Archive for the ‘The Perfect Storm’ Category

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Hints of methane’s renewed rise

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

– And why would a rise in Methane levels be important?:

“Methane is the second most important gas causing man-made climate change. Each molecule causes about 25 times more warming than a molecule of CO2, but it survives for shorter times in the atmosphere before being broken down.”

 – As the world’s temperature rises, vast amounts of Methane trapped in the permafrost will be released as the permafrost melts.   In addition, there are vast amounts of Methane trapped in deep ocean sediments as Methane Clathrates and scientists fear that given sufficient warming of the oceans, these will be released into the atmosphere as well.   More warming, more releases, more releases, more warming.   It’s not a pretty picture.

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Levels of the greenhouse gas methane in the atmosphere seem to be rising having remained stable for nearly 10 years.

Data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in the US suggest concentrations rose by about 0.5% between 2006 and 2007.

The rise could reflect melting of permafrost, increased industrialisation in Asia or drying of tropical wetlands.

The rise in carbon dioxide levels was significantly higher than the average annual increase for the last 30 years.

Noaa figures show CO2 concentrations rising by 2.4 parts per million (ppm) from 2006 to 2007. By comparison, the average annual increase between 1979 and 2007 was 1.65ppm.

Concentrations now stand at 384 ppm, compared to about 280 ppm before the era of human industrialisation began

Upwards curve?

The rise in CO2 is not exceptional compared with the previous few years, but does add more evidence that concentrations are rising faster than they were a decade or so ago.

The methane figure is more interesting, and potentially of more concern.

Concentrations have been more or less stable since about 1999 following years of rapid increases. Industrial reform in the former Soviet bloc, changes to rice farming methods and the capture of methane from landfill sites all contributed to the levelling off.

But the 2007 figure indicates that levels may be on the rise again.

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Posted in Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Rising Ocean Levels, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

US climate change bill is blocked

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

– “It’s a huge tax increase,” said Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, most of whom opposed the bill.

-Mmmm- what a great reason to put off saving the world from catastrophe.   Bravo. 

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A US attempt to establish a system of caps and tax relief to cut carbon emissions has been blocked in Congress.

The bill was backed by most senators, but did not get the 60 votes needed to stop a delaying tactic – a filibuster – used by the bill’s opponents.

Even if it had succeeded in passing Congress, President George W Bush had pledged to veto the bill.

Lawmakers will now wait until next year – when there will be a new president – before attempting to pass a new bill.

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Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Politics - The Wrong Way, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Doomed Kiribati needs escape plan

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Kiribati’s President, Anote Tong, says his country may already be doomed by global warming – and he wants New Zealand and Australia to consider the issue of environmental refugees.

“We may already be at the point of no return, where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on contributing to climate change, so in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged,” Mr Tong said yesterday in Wellington.

Kiribati’s highest point of land is just 2m above sea level, and under “worst-case” scenarios it will be flooded by the Pacific this century and its 94,000 people will have to be re-settled in other countries.

Mr Tong, a graduate of the London School of Economics, said climate change “is not an issue of economic development, it’s an issue of human survival”.

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Ominous warning oil price rise just starting

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

LONDON – The chief executive of the world’s largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit US$250 ($332) per barrel in the foreseeable future.

The forecast from Alexey Miller, the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, would herald even more expensive petrol and send shockwaves through the economy.

His comments were the most stark to be expressed by an industry executive and come just days after the oil price registered its largest-ever single-day spike, hitting US$139.12 per barrel last week amid fears that the world’s faltering supply will be unable to keep up with demand.

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Major crop decline adds to food insecurity

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

– This in from Pakistan:

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ISLAMABAD, June 10: The agriculture sector performed poorly and grew by only 1.5 per cent during the financial year 2007-08 against the target of 4.8 per cent, making the nation vulnerable to food insecurity and badly hurting economic growth.

Major crops and forestry declined by three per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2007-08. Livestock, minor crops and fisheries somehow averted an apparent collapse of the entire agriculture sector.

Cotton, which accounts for about 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and a major source of foreign earning, grew less than last year. The country produced 11.7 million bales, compared to 12.9 million bales last year.

The survey says that heavy rainfall in May 2007 in Punjab, where sowing was already 2.2 per cent less than last year, caused poor germination. Cotton sowing in Sindh was 6.6 per cent less than last year. A severe attack of the leave curl virus also hit the crop.

Similarly, the wheat production target of 24 million tons was missed by 1.5 million tons. The output was 21.7 million tons — 6.6pc less than last year and 9.9pc less than the target. The reasons were about 40pc less use of fertilisers and availability of 23.3pc less water for the Rabi season. The price of a 40kg DAP fertiliser increased to Rs3,000 from last year’s Rs850.

The survey showed that the country was unable to produce the annual 124kg per capita flour. An analysis of the last 12 years showed that the per capita flour target had been missed for eight years.

