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January 31, 2006
| NASA's Top Climate Scientist Says He Is Being Censored | Environment Politics |
NASA's top scientist on global warming issues says the Bush administration is trying to shut him up since he called for prompt greenhouse gas emissions reductions in a speech in December. NYT:
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, [NASA's] deputy assistant administrator for public affairs...[said] that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen. [...]
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan. [...]
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide. [...]
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents. [...]
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said...that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet." [...]
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews. [...]
But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority. [...]
Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.
Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?" [...]
In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.
"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing. [Emphasis added]
This is both infuriating and sickening, to put it mildly. We already know that the Bush administration is the most anti-science administration in living memory, but given what's at stake, stifling of debate on an issue like global warming is nothing short of criminal.
Scientists can only be interviewed in the presence of handlers. That's how totalitarian regimes operate. America ain't what it used to be.
Posted by Jonathan at 07:55 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:54 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
President Bush announced plans to personally get involved in the combat against bird flu. I guess we can expect him to run the operation from the Alabama National Guard again. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 10:48 AM
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January 30, 2006
| Congressional Staffers Routinely Edit Wikipedia Entries | Politics |
I guess it was inevitable, but the Lowell Sun reports that Congressional staffers have made more than 1,000 edits of Wikipedia entries in just the past six months:
The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan [D-MA] wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned.The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics.
Matt Vogel, Meehan's chief of staff, said he authorized an intern in July to replace existing Wikipedia content with a staff-written biography of the lawmaker.
Your tax dollars at work.
Posted by Jonathan at 11:29 PM
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| Skiing In The Desert | Peak Oil |
A reader sent me a set of photos that are, I think, a pretty near-perfect metaphor for where humanity stands at present. And we need all the metaphors we can get.
The photos depict an indoor ski slope built in the middle of the desert in the oil kingdom of Dubai — yes, it's for real. Click on any of the images to see a page of the full-size versions.
Dubai is swimming in oil — for now — so they can afford to build this thing in the middle of a 120-degree desert. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what a crazy, doomed, obscenely wasteful project it is. How long before it's just an abandoned, rusting hulk? How long before the children and grandchildren of Dubai curse their forebears for pissing away their irreplaceable inheritance?
We have no trouble seeing the craziness of this thing. But how different is it, really, from building air-conditioned cities in the Arizona desert? Cities filled with high-rises whose windows cannot be opened? Suburbs with 50-mile commutes?
Skiing in the desert.
[Thanks, Clay]
Posted by Jonathan at 09:52 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:07 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Justice Department prosecutors are not expected to try and link President Bush to either the Libby or Abramoff scandals. They realize "the President knows nothing" is a phrase with a lot of credibility with prospective jurors. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 10:03 AM
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January 29, 2006
| UK On Iran: No Military Option | Iran |
It's hard to believe that even the Bush administration would be so reckless as to attack Iran. The world's just barely producing enough oil and natural gas as it is. An attack on Iran would disrupt supply, send prices through the roof, shock the world economy, and piss off every other nation on Earth.
Not even the UK would support us this time around. Today's Guardian (via John Robb):
Though world leaders agreed that strong measures were necessary to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapon capacity, there was little consensus this weekend [at Davos] as to what those measures should be. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday conceded that Britain and the US were divided over using military force.Responding to comments by US politicians stressing the 'leverage' the military option allowed, Straw said such action was not under discussion. 'I understand that's the American position. Our position is different ... There isn't a military option. And no one is talking about it.'
Britain, along with most EU states, has been pursuing a policy of 'engagement' with the Iranians. Straw was speaking ahead of talks with Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. [Emphasis added]
If the US (or Israel, acting as US proxy) attacks, we will know we truly are being led by self-destructive lunatics.
Posted by Jonathan at 06:28 PM
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| A Truly Stunning Graph | Energy Peak Oil |
As the Oil Drum says, this graph is a mind-blower:
Cement, of course, is used to make concrete, which in turn is used to make things like highways, factories, cities. All of which require enormous quantities of energy, both now (in their construction) and in the future (in their maintenance and use). If you think things are headed in a sustainable direction, look at that graph once more.
