Another Ugly Leak

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Massive toxic leaks into the environment can be horrible, whether it be the Gulf of Mexico or a horrible, incompetent-run war in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, WikiLeaks (my laptop won’t load the group’s website) released a shitload of formerly-classified documents on the  Afghan conflict, and the result ain’t pretty.
From the the New York Times:

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

The documents will most-likely raise a stink, but the war will also most-likely continue.
In Afghanistan (as in Iraq), there is no winning for losing.

Despite the Obama White House blubbering about how the leaks “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk,” US Sen John Kerry retorted: “However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

And also on Sunday:

Meanwhile, Nato says it is investigating reports that as many as 45 civilians died in an air strike in Helmand province on Friday.
Although an initial Nato investigation found no evidence, a BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had witnessed the incident.

Try and cap this sonofabitch…

‘Seeing’ Face

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Just as I figured: Computers are intolerant, racially discriminatory and just creepy.
Figuring out  African-Americans was a problem for HP’s newest face-recognition gear:

In the video, Wanda (Caucasian) and Desi (African American) — two employees at what appears to be a computer electronics store — expose a flaw in the webcam software.
As depicted, the software has no problem recognizing Wanda’s face, with the webcam following her face around as she moves up, down, in, out and around.
No such luck for Desi, however, as the camera remains completely static regardless of any movement.
The side-by-side portrayal is quite jarring and paints a strong case in favor of Desi’s conjecture: “I think my blackness is interfering with the computer’s ability to follow me,” and assertion that, “Hewlett-Packard computers are racist.”

HP quickly responded, knowing how these things can get out of PR control.
From HP’s Voodoo Blog:

Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers, who are ethnically diverse and live and work around the world. That’s why when issues surface, we take them seriously and work hard to understand the root causes.
…
The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose.
We believe that the camera might have difficulty “seeing” contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting.

Eyes speak with forked-robotic tongue.

(Illustration found here).

‘Why aren’t they turning?’

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In the midst of bad news from many quarters, this latest does make one feel better.
From Wired:

That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029.
The asteroid appeared ready to give the Earth its closest shave since astronomers began looking for such things.
It was judged a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale for a short time, the highest rating any near-Earth object has received.
…
Even though the asteroid doesn’t look like it’s going to hit Earth, on April 13, 2029, it will come closer to Earth than any other near-Earth object that we know of.
It will pass just 18,300 miles above the planet’s surface.

A comfort, though slight, is the notion the event isn’t loosely-scheduled for another near-30 years.
And with a real-huge shitload of nefarious situations currently facing the planet, to paraphrase George Carlin’s “Hippy Dippy Weatherman,” don’t sweat that piece of space rock coming our way.

(Illustration found here).

Light-Up a Smoke

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Copenhagen: Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position.

The talks have become what one observer called a “farce,” as guidelines agreed on two years ago are not even obtainable because these clowns can’t even agree now on the basics — and it’s still about the money.
Developed countries vs those undeveloped — the rich are stalling the not-so-rich: “The disaster has already begun because we have not closed the gap an inch. We have not moved,” a senior Asian negotiator said. “We are just trying to paste over it with political rhetoric.”

(Illustration found here).

While delegates to the conference are playing grab-ass with a planet’s future, the need for some kind of killer agreement to curb/stop greenhouse gases or the days ahead will be a killer time.
Sadly, and mighty depressing is the actual reality — what needs to be done in time to stop/mitigate the horror coming just near-literally around the corner.
Environmental activist Bill McKibben posted a sobering view today at environment360 on the challenge of what’s at stake.
Some snippets:

But here’s the thing: The words don’t count.
None of them. If you want to understand what’s going on here, you need to shut out the words, the drama, the craziness, and just focus on numbers — and really just a few.
Outside the window, right now, the atmosphere contains 390 parts per million (ppm) of CO2.
That’s too much — as a result, sea ice is melting, glaciers retreating, deserts spreading.
Science has told us where we need to go: 350 ppm.
There’s really not much pushback against that number — the UN’s chief climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri has made it clear that it’s a necessary target.
…
So here’s the number at the moment.
Take every plan — the meager American one, the more aggressive European targets, the Chinese promises to use less carbon per yuan of output, the Brazilian pledges about forests, the Maldives hope of going carbon neutral inside a decade. Push the button.
In the year 2100, the atmosphere will contain 770 parts per million CO2.

