"BP-Style Extreme Energy Nightmares to Come"

From TomDispatch.com

BP-Style Extreme Energy Nightmares to Come
Four Scenarios for the Next Energy Mega-Disaster
By Michael T. Klare

On June 15th, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America’s leading oil companies argued that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration -- something that would not have occurred with proper corporate oversight and will not happen again once proper safeguards are put in place. This is fallacious, if not an outright lie. The Deep Horizon explosion was the inevitable result of a relentless effort to extract oil from ever deeper and more hazardous locations. In fact, as long as the industry continues its relentless, reckless pursuit of “extreme energy” -- oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium obtained from geologically, environmentally, and politically unsafe areas -- more such calamities are destined to occur.

At the onset of the modern industrial era, basic fuels were easy to obtain from large, near-at-hand energy deposits in relatively safe and friendly locations. The rise of the automobile and the spread of suburbia, for example, were made possible by the availability of cheap and abundant oil from large reservoirs in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, and from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. But these and equivalent deposits of coal, gas, and uranium have been depleted. This means the survival of our energy-centric civilization increasingly relies on supplies obtained from risky locations -- deep underground, far at sea, north of the Arctic circle, in complex geological formations, or in unsafe political environments. That guarantees the equivalent of two, three, four, or more Gulf-oil-spill-style disasters in our energy future.

Back in 2005, the CEO of Chevron, David O’Reilly, put the situation about as bluntly as an oil executive could. “One thing is clear,” he said, “the era of easy oil is over. Demand is soaring like never before… At the same time, many of the world’s oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and even politically.”

O’Reilly promised then that his firm, like the other energy giants, would do whatever it took to secure this “difficult energy” to satisfy rising global demand. And he proved a man of his word. As a result, BP, Chevron, Exxon, and the rest of the energy giants launched a drive to obtain traditional fuels from hazardous locations, setting the stage for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and those sure to follow. As long as the industry stays on this course, rather than undertaking the transition to an alternative energy future, more such catastrophes are inevitable, no matter how sophisticated the technology or scrupulous the oversight.

The only question is: What will the next Deepwater Horizon disaster look like (other than another Deepwater Horizon disaster)? The choices are many, but here are four possible scenarios for future Gulf-scale energy calamities. None of these is inevitable, but each has a plausible basis in fact.

Scenario 1: Newfoundland -- Hibernia Platform Destroyed by Iceberg

Approximately 190 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in what locals call “Iceberg Alley” sits the Hibernia oil platform, the world’s largest offshore drilling facility. Built at a cost of some $5 billion, Hibernia consists of a 37,000-ton “topsides” facility mounted on a 600,000-ton steel-and-concrete gravity base structure (GBS) resting on the ocean floor, some 260 feet below the surface. This mammoth facility, normally manned by 185 crew members, produces about 135,000 barrels of oil per day. Four companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Murphy Oil, and Statoil) plus the government of Canada participate in the joint venture established to operate the platform.

The Hibernia platform is reinforced to withstand a direct impact by one of the icebergs that regularly sail through this stretch of water, located just a few hundred miles from where the Titanic infamously hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. Sixteen giant steel ribs protrude from the GBS, positioned in such a way as to absorb the blow of an iceberg and distribute it over the entire structure. However, the GBS itself is hollow, and contains a storage container for 1.3 million barrels of crude oil -- about five times the amount released in the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

The owners of the Hibernia platform insist that the design will withstand a blow from even the largest iceberg. As global warming advances and the Greenland glaciers melt, however, massive chunks of ice will be sent floating into the North Atlantic on a path past Hibernia. Add increased storm activity (another effect of global warming) to an increase in iceberg frequency and you have a formula for overwhelming the Hibernia’s defenses.

Here’s the scenario: It’s the stormy winter of 2018, not an uncommon situation in the North Atlantic at that time of year. Winds exceed 80 miles per hour, visibility is zilch, and iceberg-spotter planes are grounded. Towering waves rise to heights of 50 feet or more, leaving harbor-bound the giant tugs the Hibernia’s owners use to nudge icebergs from the platform’s path. Evacuation of the crew by ship or helicopter is impossible.

Without warning, a gigantic, storm-propelled iceberg strikes the Hibernia, rupturing the GBS and spilling more than one million barrels of oil into rough waters. The topside facility is severed from the base structure and plunges into the ocean, killing all 185 crew members. Every connection to the undersea wells is ruptured, and 135,000 barrels of oil start flowing into the Atlantic every day (approximately twice the amount now coming from the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico). The area is impossible to reach by plane or ship in the constant bad weather, meaning emergency repairs can’t be undertaken for weeks -- not until at least five million additional barrels of oil have poured into the ocean. As a result, one of the world’s most prolific fishing grounds -- the Grand Banks off Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Cod -- is thoroughly poisoned.

Does this sound extreme? Think again. On February 15, 1982, a giant drillship, the Ocean Ranger (the “Ocean Danger” to its habitués), was operating in the very spot Hibernia now occupies when it was struck by 50-foot waves in a storm and sank, taking the lives of 84 crew members. Because no drilling was under way at the time, there were no environmental consequences, but the loss of the Ocean Ranger -- a vessel very much like the Deepwater Horizon -- should be a reminder of just how vulnerable otherwise strong structures can be to the North Atlantic’s winter fury.

Scenario 2: Nigeria -- America’s Oil Quagmire

Nigeria is now America’s fifth leading supplier of oil (after Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela). Long worried about the possibility that political turmoil in the Middle East might diminish the oil flow from Saudi Arabia just as Mexico’s major fields were reaching a state of depletion, American officials have worked hard to increase Nigerian imports. However, most of that country’s oil comes from the troubled Niger Delta region, whose impoverished residents receive few benefits but all of the environmental damage from the oil extraction there. As a result, they have taken up arms in a bid for a greater share of the revenues the Nigerian government collects from the foreign energy companies doing the drilling. Leading this drive is the Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta (MEND), a ragtag guerrilla group that has demonstrated remarkable success in disrupting oil company operations.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) rates Nigeria’s innate oil-production capacity at about 2.7 million barrels per day. Thanks to insurgent activity in the Delta, however, actual output has fallen significantly below this. “Since December 2005, Nigeria has experienced increased pipeline vandalism, kidnappings, and militant takeovers of oil facilities in the Niger Delta,” the department reported in May 2009. “[K]idnappings of oil workers for ransom are common and security concerns have led some oil services firms to pull out of the country.”

Washington views the insurgency as a threat to America’s “energy security,” and so a reason for aiding the Nigerian military. “Disruption of supply from Nigeria would represent a major blow to U.S. oil security,” the State Department noted in 2006. In August 2009, on a visit to Nigeria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised even more military aid for oil protection purposes.

Here, then, is scenario #2: It’s 2013. The Delta insurgency has only grown, driving Nigeria’s oil output down to a third of its capacity. Global oil demand is substantially higher and rising, while production slips everywhere. Gasoline prices have reached $5 per gallon in the U.S. with no end in sight, and the economy seems headed toward yet another deep recession.

The barely functioning civilian government in Abuja, the capital, is overthrown by a Muslim-dominated military junta that promises to impose order and restore the oil flow in the Delta. Some Christian elements of the military promptly defect, joining MEND. Oil facilities across the country are suddenly under attack; oil pipelines are bombed, while foreign oil workers are kidnapped or killed in record numbers. The foreign oil companies running the show begin to shut down operations. Global oil prices go through the roof.

When a dozen American oil workers are executed and a like number held hostage by a newly announced rebel group, the president addresses the nation from the Oval Office, declares that U.S. energy security is at risk, and sends 20,000 Marines and Army troops into the Delta to join the Special Operations forces already there. Major port facilities are quickly secured, but the American expeditionary force soon finds itself literally in an oil quagmire, an almost unimaginable landscape of oil spills in which they find themselves fighting a set of interlocked insurgencies that show no sign of fading. Casualties rise as they attempt to protect far-flung pipelines in an impenetrable swamp not unlike the Mekong Delta of Vietnam War fame.

