Plan Now for a World Without Oil

by Michael Meacher
January 5, 2004
Financial Times
 http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/oil/1428.html

note: Michael Meacher stepped down from the Blair government in
protest in June

Four months ago, Britain's oil imports overtook its exports, underlining
a decline in North Sea oil production that was already well under way.
North Sea oil output peaked at about 2.9m barrels per day in 1999,
and has been predicted to fall to only 1.6m bpd by 2007. Even the
discovery of the new Buzzard field, the biggest British oil find in a
decade, with a total of some 500m barrels recoverable, will not alter
by much the overall picture of dwindling resources.

This prospect would not be so bleak were it not that similar trends are
now becoming manifest around the globe. The three main oil-
producing regions are Opec, the former Soviet Union, and the rest of
the world. According to papers presented at the latest annual
meetings of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Opec's future
production is expected to peak in 2020 at about 40-45m bpd. Under-
production in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s has been followed
by a new surge in east Siberia and Sakhalin. Together with new
discoveries in the Caspian, this will yield a peak of about 10m bpd in
2010.

Combining the models for Opec, the former Soviet Union and the
remaining 40 or more major oil-producing countries puts ultimate world
oil recovery - past and future - at some 2,200bn barrels, with
production peaking at about 80m bpd between 2010 and 2020. To
this may be added non-conventional oil and other liquids brought into
commercial production by the rising price as oil becomes more
scarce. These include oil from coal and shale, bitumen and derived
synthetics, heavy and extra-heavy oil, deep-water oil, polar oil and
liquids from gas fields and gas plants. These sources, though at very
much greater cost, could provide an ultimate recovery of about 800bn
barrels and might peak in 2050 at around 20m bpd. But the combined
model suggests a peak from all sources of about 90m bpd around
2015.

Today we enjoy a daily production of 75m bpd. But to meet projected
demand in 2015, we would need to open new oilfields that can give an
additional 60m bpd. This is frankly impossible. It would require the
equivalent of more than 10 new regions, each the size of the North
Sea. Maybe Iraq with enormous new investments will increase
production by 6m bpd, and the rest of the Middle East might be able
to do the same. But to suggest that the rest of the world could
produce an extra 40m barrels daily is just moonshine.

These calculations place the coming oil crunch some time between
2010 and 2015, perhaps earlier. The reserves in the world's super-
giant and giant oilfields are dwindling at an average rate of 4-6 per cent
a year. No more big frontier regions remain to be explored except the
north and south poles.

The production of non-conventional crude oil has already been initiated
at enormous cost in Venezuela's Orinoco belt and Canada's
Athabasca tar sands and ultra-deep waters. Yet no major primary
energy alternative can replace oil and gas in the short-to-medium term.

The implications of this are mind-blowing, since oil provides 40 per
cent of all traded energy and no less than 90 per cent of transport fuel.
But not only are the motor vehicle and farming industries dependent
on oil, so is national defence. Oil powers the vast network of planes,
tanks, helicopters and ships that provide the basis of each country's
armaments. It is hard to envisage the effects of a radically reduced oil
supply on a modern economy or society. Yet just such a radical
reduction is staring us in the face.

The world faces a stark choice. It can continue down the existing
path of rising oil consumption, trying to pre-empt available remaining
oil supplies, if necessary by military force, but without avoiding a
steady exhaustion of global capacity. Or it could switch to renewable
sources of energy, much more stringent standards of energy
efficiency, and a steady reduction in oil use. The latter course would
involve huge new investment in energy generation and transportation
technologies.

The US response to this dilemma is very striking. The National
Energy Policy report prepared by Dick Cheney, US vice-president, in
May 2001 proposed the exploitation of untapped reserves in protected
wilderness areas within the US, notably the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge in north-eastern Alaska.

The rejection of this extremely contentious proposal forced President
George W. Bush, unwilling to curb America's ever-growing thirst for
oil, to go back on White House rhetoric and accept the need to
increase oil imports from foreign suppliers.

It was a fateful decision. It means that, for the US alone, oil imports,
or imports of other sources of oil, such as natural gas liquids, will have
to rise from 11m bpd to 18.5m bpd by 2020. Securing that increment
of imported oil - the equivalent of total current oil consumption by
China and India combined - has driven an integrated US oil-military
strategy ever since.

There is, however, a fundamental weakness in this policy. Most
countries targeted as a source of increased oil supplies to the US are
riven by deep internal conflicts, strong anti-Americanism, or both. Iraq
is only the first example of the cost - both in cash and in soldiers' lives
- of facing down resistance or fighting resource wars in key oil-
producing regions, a cost that even the US may find unsustainable.

The conclusion is clear: if we do not immediately plan to make the
switch to renewable energy - faster, and backed by far greater
investment than currently envisaged - then civilisation faces the
sharpest and perhaps most violent dislocation in recent history.

The writer was UK environment minister from 1997 to June 2003

................................................................

Bottom of the barrel
The world is running out of oil - so why do politicians refuse to talk
about it?

George Monbiot
Tuesday December 2, 2003
The Guardian

The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved
the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory
for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a "huge"
find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline.
You begin to recognise how serious the human predicament has
become when you discover that this "huge" new field will supply the
world with oil for five and a quarter days. Every generation has its
taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have
been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot
imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial.

Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming
ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves
peaked in the 1960s. Every year we use four times as much oil as we
find. All the big strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400m
barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered piffling
in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the discovery of small
new deposits and the better exploitation of big old ones. No one with
expertise in the field is in any doubt that the global production of oil
will peak before long.

The only question is how long. The most optimistic projections are
the ones produced by the US department of energy, which claims that
this will not take place until 2037. But the US energy information
agency has admitted that the government's figures have been fudged:
it has based its projections for oil supply on the projections for oil
demand, perhaps in order not to sow panic in the financial markets.

Other analysts are less sanguine. The petroleum geologist Colin
Campbell calculates that global extraction will peak before 2010. In
August, the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes told New Scientist that he
was "99% confident" that the date of maximum global production will
be 2004. Even if the optimists are correct, we will be scraping the oil
barrel within the lifetimes of most of those who are middle-aged today.

The supply of oil will decline, but global demand will not. Today we
will burn 76m barrels; by 2020 we will be using 112m barrels a day,
after which projected demand accelerates. If supply declines and
demand grows, we soon encounter something with which the people
of the advanced industrial economies are unfamiliar: shortage. The
price of oil will go through the roof. As the price rises, the sectors
which are now almost wholly dependent on crude oil - principally
transport and farming - will be forced to contract.

Given that climate change caused by burning oil is cooking the planet,
this might appear to be a good thing. The problem is that our lives
have become hard-wired to the oil economy. Our sprawling suburbs
are impossible to service without cars. High oil prices mean high food
prices: much of the world's growing population will go hungry. These
problems will be exacerbated by the direct connection between the
price of oil and the rate of unemployment. The last five recessions in
the US were all preceded by a rise in the oil price.

Oil, of course, is not the only fuel on which vehicles can run. There
are plenty of possible substitutes, but none of them is likely to be
anywhere near as cheap as crude is today. Petroleum can be
extracted from tar sands and oil shale, but in most cases the process
uses almost as much energy as it liberates, while creating great
mountains and lakes of toxic waste.

Natural gas is a better option, but switching from oil to gas propulsion
would require a vast and staggeringly expensive new fuel
infrastructure. Gas, of course, is subject to the same constraints as
oil: at current rates of use, the world has about 50 years' supply, but if
gas were to take the place of oil its life would be much shorter.

Vehicles could be run from fuel cells powered by hydrogen, which is
produced by the electrolysis of water. But the electricity which
produces the hydrogen has to come from somewhere. To fill all the
cars in the US would require four times the current capacity of the
national grid. Coal burning is filthy, nuclear energy is expensive and
lethal. Running the world's cars from wind or solar power would require
a greater investment than any civilisation has ever made before. New
studies suggest that leaking hydrogen could damage the ozone layer
and exacerbate global warming.

Turning crops into diesel or methanol is just about viable in terms of
recoverable energy, but it means using the land on which food is now
grown for fuel. My rough calculations suggest that running the United
Kingdom's cars on rapeseed oil would require an area of arable fields
the size of England. There is one possible solution which no one
writing about the impending oil crisis seems to have noticed: a
technique with which the British and Australian governments are
currently experimenting, called underground coal gasification. This is
a fancy term for setting light to coal seams which are too deep or too
expensive to mine, and catching the gas which emerges. It's a
hideous prospect, as it means that several trillion tonnes of carbon
which was otherwise impossible to exploit becomes available, with the
likely result that global warming will eliminate life on Earth.

We seem, in other words, to be in trouble. Either we lay hands on
every available source of fossil fuel, in which case we fry the planet
and civilisation collapses, or we run out, and civilisation collapses.

The only rational response to both the impending end of the oil age
and the menace of global warming is to redesign our cities, our
farming and our lives. But this cannot happen without massive
political pressure, and our problem is that no one ever rioted for
austerity. People tend to take to the streets because they want to
consume more, not less. Given a choice between a new set of
matching tableware and the survival of humanity, I suspect that most
people would choose the tableware.

In view of all this, the notion that the war with Iraq had nothing to do
with oil is simply preposterous. The US attacked Iraq (which appears
to have had no weapons of mass destruction and was not threatening
other nations), rather than North Korea (which is actively developing a
nuclear weapons programme and boasting of its intentions to blow
everyone else to kingdom come) because Iraq had something it
wanted. In one respect alone, Bush and Blair have been making
plans for the day when oil production peaks, by seeking to secure the
reserves of other nations.

I refuse to believe that there is not a better means of averting disaster
than this. I refuse to believe that human beings are collectively
incapable of making rational decisions. But I am beginning to wonder
what the basis of my belief might be.

The sources for this and all George Monbiot's recent articles can be
found at www.monbiot.com.

................................................................

A new (2002) maverick organization concerned with this issue

The Association For The Study Of Peak Oil & Gas
 http://www.peakoil.net/

................................................................

Is the hydrogen economy the answer?

Adding Fuel Cells To The Fire

The Bush administration has been busily touting fuel-cell cars as a
critical component of its energy plan and the solution to many an
environmental woe. But what if the solution turns out to cause its own
problems? According to new research published in last week's issue
of

Science, the technology used in hydrogen fuel cells could contribute to
the destruction of the ozone layer, which protects the Earth from
excessive doses of ultraviolet light. If fuel cells were used to power
everything from cars to utilities, the researchers found, large amounts
of hydrogen would drift into the stratosphere and increase the depletion
of the ozone layer. The technology could be refined to mitigate the
problem, but the scientists emphasized that the likely impact on the
ozone layer must be taken into account when planning the shift to a
hydrogen-based economy.

"The FreedomCAR is really about Bush's freedom to do nothing about
cars today " ... "the plan is under-funded and fails to demonstrate a
real and long-term commitment to weaning the nation off of its
gasoline habit."

It is possible, however, that even in the long term, renewables will not
be the only answer. "There is no energy source that doesn't have
environmental impacts,"

more at

Tough Cell
What can we learn from Bush's FreedomCAR plan?

by Amanda Griscom
26 Feb 2003
 http://www.gristmagazine.com/powers/powers022603.asp

................................................................

THE PERFECT STORM - Part II

by Michael C. Ruppert
March 24, 2003
extract from
 http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/032503_perfect_storm_2.h
tml

OIL'S NOT WELL

The utterly ridiculous and unjustified drop in oil prices and upsurge in
the Dow last week is belied by real data on oil supplies as the Iraqi
invasion stumbles. As the war intensifies some real garbage and
some occasional gems of truth are coming from the major media.

First, it is a given that while the war is in progress, Iraqi oil exports are
virtually non-existent. The port region around Basra – which accounts
for well more than half of Iraqi exports -- is virtually shut down. One
pipeline running from northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan is
reported to be intact but there are no reports as to whether oil is
actually flowing. It's not likely. What this means is that it is a safe bet
that two million plus barrels per day (Mbpd) have been taken out of
world supplies.

In the face of this, BusinessWeek, in the February 24 issue, has
engaged in the outrageously dishonest reporting that the Caspian
basin may hold 200 billion barrels (Gb) of reserves and that there are
some three trillion barrels of proven conventional oil remaining on the
planet. Extensive research conducted by FTW has shown that
Caspian reserves have been verified by drilling results over the last
three years to be only around 40 Gb and are a major disappointment.
FTW data was derived through extensive research in oil and gas
journals, official government reports and by direct interviews with oil
executives who have been in the region.

Planetary reserves of conventional oil are only about one trillion barrels
or enough to keep the world supplied for approximately 30 years in an
ever tightening and ever more expensive marketplace that threatens
economies all over the globe. Motives for the BusinessWeek
deception would include providing propaganda cover for the fact that
the invasion of Iraq is totally about oil and also give false confidence to
investors as financial and equity markets teeter on the brink of
collapse.

The Wall Street Journal, however, on March 18, recently engaged in
some serious truth telling. In a page-one story titled "Why the U.S. IS
Still Hooked On Oil Imports", the Journal reported:

"President Bush says hydrogen power will lead to energy
independence... Mr. Bush is almost certain to be proved wrong, at
least in the next couple of decades."

After acknowledging that oil price spikes have always led to
recessions, the Journal relied on an extensive body of research of the
statements of OPEC founder, Saudi Sheikh Zaki Yamani to hit at one
of the core motivators for the Iraqi invasion – oil production costs. Not
every country or region spends the same amount of money to produce
a barrel of oil. And nowhere is oil cheaper to produce than in the
Persian Gulf. The Journal quoted Ya mani as stating at a 1980s
OPEC meeting, "Let's see how the North Sea can produce oil when
prices are at $5 a barrel."

