Archive for February, 2009

‘Polar Year’ Reveals Melting Is Accelerating

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

By David L. Brown

The International Polar Year (a strange name for a two-year $1.2 billion dollar research effort) is ending and according to this article on the Scientific American web site:

Perhaps the biggest finding to come out of the International Polar Year, or IPY, initiative is the discovery that changes to Earth’s climate and environment are happening much more rapidly than scientists working on the groundbreaking studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change initially suspected, officials say.

The studies have confirmed that both the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are in decline, contributing to rising sea levels. We knew that already to a fair degree of certainty. However, the accelerating speed of the melt-down is the thing to watch, since this could lead to feedback and tipping point effects that could project us into a warmer planet far earlier than expected. That could prove disastrous for humanity.

One of the key lessons learned by the IPY is that the North Atlantic is a key actor in Arctic and Antarctic warming. The article points out that this may help climate scientists learn more about what’s going on.

Meanwhile, tundra that has been frozen for thousands of years is thawing, potentially releasing huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) even more potent than carbon dioxide, as well as CO2 itself. Such a massive release of GHG could in itself create a tipping point in which the global temperature could spike upward rapidly, or as Fred Pearce noted in the title of his 2007 book, “With Speed and Violence.” (Read my May 12, 2007 review titled “Experts Fear Climate Tipping Points” at this link.)

Here are details from the SciAm report:

Scientists also say that Arctic permafrost is melting, a worrying sign for officials committed to combating climate change. Results of polar research released just last week show that the average temperature of permafrost found in northern Russia has increased by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius over the past 35 years. The findings match an earlier study of Alaskan permafrost that discovered a temperature rise of about 0.5 to 2 degrees Celsius.

The vast swath of permafrost covering the Arctic Circle is known to hold massive quantities of organic material trapped beneath the permanently frozen ground. Scientists suspect that thawing permafrost will lead to much of this material decaying, releasing an enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and exacerbating the greenhouse effect.

The planet is melting, and there isn’t much we can do about it. Despite hopes of beneficial change promised by political campaigns, the odds seem to favor the advent of unpleasant changes in our planet’s environment itself in response to human excesses.

Posted in Climate Change, Melting Planet | 1 Comment »

Resource Depletion at Heart of Economic Woes

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

By David L. Brown

It continues to amaze me that as the world economy continues to spin down and around in the toilet bowl of history, absolutely nobody seems to be paying any attention to the very clear and simple reasons why this is happening.

There are many “usual suspects” being foisted upon us, including evil bankers, predatory investment advisors, incompetent political “leaders,” Ponzi-scheme promoters, greedy individuals and more. Lift almost any rock and you’re likely to find someone else to blame. Oh, look, it’s that guy over there, behind the tree. Let’s get him!

And all the while the answer has been right there for anyone who has eyes to see, like the proverbial elephant in the living room. For decades the world has been running full-speed ahead on a flawed model of eternal growth, growth based upon the utilization of natural resources, most notably petroleum. And it is an unfortunate fact that the Earth, which does not have an infinite supply of these resources, has been savaged until the amounts of those resources are no longer rising, but are in decline.

The death knell of the runaway, unsustainable “growth” economy was when Peak Oil was reached. Nobody knows exactly when that actually occurred, but the date on which the problem became clearly apparent was Friday, June 6, 2008.

On that date I wrote an essay titled “Black Friday, a Day To Remember.” My comments were based on the fact that petroleum prices had that day spiked by nearly $11, causing the stock market to begin a downward decline that has not ended to this day. Here is a link to that essay, so that I won’t have to repeat it all here. But the core of my message was that the old economy was dead and that the world was in for a long and perhaps endless depression. In fact, I illustrated that essay with the image below, comparing the doomed ships with commerce and industry about to fall off the edge of the world. The image is even more apropos today because that process of economic collapse is now taking place before our very eyes, and doing so at an accelerating rate.
flat-earth.jpg

Now one of the worst things to do when you learn that something no longer works is to keep on trying to make it work. (One definition of insanity is when someone continues to  do the same thing over and over expecting the result to be different.) When the mule is dead, there is no use hitting it with a two by four any longer, and yet that is what our economic and political “leaders” seem intent upon doing. They are focused almost entirely on trying to restore the old economy, the one that broke, the one that used up its fiscal fuel and can no longer function. Meanwhile, virtually no efforts seem to be aimed at exploring and developing new models. Yes, there is some lip service being paid to increasing development of alternative fuels, but that’s like a gnat on the elephant in the living room.

