YOUR CHOICE: THE CAPE COD WIND FARM OR GULF LEAKY OIL RIGS

Yesterday (April 28, 2010) we read in the NY Times that after a long delay, and much opposition, the Cape Cod Wind Farm proposal was finally passed (See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36825232/ns/us_news-environment/). Concurrently,(NYT April 29, 2010), we learn about an explosion and fire which consumed a Gulf of Mexico drilling rig. This exploratory oil rig, the very kind which we heard so much about in the last Presidential election, when someone in Ms. Palin's entourage offended us all with the phrase: “Drill Baby Drill”. The oil rig explosion, located about 50 miles off the Louisiana, occurred on April 20 and resulted in the rig sinking two days later taking the lives eleven workers. At the Cape, nothing much has happened, the "clean and green" project is still in the planning stages. The developers are hoping to begin construction this year and start generating power by late 2012 — provided the venture isn't stopped by further lawsuits.

But back in the Gulf of Mexico, the connector pipe to the sunken drilling platform, called a “riser”, which formerly conducted oil from the sea bottom to the floating platform continues to gusher crude as it snakes over the ocean bottom like a spouting garden hose. My wife questioned how a rigid steel pipe could "snake" around down there. But recall this pipe is close to a mile long! The explosion and subsequent disturbances have caused several kinks and tears to form from which oil is leaking in these several places over its 5000 foot length. The oil lighter than water rises to the surface and has continued to spread like the proverbial molasses on grandma’s white table cloth. The Times article also reveals today new information---the rate of flow from the pipe is five times greater than first reported!

According to the Times Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard revealed yesterday that scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have concluded that oil is gushing out at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not the 1,000 that had been estimated earlier. That volume is equal to 210,000 gallons a day (based on a 42 gal barrel) or almost 9,000 gallons a minute (or in metric terms 160 liters per barrel x 5000 = 80,000 liters/day). That amount is only a tiny fraction of the 21,000,000 barrels a day we use here in the USA, so the spill will cause no shortage for us. But at about $80 dollars a barrel (today’s prices) it represents a waste of $400,000 bucks a day for the BP oil company. However the real concern is not its cost or the wasted oil (though considerable) but the tragedy of lost lives, and the specter of the grave pollution effects. Where will the black pudding-like, stuff so toxic to fish, shellfish and marine mammals end up? Will it smear the white-sand beaches of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida Gulf coasts, clog the fish and shellfish-producing marshes of Louisiana, and of Texas?

On April 26, 2010 Sky Truth (See http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/04/gulf-oil-spill-covers-817-square-miles.html.) using NASA imagery estimated that the spill covered an area of about 817 square miles. They report that the spill has an irregular serpentine shape and is surrounded by an "oil sheen" where oil and water are in intimate contact. An April 27th update of the image shows, according to Sky Truth that the spill has approximately doubled in area over the two days it was observed.

The NY Times reports that wind patterns may push the spill into the coast of Louisiana as soon as Friday night, prompting consideration of more urgent measures to protect coastal wildlife. Among them were using cannons to scare off birds, and employing local shrimpers’ boats as makeshift oil skimmers in the shallows. All this seems quite ineffective,in response to the massive spill.

The Times author's add that part of the oil slick was only 16 miles offshore and appears to be drifting toward the Mississippi River Delta, marshlands at the southeastern tip of Louisiana where the river empties into the ocean.

The column notes that on Wednesday evening, cleanup crews began conducting what is called an in-situ burn, a process consisting of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500-foot-long fireproof boom, moving it to another location and burning it. It has been tested effectively on other spills, but weather and ecological concerns can complicate the procedure.

Such a process will simply convert sea-surface pollution into air pollution and other types of water pollution. But some think it better than the oil drifting ashore. If it were really possible to prevent the spill reaching shore...but by the way the oil is spreading...not much of it will be able to be burned. Burning works only when oil is corralled and remains at a certain thickness on the surface. Burns may not be effective for most of this spill, of which, 97 percent is estimated to be an oil-water mixture. And not to mention the added burden of more particulates and more CO2 in the atmosphere. Of course that’s where it would have all ended up anyway…so what?

It is well to note that the Gulf of Mexico is the site of nearly 4000 such oil rigs and platforms scattered across the coast from Texas to Florida and as we increase such activity (exploitation of oil) the potential for accidents like this will rise exponentially. This event presents us with something to think about with great circumspection after President Obama, (I thought) carelessly tossed a bone to his political opponents, when he proposed recently that we expand off shore oil drilling over all of the east coast of the US--where even oil impresario Bush kept it banned! Perhaps his proposal was in response to the “nipple heads” on the right who clamor “Drill Baby Drill” But this event presents us with a clear example of why such exploration was banned and presents us with a clear view of what the consequences of expanded drilling in the coastal zone may generate. Thus it may be a good time to remind our President, with a letter or FAX stating your objections and reminder of what such a spill could do along our eastern seaboard.

It may also bring those who oppose the installation of clean, renewable energy in the form of silent, clean, wind farms along our east coast a chance, to rethink their opposition. Thankfully, the Cape Cod Wind Farm proposal got its final approval. The juxtaposition of these two events is fortuitous in one way. Let’s use it to underscore the dangers of the silly "drill drill drill" crowd!

May 1, 2010 Update.

The gusher has continued unabated. There appears to be little hope the light sweet crude flowing at five thousand barrels a day into the Gulf could be stopped very soon. The volume of the spilled oil (so far) and the response brings to mind the Exxon Valdez disaster--thought to be the worst human caused disaster in history-- in Prince William Sound, Alaska. That spill, occurred when the Exxon Valdez tanker hit Bligh Reef and spilled nearly 250,000 barrels (fifty million liters or about 11 million gallons) of thick Prudhoe Bay crude. The oil covered nearly 1,300 square miles of of ocean surface.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_1)

Thousands of animals died immediately; the best estimates include 100,000 to as many as 250,000seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.[4][12] The effects of the spill continue to be felt today. Overall reductions in population have been seen in various ocean animals, including stunted growth in pink salmon populations.[14] Sea otters and ducks also showed higher death rates in following years, partially because they ingested prey from contaminated soil and from ingestion of oil residues on hair due to grooming.[15]

Could the BP Oil Rig Disaster ever reach the level of the Exxon Valdez? It certainly appears possible from here. At this point (May 1, 2010) we now know that the well has been gushing 5000 barrels per day since April 20th. Thus, to date over an eleven day period (11) it has dumped 11 X 5000 or 55,000 barrels so far. To reach the level of the Valdez event it would have to continue gushing oil (5000 bbl/day x 50days = 250,000) for a period of fifty days at its present rate. It has continued unabated so far for eleven days---thus in 39 days (50-11=39) from this date..with no change in the rate of spill--it will have reached the Exxon Valdez in amount of oil spilled.

Today: According to the Associated Press as reprinted by Newser (http://www.newser.com/article/d9fe6gg80/expert-surface-area-of-gulf-oil-spill-has-tripled-rough-seas-again-thwart-containment.html)

The surface area of a catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill quickly tripled in size amid growing fears among experts that the slick could become vastly more devastating than it seemed just two days ago.

The slick nearly tripled in just a day or so, growing from a spill the size of Rhode Island to something closer to the size of Puerto Rico, according to images collected from mostly European satellites and analyzed by the University of Miami.

