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September 29, 2006
| Air-Conditioning The Arctic | Environment |
This is the kind of global warming story that really hits you in a visceral way. Chicago Trib:
They never used to need air conditioners up in the Arctic.But earlier this year, officials in the Canadian Inuit territory of Nunavik authorized the installation of air conditioners in official buildings for the first time. Artificial cooling was necessary, they decided, because summertime temperatures in some southern Arctic villages have climbed into the 80s in recent years.
Inuit families in the region never used to need to shop in grocery stores, either. But the Arctic seas that always stayed frozen well into the summer have started breaking open much earlier, cutting off hunters from the seasonal caribou herds on which their families depend for sustenance.
And experienced Inuit hunters, as comfortable reading ice conditions as professional golfers are reading greens, had seldom fallen through the ice and drowned. But this year in Alaska, more than a dozen vanished into the sea.
"These are men used to running their trap lines, people who know the area well, yet they are literally falling through, they are just gone," said Patricia Cochran, executive director of the Alaska Native Science Commission in Anchorage and chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "The ice conditions are just so drastically different from all of their hunting lifetimes."
It took a while, but global warming, the relentless greenhouse gas phenomenon that most scientists believe has altered climates across much of the rest of the world, appears to have finally breached the northern polar redoubt. And the effects on aboriginal societies trying to hold fast to traditional ways have been jarring.
The people of this far northern Canadian hamlet of 250 used to hunt eider ducks every summer, using the meat and eggs for food and the soft feathers for clothing. But this past summer was the third in a row that the Inuit couldn't reach the nesting grounds because the ice around them was too thin.
The seals have changed, as well.
"Now when we are trying to take the fur off the seals, it's very hard to do," said David Kalluk, 65, a village elder and veteran hunter. "It's like it's burned onto them. Maybe this is because the sea is warmer."
Wayne Davidson, the resident meteorologist in Resolute Bay for 20 years, says monthly temperatures throughout the year are 5 to 11 degrees higher than recent historical averages. For example, Davidson said, the average daily temperature last March was minus 13.4 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with an average of minus 24.2 degrees from 1947 to 1991.
"Science for us in the Arctic is experience," Davidson said. "Resolute used to be a horrible place to live as far as weather is concerned, absolutely brutal. Now it's much milder." [...]
"The basic question of global warming is no longer a subject of dispute in the scientific literature," said Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at the University of California, San Diego, who reviewed 928 scientific papers about climate change published between 1993 and 2003 and found none challenging evidence of human contributions to global warming.
"The discussion has moved on to how quickly will things change in the future, the rate of ice melting and differing climate models," Oreskes said. "There's almost nobody left anymore who doesn't accept that global warming is real."
It certainly feels real enough to the people of Resolute Bay. From their perch on the edge of the Barrow Strait, they watched this summer as the waters of their rocky bay melted and filled with drifting icebergs — a view as depressing as it was picturesque, because in years past the water remained frozen solid enough to traverse aboard sleds and snowmobiles to their traditional hunting grounds.
"The heat of the sun is different now," said Kalluk, the village elder, trying to make sense of the changes. "I think there is global warming, because snow that has never melted before is starting to melt now." [Emphasis added]
Large-scale satellite studies, etc., are absolutely essential, but nothing hits home like these stories of real people experiencing horrifyingly rapid and profound changes in environments they've lived in for generations. Global warming is here, it's real, and it's accelerating. Welcome to the future, when you need A/C to live in the Arctic.
Posted by Jonathan at 04:17 PM
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| Masters Of Denial | Environment |
According to a report in Nature, NOAA officials scuttled the release of a scientific report linking global warming and increased hurricane activity. AP
A government agency blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. [...]In its own reporting for the journal, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.
According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.
In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported. [...]
NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue.
However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements.
The report drew a prompt response from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., who charged that "the administration has effectively declared war on science and truth to advance its anti-environment agenda ... the Bush administration continues to censor scientists who have documented the current impacts of global warming." [...]
Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina. [...]
