Giant White Rhododendron
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I'll write more about my sister, Patricia, Saturday Night. Interesting story. She needed time.
Giant White Rhododendron
I have a life to try to save.
Nearly twenty years ago, my sister, Patricia was diagnosed with an astrocytoma. A brain tumor. The initial diagnosis was made at a community hospital with the prediction of six months longevity. Her spouse refused to believe it.
Patricia was a vivacious, petit woman who was very alive at the time and except for blurred vision she was her ususal perfection. Pat had concluded her professional career with AT&T International and moved to Ohio to start a family with a very successful husband. They were in Ohio for 3 months when she manifested the vision problem.
Her spouse sent her biopsies to three different university hospitals around the country. She ended up a month later at The Cleveland Clinic under the vigilance of Dr. Janet Bay. There she was given a successful 'shunt' operation and thirty days of radiation. We owe every day since then in thanks to the excellance of the technology and staff of The Cleveland Clinic.
She is now nearly twenty years out from the initial diagnosis. Her tumor has manifested again. This time there is a second one. The staff at the University Hospital she is getting care from feels strongly she will prevail after a one time treatment of a Gamma Knife. I believe so as well.
The Cleveland Clinic has perfected "The Gamma Knife" but is not the only hospital to have one.
My sister needs this treatment. She was supposed to have her treatment on Friday. I received a call a short time ago that she has cancelled her appointment because she is scared. I am scared. I need to attend to my sister's apprehensions. She is a few hours drive west from me and it will give me time to resolve my issues and plan a setting away from all others and help her sort through her complicated life.
For that reason, it might be a few days before I am back blogging as usual. I'll be back from time to time but it's a time for reflection and mentoring.
Check with Michael Moore. I believe in his message. I believe in Freedom.
Have a good day.
Patricia was a vivacious, petit woman who was very alive at the time and except for blurred vision she was her ususal perfection. Pat had concluded her professional career with AT&T International and moved to Ohio to start a family with a very successful husband. They were in Ohio for 3 months when she manifested the vision problem.
Her spouse sent her biopsies to three different university hospitals around the country. She ended up a month later at The Cleveland Clinic under the vigilance of Dr. Janet Bay. There she was given a successful 'shunt' operation and thirty days of radiation. We owe every day since then in thanks to the excellance of the technology and staff of The Cleveland Clinic.
She is now nearly twenty years out from the initial diagnosis. Her tumor has manifested again. This time there is a second one. The staff at the University Hospital she is getting care from feels strongly she will prevail after a one time treatment of a Gamma Knife. I believe so as well.
The Cleveland Clinic has perfected "The Gamma Knife" but is not the only hospital to have one.
My sister needs this treatment. She was supposed to have her treatment on Friday. I received a call a short time ago that she has cancelled her appointment because she is scared. I am scared. I need to attend to my sister's apprehensions. She is a few hours drive west from me and it will give me time to resolve my issues and plan a setting away from all others and help her sort through her complicated life.
For that reason, it might be a few days before I am back blogging as usual. I'll be back from time to time but it's a time for reflection and mentoring.
Check with Michael Moore. I believe in his message. I believe in Freedom.
Have a good day.
With spotted owl count falling, lawsuit is planned
Audubon Society tells Weyerhaeuser, state they are violating species act
By ROBERT McCLUREP-I REPORTER
More than a decade after the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan was launched to save the threatened spotted owl, a Seattle environmental group says the bird's population in Washington is plummeting.
Citing "overwhelming evidence" about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting.
Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend.
Weyerhaeuser says it follows state regulations and even exceeds them in some ways.
While the spotted owl was the focus of intense clashes between environmentalists and timber-industry supporters in the early 1990s, those fights centered mostly on national forests. There, logging has long been severely curtailed to preserve the owl and other species that thrive in older forests.
The plan for saving the owl focused on protecting federal land in national forests. But that didn't work. Spotted owls are declining in number in Washington at more than twice the rate predicted by federal biologists. Environmentalists point to state commitments that private lands would make some contribution.
"Everyone knew it was biologically questionable to shift all the recovery to federal land," said Peter Goldman, a lawyer with the Washington Forest Law Center who is representing the Audubon chapters. "The state's never done its share, and now we're really in a panic mode. ... It's not just about the owl. It's about broken promises."
While Weyerhaeuser told the government years ago that it would establish a long-term plan to protect spotted owls on its extensive Southwest Washington holdings, the plan was never completed.
Instead, company biologists carefully monitor the owls, Weyerhaeuser says, and logging is designed to maximize owl survival by leaving intact areas considered important to the birds.
On Tuesday, the environmental groups filed an official notice to Weyerhaeuser and to state Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland of their intention to sue.
