So an Airplane Walks Into a Bar…

Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by admin in Energy Security, Environment, Uncategorized

Bio-jetfuel takes to the skies as airplanes explore alternative energy sources like camelina and jatropha. However, all this innovation comes with a steep price tag: food. Someone has to grow all those useful fuel crops, and it’s falling to third world farmers to shoulder the burden while production of edible foodstuffs declines accordingly. With most of the affected population unlikely to enjoy the benefits of green air travel, who will? The answer: Goldman Sachs.

Read the latest on bio-jetfuel in this episode of “A Minute of Your Time.”

Falkland Feud

Posted on 19. Feb, 2010 by admin in Energy Security, Environment, Uncategorized

At this moment, the UK is sending a deep-sea oil drilling platform over to the Falkland Islands, and the Argentineans don’t like it one bit. The government has arrested a ship bringing in supplies, and it has even passed a law that all ships sailing to the Falklands through its waters need a special permit.

The Falkland sovereignty question goes back decades. Britain and Argentina fought a war over the islands in the early 1980’s. Argentina lost, and the issue, not surprisingly, still stings.

The last two Argentinean administrations have aggressively pursued new negotiations. In 2007, then-president Nestor Kirchner unilaterally scrapped an agreement with the UK to share fishing rights and the proceeds of oil discovered in Falkland waters.

The recent flare up of tensions isn’t really about the Falklands’ sovereignty; it’s about money. Geologists estimate that up to 60 billion barrels of oil could lie in the seabed around the islands. It’s no secret what a difference the extra revenue could make to Argentina’s rapidly deteriorating finances.

60 billion barrels and it's all ours!

Some argue that current president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is using the Falkland question to stir up nationalist sentiments to divert attention away from the country’s large international debt. Thirteen billion dollars of Argentina’s international debt matures this year and economists predict a budget shortfall of up to $7 billion.

But is Argentina acting in its own interest? No. The country stands to gain tremendously from a large oil boom. The Falklands – populated by a mere 3,000 people – don’t have anywhere near enough man-power, infrastructure or space to helm a large drilling and extraction operation (and neither do the islanders want to).

There’s a lot of room for Argentina and the UK to work together. Argentina would be the natural choice to land oil on the mainland. In this high priced energy environment, even a couple hundred thousand barrels a day of oil could plug a significant part of Argentina’s budget deficit. However, if the UK doesn’t see a good partner in Argentina, it could easily opt for Brazil as a viable alternative.

If it wants to capitalize on any oil windfall, Argentina needs to find another way to manage relations with England and its island neighbor.

- Ed Head

El Diablo Rojo Returns

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

MAUI — They’re here.

El Diablo Rojo, the “Red Devil” squid, which invaded the California coast last year from Mexico, ripping off divers’ masks and generally checking to see if they were edible, reached the western shores of Maui this week.

A skim boarder caught an 8- to 10- pound squid. He told reporters that he gave it to a fisherman to use as bait, otherwise he would have made “dinner for 10.”

This is one more indication that the red devil squid (also known as “Humboldt” squid, which doesn’t nearly have the same nifty ring to it as el diablo rojo)  is increasing its territory.

One down, how many to go?

When we covered this story last year, we were told by Ronald O’Dor, senior scientist at the Census of Marine Life, that the proliferation of this large (but not “giant”) squid has been attributed to global warming and to over-fishing. Predators include large fish, like tuna, whose ranks are thinning severely.

The squid returned to California this week, many weighing in at 20-to 80 pounds. A reminder from O’Dor: if you see “squid steak” on your local menu, it’s Humboldt, and it’s extra tender.

- Michele Mitchell

Dog Power

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by admin in Environment

You love your pet, don’t you? Well would you love it if you knew it was destroying the planet? New Zealand-based Professors Robert and Brenda Vale say that a large dog requires 2.7 acres of land to sustain – the equivalent of what it takes to power almost 3 SUVs. The only rational thing to do may be, yes, to eat it when it dies. Now, before writing this notion off, consider this: the average American child generates a carbon footprint about six times greater than one of its parents. Maybe it’s time to…no, no, we can’t say it. In this episode of A Minute of Your Time, take a look at the carbon pawprint of some of your favorite pets.

Need more gas, pup?

Nepal’s Ongoing Electricity Crisis

Posted on 02. Feb, 2010 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

The Metropolitan Police in Kathmandu had organized a press conference for 6pm on January 3, 2010. It was a big occasion. They were to announce the arrest of Yunus Ansari and seven others on the charge of counterfeiting 24 million Indian rupees (US$500,000). But just as a police superintendent was briefing journalists… the lights went out.

Sadly, this has become a familiar sight in Nepal. Although Nepal is one of the richest country in the world in terms of water resources, most of the country sees 11 hours per day of load-shedding. This means that almost half the time people don’t have the use of lights, appliances and other devices that require electricity.