And even with all this serious science shit, there are still some real-mean-ass, dumb-ass people, like a for instance, Sen. Jim Inhofe, a delusional-type A character who will reportedly travel to Copenhagen to show his US ass-ignorance, even demanding an investigation into “climate-gate” as global warming is a massive, way-complicated fraud: “They’re cooking the science,” Inhofe said. “The same things that came out on these e-mails is what I said four years ago.”
And to this comes a snap-back from US Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee: “Well, my good friend Sen. Inhofe is entitled to his opinion, but he’s not entitled to his own facts.”

Words not numbers — a match waiting…

Anoxic Anxiety

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Nearly in a near-panic.

Wikipedia: Oceanic anoxic events or anoxic events occur when the Earth’s oceans become completely depleted of oxygen (O2) below the surface levels.
Although anoxic events have not happened for millions of years, the geological record shows that they happened many times in the past.
Anoxic events may have caused mass extinctions.
These mass extinctions were so characteristic they include some of those which geobiologists employ to serve as a time marker in biostratigraphic dating.
It is believed oceanic anoxic events are strongly linked to lapses in key oceanic current circulations, to climate warming and greenhouse gases.


(Illustration: ‘Manatee In The Sea Grass‘ by Joann Shular found here).

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen: The Associated Press reports that the protests — which attracted 40,000 to 100,000 people, depending on the source — were “mostly peaceful.”
Peoples from 194 nations are meeting under the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change and despite all the hub-bub outside on the streets, early reports indicate not much has been accomplished other than the rich are still being assholes.
Also reportedly this week the climate talks will become dramatic as more activists and a shitload of world leaders (President Obama is scheduled for Friday — closing day), US congress-people, journalists and all kinds of other types will be trying to take up space at the conference.
And drama kicked-off today — climate science is serious as a heart-attack.
From DeSmogBlog:

During a live primetime climate-debate broadcasted on Danish national TV one of the participators, climate-skeptic scientist Henrik Svensmark, had a heart attack.
Bjorn Lomborg was by his side in the tv-studio when the scientist mid-sentence fell ill.
THe 41 year old Henrik Svensmark made an awkward spasm/shudder and burst out a strange noise, sounding like a cough.
The other participants in the debate looked baffled and he mumbled:
“It’s my heart,” and fell to the ground and the pacemaker kicked in once more and you could hear him scream. Bjrøn Lomborg yelled “call an ambulance, call an ambulance” and the host and the other participants came over to help the man.

Svensmark is supposedly one of the “sunspots and cosmic rays, not humans, cause global warming” kind of guys — a point reportedly refuted by the science.
And along with global warming, the “evil twin of climate change” –  ocean acidification — is apparently getting worse as a report released to the conference implied, although the CO2-related phenomenon doesn’t get much press.
The study from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) paints another bleak picture for the earth’s environment.
From the UK’s The Guardian on the report:

Ocean acidification — the facts says that acidity in the seas has increased 30% since the start of the industrial revolution.
Many of the effects of this acidification are already irreversible and are expected to accelerate, according to the scientists.
…
Although oceans have acidified naturally in the past, the current rate of acidification is so fast that it is becoming extremely difficult for species and habitats to adapt.
“We’re counting it in decades, and that’s the real take-home message,” said Dr John Baxter a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author. “This is happening fast.”
The report, published by the EU-funded European Project on Ocean Acidification, a consortium of 27 research institutes and environment agencies, states that the survival of a number of marine species is affected or threatened, in ways not recognised and understood until now.

And also from the UK and today’s timesonline:

Ocean acidification has been quite scandalously left out of the reckoning in the past few weeks.
I am not for a moment belittling the science behind man-made global warming. This still seems to me solid, despite the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia (“climategate”).
That levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are rising is not disputed. We have known since the 19th century that carbon dioxide was a crucial greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot of it and is hot as hell. Mars has almost none and is cold as ice.
…
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in about 1750, sea water acidity has increased by 30%.
The speed and degree of this change are faster than anything that had happened for 55m years.
The changes being observed are beginning to disrupt the ability of any organism to make shells out of calcium carbonate.
Organisms that do this include corals, crabs, lobsters, small creatures vital to the diet of fish and plankton of the kind that die and form chalk deposits such as the white cliffs of Dover.
Projections show that by 2060, given the current rate of fossil-fuel emissions, sea water acidity could have increased by 120%.
…
Such an effect could trigger a chain of reactions through entire ecosystems, from whales to fish and shellfish, with huge implications for economies and wildlife.
It could even stop the sea absorbing as much carbon dioxide as it does now, accelerating global warming.
It is pretty scary stuff.

