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  • A house more divided than ever

     

    But this record is misleading because NSW didn’t swing as hard against Labor as Queensland did. Labor lost four seats in NSW and nine in Queensland.

    The addition of the two NSW independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott effectively reduced Labor’s losses in Tony Abbott’s home state to just two seats.

    But the addition of Queensland independent Bob Katter to the Coalition column increases Labor’s effective losses in Kevin Rudd’s home state to 10 seats.

    If the mining states are counted together — Queensland, Western Australia and Northern Territory — the parliament of 47 seats is blue, with 34 Coalition plus one independent to Labor’s 12.

    The red zone is found in the southern states of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Out of 55 seats, Labor has 34 plus one Green and one independent, to the Coalition’s 19.

    The mining and southern states are in essence mirrors of one another, with NSW caught between the two trends.

    The Coalition is concerned about its structural weakness in Victoria, where Labor has been the dominant party since the 1998 election.

    As long as the Liberal leadership team is sourced from NSW and Western Australia, and the Nationals leadership team comes from Queensland, the Coalition will struggle in the southern states, according to conservative sources.

    The dilemma for Labor is how to tend to its southern base, while not enraging the mining states any further.

    There is no obvious issue that can unify the two constituencies.

    Consider the mining tax, which Windsor and Oakeshott support. How will that go down in the mining states if NSW is seen to be the main beneficiary of Gillard’s new focus on regional spending?

     

  • Toxic dispersants in Gulf oil spill creating hidden marine crisis

    Toxic dispersants in Gulf oil spill creating hidden marine crisis

    Tom Levitt and Nicole Edmison

    6th September, 2010

    More than 200 million tons of crude oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since the rupture of Deepwater Horizon. The chemicals used to clean up the spill have received less attention but could have devastating long-term effects on the marine ecosystem

    Nearly two million gallons of controversial oil dispersants have been applied to the waters of the Gulf in an attempt to break up the spill – by far the largest use of such chemicals in history.

    Oil dispersants are composed of two main ingredients: solvents and surfactants. With the aid of wave action, solvents work to reduce the surface tension of slicks, breaking the oil into droplets so the surfactants can penetrate the mass more deeply. 



    Surfactants quickly work to coat the outside of the droplets to prevent them clumping together again. Very small drops of oil are then capable of moving away from the surface of the water and dispersing throughout the water column. 



    However, this process of dispersing oil neither eliminates nor decreases its toxicity. In fact it creates a much more toxic cocktail of oil and chemical dispersant. Experts say this cocktail mix is now beginning a slow but sure degradation of the ecosystem from the bottom up. Despite this environmental officials in the US have allowed them to be used on an unprecedented scale.

    Tiny droplets of combined oil and dispersant adhere to plankton, says Dr Susan Shaw, founder and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute (MERI). The plankton-eaters then indiscriminately gobble up the tainted particles while fish-eaters consume the poisoned plankton eaters, and so on through the marine food web.

    Close links to oil industry

    Two main dispersants have been in use in the Gulf of Mexico since late April. Corexit 9527 was used until supplies ran out, to be replaced with Corexit 9500. Both are products of Nalco Energy Services LP, whose board of directors is made up of former and current BP, Exxon, Monsanto and Lockheed executives. Nalco is a corporate affiliate of BP.

    Questions were asked of Corexit 9527’s toxicity following its use in the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, with cleanup workers reportedly suffered health problems, including blood in their urine, as well as kidney and liver disorders linked to 2-Butoxyethanol, the main ingredient of Corexit 9527.

    On 20 May the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent BP a directive: to choose a less toxic dispersant from an approved list on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule. Of the 18 different dispersants on the list, five were found to be less toxic, more effective and in reasonable supply. Two were found in a laboratory setting to be 100 per cent effective at dispersing Southern Louisiana crude oil.

    In contrast, Corexit 9527 and Corexit 9500 are respectively 63.4 per cent and 54.7 per cent effective but BP continued to use them, arguing that they were the only dispersants in reasonable supply.

    A history of damage

    This is not the first time the use of chemical dispersants has been questioned.

    The use of dispersants in the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the worst oil spill in US history before the Gulf of Mexico disaster, has been linked to the decimation of native kelp and barnacle populations in the near-shore environments of Prince William Sound. 



  • Mozambique’s food riots- the true face of global warming

     

    The immediate causes of the protests in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, and Chimoio about 500 miles north, are a 30% price increase for bread, compounding a recent double-digit increase for water and energy. When nearly three-quarters of the household budget is spent on food, that’s a hike few Mozambicans can afford.