"We've got protections across the state for spotted owls, and those do not extend to Weyerhaeuser," said Alex Morgan, conservation director for Seattle Audubon. "You've got one bad apple that is not living by the rules that other landowners have to live by. ... Instead, we have an entire region of the state that has zero protection for spotted owls."
Responded Frank Mendizabal, a company spokesman: "We are not aware that any of our operations, either ongoing or proposed, pose any threat to any northern spotted owl. We follow all the rules and regulations."
Spokeswoman Patty Henson at the state Department of Natural Resources said Sutherland would have no comment until state lawyers can study the filing.
Environmentalists threatened a similar suit in 2003 when they saw U.S. Timberlands Co. logging heavily around spotted owl nests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. That launched a discussion of 2 1/2 years that culminated in the Forest Practices Board last year rejecting more-rigorous reviews of logging in 13 "spotted owl special emphasis areas."
Frustrated, environmentalists scouted out the best examples possible of where logging is harming owls. They centered in on a five-site region in Southwest Washington that was never tagged a "special emphasis area" for the birds despite being nominated for protection by state scientists.
The same sites were cited last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in notifying Weyerhaeuser that federal biologists were concerned about the company's logging.
Since then, the company has met with federal officials and explained its system of carefully studying the owls to help shape timber cuts, said Kevin Godbout, the company's director of external and regulatory affairs.
Kenan Block of the Washington Forest Law Center looks for spotted owls in a state-managed forest in Grays Harbor County.
"We've been able to ease some of their concerns, and some of their concerns are ongoing," Godbout said.
He said the Southwest Washington conservation plan promised by the company, which was to cover owls and a number of other species, was developed but never put into effect because "we just weren't able to get as much consensus as we wanted among the various stakeholders."
Mendizabal said Weyerhaeuser has an extensive program to locate and protect spotted-owl nests. Its scientists share data they collect with state and federal officials.
He said the company actually goes further than the regulations require. Outside the "special emphasis areas" for owls, loggers can cut down a tree where spotted owls have nested so long as they wait until the nesting season is over.
Weyerhaeuser doesn't do that, though, Mendizabal said. Only after the birds have left and several nesting seasons have gone by with no sign of them is that patch of forest cut, he said.
In addition, Godbout said, the company routinely leaves more than the 70 acres around spotted-owl nests required in many situations by state rules. And in some of the places where the environmentalists are complaining, he said, it appears a spotted-owl competitor, the barred owl, has moved in and displaced the spotted owl.
"We take this responsibility seriously," Godbout said. "We manage with a wealth of information."
Pat Ward, a spotted-owl biologist working with the environmental groups, said cutting big swaths of forest near a nest can be almost as harmful as cutting the nest tree itself, because the owls need forest to find prey.
If Weyerhaeuser is allowed to continue logging near owl nests, "the probability that those owls are going to survive through time is really low," Ward said. "There's a very high likelihood that they will not do well if they persist at all."
TIMELINE
A partial history of the northern spotted owl issue:
1989: Federal officials propose to protect spotted owl under Endangered Species Act.
1990: Owl officially declared "threatened" and granted protection.
1991: U.S. District Judge William Dwyer forbids U.S. Forest Service to allow logging in spotted owl habitat. Forest Service halves logging in national forests. Weyerhaeuser CEO George Weyerhaeuser lobbies Congress and the Bush administration, which agrees to drop Weyerhaeuser and other private timberlands from proposed habitat protections.
1993: Clinton administration convenes nationally televised Forest Summit to develop plan to save owls while preserving the timber industry. Weyerhaeuser executive Charlie Bingham promises to develop a plan to protect owls and other threatened species on 100,000 acres of company land in Southwest Washington.
1994: Dwyer approves Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan, the result of the 1993 Forest Summit. It calls for large rollbacks in timber cutting in national forests.
1995: State Forest Practices Board designates 13 areas for "special emphasis" in protecting spotted owls on private land, but rejects state scientists' recommendation to extend protections to the northern Olympic Peninsula and Southwest Washington.
Late 1990s: Weyerhaeuser drops effort to develop Southwest Washington habitat-conservation plan.
2003: Environmentalists threaten suit under Endangered Species Act, saying state has allowed too much timber cutting near spotted owl nests by U.S. Timberlands Co. on eastern Cascade slopes. Negotiations with the state ensue.
2005: State Forest Practices Board rejects environmentalists' request to tighten logging on 115,000 acres in the "special emphasis areas" for owls.
2006: Environmentalists file notice required by Endangered Species Act, saying they will sue Weyerhaeuser and the Forest Practices Board.
P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com.
By ROBERT McCLUREP-I REPORTER
More than a decade after the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan was launched to save the threatened spotted owl, a Seattle environmental group says the bird's population in Washington is plummeting.
Citing "overwhelming evidence" about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting.
Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend.
Weyerhaeuser says it follows state regulations and even exceeds them in some ways.