The Journal continued: "At low prices, the Persian Gulf countries have
an unbeatable edge. In the mid 1980s it cost them a couple of dollars
a barrel to produce oil. It cost about $15 a barrel off the coast of
Britain and Norway or in the U.S." That was in the 1980s. Credible
estimates of North Sea production costs in dying fields now place the
cost per barrel at over $20.

Russia has current estimated production costs of between $19 and
$27 a barrel which reveal the key to everything that's going on now.
The world is running out of oil. In order to save a teetering U.S.
economy the Bush adm inistration is betting on the rapidly
diminishing hope that it can get Iraqi oil back on the markets and
available to the U.S. at a price of between $15 and $20 per barrel. If
the prices drop to the levels Bush needs, OPEC loses its profits and
Russian oil becomes uncompetitive in the market place.

Bush is not going to get his way.

In a major development, it was reported on Saturday that growing
unrest in Nigeria, an OPEC member and the world's sixth largest
exporter, had shut down the Chevron Texaco pumping facilities. A
story in today's Economist confirmed earlier reports that both Chevron
and French giant TotalFinaElf had not only shut down production but
ordered evacuations of all their personnel. These moves take an
immediate 330,000 barrels a day out of world supplies and they also
hearken back to recent lessons learned in Venezuela after a massive
strike shut down Venezuelan production. Refineries and wells don't
operate at the flip of a switch. They require a constant flow of
chemicals and products to keep their systems primed. When
recovering from a shut down, it often takes a considerable period to
reach previous production levels.

While OPEC has announced that it will increase production to offset
shortages, its ability to do so is limited to perhaps a 3-5 Mbpd
increase. That's a drop in the bucket in current tight markets and in a
world that consumes a billion barrels every twelve days. Iraqi oil fields
will require billions of dollars of investment and years to increase Iraqi
production to five or eight Mbpd. And that clock will only start ticking
once the country is secure and safe, an outcome that is not at all
guaranteed at the moment.

In the meantime, according to The Financial Times today, the
Mexican government has announced its intent to start selling U.S.
dollars on world currency markets. This move could further weaken an
already shaky U.S. dollar, especially if other nations, angered at the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, follow suit. Since oil is currently purchased in
dollars, inevitable future oil price spikes could become doubly painful
for the U.S. economy as the dollar loses value.
................................................................

Bush Administration: Carbon Dioxide Not a Pollutant

by Seth Borenstein
Published on Friday, August 29, 2003 by the Knight Ridder News
 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0829-02.htm

WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming,
cannot be regulated as a pollutant, the Environmental Protection
Agency ruled Thursday.

The decision reverses a 1998 Clinton administration position. It means
that the Bush administration won't be able to use the Clean Air Act to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cars.

Had the Bush administration decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant
and harmful, it could have required expensive new pollution controls on
new cars and perhaps on power plants, which together are the main
sources of so-called greenhouse gases.

Environmentalists are expected to respond by suing the EPA to try to
force it to regulate carbon dioxide. The real fight is likely to shift to
Congress, where some lawmakers are proposing a new law giving the
EPA clear authority to regulate emissions of gases linked to global
warming.

"Refusing to call greenhouse-gas emissions a pollutant is like refusing
to say that smoking causes lung cancer," responded Melissa Carey,
a climate policy specialist for Environmental Defense, a New York-
based environmental group. "The Earth is round. Elvis is dead.
Climate change is happening."

EPA General Counsel Robert Fabricant took the opposite position in
his 12-page decision Thursday. "Because the [Clean Air Act] does not
authorize regulation to address climate change," he wrote, "it follows
that [carbon dioxide] and other [greenhouse gases], as such, are not
air pollutants."

Auto industry representatives lauded Fabricant's position.

"Why would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas that is vital to
plant photosynthesis and that people exhale when they breathe?" said
Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers, a Washington-based industry lobby. "That's not a
pollutant."

The Clean Air Act says the EPA can regulate a substance if it comes
from cars, contributes to air pollution and "may reasonably be
anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." The same law
broadly defines an air pollutant as "any air pollution agent or
combination of such agents which is emitted into or otherwise enters
the ambient air."

Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder, whose suit prompted
Fabricant's decision, said it was simple: "Anything that people put
into the air can be an air pollutant. The question `Does it do
something bad?' " is what matters.

................................................................

The Bush Energy Policy
 http://www.markfiore.com/animation/co.swf

...............................................................

When a conservative business rag talks about Carrying Capacity and
Resource Wars, maybe the memes are getting around more than we
know.

Climate Collapse
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the
mother of all national security issues.

by David Stipp
Fortune
Monday 26 January 2004
 http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582584-
1,00.html

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face
it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al
Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote
climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined.
In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic
planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming,
rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be
pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the
ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch
from one state to another in less than a decade—like a canoe that's
gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how
close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change
may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to
rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies—thereby upsetting the
geopolitical balance of power.

Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause
cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters
in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive
droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture
last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar
disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or
Russia—it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in
abrupt climate change.

Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a
decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in
ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic
shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking
speed—in some cases, just a few years.

The case for angst was buttressed by a theory regarded as the most
likely explanation for the abrupt changes. The eastern U.S. and
northern Europe, it seems, are warmed by a huge Atlantic Ocean
current that flows north from the tropics—that's why Britain, at
Labrador's latitude, is relatively temperate. Pumping out warm, moist
air, this "great conveyor" current gets cooler and denser as it moves
north. That causes the current to sink in the North Atlantic, where it
heads south again in the ocean depths. The sinking process draws
more water from the south, keeping the roughly circular current on the
go.

But when the climate warms, according to the theory, fresh water from
melting Arctic glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, lowering the
current's salinity—and its density and tendency to sink. A warmer
climate also increases rainfall and runoff into the current, further
lowering its saltiness. As a result, the conveyor loses its main motive
force and can rapidly collapse, turning off the huge heat pump and
altering the climate over much of the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists aren't sure what caused the warming that triggered such
collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn't humans and their
factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest the
atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were
dismayingly similar to today's global warming. As the Ice Age began
drawing to a close about 13,000 years ago, for example, temperatures
in Greenland rose to levels near those of recent decades. Then they
abruptly plunged as the conveyor apparently shut down, ushering in
the "Younger Dryas" period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age
conditions. (A dryas is an Arctic flower that flourished in Europe at the
time.)

Though Mother Nature caused past abrupt climate changes, the one
that may be shaping up today probably has more to do with us. In
2001 an international panel of climate experts concluded that there is
increasingly strong evidence that most of the global warming observed
over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities—mainly the
burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which release heat-
trapping carbon dioxide. Indicators of the warming include shrinking
Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier springs at
northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed signs of
possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem portents
of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we're history.

Accordingly, the spotlight in climate research is shifting from gradual
to rapid change. In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences issued a
report concluding that human activities could trigger abrupt change.
Last year the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included
a session at which Robert Gagosian, director of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged policymakers to
consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two
decades.

Such jeremiads are beginning to reverberate more widely. Billionaire
Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End, has adopted abrupt climate
change as a philanthropic cause. Hollywood has also discovered the
issue—next summer 20th Century Fox is expected to release The
Day After Tomorrow, a big-budget disaster movie starring Dennis
Quaid as a scientist trying to save the world from an ice age
precipitated by global warming.

Fox's flick will doubtless be apocalyptically edifying. But what would
abrupt climate change really be like?

Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data
deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense planner Andrew
Marshall sponsored a groundbreaking effort to come to grips with the
question. A Pentagon legend, Marshall, 82, is known as the Defense
Department's "Yoda"—a balding, bespectacled sage whose
pronouncements on looming risks have long had an outsized influence
on defense policy. Since 1973 he has headed a secretive think tank
whose role is to envision future threats to national security. The
Department of Defense's push on ballistic-missile defense is known
as his brainchild. Three years ago Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld picked him to lead a sweeping review on military
"transformation," the shift toward nimble forces and smart weapons.

When scientists' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his
radar screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter
Schwartz, to write a report on the national-security implications of the
threat. Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group
and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to
DreamWorks—he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven
Spielberg's film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall
at the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a scenario-planning
think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and
pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away
from—at least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the
Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn't pretend to
be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to
help planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged
version:

A total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like
the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast
of Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down,
potentially causing an era like the "Little Ice Age," a time of hard
winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That
period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild
compared with the Younger Dryas.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case
of abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the
Northern Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the
bill—its severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the Little
Ice Age. The event is thought to have been triggered by a conveyor
collapse after a time of rising temperatures not unlike today's global
warming. Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here are some of
the things that might happen by 2020:

At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather
variation—allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a "blip" of little
importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with
uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is
happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees
Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six
degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the average temperature
over the North Atlantic during the last ice age was ten to 15 degrees
lower than it is today.) Massive droughts have begun in key
agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly
30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become more like
Siberia's.

Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes
wobbly on its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes the
ocean to break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal
cities such as the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island levees
in the Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct
system transporting water from north to south.

Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along
with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now,
causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better
positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse
growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That
has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and
fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America.

Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress around
itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to hold back
starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
islands—waves of boat people pose especially grim problems.
Tension between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S. reneges on a
1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the Colorado River into
Mexico. America is forced to meet its rising energy demand with
options that are costly both economically and politically, including
nuclear power and onerous Middle Eastern contracts. Yet it survives
without catastrophic losses.

Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with
immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south.
Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in
Africa and elsewhere. But Western Europe's wealth helps buffer it
from catastrophe.

Australia's size and resources help it cope, as does its location—the
conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan
has fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to
cope—its government is able to induce population-wide behavior
changes to conserve resources.

China's huge population and food demand make it particularly
vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains,
which cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts
of Asia and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh
becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which
contaminates inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity already
produces conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-pressed to
maintain internal order while coping with the unfolding changes.

As the decade progresses, pressures to act become
irresistible—history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice
between starving or raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European
countries, struggling to feed their populations, invading Russia—which
is weakened by a population that is already in decline—for access to
its minerals and energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby
Russian oil and gas reserves to power desalination plants and energy-
intensive farming. Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China
skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers,
and arable land. Or Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing
rights—fisheries are disrupted around the world as water temperatures
change, causing fish to migrate to new habitats.

Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress
America in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to
keep its abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the
energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a
technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly unified
bloc to curb its immigration problems and protect against aggressors.
Russia, threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire straits, may join
the European bloc.

Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched thin
as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to shore
up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating nuclear
proliferation. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-
weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt, and North Korea. Israel,
China, India, and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.

The changes relentlessly hammer the world's "carrying capacity"—the
natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that
support the population. Technological progress and market forces,
which have long helped boost Earth's carrying capacity, can do little
to offset the crisis—it is too widespread and unfolds too fast.

As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern
reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water,
and energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has
noted, wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries
ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25% of a population's adult
males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may
again come to define human life.

Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the
plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the
scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community, are
prepared to accept. In light of such findings, we should be asking
when abrupt change will happen, what the impacts will be, and how
we can prepare—not whether it will really happen. In fact, the climate
record suggests that abrupt change is inevitable at some point,
regardless of human activity. Among other things, we should:

* Speed research on the forces that can trigger abrupt climate
change, how it unfolds, and how we'll know it's occurring.

* Sponsor studies on the scenarios that might play out, including
ecological, social, economic, and political fallout on key food-
producing regions.

* Identify "no regrets" strategies to ensure reliable access to food and
water and to ensure our national security.

* Form teams to prepare responses to possible massive migration,
and food and water shortages.

* Explore ways to offset abrupt cooling—today it appears easier to
warm than to cool the climate via human activities, so there may be
"geo-engineering" options available to prevent a catastrophic
temperature drop.

In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it is
quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should be
elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because we
may be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can
certainly be better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it as a
national security concern.

The Pentagon's reaction to this sobering report isn't known—in
keeping with his reputation for reticence, Andy Marshall declined to be
interviewed. But the fact that he's concerned may signal a sea change
in the debate about global warming. At least some federal thought
leaders may be starting to perceive climate change less as a political
annoyance and more as an issue demanding action.

If so, the case for acting now to address climate change, long a hard
sell in Washington, may be gaining influential support, if only behind
the scenes. Policymakers may even be emboldened to take steps
such as tightening fuel-economy standards for new passenger
vehicles, a measure that would simultaneously lower emissions of
greenhouse gases, reduce America's perilous reliance on OPEC oil,
cut its trade deficit, and put money in consumers' pockets. Oh,
yes—and give the Pentagon's fretful Yoda a little less to worry about.

................................................................

As Earth Warms, The Hottest Issue Is Energy

by Kenneth Chang
New York Times
November 4, 2003
 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/science/earth/04ENER.html?page
wanted=print &position=

Suppose that over the next decade or two the forecasts of global
warming start to come true. Color has drained from New England's
autumns as maple trees die, and the Baltimore oriole can no longer
be found south of Buffalo. The Dust Bowl has returned to the Great
Plains, and Arctic ice is melting into open water. Upheavals in
weather, the environment and life are accelerating around the world.

Then what?

If global warming occurs as predicted, there will be no easy way to
turn the Earth's thermostat back down. The best that most scientists
would hope for would be to slow and then halt the warming, and that
would require a top-to-bottom revamping of the world's energy
systems, shifting from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to
alternatives that in large part do not yet exist.