    Deeper reasons for Mozambique’s price hike can be found a continent away. Wheat prices have soared on global markets over the summer in large part because Russia, the world’s third largest exporter, has suffered catastrophic fires in its main production areas. These blazes, in turn, find their origin both in poor firefighting infrastructure and Russia’s worst heatwave in over a century. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin extended an export ban in response to a new wave of wildfires in its grain belt, sending further signals to the markets that Russian wheat wouldn’t be available outside the country. With Mozambique importing over 60% of the wheat its people needs, the country has been held hostage by international markets.

    This may sound familiar. In 2008, the prices of oil, wheat, corn and rice peaked on international markets – corn prices almost tripled between 2005-2008. In the process, dozens of food-importing countries experienced food riots.

    Behind the 2008 protests were, first, natural events that looked like an excerpt from the meteorological section of the Book of Revelation – drought in Australia, crop disease in central Asia, floods in south-east Asia. These were compounded by the social systems through which their effects were felt. Oil prices were sky-high, which meant higher transport costs and fossil fuel-based fertiliser prices. Biofuel policy, particularly in the US, shifted land and crops from food into ethanol production, diverting food from stomachs to fuel tanks. Longer term trends in population growth and meat consumption in developing countries also added to the stress. Financial speculators piled into food commodities, driving prices yet further beyond the reach of the poor. Finally, some retailers used the opportunity to raise prices still further, and while commodity prices have fallen back to pre-crisis levels, most of us have yet to see the savings.

    Is this 2008 all over again? The weather has gone wild, meat prices have hit a 20-year high, groceries are being looted and heads of state are urging calm. The view from commodities desks, however, is that we’re not in quite as dire straits as two years ago. Fuel is relatively cheap and grain stores well stocked. We’re on track for the third-highest wheat crop ever, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). While all this is true, it misses the point: for most hungry people, 2008 isn’t over. The events of 2007-2008 tipped more than 100 million into hunger and the global recession has meant that they have stayed there. In 2006, the number of  undernourished people was 854 million. In 2009, it was 1.02 billion – the highest level since records began. The hardest hit by these price rises, in the US and around the world, were female-headed households.

    Not only are the hungry still around, but food riots have continued. In India, double-digit food price inflation was met by violent street protests at the end of 2009. The price rises were, again, the result of both extreme and unpredictable monsoons in 2009 and an increasingly faulty social safety net to prevent hunger. There have been frequent public protests about the price of wheat in Egypt this year, and Serbia and Pakistan have seen protests too.

    Although commodity prices fell after 2008, the food system’s architecture has remained largely the same over the past two decades. Bill Clinton has offered several mea culpas for the international trade and development policies that spawned the food crisis. Earlier this year, he blamed himself for Haiti‘s vulnerability to price fluctuations. “I did that,” he said in testimony to the US Senate. “I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else.” More generally, Clinton suggested in 2008 that “food is not a commodity like others… it is crazy for us to think we can develop a lot of these countries [by] treating food like it was a colour television set.”

    Yet global commodity speculators continue to treat food as if it were the same as television sets, with little end in sight to what the World Development Movement has called “gambling on hunger in financial markets”. The recent US Wall Street Reform Act contained some measures that might curb these speculative activities, but their full scope has yet to be clarified. Europe doesn’t have a mechanism to regulate these kinds of speculative trades at all. Agriculture in the global south is still subject to the “Washington consensus” model, driven by markets and with governments taking a back seat to the private sector. And the only reason biofuels aren’t more prominent is that the oil they’re designed to replace is currently cheap.

    Clearly, neither grain speculation, nor forcing countries to rely on international markets for food, nor encouraging the use of agricultural resources for fuel instead of nourishment are natural phenomena. These are political decisions, taken and enforced not only by Bill Clinton, but legions of largely unaccountable international development professionals. The consequences of these decisions are ones with which people in the global south live everyday. Which brings us back to Mozambique.

    Recall that Mozambique’s street protests coincided not only with a rise in the price of bread, but with electricity and water price hikes too. In an interview with Portugal’s Lusa news agency, Alice Mabota of the Mozambican League of Human Rights didn’t use the term “food riots”. In her words: “The government… can’t understand or doesn’t want to understand that this is a protest against the higher cost of living.” The action on the streets isn’t simply a protest about food, but a wider act of rebellion. Half of Mozambique’s poor already suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the FAO. The extreme weather behind the grain fires in Russia transformed a political context in which citizens were increasingly angry and frustrated with their own governments.