Posted by Jonathan at 06:07 PM
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| Greening Your Diet Beats Greening Your Car | Environment |
According to research published in the New Scientist, switching to a vegan diet reduces greenhouse gas emissions more than switching to a hybrid car:
Thinking of helping the planet by buying an eco-friendly car? You could do more by going vegan, say Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin of the University of Chicago.They compared the amount of fossil fuel needed to cultivate and process various foods, including running agricultural machinery, providing food for livestock and irrigating crops. They also factored in emissions of methane and nitrous oxide produced by cows, sheep and manure treatment.
The typical US diet, about 28 per cent of which comes from animal sources, generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tonnes more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number of calories, say the researchers, who presented their results at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last week.
By comparison, the difference in annual emissions between driving a typical saloon car and a hybrid car, which runs off a rechargeable battery and gasoline, is just over 1 tonne. If you don't want to go vegan, choosing less-processed animal products and poultry instead of red meat can help reduce the greenhouse load. [Emphasis added]
As it happens, I ordered a new Prius a few weeks ago (April delivery). Guess I won't be driving it to Burger King (not that I would anyway).
Posted by Jonathan at 03:11 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 02:09 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Dick Cheney was given a clear bill of health by doctors at the Bethesda Naval hospital. Bet he hasn't felt this relieved since getting his 5th deferment. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 02:07 PM
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January 28, 2006
| Saturday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 01:09 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Inspiring developments — Democracy is on the march in the Middle East. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians hit the polls for the first parliamentary elections in ten years. Which democratically elected party walked away victorious? Oh — it's Hamas! Yes, Hamas the militant Islamic group that is very anti-American and calls for the destruction of Israel, and wants a theocracy in Palestine. Though, on the plus side, they have returned all the money given to them by Jack Abramoff. — Jon Stewart
Posted by Jonathan at 01:02 PM
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January 27, 2006
| Summer Vacation | Quotes |
Has it really been twenty years since the Challenger disaster? Unreal. Reminds me of what the character Easy Wind had to say in Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead — a movie filled with wonderful speeches:
Remember when you was a kid and you would spend the whole year waiting for summer vacation and when it finally came it would fly by just like that? It's funny, Jimmy, life has a way of flying by faster than any old summer vacation. Really fucking does.
Guess so.
Posted by Jonathan at 09:31 PM
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| World's Four Largest Oilfields Now In Decline | Peak Oil |
Via Jerome-a-Paris, an update on where we stand: the kind of thing that ought to be front-page news all over the world, but isn't.
You can't pump oil you haven't discovered. If discoveries have dried up and already-discovered oilfields have peaked, the handwriting's on the wall. So where do we stand?
Jeremy Leggett reminds us that so-called "super giant" oilfields are rare, and almost all were discovered decades ago:
Only around 50 super-giant oilfields have ever been found, and the most recent, in 2000, was the first in 25 years: the problematically acidic 9-12 billion barrel Kashagan field in Kazakhstan. [...]In 2000 there were 16 discoveries of 500 million barrels of oil equivalent or bigger. In 2001 there were nine. In 2002 there were just two. In 2003 there were none. [Emphasis added]
So we stopped finding super-giant fields long ago. What about the super-giants currently in production?
