Monday, June 30, 2014

Climate Change Is Here Now, Part 2: We have really screwed up!

                         

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Here’s What Climate Change Will Do To The American Economy In 7 Charts: Not will, Is!

 

Climate Change Is Here Now, Part 1: Can we just hold on and hope?



 Here’s What Climate Change Will Do To The American Economy In 7 Charts:  Called “Representative Concentration Pathways” (RCPs) they run the gamut from business-as-usual carbon emissions (RCP 8.5) to moderate cuts to carbon emissions (RCP 4.5) to really steep reductions (RCP 2.6). Basically the more the less carbon emitted, the lower the number. 

The differences in economic damage between the paths are all significant, particularly by 2100 — which shows that even if we fail to keep global warming below 2°C there’s still a lot of damage we can avoid.Here are the best charts from the “Risky Business’ prospectus that show all the different body blows climate change will likely deliver to the U.S. economy: Read on please but prepare: It is too late tp avoid this and much worse.

* In Flooded UK, Guardian Warns ‘Climate Change Is Here Now’: The record rainfall and storm surges that have brought flooding across the UK are a clear sign that we are already experiencing the impacts of climate change.Stern says there are “powerful grounds for arguing that this [unprecedented extreme weather] is part of a trend.” Not only was the last decade the hottest on record, but “four of the five wettest years recorded in the UK have occurred from the year 2000 onwards.”

The UK Meteorological Office’s chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo said earlier this week the country was experiencing the “most exceptional period of rainfall in 248 years.” She explained that “all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” and “there is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”
We are having 100 year "mother nature" events pretty much every day somewhere around the world, often times many of every dimension at the same time. This would tell an idiot "Mother nature" is rebelling? trying to heal herself? trying to right her ship? Natural, man made, or a combination of both it is occurring. Yet there are some who would deny it so we can continue on in our destructive irresponsible ways We are going to happily destroy ourselves as we do not have the brains we were born with or maybe because we do.

Can anything we do stop it? I think not, we must adapt and we will but we will continue to make it worse until...

Climate change makes a variety of extreme weather events more likely and more intense, including heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and superstorms. A growing body of science makes that clear. That literature — coupled with the astonishing number of off-the-charts extreme weather events of the past few years — is why more and more climate scientists and meteorologists and others are making the connection.

The normally reliable Science magazine, however, seems to be stuck in the last decade. They have run a muddled piece on the subject, “In the Hot Seat.” It opens:Many climate scientists winced earlier this year when a well-meaning nonscientist tried to use extreme weather to argue that global warming is real.

Top Ten Things Climate Change Is Making Worse Right Now By Rebecca Leber and Ellie Sandmeyer

First let me expound on only 1 of the 10 because for some reason we seem to focus on it and seem resigned to simply have to live with the rest.

Sea Level Rise: It Could Be Worse Than We Think: A new analysis released Thursday in the journal Science implies that the seas could rise dramatically higher over the next few centuries than scientists previously thought — somewhere between 18-to-29 feet above current levels, rather than the 13-to-20 feet they were talking about just a few years ago.

The increase in sea level would largely come from the partial melting of giant ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, which have remained largely intact since the end of the last ice age, nearly 20,000 years ago. But rising global temperatures, thanks to human greenhouse-gas emissions, have already begun to melt that ancient ice, sending sea level up 8 inches since 1880 alone, with as much as 6 feet or so of additional increase projected by 2100.


Seriously, are we supposed to worry about that or look for a new way to live in an ever aquatic world or increase the search for a new planet to live on where a select few can migrate too and start over.

The Himalayan glaciers that feed major south Asian rivers like the Indus, the Brahmaputra and the Ganges are melting more rapidly, reveals a major new study which says that soaring global temperatures are not the only reason.

The study, led by Yao Tandong, director of the Institute of Tibetan Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and eminent glaciologist and paleo-climatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, is the most comprehensive examination so far of the region’s glaciers. "The status of the glaciers had been a bone of contention," reported the weekly science journal, Nature, whose sister publication, the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Climate Change, published the study.
Having Asia's water source dry up we should worry about! Think about the repercussions.

