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Geoff has written for publications as diverse as PC User and The Northern Star His weekly columns have been a source of humour and inspiration for tens of thousands of readers and his mailbox is always full.
Here you can find his more recent contributions.

  • Climate sceptics are on big-oil payroll

     

    In a hard-hitting report, which appears to confirm environmentalists’ suspicions that there is a well-funded opposition to the science of climate change, Greenpeace accuses the funded groups of “spreading inaccurate and misleading information” about climate science and clean energy companies.

    “The company’s network of lobbyists, former executives and organisations has created a forceful stream of misinformation that Koch-funded entities produce and disseminate. The propaganda is then replicated, repackaged and echoed many times throughout the Koch-funded web of political front groups and thinktanks,” said Greenpeace.

    “Koch industries is playing a quiet but dominant role in the global warming debate. This private, out-of-sight corporation has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. On repeated occasions organisations funded by Koch foundations have led the assault on climate science and scientists, ‘green jobs’, renewable energy and climate policy progress,” it says.

    The groups include many of the best-known conservative thinktanks in the US, like Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Foundation for research on economics and the environment. All have been involved in “spinning” the “climategate” story or are at the forefront of the anti-global warming debate, says Greenpeace.

    Koch Industries is a $100bn-a-year conglomerate dominated by petroleum and chemical interests, with operations in nearly 60 countries and 70,000 employees. It owns refineries which process more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day in the US, as well as a refinery in Holland. It has held leases on the heavily polluting tar-sand fields of Alberta, Canada and has interests in coal, oil exploration, chemicals, forestry, and pipelines.

    The majority of the group’s assets are owned and controlled by Charles and David Koch, two of the four sons of the company’s founder. They have been identified by Forbes magazine as the joint ninth richest Americans and the 19th richest men in the world, each worth between $14-16bn.

    Koch has also contributed money to politicians, the report said, listing 17 Republicans and four Democrats whose campaign funds got more than $10,000from the company.

    Greenpeace accuses the Koch companies of having a notorious environmental record. In 2000 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fined Koch industries $30m for its role in 300 oil spills that resulted in more than 3m gallons of crude oil leaking intro ponds, lakes and coastal waters.

    “The combination of foundation-funded front groups, big lobbying budgets, political action campaign donations and direct campaign contributions makes Koch Industries and the Koch brothers among the most formidable obstacles to advancing clean energy and climate policy in the US,” Greenpeace said.

    Top 10 Koch beneficiaries 2005-2008

    Mercatus center: ($9.2m received from Koch grants 2005-2008) Conservative thinktank at George Mason University. This group suggested in 2001 that global warming would be beneficial in winter and at the poles. In 2009 they recommended that nothing be done to cut emissions.
    Americans for Prosperity. ($5.17m). Have built opposition to clean energy and climate legislation with events across US.
    Institute for Humane Studies ($1.96m). Several prominent climate sceptics have positions here, including Fred Singer and Robert Bradley.
    Heritage Foundation ($1.62m). Conservative thinktank leads US opposition to climate change science.
    Cato Insitute ($1.02m). Thinktank disputes science behind climate change and questions the rationale for taking action.
    Manhattan Institute ($800,000). This institute regularly publishes climate science denials.
    Washington legal foundation ($655,000) Published articles on the business threats posed by regulation of climate change.
    Federalist Society for Law ($542,000) advocates inaction on global warming
    National Center for Policy Analysis ($130,000) NCPA disseminates climate science scepticism.
    American Council on Science and Health ($113,800) Has published papers claiming that cutting greenhouse emissions would be detrimental to public health.

    ARE WE SURPRISED?

    John James

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  • Have we reached peaks already

    Dear Friends, I reccomend two reports that will give an overview of our current situation. They are right on track for today! If you are short on time, at least glance at the graphs.       

    The first was written a couple of years ago by Paul Chefurka, entitled World Energy and Population Trends to 2100.        

    He establishes the direct correspondance between available energy and population. Energy is everything that comes from oil, gas, coal and so on. As we seem to have already reached the peak in oil, the major and most versatile energy source on this planet, are we rapidly approaching the peak in population?      