While the spotted owl was the focus of intense clashes between environmentalists and timber-industry supporters in the early 1990s, those fights centered mostly on national forests. There, logging has long been severely curtailed to preserve the owl and other species that thrive in older forests.
The plan for saving the owl focused on protecting federal land in national forests. But that didn't work. Spotted owls are declining in number in Washington at more than twice the rate predicted by federal biologists. Environmentalists point to state commitments that private lands would make some contribution.
"Everyone knew it was biologically questionable to shift all the recovery to federal land," said Peter Goldman, a lawyer with the Washington Forest Law Center who is representing the Audubon chapters. "The state's never done its share, and now we're really in a panic mode. ... It's not just about the owl. It's about broken promises."
While Weyerhaeuser told the government years ago that it would establish a long-term plan to protect spotted owls on its extensive Southwest Washington holdings, the plan was never completed.
Instead, company biologists carefully monitor the owls, Weyerhaeuser says, and logging is designed to maximize owl survival by leaving intact areas considered important to the birds.
On Tuesday, the environmental groups filed an official notice to Weyerhaeuser and to state Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland of their intention to sue.
"We've got protections across the state for spotted owls, and those do not extend to Weyerhaeuser," said Alex Morgan, conservation director for Seattle Audubon. "You've got one bad apple that is not living by the rules that other landowners have to live by. ... Instead, we have an entire region of the state that has zero protection for spotted owls."
Responded Frank Mendizabal, a company spokesman: "We are not aware that any of our operations, either ongoing or proposed, pose any threat to any northern spotted owl. We follow all the rules and regulations."
Spokeswoman Patty Henson at the state Department of Natural Resources said Sutherland would have no comment until state lawyers can study the filing.
Environmentalists threatened a similar suit in 2003 when they saw U.S. Timberlands Co. logging heavily around spotted owl nests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. That launched a discussion of 2 1/2 years that culminated in the Forest Practices Board last year rejecting more-rigorous reviews of logging in 13 "spotted owl special emphasis areas."
Frustrated, environmentalists scouted out the best examples possible of where logging is harming owls. They centered in on a five-site region in Southwest Washington that was never tagged a "special emphasis area" for the birds despite being nominated for protection by state scientists.
The same sites were cited last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in notifying Weyerhaeuser that federal biologists were concerned about the company's logging.
Since then, the company has met with federal officials and explained its system of carefully studying the owls to help shape timber cuts, said Kevin Godbout, the company's director of external and regulatory affairs.
Kenan Block of the Washington Forest Law Center looks for spotted owls in a state-managed forest in Grays Harbor County.
"We've been able to ease some of their concerns, and some of their concerns are ongoing," Godbout said.
He said the Southwest Washington conservation plan promised by the company, which was to cover owls and a number of other species, was developed but never put into effect because "we just weren't able to get as much consensus as we wanted among the various stakeholders."
Mendizabal said Weyerhaeuser has an extensive program to locate and protect spotted-owl nests. Its scientists share data they collect with state and federal officials.
He said the company actually goes further than the regulations require. Outside the "special emphasis areas" for owls, loggers can cut down a tree where spotted owls have nested so long as they wait until the nesting season is over.
Weyerhaeuser doesn't do that, though, Mendizabal said. Only after the birds have left and several nesting seasons have gone by with no sign of them is that patch of forest cut, he said.
In addition, Godbout said, the company routinely leaves more than the 70 acres around spotted-owl nests required in many situations by state rules. And in some of the places where the environmentalists are complaining, he said, it appears a spotted-owl competitor, the barred owl, has moved in and displaced the spotted owl.
"We take this responsibility seriously," Godbout said. "We manage with a wealth of information."
Pat Ward, a spotted-owl biologist working with the environmental groups, said cutting big swaths of forest near a nest can be almost as harmful as cutting the nest tree itself, because the owls need forest to find prey.
If Weyerhaeuser is allowed to continue logging near owl nests, "the probability that those owls are going to survive through time is really low," Ward said. "There's a very high likelihood that they will not do well if they persist at all."
TIMELINE
A partial history of the northern spotted owl issue:
1989: Federal officials propose to protect spotted owl under Endangered Species Act.
1990: Owl officially declared "threatened" and granted protection.
1991: U.S. District Judge William Dwyer forbids U.S. Forest Service to allow logging in spotted owl habitat. Forest Service halves logging in national forests. Weyerhaeuser CEO George Weyerhaeuser lobbies Congress and the Bush administration, which agrees to drop Weyerhaeuser and other private timberlands from proposed habitat protections.
1993: Clinton administration convenes nationally televised Forest Summit to develop plan to save owls while preserving the timber industry. Weyerhaeuser executive Charlie Bingham promises to develop a plan to protect owls and other threatened species on 100,000 acres of company land in Southwest Washington.