    Yesterday, I reached Diamantino Nhampossa, the co-ordinator of Mozambique’s União Nacional de Camponeses (National Peasants Union of Mozambique). “These protests are going to end,” he told me. “But they will always come back. This is the gift that the development model we are following has to offer.” Like many Mozambicans, he knows full well which way the wind blows.

  • A climate warning from the deep

    Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.

    British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute animals suggests a sea passage once divided Antarctica 125,000 years ago. The discovery was made for the ongoing Census of Antarctic Marine Life project and involved comparing bryozoans from the Ross and Weddell seas. These two seas are separated by the west Antarctic ice sheet, one of the planet’s largest masses of ice. Bryozoans found in the Ross and Weddell seas should have been fairly different in structure if the sheet had been stable and ancient. The two populations would have slowly evolved in different manners, if the sheet was millions of years old.

    But Dr David Barnes and his team discovered that the two populations were almost identical, indicating the two seas must have been connected by a major sea passage in the recent past, around 125,000 years ago. “What we’ve got is this group of animals that don’t disperse very well because the adults don’t move at all and the larvae are short-lived and sink, so they find it difficult to get around,” says Barnes. “So you’re left with this nice signal of where things used to be connected and, in this case, it appears to be a connection between what is now an ice sheet.”

    The impact of the west Antarctica ice sheet melting sufficiently to let a major sea passage extend through it would have been considerable. A complete collapse of the sheet today would lead to a sea-level rise of between 11ft and 16ft, for example, though the event uncovered by Barnes may only have been a partial one. Nevertheless, the research indicates that the great ice sheet, once thought to be impregnable, is really highly vulnerable.

  • UN calls special meeting to address food shortages amid predictions of riots.

     

    Last week, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) called an emergency meeting for 24 September to discuss the food crisis. In Mozambique, riots broke out following the government’s decision to raise bread prices by 30%, leaving seven people dead and hundreds injured. At the same time the Russian government extended its export ban on wheat by another 12 months as it battles drought, shortages and inflation at home, which threatens to push up prices further. European wheat prices hit more than €231 (£192) a tonne last week, just below last month’s two-year high of €236 but still 60% higher than a year ago in sterling terms. Corn prices are at their highest level since June 2009 while sugar has been on a rollercoaster ride after hitting a 29-year peak in February.

    FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian raises the prospect of further civil unrest in less developed countries if the price of basic food continues to rise: “Russia’s move is another unfortunate development that will prolong upward pressure on grain prices and contribute to higher price instability in world markets. Rioting may reappear in poor districts around the world if prices of basic foodstuff commodities continue to rise further. “

    Surging wheat prices, along with higher sugar and oil-seed costs, drove the FAO’s international food price index up 5% last month, the biggest rise since last November. The organisation estimates this year’s wheat crop at 646m tonnes – down 5% from last year – while world barley production, also hit by bad weather in the former Soviet Union and the EU, is forecast to drop by 22% to a 30-year low of 129m tonnes. Last month global meat prices hit a 20-year high.

    In the UK, Premier Foods, owner of the Hovis brand, has warned the global shortage of wheat could push up the cost of bread by at least 5p a loaf, while other food brands such as McDougalls flour and Mr Kipling cakes will also cost more.

    A leading UK supplier of flour, Rank Hovis, is to increase its prices from 6 September. Soaring barley prices mean that the pub price of a pint of beer could top £4 this time next year.

    Experts fear that UK food price inflation, which was running at an annual rate of 3.4% in July, could now rise to 10% – depending on whether costs continue to climb and to what extent food manufacturers absorb the increases.

    The Grocer‘s food and drink editor Alex Beckett reckons that if prices for commodities such as wheat, sugar, cocoa and palm oil remain at current levels, by January the weekly shop could cost 10% more than 12 months previously.

    Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, said: “If the current rise in prices is sustained, food price inflation might climb to 7-8% by mid-2011.” And Philip Rush, at Nomura, sees food prices going higher over the next year, tipping back up to above 5% year-on-year growth.

    Meat

    Global meat prices have risen sharply as a drop in production from exporters such as Argentina and the US has coincided with rising demand from China, where consumers are eating more meat than they used to. The FAO’s index of meat prices in August climbed to its highest level since it started compiling the index in 1990, up 16% over the past year. Lamb prices are at a 37-year high, beef prices are at their highest level in two years and pork and poultry have also become dearer.