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Zuma: Rising food prices a time bomb

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Cape Town, South Africa

The rising cost of food is a time bomb that could result in uprisings, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma told the World Economic Forum on Africa on Thursday.

“The issue of food prices is actually a time bomb,” he told a plenary of the forum, which is being held in Cape Town.

“With those who have the budgets to adjust, [it] is one thing. But with those who have no money to buy at all, once the food price goes up, they are cut out, even from the possibility of buying food. Then you are sitting with a situation that an uprising would emerge.”

Individual governments cannot solve the problem of food insecurity, said Zuma. “We must have global solutions to global problems.” He said he did not think that there was much that governments could do. “I think the world organisations must do it.”

Zuma was speaking against the background of a global doubling in the price of wheat in the past year, and an almost 80% hike in the African and Asian staples maize and rice over the same period. Soaring food costs have already sparked riots in Egypt, Indonesia, Cameroon, Peru and Haiti.

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“Perfect Storm” in Food Prices Caused by Many Factors

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

Part one of a special series that explores the local faces of the world’s worst food crisis in decades.

In Australia a struggling farmer watches another harvest shrivel under the country’s worst drought on record.

Another new member of the Chinese middle-class finally has enough cash to buy his first steak.

And a U.S. agricultural executive decides to grow corn instead of wheat to take advantage of the growing demand for biofuels.

Alone, none of these events would have been responsible for today’s troubled stock markets, rampant civil unrest, and increasing famine and malnourishment for the world’s poor. (See a video on the world food crisis.)

Together, they’ve caused the world’s worst food crisis in a generation.

“A convergence of factors has led to what is sort of a perfect storm for food prices,” Erik Thorbecke, an economist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, told National Geographic News.

“I can’t think of a time we’ve had this large an increase.”

According to data from the International Monetary Fund, average global food prices have jumped nearly 50 percent since the end of 2006.

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Posted in Biofuels, CrashBlogging, Desertification, Food Shortages, Peak Oil, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

– If you are not angry – you are not paying attention. 

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An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency’s public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers’ findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general’s office said yesterday.

The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.

James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are two of the government’s lead agencies on climate change issues.

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA’s public affairs office “managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.” It noted elsewhere that “news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution.”

Officials of the Office of Public Affairs told investigators that they regulated communication by NASA scientists for technical rather than political reasons, but the report found “by a preponderance of the evidence, that the claims of inappropriate political interference made by the climate change scientists and career public affairs officers were more persuasive than the arguments of the senior public affairs officials that their actions were due to the volume and poor quality of the draft news releases.”

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Rich nations attacked over biofuels

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Rich countries came under attack on Tuesday at the United Nations food summit for their biofuel subsidies and production targets, declining spending on development aid for agriculture and large subsidies to European and US farmers.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, told heads of state and governments gathered in Rome that ”nobody” understood why cereals had been diverted from human consumption ”mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel vehicles”.

In an unexpectedly strong attack on western countries’ policies, he added that ”nobody understands” why rich countries had ”distorted world markets with the $272bn (€175bn, £138bn) spent on supporting their agriculture.” Mr Diouf said: ”The problem of food insecurity is a political one.”

Delegates and some FAO officials were surprised by his remarks, which opened a three-day summit in Rome to discuss ways to tackle soaring food prices. The cost of agricultural commodities has doubled since 2005.

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Images reveal ‘rapid forest loss’

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

– The red emphasis, below, is mine. Again and again, we read of government authorities noticing the problems with deforestation and beginning actions to protect forests. And then two or three years later, a new report is issued and once again the problem get press and the government notices again and more promises are made.

– And, in the end, nothing happens – and the trees continue to fall and the profiteers continue to profit – and we all lose.

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High-resolution satellite images have revealed the “rapid deforestation” of Papua New Guinea’s biodiversity rich rainforests over the past 30 years.

An international team of researchers estimates that the current rate of loss could result in more than half of the nation’s tree cover being lost by 2021.

They added that the main threats came from commercial logging and burning.

Existing conservation measures were failing to protect the world’s third largest rainforest, the team concluded.

Scientists from the University of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Australian National University spent five years analysing satellite images that showed deforestation and habitat destruction between 1972 and 2002.

They estimated that in 2001 the nation’s accessible forests were being cleared or degraded at an annual rate of 362,000 hectares (3,620 sq km).

The images also showed that trees in protected areas were being felled at the same rate as unprotected regions, the team added.

Although it only accounts for less than 0.5% of the Earth’s land cover, the heavily forested island nation is home to an estimated 6-7% of the planet’s species.

“It is still one of the most forested nations on the planet,” said lead author Phil Shearman.

“However, the report details how the forests are being lost at a far higher rate than previously thought.”

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Posted in Biodiversity Loss, CrashBlogging, Deforestation, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

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