"We have to face the fact this is an enormous challenge," said Dr.
Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University.

But interviews with scientists, environment advocates and industry
representatives show that there is no consensus in how to meet that
challenge. Some look to the traditional renewable energy sources:
solar and wind. Others believe use of fossil fuels will continue, but that
the carbon dioxide can be captured and then stored underground. The
nuclear power industry hopes concern over global warming may help
spur a revival.

In an article in the journal Science last November, Dr. Hoffert and 17
other experts looked at alternatives to fossil fuels and found all to have
"severe deficiencies in their ability to stabilize global climate."

The scientists believe that technological fixes are possible. Dr. Hoffert
said the country needed to embark on an energy research program on
the scale of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during
World War II or the Apollo program that put men on the moon.

"Maybe six or seven of them operating simultaneously," he said. "We
should be prepared to invest several hundred billion dollars in the next
10 to 15 years."

But to even have a hope of finding a solution, the effort must begin
now, the scientists said. A new technology usually takes several
decades to develop the underlying science, build pilot projects and
then begin commercial deployment.

The authors of the Science paper expect that a smorgasbord of
energy sources will be needed, and they call for intensive research on
radical ideas like vast solar arrays orbiting Earth that can collect
sunlight and beam the energy down. "Many concepts will fail, and
staying the course will require leadership," they wrote. "Stabilizing
climate is not easy."

The heart of the problem is carbon dioxide, the main byproduct from
the burning of fossil fuels. When the atmosphere is rich in carbon
dioxide, heat is trapped, producing a greenhouse effect. Most
scientists believe the billions of tons of carbon dioxide released since
the start of the Industrial Revolution are in part to blame for the one-
degree rise in global temperatures over the past century. Carbon
dioxide concentrations are now 30 percent higher than preindustrial
levels.

With rising living standards in developing nations, emissions of carbon
dioxide are increasing, and the pace of warming is expected to speed
up, too. Unchecked, carbon dioxide would reach twice preindustrial
levels by midcentury and perhaps double again by the end of the
century. That could force temperatures up by 3 to 10 degrees
Fahrenheit by 2100, according to computer models.

Because carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless and disperses
immediately into the air, few realize how much spills out of tailpipes
and smokestacks. An automobile, for example, generates perhaps 50
to 100 tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.

The United States produces more carbon dioxide than any other
country by far. Each American, on average, generates about 45,000
pounds of carbon dioxide a year. That is about twice as much as the
average person living in Japan or Europe and many times more than
someone living in a developing country like Zimbabwe, China or
Panama. (Even if the United States achieves President Bush's goal of
an 18 percent reduction in the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions
by 2012, the output of an average American would still far exceed that
of almost anyone else in the world.)

Even if all emissions stop, levels of carbon dioxide in the air will
remain high for centuries as the Earth gradually absorbs the excess.

Currently, the world's energy use per second is about 12 trillion watts -
- which would light up 120 billion 100-watt bulbs -- and 85 percent of
that comes from fossil fuels.

Of the remaining 15 percent, nuclear and hydroelectric power each
supply about 6.5 percent. The renewable energy sources often touted
as the hope for the future -- wind and solar -- provide less than 2
percent.

In March, Dr. Hoffert and two colleagues reported in Science that to
limit the temperature increase to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, non-carbon-
dioxide-emitting sources would have to generate 7 trillion to 25 trillion
watts by midcentury, 4 to 14 times as much as current levels. That is
roughly equivalent to adding a large emissions-free power plant every
day for the next 50 years.

And by the end of the century, they wrote, at least three-quarters and
maybe all of the world's energy would have to be emission-free.

No existing technology appears capable of filling that void. The
futuristic techology might be impractically expensive. Developing a
solar power satellite, for example, has been estimated at more than
$200 billion.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cited the Science paper from last
November in a speech at the American Academy in Berlin two months
ago. Mr. Abraham said that merely setting limits and timetables on
carbon dioxide like those in the Kyoto Protocol could not by
themselves solve global warming.

"We will also need to develop the revolutionary technologies that
make these reductions happen," Mr. Abraham said. "That means
creating the kinds of technologies that do not simply refine current
energy systems, but actually transform the way we produce and
consume energy."

Too Far Away

Some long-hoped-for options will almost certainly not be ready.
Fusion -- producing energy by combining hydrogen atoms into helium,
the process that lights up the sun -- has been heralded for decades as
a potentially limitless energy source, but scientists still have not
shown it can be harnessed practically. Experimental fusion reactors
do not yet produce more power than they take to run.

Increased energy efficiency -- like better-insulated buildings, more
efficient air-conditioners, higher mileage cars -- is not a solution by
itself, but it could buy more time to develop cleaner energy.

The much-talked-about hydrogen economy, in which gasoline-powered
engines are replaced by fuel cells, is also not a solution. It merely
shifts the question to what power source is used to produce the
hydrogen.

Today, most hydrogen is made from natural gas, a process that
produces carbon dioxide that is then released into the air. Hydrogen
can also be produced by splitting apart water atoms, but that takes
more energy than the hydrogen will produce in the fuel cell. If the
electricity to split the water comes from the coal-fired power plant,
then a hydrogen car would not cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Exploiting What's Here

A fundamental problem remains: how to produce electricity without
carbon dioxide.

Hydroelectric power has reached its limits in most parts of the world;
there are no more rivers to dam.

Nuclear power is a proven technology to generate large amounts of
electricity, but before it could be expanded, the energy industry would
have to overcome longstanding public fears that another accident, like
those at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, will occur. Solutions also
need to be found for disposing of radioactive spent fuel and
safeguarding it from terrorists.

Marvin Fertel, senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an
industry group, said warming had become such a worry that some
environmental groups were becoming amenable to new nuclear plants.
"In private, that's what we get from them," he said.

Researchers at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto,
Calif., espouse a major expansion of nuclear power, coupled with a
switch from gasoline to hydrogen to power cars and trucks. Electricity
from the nuclear plants would split water to produce hydrogen, and
then cables made of superconductors would distribute both electricity
and hydrogen, which would double as coolant for the cables, across
the country.

"I think in 30 to 50 years there will be systems like this," said Dr.
Chauncey Starr, the institute's founder and emeritus president. "I think
the advantages of this are sufficient to justify it."

In the short run, fossil fuels will still be widely used, but it is still
possible to control carbon dioxide.

In his Berlin speech, Mr. Abraham highlighted two projects the Energy
Department was working on: carbon sequestration -- the capturing of
carbon dioxide before it is emitted and storing it underground -- and
FutureGen, a $1 billion prototype coal power plant that will produce
few emissions. The plant will seek to demonstrate by 2020 how to
convert coal to hydrogen on a commercial scale that will then be used
to generate electricity in fuel cells or turbines. The waste carbon
dioxide would be captured and stored.

The technology for injecting carbon dioxide is straightforward, but
scientists need better knowledge on suitable locations and leak
prevention.

Sequestration, however, will probably not be cost-effective for current
power plants. The filters for capturing carbon dioxide from the exhaust
gas will by themselves consume 20 percent to 30 percent of the
power plant's electricity.

Renewing Renewables

Solar is still a future promise. The cost of energy from solar cells has
dropped sharply in the past few decades. One kilowatt-hour of
electricity -- the energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours -- used to
cost several dollars when produced by solar cells. Now it is only
about 35 cents. With fossil fuels, a kilowatt-hour costs just a few
cents.

But solar still has much room for improvement. Commercial cells are
only 10 to 15 percent efficient. With much more research, new
strategies to absorb sunlight more efficiently could lead to cells that
reached 50 to 60 percent efficiency. If the cells could be made
cheaply enough, they could produce electricity for only 1 or 2 cents a
kilowatt-hour.

Dr. Arthur Nozik, a senior research fellow at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., said the advanced solar concepts
were scientifically feasible. But, echoing Dr. Hoffert, Dr. Nozik said:
"We need like a Manhattan Project or an Apollo program to put a lot
more resources into solving the problem. It's going to require a
revolution, not an evolution. I wouldn't expect to get there in 2050 if
we're going at the same pace."

But if scientists succeed with a cheap, efficient solar cell, "you'd be
on Easy Street," Dr. Nozik said.

Wind power is already practical in many places like Denmark, where
17 percent of the electricity comes from wind turbines. The newest
turbines, with propellers as wide in diameter as a football field,
produce energy at a cost of 4 or 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. Further
refinements like lighter rotors could drop the price by another cent or
two, making it directly competitive with natural gas.

Dr. Robert W. Thresher, director of the National Wind Technology
Center at the energy laboratory, envisions large farms of wind turbines
being built offshore. "They would be out of sight," he said. "There's no
shortage of space and wind."

Solar and wind power will be hampered because the sun doesn't
always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. The current power
grid is not well suited for intermittent power sources because the
amount of power produced at any moment must match the amount
being consumed. To exploit the sun and wind, utilities would have to
develop devices that could act as giant batteries.

One concept is to pump compressed air into an underground cavern.
When electricity was needed, the air would be released, and the air
pressure would turn a turbine to generate electricity.

The Big Ideas

Then there are the big ideas that could change everything. To get
around the problem of the intermittency in solar power, solar arrays
could be placed where the sun shines 24 hours a day -- in space. The
power could be beamed to the ground via microwaves.

Another big idea comes from Dr. Klaus S. Lackner, a professor of
geophysics at Columbia University: what if carbon dioxide could be
scrubbed out of the air? His back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate
it may be feasible, although he is far from being ready to demonstrate
how.

But if that were possible, that would eliminate the need to shift from
gasoline to hydrogen for cars. That would save the time and cost of
building pipelines for shipping hydrogen, and gasoline is in many ways
a superior fuel than hydrogen. (Hydrogen needs to be stored under
very high pressure or at very cold temperatures.) Owners of gas-
guzzling S.U.V.'s could assuage their guilt by paying for the scrubbing
of carbon dioxide produced by their vehicles.

Eventually, the captured carbon dioxide could be processed to create
an artificial gasoline, Dr. Lackner said. Then the world would discover,
much to its surprise, that everything old would be new and clean again.

"Carbon may actually be just as clean, just as renewable," Dr.
Lackner said.

................................................................

(last summer)
Heat Threatens Safety of Nuclear Reactors as France Girds for
Electricity Rationing

by Alex Duval Smith
August 11, 2003
lndependent/UK
 http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-
bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/0811-03.htm

The French government is considering national electricity rationing
after engineers warned that they can no longer guarantee the safety of
the country's 58 nuclear power reactors because the heatwave is
defeating efforts to cool them.

A crisis meeting this morning at the Prime Minister's office will be told
that France - which depends more heavily on atomic energy than any
other European country - faces the prospect of shutting down half its
power grid.

Eléctricité de France (EdF) says the temperatures of reactor casings
in some plants are approaching the 50C safety limit and attempts to
cool them by spraying water from the outside have largely failed.
Environment campaigners say the fragile ecosystems of rivers such
as the Rhône and the Garonne - whose levels are already low - are
threatened because nuclear plants are discharging cooling water at
more than 30C, compared with the usual maximum of 24C.

Nicole Fontaine, an industry minister, said the position was serious.
"Usually, when one country needs to reduce production, it can import
power from a European neighbor, such as Britain, Germany or
Switzerland," she said. "This is what has happened in the past. But
production is low everywhere because the heatwave and drought is
affecting everybody. We need to look for solutions at home and find a
balance between consumption, production capacities and
environmental constraints.''

Environment campaigners say the present crisis proves the safety
rules of the French nuclear industry do not allow for extreme
situations and that the electricity and atomic energy authorities are
acting with impunity. Stéphane Lhomme, spokesman for the pressure
group Sortir du Nucléaire (Get out of nuclear), said: "EdF is currently
applying left, right and center for dispensation from safety rules - and
obtaining it. This proves that French environmental protection rules are
seen by EdF to be only of use when everything is going well.''

Since the end of July, the French nuclear safety authority has granted
three plants exemptions from rules limiting the top temperature of
cooling water discharged into rivers to 24C - Bugey on the Rhône,
Tricastin on the Drôme and Golfech on the Garonne. Each has been
allowed, temporarily, to discharge water at 30C. This morning's
ministerial meeting will be told that each is exceeding the new limit.

A further two plants have reduced their output and have applied to
discharge water at more than 24C - Blayais on the Garonne near
Bordeaux and Saint-Alban in the Alps. Le Monde reports that a plant
at Cruas, south of Lyons, has been discharging water at 29.8C
without permission.

Last week, amid much criticism, EdF sprayed Fessenheim nuclear
power station, in Alsace, with water drawn from the water table below
the power station but failed significantly to reduce the 48C
temperature of the reactor casing.

M. Lhomme said: "This crisis comes as the government is preparing
to announce the launch of a new generation of nuclear reactors. What
we should be doing is cutting consumption and freeing up some
money to invest in renewable energy sources, rather than deepening
this country's dependence on nuclear energy.''

................................................................

US INTENTIONS
- A Sobering Look at the Oil Numbers Behind the U.S. Panic to Invade
Iraq
- Bush Knew of Peak Oil Before Taking Office
- Natural Gas Picture Worsens

by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Mar. 7, 2003
containing maps and endnotes (go to the website)
 http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/030703_us_intentions.htm
l

Journalist Julian Darley has a very good website,
www.globalpublicmedia.com, featuring video interviews with notables
such as Colin Campbell and Matthew Simmons. Matthew Simmons is
the president of Simmons & Co. International, a company which
specializes in investment banking to the energy industry. The
Campbell interview1 is a very informative chat at the petroleum
geologist’s home in County Cork, Ireland. It is well worth perusal. The
Matthew Simmons interview2 was recorded in an office of his
business suite, and is also very informative—though it is disappointing
to see a person so perceptive standing firmly behind George W. Bush.
However, in his interview, Matthew Simmons made two very big
revelations.