    Mark Topliff at Eblex, which represents the English beef and sheep industry, explains that in recent years, falling cattle prices have led to fewer farmers keeping cows in major exporting nations like Argentina, Brazil and the US, the world’s biggest beef producer. The removal of EU subsidies under the common agricultural policy for British and European sheep farmers has also led to a decline in sheep numbers.

    Wheat

    The European flour milling association has highlighted the role of speculators in driving up wheat prices, although the global shortage appears to be the main factor. The main culprit is the weather – wheat prices have been going up since the summer when crops were hit by a drought and wildfires in Russia and dry weather in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, compounded by unusually wet weather in Canada and the floods in Pakistan.

    Russia, the world’s fourth-biggest wheat producer, has imposed an export ban on grain amid its worst drought in at least 50 years, and prime minister Vladimir Putin warned last Thursday that the ban could stay in place until after the 2011 harvest, forcing importers in the Middle East and North Africa to turn to Europe and the US for supplies.

    “This has completely changed the complexion of the market,” said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, a commodities analyst at Barclays Capital. “We see further upside for corn and wheat prices. Consuming countries are scrambling to gain access to supplies,” she warns.

    Britain’s wheat crop is expected to be close to average this year, but Germany, which had more rain in August, could become reliant on wheat imports for the first time in 10 years. The winter wheat harvest will be 9% lower this year than last, according to the German farmers’ association, forcing Germany to import grain from France and the US.Bad weather has also affected the quality of the wheat, which suffers when it stands too long in the rain. Lower-quality wheat is used as animal feed.

    The premium for high-quality milling wheat used in bread, cereals and biscuits, which now costs about £195 a tonne, has climbed to £30-£40 from the typical £10-£15.

    “If we don’t get a bumper harvest from the southern hemisphere, namely Argentina and Australia [due at Christmas], the wheat price could continue to stay where it is,” said Guy Gagen, chief arable adviser at the National Farmers’ Union. The Northern hemisphere – the US, Canada, Russia and northern Europe – produces 80% of the world’s wheat supply.

    Experts note, however, that the market is not in the same position as it was in 2007/08, when global wheat stocks were very low, as there have been two seasons of replenishment. The problem is that many countries will not release their surplus stocks to the market but are hoarding them, says Alexander Waugh, director general of the National Association of British and Irish Millers.

    On a brighter note, he adds: “High prices tend to encourage farmers to plant more crops. The situation may be uncomfortable but it’s not out of control or unmanageable.”

    Cocoa

    In mid-July, a US commodities trading company, Armajaro, attempted to corner the market in cocoa by taking delivery of 7% of the world’s supply at a time when prices were at a 32-year high of $3,200 per tonne (£2,077) – a $1bn bet. The fear was Armajaro would squeeze the market, forcing prices even higher. In the event prices have gone into reverse, falling by more than 25% as fears have receded that supplies from Ivory Coast, which produces 40% of the world’s cocoa, would be hit by bad weather.

    However, last week Barry Callebaut – the world’s biggest chocolate company, which supplies confectioners such as Nestlé – said prices would stay high.

    “Retailers do not want to accept higher prices at the moment in spite of higher raw material costs,” said the company’s chief executive. “But pressures will rise, prices will just have to increase.”

    Sugar

    Sugar prices hit a 29-year high in February, but then fell back sharply. However, last week Brazil – the world’s biggest sugar producer – warned crops may be lower than expected as a result of dry weather and the price climbed back to its highest level since March.

    Coffee

    Coffee prices are at a 12-year high and global stocks at their lowest level for a decade. Several coffee bars have started to push through price rises, although Starbucks said last week that it would not raise prices.

  • Too fearful to publicise peak oil reality

     

    What made this little graph so devastating was that it estimated energy resources by 2030 that were woefully inadequate for the energy-hungry economies of India and China. Business as usual in oil production threatens massive conflict over sharing it.

    Now, this all seemed pretty gigantic news to me but guess where the World Energy Outlook chose to put this graph? Was it in the front, was it prominently discussed in the foreword? Did it cause headlines around the world. No, no, no. It was buried deep into the report and no reference was made to it in the press conference a year ago.

    The fear is that panicky markets can cause enormous damage – panic-buying that prompts fights over resources, which in turn could lead to power cuts in some places and other such mayhem. But so far in facing this huge challenge, our political/economic system seems unable to cope with reality. We are forced to carry on living in an illusion that we have so much time to adapt to post-oil that we don’t even need to be talking or thinking much about what a world without plentiful oil would look like. Reality has become too dangerous.

    So in reply to the Queen’s question of a few years hence, we did see it coming but we chose to ignore it.