In February, a NASA political appointee who worked in the space agency’s public relations department resigned after reportedly trying to restrict access to Jim Hansen, a NASA climate scientist who has been active in global warming research. [Emphasis added]
We look at the ostrich, head buried in the sand, and laugh. But the laugh's on us. Unlike the ostrich, we humans are supposed to know better.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:10 PM
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| Friday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:47 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The president of Afghanistan says over the past year, democracy has suffered a setback in his country. On the bright side, at least now he and President Bush have something in common. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 09:45 AM
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September 28, 2006
| Thursday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:20 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
After three long years, our efforts in Iraq have been successful in fostering a new generation of people who hate us. A new National Intelligence Estimate report recently leaked to the New York Times says the war in Iraq has made the overall terrorism problem worse, and has spread Islamic radicalism further than before. Now that sounds bad, but remember, this is from a U.S. intelligence report. Take it with a grain of salt. — Jon Stewart
Posted by Jonathan at 09:15 AM
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September 27, 2006
| Wednesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:58 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The U.N. says that there is more torture going on in Iraq than when Saddam was in power. Bush shot back. He said, "That is just the opinion of one individual who doesn't know the difference between regular torture and freedom torture." — Bill Maher
Posted by Jonathan at 08:56 AM
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September 26, 2006
| Islam And The Sword: Setting The Record Straight | 9/11, "War On Terror" Palestine/Middle East |
Pope Benedict XVI recently caused a world-wide furor by asserting that Muslims are commanded by the Prophet Muhammad to spread Islam "by the sword". Israel's Uri Avnery, writer and peace activist, sets the record straight in an extremely important essay. Excerpts:
Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations".In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah. [...]
In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?
To support his case, the Pope quoted — of all people — a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had — or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) — with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". [...]
When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.
At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube...In 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.
During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.
In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.
Is there any truth in Manuel's argument?
The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith". [...]
Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?
Well, they just did not.
For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.
True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.
In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith — and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.
There is no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?
What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.
Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service — a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion — because it entailed the loss of taxes.
Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.
The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims — the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.
Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?
There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" — when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.
The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences? [Emphasis added]
As usual, Americans' appalling ignorance of history makes us easy marks for propaganda. You'd think we'd know better. We look at Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda, for example, and wonder how the German people could have allowed themselves to be taken in by the hideous and absurdly exaggerated stereotypes of Jews. How could they have been so gullible, so willing to act as accomplices, so utterly dumb? I guess now we know, first-hand.
[Thanks, Miles]
Posted by Jonathan at 10:16 PM
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| 2700 | Iraq |
US troops killed in Iraq as of today: 2703.
And God knows how many Iraqis. For what?
No end in sight.
Posted by Jonathan at 12:33 PM
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| Tuesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
The long and winding road...
Posted by Jonathan at 08:58 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The Venezuelan President went to the U.N. and called Bush the devil. You could tell Bush was offended, because his tail stopped wagging. Bush said, "I would love to answer your ridiculous charge that I'm the devil, but I'm a little too busy this week trying to unite my party behind torturing people." — Bill Maher
Posted by Jonathan at 08:57 AM
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September 25, 2006
| Monday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:16 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Oil has fallen to $60 a barrel. Experts predict it will continue to fall until exactly one minute after the polls close on November 7th. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:15 AM
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September 24, 2006
| Sunday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:33 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
On "Dancing with the Stars" the other night, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson is gone. He got the least number of votes. A Republican stopped by a lack of votes — when does that ever happen? — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:31 AM
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September 23, 2006
| Saturday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:08 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
In his speech, Bush said the United Nations is in danger of losing its credibility. And believe me, when it comes to international affairs, President Bush is an expert on losing credibility. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 08:06 AM
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September 22, 2006
| Friday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:06 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Did you know that in midterm elections you don't even get to vote for the president [on screen: Unless Using Diebold Machine]. Remember, you Republicans are the party of Jesus [on screen: And Will Be Crucified on 11/7]. It may look like you die, but in 2008, you will rise again just like the Lord [on screen: Lord Voldemort]. — Stephen Colbert
Posted by Jonathan at 09:04 AM
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September 21, 2006
| The "Making Sense" Filter | Iran |
Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner (via Billmon):
When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out that an armed confrontation does not make sense — that it would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options through that filter. The "making sense" filter was not applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.