Yes.
In a hearing Dec. 2, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), testified before the Senate Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming about seawater acidity and it’s consequences, which is also pretty scary stuff.
Read a comprehensive look at the current state of ocean acidification here.

Time to do something appears to have been yesterday.

Quick Punch

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(Illustration found here).

A new satellite-based study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience indicates the supposedly more-stable East Antarctic ice sheet has as been losing 57 billion tons of ice bulk a year since 2006.

From the BBC on the report:

“We felt surprised to see this change in East Antarctica,” study leader Jianli Chen from the Centre for Space Research at the University of Texas in Austin told BBC News.
The loss still looks small by contrast with West Antarctica, which is losing 132Gt (tons) per year, and with Greenland, where a recent analysis combining Grace data with other measurements indicated an annual figure of 273Gt.

(h/t Climate Progress).

Another brick in the wall of weird.
Also published Sunday in the Energy Bulletin:

The trouble with apocalypse is that most people have already seen it at the movie theater, watched it on television, read it in a book, or heard all about it from the pulpit.
So inundated with the language of crisis are we that we have become immune to it.
From the perspective of the historian our age has been chock full of “great transformations.”
And, it is, after all, the historian’s business to write about great change even if he or she has to invent some.
…
What apocalyptic narratives do is elevate the importance of the trajectory of every person’s life regardless of his or her station in society.
If we’re all in this together, then we can share in a great destiny no matter who we are.
But destiny sounds like fate.
What can one do if one is headed toward a great apocalypse? Pray, perhaps. Repent, maybe.
But responding to such a gargantuan event calls more for attaining the right relationship with one’s god than engaging in constructive social and political action.

Punch line: Don’t mothball the tuxedo!

Slow-Melt Irony

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One of the great turds of the US political system, Sen. James Inhofe, yes, that silly-assed Republican from Oklahoma, displayed a most-marvelous bit of horror-irony this week as he tweaked the future and all those to come after us.
Inhofe is a major big-mouth-crybaby global-warming denier — appears a fairly ignorant man.
And with the Copenhagen climate talks coming up in a couple of weeks, the pecker-head, dim-witted Inhofe claims the world is safe as nothing good comes out of Denmark.
Via HuffPost:

And Inhofe had a message specifically for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — “We won, you lost, get a life.”

Something terrifyingly-paradoxical there.

(Illustration found here).

Whether one wants to hear it or not, or even, whether you believe/know it or not, the near-future of the planet is way-grounded in the word, change.
There’s so much afoot nowadays aimed at a really-clouded and anxious tomorrow — weather, energy, food (all the basics) — that despite all of stinky-Jim Inhofe’s blubberings will affect/effect everyone in such a profound way it’s unfathomable here writing this morning.
Read the basics on weather/climate here.
And on energy here; the basic problem on food here.

Inhofe’s mouth-off last week was in response to news the full Senate won’t get around to a climate bill until this coming spring, months after the Denmark meeting.
Last summer, the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), which called for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, 83 percent by 2050.
The Senate’s slightly more ambitious bill calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020.
And from the clown who blubbered years ago climate change was “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Inhofe continues to bluster hysterical about  the hysteria behind global warming alarmism:

I also said in Milan that the science is not settled.
That was an unpopular view back then.
But today, since Al Gore’s science fiction movie, more and more scientists, reporters, and politicians are questioning global warming alarmism.
I proudly declare 2009 as the “Year of the Skeptic” — the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard.
…
Of course, from the most memorable tidbit from my two-hour global warming speech in July of 2003 were my comments about the science behind global warming.
Now, six years later, and as I head to the next UN global warming conference, I am pleased by the vast and growing number of scientists, politicians, and reporters all over the world who are publicly rejecting climate alarmism.
When I made those comments on the Senate Floor, few people were there to stand with me.
Today, I have been vindicated and I am proud to share the stage with all those who now dare question Al Gore, Hollywood elites, and the United Nations.