Mexico — Mexico's Cantarrell, the third largest oilfield ever discovered, is now in decline. FT:
The Cantarell oil field, in the shallow waters of Campeche Bay, is regarded by Mexicans as their crown jewel. It is the second largest oil field in the world by production, behind Saudi Arabia's mammoth Ghawar oil field, pumping 2.2m barrels a day, the same amount as all the Kuwaiti fields together.For that reason, Mexicans were recently dismayed when Petróleos Mexicanos, the state oil company, said that the field's production would decline this year, signalling a trend towards its depletion. [Emphasis added]
Russia — Russia's Samotlor, Russia's largest and the world's second largest, is also in decline. Jerome:
Next, we can talk about Samotlor, the largest Russia oil field, and the second largest ever found. From a peak of close to 2mb/d, its production is now down to less than 0.5mb/d. [According to BP's own data,] more than two thirds of the oil to be recovered, in the most optimistic scenarios, already has. [...]In case you've never heard it, as most news in recent years talk about rapidly growing oil production in Russia, Russia's oil production peaked in the first half of the 1980s — what we witnessed in recent years was simply some catching up after the collapse of the early 90s which was not due to technical reasons but to the chaos in the early post-Sovier years. Russia is about to know a second, lower peak as its production is now stagnating again. [Emphasis added]
Kuwait — Kuwait's Burgan, one of the five largest oilfields in the world and until recently the world's number two in production, is in decline as well. See this post from a couple of months ago.
Saudi Arabia — Which leaves Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, the world's heavyweight champ. The Saudis haven't admitted it yet, but Ghawar, too, is almost certainly in decline. Here, for example, is Matthew Simmons, the oil industry's foremost investment banker, who has studied the Saudi situation in great detail:
Saudi's "king" of oil fields, Ghawar, is the world's largest oil field. Wildcat discoveries there from 1948 to 1952 proved reserves estimated at 170 billion barrels of oil in place and 60 billion barrels recoverable. Those numbers remained unchanged in Aramco's 1975 reserve estimates. Ghawar has accounted for 55 percent to 60 percent of all Saudi oil produced. If these numbers are correct, Ghawar's oil is 90 percent gone. [Emphasis added]
As Jerome concludes:
No super giant fields have been found in the past 25 years, and all the rock structures on the planet where such fields could be found are known.We will not find more oil. We will squeeze more out of the existing fields, thus generating new "reserves" (in their economic definition), but we are already running out of the cheap and easy to produce stuff.
Peak oil is very real.
Nobody in authority wants to be the bearer of bad news. Nobody wants to get out ahead of the herd. But most people won't believe something until they hear it from authority figures. So, hand in hand, we're sleep-walking over a cliff.
Posted by Jonathan at 07:59 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 09:06 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
It was reported yesterday that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush reads three newspapers a day. Well, actually, he reads them to his brother George. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 08:26 AM
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January 26, 2006
|
We're Number |
Environment |
NYT:
A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations — led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe — have achieved 85 percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.The study, jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities, ranked the United States 28th over all, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea.
The bottom half of the rankings is largely filled with the countries of Africa and Central and South Asia. Pakistan and India both rank among the 20 lowest-scoring countries, with overall success rates of 41.1 percent and 47.7 percent, respectively. [Emphasis added]
3 out of 4 Americans support doing "whatever it takes" to protect the environment, yet this is how we perform. Democracy, American-style.
Posted by Jonathan at 10:53 AM
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| Quote For Today | Quotes |
I'm still on the road through tomorrow, but here's a quote for today from one of my heroes:
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. — Wendell Berry
Amen.
Posted by Jonathan at 08:49 AM
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Posted by Jonathan at 08:48 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Ultimately, Stephen Harper, the conservative, is the new prime minister, ending 13 years of liberal rule in Canada. They picked up not as many parliamentary seats as they thought they might, but they picked up quite a few, more than the liberals. Martin has resigned as liberal party head. But the real question on everybody's mind is, can we still stitch their flags on our backpacks to get through Europe? — Jon Stewart
Posted by Jonathan at 08:34 AM
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January 25, 2006
| Quote For Today | Quotes |
Every tool is a weapon
if you hold it right.— Ani DiFranco
Posted by Jonathan at 11:51 AM
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Posted by Jonathan at 08:38 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The Republican Congress is ready to push through lobbyist reform. Although direct deposit will still be a viable option. — Will Durst
Posted by Jonathan at 08:36 AM
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January 24, 2006
| Nigerian Attacks On Oil Infrastructure Continue | Global Guerrillas Peak Oil War and Peace |
Following up on two earlier posts about the ability of global guerrillas to significantly impact the world-wide price of oil via attacks on oil infrastructure — now that the world has no spare oil production capacity to speak of — here's an item on the ongoing guerrilla campaign against Nigerian oil exports. AP:
Camouflage-clad attackers raided an Italian oil company's riverside offices in Nigeria on Tuesday, sparking a gunfight that left nine people dead before assailants fled by speedboat into the oil-rich delta's waterways.The attack on Agip's offices in the southern oil center of Port Harcourt is the latest in a recent rash of violence across the restive Niger Delta that has killed nearly two dozen people, cut petroleum production in Africa's largest oil exporter and helped push up prices of crude worldwide. [Emphasis added]
They know exactly what they're doing and why: hitting the West where it's most vulnerable. We have to assume this is only the beginning.