    He concludes that        the human race is now out of time. We are staring at hard limits on our activities and numbers, imposed by energy constraints and ecological damage. There is no time left to mitigate the situation, and no way to bargain or engineer our way out of it. It is what it is, and neither Mother Nature nor the Laws of Physics are open to negotiation.      

    We have come to this point so suddenly that most of us have not yet realized it. While it may take another twenty years for the full effects to sink in, the first impacts from oil depletion will be felt within five years. Given the size of our civilization and the extent to which we rely on energy in all its myriad forms, five years is far too short a time to accomplish any of the unraveling or re-engineering it would take to back away from the precipice. At this point we are committed to going over the edge into a major population reduction.
             

    The Graphs are clear and graphic (no pun intended!)
           http://www.countercurrents.org/chefurka201109.htm      

    The second was written 14 years ago by Richard Duncan, on The Olduvai Theory:        Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age             

    With one amazing drawing he concludes      that the life expectancy of industrial civilization is approximately 100 years – that is, from 1930 to 2030 (as defined by energy production per capita). There are four postulates:
         1) The exponential growth of world energy production ended in 1970.
           2) Average energy production per capita will remain on a plateau from 1970 to 2008 (Remember the financial crisis?).
           3) The rate of change will go steeply negative from 2008.
           4) World population will decline to around 2bn souls by 2050.      

    http://dieoff.org/page125.htm                 
           and an analysis by Anatoly Karlin     http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/06/28/notes-olduvai/             

    The amazing thing is that his work was remarkably prescient. The precess that we are committed to (since the debacle at Copenhagen) is called overshoot and collapse. I have referred to many studies on this issue in earlier copies of FOOTPRINTS.        

    This process is intimately connected to Climate Change.

     John James

    Please forward this newsletter to  your friends and encourage them to join the mailing list at http://www.planetextinction.com/planet_extinction_newsletter_subscribe.htm  
        

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  • Canada looks to China to exploit oil sands rejected by US

     

    Whole Foods, the high-end organic grocery chain, and retailer Bed Bath & Beyond last week both signed up to a campaign by ForestEthics to stop US firms using oil from Canadian tar sands. The Pentagon is also scaling down its use of tar sands oil to meet a 2007 law requiring the US government to source fuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    Major oil companies such as Shell are also coming under shareholder pressure to pull out of the Canadian projects. Earlier this year, Shell announced it was scaling back its expansion plans for the tar sands after a revolt by shareholders. Producing oil from the Alberta tar sands causes up to five times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil, according to the campaign group Greenpeace.

    In the most significant deal to date, the Canadian government recently approved a C$1.9bn (£1.5bn) investment giving the Chinese state-owned oil company Petro­China a majority share in two projects. Prime minister Stephen Harper said: “Expect more Chinese investment in the resource and energy sectors … there will definitely be more.” China’s growing investment in the tar sands is seen in Canada as a useful counter to waning demand for tar sands oil from the US, its biggest customer. The moves, which have largely gone unnoticed outside north America, could add further tension to efforts to try to reach a global action plan on climate change.

    The state department envoy, Todd Stern, on Tuesday accused China of being “a bit ambiguous” in its commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Efforts to impose national carbon limits in the US have stalled in Congress, but a number of leading US firms are moving to reduce their carbon footprint by moving away from abandoning tar sands oil.

    Canada is the biggest source of US oil imports, with 65% of tar sands production going to refineries in the midwest. “Companies have been hitting the pause button on projects,” said Simon Dyer, of the Pembina Institute oil sands watch project.

    But not China. PetroChina has taken a 60% stake in two new tar sands projects due to get under way in the MacKay River and Dover areas next year, with plans to produce up to 35,000 barrels a day by 2014, and eventually up to 500,000 a day.

    China made its first investment in the tar sands in 2005, with state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation spending C$150m for a 17% stake in a startup MEG Energy Corp. Another Chinese state-owned firm, Sinopec, last year increased its interest in the Northern Lights oil project to 50%. China’s National Petroleum Corp has also bought oil sands leases that it has not yet developed.