1994: Dwyer approves Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan, the result of the 1993 Forest Summit. It calls for large rollbacks in timber cutting in national forests.
1995: State Forest Practices Board designates 13 areas for "special emphasis" in protecting spotted owls on private land, but rejects state scientists' recommendation to extend protections to the northern Olympic Peninsula and Southwest Washington.
Late 1990s: Weyerhaeuser drops effort to develop Southwest Washington habitat-conservation plan.
2003: Environmentalists threaten suit under Endangered Species Act, saying state has allowed too much timber cutting near spotted owl nests by U.S. Timberlands Co. on eastern Cascade slopes. Negotiations with the state ensue.
2005: State Forest Practices Board rejects environmentalists' request to tighten logging on 115,000 acres in the "special emphasis areas" for owls.
2006: Environmentalists file notice required by Endangered Species Act, saying they will sue Weyerhaeuser and the Forest Practices Board.
P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
This will help bring to focus the ruthlessness of the agenda of oil !
BASICALLY. Countries have no self discipline and desire for change, only GREED. Is there any doubt yet about why the USA and Britain are in Iraq?
Global warming sparks a scramble for black gold under retreating ice
David AdamTuesday
April 18, 2006
The Guardian
Unlike the Antarctic continent spread around the south pole, the Arctic has no formal international treaty to regulate activities. And while howling winds, drifting icebergs and months of freezing darkness kept prospecters at bay, there was little activity to regulate.
But as global warming thaws the ocean's icy layer, oil giants, shipping companies and even the odd enterprising tourist operator are casting their eyes towards the high north.
Last August a Russian vessel, the Akademik Fyodorov, became the first to reach the north pole without an icebreaker - one of seven ships to make it to the top of the world last year. This summer, Russian icebreakers aim to go one better and take paying guests, for £17,000 each. If the ice continues to thin and shrink as expected, then within a few decades cruise liners, container ships and tankers could all head over the pole, shaving thousands of miles off their voyages across the globe.
The biggest boom could be oil and gas. The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves lay under the Arctic Ocean. As the ice retreats, oil companies are scrambling to open a new frontier.
Bruce Evers, an analyst with the London firm Investec, says the big companies have no choice but to investigate the Arctic. "If they think there is oil and gas there then they absolutely can't ignore it," he says. "If there is going to be an Arctic Klondike rush then they will want to be there along with every other Tom, Dick and Harry. They can't afford to sit and watch the others explore and come up with some huge discoveries."
Attempts to open up the Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska to drilling remain deadlocked in the US Congress, but several companies have dipped more than a toe in the chilly Arctic Ocean further north. BP Amoco is developing an Alaskan offshore oil deposit called Northstar and the Norwegian company Statoil is working on a gasfield some 90 miles across the frozen Barents Sea from its most northerly outpost, Hammerfest. Called Snow White, the project is expected to start pumping liquefied natural gas to the US and Europe next year.
The jewel in the Arctic energy crown is the Shtokman field, also in the Barents Sea. Some 300 miles off the Russian Arctic coast and 10 times the size of Snow White, it is the largest offshore gas reservoir in the world. The Russian energy giant Gazprom is poised to announce partnerships with other companies to drill up to 120 wells.
"It's an unfortunate fact of life that the climactically benign and politically stable areas are running out of oil and gas," Mr Evers said. "So in politically stable areas like the Arctic there's going to be a substantial amount of interest."
That interest is already turning up the diplomatic heat, and there are a growing number of territorial disputes between the eight countries with a claim to the Arctic: Russia, the US, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
A dispute between the US and Canada over rights to shipping lanes through the North-West Passage flared up again this year, with Canada promising to step up its military presence to protect what it regards as its territory and the US sees as international waters. Norway and Russia are squabbling over the Barents Sea, while Denmark is eyeing the north pole itself.
International law allows a country to claim the seabed up to 350 miles off its coast, which is judged from the edge of its continental shelf. Existing surveys show that no country's shelf extends far enough to give it a claim on the pole, so a neutral area around it is administered by the International Seabed Authority. To get round this, Denmark is trying to prove that Greenland - a Danish territory - is connected to a 1,100-mile underwater ridge that stretches towards the pole. Launching the effort in 2004, the Danish science minister, Helge Sander, said it was to give Denmark access to "new resources such as oil and natural gas". Canada and Russia are trying to make similar claims and it could take years to sort out.
Environmental campaigners are viewing the creeping development of the Arctic with mounting concern. Norway announced last month that it will limit drilling in some areas to protect fragile ecosystems. The 31-mile exclusion zone in the Barents Sea has large supplies of fish. But the embargo expires in 2010 and drilling elsewhere is being stepped up, with the granting of 13 oil and gas licences to 17 companies.
Stephanie Tumore, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace, said: "Haven't we learnt anything? Why are we going looking for more fossil fuels when what's happening in polar regions just proves that it is devastating and we cannot continue to do that?"