On Thursday, the size of the slick was about 1,150 square miles, but by Friday's end it was in the range of 3,850 square miles, said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. That suggests the oil has started spilling from the well more quickly, Graber said.

How big could it get?

This event has the potential to become one of the greatest environmental disasters ever...

Can it even be contained in the Gulf?

Some are concerned that natural ocean currents in the Gulf may wash the gooey stuff out through the Straits of Florida...sliming the the Keys and the only living coral reefs in the Northern Hemisphere.

Rjk

Afghanistan and Ancient Rome Study in Corruption

When a nation ceases to simply use its forces for defense and initiates wars of expansion..it sinks into depravity and corruption.

From the Washington Post

"Afghan corruption: How to follow the money?"

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 29, 2010

Hamed Wardak, the soft-spoken Georgetown University-educated son of an Afghan cabinet minister, has a Defense Department contract worth up to $360 million to transport U.S. military goods through some of the most insecure territory in Afghanistan. But his company has no trucks.

Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up.

According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage, often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their areas of control.

The essential question, said an American executive whose company does significant work in Afghanistan, is "whether you'd rather pay $1,000" for Afghans to safely deliver a truck, even if part of the money goes to the insurgents, or pay 10 times that much for security provided by the U.S. military or contractors.

The case of Gaius Verres. Roman governor of first century BC Sicily comes to mind as a case of notorious corruption. Gaius Verres was Roman governor of Sicily 73–71 BC. Gaius the son of a Roman Senator, used his family's contacts and position as well as bribery to become quaestor of Asia in 80 BC which permitted him to join the staff of Gnaeus Dolabella who had been appointed governor of Cilicia a Roman province. Verres avidly joined Dolabella in plundering the province. When Dolabella was recalled to Rome in 78 BC to face charges of embezzlement and mismanagement Verres turned against his former associate to gain a pardon for himself. With the aid of lavish bribes he secured the praetorship of Rome in 74 BC and used his position to advance the aims of his party and party leaders. As a reward he was offered the position of governor or Sicily where, recalling the methods he had practiced under Dolabella, he proceeded to plunder Sicily for his personal enrichment, in a way that was well beyond the typical self serving practices of many Roman governors of the time. His penchant for stealing art treasures from prominent Sicilians and Temples throughout the province led to a legal prosecution once his term was up. Back in Rome, Verres, faced with a contingent of angry Sicilians, used more chicanery and to attempt to avoid prosecution (charging his main accuosor as a fratricide) but in the he had to use some of his-ill gotten Sicilian assets to hire the top defense attorney of the day, one Quintus Hortensius, to defend him. The Sicilian victims of his brutal and corrupt practices turned to a youthful but brilliant Marcus Tullius Cicero to prosecute. Cicero’s first move was to suspend the case for over one-hundred days so as to offer opportunity to collect evidence on a trip to Sicily. After a successful trip and return voyage, Cicero, whose Verrine Orations have made Verres' crimes notorious, successfully prosecuted the tyrant. At the completion of Cicero’s early deposition Verres realized his lawyer would be unable to effectively counter the charges and fled before the end of the trail. He retired to Massilia where he kept much of his plundered treasures. These later attracted the greed of Mark Antony, and Verres was proscribed and murdered in 43)

Which brings to mind our sorry involment in Afghanistan. More than two-thousand years later we find that as the great Greek historian Thucydides who begins his history of the Peloponnesian War by stating that human nature is the basic cause of historical events and its study will be useful to those who wish to understand the way things happen, since events similar to those of the past will certainly recur in the future because human nature is unchanging. (Not that history repeats itself but that humans in similar circumstances will react in similar ways, even if separated over long periods of time.) Men and their behavior and thus history do not change.
All this to introduce a sorry tale. As our President prepares a massive buildup of military forces in Afghanistan..(January 2010) the a House Committee has launched an investigation into charges that the Defense Department (funded to the tune of nearly one trillion dollars annually) is paying off the Taliban (yes our stated enemy in Afghanistan) to protect American supply lines (See The Nation, January 11-18, 2010, pg 8). Did you read that right? Yes, US taxpayer dollars are going directly to the insurgents. The Defense Department pays out $2.2 billion dollars to trucking contractors who then use those funds to pay Taliban to protect out supply lines into and within Afghanistan. But worse than that, these contractors have hired Washington lobbyists—using those same DD funds to lobby the Congress to continue the war in Afghanistan. Hard to believe? Read it. See the Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/roston.



From Politics Daily,David Wood, 12 21 09, (downloaded 4-28-10)

Separate from allegations about the Taliban and construction security, a House panel last week broadened its investigation into charges that private contractors paid off Taliban insurgents not to attack truck convoys carrying war materiel through Pakistan and into Afghanistan.

"Serious allegations have been brought to the subcommittee's attention that private security providers for U.S. transportation contractors in Afghanistan are regularly paying local warlords and the Taliban for security,'' said Rep. John F. Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee.

"If shown to be true, it would mean that the United States is unintentionally engaged in a vast protection racket and, as such, may be indirectly funding the very insurgents we are trying to fight,'' Tierney said.

Tierney's investigators have asked for Pentagon documents relating to a $2.2 billion contract with several trucking companies to carry goods into Afghanistan.

The Taliban-related allegation in eastern Afghanistan involves construction on a strategic road between Gardez and Khost, a route that runs over high mountains and directly through territory dominated by the Haqqani Taliban, one of the most ruthless of several Taliban subgroups.

The security contractor alleged that the Haqqani network, which provides foreign fighters from Pakistan for the security work on the roads, is paid tens of thousands of dollars in what amounts to a protection racket.

Hedge Garlic in the UK a Noxious Weed Here

It is April 2010 and our local roadsides, waste places and some untended gardens are sprouting with an prolific early-bloomer. It is an herbaceous plant of about a foot high (now) and has heart-shaped, deeply ridged, serrated-eddged leaves as well asa terminal rounded-cluster of four-petaled, white-flowers. Its crushed leaves give off a faint garlic aroma. Its flowers, seeds (in a long pod) indicate it is apparently a member of the mustard family.

Allaria petiolata is a native of Europe and in the UK it grows wild along the oh so common hegerows where is known a "Hedge Garlic" or "Garlic Mustard" or "Jack-in-the-Hedge". Sprouting in early spring, it is often picked as a salad green and used as a substitute for garlic. Its leaves are a component of a well known sauce for roast lamb, a pesto and other delicacies. See:http://www.wildyorkshire.co.uk/naturediary/docs/guest/garlic.html, and http://wildfoodmushroomsfishing.blogspot.com/2010/03/jack-by-hedge-or-garlic-mustard-chicken.html (dl 4-24-10)

Alas here in the US it is viewed very differently.

Alliaria petiolata is seen here as a class A noxious weed which grows in places it is not wanted whether sunny or shaded. It can self or cross polinate and like other mustards produces copious seeds which spread and sprout easily. Like other mustards it produces chemicals which act to inhibit the growth of rival plants or even beneficail soil fungi. Thus it can take over wide swaths of the forest floor where it gets established. (see photo at: http://wildfoodmushroomsfishing.blogspot.com/2010/03/jack-by-hedge-or-garlic-mustard-chicken.html.)

In the state of Washington it faces eradication where it shows its delicate white blooms.

"History and Impacts.