Posted by Jonathan at 02:24 PM
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| On The Road |
I'm on the road this week — in Concord, MA on business. Posts may be spotty, but it's only temporary.
Posted by Jonathan at 02:04 PM
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Dogs on ice. Whee!
Posted by Jonathan at 02:03 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Osama bin Laden released his first new audio taped message in over a year. While there is some new material in the message, insiders say it's mostly a Greatest Threats collection. A White House spokesman says they plan to check out the message in its entirety, but they're too busy listening to your phone calls. — Tina Fey
Posted by Jonathan at 01:57 PM
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January 23, 2006
| Molly Ivins Has Had It Up To Here | Politics |
You've probably seen this, but in case not, here's Molly Ivins on Hillary Clinton and the weak-kneed Democratic Party establishment:
I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. [...]
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? [...]
You [Washington Democrats] sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this — that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town. [Emphasis added]
Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily smart, talented woman. She could be a towering figure. Let's hope she gets a clue.
(One minor quibble with Ivins' piece: I'm not sure Eugene McCarthy was quite the hero people remember. Yes, it was inspiring when he stepped forward in 1968 and ran against the Vietnam War, and it made an important difference, but it's also hard not to see it as a piece of political opportunism: when he lost the nomination he completely disappeared from the antiwar scene. (By 1980, he was endorsing Ronald Reagan.) The antiwar movement did have real heroes: people who stayed in the struggle year after year after year, not just for the length of a primary campaign. None of which has anything to do with Ivins' critique. I'm just saying.)
Posted by Jonathan at 10:54 PM
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| That Day Shall Come | Activism |
Matthew Klippenstein, a Canadian Green Party volunteer and PastPeak reader, sent me a link to a short speech he wrote for an election-eve Green Party rally yesterday in Vancouver.
I love the positive energy of it. A welcome respite. Go check it out.
Posted by Jonathan at 09:40 PM
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| Economic Warfare By Targeting Systems Infrastructure | War and Peace |
More from John Robb. Iraq is teaching global guerrillas that the West's Achilles heel is systems disruption via targeted attacks against economically-important infrastructure. Robb:
Recent information indicates that the concept [of attacking the West by attacking economically-important infrastructure] has become the topic of widespread discussion among members of Jihadi forums. On these forums there is a growing realization that the only way to damage the West strategically (without a nuclear weapon) is through the destruction of critical global economic networks. Stephen Ulph of Jamestown summarizes recent activity on these forums. His group found detailed documents that provide explicit instructions on facilities and pipelines that are termed global "economic joints". For example, one set of instructions provided data on the Alaskan oil distribution infrastructure and recommendations for maximizing the value of the attack.While this effort is still in its adolescence, Ulph has detected signs of the type of collaborative open source development we have seen among guerrilla groups in Iraq. If so, it will advance to maturity rapidly. As that happens, be prepared to see a growing emphasis on the selection of targets...that cause cascading system failures...
NOTE: It's important to remember that in this epochal war, the guerrillas don't need to achieve either an absolute moral or economic victory. All that is needed in this hyper-competitive globalized economic environment is an effort that damages the ability of the target state to compete — Adam Smith's invisible hand will quickly take care of the rest. [Emphasis added]
The most developed countries are the most vulnerable to this kind of attack, given their dependence on complex, tightly-coupled systems/networks. And given the enormous number of possible targets, defense is going to be very, very difficult.