In the first instance, Mr. Simmons was discussing his email
correspondence with a senior assistant to former secretary of energy
Bill Richardson. The senior assistant informed Mr. Simmons in 1999
that she was accompanying Secretary Richardson on a visit to every
OPEC country. Mr. Simmons told her that if he was undertaking such
a tour, he would ask each country what was their spare oil capacity.
Upon returning to the United States, the senior assistant called Mr.
Simmons and told him that she was quite shocked by the responses
to this question. In country after country, she was told that they were
already pumping at or near capacity. For practical purposes, OPEC
has no spare capacity.

Several of my associates have suspected as much. But in this
interview, Matthew Simmons verifies the fact that OPEC is already
pumping at or very close to full capacity. This means that to meet
growing demand, oil must be found somewhere else. And OPEC most
probably cannot increase output to cover a crisis such as the
Venezuelan strike, or the disruption of Iraqi oil production in the event
of another Gulf War. In fact, it was only a year after Secretary
Richardson made his OPEC tour that world oil production appeared to
peak, beginning the cycle of rising oil prices and tanking economies
which we have been in since. Though Matthew Simmons did not spell
it out, this is the clearest indication to date that we are at peak oil
production.

The second revelation was more political than technical. Matthew
Simmons states in this interview that he advised the Bush campaign
and the subsequent Bush administration of the energy situation. This
admission makes it very clear that George W. Bush and his
administration knew about the approaching energy crisis before even
stepping into the White House. Thus, as we have said at FTW, oil
depletion has loomed in the background of every decision made by
this administration and every action undertaken.

In his recently released book, The Party’s Over3, Richard Heinberg
backs up this assertion and goes on to say that the CIA has
monitored the oil business for some time. Indeed, the CIA subscribes
to the yearly report of oil analysts Petroconsultants, and so must have
seen the 1995 report The World’s Oil Supply. This publication, at a
cost of $35,000 per copy, predicted that global oil production would
peak in the first decade after the turn of the century.4

As we have stated before, Bush needed some catastrophe such as 9-
11 to justify an endless war on multiple fronts. He needed it to provide
cover for an oil grab. Of course, a superpower such as the United
States always acts on a nexus of reasons and in pursuit of multiple
goals, but greed for oil has been a major impetus behind pretty much
everything this administration has done since taking office. Could oil
really lie behind Bush’s push to unseat Saddam Hussein? Perhaps
we should rephrase this question: How could oil not lie behind Bush’s
push for the conquest of Iraq?

Iraq

Even unnamed senior US defense officials are stating that the plan is
to take the oil fields as quickly as possible, supposedly to protect
them from Saddam.5 British troops will be used to seize the oil fields
so as to thwart the appearance of a US oil grab. However, ExxonMobil
is in the lead position for rehabilitating the Iraqi oil fields. Oil
executives are quoted as saying there is a desperate need to find
another 80 million barrels per day to meet growing oil demand.6 Might
we add that this growing demand cannot be met elsewhere because
of the abovementioned lack of spare capacity.

Even after seizing Iraq’s oil fields and quelling unrest throughout the
country, the oil majors will find it very difficult to increase Iraqi oil
production in the short term. They may even have to cut production
from its current level, as Iraq has been using unsound methods to
pump the amount of oil which they are currently generating. Before the
1991 Gulf War and the decade long Iraq-Iran War, Iraq was pumping
an average of 3.5 million barrels per day (b/d). 7 In 2001, Iraq averaged
2.45 million b/d, and experts say their current sustainable production
capacity could go no higher than 2.8-3.0 million b/d.8

Most of Iraq’s current oil production is centered around three large
fields, the Kirkuk field in the north of Iraq (10+ billion barrels), the East
Baghdad field in the central part of the country (11+ billion barrels),
and the Rumailah fields in the south of Iraq (10+ billion barrels).9
There are two other very large fields in southern Iraq which are
basically untapped to date: the Majnoon field near the Iranian border
(20+ billion barrels, possible as much as 30 billion barrels), and the
West Kuma field closely associated with the Rumailah field (15+
billion barrels).10 Other notable fields are Nahr bin Umar (6+ billion
barrels), Rattawi (3.1 billion barrels), Halfaya (2.5-4.6 billion barrels),
Zubair (4 billion barrels), Nassiriya (2-2.6 billion barrels), Suba-Luhais
(2.2 billion barrels), Bai Hassan (2 billion barrels), Buzurgan (2 billion
barrels), Khabboz (2 billion barrels), Abu Ghirab (1.5 billion barrels),
Khormala (1.5 billion barrels), Tuba (1.5 billion barrels), Gharraf (1.0-
1.1 billion barrels). All told, including a number of smaller fields not
mentioned here, Iraq holds proven assets of 112 billion barrels of oil.
The unexplored regions of the Western Desert could add as much as
another 100 billion barrels to this total. The area is known to contain
oil-bearing Jurassic, Triassic and Paleozoic formations, though they
are buried much deeper than the eastern formations and so might
provide more natural gas than oil.11

Much of Iraq’s oil industry was damaged during the 1991 Gulf War.
Completely destroyed were the gathering centers and
compression/degassing stations at Rumailah, storage facilities, and
pumping stations along the Iraqi Strategic (North-South) Pipeline.12
Many sizable fields were damaged and have remained unrepaired.
Sixty percent of Northern Oil Company's facilities in northern and
central Iraq were damaged during the Gulf War.13 Iraq’s oil export
infrastructure was also severely damaged during both the Iraq-Iran
War and the 1991 Gulf War. Pipelines, ports and pumping stations
have all been affected. And Iraq’s two main Persian Gulf tanker
terminals, Mina al-Bakr and Khor al-Amaya, were heavily damaged
during the Gulf War. Damage to Mina al-Bakr appears to have been
largely repaired over the past decade. Khor al-Amaya, on the other
hand, was severely damaged during the Iraq-Iran War and then
completely destroyed during Operation Desert Storm.14

During the decade of sanctions following the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq tried
to maintain production at existing fields despite an embargo on spare
parts and oilfield equipment. Many of the reservoirs in production have
been damaged through mismanagement and the use of questionable
techniques in an effort to increase current production at the price of
future production. In addition to the naturally occurring problem of
water cut in Iraq’s southern wells (the damaging intrusion of water into
oil reservoirs), many fields have been damaged by the practice known
as water flooding in order to boost current production. Iraq’s oil
minister stated that in 2002 only 24 of 73 Iraqi oil fields were
producing. Oil consulting firm Saybolt International has pointed out the
risk of a 5% to 15% annual production decline at damaged Iraqi oil
fields. A U.N. report in June 2001 said that Iraqi oil production
capacity would fall sharply unless technical and infrastructure
problems were addressed. And U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
has warned of a possible "major breakdown" in Iraq's oil industry if
spare parts and equipment are not forthcoming. The United States
has resisted any efforts for a long term solution to the problems,
insisting on only short-term improvements to the oil industry.
According to the head of the UN Iraq program, Benon Sevan, the
number of holds placed on contracts for oil field equipment threatens
the entire program with paralysis. Sevan stated in January 2002 that
the United States placed over 80% of the holds, which affect nearly
2,000 contracts worth approximately $5 billion.15

Solving these problems will require major investment from a
consortium of international oil companies. It will take at least a
decade to double output, providing there is no further damage done. It
will take at least $7 billion worth of investment to bring Iraq back to its
3.5 million b/d production level. Pushing past that level to 5.5 million
b/d will require at least $20 billion of investment. Analysts say Iraq
has the capacity to produce double that amount, albeit at an
extraordinary cost over an extended period of time.16 Many
international companies have stepped up to offer the needed
investment. Iraq has signed multi-billion dollar deals with companies
from China, France and Russia. And in recent months Iraq has signed
a number of deals with companies from Italy (Eni), Spain (Repsol
YPF), Russia (Tatneft), France (TotalFinaElf), China, India, Turkey,
and others.17 However, none of these deals can move forward until
they are okayed by the U.N. Security Council.

Could all of this go toward explaining why it has become so urgent for
the United States to make war on Iraq and take over control of Iraqi oil
fields? For over a decade, the U.S. has blocked any reparations or
new development of Iraqi oil resources. In 2001, reports finally came
out announcing that without increased access to spare parts, repairs
and new technology, Iraqi oil fields could be damaged permanently.
Pressure is building in the U.N. to allow this remediation and
modernization of Iraqi oil infrastructure. Iraq is awarding contracts to
major oil companies from various countries, excluding U.S. and British
companies. And all of this is being blocked largely by the U.S., while
U.S. and British oil companies line up for a piece of the action in the
aftermath of an Iraqi conquest.

Let’s see, are there any pieces of the picture which we are missing?
Oh yes, the U.S. is studying international law to determine oil field
rights in the event of a U.S. & British conquest of Iraq. And they
believe that international law would give them considerable leeway in
managing Iraq’s oil fields (for the benefit of the Iraqi people, of
course).18

And now, to round out this picture, let’s look at Iraqi oil exports as
compared to US imports. As of July 2002, Iraq was producing 1.99
million b/d (oil production was 2.45 million b/d in 2001). Of this, they
export 1.5 million b/d, over one-third of that, 566,000 b/d to the U.S.
This is down from 795,000 b/d (or 53%) in 2001. The route to the U.S.
is very circuitous, as the oil is first purchased by companies from
many countries, including Cyprus, Sudan, Pakistan, China, Vietnam,
Egypt, Italy, Ukraine, and others and then is resold to U.S. importers,
including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Citgo, BP, Marathon, Coastal, Valero,
Koch, and Premcor.19 There is also an unknown amount of oil being
smuggled out through Syria and other countries. It is difficult to say
how much of this, if any, is making its way to the U.S.

Now let’s look at the U.S. side of this equation. The U.S. imported an
average of 10.3 million b/d as of September 2002. Of this, Iraqi oil
would only amount to 6% of U.S. imports (8% in 2001). However, the
U.S. derives around 26% of its daily oil imports from the Middle
East—that is 2.3 million b/d as of August 2002. So Iraqi oil accounts
for about one-quarter of our Middle East imports. Comparing Iraqi
imports to our top sources of imports, Saudi Arabia exports 1.49
million b/d to the U.S. (14% of total imports), Mexico exports 1.46
million b/d (also 14% of total U.S. imports), Canada exports 1.37
million b/d to the U.S. (13% of the total), and Venezuela—prior to the
oil strike—exported 1.14 million b/d (11% of the total).20 If this
ranking of major oil imports was continued, Iraq would probably rank in
the top ten. However, were the sanctions removed and the oil
infrastructure repaired, Iraq would undoubtedly rival Saudi Arabia for
the number one position; especially under a US military protectorate
with US and British companies running the oil business. Beyond this,
the conquest of Iraq—if successful—would allow us to add badly
needed spare capacity to world oil production and it might stop the
flight of oil countries from the petrodollar to the euro.

Other Oil News

Venezuela is still recovering from the oil strike. The EIA now states
that Venezuelan oil production gradually rose to 1.2 million b/d in
February.21 The EIA’s current short-term energy outlook assumes
that the Venezuelan oil crisis will be over by March.22 However, they
warn that Venezuelan supplies will not approach pre-crisis levels for
another several months. Furthermore, it is possible that around
700,000 b/d of production may be permanently lost due to the
strike.23 The EIA warns that OPEC efforts to increase output to make
up for lower Venezuelan exports has reduced global spare capacity to
only 2 million b/d—this spare capacity coming almost entirely from
Saudi Arabia. There is very little room remaining to make up for
unexpected supply drops or demand increases.24

On top of this, Nigeria’s white collar union began an oil export strike
on Saturday, February 15th. Nigeria is the seventh largest oil exporter
in the world. Royal Dutch/Shell, the country’s biggest producer,
pumps an average 900,000 b/d. The oil companies expect to replace
strikers with senior staff, and point out that previous strikes had little
impact on exports. However, fear of the strike caused oil prices to
temporarily jump by 16 cents per barrel.25 It is evident that the market
is now so tight and the world economy so gun-shy that it is to be
wondered how the world will survive an invasion of Iraq.

On top of all this, there was a small item in the Australian newspaper
The Courier Mail stating that leftist rebels in Colombia have blown up a
large section of that country’s most important pipeline. Operated by
Occidental Petroleum, the pipeline carried 105,000 b/d.26 Little more
is to be found about this story on the various news wires. The Bush
administration has been bolstering military aid to Colombia, including
increasing numbers of advisors. They have impressed upon the
Colombian military that it is of primary importance to protect the oil
pipelines, and they have labeled the rebels as international terrorists.
What response there will be on the part of the U.S. to this latest strike
at U.S. oil interests is hard to say.