    The projects, which will begin coming on line over the next decade, are seen as crucial to a long term strategy of finding new sources of energy as China’s economy continues to expand. “Right now I would characterise it as a token toehold,” said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial Corporation, an energy-focused private equity firm in Calgary, Alberta.

    But he said the move by China could also represent the beginnings of a major shift in control of the tar sands. “Hitherto we were very accustomed to have western countries coming here, particularly American companies or companies from the UK, taking an interest in oil and gas companies and we were OK with that,” he said. “From a continental energy security perspective of course, there is a little more hesitation when emerging powers come here, but the Canadian government has over the last year indicated more willingness to do business with China.”

    Japanese and South Korean companies have also begun moving in, opening up potential new markets for Canada at a time when forecasts show a fall in global demand for oil. India’s Reliance Industries is also reportedly bidding on a project. The move by China has also crystalised increased concerns among conservationists and First Nation groups about a proposed 1,200 kilometre pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from northern Alberta, across British Columbia to oil tankers off the Pacific coast.

  • Collapse of the Greenland glaciers

     

    It would seem we are on the verge of a major tipping point in climate change, if we have not already reached it. The latest US Navy survey suggests there will be no sea ice left in the Arctic summer by 2016. This has been unprecedented within the entire record of human species.

    Is this the date we have to look forward to?

    The Greenland, Alaskan and West Antarctic ice sheets together hold about 25% of the fresh water on the planet. The effects of the collapse of either ice sheet would be huge. Once you lost one of these ice sheets, there’s no putting it back for thousands of years, if ever.

    If they disintegrate, sea level could rise nearly 20 meters, possibly in only one decade. This would swamp most cities and ports, as well a much of the best agricultural land. Where now 6 billion people? See Footprints #3.

     One reason is that Arctic temperatures are increasing at an average of 0.66°C per decade. If the global average is 2°C, then the arctic will be 4°C, and more over Greenland. The final deglaciation of Greenland will be triggered above 2.7°C local. In less than 30 years, there has been a 40% loss of arctic sea ice.

    Similarly the western Antarctica’s mass is disappearing at about 240 cubic kilometers per year. Depletion of ozone is adding to this problem for it has encouraged hotter winds to flow across the Antarctic, and this is already impacting on the Larsen ice mass.

    The global impact of 2°C rise in the graph shows a 55 meter rise. This is more than occurred in the Pliocene Era 3 million years ago when the northern hemisphere was up to 8 degrees hotter and the southern a couple of degrees colder.

    The rate accelerated in 2004. It holds 70% of Earth’s freshwater.

     

    The consequences of sea-level rise

    If the seas rise a modest 400mm 22% of coastal wetlands will be lost, and more when we include the likely human reaction to that change. A one meter sea-level rise would affect 6 million people in Egypt, with some 15% of agricultural land lost, 13 million in Bangladesh with 16% of the national rice production lost, and 72 million in China with tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land. See Footnotes #2.

    The anticipated 7 meter sea rise will be far worse, and will directly affect 300-1,000 million people, some 15% of the world’s population. The ricochet will be far-reaching and incalculable.

     The decline of ice around the north pole seems to have sharply accelerated since 2003, raising fears that the region may have passed one of the major tipping points. As the warmer weather melts the ice it drives temperatures higher because the dark water absorbs nearly all the sun’s radiation. This could make global warming quickly run out of control.

     

    As oceans warm so the area covered by nutrient-poor water increases, making the oceans less friendly for algae or plankton. This reduces the amount of carbon the seas can absorb. The threshold for the almost complete failure of algae is about 500 ppm of carbon. At our present rate of growth we will reach this level in about 40 years.

    Reduction in Antarctic sea ice contributed to the 80% decline in krill since 1970. Krill is the foundation of the southern food chain. A temperature rise of 1.8°F would cause extensive coral bleaching. This will destroy critical fish nurseries in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.

    The glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing by 50% every decade. They contain a sixth of the world’s total ice and feed many of Asia’s greatest rivers – including the Yangtze, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yellow River. Such ice loss has profound implications for China, India and Pakistan which are dependant on rivers fed by them that will turn into trickles. Drinking and irrigation water will disappear. A billion people will be affected from the drying up of the rivers, increased droughts and sandstorms.