Garlic mustard is an invasive non-native biennial herb that spreads by seed. It is difficult to control once it has reached a site; it can cross-pollinate or self-pollinate, it has a high seed production rate, it out competes native vegetation and it can establish in a relatively stable forest understory. It can grow in dense shade or sunny sites. The fact that it is self fertile means that one plant can occupy a site and produce a seed bank. Plant stands can produce more than 62,000 seeds per square meter to quickly out compete local flora, changing the structure of plant communities on the forest floor. Garlic mustard is also allelopathic, producing chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants and mychorrizal fungi needed for healthy tree growth and tree seedling survival." (dl 4-24-10: http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/animalsandplants/noxious-weeds/weed-identification/garlic-mustard.aspx)

From the same site, also learn that: "Garlic mustard is a biennial herb that grows to about 3 feet tall. The small, white 4-petaled flowers appear in early spring and seed production soon follows. Seedlings develop into basal rosettes by mid summer. The plants overwinter as a basal rosette with kidney-shaped leaves. When the plants bolt in early spring, the mature leaves are triangular, becoming smaller toward the top of the plant. In early spring the roots and new leaves smell like garlic. Each plant usually produces one flowering stem. If a plant is cut or stepped on, many stems will form. Roots typically have a characteristic s-shaped bend that helps the plant hold on to the soil even on steep slopes with loose soil. Garlic mustard is competitive in a wide range of soils, sun, shade and moisture. It grows in wet soil near creeks and on dry, steep slopes. It can grow under the shade of other plants like nettles or in bright sunny spots. Flowering plants range in size from several feet tall to tiny plants with just a few seed pods. Seeds can last in the soil for at least 10 years."

PRESIDENT OBAMA: TWO EXAMPLES OF THE UNWISE USE OF LETHAL FORCE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

I. Killing School Kids in Kunar

The headline in the LA Times on December 31, 2009 was arresting: US special forces kill eight school children aged 12-17 and one adult in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. See: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghanistan-civilians31-2009dec31,0,3311323.story

I read the original report in Le Monde, which described the event as a “slaughter” of ten civilians…all of the same family. See here: http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2009/12/30/afghanistan-kaboul-confirme-la-mort-de-dix-civils-dans-une-operation-de-la-coalition_1286103_3216.html#xtor=RSS-3208

“Une unité des forces internationales basée à Kunar est descendue d'un avion dans le district de Narang de cette province, a fait sortir dix personnes de
trois maisons – dont huit écoliers de 13 à 17 ans et le reste de la même famille
– et les a abattues", indique le chef des enquêteurs afghans, Asadullah Wafa,
cité par le communiqué de la présidence afghane.”

[My translation: “A unit of the international forces based in Kunar Province, descended from a plane in the district of Narang in this province, and forced ten persons to exit three houses—of these(the ten)eight were schoolchildren of 13- 17 years old, and rest members of the same family—then slaughtered them”, indicated the head of Afghan inquiry, Asadullah Wafa, and cited by a communiqué of the Afghan president.”]

Apparently, US special-forces operating in Kunar district, landed from a helicopter and forced all the male members of the compound from their homes. Reports indicate the victims were killed in cold blood. Whatever happened, this was not an accidental “strike” by an unmanned drone, as some papers (as the Los Angeles Time) continued to suggest.

What is happening in Afghanistan? Why kill school kids? Was it revenge? A mistake? The probable answer: Our military has a not-so-secret policy of fighting terror with terror. This is well known fact, but little reported: that our special forces function as an "antidote" to the teror tactics of the Taliban. Their goal (USA Special Forces) is to keep the civilian population more fearful of the US, than of the Taliban. It has always been this way. Wring your hands in anguish, but that is just what we bought into when we supported an unjustified war of imperial aggression.

Write the President, your congressman and senator to urge them to stop the senseless killing and bring all our troops home. With our forces back in the US, we will have far fewer “terror” incidents such as the deaths of school kids in Kunar. Our actions in Yemen and Afghanistan only create the circumstances for more terror.

2. Another Case of Misuse of Military Might-The Christmas Bomber From Yemen

On or before December 17, 2009, freshman President Barak Obama met with his military advisors. The staff was eager and flush with “hot” new information about a little-known al Qaida operative, one Qasim al-Raymi, who it was just learned was to hold a rally that day in far-off Yemen. Here was a chance to “liquidate” a political adversary who had the potential to make trouble for a close ally, in neighboring Saudi Arabia. The view of the military in the room was that the elimination of this individual was necessary to "send a message" and be “quick and clean”. The general sitting accross from Obama, jerked his jaw upward, as he spoke, to stretch his neck skin away from his too-tight shirt collar.

“A cruise missile from our fleet in the Gulf of Aden, a short flight, and “poof!—problem solved,” smiled, the general whose stiffly-starched olive-drab shirt was studded with ribbons and polished brass insignias.

The young president looked around the table at the rugged, cleanly-shaved faces. He tapped his long thin finger on the circular gold escutchen of his Presidential Blackberry. It was set on the desk in fornt of him, its customary five-centimeters away from his leather-bound daily intelligence log book. He stared at the round Presidential seal for a few seconds. Then looked up:

“Do it!”, he said, firmly.

The men around the table turned to look at each other and each smiled knowingly.

The President arose, picked up his Blackbery and log book and turned to depart. As he moved from the table the men at the table stood up, the sounds of scraping boots and sliding chairs filled the still room. They remained at respectful attention as the President passed through the door.

"We got 'im!", whispered the general with the tight collar, to a man next to him.

A few hours later, in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Yemen, a destroyer slowly steamed a five mile-wide circular course as it waited for orders. The big gray ship slowed turned into the faint south-west wind as a long tubular missile rose out of the hold. With little action of the small knot of sailors on the forward deck, the missile blasted off the ship’s gently swaying deck. The shiped rocked slighlty as it rose off the deck leaving a billow of trailing white smoke. The long gray tube flew straight up into the blue sky to its cruising altitude, then it leveled off, as its internal gyroscopes hummed and its tail fins and stabilizers smoothly moved to correct its course toward Sanaa in Yemen.

On the foredeck, a lone junior officer stood away from a group of sailors . He craned his neck to watch the white contrail of the missile slowly twisting as it was distorted by the upper winds. The condensate dissolved in the dry air leaving behind a thin line of cirrus clouds in the deep blue sky. The sailor took a deep breath, his heart full of pride, as he thought of how he would describe this event to his buddies back home. He'd tell how he was on the board the very ship that sent a “strong message” to the Yemeni terrorists.

Minutes later, the blunt nose of the cruise missile, following its pre-programmed GPS signal turned earthward. It nose-dived toward a small cluster of homes and buildings in a narrow treeless valley. Eighty-two (82) civilians, mostly women and children were blown to bits as the nearly two-tons of high explosives detonated. Two hundred and thirteen (213) other individuals were injured, among them a few al Qaida sympathizers. The US and western press virtually ignored this mass killing of innocents in distant Yemen.

But later that day, a local paper, the Yemen Times ran a story on the “US aerial attack on a suspected al-Qaida training camp in southern Yemen”. The reporter quoted a local source who indicated that indeed 82 civilians had died and 213 were injured by the massive bomb. The source noted that most of them were women and children from a nomad community residing in the district…and that most of the casualties were located between one and two kilometers away from the jihadist’s camp.

Four days later—on Monday—two unmasked al-Qaida militants (showing their faces to prove that the US strike did not kill them) appeared at a rally at the very bomb site where so many were killed. They need not have collected fragments of the crusise missile with "made in USA" on it to show the locals. They knew where the massive bomb had come from. But the militants blamed the attack on the Americans anyway. The men vowed revenge for the killing of innocents by the "Crusaders".

