist and the first millionaire or pope who supported him. And yet if it hadn't been for the multi-millionaires or the popes, we wouldn't have had the art."

Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.

But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.

* The full story of the CIA and modern art is told in 'Hidden Hands' on Channel 4 next Sunday at 8pm. The first programme in the series is screened tonight. Frances Stonor Saunders is writing a book on the cultural Cold War.

Covert Operation

In 1958 the touring exhibition "The New American Painting", including works by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and others, was on show in Paris. The Tate Gallery was keen to have it next, but could not afford to bring it over. Late in the day, an American millionaire and art lover, Julius Fleischmann, stepped in with the cash and the show was brought to London.

The money that Fleischmann provided, however, was not his but the CIA's. It came through a body called the Farfield Foundation, of which Fleischmann was president, but far from being a millionaire's charitable arm, the foundation was a secret conduit for CIA funds.

So, unknown to the Tate, the public or the artists, the exhibition was transferred to London at American taxpayers' expense to serve subtle Cold War propaganda purposes. A former CIA man, Tom Braden, described how such conduits as the Farfield Foundation were set up. "We would go to somebody in New York who was a well-known rich person and we would say, 'We want to set up a foundation.' We would tell him what we were trying to do and pledge him to secrecy, and he would say, 'Of course I'll do it,' and then you would publish a letterhead and his name would be on it and there would be a foundation. It was really a pretty simple device."

Julius Fleischmann was well placed for such a role. He sat on the board of the International Programme of the Museum of Modern Art in New York - as did several powerful figures close to the CIA.

The Radical Camera

Art arguably provides the most accurate and prescient window on society available to us. Sociologist Robert Nisbet once wrote that writers like Dickens offered the most insightful portraits of the a society's dynamic and collective psyche.

The invention of the camera provided another eye - more literal, but in the hands of some gifted and socially aware artists, no less poetic. And just as radical in the sense of its power to expose the abuses of power. (GW)

Artists Equipped With a Social Conscience

By Karen Rosenberg
New York Times
December 22, 2011

One of many artistic casualties of the McCarthy-era blacklists was the Photo League, a New York school and salon for amateur and professional photographers. Progressive in its politics and uncompromising in its aesthetics, the league was the place to be if you had a hand-held 35-millimeter camera and a left-leaning social conscience — and particularly if you believed, to borrow a bit of contemporary parlance, that photography was fine art for the 99 percent.

Its members — among them Berenice Abbott, Aaron Siskind and Weegee — are now reunited in “The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League 1936-1951” at the Jewish Museum. This stirring show traces the group’s history through some 145 vintage photographs.

A collaboration between the Jewish Museum and the Columbus Museum of Art, which both have extensive holdings of Photo League work, “Radical Camera” was organized by the team of Mason Klein (from the Jewish Museum) and Catherine Evans (from the Columbus Museum).

The exhibition is, in some ways, as unwieldy as its subject. The curators have a lot to say about documentary photography in general, which went through a kind of growth spurt between the Depression and the Cold War, nurtured by an explosion of photojournalism in magazines like Life and Look.

They deserve a lot of credit, though, for capturing the breadth and spirit of the league. There are some big names in “Radical Camera,” but the show’s best moments involve lesser-known talents like Lucy Ashjian, Jerome Liebling and Sid Grossman.

The Photo League had roots in the workers’ movement, though by the 1950s it was hardly the political center the blacklist made it out to be. The league evolved from an organization called Workers International Relief, founded in 1930, which produced an illustrated journal that was modeled on European Communist weeklies like The Worker’s Illustrated Newspaper.

By 1933 this coterie had started to focus on moviemaking and rechristened itself the Workers Film and Photo League, turning out Depression-era newsreels like the one excerpted at the beginning of “Radical Camera.”

Titled “Workers Newsreel Unemployment Special,” the film shows protesters gathering in Union Square to demand government assistance for the jobless. These timely visuals are accompanied by even timelier text: “In the richest country in the world, two billion dollars of relief for the bankers and industrialists ... but no help for the unemployed.”