Sound implausible? Consider this: in May 2008, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and the Joint Forces Command conducted a crisis simulation at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that involved precisely such a scenario, also set in 2013. The simulation, “Unified Quest 2008,” was linked to the formation of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), the new combat organization established by President Bush in February 2007 to oversee American military operations in Africa. An oil-related crisis in Nigeria, it was suggested, represented one of the more likely scenarios for intervention by U.S. forces assigned to Africom. Although the exercise did not explicitly endorse a military move of this sort, it left little doubt that such a response would be Washington’s only practical choice.

Scenario 3: Brazil -- Cyclone Hits “Pre-Salt” Oil Rigs

In November 2007, Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), announced a remarkable discovery: in a tract of the South Atlantic some 180 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, it had found a giant oil reservoir buried beneath a mile and a half of water and a thick layer of salt. Called “pre-salt” oil because of its unique geological positioning, the deposit was estimated to hold 8 to 12 billion barrels of oil, making this the biggest discovery in the Western Hemisphere in 40 years. Further test drilling by Petrobras and its partners revealed that the initial find -- at a field called Tupi -- was linked to other deepwater “pre-salt” reservoirs, bringing the total offshore potential to 50 billion barrels or more. (To put that in perspective, Saudi Arabia is believed to possess reserves of 264 billion barrels and the United States, 30 billion.)

With this discovery, Brazil could “jump from an intermediate producer to among the world’s largest producers,” said Dilma Rousseff, chief cabinet official under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and thought to be his most likely successor. To ensure that the Brazilian state exercises ultimate control over the development of these reservoirs, President da Silva -- “Lula,” as he is widely known -- and Rousseff have introduced legislation in the Brazilian Congress giving Petrobras control over all new fields in the basin. In addition, Lula has proposed that profits from the pre-salt fields be channeled into a new social fund to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment in the country. All this has given the government a huge stake in the accelerated development of the pre-salt fields.

Extracting oil a mile and half under the water and from beneath two-and-a-half miles of shifting sand and salt will, however, require the utilization of technology even more advanced than that employed on the Deepwater Horizon. In addition, the pre-salt fields are interspersed with layers of high-pressure gas (as appears to have been the case in the Gulf), increasing the risk of a blow-out. Brazil does not experience hurricanes as does the Gulf of Mexico, but in 2004, its coastline was ravaged by a surprise subtropical cyclone that achieved hurricane strength. Some climatologists believe that hurricane-like storms of this sort, once largely unknown in the South Atlantic, will become more common as global warming only increases.

Which brings us to scenario #3: It’s 2020, by which time the pre-salt area off Rio will be host to hundreds of deepwater drilling rigs. Imagine, then, a subtropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds and massive waves that suddenly strikes this area, toppling dozens of the rigs and damaging most of the others, wiping out in a matter of hours an investment of over $200 billion. Given a few days warning, most of the crews of these platforms have been evacuated. Freak winds, however, down several helicopters, killing some 50 oil workers and flight crew members. Adding to the horror, attempts to seal so many undersea wells at such depths fail, and oil in historically unprecedented quantities begins gushing into the South Atlantic. As the cyclone grows to full strength, giant waves carry the oil inexorably toward shore.

Since the storm-driven assault cannot be stopped, Rio de Janeiro’s famous snow-white beaches are soon blanketed in a layer of sticky black petroleum, and in a matter of weeks, parts of Brazil’s coastal waters have become a “dead ocean.” Clean-up efforts, when finally initiated, prove exceedingly difficult and costly, adding immeasurably to the financial burden of the Brazilian state, now saddled with a broken and bankrupt Petrobras. Meanwhile, the struggle to seal all the leaking pre-salt wells in the deep Atlantic proves a Herculean task as, month after month, oil continues to gush into the Atlantic.

Scenario 4: East China Sea -- A Clash Over Subsea Gas

At one time, most wars between states were fought over disputed borders or contested pieces of land. Today, most boundaries are fixed by international treaty and few wars are fought over territory. But a new type of conflict is arising: contests over disputed maritime boundaries in areas that harbor valuable subsea resources, particularly oil and natural gas deposits. Such disputes have already occurred in the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, the East and South China Seas, and other circumscribed bodies of water. In each case, the surrounding states claim vast offshore tracts that overlap, producing -- in a world that may be increasingly starved for energy -- potentially explosive disputes.

One of them is between China and Japan over their mutual boundary in the East China Sea. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both countries have signed, each is allowed to exercise control over an “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles (about 230 standard miles) from its coastline. But the East China Sea is only about 360 miles across at its widest point between the two countries. You see the problem.

In addition, the U.N. convention allows mainland states to claim an extended EEZ stretching to their outer continental shelf (OCS). In China’s case, that means nearly all the way to Japan -- or so say the Chinese. Japan insists that the offshore boundary between the two countries should fall midway between them, or about 180 miles from either shore. This means that there are now two competing boundaries in the East China Sea. As fate would have it, in the gray area between them houses a promising natural gas field called Chunxiao by the Chinese and Shirakaba by the Japanese. Both countries claim that the field lies within their EEZ, and is theirs alone to exploit.

For years, Chinese and Japanese officials have been meeting to resolve this dispute -- to no avail. In the meantime, each side has taken steps to begin the exploitation of the undersea gas field. China has installed drilling rigs right up to the median line claimed by Japan as the boundary between them and is now drilling for gas there; Japan has conducted seismic surveys in the gray area between the two lines. China claims that Japan’s actions represent an illegal infringement; Japan says that the Chinese rigs are sucking up gas from the Japanese side of the median line, and so stealing their property. Each side sees this dispute through a highly nationalistic prism and appears unwilling to back down. Both sides have deployed military forces in the contested area, seeking to demonstrate their resolve to prevail in the dispute.

Here, then, is Scenario #4: It’s 2022. Successive attempts to resolve the boundary dispute through negotiations have failed. China has installed a string of drilling platforms along the median line claimed by Japan and, according to Japanese officials, has extended undersea drill pipes deep into Japanese territory. An ultra-nationalistic, right-wing government has taken power in Japan, vowing finally to assert control over Japanese sovereign territory. Japanese drill ships, accompanied by naval escorts and fighter planes, are sent into the area claimed by China. The Chinese respond with their warships and order the Japanese to withdraw. The two fleets converge and begin to target each other with guns, missiles, and torpedoes.

At this point, the “fog of war” (in strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s famous phrase) takes over. As a Chinese vessel steams perilously close to a Japanese ship in an attempt to drive it off, the captain of that vessel panics, and orders his crew to open fire; other Japanese crews, disobeying orders from superior officers, do the same. Before long, a full-scale naval battle ensues, with several sunken ships and hundreds of casualties. Japanese aircraft then attack the nearby Chinese drill rigs, producing hundreds of additional casualties and yet another deep-sea environmental disaster. At this point, with both sides bringing in reinforcements and girding for full-scale war, the U.S. president makes an emergency visit to the region in a desperate effort to negotiate a cease-fire.

Such a scenario is hardly implausible. Since September 2005, China has deployed a naval squadron in the East China Sea, sending its ships right up to the median line -- a boundary that exists in Japanese documents, but is not, of course, visible to the naked eye (and so can be easily overstepped). On one occasion, Japanese naval aircraft flew close to a Chinese ship in what must have seemed a menacing fashion, leading the crew to train its antiaircraft guns on the approaching plane. Fortunately, no shots were fired. But what would have happened if the Japanese plane had come a little bit closer, or the Chinese captain was a bit more worried? One of these days, as those gas supplies become even more valuable and the hair-trigger quality of the situation increases, the outcome may not be so benign.

These are, of course, only a few examples of why, in a world ever more reliant on energy supplies acquired from remote and hazardous locations, BP-like catastrophes are sure to occur. While none of these specific calamities are guaranteed to happen, something like them surely will -- unless we take dramatic steps now to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and speed the transition to a post-carbon world. In such a world, most of our energy would come from renewable wind, solar, and geothermal sources that are commonplace and don’t have to be tracked down a mile or more under the water or in the icebound north. Such resources generally would not be linked to the sort of disputed boundaries or borderlands that can produce future resource wars.