Inhofe feels “vindicated” from what?
Barbara Boxer is head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — the EPW passed global warming legislation a couple of weeks ago by bypassing bowl-obstructed GOP members, thus eliminating their participation — the guys were being asshole-jerks, they’d boycotted the bill by stubbornly seeking more EPA analysis at an estimated (and additional) $140,000 cost.
Inhofe whined about it anyway: “In the history of this, we’ve not been able to find a time when a bill has been marked up without minority participation…”
However, he does seem to get the ever-changing last laugh –spine-lacking Harry Reid’s assertion of no Senate debate on climate-warming until the snow melts.
Read a view of the Senate version of the climate bill at Climate Progress.

And adding fuel to the skeptic/denier crowd were e-mails hacked this week from the UK’s Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and posted online — actually a bit to do about nothing, unless you’re scamming.
From Wired:

Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and warping data to fit the theory of global warming, but researchers say the e-mails are being taken out of context and just show scientists engaged in frank discussion.

And one such e-mail from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado:

But Trenberth, who acknowledged the e-mail is genuine, says bloggers are missing the point he’s making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it.
That article – An Imperative for Climate Change Planning (pdf) — actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.
“It says we don’t have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures — including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators — that global warming is continuing,” he says.
…
“If you read all of these e-mails, you will be surprised at the integrity of these scientists,” he (Trenberth) says. “The unfortunate thing about this is that people can cherry pick and take things out of context.”

A good semi-insider response can be found at RealClimate.

Global warming and all its outlying complications are all too real — even a total mainstream source like National Geographic has a good interactive site on climate change — and Time magazine posed on Friday the consequences of a lame or near-non-existent agreement coming out of Copenhagen:

But there’s no getting around the fact that as the science of climate change grows more dire, the global political system seems increasingly unable to deal with that reality.
“We don’t want a global suicide pact,” said Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the Maldives, a low-lying Indian Ocean nation that could be swamped by global warming-caused flooding. “We want a global survival pact.”
But the world’s most influential leaders still aren’t ready for that.

Ready for what? An event way down the road, a maybe-problem for some future generation?
Not so fast…
From the executive summary of a new study (pdf) commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund International (h/t Climate Progress):

This report models the ability of low-carbon industries to grow and transform within a market economy.
It finds that runaway climate change is almost inevitable without specific action to implement low-carbon re-industrialisation over the next five years.
The point of no return is estimated to be 2014.

Re-invent modern industry in five years?
You gotta be shittin’ me!

Just follow Jumping-Jim Inhofe’s advice: ‘Get a life.’

Another Upgrade on the Downgrade

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Climate-change study and an ultimate understanding of future global weather appears fickle at best, and way off the mark at worst — in the last two years the big global-warming news is negative factors “have been significantly underestimated…”
In this particular case it’s methane gas, which is not only produced by landfill sites, fossil fuel energy and agriculture, particularly rice and livestock farming, but has been found to be ‘burping’ up from ‘methane chimneys’ due to thawing of the perma-frost in the Arctic.
(Illustration found here).

This morning from the UK’s timesonline:

Methane’s impact on global temperatures is about a third higher than generally thought because previous estimates have not accounted for its interaction with airborne particles called aerosols, NASA scientists found.
When this indirect effect of the potent greenhouse gas is included one tonne of methane has about 33 times as much effect on the climate over 100 years as a tonne of carbon dioxide, rather than 25 times as in standard estimates.
…
As methane breaks down much more quickly than carbon dioxide, the impact of cuts on climate would also be faster.
“For long-term climate change there’s no way around dealing with CO2 — it’s the biggest thing and it lasts hundreds of years,” Dr Shindell told The Times.
“But if we were to have a concerted effort to deal with non-CO2 we could have a very large impact on the near term.
“Substantial reductions in methane, carbon monoxide and black carbon: that’s the way to make a big difference. I think it should be more of a priority [for Copenhagen].”