Posted by Jonathan at 05:42 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 10:00 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
NASA launched its first-ever mission to Pluto, did you see this? The rocket took off to Pluto. President Bush is very excited about this. I didn't even know Pluto had oil. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 09:55 AM
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| The Thumb On The World's Jugular | Future Peak Oil War and Peace |
World oil production is barely keeping up with demand. There's no spare capacity, no slack in the system. John Robb points out an enormously significant consequence: from here on out, global guerrillas can control the price of oil via relatively minor disruptions in the supply system. This puts one hell of a weapon into their hands. Excerpt:
The control over the price of oil is in now in the hands of global guerrillas — the open source, system disrupting, transnational crime fueled, sons of global fragmentation covered by this author. These actors can now, at will, curtail the supply of oil through low tech attacks on facilities in Iraq, Nigeria, central Asia, and India. The amount of oil effectively under their control exceeds five million barrels a day, more than Saudi Arabia's two million barrels a day of swing production.It's important to note that this capacity to disrupt production is substantially different than any terrorist threat we have faced in the past. With terrorism, the potential of damage has always been from single large attack on a major facility or node (extremely difficult to accomplish and relatively easy to recover from). Today's threat is based on sustainable disruption — ongoing, easy, low-tech attacks that are nearly impossible to defend against (everything from pipeline destruction to employee kidnapping). [...]
This situation is merely the first stage in the larger epochal war between non-state groups and nation-states. It is by no means the worst of what we will need to deal with...In the meantime, given that the demand for oil continues to increase (due to the growth of China and India primarily) combined with the inability to bring new supplies to market, the price of oil will continue to climb. $100+ a barrel oil is not unforeseeable. [...]
The success of guerrillas to control production in Iraq and Nigeria will spawn similar developments in other locations. High on that list is Russia, the world's largest oil producer, and the Caspian Sea producers. [Emphasis added]
Guerrillas are already significantly curtailing oil exports from Iraq and Nigeria. And as Robb says, there's no stopping them. How are you going to guard thousands of miles of pipeline? Decentralized, freelance, non-state actors with their thumb on the jugular of the industrialized world. Welcome to the twenty-first century.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:25 AM
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January 22, 2006
| Quote For Today | Quotes |
Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds because they were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. — Molly Ivins
Posted by Jonathan at 01:05 PM
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| Sunday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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Posted by Jonathan at 01:01 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
A Texas paper is reporting that lobbyist Jack Abramoff charged a client $25,000 to have lunch with President Bush. Not surprisingly, this is the most anyone has ever payed for lunch at Chuck E. Cheese. — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 12:58 PM
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January 21, 2006
| Kuwait's Oil Reserve Figures Cut In Half | Peak Oil |
Two months ago, it was reported that Kuwait's Burgan oil field, the world's 2nd largest, has peaked and gone into decline. Now it is being reported that Kuwait's remaining reserves are at most half what they have been claiming publicly. Reuters:
OPEC producer Kuwait's oil reserves are only half those officially stated, according to internal Kuwaiti records seen by industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW)."PIW learns from sources that Kuwait's actual oil reserves, which are officially stated at around 99 billion barrels, or close to 10 percent of the global total, are a good deal lower, according to internal Kuwaiti records," the weekly PIW reported on Friday.
It said that according to data circulated in Kuwait Oil Co (KOC), the upstream arm of state Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Kuwait's remaining proven and non-proven oil reserves are about 48 billion barrels. [...]
PIW said the official public Kuwaiti figures do not distinguish between proven, probable and possible reserves.
But it said the data it had seen show that of the current remaining 48 billion barrels of proven and non-proven reserves, only about 24 billion barrels are so far fully proven — 15 billion in its biggest oilfield Burgan. [Emphasis added]
OPEC countries have every incentive to exaggerate their reserves because their share of the OPEC quota is proportional to stated reserves. So Kuwait is almost certainly not the only country that's been lying about how much oil it has left.