Finally, in the EIA weekly petroleum updates, we find that for the
week ending February 7th, crude oil imports declined by another 1.2
million barrels from the previous week. U.S. commercial crude
inventories for that week sank to 269.8 million barrels, just crossing
the Lower Operational Inventory Level (LOIL). This is the lowest
inventory level since October 1975. However, in the week ending
February 14th, crude oil imports rose to nearly 8.8 million b/d, the
largest weekly average since December 20th. U.S. commercial crude
inventories increased by 3.1 million barrels to 272.9 million barrels.
This was back above the LOIL, but still 50.4 million barrels below the
level of a year ago.27

Natural Gas

The picture for natural gas (NG) is even worse. As of February 14th,
NG storage stood at 1,168 billion cubic feet (Bcf), down by 203 Bcf
from the week previous. This was 868 Bcf less that a year ago and
436 Bcf below the 5-year average of 1,604 Bcf.28 In an article in The
Oklahoman, Tony Say, president of gas marketing company
Clearwater Enterprises said he expects NG reserves to reach an all-
time low of 600 Bcf by the end of the season. Bruce Bell, Chairman of
the Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association’s Oklahoma Division, warned
that once you get down to 700 Bcf there are serious doubts as to how
much gas can be withdrawn. The nation's gas reserves are stored in
underground caverns, where there must be a certain amount of gas to
create enough pressure to force the reserves out.29

Raymond James & Associates, in a recent report on natural gas,
points out that NG production will continue to fall by 1.0 -1.5% per
quarter for the foreseeable future. They warn that even if production
returned to the feverish pitch of 2001, it would take three to six
months before the new production would begin to slow down the
natural declines in existing wells.30 Yet the NG rig total has hovered
between 800 and 900 for the past year; at least 100 less than the
number needed to meet national demand, according to Bruce Bell.
Despite rising NG prices for the last couple months, work has begun
on only 15 new wells.31

And according the Lehman Brothers, Canadian gas production is
continuing to fall by as much as 4%. And this drop will coincide with a
500 million cubic feet per day decrease in NG exports to the U.S.
Canadian NG demand rose in 2002 by 2 to 3% from the previous year.
Net exports to the U.S. are expected to fall by 5% in 2003.32

Based on all of this data, the NG crunch of this year could lead to an
NG crisis a year from now.

go to the website for maps and endnotes
 http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/030703_us_intentions.htm
l

................................................................

Sometimes, It Seems The Only Good Economic News Is For
Halliburton.

After Pentagon auditors found "discrepancies" that indicated over-
billing by Halliburton at military bases in Iraq and Kuwait of more than
$27 million, Halliburton has agreed to reimburse the government for
these "possible" overcharges.

But somehow, the good news continues for Halliburton. Secretary of
the Interior, Gale Norton, has announced that she will allow oil and gas
companies to drill on government property in the Gulf of Mexico without
paying royalties. Halliburton is a principal beneficiary of the plan,
which is expected to cost the Treasury nearly $1.1 billion over the next
ten years.

Oh, do we need to be reminded? Halliburton was headed by Vice
President Richard Cheney until May 2000. He still receives
compensation from the company and owns 433,000 stock options.

................................................................

One of the countries which was looking to Iraq for oil was China. Of
course, China has an enormous and growing POSITIVE balance of
trade with the USA. Presumably, it supported the Iraq invasion in
return for the promise of access to Iraqi oil with some of those
American dollars it has under its bed (and also, of course, the
American betrayal of Taiwan, all in good time, into the hands of China).

So here's an interesting thing about China and oil. China has also
signed a big natural gas contract with Oz.

peace geoff

----------------

Fuel-hungry China goes far afield to secure oil

The Seattle Times
February 04, 2004
By Ellen Knickmeyer, The Associated Press

DAKAR, Senegal - The West African nation of Gabon isn't one of the
world's more high-profile countries. So why a state visit by China's
leader?

That's easy: oil.

Burning fuel at a record pace to run an economy in overdrive, China,
since late last year, has claimed the No. 2 spot in world oil imports,
second only to the United States. And jostling with the world's other
oil gulpers, China's leaders are looking far afield for a secure oil
supply, locking down tough-term deals with easy-term cash.

China, the United States, Japan, Europe and, increasingly, India—all
leery of dependence on the volatile Middle East—are elbowing each
other in a rush to nontraditional oil sources in West Africa, the
Caspian Sea region, Russia, South America and elsewhere.

That's what brought Chinese President Hu Jintao to Gabon this week.
He opened the three-day state visit - his only sub-Saharan stop on a
four-nation tour - pledging lasting, lucrative friendship between
resource-rich Africa and resource-voracious China.

China's broadening of drilling and mining in Africa comes "with the aim
of promoting development by the principle of 'win-win,' " Hu told
Gabon's lawmakers Monday. He spoke in a parliament building being
rebuilt by no-interest Chinese loans.

On the sidelines, China, Gabon and France's Total Gabon oil firm
signed a multimillion-dollar series of deals guaranteeing China a set,
steady flow of Gabonese oil. Despite any rival bids or Gabon's own
declining supplies, "it means that Gabon will always have to make oil
available ... to sell to China," Oil Minister Onouviet explained proudly
on Gabonese radio.

The Chinese leader moved yesterday to Algeria - a north African
nation absorbed in its struggle against a bloody Islamic extremist
group, and a no-go zone for most world leaders. But Hu has a
particular reason to visit Algeria - the hundreds of millions of dollars
China has invested in refineries there since last year.

And back in China, the economy - booming at 9.9 percent annual,
with business and family-car ownership surging - is waiting to see
what Hu brings home from his oil trip.

China is driving global demand, hard.

"It's sucking up a lot of the world's oil resources," said Antoine Halff,
demand specialist at the International Energy Agency. "It's a large
market and steep growth, and it's not getting the oil it's looking for."

According to recent Oil Market Report issued by International Energy
Agency (IEA), China will need 5.8 million barrels of oil every day in
2004. Official statistics showed that the volume of imported oil has
increased from over 20 million tons to 70 million tons from 1996 to
2002. China imported approximately 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per
day in the international market during the time, the report added.

Until very recently, China, like the West and Japan, largely had been
looking for oil imports where everyone else was - the Middle East,
source of 60 percent of Chinese oil imports. But increasingly, the
world's powers are questioning the wisdom of leaving national
economies to rest on the explosive region.

The result is an oil boom in places like West Africa. In Angola,
Nigeria, Gabon and other oil-producing states, China and other Asian
nations in 2003 competed aggressively with Europe and the United
States for deals.

It can be easier for China, which doesn't have to worry as much as
Western oil companies about criticism of foreign partnerships, said
Galvin Hayman of London-based Global Witness, which calls for
transparency in international oil deals.

For example, when a Canadian company pulled out of Sudan in 2002
amid complaints that oil was helping fund civil war, Asian partnerships
led by China, India and Malaysia in 2003 moved in.

"China has a willingness to go to places where others may have
constraints - in the Sudan, for instance," said Halff, with the
International Energy Agency.

"They have their agenda, and they are acting according to their
agenda," Halff said. "Their primary concern is to ensure sufficient
supply, and sufficient diversified supply."

But industry analysts say China today may be sinking some of its
money into questionable sources of supply such as Kazakstan, Peru,
and Gabon. Exploring wells now increasingly are coming up dry -
suggesting Gabon may soon be tapped out.
................................................................

What should we do about the power crisis?
 http://www.markfiore.com/animation/taskforce.swf

................................................................

Bush Administration Makes Fresh Grab for Alaska Oil
Decision to drill it all ignores public

Press Release 23 January 2004
 http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=765

Disregarding public calls to strike a balance between oil development
and environmental protection in the National Petroleum Reserve -
Alaska, the Bush administration today announced that it will make the
entire 8.8-million-acre northwest planning area of the reserve available
for oil leasing. The 23.5-million-acre NPR-A, located in America's
western Arctic, is the largest remaining block of unprotected land in
the nation. The region is home to myriad wildlife and waterfowl, and is
a vital subsistence hunting and fishing ground for native Alaskans.

"This decision certainly gives big oil and gas plenty to be thankful for,"
said Eleanor Huffines, Alaska Regional Director of The Wilderness
Society. "It fails to give real protection to one single acre, resource, or
cultural value in the western Arctic. All we've asked for is a rational
balance between oil and gas development and protecting wildlife and
the environment, but apparently even that was beyond the capacity of
this administration to understand."

"Conservation groups presented the administration with an alternative
that would have allowed oil leasing, while putting a few of the most
special areas off limits. What's shocking is that not only did the
administration say 'no,' it refused even to consider this option," said
Deirdre McDonnell of Earthjustice in Juneau.

BLM's deferral of leasing in some areas near Peard Bay and
Kasegaluk Lagoon offers no real or permanent protection for these
important wildlife and subsistence resources. The decision makes
these areas available immediately for intrusive seismic surveys, as
well as future oil and gas development. Because it will take at least
ten years for pipelines and other oil industry infrastructure to reach the
area, the deferrals have no real-world impact.

Today's decision weakens current environmental safeguards by
allowing the Bureau of Land Management to modify or waive all of
them on a case-by-case basis for economic reasons. It also changes
existing strict lease requirements designed to protect wildlife and the
environment, substituting vague guidelines, to be set and monitored
by the industry itself.

"What makes this even worse is that BLM has failed to study the
effects of oil activities on the environment as it promised to do. It even
dismantled its Research and Monitoring Team," said Cindy Shogan,
executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League.

A report last year by the National Academy of Sciences found that
after more than 25 years of drilling on Alaska's North Slope, industrial
activity has damaged wildland values, clean air, and clean water over
an area far exceeding the area of the oil drilling complex itself, and
warned of possible future dangers to human health in the region. The
NAS also reported that wildlife has suffered in a number of ways,
including direct mortality and displacement, reduced reproductive
rates of birds and caribou, and altered distributions of caribou and
bowhead whales.

Conservation groups and the public, as well as experts from the US
Fish and Wildlife Service, urged the administration to protect key
areas, such as Dease Inlet, the southern Ikpikpuk River and adjacent
wetlands, Peard Bay and Kasegaluk Lagoon from oil development.
These areas contain globally important summer bird habitat for ducks
and geese that migrate to almost every continent. Part of a vast
network of coastal lagoons, deep water lakes, wet sedge grass
meadows, and braided streams, the region harbors nearly one in four
of the world's Pacific black brant population. Kasegaluk Lagoon
provides critical habitat for the greatest aggregations of beluga whales
and spotted seals in northern Alaska.

"This administration threw away the chance to protect some of the
nation's last arctic gems," said Mike Matz, executive director of the
Campaign for America's Wilderness. "Instead of seizing an
opportunity to set aside some of the area's treasures for our children
and theirs, they have again sacrificed our public land. Future
generations will be the poorer for it."

................................................................

Caribou like oil
 http://www.markfiore.com/animation/caribou01.html

................................................................

10 Reasons to Drill ... Today
The case for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

by Chris Colin
22 Mar 2001
 http://www.gristmagazine.com/imho/imho032201.asp

Who doesn't want to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
It'll be fun! We will wear special outfits, and when the oil gets in our
mustaches, we'll take silly pictures and send them as postcards. The
future, now more than ever, is a vast, inky utopia. Babies will squeal
with delight and Alaskan koalas will slip in the oil in the most adorable
ways. (Ed. -- do they have koalas up there? can we make that
happen?)

Sadly, some people (generally sex offenders, future studies are likely
to reveal) oppose the drilling plan. Despite the guaranteed fun, these
party poopers continue to drag their bare and frequently unwashed
feet. Drilling will "ruin" the site for no more than six months' worth of
oil, they complain. Well, it goes without saying that six months -- half
a year -- is a long time; in some cultures (Ed. -- check stat, I think it's
the Indians or something), it's actually considered closer to 15 years.

If slipping koalas and 15 years of energy pleasure aren't enough, here
are 10 more glistening reasons to plunge a masculine drill into
Alaska's "Opportunity Refuge."

1. Penicillin II. Those opposed to progress complain that an oil spill on
Alaska's North Slope is reported every 18 hours. Needless to say, a
"spill" is a mistake, and a mistake is simply a challenge -- if
Copernicus hadn't made a "mistake," he never would have discovered
penicillin.

2. Caribou. Sure, they're cute in small numbers. But unchecked, their
population will swell and they'll make their way down to our proud
cities. These hair-covered immigrants will eat our food and steal our
jobs (unconfirmed).

3. That sparkly shine. The quiet beauty of a parking lot oil puddle --
the mesmerizing colors, the blackest black -- can now be a little less
quiet. Picture a proud musk ox admiring a shiny acre of oil: This is
Mother Nature saying, "We just upped the ante!"

4. The children. Think of the children, who love oil with all their
precious hearts. We must leave no child behind. Children are our
most precious resource. Ban drilling and face their deep, wordless
grief.

5. Progress. Tired of non-large vehicles that fit, pitifully, in a single
parking space? Soon we'll have enough oil to fuel four mega-SUVs per
household, larger than ever, with enough left over to dump on our
enemies' heads. America's trucks will be so big that even the popular
girls, with the tiny backpacks, will like us.

6. Seals. They're fat. Sure, their faces may be mildly cute, but look at
their midsections. Pure blubber. Who bends over backward to save
blubber? Fools, that's who.

7. Common sense. The world's largest oil rig sank Tuesday,
jeopardizing the 400,000 gallons of crude oil and diesel fuel that were
aboard. We must drill for more oil to replace what was lost this week.
And if we spill that, we will drill elsewhere. This can continue
indefinitely according to most data.

8. Penguins. There aren't any in Alaska. Drilling will allow penguins to
be as free as ever. Who doesn't love the way they walk? Who doesn't
love freedom?

9. The Bible. The good book clearly tells us to support the oil
companies. It's in there. Look toward the middle. This is faith-based
energy policy.