Top Ten Things Climate Change Is Making Worse Right Now: The onslaught of extreme weather and record temperatures this year have had an impact on people globally, directly through drought and temperature, and more indirectly impacting food prices and public transportation.
Here are 10 impacts we’re seeing right now that climate change is very likely worsening, in some cases playing a major role:


Rising Food Prices
Over half of the Continental U.S. is now facing severe drought–the worst in fifty years. As a result of extreme temperatures and little rain, corn production suffers although analysts predicted record production at the start of the year. In coming months, record-high food prices will continue to rise, affecting thousands of supermarket products. See also “Story of the Year: Warming-Driven Drought and Extreme Weather Emerge as Key Threat to Global Food Security.”

Goodbye Glaciers, Sea Ice
This week, an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan tore itself off of one of the largest glaciers in North Greenland, following another break of comparable size in 2010. Scientists say that such dramatic change is unprecedented, and report that “the Arctic had the largest sea ice loss on record for June.” [ClimateProgress]

Landslides
A recent landslide on an Alaskan glacier was massive enough to register as a 3.4-magnitude earthquake, even recorded in Canada. “We are seeing an increase in rock slides in mountain areas throughout the world because of permafrost degradation,” a scientist said. [Huffington Post]

Massive Dust Storms
In addition to dangerous wildfires and drought, the current heat wave is helping to create massive dust storms in Arizona. These walls of dust and strong wind can be thousands of feet high, destroying property, setting of a chain of further environmental damage and killing an average of five people per year. [New York Times]

Toxic Algae Pollute Drinking Supply, Lakes: Spurred by warmer winters that prevent seasonal a die-off, Lake Zurich in Switzerland is seeing an increase in a toxic species of algae known as Burgandy blood algae. “Research on Lake Zurich in Switzerland reveals that Burgundy blood algae, a toxic cyanobacteria species, has become more dense in the last 40 years as warm winters prevent seasonal die-off.” [CBS News]

$1.5 Billion Hail Damage: In a striking example of current dramatically unpredictable weather patterns, some cities now experiencing record-breaking temperature highs are also dealing with the after-effects of extreme hail damage. Estimates suggest that total damage in places like Dallas, St. Louis and Norfolk, Nebraska could exceed $1.5 billion. [Inside Climate News]

Wildfire Causes $450 Million Damage In Colorado
States like Colorado and New Mexico have experienced their worst wildfire season on record, and the damage totaled an estimated $450 million in Colorado alone. However, there are additional costs of the fire. “Water quality, for example, is being compromised up to 100 miles from burn sites,” and air quality has been damaged, even indoors. [Washington Post]

Greater Terrors For Mountain Climbers: “Sharper seasonal variations of ice and snow and temperature are being repeated all across the world from the Himalayas to the Andes, which scientists say are driven by a higher level of energy in the atmosphere from global warming.” Veteran climbers “say today’s conditions are combining to create a volatile highball of risk.” [NY Times]

More Drilling In The Arctic, Taxpayers Pay For Risks: Ironically, oil companies are capitalizing on ice melt in the Arctic caused by global warming. “Royal Dutch Shell has spent $4.5 billion since 2005 preparing to explore for oil off Alaska’s north coast in the Arctic. U.S. taxpayers may end up paying almost as much to supervise future operations in the region.” [Bloomberg]

Blackouts
Extreme temperatures stress the power grid, and Con Edison recently took action to lower power voltage, known as a “brown out” in NYC, to prevent mass black outs. Of course, millions suffered from blackouts during brutal heat after a rare, heat-fueled derecho impacted the Washington area. [Reuters

This is really sick! The oil companies are largely responsible for Global warming and the melting of the Glaciers that were protecting the Arctic and all they are focused on is spending Billions of dollars to go into the Arctic to capitalize on the damage they did. Even sicker! Taxpayers "you and I" will end up footing the bill once again and as usual for our own demise!  *Throw increasing planet destroying wars into the mix and you have a recipe for unavoidable self destruction.