The consequences:
Precarious region
Wildlife
The Arctic is home to hundreds of species of mammals, birds and fish found in few, if any, other places on Earth. Polar bears, musk oxen and caribou are joined each summer by snowy owls, ducks and swans that migrate there to nest. Some of the hardiest organisms discovered live within the ice, helping to make the region a unique ecosystem. Now, 1,000sq miles of Arctic tundra on Alaska's North Slope is home to one of the world's largest industrial complexes, with 28 oil production plants, 4,800 exploration and production wells, 1,800 miles of pipes and 500 miles of roads.
Sea ice
Global warming has lead to an increase in melting of Arctic sea ice and in one study last year, scientists predicted that 4m sq miles of permafrost could shrink to 400,000 sq miles by 2100, disrupting ocean currents, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and causing havoc to roads and buildings across Canada, Alaska and Russia.
Mineral exploration
The melting of Arctic sea ice has made the region more accessible to shipping, and oil and gas companies keen to prospect for natural resources. Some estimates suggest that one quarter of the planet's untapped fossil fuels, including 375bn barrels of oil, lie beneath the Arctic, and industry experts talk of a "black gold rush" as companies clamour to exploit the reserves. Off Norway's north coast, the state oil company, Statoil, is engaged in project Snow White, which workers believe will generate £34bn in liquefied natural gas over the next 30 years.
Pollution
Spillages and leaks add to the environmental damage caused by oil extraction and, according to the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), between 1996 and 2004, there were 4,530 spills of more than 1.9m gallons of diesel, oil, acid and other chemicals along the Alaskan border alone. Last month, hundreds of thousands of litres of crude oil gushed into the Arctic Ocean from a corroded 30-year old BP pipeline. The NRDC says there is at least one leak from an oilfield or pipeline every day.
Tourism
Global warming is also opening up the Arctic to tourism, with shipping companies offering voyages to the north pole. Previously, only well-equipped icebreakers would have been able to attempt the trip.
Ian Sample
Global warming sparks a scramble for black gold under retreating ice
David AdamTuesday
April 18, 2006
The Guardian
Unlike the Antarctic continent spread around the south pole, the Arctic has no formal international treaty to regulate activities. And while howling winds, drifting icebergs and months of freezing darkness kept prospecters at bay, there was little activity to regulate.
But as global warming thaws the ocean's icy layer, oil giants, shipping companies and even the odd enterprising tourist operator are casting their eyes towards the high north.
Last August a Russian vessel, the Akademik Fyodorov, became the first to reach the north pole without an icebreaker - one of seven ships to make it to the top of the world last year. This summer, Russian icebreakers aim to go one better and take paying guests, for £17,000 each. If the ice continues to thin and shrink as expected, then within a few decades cruise liners, container ships and tankers could all head over the pole, shaving thousands of miles off their voyages across the globe.
The biggest boom could be oil and gas. The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves lay under the Arctic Ocean. As the ice retreats, oil companies are scrambling to open a new frontier.
Bruce Evers, an analyst with the London firm Investec, says the big companies have no choice but to investigate the Arctic. "If they think there is oil and gas there then they absolutely can't ignore it," he says. "If there is going to be an Arctic Klondike rush then they will want to be there along with every other Tom, Dick and Harry. They can't afford to sit and watch the others explore and come up with some huge discoveries."
Attempts to open up the Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska to drilling remain deadlocked in the US Congress, but several companies have dipped more than a toe in the chilly Arctic Ocean further north. BP Amoco is developing an Alaskan offshore oil deposit called Northstar and the Norwegian company Statoil is working on a gasfield some 90 miles across the frozen Barents Sea from its most northerly outpost, Hammerfest. Called Snow White, the project is expected to start pumping liquefied natural gas to the US and Europe next year.
The jewel in the Arctic energy crown is the Shtokman field, also in the Barents Sea. Some 300 miles off the Russian Arctic coast and 10 times the size of Snow White, it is the largest offshore gas reservoir in the world. The Russian energy giant Gazprom is poised to announce partnerships with other companies to drill up to 120 wells.
"It's an unfortunate fact of life that the climactically benign and politically stable areas are running out of oil and gas," Mr Evers said. "So in politically stable areas like the Arctic there's going to be a substantial amount of interest."
That interest is already turning up the diplomatic heat, and there are a growing number of territorial disputes between the eight countries with a claim to the Arctic: Russia, the US, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
A dispute between the US and Canada over rights to shipping lanes through the North-West Passage flared up again this year, with Canada promising to step up its military presence to protect what it regards as its territory and the US sees as international waters. Norway and Russia are squabbling over the Barents Sea, while Denmark is eyeing the north pole itself.