Five days later, Time Magazine in a piece by Abagail Houslohner in a December 22, 2009 issue, wrote a prophetic commentary which essentialy stated that the action in Yemen was counterproductive. Indeed for President Obama the action would be highly counterproductive. The report stated that the American attack had weakened the official Yemen government and strenthened the insurgency-- and stirred up more anti-American hatred. See: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1949324,00.html

”At least 34 people died last week, when Yemeni forces hit suspected al-Qaeda targets in the southern governorate of Abyan and in Ahrab, a district northeast of the Yemeni capital Sana'a. Western and Yemeni media outlets reported that the United States provided Yemen with key intelligence and firepower to carry out the strikes, but to what extent is unclear. Yemeni state media reported that President Obama phoned Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to congratulate him on a job well done, and ABC News said that U.S. cruise missiles had been used.

But regardless of who did what, a primary target in the attacks — Qasim al-Raymi, the al-Qaeda leader who is believed to be behind a 2007 bombing in central Yemen that killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis — is still at large. And reports of a U.S. role, and mass civilian casualties at the sites of the attacks, have sparked a public outcry and added to anti-American sentiments across the country. "They missed that individual," says Johnsen of the targeted al-Qaeda chief. "And at the same time, they ended up killing a number of women and children in the strike on Abyan. So now you have something where there are all these pictures of dead infants and mangled children that are underlined with the caption 'Made in the USA' on all the jihadi forums. Something like this does much more to extend al-Qaeda."

Indeed through the backlash that followed, the attacks have started to look like more of a boon than a bust for Yemen's al-Qaeda revival, as well as for other opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime. Iran — which Yemen accuses of backing the Shi'ite Houthi rebellion in the north — headlined the attacks on its state-sponsored Press TV with: "Obama ordered deadly blitz on Yemen."
"The al-Qaeda threat in Yemen is real, but now after this operation, it will be greater," says Mohammed Quhtan, a member of Yemen's opposition Islamist al-Islah party. "Al-Qaeda will be able to recruit a lot more young people, at least from the tribes that were hit. And it will have reasonable grounds to attract more people from Abyan governorate, and from the Yemeni population in general."

That's a frightening prospect for a country on the brink of collapse. Yemen's economy is in tatters; its population complains of neglect and development woes; and Yemeni children suffer from a 50% malnutrition rate. Observers warn that poverty and unemployment are prime recruitment factors for al-Qaeda, something they say the U.S. government and other foreign powers should have done more to address. "If you're going to carry out [an attack] like this, you have to have done a great deal of field work, where you've sort of undermined al-Qaeda through development and aid so that when something like this happens, al-Qaeda can't easily replace the individuals that it has lost," says Johnsen. "But if you don't take those steps then the pool of recruits just starts to multiply exponentially."

More troubling still is that last week's assault doesn't necessarily indicate a renewed Yemeni commitment to fighting al-Qaeda. Analysts say Yemen has been slow to confront the al-Qaeda threat with the gusto that the U.S. has been pushing for, in large part because going after the Islamist group hasn't always been in the government's best interests. "If the government wants to fight [al-Qaeda] seriously, they can do it," says Ali Saif Hassan, the director of Yemen's Political Development Forum. But, he adds: "It's a matter of political decision — how much they will win, and how much they will lose." Sana'a has recently focused more of its attention on the rebel separatist movement in the south and on the recent Houthi uprising in the north than it has on al-Qaeda".

In a review of the Time Magazine article (December 22, 2009) Henry Adams of "United for Peace in Pierce County" an e-jounal at:
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9253-commentary-us-strike-in-yemen-will-ultimately-prove-counterproductive.html summarized the story and added the following:

"Commentary: US strike in Yemen 'will ultimately prove counterproductive'

"C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute," as Napoléon Bonaparte is supposed to have said of the assassination of the duc d'Enghien. -- On Tuesday Time magazine took a critical position vis-à-vis the U.S.'s failed attempt on Dec. 17, 2009, to kill with cruise missiles Qasim al-Raymi, an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen. -- The attack "appears to have resulted in a number of civilian casualties," Abigail Hauslohner said.[1] -- (That's putting it mildly.) -- As a result, it has "started to look like more of a boon than a bust for Yemen's al-Qaeda revival, as well as for other opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime," she said. -- Princeton University Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen is predicting that the attacks will ultimately prove counterproductive. -- "Immediately after 9/11, a combined U.S.-Yemeni effort to decapitate the Islamist group's leadership in the country and dismantle its infrastructure met with considerable success, Johnsen says. But since 2006, al-Qaeda has managed to regroup and grow stronger as Yemen's government struggles to hold on to its territory amid multiple rebellions and rising poverty. Now, Johnsen adds: 'You can't just kill a few individuals and the al-Qaeda problem will go away.'"

Princeton expert, Mr. Gregory Johnsen's prediction was proved to be correct--only a short week after its publicaiton.

The Yemeni al-Qaida leader, Qasim al Raymi had no cruise missiles to respond to the US attack, but he did have a number of angry and well-motivated suicide bombers.

Thus, a week to the day after the cruise missile attack in Yemen, which killed 82 people, a young Nigerian man who had been in Yemen, prepared for jihad by sewing a condom filled with a white crystalline solid explosive known as PETN, (a highly explosive ingredient found in explosives such as Semtex or “Plastique”) into his underwear, and purchasing a flight on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 and headed for Detroit Michigan on Christmas Day. Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to ignite the charge as the plane approached Detroit. But there were three hundred people on that flight…one could only imagine the tragic results had he been "successful".

So understand this--in near-contemporaneity Mr Obama sent a half-a-million dollar, 20-foot long, US cruise missile with a ton and a half of high explosives into Yemen to kill and maim. In response, Qasim al Raymi sent a 23 year-old Nigerian out of Yemen with a few ounces of explosives sewn into his underdrawers to kill and maim. We killed and maimed nearly three-hundred innocents, he burned a hole in his underpants. The scenario is fitting for a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon. That is how silly this so called "war on terror" is. One could almost laugh at it if one blocks out the horrible level of death and destruction.

Though Abdulmutallab failed, and no one save the bomber himself was injured, the political fall-out for Mr. Obama's was heavy. The irony is that Mr Obama's wish for keeping his aggressive persona under wraps regarding the December 17th Yemen attack was one of the factors that hurt him in the eyes of some of his fiercest detractors on the right. Obama's fall into Bush-style cowboy shoot-em-up behavior acted to motivate and galvanize a prompt revenge attack by the Yemeni militants. But the public was unaware of Mr. Obama's war-like actions preceeding the Christmas bomb attempt on a plane full of holiday travelers. But those of Abdulmuttalab were everywhere very big news.

The Obama Administration continues to be strongly criticized over its failure to intercept the young Nigerian. Other factors that helped stir criticism of Mr Obama are the fact that the young man’s worried father had alerted the American CIA in Nigeria about his son’s disappearance and “radicalization”, and as well, the fact that young Abdulmutallab had been placed on a “watch list”, all added to Mr. Obama’s embarrassment.