In a few weeks — Dec. 7-18 to be exact — will be the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in which the world will attempt once again to reach some kind of consensus on one of the most-crucial events facing mankind most-likely in all of history.
Previews of the gathering ain’t too optimistic.
Even from Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister for Climate and Energy and president of this year’s conference, the Copenhagen meeting is the last stand for climate change reversal.
She says, in part:

“If the whole world comes to Copenhagen and leaves without making the needed political agreement, then I think it’s a failure that is not just about climate.
Then it’s the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century. And that is and should not be a possibility.
It’s not an option.”

The US, however, might be right now too preoccupied with the ‘public option’ of the health-care debate.

Economic considerations are also front and center in hampering the US from passing a decent climate-change bill along with millions and millions of lobbying dollars spent by coal pushers and others in attempt to hijack any kind of decent work on global warming.
The noxious smoke screen appears to be working.
A shitload of US peoples — 35 percent vs 44 percent just 18 months ago — believe global warming is not as serious as been shown, and humans are responsible — 36 percent, down from 47 percent last year.

According to McClatchy:

The legislation before the Senate, like a bill that passed the House of Representatives in June, would cap emissions and provide funding for climate assistance.
It would set a limit on emissions that ratchets down each year until it reaches an 83 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2050.
It also would require power plants and other large sources of emissions to buy pollution permits. Most of the money would go to subsidize consumers and industries for increased fuel costs, and to encourage the development of clean energy. Some also would go to help poor nations adapt to climate change.
…
U.S. negotiator Todd Stern, speaking to members of Congress in September, urged the Senate to act, saying, “Nothing the United States can do is more important for the international negotiation process than passing robust, comprehensive clean-energy legislation as soon as possible.”
However, it appears unlikely that the full Senate will vote on the measure this year because lawmakers want to finish overhauling health care first.
The Bush administration opposed mandatory cuts in emissions.
Joseph Romm, who was an acting assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said the Obama administration couldn’t turn everything around in less than a year.
“Given the last eight years, anybody thinking there was going to be a deal in Copenhagen wasn’t paying attention,” Romm said.

Romm runs the most-excellent site, Climate Progress, and he should know.

Ponzi’s Glad Tidings

Filed Under Environment, Finance, War & Politics | Leave a Comment

Beware of feel-good economic news…


(Illustration found here).

Even as the US stock markets post some high gains, even as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which has risen over the past six sessions, also finished Monday at its highest level in a year, and even as those infamous banks appear to slowing on losses — all just a figment of fantasy.
The Dow is “flirting” with the 10,000 level this morning after opening, based primarily on JP Morgan’s huge $3.6 billion reported earnings in the last quarter, and there is festive fun for everyone!
A total financial-only gravy-train: Bigger than prior to September 2008′s Wall Street meltdown — Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007…
And from the New York Times yesterday:

In recent decades, layoffs were the standard procedure for shrinking labor costs.
Reducing the wages of those who remained on the job was considered demoralizing and risky: the best workers would jump to another employer.
But now pay cuts, sometimes the result of downgrades in rank or shortened workweeks, are occurring more frequently than at any time since the Great Depression.

In the face of the official line on the economy — US Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke’s blubberings last week helped fuel higher expectations and: “At some point, however, as economic recovery takes hold, we will need to tighten monetary policy to prevent the emergence of an inflation problem down the road.” — the reality is covered up by an artificial band-aid for this so-called period on ‘down the road.’
Prepare to duck, or maybe tuck-n-roll when banks use its earning in a strategy called Delay-and-Pray.
What’s to be expected, however, when the federal government is once again trying to stop financial suck-hole AIG from paying out $198 million in bonuses promised to employees of its trading unit — same shit from the same ass from last spring to the same assholes.
WTF!

Yes indeed, WTF.
Lester R. Brown, normally an environmentalist and also an early voice on global warming, has compared the world’s economy, and especially with the US, to a giant “Ponzi Scheme” that’s about to collapse around our collective ears.
In his book published earlier this month, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Brown asserts that too much of modern life is entangled in a vast overstretching of just about everything, and the planet just can’t sustain itself much longer.
The book’s first chapter, “Selling Our Future,” can be found here.
A few snips:

As recently as 1950 or so, the world economy was living more or less within its means, consuming only the sustainable yield, the interest of the natural systems that support it. But then as the economy doubled, and doubled again, and yet again, multiplying eightfold, it began to outrun sustainable yields and to consume the asset base itself.
In a 2002 study published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a team of scientists concluded that humanity’s collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980.
As of 2009 global demands on natural systems exceed their sustainable yield capacity by nearly 30 percent. This means we are meeting current demands in part by consuming the earth’s natural assets, setting the stage for an eventual Ponzi-type collapse when these assets are depleted.
…
The larger question is, If we continue with business as usual — with overpumping, overgrazing, overplowing, overfishing, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide — how long will it be before the Ponzi economy unravels and collapses?
No one knows. Our industrial civilization has not been here before.