International law allows a country to claim the seabed up to 350 miles off its coast, which is judged from the edge of its continental shelf. Existing surveys show that no country's shelf extends far enough to give it a claim on the pole, so a neutral area around it is administered by the International Seabed Authority. To get round this, Denmark is trying to prove that Greenland - a Danish territory - is connected to a 1,100-mile underwater ridge that stretches towards the pole. Launching the effort in 2004, the Danish science minister, Helge Sander, said it was to give Denmark access to "new resources such as oil and natural gas". Canada and Russia are trying to make similar claims and it could take years to sort out.
Environmental campaigners are viewing the creeping development of the Arctic with mounting concern. Norway announced last month that it will limit drilling in some areas to protect fragile ecosystems. The 31-mile exclusion zone in the Barents Sea has large supplies of fish. But the embargo expires in 2010 and drilling elsewhere is being stepped up, with the granting of 13 oil and gas licences to 17 companies.
Stephanie Tumore, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace, said: "Haven't we learnt anything? Why are we going looking for more fossil fuels when what's happening in polar regions just proves that it is devastating and we cannot continue to do that?"
The consequences:
Precarious region
Wildlife
The Arctic is home to hundreds of species of mammals, birds and fish found in few, if any, other places on Earth. Polar bears, musk oxen and caribou are joined each summer by snowy owls, ducks and swans that migrate there to nest. Some of the hardiest organisms discovered live within the ice, helping to make the region a unique ecosystem. Now, 1,000sq miles of Arctic tundra on Alaska's North Slope is home to one of the world's largest industrial complexes, with 28 oil production plants, 4,800 exploration and production wells, 1,800 miles of pipes and 500 miles of roads.
Sea ice
Global warming has lead to an increase in melting of Arctic sea ice and in one study last year, scientists predicted that 4m sq miles of permafrost could shrink to 400,000 sq miles by 2100, disrupting ocean currents, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and causing havoc to roads and buildings across Canada, Alaska and Russia.
Mineral exploration
The melting of Arctic sea ice has made the region more accessible to shipping, and oil and gas companies keen to prospect for natural resources. Some estimates suggest that one quarter of the planet's untapped fossil fuels, including 375bn barrels of oil, lie beneath the Arctic, and industry experts talk of a "black gold rush" as companies clamour to exploit the reserves. Off Norway's north coast, the state oil company, Statoil, is engaged in project Snow White, which workers believe will generate £34bn in liquefied natural gas over the next 30 years.
Pollution
Spillages and leaks add to the environmental damage caused by oil extraction and, according to the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), between 1996 and 2004, there were 4,530 spills of more than 1.9m gallons of diesel, oil, acid and other chemicals along the Alaskan border alone. Last month, hundreds of thousands of litres of crude oil gushed into the Arctic Ocean from a corroded 30-year old BP pipeline. The NRDC says there is at least one leak from an oilfield or pipeline every day.
Tourism
Global warming is also opening up the Arctic to tourism, with shipping companies offering voyages to the north pole. Previously, only well-equipped icebreakers would have been able to attempt the trip.
Ian Sample
Monday, April 17, 2006
Enemy of the Planet by Paul Krugman
Lee Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was paid $686 million over 13 years. But that's not a reason to single him out for special excoriation. Executive compensation is out of control in corporate America as a whole, and unlike other grossly overpaid business leaders, Mr. Raymond can at least claim to have made money for his stockholders.
There's a better reason to excoriate Mr. Raymond: for the sake of his company's bottom line, and perhaps his own personal enrichment, he turned Exxon Mobil into an enemy of the planet.
To understand why Exxon Mobil is a worse environmental villain than other big oil companies, you need to know a bit about how the science and politics of climate change have shifted over the years.
Global warming emerged as a major public issue in the late 1980's. But at first there was considerable scientific uncertainty.
Over time, the accumulation of evidence removed much of that uncertainty. Climate experts still aren't sure how much hotter the world will get, and how fast. But there's now an overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is getting warmer, and that human activity is the cause. In 2004, an article in the journal Science that surveyed 928 papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
To dismiss this consensus, you have to believe in a vast conspiracy to misinform the public that somehow embraces thousands of scientists around the world. That sort of thing is the stuff of bad novels. Sure enough, the novelist Michael Crichton, whose past work includes warnings about the imminent Japanese takeover of the world economy and murderous talking apes inhabiting the lost city of Zinj, has become perhaps the most prominent global-warming skeptic. (Mr. Crichton was invited to the White House to brief President Bush.)
So how have corporate interests responded? In the early years, when the science was still somewhat in doubt, many companies from the oil industry, the auto industry and other sectors were members of a group called the Global Climate Coalition, whose de facto purpose was to oppose curbs on greenhouse gases. But as the scientific evidence became clearer, many members — including oil companies like BP and Shell — left the organization and conceded the need to do something about global warming.
Exxon, headed by Mr. Raymond, chose a different course of action: it decided to fight the science.