Until then, prepare yourselves. The disaster in the Gulf is no anomaly. It’s an arrow pointing toward future nightmares.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, TomDispatch.com regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. A documentary movie version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation. 

"Ecosystem in Peru Is Losing a Key Ally"

From The New York Times
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: November 7, 2009 

ICA, Peru — A small grove of huarango, the storied Peruvian tree that can live over a millennium, rests like a mirage amid the sand dunes on this city’s edge. The tree has provided the inhabitants of this desert with food and timber since before the Nazca civilization etched geoglyphs into the empty plain south of here about 2,000 years ago. 
 
The huarango, a giant relative of the mesquite tree of the American Southwest, survived the rise and fall of Pre-Hispanic civilizations, and plunder by Spanish conquistadors, whose chroniclers were astounded by the abundance of huarango forests and the strange Andean camelids, like guanacos and llamas, that flourished there. 

Today, though, Peruvians pose what might be a final challenge to the fragile ecosystem supported by the huarango near the southwestern coast of Peru. Villagers are cutting down the remnants of these once vast forests. They covet the tree as a source of charcoal and firewood. 

The depletion of the huarango is raising alarm among ecologists and fostering a nascent effort to save it. 

“We don’t realize that we are cutting off one of our own limbs when we destroy a huarango,” said Consuelo Borda, 34, who helps direct a small reforestation project here, explaining how the tree’s pods can be ground into flour, sweetened into molasses or fermented into beer. 

But many Peruvians view the huarango as prime wood for charcoal to cook a signature chicken dish called “pollo broaster.” The long-burning huarango, a hardwood rivaling teak, outlasts other forms of charcoal. Villagers react to a prohibition by regional authorities on cutting down huarango with a shrug. 

“The woodcutters come at night, using handsaws instead of chainsaws to avoid detection,” said Reina Juárez, 66, a maize farmer in San Pedro, a village of about 24 families near a grove of huarango on the outskirts of Ica. “They remove the wood by donkey and then sell it.” 

That the huarango survives at all to be harvested may be something of a miracle. Following centuries of systematic deforestation, only about 1 percent of the original huarango woodlands that once existed in the Peruvian desert remain, according to archaeologists and ecologists. 

Few trees are as well suited to the hyperarid ecosystem of the Atacama-Sechura Desert, nestled between the Andes and the Pacific. The huarango captures moisture coming from the west as sea mist. Its roots are among the longest of any tree, extending more than 150 feet to tap subterranean water channels. 

The resilience of the huarango and its role in taming one of the world’s driest climates have long beguiled this country’s poets. Schoolchildren here, for instance, recite the words of José María Arguedas, a leading 20th-century writer: “The huarangos let in the sun, while keeping out the fire.” 

But poetry is one thing. The necessities of human civilizations, and their capacity to wreak havoc on the ecosystems on which they depend, are another. 

A team of British archaeologists described in a groundbreaking study this month how the Nazca, who etched their lines in the desert a thousand years before the arrival of the Spanish, induced an environmental catastrophe by clearing the huarango to plant crops like cotton and maize, exposing the landscape to desert winds, erosion and floods. 

David Beresford-Jones, an archaeologist at Cambridge University who was a co-author of the study, said that perhaps the only fragment of old-growth huarango woodland left is in Usaca, about a five-hour drive from Ica, where there are still some trees that were alive when the Incas conquered the southern coast of Peru in the 15th century. 

“It takes centuries for the huarango to be of substantial size, and only a few hours to fell it with a chainsaw,” Mr. Beresford-Jones said. “The tragedy is that this remnant is being chain-sawed by charcoal burners as we speak.” 

With support from Britain’s Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and Trees for Cities, a British charity promoting tree planting in urban areas, Ms. Borda’s reforestation project seeks to reverse the damage by the charcoal harvesters, whose mud ovens dot the desert landscape in villages around Ica. 

It is an uphill struggle in an impoverished desert. The black market for huarango in raw firewood form thrives. A carbonero, or charcoal seller, can sell a kilogram of charcoal made from the tree for about 50 cents, or a bushel of huarango as firewood for about $1 — bargains in a place where a gallon of natural gas costs more than $10. 

So far, Ms. Borda’s arduous project has planted about 20,000 huarangos in Ica and nearby areas. It also teaches schoolchildren about the history of the huarango in Peruvian culture and its significance as a keystone species for the desert, its roots fixing nitrogen in poor soil and its leaves and pods providing organic material as forage. 

But researchers say the project is a trifle of what must be done to reforest Peru’s deserts. 

“Peru needs a massive rethink about its development trajectory,” said Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a paleoecologist with the French Institute of Andean Studies who worked on the Nazca study with Mr. Beresford-Jones, the Cambridge University archaeologist, analyzing pollen that showed the transformation of Nazca lands from rich in huarango to fields of maize and cotton to the virtually lifeless desert that exists today. 

“With Peru’s glaciers predicted to disappear by 2050, the Andes need trees to capture the moisture coming from Amazonia, which is also the source of water going down to the coast,” said Mr. Chepstow-Lusty in an interview from Cuzco, in Peru’s highlands. “Hence a major program of reforestation is required, both in the Andes and on the coast.” 

Nothing on this scale is happening around Ica. Instead, the growth that one sees in poor villages are of shantytowns called pueblos jóvenes, where residents eke out a living as farmhands or in mining camps. 

Outside one village, Santa Luisa, the buzz of a chainsaw interrupted the silence of the desert next to an oven preparing charcoal. 

The chainsaw’s owner, a woodcutter from the highlands named Rolando Dávila, 48, swore that he no longer cut down huarango but focused instead on the espino, another hardy tree known as acacia macarantha. “But we all know huarango is the prize of the desert,” he said. “For many of us, the wood of the huarango is the only way to survive.”

Andrea Zárate contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.

"Coral Transplant Surgery Prescribed for Japan"

From The New York Times
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: April 14, 2009 

SEKISEI LAGOON, Japan — Beneath the waves of this sapphire-blue corner of the East China Sea, a team of divers was busily at work. 
 
Hovering along the steep, bony face of a dying coral reef, some divers bored holes into the hard surface with compressed-air drills that released plumes of glittering bubbles. Others followed, gently inserting small ceramic discs into the fresh openings.

Each disc carried a tiny sliver of hope for the reef, in the shape of fingertip-size sprigs of brightly colored, fledgling coral.

This undersea work site may look like a scene from a Jules Verne novel, but it is part of a government-led effort to save Japan’s largest coral reef, near the southern end of the Okinawa chain of islands. True to form in Japan, the project involves new technology, painstaking attention to detail and a generous dose of taxpayer money.

The project has drawn national attention, coming after alarming reports in the last decade that up to 90 percent of the coral that surrounds many of Okinawa’s islands has died off. This raised a rare preservationist outcry in a heavily industrialized nation whose coastal vistas tend toward concrete sea walls and oil refineries.

The result has been what marine biologists call one of the largest coral restoration projects in the world, begun four years ago. The goal, say biologists, is to perfect methods that could be used around the world to rescue reefs endangered by overfishing, pollution and global warming. 

They say they are using the Sekisei Lagoon Reef, which is named after the broad, shallow lagoon that it created, as a test bed for new techniques that they hope will one day make transplanting coral in the sea as routine as raising tree saplings on land. 

“We have been replanting forests for 4,000 years, but we are only just now learning how to revive a coral reef,” said Mineo Okamoto, a marine biologist at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, who has led development of the palm-size ceramic discs. “We finally have the technology.”

Critics, however, say the project might be wasted effort. They say transplanting is futile without addressing the problems that caused the reefs to deteriorate in the first place, like coastal redevelopment and chemical runoff from terrestrial agriculture. There is also the bigger problem of rising ocean water temperatures, for which there may be no easy fix.

Here in the Sekisei Lagoon, which sits between the tropical islands of Ishigaki and Iriomote, another problem also becomes apparent: the puny size of the efforts to save a reef that stretches as far as the eye can see in almost every direction.