An example question: The $3 per gallon cost of gas in mid-2009 — layered with even higher costs (finding the oil, pumping it, refining it into gasoline and delivering it)?

These indirect costs now total some $12 per gallon.
In reality, burning gasoline is very costly, but the market tells us it is cheap.

So, this literal house of cards, what’s its future?
Reading tea leaves can be a bit tricky, but sometimes You don’t need a weather man To know which way the wind blows.

One guy who has been making accurate economic-related predictions for nearly 30 years, Gerald Celente, views another massive, maybe even worse downturn as just around the corner — or maybe even closer than the nearest corner.
Considered the most extraordinary forecaster/herald this side of Nostradamus, Celente has been right on the money with all kinds of future readings, calling 1987′s global-market-crash, the infamous “Black Monday,” to the rise of the Internet, all kinds of other shit, to nowadays and the current economic predicament: In November 2007, Mr. Celente also told UPI a massive devaluation of the dollar was coming and that some Wall Street giants were headed for total collapse. He called it “The Panic of 2008.”
In an interview last week with the San Francisco Examiner, Celente said people need to wise up:

“We want to make it very clear that the policies leading to the decline of ‘Empire America’ have been long in the making,” he said.
“What has happened in the Obama Administration is that they have taken policies far beyond even what Bush took with the TARP program; for example, with his stimulus package, with the buyouts, with the bailouts, the rescue packages, these are unprecedented in American history.”
“Never before has so much phantom money been printed out of thin air, backed by nothing, producing practically nothing,” Celente continues.
“You don’t even have to be a student of history to know the outcome of this.
All you have to do is have your eyes open, and start thinking for yourself.”

Celente claims nasty shit is about to hit the swirling fan: He wrote in July about what will happen within the next two years — By 2012, even those in denial and still clinging to hope will be forced to face the truth. It will be called “Obamageddon” in America. The rest of the world will call it “The Greatest Depression.”

Don’t panic — yet.
Once the panic does arrive, however, the following suggestions are suggested (from SatireWire):

  • Eat your young. “It seems barbaric, but trust me, if you don’t do it, someone else will, and you’ll end up kicking yourself.”
  • If you live in Manhattan and hear somebody sing “It’s Rainin’ Men,” don’t hum along. Jump out of the way.
  • Diversify your portfolio. Always sound advice, no matter the economic climate.
  • Set aside 10 percent of your pre-tax income for firearms.
  • Will your online broker be there in a market panic? Maybe it’s time you switched to a Schwab One account. (paid advertisement)

And always carry a pencil — you just never know.

Crude Bubblin’ Bust

Filed Under Energy, Environment, Finance, Politics | Leave a Comment

A few short years ago, anyone who discussed subjects like “peak oil” were considered a crank (not to be confused with, for instance, ‘Will my car crank without fuel?’) or a nutcase or just a plain worry-wart-conspiratorial fruitcake (not to be confused with a Dick Cheney), but nowadays there’s enough evidence from authentic sources to ignite water.

The latest report outlines a “significant risk” of oil running out in a decade, another from Germany’s Deutsche Bank which spell the end of the oil era and from San Francisco, “the end of the world as we know it.”

(Illustration found here).

Peak oil, of course, is manacled hand-and-foot with global warming/climate change, though, it’s hard to tell which will seriously erupt first — coal and oil fueled the engine for an industrial society (advanced civilization) that seems about to eat itself.
A classic creation-destroying-the-creator scenario.
Peak oil is also tied to economics — when there’s no money, consumption drops and there’s less demand.
Some even ponder $6-a-gallon gas as making life better.
Catastrophic results of peak oil appear further on down the time-line, although who’s to really say about a future so entangled with so many varying variables.