    In 1983 the five main glaciers in Columbia were expected to last at least 300 years. Recent measurements suggest they may disappear within 15, denying cities water and putting populations and food supplies at risk in these desert areas.

    Snow and rainfall in South America and the Caribbean are becoming less predictable and more extreme. The 2005 drought in the Amazon basin was the worst since records began.

    YOU can do a great deal to prevent further warming NOW
    Personally and Politically

     

    To the top

    Every item of information comes from the most recent and reputable scientific sources and published dialogues. As citations would impede the text, and as most may be looked up on the web, we decided not to fill the text with them.

  • Refugees and War

     

    Enormous areas of the most productive agricultural land would be underwater. One thinks immediately of Bangladesh and the North Sea farms in Holland and Anglesea. In addition frequent floods, droughts and storms caused by the huge land-form changes and increasingly disturbed atmosphere would cause severe losses every year. The reduction in food production would ensure that half the world’s population would be hungry or starving

    The anticipated 7 meter sea rise from glacier collapse will be far worse. This will directly uproot 300 -1,000 million people, some 15% of the world’s population. The ricochet will be far-reaching and incalculable.

    Where will all these homeless and starving people go? Who will look after them? How will their governments be forced to react?

    Imagine eastern European countries struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for its grain, minerals, and energy. Or Japan, with flooded coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water, eying Russia’s Sakhalin Island oil to power desalination plants and energy-intensive agricultural processes. Envision Pakistan, India, and China skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and the remaining arable land.

    Prospects for major conflicts

    As abrupt climate change lowers the world’s ability to feed its people, aggressive wars are likely to be fought over food, water, and energy. Deaths from war as well as starvation and disease will decrease population size, which will, over time, bring the population down to whatever level the earth can sustain.

    Violence and disruption from the stresses created by abrupt change pose different conditions to any we are used to. This will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression in order to reclaim balance. The massacres in Darfur are an early example of the coming climate wars.

    Military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need for natural resources such as energy, food and water, rather than by conflicts over ideology, religion, or national honour.

    Such catastrophic environmental problems are likely to escalate global conflict.

    Nations with resources may build fortresses around their countries, preserving some security for themselves. Less fortunate nations especially those with ancient enmities with their neighbours, may be left to struggle for food, clean water, or energy. With over 200 river basins occupied by more than one nation, we can expect conflict over access to water. For example, the Danube touches twelve nations, the Nile nine, and the Amazon seven.

    In this world of warring states the use of nuclear arms is inevitable.

    YOU can prevent these wars NOW
    Personally     and Politically

  • The Clathrate Smoking Gun

     

    The possibility of violent methane degassing (or “burping”) has been called the clathrate gun hypothesis. There is a suggestion that the ocean’s bottom waters couldn’t warm up to 8°C. If so, that would certainly set off massive clathrate destabilization. This is what turns the clathrates into a ticking time bomb.

    These hydrates are already being released. Satellite photos show massive chimneys of methane bubbling off the ocean floor. They are subterranean versions of the gas field fires we saw during the first Gulf War in Kuwait.

    Historically there are spikes in the methane record that may be explained by the violent degassing of clathrates. Some think that the Eocene hothouse period was caused by runaway global warming from clathrates released from the oceans.

    The biggest of these catastrophes occurred at the end of the Permian period some 250 million years ago. More than 94% of all marine species in the fossil records suddenly disappeared as oxygen levels plummeted and life itself teetered on the edge of extinction. It took 20 million or more years for coral reefs to begin reestablishing themselves, and in some areas over 100 million years for ecosystems to reach their former healthy diversity.

    Both were caused by temperature rises of less than 6½°C. Now these are average temperatures, but in the Siberian permafrost where much of the clathrates are buried the land is warming faster than anywhere else on earth.

    None of this is reassuring, especially when we read what is happening to the permafrost boglands of Alaska and Siberia.

    YOU can prevent this NOW
    Personally and Politically