Once again, we're confronted with a choice between two equally frightening possibilities. Either everything's going according to plan — they wanted chaos and civil war in Iraq and Iraq's eventual breakup into three easy-to-dominate statelets, and they wanted chaos in Afghanistan and, for example, the truly astonishing upsurge in heroin exports that's occurred there — or they're just completely clueless, applying the logic of the compulsive gambler: trying to recoup their losses by doubling and redoubling their bet. Either way, they're out of control, and American democracy looks like so much window dressing.
Posted by Jonathan at 07:57 PM
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| California Sues Auto Makers Over Global Warming | Economy Environment |
The State of California is suing the big auto makers over the damage caused by global warming. Reuters:
California sued six of the world's largest automakers over global warming on Wednesday, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have caused billions of dollars in damages. The lawsuit is the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles' emissions, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said.It comes less than a month after California lawmakers adopted the nation's first global warming law mandating a cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
California has also targeted the auto industry with first-in-the-nation rules adopted in 2004 requiring carmakers to force cuts in tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks.
Automakers, however, have so far blocked those rules with their own legal action — prompting one analyst to say California's lawsuit represents a way for California to pressure car manufacturers to accept the rules. [...]
Environmental groups hailed the lawsuit, saying it represented another weapon for the state as it seeks to curb greenhouse gas emissions and spur the auto industry to build vehicles that pollute less.
"(California) just passed a new law to cut global warming emissions by 25 percent and that's a good start and this lawsuit is a good next step," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program. [...]
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for past and ongoing contributions to global warming and asks that the companies be held liable for future monetary damages to California.
It said California is spending millions to deal with reduced snow pack, beach erosion, ozone pollution and the impact on endangered animals and fish.
"The injuries have caused the people to suffer billions of dollars in damages, including millions of dollars of funds expended to determine the extent, location and nature of future harm and to prepare for and mitigate those harms, and billions of dollars of current harm to the value of flood control infrastructure and natural resources," it said.
The Center for Automotive Research's Cole said it would be tough for the industry to immediately meet demands from some critics and predicted other states would quickly follow suit should California succeed with the legal action. [...]
In the complaint, Lockyer charges that vehicle emissions have contributed significantly to global warming and have harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health of the most populous state in the United States. [Emphasis added]
One of capitalism's fatal flaws: it may just be more profitable to destroy the Earth than to save it. Why doesn't an unregulated market solve environmental crises? Because environmental costs are borne by the public, not by the polluters who cause them. If the market is to function constructively, polluters must be made to pay for the damage they cause. Their profits must suffer. That, and that alone, will give them an incentive to stop.
Who knows if a lawsuit like this will have an appreciable effect, but governments and citizen groups have to bring to bear whatever leverage they can. The automakers won't clean up their act until compelled to do so. They're just following the logic of capitalism: maximize short-term profit, grow or die. Even if they wanted, individually, to reduce pollution, they believe they can't afford to do so unless their competitors simultaneously do so as well. In that sense, they may come to crave regulation as a way to save them from themselves.
[Thanks, Charyn — who likes to be known as "Alert reader Charyn"]
Posted by Jonathan at 07:32 PM
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| Thursday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 08:12 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
This week, President Bush said he has no plans to invade North Korea. Bush said, "This time, Rumsfeld and I are just going to wing it." — Conan O'Brien
Posted by Jonathan at 08:11 AM
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September 20, 2006
| Olbermann Demands An Apology | 9/11, "War On Terror" Media Politics |
[Thanks, Kevin]
Posted by Jonathan at 01:25 PM
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| Wednesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 06:30 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
General Colin Powell shocked a lot of people in Washington by speaking out against President Bush's policies, saying that the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. That's what I think he said — it was hard to hear him because he was being hustled out of the room to his cell in Guantanamo Bay. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 06:27 AM
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September 19, 2006
| Lovelock: Too Late To Turn Back | Environment |
As we've noted in the past, James Lovelock, the environmental scientist who discovered that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer, and who proposed the Gaia Hypothesis that views terrestrial systems as a sort of self-regulating superorganism, sees a global warming apocalypse coming our way, and quickly. WaPo (via Billmon):
"It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn." [...]"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return." [...]
Lovelock's conclusion is straightforward.