Our young President got burned. But has he learned anything from his too-close and cosy association with his “generals”. I think not. Obama appears to want to continue as a "good soldier" to his military subordinates. The facts: two days after his failed attempt to kill al-Raymi, he agreed to a second launch of cruise missiles (or a drone attack) on December 24th to asassinate a Moslem cleric (and native-born US citizen) known as Anwar al-Aulaqi. It is this cleric who had reputed e-mail contact with Major Nidal Hassan, the US army psychiatrist who killed thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood .
(See Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122400536.html?hpid=topnews)

The attack on Aulaqi--who has no record as an active terrorist--was an act of national revenge for Alaqi's undefined and unproved involvement in the Fort Hood massacre. I can understand the military command at Fort Hood wishing for revenge, but that the President agreed to what is in effect an extrajurical execution--no facts, no jury, no judge is what we have here. Another question that should be raised here is was the extra-juridcal execution-attempt on al-Aulaqi legal in the US, or internationally? I think not. Would the killing of al Aulaqi be a US or international crime? The strike in Yemen on al-Aulaqi's house killed thirty people--of course, they were all described as “militants”. Noteworthy, is a more recent report which indicates that al Aulaqi was not home at the time and has survived. So all these deaths were for naught. See: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/12/31/152724/55.

So what about Mr. Obama, whose unwise and counterproductive use of lethal force, has cut a bloody swath of death and destruction across the Middle East in only a week? Eight kids in Afghanistan, eighty civilians in one strike in Yemen and another thirty in a house-attack to asassinate (a not-at-home US citizen, Moslem cleric who might have had contact with a home-grown terrorist) in another part of Yemen. Yet he has not been successful, has not made us safer (no more likely the opposite result) and has aroused a great cloud of damaging politcal opposition on his right. Plainly he has lost respect and hurt himself politically.

As they say Florida, "If'n you catch a ‘gator by the tail, you better be certain-sure he don’t turn around and bite you in the ass.”

To my sights, it looks like Obama got "bit in the ass" by acquiescing to the demands of his military advisors...It's time for him to throw his hands like President Kennedy, and take a long lonely look at his foreign policy and military options. Change is needed.

Get the picture?

rjk

FRANK RICH'S "PERSON OF THE YEAR" AND THE DECADE OF DECEPTION

In his regular NY Times, Sunday column, Frank Rich, (December 20, 2009) says fair well to a dreadful year and a horrible decade (a questionable election, 9-11, two unnecessary wars, and a great depression) by discrediting Time Magazine’s choice of Ben Bernanke as “Person of the Year”. According to Rich, the journal's choice of Bernanke was dishonest, and all too typical of the “flight from truth” syndrome which has infected our nation over the last decade. To underscore this national “bend the truth” tendency of the first decade of this century, Frank Rich enrolled his own candidate: four-time US Master's champion-golfer, Tiger Woods as his “Person of the Year”. Who could better represent the decade of deception? Tiger, whose golf and endorsement success was based on his superb mastery of the long drive, followed by a short-iron recovery shot close to the pin from the even the deepest rough, has seen his popularity plummet recently from 85% to 35% due to the explosive press coverage exposing a "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" personality. So who could better typify the “decade of deception” than Woods, the first “billion dollar” athlete, who so successfully manipulated his public image- one of a steel-willed, well-disciplined happily-married, privacy-loving "every-man"athlete, as he lived out his secret “wild-life” behind his fortified façade.

According to Frank Rich, awarding, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as Time’s ‘Person of the Year, 2009’ was only another example of gross media deception. Awarded since 1927 (Charles Lindbergh was their first) the famous national journal has honored some of the world's true greats--but according to Rich, this year's award went to a “schnook” who foolishly kept the economic mixer whipping at high speed as the economy went into a froth---then did nothing, as economy collapsed like a hot soufflé in a cold breeze. (See http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375_1947251,00.html). Since Bernanke’s primary function as Chairman of the Fed was to prevent economic "over exuberance" and financial bubbles, he is a most undeserving honoree, who failed at his primary function. Would they have put Lindberg on the cover if he had ditched in the Atlanic? No! Rather than acting as the nation’s financial guardian, Bernanke took on the role of facilitator of Wall Street’s excesses. (See: “You Ben are the Moral Hazard” by Senator Jim Bunning).

Mr. Rich’s insightful argument is that Time’s hypocritical choice was just another example among many during this last decade of how the media, the government and even private citizens misrepresent facts, bent the truth and lied to the public. One wonders, did Rich have President Obama's Nobel Prize committee in his sights too?

If Time was ready to "bamboozle” the public with the hypocrisy of installing Bernanke as a "Person of the Year". Frank Rich was ready to install Tiger Woods--a man whose personal life and public persona are so obviously, nay bizarrely incongruent, as to underscore the blatant hypocrisy in public discourse over this last decade. Rich’s well-written piece tabulates for us the many ways we have been deceived by our government, the electronic and other media.

"If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy)." .......As cons go, Woods’s fraudulent image as an immaculate exemplar of superhuman steeliness is benign. His fall will damage his family, closest friends, Accenture and the golf industry much more than the rest of us. But the syndrome it epitomizes is not harmless. We keep being fooled by leaders in all sectors of American life, over and over. A decade that began with the “reality” television craze exemplified by “American Idol” and “Survivor” — both blissfully devoid of any reality whatsoever — spiraled into a wholesale flight from truth".Frank Rich, NY Times, December 20, 2009.

That "flight from truth" over the last decade included the lies about Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction, as well as the non-existent ties to Al Qaidia, lies about non-existing Niger derived yellow-cake, as well as lies about those who attempted to expose lies like Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife.

Rich reminds of us of all those who bamboozled us over the decade from Barry Bonds who did not use steroids (yeah sure!) and the slippery John Edwards who did not father a baby, to the epitome of deception Bernie Madoff, as well as mere "associates in deception" Karl Rove, Elliott Spitzer, and “family-man” Larry Craig (of the wandering foot in public bathrooms), and don't forget financial huckster Ken Lay (of Enron fame), and many others.

Rich concludes that one of President Obama's problems is that..."... after a decade of being spun silly, Americans can’t be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything. As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out."

Mr Rich puts the question out there so elegantly and I admire him for his insight. But it makes me wonder. How can these hucksters be so successful? And why are Americans so subject to hucksterism? Why are we so gullible is the underlying question? I believe most of our local charlatans, flim-flamers, bamboozlers, and Wizards of Oz, hidden behind their screens would be exposed elsewhere in the world. Are we so badly educated, so simple, so believing we can not tell a snake-oil salesman from a sincere Senator?

One reason may be that there are too few Mr. Frank Richs (Krugmans, Dowds, and a few others) and too many Judith Millers in our press corps. The press simply is too well “imbedded” in our military , government and business to any longer truly serve its true function as guardian of truth. Then too, there are too few independent sources of information.

A passing survey of the news organs of record indicate how little difference exists among them. The same story makes the rounds, but they repeat the same facts and come to the same conclusions. Rather than raising ones questioning antennae some readers may find that similarity very reassuring. Here in America, there is simply a lack of alternate information. Yes, the Internet is available and may well address that shortcoming, but with far too few exceptions Americans do not get their news there, read foreign languages, and so foreign press is not a useful source, and if they did, they probably would not believe them.