Since 2005, the project has planted around 13,000 pieces of coral, at a cost of some $2 million, said Hajime Hirosawa, a preservation officer at the Environment Ministry who helps oversee the transplanting. This is a far cry, he admits, from the tens of millions of pieces that need to be transplanted in this reef alone, which stretches over an area of about 100 square miles. 

Worse, survival rates have been low, Mr. Hirosawa said. Only a third of the coral sprigs transplanted in 2005 have survived threats ranging from predators like the Crown-of-Thorns starfish to “bleaching,” an ultimately fatal condition caused when rising water temperatures turn coral a sickly white.

“Saving the reef is not something that we can do in three to four years,” Mr. Hirosawa said, “but more like 30 to 40 years.”

Still, say Mr. Hirosawa and others, the techniques have steadily improved, lifting survival rates. One change was to shift from placing new coral on flat sea bottoms, which proved vulnerable to typhoon-driven surface waves that broke off coral, to more protected vertical reef faces. 

Another advance was the ceramic discs, which are baked at 2,700 degrees until hardened, but whose surface contains tiny pores that allow coral larvae to take root. Every spring, a team of a dozen divers has spent up to two weeks drilling holes and gluing in the discs.

While labor intensive, this method offers a more secure footing for the young coral than previous methods, like attaching coral pieces with wire and nails, Dr. Okamoto said. 

The improved transplanting methods have become promising enough that the Environment Ministry says it plans to double the number of coral pieces planted next year, to 10,000. 

While the project’s main goal is environmental, there are also geopolitical motivations. Tokyo plans a much larger and more expensive coral transplantation to try to strengthen the reef protecting Okinotori, a tiny, remote islet that Japan uses to claim economic control of a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean. The government wants to prevent a strong typhoon from wiping away the tiny outcropping, and with it the basis for Japan’s territorial claims, which have already been challenged by China.

There is also a friendly race among global scientists trying to develop the best coral transplantation method. Competing ideas vary from creating coral habitat with large concrete “reef balls” to the use of mild electric current to speed coral growth.

For now, the most common transplanting technique involves breaking off pieces of adult coral and affixing them elsewhere on the reef. Besides damaging the host coral, this method, while quick and easy, also means that most of the transplanted pieces share the host’s DNA, giving the reef a smaller and less healthy gene pool.

In the Japanese method, the discs are stacked underwater for 18 months near a healthy stretch of reef, allowing coral larvae released during spawning to naturally attach and grow on the ceramic surface. This ensures that each disc carries genetically distinct coral organisms, more closely replicating the results of natural reproduction.

“Japan’s methods are expensive and labor intensive, but they also bring more genetic diversity and thus healthy reefs,” said Baruch Rinkevich, a specialist in coral transplantation at Israel’s National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa.

In Sekisei Lagoon, healthy reefs are increasingly found only along the lagoon’s north side, where most coral still flourishes. This has led scientists to speculate that the north side may have evolved coral species adapted to surviving in warmer oceans. Starting next year, the divers will transplant northern coral to the lagoon’s more decimated southern side, said Shuichi Fujiwara, the diving team leader.

“This is absolutely worth doing,” said one of the team’s divers, Ryo Isobe, 26, who works as a diving instructor during the summer tourist season. “When I think of how colorful these reefs used to be, I know we need to do all we can.”

"Tracking the Flight of Birds, With Tiny Backpacks"

From The New York Times
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: February 12, 2009 

Birds are famous for airborne speed and endurance. Some have been clocked flying 60 miles per hour or more. Others make annual migrations from Alaska to New Zealand, nonstop. 

But for scientists, tracking birds as they perform those feats has been an intractable problem. Now researchers think they have cracked it with a novel device — a tiny bird backpack that contains sophisticated sensors and weighs less than a dime.

The new technology has opened up vast new possibilities for bird researchers. Already, it is yielding surprising findings — for example, that some birds fly even faster than previously thought. But its real importance, biologists say, is the opportunity to unlock mysteries of bird migration that could help preserve species threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

“We knew that purple martins went to Brazil and wood thrush went to Central America,” said Bridget J. M. Stutchbury, a biologist at York University in Toronto, who with colleagues fitted birds from the species with the sensors and mapped their migrations last year. “But the details of how an individual gets there, what routes they take, how fast they fly, how often they stop to rest — these are the kinds of details we have never been able to have.”

The research, reported Friday in the journal Science, involved 34 birds, but only 7 were recovered with their sensors. Still, the work “is an important step,” said David W. Winkler, an ornithologist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, where he said researchers were developing similar techniques. “This represents a whole new level of accuracy,” Dr. Winkler said. 

The tracking system relies on instruments called solar geolocators that collect and store data on where the birds are in relation to the sun. Researchers remove the sensors, download the information and calculate where the birds were, and when they were there.

“If the bird were on a hillside you’d get a slightly wrong time,” Dr. Stutchbury said. “If it were a cloudy day you would get a slightly wrong time. But these devices are accurate enough, within 5 or 10 kilometers,” about 3 to 6 miles.

Bird migration is a subject of fascination for scientists and the public alike. Jacques Perrin’s 2003 film, “Winged Migration,” which used remote control gliders and ultralight aircraft to follow birds as they traveled the globe, attracted a large cult following. But while much is known about where birds nest and where they spend the winter, figuring out how they get from point A to point B has been a challenge that, over all, researchers have been unable to meet, especially for small species like songbirds.

Researchers have tried banding birds’ legs, tracking flocks with radar and even using satellites, all to little avail. The new system was developed by engineers at the British Antarctic Survey for use tracking wandering albatrosses, birds that inhabit the waters around Antarctica. 

But the wandering albatross is about the size of a large dog, Dr. Stutchbury said. For her research, she needed instruments small enough and light enough for a tiny songbird. Then, at a 2006 conference, the British researchers said they had miniaturized their sensors to 1.5 grams. “That for me was a magic number,” she said. “I could put it on a large songbird.” 

The instruments Dr. Stutchbury uses actually weigh even less and sit on a bird’s back, just where the hips are. Each sensor is about the size of the nail on a person’s pinkie. “There’s a little loop that goes around each leg,” she said. “It would be like you wearing a backpack.”

In the summer of 2007, the researchers used nets to trap birds in Pennsylvania and apply the sensors. They made sure the birds were flying, eating, caring for young and otherwise acting normally. Then they sat back and waited for the birds to head south — and then return. On April 25 last year, the first bird with a geolocator returned to Pennsylvania. “It seemed almost a miracle,” Dr. Stutchbury said.

Analyzing the sensor data, the researchers found that their birds flew two to six times faster going north than south — up to about 370 miles in a day, which she said was much faster than had been thought. A female martin flew almost 5,000 miles in 13 days, including 4 stopover days.

For these birds, the Yucatan Peninsula was an important stopover point, Dr. Stutchbury said. Identifying important migratory stopovers will be an important benefit of the technology, she and other experts said. 

She said she and her colleagues had tried not to draw too many conclusions because they had data from only seven birds. Still, she said, “that’s seven more than anybody else.” 

Last summer, she and her colleagues applied sensors to dozens of more birds. The work is important, she said, because songbird species are already in steep decline and climate change may threaten crucial habitat.

Why our public transportation system should be a cut above the rest

Thinking about my previous post yesterday, I had a brief epiphany.

My contention in the latter part of that post was that our public transportation system, while still of relatively good quality, was no longer deserving of special praise and in fact has problems. Unless we demure that Singapore is competing in the league of world cities, a good public transportation system is in fact de rigueur for us.

Then I realized that while our current system seems adequate, a good, middle-of-the-league public transportation system for Singapore is not good enough. 

It should be an excellent one, a best-of-breed even, one that should be the envy of other cities much like Changi airport is.

I can think of at least 3 reasons why:

1. The total cost of car ownership (including usage costs) is high by government design due to the imposition of numerous fees and tariffs (e.g. ERP, COE etc.). It is hence incumbent on the state to make public transportation a compelling alternative to car ownership. If the state chooses to stint on public transportation spending, then car ownership will continue to be in demand as public transportation is perceived as an unviable alternative. Then it can be argued that all that extra revenue that the state derives from charges like COE and ERP is simply economic rent garnished from its citizens. This is especially so if the state does not explicitly channel revenue from car ownership tariffs (such as ERP) to public transportation development.