A leaked memo from a 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, in which Exxon (which hadn't yet merged with Mobil) was a participant, describes a strategy of providing "logistical and moral support" to climate change dissenters, "thereby raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.' " And that's just what Exxon Mobil has done: lavish grants have supported a sort of alternative intellectual universe of global warming skeptics.
The people and institutions Exxon Mobil supports aren't actually engaged in climate research. They're the real-world equivalents of the Academy of Tobacco Studies in the movie "Thank You for Smoking," whose purpose is to fail to find evidence of harmful effects.
But the fake research works for its sponsors, partly because it gets picked up by right-wing pundits, but mainly because it plays perfectly into the he-said-she-said conventions of "balanced" journalism. A 2003 study, by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff, of reporting on global warming in major newspapers found that a majority of reports gave the skeptics — a few dozen people, many if not most receiving direct or indirect financial support from Exxon Mobil — roughly the same amount of attention as the scientific consensus, supported by thousands of independent researchers.
Has Exxon Mobil's war on climate science actually changed policy for the worse? Maybe not. Although most governments have done little to curb greenhouse gases, and the Bush administration has done nothing, it's not clear that policies would have been any better even if Exxon Mobil had acted more responsibly.
But the fact is that whatever small chance there was of action to limit global warming became even smaller because Exxon Mobil chose to protect its profits by trashing good science. And that, not the paycheck, is the real scandal of Mr. Raymond's reign as Exxon Mobil's chief executive.
There's a better reason to excoriate Mr. Raymond: for the sake of his company's bottom line, and perhaps his own personal enrichment, he turned Exxon Mobil into an enemy of the planet.
To understand why Exxon Mobil is a worse environmental villain than other big oil companies, you need to know a bit about how the science and politics of climate change have shifted over the years.
Global warming emerged as a major public issue in the late 1980's. But at first there was considerable scientific uncertainty.
Over time, the accumulation of evidence removed much of that uncertainty. Climate experts still aren't sure how much hotter the world will get, and how fast. But there's now an overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is getting warmer, and that human activity is the cause. In 2004, an article in the journal Science that surveyed 928 papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
To dismiss this consensus, you have to believe in a vast conspiracy to misinform the public that somehow embraces thousands of scientists around the world. That sort of thing is the stuff of bad novels. Sure enough, the novelist Michael Crichton, whose past work includes warnings about the imminent Japanese takeover of the world economy and murderous talking apes inhabiting the lost city of Zinj, has become perhaps the most prominent global-warming skeptic. (Mr. Crichton was invited to the White House to brief President Bush.)
So how have corporate interests responded? In the early years, when the science was still somewhat in doubt, many companies from the oil industry, the auto industry and other sectors were members of a group called the Global Climate Coalition, whose de facto purpose was to oppose curbs on greenhouse gases. But as the scientific evidence became clearer, many members — including oil companies like BP and Shell — left the organization and conceded the need to do something about global warming.
Exxon, headed by Mr. Raymond, chose a different course of action: it decided to fight the science.
A leaked memo from a 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, in which Exxon (which hadn't yet merged with Mobil) was a participant, describes a strategy of providing "logistical and moral support" to climate change dissenters, "thereby raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.' " And that's just what Exxon Mobil has done: lavish grants have supported a sort of alternative intellectual universe of global warming skeptics.
The people and institutions Exxon Mobil supports aren't actually engaged in climate research. They're the real-world equivalents of the Academy of Tobacco Studies in the movie "Thank You for Smoking," whose purpose is to fail to find evidence of harmful effects.
But the fake research works for its sponsors, partly because it gets picked up by right-wing pundits, but mainly because it plays perfectly into the he-said-she-said conventions of "balanced" journalism. A 2003 study, by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff, of reporting on global warming in major newspapers found that a majority of reports gave the skeptics — a few dozen people, many if not most receiving direct or indirect financial support from Exxon Mobil — roughly the same amount of attention as the scientific consensus, supported by thousands of independent researchers.
Has Exxon Mobil's war on climate science actually changed policy for the worse? Maybe not. Although most governments have done little to curb greenhouse gases, and the Bush administration has done nothing, it's not clear that policies would have been any better even if Exxon Mobil had acted more responsibly.
But the fact is that whatever small chance there was of action to limit global warming became even smaller because Exxon Mobil chose to protect its profits by trashing good science. And that, not the paycheck, is the real scandal of Mr. Raymond's reign as Exxon Mobil's chief executive.
Below 36 North Latitude
April 15, 2006. Amarillo, Texas.
Photographer states :: A firefighting helicopter (Sikorsky S-61 Fire King)
Click here to go to site.
April 16, 2006.
Wildfires across the USA. The largest I believe is "Flatside" Arkansas. It is over 5000 acres. The three wildfires in Arizona combined equal 5000 acres as well.