Media consolidation which reached a crescendo in the late 1990s eliminated many independent news outlets. Today, most newspapers are owned by a few large companies. These large institutions have a stake in the status quo. In regard to the electronic media, valuable broadcast licenses and broadcast wavelengths are doled out by the government...which can withhold or terminate a licensee. That potential threat may limit what stories editors and station managers may permit to be aired. Then all too often--as we saw so clearly during the run up to the Iraq invasion of 2003, the established media (such as Frank Rich's employer-- the NY Times) become the propaganda arm of the government. Recall NY Times reporter Judith Miller and her pro-war reports sourced from (and prepared for her by) insiders in the Bush-Cheney White House. One would think that she should have been ostracized, yet she is back on the airwaves...on Fox News.

Modern education is partly to blame for our inability to spot a liar. It tends toward rote-learning, technological subjects, superficial summaries and subjectivism, rather than emphasis on developing analytical skills and critical thinking. But what can you expect from a nation which as recently as 2004 (by a Gallup Poll) revealed that 45% of the population held the mid-Nineteenth century ideas that the earth and man were created a mere 10,000 years ago in a form that is just as they appear today.

Then too the pernicious belief in an American exceptionalism, tends to increase our susceptibility to a flimflam. Though this may be more a the result of the preceding list rather than a itself a cause, the pervasive and pernicious idea that America is somehow "different" (and superior) than other nations is all too prevalent in our thinking. America sees itself as the only virtuous nation in a frightening world of tyrants and evil doers beyond the seas...oh with perhaps a very few exceptions...such as Israel and Great Britain. Thus, the general perception is that we are good, and they out there are bad. As a result, what our "good" government tells us is more likely to be valid, true and believable (and is more comforting and reassuring as well) while the pronouncements of foreigners---were we to understand their unintelligible languages anyway--is suspect. Our weakness is that too many Americans see themselves as living within an "island nation" surrounded by treacherous and alien cultures.

Finally, our susceptibility to deception may stem from simple mentally sloth. It takes effort to dig for facts, do research, question our leaders statements, and study. Most Americans are simply too busy, too well-fed, well-entertained and coddled to care. Here within the "island nation" we have few real threats, whatever former VP Cheney and Rush Limbaugh say. Were we really concerned, and were the outside world truly threatening, we would be forced into learning more about world geography, more foreign languages, and more about other cultures. Furthermore, the absence of these interests and concerns in our population belies the threatening nature of the world beyond our shores. If it were really threatened we would be more interested out of necessity.

On a visit to Salamanca, Spain, many years ago, to visit my daughter who was there as a Spanish language student, I met her roommate, a young Lebanese woman. This young woman's native language was Arabic, and as with almost everyone in Lebanon, she was also fluent in French and English. I also learned that she spoke both Turkish and Hebrew, and like my daughter, was at that time learning Spanish. When I asked her how she came to be such a linguist, she explained that she was no different than many in her country, where multilingualism was common. She had traveled around Europe a good deal as a student and she had learned English that way. French was really the second language of her homeland. "But what about Hebrew...are you Jewish?" I asked. "No, no, I am an Armenian Catholic", she said, with a flashing smile, then added with a sly wink, "But you know, as a minority, you must always know the language of your enemies and also of your friends. It is only for your own survival."

So this last decade of deception and disaster, these years of the "flight from truth" must end, for our nation to pull out of the political, financial and military difficulties we find ourselves in. But we would be wrong to place too much blame on the deceptive mass media, the perfidious George Bush and his ilk, the cardboard-imaged Tiger Woods, or the evil Bernie Madoffs, and duplicitous Ben Bernankes. These sorts will always be with us. We are the ones who have been hoodwinked, flimflammed, bamboozled and deceived and we must change to find our way successfully out of that fairway sand trap. We certainly can not afford another decade like the last. We must do better, think better, educate better, question more, learn more-- and trust less. We as a nation are better than being the butt, the target, and the mark of grasping charlatans.


Get the picture?


rjk

A PRIMER ON GLOBAL WARMING

As the World Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (Thursday and Friday) approaches interest in this global problem has increased as well as the political and economic consequences of actually addressing it. Accordingly, this last weekend I found myself responding to a question from a friend: "Do you believe this stuff on global warming?"

I answered in the affirmative. "The science of it is compelling."

"Science? Aint this jest politics?"

I quickly added, "No! It is very simple. It all has to do with carbon dioxide!"

"Yeah, I knew thaaaaat," yelped my friend.

I continued quickly without a pause, I knew I had only a minute or two of this person's attention span before me. "In the beginning...volcanoes on the primitive earth belched forth huge amounts of carbon dioxide and water. Over millions of years --nearly 500 million--that early atmosphere, rich in carbon dioxide and water, was slowly altered when primitive plants and other living things evolved. Since plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into organic solids and over long periods of time geological processes sequestered these carbon-bearing substances underground. Slowly, carbon dioxide became a very rare gas--less than 0.02% by volume of the total. With a lower concentration of this heat-trapping gas, the earth cooled. In the last million years or so, modern man evolved and has learned how to mine the carbon based buried substances, bring them to the surface,burn them in the atmosphere and add carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere--and reconstitute the ancient hot climate of millions of years ago." I said, setting down the beer mug exactly back into its circular water stain from which I had lifted it.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

That was as far as we proceeded with that conversation. Later on I though about what I should have said, so I add it here.

So you want to know what the basic science of global warming is, huh?

One must start with the idea that the earth interacts with sun's radiation just like any solid body. It absorbs solar radiation then as a warm body it re-radiates that energy back into space as heat. Eventually, it reaches some average temperature which is a balance between the radiation absorbed and the heat radiated away. As long as those conditions remain unchanged, planet earth, will reach some stable average temperature and remain there. (Though of course surface temperatures over the body may fluctuate wildly from a high-when its surface is exposed to the sun--during the day--to a low--when it surface is shielded from the sun--at night)

The earth follows basic principles of physics, its acts as a "black body" absorbing and re-radiating the sun's energy. However, one critical difference is that the earth has an atmosphere, a thick transparent film of gases which clings to its surface and subtly, but significantly alters the way the absorbed heat leaves the surface.

Think of yourself sitting in front of a large window on a sunny, cold, winter day. The sun streams through the glass and warms your face and body, yet if you place your hand on the glass of the window--the pane remains cold to the touch. The sun's radiation passes through the glass without heating it. But it is absorbed by your body--it heats you. You can readily feel the heat. That is a good analogy of what happens to the sun's rays as they pass through the atmosphere. They are nearly unchanged by the mostly transparent atmosphere, and are absorbed at the earth's surface. The earth's atmosphere is heated from the bottom up.

When solar rays strike the earth's surface they are absorbed and heat that surface. Of course, some surfaces absorb more radiation than others and get warmer than others. Snow or ice fields for example absorbs very little solar radiation, while darker surfaces such as deserts absorb more sunlight and heat up to higher temperatures. Once heated however, the earth's surface re-radiates its heat. However, this "earth radiation" or heat radiation is different than the light and other rays of solar radiation. As the radiant heat passes upward through the blanket of atmospheric gases the earth radiation interacts with certain molecules in the atmosphere to transfer the radiant energy to them. They heat up and transfer that heat to the atmosphere in general. Its temperature rises. Without this effect the earth would be very much colder than it is.

The atmosphere is composed of a mixture of gases--mostly nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) with small amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and many other gases in trace amounts--and variable amounts of water vapor. Water vapor is very common in the atmosphere. Because of its molecular shape water molecules readily interact with earth radiation. It is a good absorber of earth radiation and readily heats up. Humid places on earth, such as tropical forests for example, are for this reason warmer than they would be based on the amount of radiation they receive, while deserts--where water vapor is scarce--even in equatorial regions-- can be loose the heat they absorbed during the day very quickly and get very cold at night, since there is little water vapor to trap heat.