(more…)

Posted in Economics, Essays and Opinion, Global Security | 1 Comment »

Drought Puts China Wheat in Jeopardy

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

By David L. Brown

There is news of a serious drought that is threatening to destroy nearly half of China’s winter wheat crop. Widespread wheat growing regions had gone without rain for 100 days.

But not to worry. The Chinese government reports that the problem is well in hand.

First, they are going to divert two major rivers from the southern part of the country to the wheatlands for irrigation. This would be equivalent, perhaps, to diverting the Missouri River to southern California and Arizona. That shouldn’t be hard, and could no doubt be done well before the wheat crop has been destroyed in about the next month or so. Or not.

Second, and one might conclude this has already solved the problem based on the triumphant news reports out of China, they have begun firing thousands of artillery shells into the air containing rainmaking chemicals. The result, the government proudly reported, is that some areas have now received 2 to 5 millimeters of rain.

Wow! Two millimeters is about a twelfth of an inch and five millimeters is about a fifth of an inch. From my experience, dry, drought-stricken soil would absorb such small amounts only into the top of the dust layer and it would quickly evaporate. It would do nothing whatsoever to feed stricken roots deep in the ground.

Oh well, at least they’re trying … trying to put a good face on what might be a looming disaster. We must sympathize with the Communist leaders in the Forbidden City who face protests, food riots, possibly even revolution if the peasantry sees that things are going all pear-shaped PDQ.

The potential problem is immense. We are seeing the Australian summer wheat crop almost completely destroyed this year, in the twelfth year of drought. Also in the Southern Hemisphere Argentine crops are being wiped out by heat and drought. If a similar pattern begins to develop in China, they will be well and truly impaled on the sharp end of a No. 18 wood screw (see illustration below. Note nifty self-tapping feature.)

rapier_wood_screws.jpg

Northern China depends on wheat for noodles, won tons, dumplings and other mainstays of their cuisine. If they should lose a third or more of the crop, they would have to go on the world market to buy wheat. BUT, as I reported here recently (“Food Supplies Losing Race to Famine,” Jan. 27), should China increase its purchases of wheat by only five percent of its total usage, it would entirely wipe out the entire export supply of wheat worldwide.

That statement is a measure both of how big China is, and how small the remaining available grain stocks are. Taking the losses resulting from the Australian and Argentine droughts and heat waves into account, there might not even be any net wheat for export in the world later this year. That might leave several hundred million Chinese with empty bowls on their tables later this year. Try to imagine that.

Forget Peak Oil, that’s nothing. We’ve reached Peak Food and it’s all downhill from here on, especially in relatively poor and over-populated places like China, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Pakistan.

Posted in Agriculture Issues, Famine, Global Security | Comments Off

Asian Exporters Taking the Hit for the West

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

By David L. Brown

The worldwide recession (economists are still too frightened to use the “D” word) is hitting hard in Asia and it seems there may be no bottom. Even Japan, the only First World economy in Asia, is being hit hard. Japanese exports have plummeted and they are teetering on the brink of economic chaos.

The latest news from Toyota is that that they have raised their projected losses for the year just ended. In fact, they have tripled them and are describing their results as the worst in 70 years. Here are excerpts from the BBC with details:

In December, Toyota predicted it would make a full year operating loss of [$1.65 billion].

The Japanese car giant has now tripled that figure and expects to make a [$4.9 billion] operating loss, the first annual loss at the firm in 70 years.

In December, Toyota boss Katsuaki Watanabe said the current downturn was of a size that comes only: “once in a hundred years”.

That is a startling change in projections just from December. As it turned out, the world’s largest car company lost as much just in the last quarter of 2008 as they were expecting for the entire year. Their business literally fell off a cliff, and one can imagine that it is still in free fall. “First loss in 70 years” would make it that wonderful year 1938 when Toyota was busy making military vehicles for the conquest of China and Korea and America was still in the depths of the Depression.