10. Money. Every dime of profit will be donated to charity. Swear to
God.

................................................................

Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,

Over the next few weeks, President Bush and his congressional allies
will try once again to ram their disastrous energy bill through the U.S.
Senate. They fell only two votes short in November and they've vowed
to make passage of the bill their top priority now that Congress has
returned from recess.

This bill may be the worst piece of legislation you and I will see in our
lifetimes. It would pick your pocket, despoil your natural heritage,
endanger your family's health and smother your hope for a more
secure energy future. We ignore this bill at our own peril.

Let me tell you our simple plan for thwarting this shameless attack on
our environment and pocketbooks. If millions of Americans each took
one minute to protest this bill, it would cause every senator who is
tempted to vote for it to think twice about doing so.

You can make this happen within the next few hours by doing two
things:

First, go to  http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401
and send your two senators an email or fax, telling them to vote
against this pro-polluter energy bill. Then, forward my email to at least
four of your friends, family members or colleagues.

I am emailing this message to 500,000 BioGems Defenders and other
NRDC activists. If each one forwards this message to just four more
people, we will generate a national tidal wave of opposition before this
day is over.

And that won't be a moment too soon. This disgraceful bill would pick
our pockets to hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the
oil, coal and nuclear industries. That's their long-awaited reward for
making big-time contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. They
profit while the rest of us pay the price -- in tax dollars and
environmental degradation.

This bill gives the energy giants a free pass to drill their way through
our last wild places, burn more dirty coal, build a new generation of
risky nuclear power plants and dramatically increase air pollution that
would sicken the vulnerable -- especially children and seniors -- for
decades to come.

It would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of our
federal public lands, open national parks to the construction of
electricity transmission lines, exempt polluters from core provisions of
our clean air and water laws and waive liability for the producers of the
toxic gasoline additive MTBE -- even though it has contaminated at
least 1,500 public water supplies in all 50 American states.

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more backward-looking,
wasteful and self-defeating energy "plan" than this one. At a time
when the federal deficit is soaring and we're going to war in the
Persian Gulf oilfields, the White House wants to stick us with the tab
for prolonging our destructive dependence on fossil fuels, foreign oil
and dangerous nuclear technology.

This is not a national energy policy. This is corporate welfare, pure
and simple. Estimates of the bill's corporate tax breaks range from
$23 billion to well over $100 billion with loan guarantees included. No
surprise there. Big energy companies cooked up this raid on the
federal treasury during hundreds of secret meetings with Vice
President Cheney's energy task force and their allies on Capitol Hill.

It's one thing to gouge taxpayers. But to claim this rip-off is in the
national interest, as the White House would have us believe, is a slap
in the face to every working American.

Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of voters -- of both parties --
understand that we simply must reduce our out-of-control appetite for
fossil fuels if we ever are to secure energy independence. That means
turning American rooftops into the Persian Gulf of solar energy. It
means producing cars that get 40 miles per gallon. It means
constructing efficient buildings that use half the energy of the average
American office without sacrificing comfort.

Making this transformation to a super-efficient, low-pollution economy
would save consumers upwards of a trillion dollars, spare our last wild
places from destruction, improve our health, slow global warming and
reduce our dependence on undemocratic regimes overseas. It's a no-
brainer to anyone living outside the White House.

But unless millions of Americans speak out right now, the enactment
of the president's energy bill will doom us to an apocalyptic future of
blighted wilderness, poisonous air pollution, devastating climate
change and endless wars over fossil fuels.

Please make your voice heard. Go to
 http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401 and tell your
senators to obey the will of the American people, *not* the dictates of
giant energy corporations! Call on Congress to create a sustainable
and affordable energy path.

And please be sure to forward this message to at least four other
people. Believe me, millions of Americans are just waiting for a simple
way to stop this madness and lend their support to a sane and
hopeful energy future.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Redford Board of Trustees Natural Resources Defense Council

-------

BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places A project of the Natural
Resources Defense Council  http://www.savebiogems.org

................................................................

Houston, We Have A Solution
Supporters Claim $300 Billion Energy Plan Would Create 3.3 Million
Jobs

A coalition called the Apollo Alliance released a report last week
proposing and outlining a 10-year, $300 billion investment in
alternative energy sources, which it claimed would create 3.3 million
jobs and more than pay for itself through energy savings and
economic stimulation. The 10-point plan -- which contains
prescriptions for everything from more efficient factories to modernized
electrical plants to hybrid cars -- contrasts sharply with the Bush
administration's proposed energy plan, which would heavily subsidize
the oil, gas, and nuclear industries. The report prompted criticism
from economists and analysts at conservative organizations and
statements of support from Democrats, including the candidates for
president. In a statement, Howard Dean used the report to criticize
Bush, saying, "This administration's fealty to its corporate benefactors
in the oil industry has caused our nation to fall behind in what will be
one of the most important new industries of the 21st century."

source: MSNBC.com, 14 Jan 2004
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3957186&p1=0
go to URL for more details

................................................................

Power - the solution
 http://www.markfiore.com/animation/power.swf

................................................................

Europeans Urged To Help Themselves And The Poor
by Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN, (IPS) An international conference has urged European
nations to boost the share of renewables in their energy consumption
and to assist developing countries in energy strategies.

The call emerged from the three-day 'European Conference for
Renewable Energy 'Intelligent Policy Options' in Berlin Jan. 19-21. The
conference drew more than 650 participants from 45 countries.

Organised by the European Commission, executive arm of the 15-
nation European Union (EU), it was a regional preparatory meeting
ahead of the International Conference for Renewable Energies
'officially known as Renewables 2004' to be held June 1-4 in Bonn.

The Berlin conference was preceded by regional meetings in Brazil
and Kenya; further preparatory conferences will follow in the next few
weeks in Yemen and Thailand.

More than 1,000 participants are expected at Renewables 2004.

The main issue before representatives of governments, international
organisations, energy companies and nongovernmental organisations
(NGOs) will be to find ways of expanding use of renewable energy
sources. They are expected to draw an action plan in which
stakeholders lay down their commitments.

The Berlin gathering was like a milestone on the road to Bonn.

"External financial aid in the energy field is needed in order to achieve
the Millennium Development Goals and to reduce poverty," says a six-
page document titled 'Berlin Conclusions' emerging from the
conference this week..

"Increased efforts should be made to assist developing countries in
establishing energy strategies for sustainable development that
appropriately address poverty eradication," the document says.

"The EU Energy Initiative serves as a vehicle to achieve this and to
provide modern energy services," the Berlin document says. "This aid
should be provided with full national ownership and in a manner that
supports the use of renewable energy and strengthens the active
involvement of local financial institutions."

The conference also urged EU institutions to "start a political process
of setting ambitious, time-bound targets for increasing the share of
renewable energy." It said "a target value of at least 20 percent gross
inland energy consumption by 2020" for the EU was achievable.

The Berlin conclusions were welcomed by German government
representatives and by a coalition of NGOs.

The conclusions are a clear signal to expand renewable energy
globally, said German environment minister Juergen Trittin. "We
Europeans have made it explicit that we wish to be the initiator,
precursor and the driving force behind the worldwide expansion of
renewable energies."

It is important to achieve a global breakthrough for energy generated
from wind, water, sun, biomass, and geothermal heat, says German
development cooperation minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. "Two
billion people have no access to modern energy," she says. "Access
to energy is decisive for worldwide poverty reduction."

An estimated 1.6 million people die every year from illnesses caused
by indoor air pollution due to energy use.

Eighteen NGOs within Citizens United for Renewable Energy and
Sustainability (CURES) welcomed the Berlin conference's strong plea
for increasing use of renewable energy. "The EU's credibility is at
stake," CURES spokesman Juergen Maier told IPS.

The Berlin preparatory meeting for Renewables 2004 urges EU
institutions to start a political process of setting ambitious, time-
bound targets for increasing the share of renewables, said Maier.

The European Commission and the Irish presidency have prime
responsibility in showing leadership before the Bonn conference,
Maier said. "Now these targets have to be translated into binding EU
directives."

Renewables 2004 was convened because clear targets for renewable
energy could not be agreed at the World Summit on Social
Development (WSSD) 2002 in Johannesburg, CURES said in a
statement.

EU members and other countries then launched the Johannesburg
Renewable Energy Coalition (JERC), and Germany decided to
organise Renewables 2004. This created a unique opportunity to
promote global development of renewable energy with clear targets
and measures. "This opportunity must not be wasted," CURES says.

A major obstacle has been lack of commitment by the European
Commission, says Maier. Commissioner for energy Loyola de Palacio
has continuously blocked the setting of clear targets for renewables,
he says.

"The fact that she (de Palacio) did not attend this conference clearly
illustrates the importance she gives to renewables," said Maier. "The
Commission must change course so that the EU can lead a global
process of transformation towards a sustainable energy system and
fulfil its Kyoto Protocol commitments."

The text of the protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change was adopted in Kyoto in Japan Dec. 11, 1997. The
protocol shall enter into force three months after it is ratified by
countries that account for at least 55 percent of carbon dioxide
emissions.

"The global challenge of protecting our climate requires a renewed,
environmentally compatible and sustainable energy system," Trittin
told participants at the conference. "We will have to lower greenhouse
gas emissions by at least 30 percent by 2050 if we are to prevent
dangerous climate change."

CURES says that to make Renewables 2004 a success it is
necessary that countries of the enlarged EU agree on a series of
issues ahead of the conference in June. It wants agreement on a new
target of at least 25 percent renewable energy in the total energy
supply by 2020. The existing target for 2010 is 12 percent.

European input to international cooperation for new renewable energy
must also be defined, CURES says. EU countries should involve other
countries in long-term cooperation for renewable energy.

It wants the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and other
multilateral development banks to stop financing fossil and nuclear
energy, and to reserve energy investments for renewable energy and
energy efficiency as recently recommended by the World Bank's
extractive industries review.

The same approach must apply to regional EU development activities,
including the Euro-Mediterranean action plan and cooperation with non-
EU Europe, says CURES.

................................................................

Greenhouse gas emissions trading directive enters into force
 http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/1?204&OIDN=1506563

The directive establishing an EU-wide greenhouse gas emissions
trading scheme entered into force on 25 October. Member States
have until 31 December 2003 at the latest to bring into force at
national level the laws, regulations and administrative provisions
necessary to comply with this directive.

Background:

In order to minimise the economic costs of its Kyoto commitments on
combating climate change, the European Union is setting up an EU-
wide market for carbon dioxide emissions of companies. Under this
trading scheme, around 10,000 EU companies will be able (from 1
January 2005 onwards) to buy and sell permits to emit carbon dioxide.

Issues:

According to the directive establishing an EU-wide greenhouse gas
emissions trading scheme (published in the Official Journal on 25
October 2003) Member States have until 31 March 2004 to be ready
with their national emission allocation plans. These plans will set the
number of tradable allowances allocated to each of the industrial
installations participating in the scheme.

The directive allows companies who are doing better at reducing their
emissions than their nationally set targets to sell their credits to
others (who are not reaching their objectives). The EU hopes that this
system will stimulate innovation and create incentives for companies
to reduce these emissions.

Next Steps:

* Member States have until 31 December 2003 at the latest to bring
into force at national level the laws, regulations and administrative
provisions necessary to comply with this directive
* March 2004: Member States have to be ready with their national
emission allocation plans
* 1 January 2005: start of the emissions trading scheme in the EU
* In 2004 and 2006, the Commission will assess the scheme and
might then include other sectors, such as the chemicals, aluminium
or transport sector

For links and EU actor positions, go to website
 http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/1?204&OIDN=1506563

................................................................

Earth 'Entering Uncharted Waters'

by Alex Kirby
BBC News
January 20, 2004
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3411053.stm

The Earth has entered a new era, one in which human beings may be
the dominant force, say four environmental leaders.

In the International Herald Tribune, they say the uncertainty,
magnitude and speed of change in many of the Earth's systems is
without precedent.

The four, who include Margot Wallstrom, the European environment
commissioner, say uncertainty cannot excuse inaction.

They believe humanity may cross some critical thresholds unawares,
setting off changes which cannot be reversed.

Change at a gallop

The other authors are Professor Bert Bolin, founding chair of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Professor Paul Crutzen,
winner of the 1995 Nobel prize for chemistry; and Dr Will Steffen,
director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

Their article, The Earth's Threatened Life-Support System: A Global
Wake-Up Call, marks the publication of an IGBP book, Global Change
And The Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure.

They write: "Our planet is changing fast. Change is a fact of life, but in
recent decades many environmental indicators have moved outside
the range of variation of the last half million years...

"It is the magnitude and rate of human-driven change that are most
alarming.

"The human-driven increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is nearly
100 parts per million and still growing -- already equal to the entire
range experienced between an ice age and a warm period such as the
present.

"And this human-driven increase has occurred at least 10 times faster
than any natural increase in the last half million years."

They envisage the possibility, beyond 2050, of "rapid regional climate
change, as would be caused by changes in ocean circulation in the
North Atlantic, and irreversible changes, such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet and the concomitant sea-level rise of six metres".

No compass

The authors write: "The Earth has entered the so-called Anthropocene
-- the geologic epoch in which humans are a significant and
sometimes dominating environmental force.

"Records from the geological past indicate that never before has the
Earth experienced the current suite of simultaneous changes: we are
sailing into planetary terra incognita."

They argue for a precautionary approach, partly because natural
systems can flip very rapidly from one stable state to another.

The writers say: "We are unsure of just how serious our interference
with Earth system dynamics will prove to be, but... there are
significant risks of rapid and irreversible changes to which it would be
very difficult to adapt."