Posted by Jonathan at 05:56 PM
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| The Zeal Of Molecules | Humor & Fun |
Fun with chemistry: thermite vs. liquid nitrogen, thermite vs. a French car. Video (via John Robb).
Posted by Jonathan at 05:22 PM
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| Quote For Today | Quotes |
Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. — Madeleine L'Engle
Posted by Jonathan at 04:37 PM
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Posted by Jonathan at 01:00 PM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
According to a Finnish medical study, if you have a bad or incompetent boss, it increases your risk of a heart attack by 30%. More bad news for Dick Cheney. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 12:57 PM
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January 20, 2006
| Global Warming News Keeps Getting Worse | Environment |
Earlier this week, we had James Lovelock's grim essay on global warming. Now we have this. The news just keeps getting worse. From today's Independent:
The microscopic plants that underpin all life in the oceans are likely to be destroyed by global warming, a study has found.Scientists have discovered a way that the vital plankton of the oceans can be starved of nutrients as a result of the seas getting warmer. They believe the findings have catastrophic implications for the entire marine habitat, which ultimately relies on plankton at the base of the food chain.
The study is also potentially devastating because it has thrown up a new "positive feedback" mechanism that could result in more carbon dioxide ending up in the atmosphere to cause a runaway greenhouse effect.
Scientists led by Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam have calculated that global warming, which is causing the temperature of the sea surface to rise, will also interfere with the vital upward movement of nutrients from the deep sea.
These nutrients, containing nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, are vital food for phytoplankton. If the supply is interrupted the plants die off, which prevents them from absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. [...]
The sea is one of nature's "carbon sinks", which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in a long-term store - dissolved in the ocean or deposited as organic waste on the seabed. The vast quantities of phytoplankton in the oceans absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. When the organisms die they fall to the seabed, carrying their store of carbon with them, where it stays for many thousands of years - thereby helping to counter global warming. [...]
Warmer surface water caused by global warming causes greater temperature stratification, with warm surface layers sitting on deeper, colder layers, to prevent mixing of nutrients.
Professor Huisman shows in a study published in Nature that warmer sea surfaces will deliver a potentially devastating blow to the supply of deep-sea nutrients for phytoplankton.
His computer model of the impact was tested on real measurements made in the Pacific Ocean, where sea surface temperatures tend to be higher than in other parts of the world. He found that his computer predictions of how nutrient movement would be interrupted were accurate. [...]
Scientists had believed phytoplankton, which survives best at depths of about 100 metres, is largely stable and immune from the impact of global warming. "This model prediction was rather unexpected," Professor Huisman said. [...]
Microscopic plankton comes in animal and plant forms. The plants are known as phytoplankton. They lie at the base of the marine food chain because they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into organic carbon - food for everything else.
...Without phytoplankton, the oceans would soon become marine deserts. [...]
Phytoplankton...acts as a carbon "sink" which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in long-term stores that can remain undisturbed for thousands of years. If the growth of phytoplankton is interrupted by global warming, this ability to act as a buffer against global warming is also affected - leading to a much-feared positive feedback. [Emphasis added]
It's impossible to overstate the importance of this finding. All sea life ultimately depends on phytoplankton. Without it, the world's oceans will become an enormous dead zone. And the feedback loop set in motion as the phytoplankton dies off (less phytoplankton leads to more atmospheric CO2 which leads to more global warming which leads to less phytoplankton, etc.) is only one of a number of recently discovered feedback loops that are likely to accelerate and amplify global warming. In other words, current computer models are, if anything, understating what we're up against.
Posted by Jonathan at 06:24 PM
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:49 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The government is scheduled to launch a mission to Pluto. Apparently this is President Bush's last chance to find those weapons of mass destruction.— Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:42 AM
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January 19, 2006
| Insider Trading By Frist And DeLay Staffers Alleged | Politics |
There is such a foul stench blowing out of