Though water vapor is very effective in its absorption of earth radiation, it is a conservative gas...the atmosphere can hold only a certain amount. When its concentration increases, the air may reach saturation. No more water vapor enters the air and any additional water vapor forms swarms of tiny liquid droplets we know as clouds, or fog--or ice crystals--as well and other forms of condensation. Thus, the amount of heat-trapping water vapor in the air is naturally limited...it varies from place to place and time to time, but overall it remains a constant--since when it is too much it is naturally voided from the air as clouds, fogs or as ice crystals and ultimately may fall from the sky in the form of precipitation.

But other gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane are not conservative. They have molecular shapes which can interact with earth radiation and absorb earth radiation, and their concentration can change over time. Carbon dioxide is the most important. It is a most effective absorber of earth heat. Do to its presence (and other gases) the earth would be 60 degrees F cooler than it is at present. In the modern atmosphere CO2 presently accounts for less than 0.04% (by volume--see below). Yet it is an effective and important heat- trapping gas. One had only to look toward the planet Venus to understand how effective this gas is as a heat trapping agent (though other effects also play a part) Venus is near to the earth, and of nearly the same size, but unlike the earth, it has an atmosphere that is nearly 97% carbon dioxide--and a surface temperature that is about 900 degrees F.

Note that I discuss here only carbon dioxide, but two other gases-- methane and nitrous oxide-- are also heat trapping gases though not as effective as the former. Perhaps I will discuss their impact in a future blog.

On earth carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is an integral part of the great carbon cycle. As a gas it is absorbed by plants through their leaves to form sugars in the presence of chlorophyll and sunlight to form sugars by photosynthesis. In that process CO2 combines with water (H2O) to produce simple carbohydrates which plants use as building blocks to produce complex sugars, cellulose and starch. In the process, plants--which get the energy for this reaction from sun light and the photolysis (breaking apart) of water molecules--release oxygen as a waste product. Animals use oxygen to oxidize plant-derived sugars and generate energy for their life-processes, and in the process release CO2. There is a lovely balance here, a great cycle-- and in primordial nature..a balance existed between plants and animals. As a result of this balance, the level of CO2 remained remarkably static for hundreds of thousands of years--as did the earth's temperature.

As long as the actions of early human beings remained within the confines of this natural system, there were few changes in the carbon dioxide concentration or the temperature of the atmosphere. When humans mastered fire, the burned wood for fuel, but they added no additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere..since the carbon of wood was removed by plants--and in the burning of the wood the carbon of the wood is oxidized and reenters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide--and this maintains a steady state for carbon. [As noted above, in the distant past, volcanic activity added large amounts of carbon dioxide to the air. Ancient atmospheres of hundreds of millions of years ago had much higher concentrations of this gas when volcanic activity was more common. However that ancient carbon was taken up by plants and sequestered underground by biochemical and geological processes. At present, volcanism generates less than 1% of the carbon dioxide humans produce.]

Early humans evolved with weak jaws and teeth and relatively small bodies, but they had a large brain--and two hands to manipulate their immediate environment. They soon learned how to make tools, chop down forests (which effectively remove carbon dioxide),dig up long-buried sources of carbon in the form of peat, coal, oil and gas and use these as fuels, raise farm animals which release methane gas, and burn limestone to produce lime-mortar and concrete which release CO2 as well. Recall that the "fossil fuels" humans turned to for fuel were formed millions of years ago by the storage of carbon compounds by ancient plants and animals, and had remained buried by geological processes.

By unearthing of these long-sequestered carbon sources and burning them in the atmosphere (i.e. combining the ancient carbon with the oxygen of the air as in your furnace, automobile, or gas fired fire-place) more recent humans have altered the existing carbon cycle. Human actions have caused an increase in the concentration of CO2 which had been steady at about 200-280 ppmv for millennia. Since the advent of mining fossil fuels and their use as fuel in the early 1800s the end-product of that process--carbon dioxide gas has been rising steadily in concentration.

Based on analysis of air bubbles in glacial ice, the pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations in
the atmosphere ranged between 200 and 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv). For example, an ice core measurement for the year 1832 indicated a carbon dioxide concentration of 284 ppmv, or about 100 ppmv lower than it is now. (See: Wikipedia.org)

The "new" carbon derived from fossil fuels is without question "anthropomorphic" i.e. generated by human activity. Burning petroleum,coal and natural gas are (in that order) the most important sources of anthropomorphic carbon dioxide additions to the atmosphere. In addition, more carbon dioxide is produced in the manufacture of cement ( which is an important contributor, but less than the others. Portland cement--so widely used in the modern world--is produced by burning limestone to drive off CO2 to produce what is known as "slaked lime" or CaO. When mixed with sand and water and exposed to the air the slaked lime reabsorbs CO2 from the atmosphere to form CaCO3 crystals (similar to those in the limestone that was its source). All that heating of limestone to by burning fossil fuels to form the slaked lime generates a great deal of waste CO2--thus its listing here.

There is an interesting natural variation in carbon dioxide concentration in that atmosphere which fluctuates from 3-9 ppmv seasonally and follows the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. (Since that hemisphere has the most land area and biomass.) As plants grow they take up carbon dioxide and that lowers in the atmospheric carbon, and conversely as they stop growing and decay the concentration rises. The peak CO2 level occurs in May as the growing season just begins and the minimum is in October at the end of the growing season. See Wikipedia]

Recall from above that the present 2008 concentration of carbon dioxide is nearly 0.04%, or more precisely it is: 0.0385% by volume. Stated in parts per million by volume that is more frequently referred to as "385 ppmv" (parts per million by volume).

As noted earlier, this value has been consistently rising and in a predictable way. Beginning in 1965 direct measurements of this gas over Hawaii, in the near-center of the Pacific Ocean, recorded a value of 320 ppmv, by 1989 the value had increased to 350 ppmv, and by 1995 is was 360 ppmv, in 2000, 370 ppmv of carbon dioxide was recorded. Today in 2009 the value is somewhere above 385 ppmv.

Why does the level of the gas rise so predictably?

One has only to measure how much coal, oil or gas a nation burns to calculate the amount of carbon dioxide is being generated by those actions. (Wikipedia informs me that the US burns 1.1 trillion tons of coal each year (one ton of coal produces nearly two tons of CO2), and almost 8 billion barrels of oil per year where one barrel produces nearly one half ton (US) of CO2.) It is a simple chemical equation. Enormous amounts of coal, oil, gas, gasoline and other fossil fuels are burned each year. Measurements of the amount of carbon dioxide added annually to the atmosphere is easily calculated based on how much fossil fuel we consume. For example each gallon of gas burned generates about 8.8 kg of CO2, or about 19.4 pounds of CO2 gas which is released into the atmosphere. So one can simply multiply the number of gallons burned each year to calculate the gasoline-derived component. Then add to that the amount from coal, petroleum and other sources. Credible estimates of the total world production of carbon dioxide indicate an annual additon to the atmospher of about twenty-eight billion metric tons. Twenty-eight billion metric tons of CO2 each year has its effects on the graph of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Each year there are more of us and we all use more and more fossil fuels.