In 1936, the group’s photographers split off from its filmmakers, and the Photo League was born. But the social-documentary impulse of the group’s earlier incarnations remained; many early Photo League members modeled themselves on Lewis Hine and Paul Strand, represented in the show by Strand’s famous “Wall Street” (1915) and Hine’s heartstring-tugging shot of a Washington newsboy (1912).

Some, like Arthur Rothstein and Sid Grossman, traveled to the Dust Bowl to photograph its ravaged farming communities. But many others found plentiful subject matter close to home: in Lower East Side tenements, along the Third Avenue El and on Coney Island.

They brought empathy, but also humor, to their urban vignettes. In a shot by Eliot Elisofon, children scamper around an empty lot behind a sign that reads “WPA Cleaned This Area ... Keep it Clean.” And in Morris Engel’s “Women on the Beach, Coney Island,” an ill-fitting bathing suit is front and center.

Sometimes they fell prey to stereotypes, as in the four-year group project “Harlem Document” (1936-40), spearheaded by Mr. Siskind and published in Look.” It provided ample, but often superficial, evidence of poverty and dangerous living conditions — for example in Jack Manning’s shot of fire escapes teeming with residents during an Elks Parade. Mr. Siskind later acknowledged: “Our study was definitely distorted. We didn’t give a complete picture of Harlem.”

Other Photo League efforts, though, reveal a deep connection to a neighborhood. In Walter Rosenblum’s look at life along Pitt Street on the Lower East Side (his own childhood haunt), you can tell that he identifies with the youngsters in his frame: the girl on a swing set under the Williamsburg Bridge, or the boys making chalk drawings in the shadows of tenements.

Rosenblum later went to work as a combat photographer, and the show includes one of his shots from Omaha Beach on D-Day. Back in New York, many of the League’s women found new opportunities — albeit temporary ones — during the war. A 1945 image by Ida Wyman, who became the first female photo printer at Acme Newspictures, shows the front of an Italian restaurant near her office; a sign reads “Ladies Invited.”

By this point the league was a fully functioning school and exhibition space. It was also a social organization, a place where young men and women (many of them first-generation Jewish-Americans) could mingle at lectures and parties. It held popular “photo hunts,” sending members all over the city on wacky assignments, and fund-raisers called “Crazy Camera Balls.” (A cheerful flier for one of these reads, “Come dressed as your favorite photograph!”)

Just a few years later, though — on Dec. 5, 1947, to be precise — the league appeared on a list of organizations considered “totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive” by the United States Attorney General. It responded with an open letter and a 1948 retrospective exhibition, “This is the Photo League.” But it was dealt a fatal blow during a 1949 trial of alleged Communist Party officials, when a league member turned F.B.I. informant called the Photo League a Communist front and singled out its leading teacher, Sid Grossman, as a party recruiter.

Membership became too dangerous. Newspapers and magazines snubbed league-affiliated photographers; photojournalists couldn’t get passports. In 1951, the Photo League closed its doors.

Mr. Grossman fled to Provincetown, Mass. The photographs he made there, nearly abstract overhead shots of birds on water, make a rather depressing coda to “Radical Camera.” But the show’s overall message is an uplifting one, epitomized by Mr. Grossman’s earlier photograph “Coney Island” (1947): a boisterous, gang’s-all-here group portrait.

“The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, 1936-1951” continues through March 25 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, Manhattan; (212) 423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org.

Floating in the wind

Back in late 1999 University of Massachusetts professor Jim Manwell called me in my office at the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust where I had recently started to work. Professor Manwell wanted to talk about offshore wind energy. He was concerned that none of our official documents identified offshore wind as a potential renewable energy source for the Commonwealth.