James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com


Saturday, June 28, 2014

Drug cash turning Taliban into wealthy criminals thanks to us

Poppy field Afghanistan


Drug cash turning Taliban into wealthy criminals - UN report:  As Nato retreats from Afghanistan, the Taliban are rolling in cash and the movement is turning into a wealthy criminal enterprise, according to a United Nations report.  After a "bumper year" for earnings from narcotics and other illicit activities including kidnapping and unlicensed mining, some factions have become "mafia-like crime syndicates" motivated more by money than by religion, says the UN body monitoring sanctions on the Taliban.
 
The millions of dollars a month pouring into its coffers may keep the fighting going even longer - with some Taliban seeing peace as a threat to their profits. Despite its ban on opium poppy cultivation when in power, the Taliban's best earner is from Afghanistan's illegal drugs trade, according to the UN - and its income has soared following last year's record harvest.


You know, my first thought when I saw this record opium Prodution in Afghanistan I thought back to previous discussions on Afghanistan and the failure Bush guaranteed there, in Iraq, and the entire middle east, when he ignored all advice to the contrary and attacked Iraq not to unseat Saddam but to get our military into the midle east. That is for another discussion!

I remember amidst discussions of the Taliban being too tough to fight, Al Frist suggested we allow them to partake in the Afghan Government. I recall a story where the Taliban was actively building schools for towns that did not have them. I then remember that I also did a story in 2006 when it was announced that Afghanistan had a record year harvesting 6,700 tons. More than the entire world market could consume.
 Production increased 49 percent from the year before. The estimated 6,700 tons even broke the world record of 1999, when 5,764 tons of opium were produced globally. Taking into account that the insurgency derives a significant amount of revenue from drugs, I decided to research just what has happened to the Opium trade since we attacked Afghanistan.

First it seems to me that criticism of Bush aside, I think we could have gone about this differently too. I don't know why we could not have done a surgical strike or even used unmanned aircraft as we have since, and then tried Diplomacy.
 Instead as Bush attacked Iraq and created an insurgent and sectarian civil war where there was none. He attacked Afghanistan and created an over abundance of opium. I was stunned when I got to thinking about opium production when the Taliban was in power and researched it.

The following information is from a story by the BBC in 2002. First, The Taliban banned poppy cultivation in 2000 so in 2001 production was down to 185 tons. Then by 2002 production went up to 3,400 tons That is around 18 times higher than last year's unusually low figure of 185 tons, which followed the ban on cultivation imposed by the Taliban in the last year of their rule.
 I have to wonder what they were growing in lieu of opium to survive and I don't know about this but the increase is blamed on poverty-stricken farmers taking advantage of the power vacuum and it is not the fault of Kabul or the U.N. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2361453.stm

Every year but one since we attacked Afghanistan opium production has continued to climb. This year Production has increased again dramatically. It is no ones fault of course and no one knows how to control it. The 2007 report shows that In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan brought global opium production to a record high of nearly 7,300 tons, a 43 percent increase over 2005 and it just keeps going up and enriching their sinister actions.

The area under opium poppy cultivation in the country has also expanded, from nearly 257,000 acres in 2005 to more than 407,000 acres in 2006 — an increase of about 59 percent. "This is the largest area under opium poppy cultivation ever recorded in Afghanistan," the report said. UNODC (U.N. office of Drugs and crime) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa warned that Afghanistan's insurgency-plagued Helmand province was becoming the world's biggest drug supplier, with opium cultivation there larger than in the rest of the country put together.

She is right that controlling Poppy cultivation would go a long way towards bringing security to the Region. To me it would go a long way in defunding the Taliban but I haven't heard any real solution and to me, again if they were serious an answer is very obvious.