Most knowledgeable observers and many scientists consider the 1989 level of 350 ppmv as a "safe" level for the world and a target level for world leaders to aim for as they consider abatement of addition of CO2 gas to the atmospher. Remember the case of Venus and its surface temperature of 900 degrees F.

It seems clear that the reason the year 2008 was the hottest on record (at least since records have been taken) has much to do with the fact that the level of carbon dioxide was more than one third higher than it was in the pre-industrial years of the early 19th Century.

What nations are mostly responsible for this burden of carbon dioxide?

Well those nations which are presently highly industrialized are mostly responsible. It is an interesting fact that nearly one third of the more than six billion people on the earth or about two billion people still heat their houses and cook their food with wood. They remain free from fossil fuels and barring the aerosol soot produced by their home fires they have little culpability in the global warming problem. However carbon dioxide releases are easily calculated for each nation.

The two nations which contribute more that 40% of the world total of released caron dioxide gas--one is of a modest-sized population (about 308 million), but has an enormous and profligate fossil energy habit, while the other has about average fossil use habits, but has a very large (1.3 billion) population. Those two nations are the USA and China.

China and the US each pump about 20% of the world's total waste CO2 into the world's air. The USA with only 4.5% of the world's population (in 2009 = 6.8 billion) dumps about 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide gas each year as does China with 1.3 billion people. The two nation's total,of about 12 billion metric tons, is about 40% of the world's total 28 billion metric tons. Other large scale carbon dumpers are: the EU (population = 499 million and 7% of world population), which contributes about 4 billion metric tons or about 14% of the total. Thus, the total carbon pollution of these three political entities: China, USA and the EU represents more than half (54%) of the world's total.

For a credible response to this world ecological crisis those three political entities must agree to certain restrictions on CO2 dumping.

In terms of per capita pollution, the figures are equally interesting and informative. The world average amount of carbon dioxide dumped per person is about 4 metric tons. Citizens of some nations exceed that amount by a wide margin, while others produce much less. Each US resident is responsible for nearly 19 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, or nearly five times the world average. On the other hand, Chinese citizens dump only about five tons each, or one-fifth of the amount a US citizen contributes. EU individuals contribute about 8 tons each, less than half of the US citizen, while Russian and Japanese individuals contribute about 10 tons each (about one-half of a US citizen), and the Indian citizen releases the least--less than 2 tons each, or about one-tenth of a US citizen.

It is apparent that climate is one of the many factors in these measurements. India's low consumption level is in part related to its ecomomy, and its generally temperate climate. Citizens in colder climates require more heat energy to meet their energy needs and do so by increased fossil fuel consumption. Another example is Mexico which has an average level of carbon dioxide production per person of about 4 metric tons per year, while neighboring Canada releases19 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person.

Get the (preliminary) picture?

rjk

SIGNS OF RECOVERY?

I see in the economic journals that November retail sales reports are not what were expected. Though analysts are putting the best spin on on the figures they can. Last year, buyers went into a “defensive crouch” resulting in a whopping 8% drop in sales. This year (according to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34254816/ns/business-retail/) economists expected growth in retail sales of about 3-4% based on projections from September and October, but early analysis of available data from stores reporting monthly sales, December registered a decline of 0.3%! The biggest declines were in the more upscale stores, such as Macy’s and Sacs, bargain basement while others did a little better. This cast a pall over the hopes of retailers who turn much of their profit during the Christmas season. Since retail spending accounts for 70% of all US economic activity, this measure is like the wrist-pulse of the physician for the economist. Some analysts attribute the poor figures to the usually warm weather—which was more spring-like than Christmas-like.

However, today (December 11), the more inclusive Commerce Department (CD) figures were published and they suggest a slightly better picture--a paltry 1.3% increase in November, less than the 1.4% increase in October, but no matter, it was good enough for economists desperate to find some signs of silver in the grey clouds overhead. These CD figures include the sale of gasoline, which experienced a sharp rise in prices last month, and consequently skewed the values up a bit. Without gasoline prices the retail sales growth is about 0.8 % for November. (See: http://money.aol.com/article/stock-futures-hold-gains-after-retail/811170?v=aolrss) A less rosy look at these numbers reveals a sharp decline from October’s values (1.4%) in the run up to the Christmas buying season. The same report (op cit) touts the fact that Chinese exports only 1.2% last month, “the smallest drop this year. They posted a decline of more than ten times that amount in October (which was nearly 14% down). Though again, that value may be more the result of the optimism of a few buyers for large concerns who made their plans months ago and has little to say about how much American families will spend for the critical Christmas season. So for this observer the over-all economic picture does not portend well for retail sales this Christmas season.

How can it be otherwise with ten percent of the labor force idle?

But let’s look more closely at those employment figures.
Of the 304 million US population, 155 million are categorized as the “US labor force” (See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). In November 2009, some 15.4 million of in that group were listed as formally “unemployed”. That is how the 10% unemployed figure is calculated. But also listed are 9.2 million employed only part-time (these are the involuntary part-time workers who can not find a full time job), there are also some 2 million discouraged workers who have sought employment in the past 12 months. They are remain in the unemployed category but are not counted in the formal figures. The actual rate of idle workers may be calculated thus: 15.4+ 9.2+2= 26.6 million idle out of 155 million workforce, or about 17 %. Thus nearly a fifth of the workforce is idle. That is a large percentage of workers who will not be able to walk into a retail store and purchase freely—as our retailers would like.

In the past many of these idled workers, part-time employed, and discouraged workers might have made purchases with “plastic”. But that has changed too. In an MSNBC piece entitled “Credit card debt, terms limit holiday sales”, Allison Linn (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34347297/ns/business-consumer_news/?ns=business-consumer_news&from=ET) lists how and why that avenue of more robust Christmas sales has been shut down this season.

Linn notes several startling facts in her story. She reports that “revolving debt” which is another name for credit card debt in now nearly one trillion dollars! Astounding! That figure has been falling steadily for the last 13 months ---perhaps out of necessity. Banks simply don’t have the money to lend and are more leery of problem lenders. But outstanding credit card debt in the US, after falling a paltry 1% since September last year, still stands at nearly $900 billion dollars! (according to Linn these are recently released Federal Reserve figures which I could not easily verify). That amount, $900 billion dollars, (if accurate) represents an equivalent of nearly $3000 dollars in credit card debt for every man, woman and child in the US. But since the unemployed have likely suspended their use of “plastic” the modest change in that figure may be more a function of unemployment and unavailability of credit than a wised-up and less profligate population.

Another jaw-dropping fact Linn includes is that nearly 14 million US citizens are still paying for credit advanced to them for items purchased last Christmas season!! Many have likely reached their debt limit or had that limit reduced by their credit card company and thus are struck with only cash-on-hand for spending this year. Linn notes that nearly 60 million people have had their credit limits reduced between April 2008 and April 2009 and these would not or could not add to that debt. But for the consumer this is not the worst that could happen.

Consider that credit card interest rates have gone up…without warning or even a polite notice to card holders-- while bank interest rates on deposits have fallen sharply. A cash deposit in your local bank will earn only a paltry 1.2%, while your credit card company is now charging nearly 14% on the amount it advanced you perhaps last Christmas. And that number is up 2% from the 12% they were charging in May 2008

So what about the rosy view of the recovery? Think again…the average consumer out there is underemployed, underpaid, overburdened with debt and not happy. There appears to be a few more shoes to drop.

Get the picture?

rjk