Dr Steffen told BBC News Online: "It would take about a millennium
for the Greenland ice sheet to melt. But we could reach the trigger
point that makes the process unstoppable within the next century.

"The book makes the point that this is global change -- it looks at the
range of effects, at how they're happening simultaneously, and at how
they're reinforcing each other.

"It's a synthesis of the science, the best consensus - and it honestly
acknowledges the unknowns."

................................................................

Indian Wisdom

An old Indian chief sat in his hut on the reservation, smoking a
ceremonial pipe and eyeing two US government officials sent to
interview him.

"Chief Two Eagles," asked one official, "you have observed the white
man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his material wealth.
You've seen his progress, and the damage he's done."

The chief nodded in agreement. The official continued, "Considering all
these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?"

The chief stared at the government officials for over a minute and then
calmly replied, "When white man found the land, Indians were running
it.

No taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, women did all the
work, medicine man free, Indian man spent all day hunting and
fishing, all night having sex."

Then the chief leaned back and smiled, "White man dumb enough to
think he could improve system like that."

................................................................

The Earth's life-support system is in peril
A global crisis

by Margot Wallström, Bert Bolin, Paul Crutzen and Will Steffen (IHT)
January 20, 2004
International Herald Tribune
 http://www.iht.com/articles/125563.html

BRUSSELS: Our planet is changing fast. In recent decades many
environmental indicators have moved outside the range in which they
have varied for the past half-million years. We are altering our life
support system and potentially pushing the planet into a far less
hospitable state.

Such large-scale and long-term changes present major policy
challenges. The Kyoto Protocol is important as an international
framework for combating climate change, and yet its targets can only
ever be a small first step. If we cannot develop policies to cope with
the uncertainty, complexity and magnitude of global change, the
consequences for society may be huge.

We have made impressive progress in the last century. Major
diseases have been eradicated and life expectancy and standards of
living have increased for many. But the global population has tripled
since 1930 to more than six billion and will continue to grow for
several decades, and the global economy has increased more than 15-
fold since 1950. This progress has had a wide-ranging impact on the
environment. Our activities have begun to significantly affect the planet
and how it functions. Atmospheric composition, land cover, marine
ecosystems, coastal zones, freshwater systems and global biological
diversity have all been substantially affected.

Yet it is the magnitude and rate of human-driven change that are most
alarming. For example, the human-driven increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide is nearly 100 parts per million and still growing -
already equal to the entire range experienced between an ice age and
a warm period such as the present. And this human-driven increase
has occurred at least 10 times faster than any natural increase in the
last half-million years.

Evidence of our influence extends far beyond atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels and the well-documented increases in global mean
temperature. During the 1990's, the average area of humid tropical
forest cleared each year was equivalent to nearly half the area of
England, and at current extinction rates we may well be on the way to
the Earth's sixth great extinction event.

The Earth is a well-connected system. Carbon dioxide emitted in one
country is rapidly mixed throughout the atmosphere, and pollutants
released into the ocean in one location are transported to distant parts
of the planet. Local and regional emissions create global
environmental problems.

The impacts of global change are equally complex, as they combine
with local and regional environmental stresses in unexpected ways.
Coral reefs, for example, which were already under stress from fishing,
tourism and agricultural pollutants, are now under additional pressure
from changing carbonate chemistry in ocean surface waters, a result
of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Similarly, the wildfires that hit southern Europe, western Canada,
California and southeastern Australia last year were a result of many
factors, including land management, ignition sources and extreme
local weather. However, prevailing warm and dry conditions - probably
linked to climate change - amplified fire intensity and extent.

Poor access to fresh water means that more than two billion people
currently live under what experts call "severe water stress." With
population growth and economic expansion, this figure is expected to
nearly double by 2025. Climate change would further exacerbate this
situation.

Biodiversity losses, currently driven by habitat destruction associated
with land-cover change, will be further exacerbated by future climate
change. Beyond 2050, rapid regional climate change, as would be
caused by changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, and
irreversible changes, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet
and the accompanying rise in sea levels of 6 meters, or 20 feet, could
have huge economic and societal consequences.

It is now clear that the Earth has entered the so-called Anthropocene
Era - the geological era in which humans are a significant and
sometimes dominating environmental force. Records from the
geological past indicate that never before has the Earth experienced
the current suite of simultaneous changes: we are sailing into
planetary terra incognita.

Global environmental change challenges the political decision-making
process by its uncertainty, its complexity and its magnitudes and
rates of change.

Because of the uncertainties involved, decision-making will have to be
based on risks that particular events will happen, or that possible
scenarios will unfold. A lack of certainty does not justify inaction - the
precautionary principle must be applied.

Because of its complexity, global environmental change is often
gradual until critical thresholds are passed, and then far more rapid
change ensues, as seen in the growth of the ozone hole. Some rapid
changes - such as the potential melting of the Greenland ice sheet -
would also be irreversible in any meaningful human timescale, while
other changes may be unstoppable, and indeed may have already
been set in motion.

Because of the magnitudes and rates of change, we are unsure of just
how serious our interference with the dynamics of the Earth's system
will prove to be, but we do know that there are significant risks of rapid
and irreversible changes to which it would be very difficult to adapt.

The first step toward meeting the challenge presented by global
change is to appreciate the complex nature of the Earth's system, the
ways in which we are affecting the system, and the economic and
societal consequences. Scientists and policy-makers must establish
a dialogue to communicate current knowledge and to guide future
research.

Real policy progress must address the need for large-scale change,
technological advances and global cooperation. Incremental change
will not prevent, or even significantly slow, climate change, water
depletion, deforestation or biodiversity loss. Breakthroughs in
technologies and natural resource management that will affect all
economic sectors and the lifestyles of people are required.

Although action at local, regional and national levels is important,
international frameworks are essential for addressing global change.
We must develop new approaches that consider the diversity of
national circumstances and interests, based on a shared political will
for action. Never before has an effective multilateral system been more
necessary.

The evidence of our impact on our own life-support system is growing
rapidly. Will we accept the challenge to respond in a precautionary
manner, or wait until a catastrophic, irreversible change is upon us?

---------

Margot Wallström is the European Commissioner for the environment.
Bert Bolin is the founding chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. Paul Crutzen was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry. Will Steffen is executive director of the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Program. This comment is based on "Global
Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure," which
looks at the findings of the International Geosphere-Biosphere
Program.

................................................................

Glaciers And Sea Ice Endangered By Rising Temperatures

by Janet Larsen
Earth Policy Institute
January 22, 2004
 http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update32.htm

By 2020, the snows of Kilimanjaro may exist only in old photographs.
The glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park could disappear by
2030. And by mid-century, the Arctic Sea may be completely ice-free
during summertime. As the earth's temperature has risen in recent
decades, the earth's ice cover has begun to melt. And that melting is
accelerating.

In both 2002 and 2003, the Northern Hemisphere registered record-low
sea ice cover. New satellite data show the Arctic region warming more
during the 1990s than during the 1980s, with Arctic Sea ice now
melting by up to 15 percent per decade. The long-sought Northwest
Passage, a dream of early explorers, could become our nightmare.
The loss of Arctic Sea ice could alter ocean circulation patterns and
trigger changes in global climate patterns.

On the opposite end of the globe, Southern Ocean sea ice floating
near Antarctica has shrunk by some 20 percent since 1950. This
unprecedented melting of sea ice corroborates records showing that
the regional air temperature has increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius
(4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1950.

Antarctic ice shelves that existed for thousands of years are
crumbling. One of the world's largest icebergs, named B-15, that
measured near 10,000 square kilometers (4,000 square miles) or half
the size of New Jersey, calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000.
In May 2002, the shelf lost another section measuring 31 kilometers
(19 miles) wide and 200 kilometers (124 miles) long.

Elsewhere on Antarctica, the Larsen Ice Shelf has largely
disintegrated within the last decade, shrinking to 40 percent of its
previously stable size. Following the break-off of the Larsen A section
in 1995 and the collapse of Larsen B in early 2002, melting of the
nearby land-based glaciers that the ice shelves once supported has
more than doubled.

Unlike the melting of sea ice or the floating ice shelves along coasts,
the melting of ice on land raises sea level. Recent studies showing
the worldwide acceleration of glacier melting indicate that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimate for sea level
rise this century -- ranging from 0.1 meters to 0.9 meters -- will need
to be revised upwards. (See table of selected examples of ice melt
from around the world.)

On Greenland, an ice-covered island three times the size of Texas,
once-stable glaciers are now melting at a quickening rate. The
Jakobshavn Glacier on the island's southwest coast, which is one of
the major drainage outlets from the interior ice sheet, is now thinning
four times faster than during most of the twentieth century. Each year
Greenland loses some 51 cubic kilometers of ice, enough to annually
raise sea level 0.13 millimeters. Were Greenland's entire ice sheet to
melt, global sea level could rise by a startling 7 meters (23 feet),
inundating most of the world's coastal cities.

The Himalayas contain the world's third largest ice mass after
Antarctica and Greenland. Most Himalayan glaciers have been
thinning and retreating over the past 30 years, with losses
accelerating to alarming levels in the past decade. On Mount Everest,
the glacier that ended at the historic base camp of Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norgay, the first humans to reach the summit, has
retreated 5 kilometers (3 miles) since their 1953 ascent. Glaciers in
Bhutan are retreating at an average rate of 30 -- 40 meters a year. A
similar situation is found in Nepal.

As the glaciers melt they are rapidly filling glacial lakes, creating a
flood risk. An international team of scientists has warned that with
current melt rates, at least 44 glacial lakes in the Himalayas could
burst their banks in as little as five years.

Glaciers themselves store vast quantities of water. More than half of
the world's population relies on water that originates in mountains,
coming from rainfall runoff or ice melt. In some areas glaciers help
sustain a constant water supply; in others, meltwater from glaciers is
a primary water source during the dry season. In the short term,
accelerated melting means that more water feeds rivers. Yet as
glaciers disappear, dry season river flow declines.

The Himalayan glaciers feed the seven major rivers of Asia -- the
Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, and Huang
He (Yellow) -- and thus contribute to the year-round water supply of a
vast population. In India alone, some 500 million people, including
those in New Delhi and Calcutta, depend on glacier meltwater that
feeds into the Ganges River system. Glaciers in Central Asia's Tien
Shan Mountains have shrunk by nearly 30 percent between 1955 and
1990. In arid western China, shrinking glaciers account for at least 10
percent of freshwater supplies.

The largest aggregation of tropical glaciers is in the northern Andes.
The retreat of the Qori Kalis Glacier on the west side of the Quelccaya
Ice Cap that stretches across Peru has accelerated to 155 meters a
year between 1998 and 2000br />previous three-year period. The entire ice cap could vanish over the
next two decades.

The Antizana Glacier, which provides Quito, Ecuador, with almost half
its water, has retreated more than 90 meters over the last eight years.
The Chacaltaya Glacier near La Paz, Bolivia, melted to 7 percent of
its 1940s volume by 1998. It could disappear entirely by the end of
this decade, depriving the 1.5 million people in La Paz and the nearby
city of Alto of an important source of water and power.

Africa's glaciers are also disappearing. Across the continent,
mountain glaciers have shrunk to one third their size over the
twentieth century. On Kenya's Kilimanjaro, ice cover has shrunk by
more than 33 percent since 1989. By 2020 it could be completely
gone.

In Western Europe, glacial area has shrunk by up to 40 percent and
glacial volume by more than half since 1850. If temperatures continue
to rise at recent rates, major sections of glaciers covering the Alps
and the French and Spanish Pyrenees could be gone in the next few
decades. During the record-high temperature summer of 2003, some
Swiss glaciers retreated by an unprecedented 150 meters. The United
Nations Environment Programme is warning that for this region long
associated with ice and snow, warming temperatures signify the
demise of a popular ski industry, not to mention a cultural identity.

Boundaries around Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks in the
Canadian Rockies cannot stop the melting of the glaciers there.
Glacier National Park in Montana has lost over two thirds of its
glaciers since 1850. If temperatures continue to rise, it may lose the
remainder by 2030.

In just the past 30 years, the average temperature in Alaska climbed
more than 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) -- easily four
times the global increase. Glaciers in all of Alaska's 11 glaciated
mountain ranges are shrinking. Since the mid-1990s, Alaskan glaciers
have been thinning by 1.8 meters a year, more than three times as
fast as during the preceding 40 years.

The global average temperature has climbed by 0.6 degrees Celsius
(1 degree Fahrenheit) in the past 25 years. Over this time period,
melting of sea ice and mountain glaciers has increased dramatically.
During this century, global temperature may rise between 1.4 and 5.8
degrees Celsius, and melting will accelerate further. Just how much
will depend in part on the energy policy choices made today.

................................................................

Global Warming Will Plunge Britain Into New Ice Age 'within Decades'

by Geoffrey Lean
The Independent
January 25, 2004
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=484490

Britain is likely to be plunged into an ice age within our lifetime by
global warming, new research suggests.

A study, which is being taken seriously by top government scientists,
has uncovered a change "of remarkable amplitude" in the circulation of
the waters of the North Atlantic.

Similar events in pre-history are known to have caused sudden "flips"
of the climate, bringing ice ages to northern Europe within a few
decades. The development -- described as "the largest and most
dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern
instruments", by the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which
led the research -- threatens to turn off the Gulf Stream, which keeps
Europe's weather mild.