For the sixth straight year, the amount of land under opium cultivation has fallen in South-east Asia. From 1998-2006, that region's share of world opium poppy cultivation had decreased from 67 percent to just 12 percent, largely due to declines in cultivation in Myanmar, the report said. South-east Asia's total opium production in 2006 was just 370 tons, it said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286732,00.html
All the while Afghanistan's production has grown exponentially and has more than replaced it. 2013 Opium Cultivation in Afghanistan Soars to Record - WSJ

 we cannot even control poppy cultivation let alone the Taliban. We cannot control cultivation so to me the obvious answer is to control the market. Buy all the poppy's produced and control what is done with them. It seems to me that we could find an alternative use for it, keep the people employed, save lives and gain friends while undermining the Taliban. Doesn't this sound feasible? Why are we not doing something along this line?

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma 
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

Friday, June 27, 2014

Despite Congress US will push for climate change at G20


                                

 US will push for climate change at G20:  "The president believes we can do this (address climate change) without damaging or hurting the economy," he said. The Obama administration has pledged to cut its emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, and will be pushing each country to adopt their own "aggressive" targets to do their fair share.

 Trade Minister Andrew Robb conceded while climate change was off the agenda, Australia wouldn't stop any country from discussing whatever matter they wished. "So we quite welcome climate change if it was raised by the US or by any other country," he told reporters in China. Labor's climate change spokesman Mark Butler said the government was out of step with the rest of the world on climate change but couldn't ignore the issue for much longer.

 Obama skirts Congress to fight climate change, makes agreements with their bosses


Obama skirts Congress to fight climate change, makes agreements with big companies: including big names like Walmart, Yahoo, Google, Apple, Ikea, and Home depot -- to expand their use of renewable energies.This is going to make a difference, President Obama said. It's the right thing to do for the planet. But it's also the right thing to do for the economy. Because when you save that money, you can pass it to consumers in the form of lower prices.

Or you can create more jobs. Obama has taken this approach because his administration has been unable to move any significant legislation on the matter through Congress in the face of GOP opposition.Unfortunately, inside Washington we still have some climate deniers who shout loud, he said, referring to Republicans who have ignored or rejected reports on global warming.

Something has to be done and now though I believe it is too late already and we just have to try and adapt.


                                                    Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) addresses a town hall meeting in Gainesville, Florida.
  Congressman Denies Manmade Climate Change, Calls It ‘An Agenda-Driven Science’: Yoho’s rejection of mainstream climate science, similar to the climate denial of many of his Republican House colleagues, had not been previously reported. His obstinance on the issue could have disastrous consequences for Florida. In fact, A University of Florida study found that the rise in extreme weather caused by climate change could cost the state up to $345 billion by the end of the 21st century.
Read about the catastrophic methane gas release alone due to man's interference with the gas wells. In that instance alone methane is 1,000 times worse than we thought. What the hell is wrong with these people?
 
This One Simple Graphic Explains The Difference Between Climate Science And Climate Politics but is anyone telling the truth?

CNN Ignores Major Climate Report, But Fox News Does Something Even Worse
-science-vs-climate-politics-graphic/  If you follow the news on climate change, you hear it over and over again: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and caused by human activity.On Tuesday, geochemist James Lawrence Powell took that rhetoric even further, releasing a study finding that out of all 10,855 climate studies published in peer-review journals during 2013, only two of them explicitly rejected anthropogenic global warming.

 Put another way, that’s
roughly .02 percent of published research that denies outright the existence of man-made climate change.If those numbers sound staggering, it’s probably because of how little they affect the intense, non-scientific debate that often surrounds climate change in the political realm. Politicians tasked with making crucial decisions on national energy policy and air pollution have a propensity for ignoring the science.

Top Climatologist Slams Science Magazine For Getting Extreme Weather in the future totally Wrong








Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Too late but Kerry issues call to save oceans

                                                              
   Kerry issues call to save oceans:  US Secretary of State John Kerry Monday sounded the alarm on the perils facing the world’s oceans, calling for a global strategy to save the planet’s life-giving seas.
“Let’s develop a plan” to combat over-fishing, climate change and pollution, Kerry urged as he opened a ground-breaking two-day conference of world leaders, scientists and industry captains.  “We as human beings share nothing so completely as the ocean that covers nearly three-quarters of our planet,” the top US diplomat said, adding that “each of us shares the responsibility to protect it.
Can't we see what we are doing to ourselves and our only mother earth and take responsibility for it? What the hell is wrong with us? We create 3 eyed fish before we dump the water into the ocean. Just look at what Japan is doing. Can Argentina or any of us be trusted?
 