2. Our land area is limited. This is the same reason why the government wants to control the population of cars. An excellent public transportation system is one way of maximizing the use of our land.

The two reasons above are not new. They are even boringly unoriginal. By themselves, they merely argue for a "good" public transportation system, which, let's be charitable here, we already have.

3. The third reason is a new reason I offer as to why we need the best system that we can develop. As a modern industrialized economy that still relies quite a bit on manufacturing, we are (as of 2004) #23 on the list of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita. That's not exactly a low ranking, particularly if you consider Japan (#34) and South Korea(#39) which are also manufacturing Asian economies. Further, none of our energy comes from renewable sources.

Even if we ignore a "moral imperative" to develop a best of breed public transportation system to raise energy efficiency and reduce emissions, there is a separate issue we must consider.

In an era when climate change is, even if overshadowed by the financial crisis, clearly on the global agenda, it may be that in the not-to-distant future, countries that are recalcitrant about reducing their emissions, and have small or marginal economies (unlike say, the USA or China), will be looked on by other countries with the same amount of respect as countries with a track record of human rights violations (i.e. like the global pariahs of North Korea and Myanmar). 

In other words, a country's 'green cred' could well become a critical component of foreign policy. And if the Obama administration puts the environment near the top of the agenda, which is a complete about-face from the Bush administration's consistent refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, then 'green cred' could well be the new face of international diplomacy.

And what better way to help serve the public, save the environment and bolster foreign policy than with the best public transportation system possible? 

"Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West"

From The New York Times
By JIM ROBBINS
Published: November 17, 2008 

HELENA, Mont. — On the side of a mountain on the outskirts of Montana’s capital city, loggers are racing against a beetle grub the size of a grain of rice.

From New Mexico to British Columbia, the region’s signature pine forests are succumbing to a huge infestation of mountain pine beetles that are turning a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red. Montana has lost a million acres of trees to the beetles, and in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming the situation is worse. 

“We’re seeing exponential growth of the infestation,” said Clint Kyhl, director of a Forest Service incident management team in Laramie, Wyo., that was set up to deal with the threat of fire from dead forests. Increased construction of homes in forest areas over the last 20 years makes the problem worse. 

In Wyoming and Colorado in 2006 there were a million acres of dead trees. Last year it was 1.5 million. This year it is expected to total over two million. In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, the problem is most severe. It is the largest known insect infestation in the history of North America, officials said. British Columbia has lost 33 million acres of lodgepole pine forest, and a freak wind event last year blew mountain pine beetles, a species of bark beetle, over the Continental Divide to Alberta. Experts fear that the beetles could travel all the way to the Great Lakes. 

In the next three to five years, Mr. Kyhl said, virtually all of Colorado’s lodgepole pine trees over five inches in diameter will be lost, about five million acres. “Already in many places, every lodgepole over five inches is dead as far as the eye can see,” he said.

Foresters say the historic outbreak has several causes. Because fires have been suppressed for so long, all forests are roughly the same age, and the trees are big enough to be susceptible to beetles. A decade of drought has weakened the trees. And hard winters have softened, which allows the beetles to flourish and expand their range.

Hoping to keep their forests from completely dying, to earn money by selling dead and infected trees and to mitigate fire risks, landowners are scrambling to cut the pines. If enough are cut — up to 75 percent — it might leave some behind that, with less competition for water, can survive. Still, for many landowners, cutting most of the forest where they have they built their homes is painful. “I’ve literally had people in my office crying,” said Gary Ellingson, a forestry consultant for Northwest Management.

The black, hard-shelled beetle, the size of a fingertip, drills through pine bark and digs a gallery in the wood where it lays its eggs. When the larvae hatch under the bark, they eat the sweet, rich cambium layer that provides nutrients to the tree. They also inject a fungus to stop the tree from moving sap, which could drown the larvae. That fungus stains the wood blue.

“The Latin name is Dendroctunus, which means tree killer,” said Gregg DeNitto, a Forest Service entomologist in Missoula, Mont. “They are very effective.”

To fend off the bugs, trees emit white resin, which looks like candle wax, into the beetle’s drill hole. Sometimes the tree wins and entombs the beetle. Often, though, the attacker puts out a pheromone-based call for reinforcements and more of the beetles swarm the tree. In a drought the tree has trouble producing enough resin, and is overwhelmed.

There are some defenses. Owners nail to a tree an “aggregator pheromone” in a small packet, which mimics the chemical scent given off by beetles when a tree is full of insects. It can work when beetles are not too numerous, but at some point the beetles are not deterred.

Large, old, high-value trees, ones that shade campgrounds or yards, can be sprayed with an insecticide. But the trees need to be sprayed from the base to the height at which it is less than 4 inches around. Each tree costs about $10 to $15 if hundreds are sprayed. Lodgepole pines are largely confined to high altitudes. But the beetles have moved into ponderosa pine forests on Colorado’s front range, Mr. Kyhl said, which means it could kill forests around homes in the densely populated region. 
 
The beetles will only be truly checked, experts say, if temperatures that used to reach 30 and 40 below for weeks return to the Rockies, temperatures that have not been seen in decades. 

The death of the forests worries the tourism industry. Many ski areas have cut down their forests because of the hazard of falling trees and have revegetated the land. 

At Vail Ski Resort, for example, which has been particularly hard hit, workers have removed thousands of dead trees and planted new ones.

The dead trees that blanket the mountains are shifting ecosystems as well. In Yellowstone, for example, the beetles are killing the white-barked pine trees, which grow nuts rich in fat that are critical to grizzly bears in the fall. Biologists in Canada say streams will flash-flood because live trees will no longer catch snow and allow it to slowly melt, and it could injure salmon and destroy habitat. On the other hand, woodpeckers and other insect eaters will thrive.

Wildfire is the biggest threat. Some towns like Steamboat Springs and Vail, Colo., are surrounded by dead forests, and the Forest Service and logging companies are clear-cutting “defensible space” so firefighters have a place to fight fires. 

After the trees die, the risk of crown fires that move through the canopy is the threat. After four or five years, as the dead trees fall to the ground, the threat of catastrophic fire is most severe. Fires in the piles of logs severely damage soils, prevent regrowth and cause mudslides.

Rainfall on damaged ground could also lead to widespread mudslides and silt buildup in rivers and reservoirs, which many mountain communities depend on for water. Strontia Springs Reservoir, a main water source for Denver, required a $20 million cleanup after a large fire resulted in severe erosion. 

The other major problem is large numbers of falling trees. In Colorado and Wyoming, officials have closed 38 campgrounds for fear trees could fall on campers. They have reopened all but 14. 

But there is a lot more to do. “We know they are going to fall,” Mr. Kyhl said. “And they are going to fall in the next 10 to 15 years. There’s campgrounds, thousands of miles of road, picnic areas, power lines and trails. How do we keep the facilities open for people to use?”

The agency is faced with clearing a strip of 75 to 100 feet of dead trees along highways so they are not closed by blow downs. 

Then there is a question of what do with the wood. Sawmills have diminished in the West in recent years, and there are not enough mills to take all of the timber. 

In Colorado, entrepreneurs have been scrambling to find ways to use it. Two pellet plants have been built, which turn the trees into sawdust and then pack them into a clean-burning pellet used in wood stoves. 

Some trees are being shredded for use in biomass boilers, and carpenters are using the pine stained blue from the fungus for furniture. 

In Alberta, a newsprint mill is testing a system to use the millions of dead acres of pines. Because of the fungal stain the trees aren’t bright enough for paper, but a computerized process adjusts the amount of bleach. 

Still, the volume of timber used is small compared with the vast acreage of dead trees. 

The West that depends on tourism, meanwhile, wonders what their customers will think about the dramatic change in scenery. Four million visitors a year come for sightseeing and recreation to Grand County in Colorado, where much of the forest is now dead. “What happens,” said Ray Jennings, director of emergency management for Grand County, “if this becomes an ugly place to be?”