To wit, we are poached.
He measured atmospheric gases and ocean temperatures, and examined forests tropical and arboreal (last year a forest the size of Italy burned in rapidly heating Siberia, releasing from the permafrost a vast sink of methane, which contributes to global warming). He found Gaia trapped in a vicious cycle of positive-feedback loops — from air to water, everything is getting warmer at once. The nature of Earth's biosphere is that, under pressure from industrialization, it resists such heating, and then it resists some more.
Then, he says, it adjusts.
Within the next decade or two, Lovelock forecasts, Gaia will hike her thermostat by at least 10 degrees. Earth, he predicts, will be hotter than at any time since the Eocene Age 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic Ocean.
"There's no realization of how quickly and irreversibly the planet is changing," Lovelock says. "Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover." [...]
Lovelock's radical view of global warming doesn't sit well with David Archer, a scientist at the University of Chicago and a frequent contributor to the Web site RealClimate, which accepts the reality of global warning.
"No one, not Lovelock or anyone else, has proposed a specific quantitative scenario for a climate-driven, blow the doors off, civilization ending catastrophe," writes Archer. [...]
What's perhaps as intriguing are the top scientists who decline to dismiss Lovelock's warning. Lovelock may be an outlier, but he's not drifting far from shore. Sir David King, science adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, saluted Lovelock's book and proclaimed global warming a far more serious threat than terrorism. Sir Brian Heap, a Cambridge University biologist and past foreign secretary of the Royal Society, says Lovelock's views are tightly argued, if perhaps too gloomy. [...]
"I'm an optimist," [Lovelock] says. "I think that after the warming sets in and the survivors have settled in near the Arctic, they will find a way to adjust. It will be a tough life enlivened by excitement and fear." [...]
Lovelock was a prodigy, earning degrees in chemistry and medicine. In the 1950s he designed an electron capture machine, which provided environmentalist Rachel Carson with the data to prove that pesticides infected everything from penguins to mother's milk. Later he took a detector on a ship to Antarctica and proved that man-made chemicals — CFCs — were burning a hole in the ozone. [...]
[Says Paul Ehrlich,] "If Lovelock hadn't discovered the erosion of the ozone, we'd all be living under the ocean in snorkels and fins to escape that poisonous sun." [...]
How will our splendid Spaceship Earth so quickly become the oven of our doom? As we sit at his table in Devon, Lovelock expands on his vision.
It begins with the melting of ice and snow. As the Arctic grows bare — the Greenland ice cap is shrinking far faster than had been expected — dark ground emerges and absorbs heat. That melts more snow and softens peat bogs, which release methane. As oceans warm, algae are dying and so absorbing less heat-causing carbon dioxide.
To the south, drought already is drying out the great tropical forests of the Amazon. "The forests will melt away just like the snow," Lovelock says.
Even the northern forests, those dark cool beauties of pines and firs, suffer. They absorb heat and shelter bears, lynxes and wolves through harsh winters. But recent studies show the boreal forests are drying and dying and inducing more warming.
Casting 30, 40 years into the future, Lovelock sees sub-Saharan lands becoming uninhabitable. India runs out of water, Bangladesh drowns, China eyes a Siberian land grab, and local warlords fight bloody wars over water and energy. [...]
"We like to think of Hurricane Katrina, or a killer heat wave in Europe, as a one-off," he says. "Or we like to think that we'll come up with a technological fix." [...]
Today the environmentally conscious seek salvation in solar cells, recycling and ten thousand wind turbines. "It won't matter a damn," Lovelock says. "They make the mistake of thinking we have decades. We don't."
Lovelock favors genetically modified crops, which require less water, and nuclear energy. Only the atom can produce enough electrical power to persuade industrialized nations to abandon burning fossil fuels. France draws 70 percent of its power from nuclear plants.
But what of Three Mile Island? Chernobyl? Lovelock's shaking his head before you complete the litany. How many people died, he asks. A few hundred? The radiation exclusion zone around Chernobyl is the lushest and most diverse zone of flora and fauna in Eurasia. [...]
"People say, ‘Well, you're 87, you won't live to see this,' " he says. "I have children, I have grandchildren, I wish none of this. But it's our fate; we need to recognize it's another wartime. We desperately need a Moses to take us to the Arctic and preserve civilization.