Argentina has 3 power plants itself and Brazil also has a nuclear power plant. I had no idea. Can they be trusted with this knowledge. I think not.No one else can, we are creating a planetary nuclear soup that we have to live in and eat. If we nuclearize our food what do they think is going to happen to us? Are we going to grow a third eye too and worse?

Record high radiation level found in fish : Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said caesium equivalent to 254,000 becquerels per kilogram - or 2540 times more than the government seafood limit - was detected in a "murasoi" fish. The fish, similar to rockfish, was caught at a port inside the Fukushima plant, a TEPCO spokesman said. 

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was battered by a towering tsunami following a huge earthquake on March 11, 2011, causing reactor meltdowns which spewed radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. Fishing around Fukushima was halted and the government banned beef, milk, mushrooms and vegetables from being produced in surrounding areas. It gets much worse! 

Fukushima radioactive groundwater rises Worse,the clean up crew has started dieing.
Radioactive plankton found near Fukushima plant: Researchers say high concentrations of radioactive caesium have been detected in plankton in the Pacific Ocean off the shattered Fukushima nuclear plant. The Fukushima nuclear plant was badly damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, and has been leaking radiation ever since. 
 It is feared more radiation could now enter the food chain and you see it is. Research leader professor Takashi Ishimaru told Japan's NHK network sea currents had carried contaminated water south from the nuclear plant, heavily contaminating the plankton. A wide range of fish and other marine species feed on the plankton, leading to fears it could have a serious impact on the food chain.

Phytoplankton the enabler of all life: We are killing ourselves not just the oceans. 

 We are killing our oceans, we are killing ourselves and it is much worse then you realize. I always say "remember where life came from" we are killing the phytoplankton as you all may know by now but I for one had no idea how critical a role it played in mans life, all life, including the earth itself. Makes sense if you realize this planet and all life forms on it are all one. 

This is critical but watch this video from a friend who speaks about super foods. It was sent to me with that in mind but when I heard the part about phytoplankton's I stopped in my tracks. It is a natural vitamin and mineral supplement. I was amazed but take a quick glance at this.

According David Wolfe marine phytoplankton is the number one food on the planet. Marine phytoplankton is the smallest organism on the earth. It's the bases of the entire food chain. It grows in the ocean and produces more oxygen than all the forests combined times three. It's the bases of sulfur. Whales eat it, dolphins eat it. It's food for all animals at all ages. It's a complete protein source. It contains EPA and DHA, 100% pure without contaminants. It's one of the highest mineral and anti-oxidant foods. It contains about 90 minerals. Why not go back to the bases?David says we can't kill all phytoplankton but I beg to differ as we are!


 Scientists may have found the most devastating impact yet of human-caused global warming — a 40% decline in phytoplankton since 1950 linked to the rise in ocean sea surface temperatures. I happen to think it is largely due to man and our pollution though some may be natural but I doubt it. We’ve known for a while that we are poisoning the oceans and that human emissions of carbon dioxide, left unchecked, would likely have devastating consequences. We are all part of the whole.


*“Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary life support system. They produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO2 and ultimately support all of our fishes said marine biologist Boris Worm of Canada’s Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We say the ocean is critical to life but personally I had no idea how critical. I thought we were talking giving up fish for food not life itself. Somebody of consequence better wake up! 

So why should it be any surprise the fish that eat the phytoplankton are radioactive? What are we doing to ourselves? With just the world wide radiation raining down on us and our food supply not to speak of the radiation spread through the pacific and the still growing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico due to millions of gallons of oil and millions of gallons of death,

 I mean corex-it and the continent size garbage swirls around the world and the huge and growing dead spots around the world we are in serious trouble and we do not seem willing or able to turn this disaster around. We continue to make it worse by the day with more war not to mention that we disperse depleted uranium everywhere we use ourrockets in war. Somebody better wake up if we are to save ourselves but we will not. If something is dependent on man's management for survival it is dead and right now that very something is us.