"Maldives considers buying dry land if seas rise"

From The International Herald Tribune
By Andrew C. Revkin

Published: November 11, 2008

The president-elect of the Maldives, a nation of 1,200 low islands in the Indian Ocean, is planning to establish an investment fund with some of its earnings from tourism so it can buy a haven for its citizens should global warming raise sea levels at a dangerous pace, according to several news reports.

Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner who will be sworn in Tuesday as the country's first democratically elected president, named Sri Lanka and India as possible spots for a refuge, according to the BBC.

Nasheed's spokesman, Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, said that the new government had to take action. "Global warming and environmental issues are issues of major concern to the Maldivian people," he said on the BBC's "World Today" program. "We are just about three feet above sea level. So any sea level rise could have a devastating effect on the people of the Maldives and their very survival."

The Maldives, south of India, is known as a tourist destination and has received much news coverage as a place that is likely to be overwhelmed by the effects of climate change.
In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations projected that sea levels worldwide could rise up to two feet by 2100 as ice sheets eroded and warming seawater expanded. And the panel and independent climate specialists said centuries of rising seas could follow if warming persisted.

The country was one of the founding members of the Alliance of Small Island States, which since 1992 has pressed the world's industrialized countries to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to rising temperatures.

The Maldives is particularly vulnerable to flooding because its population has surged to nearly 400,000 from 200,000 in 20 years. Malé, the crowded one-square-mile capital, is ringed by sea walls, built with assistance from Japan.

Many of the islands were submerged as the waves of the 2004 Asian tsunami surged by.

“Let There Be Light”

I almost never have a word of praise for the Straits Times.

However, the special report on the Singapore Energy Story authored by Alphonsus Chern in the Straits Times Saturday special (published 8 November 2008) was really a class act.

The text wasn’t so great, but the pictures were awesome. So there is at least some competence in the photojournalism department at our local paper.

Separately, I’ve always felt that the quality of journalism is markedly better when it appears that the reporters for the stories have passion for the areas in which they write in. Notable local examples of these are the reporters for the Digital Life supplement (clearly better than the average Straits Times journalist), and some writers for the food and dining sections.

Returning to the article on energy, for further reading into alternative energy, I recommend Earth, the Sequel (3-stars). It’s not exhaustively researched, it’s a little partisan, and there’s clearly a political agenda behind the book. But it is recently published, offers a broad sweep of the new alternative energy ideas out there, and is just a really interesting read.

The Rise of Tropical Diseases

The New York Times has an article on the war on dengue fever, and how the US Army is committed to the development of a vaccine because dengue affects American soldiers.

Many tropical diseases receive considerably less attention than diseases that afflict the developed countries. Research done on dengue fever is more an exception than the rule for tropical diseases. In many cases, this is because developing drugs for tropical diseases is not profitable. This is largely because consumers in countries where tropical diseases are endemic usually cannot afford expensive pharmaceuticals. This is related to the problem of orphan drugs, which the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has started to tackle in recent years.

The interesting thing is that climate change might turn this situation around, though not because of particularly desirable reasons. Climate change and global warming will expand the warm areas around the equator poleward such that tropical diseases and their vectors will afflict the more temperate regions of today. Both Italy and Canada have experienced tropical diseases in recent years.

When the problems of the developing world become the problems of the developed world, it will almost guarantee the greater availability of research funding for tropical diseases.

Notes:

Singapore is funding some efforts in this area, via the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases.

The Sanofi vaccine mentioned in the New York Times article is probably a DNA vaccine, an example of a new generation of vaccine technologies.

"Singapore ready for rising seas"

Preliminary studies indicate that Singapore is safe from rising sea levels.

However, there is no word on where the government commissioned study can be obtained, or how the general public may access the document. This is certainly something I would want to read first-hand.

From this article, it appears the study was done by the Singapore-Delft Water Alliance and the Tropical Marine Sciences Institute. The lead investigator was Dr Leong Shie-Yui. Searches of their websites turned up nothing though.

Climate Change and the Global Harvest

These are my notes from reading the aforenamed book in the title of this post. I mentioned this book in a previous post.

So what did I find out from reading Climate Change and the Global Harvest? Unfortunately, the book was published in 1998, so it doesn’t have any of the most current research. But here’s what I found:


Climate change will result in both positive and negative effects for agriculture.

Crop yields depend on temperature, CO2 concentration, water, soil, fertilizer inputs, solar radiation, albedo, pests, weeds etc. You get the idea. It’s a complex issue, so it’s difficult to say whether climate change will result in a net benefit or loss (globally).

Because of these effects, there will be a geographical re-patterning of agricultural activities.

The balance of positive and negative effects will be different everywhere in the future due to climate change. In other words, places that are great for agriculture now may suck in the future. Conversely, some places that totally suck now may be much better for agriculture in the future.

Gains in some regions may not fully compensate for losses in others.

That means a structural shift in global production levels and a global food crisis are distinct possibilities.

Aside from higher mean temperatures and precipitation, there will also be greater variability in these two factors in the future.

We are already seeing greater variability in the weather today. Like humans, plants hate unpredictability. If cultivars that can tolerate wide swings in temperature and water availability are not developed, crop yields may take a hit. Or we could suffer from greater variability in harvest yields, i.e. chronic famine. Monoculture makes us more vulnerable. So does loss of seed diversity.

Adaptive measures and intervention can help to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

This generally means using better technology, irrigation, cultivars, subsidies and better farm management practices.

Adaptive measures are contingent on resource availability and socioeconomic factors.

Poor countries may not have the wherewithal to implement adaptive measures. Again, this emphasizes the irony that poorer countries that are less responsible for climate change will suffer disproportionately more from its effects.

Availability of fresh water will be a major issue.

You will see this point again and again in major climate change studies. It’s incidentally also a great growth industry to invest in. T. Boone Pickens thinks so too.

Regions that face the greatest risk tend to be least able to adapt. Conversely, some countries will be net beneficiaries of climate change. Places at higher latitudes and altitudes will see more positive effects, while places at lower latitudes and altitudes will see more negative effects.

The point on differential effects based on latitudes will be repeated again and again in climate change studies. Little data is available on places outside Europe and North America, particularly on South America. But this much is known. Under the most likely climate change scenarios, and I stress that these are just projected scenarios, and not what is definitely going to happen:

Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia will likely experience negative effects. In the event of significant sea-level rise, many important crop-growing regions will suffer lower productivity. These include many river delta systems: the Nile (Egypt), Irrawaddy (Myanmar), Hong and Mekong (Vietnam) [I would add that China damming the Mekong is a potential geopolitical flashpoint], Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh) and Chao Phraya (Thailand). Even if permanent flooding doesn’t occur, soil and water salinization would still negatively affect crop yields.

Japan is likely to see slightly improved crop yields.

China is a mixed bag (and a big country if I may add). There are externalities like desertification and urbanization.

France and Italy would probably need to change the crops they plant to favor those that are better adapted to hotter, drier conditions. Spain might suffer from drier climate. Agriculture should improve in more northerly parts of Europe as climate change drives temperatures up. Wine is an interesting harbinger of this change in fortunes.

The USA will feel some negative effects, but is likely to be much less vulnerable for many reasons (lower dependence on irrigation, better technology, agriculture employs fewer people, large export crop etc).

Australia can mitigate the negative effects, if fresh water shortage is not an issue (and that’s a big IF).

Canada, Russia and New Zealand are likely to see improved crop yields, mainly because warmer weather lengthens the growing season and opens up regions that are currently unsuitable for agriculture. In general, poleward and altitudinal effects are positive, while the lower latitudes will see negative effects.

Climate change

I spent some time over a weekend skimming Climate Change and the Global Harvest as part of my ongoing reading project on climate change.

I call it skimming because I have neither the time nor the inclination to delve too deeply into the subject; I read enough technical papers and reports in the course of my day job. Just the broad brushstrokes on climate change will do, I don’t need to understand all the nuances.