"It's too late to turn back." [Emphasis added]
What can one say? Of course, you hope that Lovelock's wrong. Utterly wrong. Given his track record, though, you have to think his intuition in these matters is probably quite good. I.e., it may not turn out as bad as he says, but it's probably going to be worse than most people are expecting. And it's happening quickly.
Posted by Jonathan at 06:18 PM
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| Gardiner: The Order's Been Given | Iran |
Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner says we're already at war with Iran. Transcript via ThinkProgress:
BLITZER: How likely is the U.S. strike against Iran? And would it lead to all-out war? Joining us now is retired U.S. Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner. He has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, the Air War College, and the Naval War College. Colonel thanks very much for coming in. He just prepared a paper for the Century Foundation entitled "Considering the U.S. Military Option For Iran." You speak to a lot of people plugged in. What is your bottom line? How close in your opinion is the Bush Administration to giving that go ahead.GARDINER: It's been given. In fact, we've probably been executing military operations inside Iran for at least 18 months. The evidence is overwhelming. [...]
BLITZER: When you say it's been given. The president says he wants diplomacy to work to convince the Iranian government to stop enriching uranium, not go forward. "I would tell the Iranian people that we have no desire for conflict." He told David Ignatius of the Washington Post the other day. So what does that mean, the order has been given?
GARDINER: We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is overwhelming. From both the Iranians, Americans, and from congressional sources.
BLITZER: What is "military operation?" Define that.
GARDINER: Sure. They probably have had two objectives going back 18 months. The first was to gather intelligence. Where is the Iranian nuclear program? The second has been to prepare dissident groups for phase two which will be the strike, which will come as the next phase, I think.
BLITZER: Preparing intelligence, that's understandable using all sorts of means. They want to know what the Iranians are up to in terms of their nuclear program. But are you suggesting that U.S. military forces, special operations forces, or others are on the ground right now in Iran.
GARDINER: Yes, sir. Certainly. Absolutely clear — the evidence is overwhelming from lots of sources, and, again, most of them you can read in the public. Seymour Hersh has done good work on it. There are lots of other people who have done that. I have talked to Iranians. I asked an Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, what's this I hear about Americans being there? He said to me, well, we've captured some people who worked with them. We've confirmed that they're there.
BLITZER: Yeah, but, you know, these guys — the Iranians, you can't necessarily believe what they're saying. They could arrest some dissidents in Iran and say these are American spies. They do that all the time.
GARDINER: Sure. Sure. The House Committee on Emerging Threats tried to have a hearing some weeks ago in which they asked the Department of State and Defense to come and answer this question because it's serious enough to be answered without congressional approval, and they didn't come to the hearing. There are sources that I have talked to on the Hill who believe that that's true and that it's being done without congressional oversight.
BLITZER: Look, I was once a Pentagon correspondent many years ago, and in those days and in these days, as Jamie McIntire just reported, and as you well know from your time in active duty in the Pentagon, in the U.S. military, these guys are planning contingency operations for almost everything. If Canada goes to war against the United States, they have a contingency plan.
GARDINER: Okay, two differences. Number one, we have learned from TIME Magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step. That's first. Second thing is the sources suggest the plan that's not in the Pentagon. The plan has gone to the White House. That's not normal [contingency] planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we've gone to a different state.
BLITZER: You think it's possible there is a little psychological warfare being played on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to rattle him. To spread the word. To put out this kind of information. To get him nervous, perhaps a little bit more agreeable to the diplomatic option.
GARDINER: It's possible. It's also possible that this path was selected a long time ago. You recall that even before Gulf II that a time when the president said we have no plan. I have no plan on my desk. In the summer of 2002 we began bombing Iraq. Operation Southern Focus, without congressional approval, without the U.N. sanctions, we went ahead and began bombing.
BLITZER: The argument at that time is if there were violations of the no-fly zone, U.S. war planes were flying in the north and the south and there were rockets or anti-aircraft fire going up, they could take those out.
GARDINER: Yes, but it was a campaign to begin the war before the war began. You know, I would suggest the evidence is there.
BLITZER: You see a similar pattern right now.