If that happens, Britain and northern Europe are expected to switch
abruptly to the climate of Labrador -- which is on the same latitude --
bringing a nightmare scenario where farmland turns to tundra and
winter temperatures drop below -20C. The much-heralded cold snap
predicted for the coming week would seem balmy by comparison.

A report by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme in
Sweden -- launched by Nobel prize-winner Professor Paul Crutzen and
other top scientists -- warned last week that pollution threatened to
"trigger changes with catastrophic consequences" like these.

Scientists have long expected that global warming could,
paradoxically, cause a devastating cooling in Europe by disrupting the
Gulf Stream, which brings as much heat to Britain in winter as the sun
does: the US National Academy of Sciences has even described such
abrupt, dramatic changes as "likely". But until now it has been
thought that this would be at least a century away.

The new research, by scientists at the Centre for Environment,
Fisheries and Acquaculture Science at Lowestoft and Canada's
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, as well as Woods Hole, indicates
that this may already be beginning to happen.

Dr Ruth Curry, the study's lead scientist, says: "This has the potential
to change the circulation of the ocean significantly in our lifetime.
Northern Europe will likely experience a significant cooling."

Robert Gagosian, the director of Woods Hole, considered one of the
world's leading oceanographic institutes, said: "We may be
approaching a threshold that would shut down [the Gulf Stream] and
cause abrupt climate changes.

"Even as the earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large
regions may experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder
climates." The scientists, who studied the composition of the waters
of the Atlantic from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, found that they
have become "very much" saltier in the tropics and subtropics and
"very much" fresher towards the poles over the past 50 years.

This is alarming because the Gulf Stream is driven by cold, very salty
water sinking in the North Atlantic. This pulls warm surface waters
northwards, forming the current.

The change is described as the "fingerprint" of global warming. As the
world heats up, more water evaporates from the tropics and falls as
rain in temperate and polar regions, making the warm waters saltier
and the cold ones fresher. Melting polar ice adds more fresh water.

Ominously, the trend has accelerated since 1990, during which time
the 10 hottest years on record have occurred. Many studies have
shown that similar changes in the waters of the North Atlantic in
geological time have often plunged Europe into an ice age, sometimes
bringing the change in as little as a decade.

The National Academy of Sciences says that the jump occurs in the
same way as "the slowly increasing pressure of a finger eventually
flips a switch and turns on a light". Once the switch has occurred the
new, hostile climate, lasts for decades at least, and possibly
centuries.

When the Gulf Stream abruptly turned off about 12,700 years ago, it
brought about a 1,300-year cold period, known as the Younger Dryas.
This froze Britain in continuous permafrost, drove summer
temperatures down to 10C and winter ones to -20C, and brought
icebergs as far south as Portugal. Europe could not sustain anything
like its present population. Droughts struck across the globe,
including in Asia, Africa and the American west, as the disruption of
the Gulf Stream affected currents worldwide.

Some scientists say that this is the "worst-case scenario" and that
the cooling may be less dramatic, with the world's climate "flickering"
between colder and warmer states for several decades. But they add
that, in practice, this would be almost as catastrophic for agriculture
and civilisation.

................................................................

More Indian wisdom...

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their
new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he
was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old
secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter
was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter
was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village
should collect firewood to be prepared.

But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He
went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and
asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this
winter is going to be quite cold" the meteorologist at the weather
service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even
more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the
National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be
a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again
replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect
every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again.
"Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is
going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like
crazy."

................................................................

HOW GLOBAL WARMING MAY CAUSE THE NEXT ICE AGE

by Thom Hartmann
Common Dreams
January 30, 2004
 http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0130-
11.htm

While global warming is being officially ignored by the political arm of
the Bush administration, and Al Gore's recent conference on the topic
during one of the coldest days of recent years provided joke fodder for
conservative talk show hosts, the citizens of Europe and the Pentagon
are taking a new look at the greatest danger such climate change
could produce for the northern hemisphere - a sudden shift into a new
ice age. What they're finding is not at all comforting.

In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting
polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the
northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps
Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case
scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period
as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario
would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that
disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh
winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars
around the world.

Here's how it works.

If you look at a globe, you'll see that the latitude of much of Europe
and Scandinavia is the same as that of Alaska and permafrost-locked
parts of northern Canada and central Siberia. Yet Europe has a
climate more similar to that of the United States than northern Canada
or Siberia. Why?

It turns out that our warmth is the result of ocean currents that bring
warm surface water up from the equator into northern regions that
would otherwise be so cold that even in summer they'd be covered
with ice. The current of greatest concern is often referred to as "The
Great Conveyor Belt," which includes what we call the Gulf Stream.

The Great Conveyor Belt, while shaped by the Coriolis effect of the
Earth's rotation, is mostly driven by the greater force created by
differences in water temperatures and salinity. The North Atlantic
Ocean is saltier and colder than the Pacific, the result of it being so
much smaller and locked into place by the Northern and Southern
American Hemispheres on the west and Europe and Africa on the
east.

As a result, the warm water of the Great Conveyor Belt evaporates out
of the North Atlantic leaving behind saltier waters, and the cold
continental winds off the northern parts of North America cool the
waters. Salty, cool waters settle to the bottom of the sea, most at a
point a few hundred kilometers south of the southern tip of Greenland,
producing a whirlpool of falling water that's 5 to 10 miles across. While
the whirlpool rarely breaks the surface, during certain times of year it
does produce an indentation and current in the ocean that can tilt
ships and be seen from space (and may be what we see on the maps
of ancient mariners).

This falling column of cold, salt-laden water pours itself to the bottom
of the Atlantic, where it forms an undersea river forty times larger than
all the rivers on land combined, flowing south down to and around the
southern tip of Africa, where it finally reaches the Pacific. Amazingly,
the water is so deep and so dense (because of its cold and salinity)
that it often doesn't surface in the Pacific for as much as a thousand
years after it first sank in the North Atlantic off the coast of Greenland.

The out-flowing undersea river of cold, salty water makes the level of
the Atlantic slightly lower than that of the Pacific, drawing in a strong
surface current of warm, fresher water from the Pacific to replace the
outflow of the undersea river. This warmer, fresher water slides up
through the South Atlantic, loops around North America where it's
known as the Gulf Stream, and ends up off the coast of Europe. By
the time it arrives near Greenland, it's cooled off and evaporated
enough water to become cold and salty and sink to the ocean floor,
providing a continuous feed for that deep-sea river flowing to the
Pacific.

These two flows - warm, fresher water in from the Pacific, which then
grows salty and cools and sinks to form an exiting deep sea river - are
known as the Great Conveyor Belt.

Amazingly, the Great Conveyor Belt is only thing between comfortable
summers and a permanent ice age for Europe and the eastern coast
of North America.

Much of this science was unknown as recently as twenty years ago.
Then an international group of scientists went to Greenland and used
newly developed drilling and sensing equipment to drill into some of
the world's most ancient accessible glaciers. Their instruments were
so sensitive that when they analyzed the ice core samples they
brought up, they were able to look at individual years of snow. The
results were shocking.

Prior to the last decades, it was thought that the periods between
glaciations and warmer times in North America, Europe, and North
Asia were gradual. We knew from the fossil record that the Great Ice
Age period began a few million years ago, and during those years
there were times where for hundreds or thousands of years North
America, Europe, and Siberia were covered with thick sheets of ice
year-round. In between these icy times, there were periods when the
glaciers thawed, bare land was exposed, forests grew, and land
animals (including early humans) moved into these northern regions.

Most scientists figured the transition time from icy to warm was
gradual, lasting dozens to hundreds of years, and nobody was sure
exactly what had caused it. (Variations in solar radiation were
suspected, as were volcanic activity, along with early theories about
the Great Conveyor Belt, which, until recently, was a poorly
understood phenomenon.)

Looking at the ice cores, however, scientists were shocked to
discover that the transitions from ice age-like weather to contemporary-
type weather usually took only two or three years. Something was
flipping the weather of the planet back and forth with a rapidity that
was startling.

It turns out that the ice age versus temperate weather patterns weren't
part of a smooth and linear process, like a dimmer slider for an
overhead light bulb. They are part of a delicately balanced teeter-
totter, which can exist in one state or the other, but transits through
the middle stage almost overnight. They more resemble a light switch,
which is off as you gradually and slowly lift it, until it hits a mid-point
threshold or "breakover point" where suddenly the state is flipped from
off to on and the light comes on.

It appears that small (less that .1 percent) variations in solar energy
happen in roughly 1500-year cycles. This cycle, for example, is what
brought us the "Little Ice Age" that started around the year 1400 and
dramatically cooled North America and Europe (we're now in the
warming phase, recovering from that). When the ice in the Arctic
Ocean is frozen solid and locked up, and the glaciers on Greenland
are relatively stable, this variation warms and cools the Earth in a very
small way, but doesn't affect the operation of the Great Conveyor Belt
that brings moderating warm water into the North Atlantic.

In millennia past, however, before the Arctic totally froze and locked
up, and before some critical threshold amount of fresh water was
locked up in the Greenland and other glaciers, these 1500-year
variations in solar energy didn't just slightly warm up or cool down the
weather for the landmasses bracketing the North Atlantic. They flipped
on and off periods of total glaciation and periods of temperate weather.

And these changes came suddenly.

For early humans living in Europe 30,000 years ago - when the cave
paintings in France were produced - the weather would be pretty much
like it is today for well over a thousand years, giving people a chance
to build culture to the point where they could produce art and reach
across large territories.

And then a particularly hard winter would hit.

The spring would come late, and summer would never seem to really
arrive, with the winter snows appearing as early as September. The
next winter would be brutally cold, and the next spring didn't happen
at all, with above-freezing temperatures only being reached for a few
days during August and the snow never completely melting. After that,
the summer never returned: for 1500 years the snow simply
accumulated and accumulated, deeper and deeper, as the continent
came to be covered with glaciers and humans either fled or died out.
(Neanderthals, who dominated Europe until the end of these cycles,
appear to have been better adapted to cold weather than Homo
sapiens.)

What brought on this sudden "disappearance of summer" period was
that the warm-water currents of the Great Conveyor Belt had shut
down. Once the Gulf Stream was no longer flowing, it only took a year
or three for the last of the residual heat held in the North Atlantic
Ocean to dissipate into the air over Europe, and then there was no
more warmth to moderate the northern latitudes. When the summer
stopped in the north, the rains stopped around the equator: At the
same time Europe was plunged into an Ice Age, the Middle East and
Africa were ravaged by drought and wind-driven firestorms. .

If the Great Conveyor Belt, which includes the Gulf Stream, were to
stop flowing today, the result would be sudden and dramatic. Winter
would set in for the eastern half of North America and all of Europe
and Siberia, and never go away. Within three years, those regions
would become uninhabitable and nearly two billion humans would
starve, freeze to death, or have to relocate. Civilization as we know it
probably couldn't withstand the impact of such a crushing blow.

And, incredibly, the Great Conveyor Belt has hesitated a few times in
the past decade. As William H. Calvin points out in one of the best
books available on this topic ("A Brain For All Seasons: human
evolution & abrupt climate change"): ".the abrupt cooling in the last
warm period shows that a flip can occur in situations much like the
present one. What could possibly halt the salt-conveyor belt that
brings tropical heat so much farther north and limits the formation of
ice sheets? Oceanographers are busy studying present-day failures of
annual flushing, which give some perspective on the catastrophic
failures of the past. "In the Labrador Sea, flushing failed during the
1970s, was strong again by 1990, and is now declining. In the
Greenland Sea over the 1980s salt sinking declined by 80 percent.
Obviously, local failures can occur without catastrophe - it's a
question of how often and how widespread the failures are - but the
present state of decline is not very reassuring."

Most scientists involved in research on this topic agree that the culprit
is global warming, melting the icebergs on Greenland and the Arctic
icepack and thus flushing cold, fresh water down into the Greenland
Sea from the north. When a critical threshold is reached, the climate
will suddenly switch to an ice age that could last minimally 700 or so
years, and maximally over 100,000 years.

And when might that threshold be reached? Nobody knows - the
action of the Great Conveyor Belt in defining ice ages was discovered
only in the last decade. Preliminary computer models and scientists
willing to speculate suggest the switch could flip as early as next
year, or it may be generations from now. It may be wobbling right now,
producing the extremes of weather we've seen in the past few years.

What's almost certain is that if nothing is done about global warming,
it will happen sooner rather than later.

This article was adapted from the new, updated edition of "The Last
Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann, due out from Random
House/Three Rivers Press in March.

 http://www.thomhartmann.com
Copyright 2004 by Thom Hartmann.

................................................................

The Indian firewood joke one made me remember this one. It's been
around a while but is always worth retelling.

Lawns & God

GOD: Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the
world is going on down there? What happened to the dandelions,
violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect, no-
maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil,
withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long
lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of
songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I
see are these green rectangles.

ST. FRANCIS: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The
Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to
great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract
butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's
temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want
all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it
and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and
poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow
really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they
cut it, sometimes twice a week.

GOD: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in
bags.

GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS: No, sir - just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow.
And when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS: Yes, sir.

GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we
cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the
growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS: You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass
stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to
water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was
a sheer stoke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves
in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the
autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep
moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they
rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle
of life.

ST. FRANCIS: You'd better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have
drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into
great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the
winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy
something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it
around in place of the leaves.

GOD: And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the
mulch.

GOD: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St.
Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you
scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE: "Dumb and Dumber," Lord. It's a real stupid movie
about ---

GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.