This is when I first learned about Professor Bill Heronemus of UMass -- a former nuclear engineer who saw the light (and felt the wind) and became the university's first professor of wind energy. He was known the world over as the “father of modern windpower”. In the 1970s he wrote about the tremendous potential of the wind source flowing over the waters off the Atlantic coast -- which he estimated could power all of Massachusetts. Professor Heronemus also proposed that the wind turbines harvesting this energy should be floating. (GW)

Can Floating Turbines Save Wind Power?

Two new concepts for floating wind turbines put the future of wind energy out to sea.

BY Stephanie Warren
Popular Mechanics
December 22, 2011

The best place to build the wind farms of the future is the open ocean. While the breeze can be frustratingly variable on land, if you travel just 20 miles off the coastline, the wind blows at a consistent clip of around 33 feet per second.

But along most parts of the coastal United States, the ocean floor drops off quickly. That makes standard offshore turbines, the kind that are fixed to the sea bottom for stability, too expensive to be worth it. Two companies, Sway and Principle Power, are currently testing a new kind of technology to combat this problem: floating wind turbines.

Principle's turbine is called WindFloat; the company has a prototype currently working in the waters off Portugal. It sits atop a base formed by three pontoons anchored to the seafloor by cables. Its 240-ton nacelle (gear housing) turns to meet the breeze, the way a land-based turbine does.

Sway's prototype, operating in Norway, is more of a small tower. Its center of gravity lies below the structure's center of buoyancy, which lets it stay upright even in stormy seas. With Sway, the entire tower rotates to get in the best position to capture wind.

Though these prototypes are currently in Europe, the United States is keeping a close eye. The Department of Energy, which estimates that wind power could cover 20 percent of our energy needs by 2030, has contributed funding to both systems. The hope is that offshore wind power can alleviate some of the problems hampering that energy source in America now.

For instance, traditional wind farms are on land, many located in the Plains states. Although they can generate a substantial amount of power, the problem is transporting that power to the big cities that need it most, many of which are located hundreds of miles away in coastal areas.

By contrast, regular "fixed bottom" off-shore wind turbines are built close to the coast, within easy transport distance to large, power-guzzling cities. But they too have their cons, says Fort Felker, director of the National Wind Technology Center. For one, most residents of coastal towns simply don't want their ocean views interrupted by wind turbines. Another is that anchoring these wind turbines to the ocean floor is expensive and difficult, and the noise can disrupt marine animals. Two hundred feet is considered the maximum depth for fixed-bottom turbines, and two-thirds of the U.S. coastal ocean is deeper than this limit, Felker says.

Deep-sea offshore wind turbines have the potential to solve many of these problems. Their floating construction is ideal for the deep coastal waters of the U.S. And since they don't have to be fixed to the ocean floor, they can be assembled conveniently on dry land before they're launched (and it's possible that they can be pulled back in for repairs as well). Because the towers are far off-shore, they won't offend coastal residents, and they're perfectly positioned to take advantage of the open ocean's strong and steady winds.

The key to making floating wind turbines work is a design that collects enough energy to justify the cost of building and installing them. Luckily, experts say, the technology already has a head start: Offshore oil and gas drilling companies have long dealt with the engineering challenges of floating designs. "The challenge for the wind industry is to adapt these technologies and extract costs so that we end up with an efficient, renewable energy system," Felker says.

1. STABILITY

WindFloat's base adjusts the water level in three columns to keep the turbine level. Engineers designed Sway's tall, slender tower so that its center of gravity lies below the structure's center of buoyancy, allowing it to remain steady even when seas are turbulent.

2. AFFORDABILITY

WindFloat saves steel by placing its tower on a column instead of on a platform. The Sway design economizes and gains structural support with steel cables. Its blades are mounted downwind—the opposite of most turbines—to keep them clear of the cables.

3. ROTATION

WindFloat's 100-ton nacelle, or gear housing, turns to meet the breeze, like a typical land-based turbine. The Sway's entire tower rotates on a universal joint that connects the turbine to the tension-leg anchor; the blade clearance from the wires remains constant.