There is one controlled burn at "Chilly Spring Knob" North Carolina. There are none in Alaska and there are none in Canada.
Click here to animate. Thank you.
April 17, 2006. 9:00 AM.
Antarctica is still primarily cold, even the peninsula is cooling off but the east-southeast shoreline is being hit with a warmer trend. See it in animation of the map.
New Zealand Satellite Today
April 17, 2006 at 12:00 AM.
I have never witnessed a vortex on top of New Zealand like this, nor in this close a proximity of Antarctica or Australia in the southern ocean. This is unique, especially considering there is a cyclone at the northeast border of Australia as this satellite picture is taken.
Morning Papers - concluded
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is:
Scott Base
Overcast
-29.0 degrees C
Updated Monday 17 Apr 8:30PM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is :
39 °F / 4 °C
Overcast
Humidity:
70%
Dew Point:
30 °F / -1 °C
Wind:
5 mph / 7 km/h from the SE
Pressure:
29.71 in / 1006 hPa
Windchill:
36 °F / 2 °C
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Overcast 4100 ft / 1249 m
(Above Ground Level)
end
Scott Base
Overcast
-29.0 degrees C
Updated Monday 17 Apr 8:30PM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is :
39 °F / 4 °C
Overcast
Humidity:
70%
Dew Point:
30 °F / -1 °C
Wind:
5 mph / 7 km/h from the SE
Pressure:
29.71 in / 1006 hPa
Windchill:
36 °F / 2 °C
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Overcast 4100 ft / 1249 m
(Above Ground Level)
end
Saturday, April 15, 2006
I've never been a bunny. But, tonight I get a chance.
It came to my attention this afternoon there are four impoverished youngsters, ages 3 through 8 that don't have a surprise to wake upto in the morning. No magic visit from a mythical rabbit that 'treats' them to goodies for being good.
They are really sweet children and I don't intend to let them wake tomorrow to just 'the routine' of living. They are going to have a special morning if it's the last thing I do tonight.
So, you'll excuse me, I have some special packages to put together and deliver.
Have a nice Sunday. I'll be back Monday morning.
"To life"
They are really sweet children and I don't intend to let them wake tomorrow to just 'the routine' of living. They are going to have a special morning if it's the last thing I do tonight.
So, you'll excuse me, I have some special packages to put together and deliver.
Have a nice Sunday. I'll be back Monday morning.
"To life"
"Poverty" by Kenny Price
There's a way of life that most folks don't even know about
When the cotton crop fails and the garden dries up because of the drought
And your only clothes're hangin' on your back and they're all wornout
And there's patches on the patches on your knees
The night wind whistles through the cracks and holes in the bedroom walls
The high water comes and it takes your house barn and all
You work like a dog to raise a fat hog and he dies in the fall
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
Poverty is a broken down shack and a greedy landlord
And your money crop beaten down by the summer stormAnd you never see
Washington's head on a greenback dollar
Poverty is a wishing to the
Lord that you've never been born
[ steel ]
Try to catch a rabbit in a knee deep snow for somethin' to eat
But all you catch is a winter cough and frozen feet
The rabbits done gone and you gotta go home without any meat
Wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't six kids depended on me
We'd starve to death a long time ago hadn't been for ole blue
Blues mold hound dog and he's a good in two
He'll catch them coons where there ain't no coons he'll see us through
This trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
Poverty is a broken down shack...
[ harmonica ]
Poverty is a workin' six days from dawn to dusk
Seventh day is Sunday and go to church you must
When they pass their heads around you just sit there with your head hung down
Cause you ain't got between you and the devil and the deep blue see
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
When the cotton crop fails and the garden dries up because of the drought
And your only clothes're hangin' on your back and they're all wornout
And there's patches on the patches on your knees
The night wind whistles through the cracks and holes in the bedroom walls
The high water comes and it takes your house barn and all
You work like a dog to raise a fat hog and he dies in the fall
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
Poverty is a broken down shack and a greedy landlord
And your money crop beaten down by the summer stormAnd you never see
Washington's head on a greenback dollar
Poverty is a wishing to the
Lord that you've never been born
[ steel ]
Try to catch a rabbit in a knee deep snow for somethin' to eat
But all you catch is a winter cough and frozen feet
The rabbits done gone and you gotta go home without any meat
Wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't six kids depended on me
We'd starve to death a long time ago hadn't been for ole blue
Blues mold hound dog and he's a good in two
He'll catch them coons where there ain't no coons he'll see us through
This trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
Poverty is a broken down shack...
[ harmonica ]
Poverty is a workin' six days from dawn to dusk
Seventh day is Sunday and go to church you must
When they pass their heads around you just sit there with your head hung down
Cause you ain't got between you and the devil and the deep blue see
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
It's trouble and strife in the way of life called poverty
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