This is more evidence that Asia is getting hit harder than we are here in the U.S., at least so far, and there doesn’t seem to be anything under them to stop the decline. Japan’s exports are down 40% and they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Other Asian economies are in even worst shape. China is falling so fast and hard that the seismic waves will rattle dishes around the world.

The 64 Trillion Dollar Question is: What will be the effect on America of the collapse of emerging nations that have bet their wads on exports? Surprisingly, it probably will not really be as bad as might be expected.

First, we made the extremely excellent move of offshoring huge numbers of our manufacturing jobs. At the time that looked like a mistake to many. But now that the new worldwide Depression has arrived (yes, I’m bold enough to use the “D” word) the laborers and middle managers that are losing their jobs are not Americans, but Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese and Vietnamese. Those would have been American jobs and our yellow brothers are taking the hit for us.

Those busy export generating nations that cashed in their cheap labor in return for the chance to supply foreign consumers with a flow of cheap goods expected that America would continue to be a vast black hole, willing and able to absorb an endless stream of neat consumer items. We were viewed as insatiable shopoholics, unable to resist the siren call of “new, better, cheap”. They failed to realize that all good scams must come to an end. How many big TV sets do we need here? How many new computers every 18 months? How many more cell phones, gee-gaws, kitchen accessories, rugs, items of furniture, digital cameras, stereos, VCRs and DVD players, etc. ad vomitum do we actually need?

Well, as it turns out, not too many more. The bucket is pretty full. Here is my personal example. I have a neat 53-inch high-def projection TV that I have owned for about eight years. It’s not a flashy flat-screen version, but I will nonetheless keep it for much longer because it serves me perfectly well. I have VCR and DVD players of about the same vintage and they work just fine. I don’t plan to buy a Blu-ray player. I have a pair of high-end stereo speakers that are 30 years old, and another pair that are actually a couple of years older than that. They are wired to stereo receivers that are at least 20 years old. I will keep them for the rest of my life. I have all the furniture, gee-gaws, rugs and furniture I will ever need.

I also have several Apple computers, none of which is less than about 3 years old (G5 towers, a G4 laptop, all pre-Intel) and although there are newer, faster, better computers, it turns out that I am not actually doing major cosmological or nuclear computations or intensive data processing so those computers are just fine and will be used for many more years. My first generation iPhone works great and I have no inclination to buy the newer, better, faster, shinier one.

I have a five year old car that is paid for and will be driven until the wheels fall off, which could be for as long as I need a car.

Finally, I am a photographer and I have a Canon 5D SLR camera that has recently been replaced by an improved model with about twice the number of pixels. No thanks, the 13 MP model I bought a couple of years ago is perfectly satisfactory for anything I will ever need to do, including prints up to 20 by 24 inches or larger.

Many if not most Americans are in a similar situation. We have been needlessly replacing our “stuff” in reaction to glitzy marketing and a spend-spend mentality. That mentality has died with the arrival of Peak Oil and the subsequent economic chaos. We have stopped spending—but the wonderful thing is that it doesn’t make any real difference because most of us already HAVE perfectly good “stuff” and there is a lot of good used “stuff” available for those that need it.

One of the things that is absolutely killing the auto business is the tsunami of late-model used (and unsold new) vehicles that are glutting the market. And in case you’re concerned that we are losing the overseas sources of new “stuff” as foreign suppliers sink into bankruptcy and doom, there is no hurry to rebuild domestic manufacturing because we are already awash in “stuff.” We’ll be fine with our old “stuff” for years to come.

China is now blithely pinning its future on the idea of developing domestic consumer markets. Most Chinese people do NOT have “stuff” but want it. unfortunately, since China’s export business was the major underpinning of their economy and that is dead as a dinosaur, Chinese people aren’t going to ever get the “stuff” that we already have, and which their criminal leaders have promised them. Instead, tens of millions of them are out of work with countless more soon to follow.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government is going to be spending the dollar reserves it earned from all that exporting and the savings of its poor citizens just to buy food from the only remaining nation on Earth capable of producing foodstuffs in sufficient quantities to be a major exporter. That would be us.

Bottom line: No matter how bad things become here in the USA, they’re going to be worse “over there” and we will have the last laugh (although an admittedly hollow one).

Posted in Economics, Global Security | Comments Off