GARDINER: Exactly. [Emphasis added]
Fool me once, shame on you...
Posted by Jonathan at 03:58 PM
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| Tuesday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Pop Quiz
Posted by Jonathan at 09:28 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Picture your family dead. Just for a second. Are you picturing it? Now go vote. — Jon Stewart, summarizing President Bush's interview with NBC's Matt Lauer
Posted by Jonathan at 09:26 AM
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September 18, 2006
| Monday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:18 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
Last night in his speech to the nation, President Bush called for unity among all Americans unless, of course, you're gay, a Democrat or live in a blue state. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:16 AM
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September 17, 2006
| Sunday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 09:59 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
On this day in 1993 Israeli and Palestinian leaders met on the White House lawn and signed the peace accord. Glad they settled that! — David Letterman
Posted by Jonathan at 09:52 AM
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September 16, 2006
| Devo Live | Culture |
Has it really been almost 30 years?
Posted by Jonathan at 08:42 PM
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| Saturday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 11:18 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
In his speech to the nation this week, Bush said that we have to fight against people who reject tolerance and despise dissent — and anyone who disagrees with that is a traitor. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 11:12 AM
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September 15, 2006
| Game Over | Vote Fraud |
Computer researchers at Princeton have published a demonstration showing how easily Diebold "Accuvote" touchscreen voting machines can be hacked to steal votes from one candidate and redirect them to another.
They wrote a virus that can be installed on a voting machine in less than a minute. Once installed on one machine, it can spread to others, infecting them as well. The virus steal votes in such a way that all records — on the display screen, in memory cards, and in paper printouts — agree on the fraudulent totals. The virus can tell when the machine is being run in a mode used to test the machine's accuracy, and it will provide accurate results during the test. During an actual election, however, the virus steals votes. When the election ends, the virus deletes itself, removing all traces that it was ever there. Fixing these problems will require more than just a software change; the machines' hardware must be changed as well.
So democracy comes down to who's got access to the machines and who's got the better hackers.
Why is this state of affairs tolerated? Yes, people are cynical and people are lazy, but still. It's hard to escape the conclusion that these machines represent the culmination of an elite dream: take the rabble out of the equation without our even knowing it. Preserve the appearance of democracy, but reduce it to a made-for-tv charade.
The only thing that will stop it is public outrage. There are so many things to be outraged about, though, that it's hard for this one to gain traction. But this one is fundamental. If we can't vote, it's pretty much game over.
Details of the study are available here, along with a video that demonstrates the malicious software in use.
[Thanks, Maurice]
Posted by Jonathan at 05:12 PM
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| Decline And Fall | 9/11, "War On Terror" |
This is interesting, and this. The more things change...
Posted by Jonathan at 04:31 PM
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| Friday Gumpagraph | Gumpagraphs |
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| © Kent Tenney |
Posted by Jonathan at 10:32 AM
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| Today's Bush Joke | Humor & Fun |
The Senate Intelligence Committee — that almost sounds like an oxymoron — released a report this week saying there's no evidence that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with al Qaeda. Thank God we found that out before we did something crazy. — Jay Leno
Posted by Jonathan at 10:30 AM
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September 14, 2006
| Reality Check On Chevron's Find In The Gulf | Peak Oil |
Ex-CIA analyst Tom Whipple weighs in on the Chevron find in the Gulf of Mexico, discussed here earlier. Excerpts (via EnergyBulletin):
The story broke the morning after Labor Day, when the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page piece reporting that Chevron along with two partners had announced the results of a major oil production test in the Gulf of Mexico. The partners Chevron, Statoil, and Devon Energy ran the test on a well known as Jack No. 2 that was drilled last year in the Lower Tertiary zone of the Gulf of Mexico. This zone is about 80 miles wide, 300 miles long and is located about 175 miles off shore. The well was unusual in that it went to a depth of 28,000 feet and the drilling began under 7,000 feet of water.Released details of the test noted that a number of technical breakthroughs had been achieved. By using the latest technology, Chevron was able to discern and drill into promising geological structures that had previously been hidden below a layer of sound-absorbing silt. The test, which achieved flow rates of 6,000 barrels per day (b/d), established that oil could be extracted at acceptable rates from very deep deposits. It also set several records for extracting oil under conditions of extreme pressures and temperatures.