This week, a gaggle of peak oil “theorists” will gather in Denver, also the HQ of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas-USA (ASPO), to swap figures, statistics and hopefully seek solutions on how best to handle the inevitable.
According to denverpost.com:

“Up until now, technology has delivered dazzling results to America and the world economy, in delivering oil from all around the world despite increasingly challenging environments,” said Dave Bowden, ASPO’s executive director.
“The harsh reality is, despite the best efforts of amazing technology, they’re not finding as many of these big fields anymore.”

ASPO and others of its ilk push wind, solar and ocean-wave power, along with hybrid cars and use of better technologies to extract more oil — a bandage on an gut shot.
Last May, the US Energy Information Administration released its International Energy Outlook 2009 and a large oil-gulping sound could be heard: World marketed energy consumption is projected to increase by 44 percent from 2006 to 2030. Total energy demand in the non-OECD countries increases by 73 percent, compared with an increase of 15 percent in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries.

And in Alaska, peak oil and climate change collide.
From MSNBC:

Oil companies scouring the coastline of Alaska’s North Slope for new production sites are converging on the same territory as hungry polar bears trying to escape shrinking and thinning sea ice.
Polar bears have not attacked any workers recently, but oil companies are reporting four times as many sightings as they did last decade.
…
“What this appears to be is bears looking for another option because their traditional habitat is not as healthy as it used to be,” said Steve Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey. This summer, Arctic sea ice shrank to its third-lowest area on record.

(h/t The Oil Drum)

Mad Max, a damn dog and polar bears.

Climate Change Choo Choo

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There’s something I just don’t understand regarding climate change/global warming, although there’s plenty of opinions (Truism — opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one) about this horrifying weather/sky/ground/ocean-related event barreling square at humanity, and with seemingly a lot of multi-verified science to warrant near panic — Why isn’t climate change taken more seriously?

Does many more of the earth’s so-called civilized urban centers have to become Mars-looking Melbourne, Australia (depicted in the surreal artwork at left), before real action is taken — way more than just tree-hugging, plastic-hating and recycling.

(Illustration found here).

The earth is in such a fix, major adjustments are required, and from what I’ve gleaned from a little bit of knowledge (and far-less-real-science jargon understanding) is yesterday might have been too late — can mankind step back quickly from the threshold, or in the words of David Letterman, “We Are Dead Meat“?

Seemingly to me, the main focus is the mix of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere — detailed to parts per million (ppm) — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its report in 2007 with a 450 ppm as the stated goal to flatten CO2 and thus reduce global warming — in the last couple of years that benchmark, however, has been lowered, now to 350 ppm. (As an aside: I could never write any kind of science blog, just don’t got the brains — I can understand while reading, but within seconds that knowledge is most likely replaced by something off ‘Family Guy’).

Best site to stay informed is climateprogress.org — a good timely piece was posted there this afternoon with the timely and apt title: Is it just too damn late? Part 1, the Science.
The short answer: No.
The money snip:

I don’t think the basic story should be a surprise to regular readers of this blog. We’re in big, big trouble, and we’re not yet politically prepared to do what is necessary to avert catastrophe — as I’ve said many times. But that is quite different from concluding it’s too late and we’re doomed.

A good rendition/background and the economics of the 450 ppm and the 350 ppm CO2 situation can be found here.

The big problem that I can see is the advancement of climate change — a lot of these scientific research papers and reports are based on models and a lot of science-laced predictions.
Climate change is happening faster than previously supposed — stories here and here.
A snippet from the site Global Warming:

The IPCC Fourth Report confirms that over the past 8,000 years, and just before Industrialisation in 1750, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere increased by a mere 20 parts per million (ppm).
The concentration of atmospheric CO2 in 1750 was 280ppm, and increased to 379 ppm in 2005.
That is a whopping increase of 100 ppm in 250 years.
For comparison and at the end of the most recent ice age there was approximately an 80ppm rise in CO2 concentration. This rise took over 5,000 years, and higher values than at present have only occurred many millions of years ago.

Another factor in the ability to combat approaching bad levels of climate change is the intense and turbulent anxiety of the age — most-likely for the vast bulk of US peoples climate-change consequences are just on the peripheral vision of thought, if there at all.
Two horrible wars — one about to implode — a coming oil problem and a US economy described as a dead man walking does present major preoccupation notions.

Only time will upset the cart.