Don't let the lights go out

This has been particularly problematic for crime. Only the central police headquarters in Kathmandu has a designated alternative energy source, whereas all the district police offices operate with the help of candles or emergency lights.

On top of that, the police have constant troubles charging their communication sets. High crime zones remain in darkness. The jails function with the help of candles, and the CCTV cameras are turned off. It’s no surprise that crime rates are rising fast.

Bigyan Raj Sharma, a Deputy Inspector General on the Nepal police force, said that to fight the load-shedding problem, police have increased the number of officers on the streets. He admitted that load-shedding was making Nepal’s people “psychologically terrorized.” The situation is taking its toll on Nepal’s small and medium-sized businesses, which have to seek alternative energy sources that make their services more costly.

Despite government efforts, load-shedding is only getting worse – due, in large part, to the environment. According Nepal’s electricity authority, a few more load-shedding hours may actually be added this winter as water levels in the rivers are going down.

- Rajneesh Bhandari

‘It’s All Changing in the Next Five Years’

Posted on 21. Jan, 2010 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

Signs of climate change seem to be popping up everywhere these days, and there’s a lot of evidence it’s done by humans. Mountain climber and author Pete Takeda has seen and heard a lot about climate change over his vast travels in the past 25 years. In this last segment in our three-part interview (here are parts 1 and 2), Takeda talks about deforestation and dam building.

A Witness to Global Warming

Posted on 19. Jan, 2010 by admin in Environment

Author Pete Takeda has spent his life climbing mountains all over the world. During this time he has seen clear evidence that the the snow is melting, the climate is warming, and the mountains themselves are drying up.

In our previous excerpt with Takeda, he spoke of a CIA plan gone horribly wrong. Here Takeda discussess his impressions of our changing world.

Devastation in Haiti

Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

Haiti has never made a most-stable list, so the 7.0 earthquake that left Parliament, the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and the tax office collapsed–among other scenes of devastation–is crippling.

Security expert and author Robert Shepherd points out to us that “[the] first and most important emphasis should be on security, simply as the city and UN HQ there has lost it’s infrastructure. If there’s no security, there’s no aid!”

Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince (United Nations Photo)

The natural go-to nation is the United States, Shepherd says.

“Even as we speak, the world’s developed nations are sending humanitarian aid. Europe and UK are on their way having fought through snow to get to their respective airports. By the time they arrive in Haiti or DR next door, the US could already be up and running with a security plan established.”

So what happens now? We start by asking Tom Squitieri, who has spent years in and out of Haiti first as a prize-winning war correspondent for USA Today and then as founder of TS Navigations in Washington, D.C. Check out the interview here.

How the CIA Lost a Plutonium Battery

Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

In 1965, the Cold War was running very hot, and in an effort to spy on the Chinese, the CIA mounted an expedition to Nanda Devi, a mountain in northern India, to place a listening device. Unfortunately, bad weather forced the team off the mountain, abandoning the device in the process. It proceeded to sink into the surrounding glacier, and is still there today. Worse, it’s powered by plutonium, which may or may not be slowly seeping into a rather important river: the Ganges.

Recently, we caught up with Pete Takeda, author of An Eye at the Top of the World about the botched CIA plan. Watch the first part in a three-part interview.

Come Together, Climatologists!

Posted on 21. Dec, 2009 by admin in Environment, Uncategorized

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and former vice president Al Gore – and their followers on either side of the climate debate – have more in common than they might think. So says a new report published today by the American Chemical Society.

The report, by Steven Ritter, points out that there is agreement on both sides of Climategate: that “there is no question that Earth’s atmosphere carbon dioxide concentration has increased since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s, with most of the rise coming since late 1950”; “there is agreement that the CO2 increase is largely the result of emissions from burning fossil fuels”; and, “everyone agrees” that “the global average temperature has risen since 1850, when reliable instrument temperature measurements began, with most of the warming occurring since 1970.”

The break point is why. Are the changes because of man (and woman), or just what happens to natural climate variability—or, change in climate of an area or of the whole world over an appreciable period of time.

The world's getting hotter, so let's just hug

The debate is contentious (mostly it’s scientists taking “exception to the notion that there is a ‘consensus’ agreement on the science), but climatologist Michael Hume of the University of East Anglia, in England, points out, “we must not hide behind the dangerously false premise that consensus science leads to consensus politics. In the end, politics will always trump science.”

He told Ritter, “It is vital that we understand the many valid reasons for disagreeing about global warming and climate change. We must recognize that they are rooted in different political, national, organizational, religious, and intellectual cultures –– our different ways of seeing the world.”

You can read the whole report here. Peace on Earth.