Although no formal estimate as to the size of this particular find was announced, background briefers spoke of the possibility that the zone could contain from 3 to 15 billion barrels of oil in scattered deposits. If this speculation were to prove true, it would put the Lower Tertiary in a class with Alaska's Prudhoe Bay and increase domestic US oil reserves by 50 percent.
The news of this great "discovery" naturally was replayed by nearly every newspaper and TV network in the country. Katie Couric ran a segment about the discovery on her first evening news show. Most reporting emphasized the possibility that the US might have found another 15 billion barrels of oil in its own backyard, but tempered the jubilation with the news that the find would have no immediate impact on gasoline prices.
A few, mostly financial journalists, took the announcement as an opportunity to disparage the idea of imminent peak oil. These writers are aware that should world oil production go into decline within the next decade the world's economy would be in a lot of trouble, not to mention the credibility of those who make a living by forecasting decades of growth ahead. Therefore, they eagerly accepted the dubious premise that this one test proves that plenty of oil can be found by drilling deeper so long as oil prices remain high enough to support the costs of ultra-deep oil production; advanced technology is used to the fullest; and environmental restrictions are lifted. Several pronounced peak oil a dead issue.
As the week wore on however, knowledgeable geologists and petroleum engineers began to question all the euphoria. First they noted that the Jack No. 2 test was not conducted on a single oil field that might contain 15 billion barrels oil. Rather, it was one test of a well in a zone that extends for hundreds of miles under the Gulf of Mexico. Whatever producible oil the zone contains will likely be found in numerous smaller deposits.
A number of wells have already been sunk in the Lower Tertiary. Some were dry holes and a few struck oil bearing rock, which may have the potential to produce oil profitably. So far, only a handful of these exploratory wells have struck deposits of light oil, which may be possible to produce. Others have struck thicker oils that may be impossible to extract from extreme depths at acceptable rates.
What seems to be turning up in the deeper waters of the Gulf are a series of smaller oil fields — some of which may someday be profitable to produce and some of which probably won't. Extrapolating this situation to a major new discovery that will delay the onset of peak oil is clearly a reach.
To extract oil from 20,000 feet below the surface, where the pressures run to 20,000 pounds per square inch (psi) and the temperature of the oil is in the order of 200 degrees centigrade, is going to be a major technical challenge. Wells drilled to these depths will cost in the range of $100 million each. To drill and set in place the production equipment for one of these fields may cost on the order of $1.5 billion, or more, as the cost of oil production equipment is inflating rapidly.
Add to this the problem of what to do with very hot oil and the associated natural gas as it comes flowing to the top of a well 7,000 feet under the Gulf and 175 miles from shore. The decision to attempt production from these ultra-deep fields will not be taken lightly by the oil companies involved.
Although there are no geopolitical problems or nationalistic governments involved in producing oil from the Gulf of Mexico, the fields are right in its center — out where the Category 4 and 5 hurricanes really get wound up. On top of this there are questions of how much oil can be extracted from an ultra-deep field with extreme pressures. Although the recent test produced 6,000 barrels a day, for a month, a knowledgeable old geologist opined that he would like to see a test run for a year or more before committing billions to a whole new regime of oil production.
Assuming that producing oil from the Lower Tertiary turns out to be economically and technically feasible, will new production from the region have anything to do with delaying peak oil? The answer is an emphatic NO.
Knowledgeable observers who have commented on the issue agree that even if all goes well, it is unlikely that more than 300-500,000 b/d of production could come into production from all the possible fields in the Lower Tertiary over the next five to seven years. In the meantime, the world will have burned another 150 to 200 billion barrels of oil and US production from existing fields will decline from the current 5 million b/d to somewhere around 4 million b/d.
This suggests that it will take some spectacular and unlikely gains from new production to offset the natural decline currently underway in the US. Of still greater concern is production from Mexico's giant 2 million b/d Cantarell oilfield, most of which is exported to the US. Creditable reports suggest that Cantarell is entering very rapid depletion and may be producing at a fraction of its current level five years from now. It would be virtually impossible for this level of new production from the Lower Tertiary to come online