So why am I reading climate change research in my spare time? Sounds dull. I could be doing more fun things like shopping, trying out new restaurants, or bar-hopping and club-crawling.

Because climate change and sustainability will be the two greatest challenges facing the human race in this century, and like it or not, everyone on this planet is going to be affected to some extent (probably negatively). Some more than others.

Knowing and understanding more about climate change will allow one to make better, more informed decisions, or to guard against its harsher effects. One of the more unfortunate ironies about climate change is that the countries most responsible for it are the rich industrialized nations, while the ones likely to suffer disproportionately more from climate change are the poorer ones who are least responsible. More strikingly, there has been more research and research funding to study the effects and impacts of climate change on rich industrialized nations than on poor countries, poor countries who ironically most need that research.

Singapore happens to fall into Southeast Asia, a region likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change. And yet we know so little about the possible impacts of climate change on our island. For example, doesn’t anyone worry about rising sea levels on this little island of ours? You should, if you’re paying through the nose for an apartment and like many Singaporeans, you’re asset-rich and cash-poor. The last thing you need is a collapse of property prices just when you’re ready to retire.

And mark my words, a country won’t need to experience the deleterious physical effects of climate change to actually suffer from climate change. All that’s needed is a change in perceptions of risk. If a place is deemed at risk from climate change, and there will be a reckoning of such risk in business decisions in the future, foreign direct investment will dry up, property prices will plummet, and the domestic currency will falter.

Our government has commissioned a study on the impact of climate change here in Singapore, but I think I will still do a little reading of my own. Like any government commissioned study, sometimes political considerations and agendas cloud the picture of what is truly being presented. Spin is always something I can do without.

It is a mistake to ignore or dismiss climate change. It is also a mistake to think that nothing can be done about it and that we’re all doomed. Nonetheless, judging by how poorly the world has responded to climate change so far, how global sustainability conflicts with global consumption, and how affluence and consumerism is rising in China and India, I’m veering towards being pessimistic. And that is precisely why I am reading more to find out what are the important things I need to know.

Book Bundles: Blood and Oil, The Prize

I try to read more, and more broadly as well. And in the course of my reading diet, quite often, I come across books that combine synergistically to give me better insights. Not all them cite each other as references (otherwise that would defeat the purpose of me bundling them).

I’m going to term these combinations ‘book bundles’ and posts that describe them will be tagged as such.

Today’s book bundle is Blood and Oil (3-stars), and The Prize (4-stars).

Blood and Oil talks about the central importance of oil to the world economy and how US foreign policy and the distribution of its military presence (in particular Central Command) is integral to securing the supply of oil to the USA and to the world. Its main ideas are that oil is an essential non-fungible commodity, that the most important oil fields are found in unstable regions prone to conflict and geopolitical risk (Middle East), and that increasingly, oil will be a source of power and conflict in the world due to its scarcity. Hence, the link between blood and oil.

Of the two books, Blood and Oil is the more recent one, but The Prize is a tour de force in explaining the modern history of oil and its pivotal role in historical events such as WWII and the formation of modern day Arab states. The Prize gives context to Blood and Oil, and the modern day oil situation. The author of The Prize, energy consultant Daniel Yergin, is presumably writing a new book on the history and future of oil.


Ratings System

2-stars: Casual reading only, or interesting but not easily readable, or important but narrow interest material.

3-stars: Interesting, readable and ideas of some importance.

4-stars: Interesting, highly readable, and ideas of considerable importance.

5-stars: Interesting, highly readable, important material of high relevance to most people.

Organic food in Singapore

I became interested in organic food after reading Michael Pollan’s two excellent books: The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

In an era when sustainability is a major issue, it’s become fashionable to talk about organic food. For the purpose of putting things in a more critical perspective, let’s mention some controversial issues concerning organic food. There are of course, issues associated with labeling organic food. Is USDA labeled organic food really organic food? Does the entry of big business into the organic food industry compromise the spirit of the organic food movement? See The Omnivore’s Dilemma for a more thorough discussion. There is a New Yorker article here. Organic food has ramifications on climate change as well. “Locavore” is a word that is found in the modern lexicon today. “Food miles” is another. But the intelligent eater will know that eating local isn’t necessarily better for the environment.

All of the above suggests that we should approach the topic of organic food carefully, with an open but critical mind. But this post isn’t about the issues surrounding organic food. If you’re interested in the wider issues concerning organic food and industrial food, and more broadly, the modern culture of food, reading the two books mentioned above is a good start.

This post is about the business of organic food in Singapore. Bear in mind that this is a blog, so this post is about my opinions and my perceptions. This isn’t necessarily the truth about the organic food situation in Singapore.

Let’s talk about cost first. Generally, organic food everywhere costs more (in dollars and cents, ignoring externalities) than ‘regular’ food. However, in many countries, organic food is generally still regarded principally as food. In the USA, outside of Whole Foods (which more closely resembles the situation in Singapore, as we shall see), organic food is associated with small farm cooperatives. It may cost more, but a family can still subscribe to a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program for a reasonable cost. Eating organic is largely about healthy living, sustainability and caring for the environment.

In contrast, in Singapore, it’s hard to escape the perception that organic food is gourmet food, and, as the luxury industry would call it, an aspirational product.

Why do I say this? Look at the major purveyors of organic food here. Singapore imports most of its food, and organic food retailers are no exception. But what retailers they are! Bunalun, Supernature, L'organic. Distributors of such artisanal brands like Duchy Originals; the food they sell is literally fit for royalty. Their websites are full of pretty pictures, what I like to call gastropr0n (pardon the leet). With prices to match. Unsurprising considering that the food is imported in small quantities by firms that have relatively high profit margins, and that market their products to the upper crust of Singapore society. How do I know that they market mostly to the highest income groups? These organic food stores in Singapore are located at some of the toniest addresses in town: Jalan Merah Saga and Chip Bee Gardens (Holland V.), Dempsey Village (so hip it hurts), and Orchard. And their customer base is composed mightily of expatriates on generous compensation packages. Admittedly, expatriates for the most part are also more well-informed on the benefits of eating organic than local Singaporeans.

The example of Supernature is particularly interesting. It was acquired by Christina Ong, proprietress of Club 21, a multi-label boutique and distributor of numerous luxury brands, owner of the uberluxurious chain of Como resorts, wife of tycoon Ong Beng Seng, and reportedly chummy with the fashion designer Donna Karan. If Supernature isn’t going to be revamped to match the other brands in Christina Ong’s stable, I would be very surprised.

Would I really be off the mark if I described organic food in Singapore as being marketed as an aspirational product?

There are alternatives of course (thankfully), for people genuinely interested in organic food for food’s sake. Bollywood Veggies and Greencircle come to mind. However, here we come to a separate problem. If we survey the complete range of organic food products available here, we see that it is difficult to go fully organic in Singapore, since the range of organic foods isn't as wide as most people would like. This includes raw foods as well as prepared foods. And the cost of going organic is prohibitively high. 

From my very casual and unscientific observations, it would appear that organic food in Singapore has come far, but still has a ways to go. But one thing of concern is that it seems to have taken on a highly aristocratic sheen, which is ironic considering its formerly more humble roots (not that that hasn't happened elsewhere as well). Will the situation in Singapore change for the better? Stay tuned.

The other Peak

With oil prices at speculative, stratospheric levels, the Peak oil hypothesis is going strong. I'm not going to debate about Peak oil. There are literally hundreds of posts out there for and against Peak oil. And frankly, I'm fairly undecided about the phenomenon of Peak oil. I find arguments for Peak cheap oil to be more credible, seeing as how new discoveries appear to be far more expensive to develop. Instead, I'm currently more interested in something else that Peak oil believers have sometimes talked about, and that's Peak phospate.

Anyone who knows anything about fertilizer will recognize the NPK appellation for the three main constituents of fertilizer: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These three elements constitute the building blocks of life and are absolutely essential in the food we eat. Nitrogen for protein, phosphorus for DNA, and potassium for salt balance, among other things.