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma

http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Vietnam riots over China seas theft and Wider Grievances, while Philippines pressures UN on China complaints

                                     
    
* Behind Vietnam's Anti-China Riots, a Tinderbox of Wider Grievances:  "Some people used the riots as an excuse to act out on grievances, such as workers who had been fired from factories," said Johnny Liao, chief executive of Taiwanese label printing company Daily Full International Printing, who hid in a locked bathroom for seven hours as rioters ransacked his factory in southern Vietnam. "It wasn't just about the oil rig." The events began peacefully in early May, when the activists—largely urban academics, lawyers and writers attached to human-rights groups—began for the first time to plan a joint protest.

 China's rig was a convenient target."We picked the oil rig because it's the common issue that not only all the groups but the whole nation is very concerned [about]," said Vu Dong Ha, chief editor of independent news website Danlambao and one of the organizers. "Also we thought this issue gave us less pressure from the government."

* Philippines pressures UN to fast-track complaint: The Philippines has pressured the United Nations to fast-track a resolution on its complaint over China’s claim of the entire South China Sea, a senior official has said. Manila’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario told Gulf News that the government has asked the UN to also respond to the Philippines’ recent discovery of China’s reclamation activities on five shoals off the contested sea lane, near southwest Philippines.“Since China is not participating in the complaint filed by the Philippines at the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration in Hague, the Netherlands, perhaps we could get a quicker resolution from the tribunal,” del Rosario said.

“Because the situation is getting worse every day in the South China Sea. At the same time, Manila’s foreign affairs department is planning to lodge more complaints against China, including for construction and reclamation on five shoals located near Palawan, in south west Philippines because they are within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, within the South China Sea, del Rosario said.

 

China will do anything, now they are to build a school in contested Paracel Islands

BBC Map

China to build school in contested Paracel Islands:  China calls the island Yongxing and has been building up a settlement there for the last two years.The school is expected to serve just 40 children, whose parents all work on the tiny island.

Last month, Chinese and Vietnamese ships clashed over a drilling rig that China has placed near the islands. Beijing claims a U-shaped swathe of the South China Sea that covers areas other South East Asian nations say are their territory.The issue has been rumbling in recent years amid an increasingly assertive stance from China over its claims.

China will not have to square off militarily or so they think, they are building their own island to get around it


Chinese oil rig Haiyang Shi You 981 is seen surrounded by ships of China Coast Guard in the South China Sea, about 210 km (130 miles) off shore of Vietnam May 14, 2014.  REUTERS-Nguyen Minh

A Chinese official said on Friday that China will never send military forces to the scene of an increasingly ugly spat with Vietnam over an oil rig in the South China Sea, and accused Hanoi of trying to force an international lawsuit.
China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, but parts of the potentially energy-rich waters are also subject to claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. 

China is also involved in a territorial dispute in the East China Sea with Japan.
Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have squared off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the platform was towed to the area in early May.

China to Build 'Artificial Island' in Disputed Waters to get around island dispute


                                 Image: A view of Johnson South Reef, known to China as Chigua Reef and which the Philippines calls Mabini Reef, in the South China Sea China May Build 'Artificial Island' in Disputed Waters:  That installation, located in the hotly contested Fiery Cross Reef – which China, Vietnam and the Philippines all claim – is already home to a Chinese observation post which provides logistical support for Chinese military assets in the region. In the article, Li Jie, a naval expert at the Chinese Naval Research Institute explained that the expansion plans could possibly include the construction of an airstrip and port.

If the proposal is approved, such facilities would provide China with a stronger hub from which to project its naval and air strength over other claimants in the region. 

China's State Enterprises Told to Stop Investing in Vietnam

China Confirms No Intention of Responding to Court's Approach or arbitration