Fertilizer is of vast importance, and it is one of the reasons why we have been able to develop a modern civilization and to feed so many people on this planet. While modern industrial scale agriculture has been blamed by the organic food movement for the less healthful benefits of modern-day meat and produce (not to mention the negative environmental impacts), it is difficult to argue against the premise that modern agriculture is what has allowed us to feed as many people as we have today. So for the foreseeable future, synthetic fertilizers will still be a very important commodity. Especially since organic fertilizers aren't exactly abundant. 

Nitrogen fertilizers like urea and ammonia are manufactured by the Haber process, which is energy intensive (coal and natural gas mostly). This is one way the oil price drives the price of food higher (another major way is through transportation costs). However, nitrogen being the major constituent of air, nitrogen fertilizers are a renewable resource that depend only on energy inputs. In the future, renewable energy sources may be used for nitrogen fixation.

Economic sources of potassium salts and phosphates are however, generally not considered renewable, as they are mined from the ground in the form of salts or rock. Of the two, reserves of phosphates are less abundant. Indeed, it has often been bandied about that phosphate is the limiting factor in increasing soil productivity.

Based on current estimates of reserves, we are not likely to run out of phospate anytime soon. So we might be justified in hitting the snooze button on this possibly alarmist proposition. However, as Peak oil supporters are fond of saying, it's not when you run out of a resource, its when you reach peak production (and when demand inexorably continues to rise) that you start running into problems. 

To this, I would add the following comments:
Phosphate reserves are considered abundant at current rates of production, but rates are certain to rise with increasing demand. Demand will come from rising population pressure as well as increasing affluence. Increased meat consumption will necessitate larger crop yields, which will in turn engender demand for fertilizer.

There are no substitutes for phosphate (well, not unless we evolve from a phosphate backbone DNA). So demand will be fairly inelastic.

Phosphate reserves are concentrated in Morocco, a fairly stable country in a not-so-stable region. So like oil, phosphate supply may be subject to geopolitical risks as well.

Phosphate reserves are abundant, but may not all be economic to exploit at current prices. This means that an analogous situation with Peak cheap oil may occur; phosphate will still be available in the future, but possibly at much higher prices.

Should we worry about Peak phosphate? Not in the near to medium long term. There are other more important things on the global agenda. But still, it's probably wise to know more about something that is so intimately connected to the food supply.

Factoid: the world's largest producer of phosphate is the Mosaic company, controlled by Cargill, one of the largest and most powerful privately held companies in the world.

"Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again"

This will constitute material for another post later (much later). Still need to do more reading.

From the New York Times

Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: May 30, 2008

ISLA DE ASIA, Peru — The worldwide boom in commodities has come to this: Even guano, the bird dung that was the focus of an imperialist scramble on the high seas in the 19th century, is in strong demand once again.

Workers collect guano on Isla Guañape off Peru, which conserves the resource to prevent depletion. Guano's status as an organic fertilizer has increased demand. Surging prices for synthetic fertilizers and organic foods are shifting attention to guano, an organic fertilizer once found in abundance on this island and more than 20 others off the coast of Peru, where an exceptionally dry climate preserves the droppings of seabirds like the guanay cormorant and the Peruvian booby.

On the same islands where thousands of convicts, army deserters and Chinese indentured servants died collecting guano a century and a half ago, teams of Quechua-speaking laborers from the highlands now scrape the dung off the hard soil and place it on barges destined for the mainland.

“We are recovering some of the last guano remaining in Peru,” said Victor Ropón, 66, a supervisor from Ancash Province whose leathery skin reflects his years working on the guano islands since he was 17.

“There might be 10 years of supplies left, or perhaps 20, and then it will be completely exhausted,” said Mr. Ropón, referring to fears that the seabird population could be poised to fall sharply in the years ahead. It is a minor miracle that any guano at all is available here today, reflecting a century-old effort hailed by biologists as a rare example of sustainable exploitation of a resource once so coveted that the United States authorized its citizens to take possession of islands or keys where guano was found.

As a debate rages over whether global oil output has peaked, a parable may exist in the story of guano, with its seafaring treachery, the development of synthetic alternatives in Europe and a desperate effort here to prevent the deposits from being depleted.

“Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it,” said Pablo Arriola, director of Proabonos, the state company that controls guano production, referring to conflicts like the Chincha Islands War, in which Peru prevented Spain from reasserting control over the guano islands. “Guano is a highly desirous enterprise.”

Guano is also an undeniably strenuous enterprise from the perspective of the laborers who migrate to the islands to collect the dung each year. In scenes reminiscent of open-pit gold mines on the mainland, the laborers rise before dawn to scrape the hardened guano with shovels and small pickaxes.

Many go barefoot, their feet and lower legs coated with guano by the time their shifts end in the early afternoon. Some wear handkerchiefs over their mouths and nostrils to avoid breathing in guano dust, which, fortunately, is almost odorless aside from a faint smell of ammonia.

“This is not an easy life, but it’s the one I chose,” said Bruno Sulca, 62, who oversees the loading of guano bags on barges at Isla Guañape, off the coast of northern Peru. Mr. Sulca and other workers earn about $600 a month, more than three times what manual laborers earn in the impoverished highlands.

Peru’s guano trade quixotically soldiers on after almost being wiped out by overexploitation. The dung will probably never be the focus of a boom as intense as the one in the 19th century, when deposits were 150 feet high, with export proceeds accounting for most of the national budget.

The guano on most islands, including Isla de Asia, south of the capital, Lima, now reaches less than a foot or so. But the guano that remains here is coveted when viewed in the context of the frenzy in Peru and abroad around synthetic fertilizers like urea, which has doubled in price to more than $600 a ton in the last year.

Guano in Peru sells for about $250 a ton while fetching $500 a ton when exported to France, Israel and the United States. While guano is less efficient than urea at releasing nitrates into the soil, its status as an organic fertilizer has increased demand, transforming it into a niche fertilizer sought around the world.

“Guano has the advantage of being chemical-free,” said Enrique Balmaceda, who cultivates organic mangoes in Piura, a province in northern Peru. “The problem is, there isn’t enough of it to meet demand with new crops like organic bananas competing for what’s available.”

That explains why Peru is so vigilant about preserving the remaining guano, an effort dating back a century to the creation of the Guano Administration Company, when Peru nationalized the islands, some of which were British-controlled, to stave off the industry’s extinction.

Since then, Peru’s government has restricted guano collection to about two islands a year, enabling the droppings to accumulate. Workers smooth slopes and build walls that retain the guano. Scientists even introduced lizards to hunt down ticks that infested the seabirds.

The guano administrators station armed guards at each of the islands to ward off threats to birds, which produce 12,000 to 15,000 tons of guano a year.

“The fishermen instigate the most mischief here,” said Rómulo Ybarra, 40, one of two guards stationed at Isla de Asia, which otherwise has no regular inhabitants. (The island has a tiny cabin called Casa del Chino, a reference to the Asian ancestry of former President Alberto K. Fujimori, who used to come here to unwind in solitude.)

“When the fishermen approach the island, their engines scare away the guanay,” Mr. Ybarra said, referring to the prized guanay cormorant. “And further out at sea, the fishing boats pursue the anchoveta, something we cannot control.”

The anchoveta, a six-inch fish in the anchovy family, is the main food of the seabirds who leave their droppings on these rainless islands. The biggest fear of Peru’s guano collectors is that commercial fishing fleets will deplete their stocks, which are increasingly wanted as fish meal for poultry and other animals as demand for meat products rises in Asia.

While the bird population has climbed to 4 million from 3.2 million in the past two years, that figure still pales in comparison with the 60 million birds at the height of the first guano rush. Faced with a dwindling anchoveta population, officials at Proabonos are considering halting exports of guano to ensure its supply to the domestic market.

Uriel de la Torre, a biologist who specializes in conserving the guanay cormorant and other seabirds, said that unless some measure emerged to prevent overfishing, both the anchovetas and the seabirds here could die off by 2030.

“It would be an inglorious conclusion to something that has survived wars and man’s other follies,” Mr. de la Torre said. “But that is the scenario we are facing: the end of guano.”