Author: Neville

Scientists Describe a ‘New’ Type of Volcanic Eruption

Jan. 21, 2013 — Scientists based in the UK and New Zealand have described a “new” type of volcanic eruption.

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Volcanic eruptions are commonly categorised as either explosive or effusive. But now, in research published this month in Nature Geoscience, researchers at Victoria University, Wellington and the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton have uncovered a previously undocumented type of eruption in underwater volcanoes — by looking at tiny original bubble spaces trapped in volcanic rock.

Inside volcanoes, gases are dissolved in the molten magma as a function of the very high pressures and chemistry of the magma. In the same way that gases dissolved in carbonated drinks bubble up when you take the lid off, when magma is erupted as lava, the pressure is relieved and the gases exsolve to form small gas bubbles or so-called “vesicles.” In explosive eruptions these vesicles expand so quickly they fragment the magma, violently ejecting lava, which cools and degasses to form solidified pumice that can be sufficiently light to float on water.

In air pumice is obviously associated with violent, explosive eruptions. Consequently underwater volcanoes flanked by highly vesicular pumice have, to date, also been interpreted as having erupted explosively.

But the results of this study indicate that there is a third eruptive style unique to underwater volcanoes, which is neither effusive nor explosive.

“By documenting the shape and density of bubbles in pumices generated by an underwater caldera volcano in the southwest Pacific Ocean — the Macauley volcano — we found large differences in the number and shape of “bubbles” in the same pebble-sized samples, different to anything previously documented,” said Professor Ian Wright of the National Oceanography Centre, who co-authored the paper.

“This range of bubble densities distinct in these pumice samples indicates that the lava erupting from the caldera was neither vigorous enough for an explosive eruption, nor gentle enough for an effusive flow.”

The study proposes that rather than exploding in the neck of the volcano, the formation and expansion of bubbles in the magma created a buoyant foam, which rose to the seafloor and then buoyantly detached from the volcano as molten pumice balloons but with chilled margins. During its ascent to the sea surface, the vesicles within the molten interior would have continued to expand as the pressure — this time from the weight of the seawater — reduced.

“These processes explain the unique bubble structure seen in the samples analysed, which could have only occurred with an intermediate eruption style and in an underwater setting,” said Professor Wright.

“We conclude that the presence of widespread deposits of pumice on underwater volcanoes does not necessarily indicate large-scale explosive volcanism.”

The authors proposed that this style of eruption be named Tangaroan, the Maori god of the sea, and name of the research vessel used to collect the samples.

The study was led by Melissa Rotella, Professor Colin Wilson and Simon Barker from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

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‘Rock Dissolving’ Method of Geoengineering to Mitigate Climate Change Would Not Be Easy

Jan. 18, 2013 — The benefits and side effects of dissolving particles in our ocean’s surfaces to increase the marine uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2), and therefore reduce the excess amount of it in the atmosphere, have been analysed in a new study.

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The study, published Jan. 22 in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, assesses the impact of dissolving the naturally occurring mineral olivine and calculates how effective this approach would be in reducing atmospheric CO2.

The researchers, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, calculate that if three gigatonnes of olivine were deposited into the oceans each year, it could compensate for only around nine per cent of present day anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

This long discussed ‘quick fix’ method of geoengineering is not without environmental drawbacks; the particles would have to be ground down to very small sizes (around one micrometre) in order to be effective. The grinding process would consume energy and therefore emit varying amounts of CO2, depending on the sort of power plants used to provide the energy.

Lead author of the study Peter Köhler said: “Our literature-based estimates on the energy costs of grinding olivine to such a small size suggest that with present day technology, around 30 per cent of the CO2 taken out of the atmosphere and absorbed by the oceans would be re-emitted by the grinding process.”

The researchers used a computer model to assess the impact of six different olivine dissolution scenarios. Olivine is an abundant magnesium-silicate found beneath Earth’s surface that weathers quickly when exposed to water and air — in its natural environment it is dissolved by carbonic acid which is formed from CO2 out of the atmosphere and rain water.

If olivine is distributed onto the ocean’s surface, it begins to dissolve and subsequently increases the alkalinity of the water. This raises the uptake capacity of the ocean for CO2, which is taken up via gas exchange from the atmosphere.

According to the study, 92 per cent of the CO2 taken up by the oceans would be caused by changes in the chemical make-up of the water, whilst the remaining uptake would be down to changes in marine life through a process known as ocean fertilisation.

Ocean fertilisation involves providing phytoplankton with essential nutrients to encourage its growth. The increased numbers of phytoplankton use CO2 to grow, and then when it dies it sinks to the ocean floor taking the CO2 with it.

“In our study we only examined the effects of silicate in olivine. Silicate is a limiting nutrient for diatoms — a specific class of phytoplankton. We simulated with our model that the added input of silicate would shift the species composition within phytoplankton towards diatoms.

“It is likely that iron and other trace metals will also impact marine life if olivine is used on a large scale. Therefore, this approach can also be considered as an ocean fertilisation experiment and these impacts should be taken into consideration when assessing the pros and cons of olivine dissolution,” continued Köhler.

The researchers also investigated whether the deposition of olivine could counteract the problem of ocean acidification, which continues to have a profound effect on marine life. They calculate that about 40 gigatonnes of olivine would need to be dissolved annually to fully counteract today’s anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

“If this method of geoengineering was deployed, we would need an industry the size of the present day coal industry to obtain the necessary amounts of olivine. To distribute this, we estimate that 100 dedicated large ships with a commitment to distribute one gigatonne of olivine per year would be needed.

“Taking all our conclusions together — mainly the energy costs of the processing line and the projected potential impact on marine biology — we assess this approach as rather inefficient. It certainly is not a simple solution against the global warming problem.” said Köhler.

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A Telling Silence

Posted: 21 Jan 2013 11:59 AM PST

Why we need land value taxation.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd January 2013

You can learn as much about a country from its silences as you can from its obsessions. The issues politicians do not discuss are as telling and decisive as those they do. While the government’s cuts beggar the vulnerable and gut public services, it’s time to talk about the turns not taken, the opportunities foregone: the taxes which could have spared us every turn of the screw.

The extent of the forgetting is extraordinary. Take, for example, capital gains tax. Before the election, the Liberal Democrats promised to raise it from 18% to “the same rates as income” (in other words a top rate of 50%), to ensure that private equity bosses were no longer paying lower rates of tax than their office cleaners(1). It made sense, as it would have removed the bosses’ incentive to collect their earnings as capital. Despite a powerful economic case, the government refused to raise the top rate above 28%. The Lib Dems protested for a day or two(2), and have remained silent ever since. In the parliamentary debate about cuts to social security, this missed opportunity wasn’t mentioned once(3).

But at least that tax has risen. In just two and half years, the government has cut corporation tax three times. It will fall from 28% in 2010 to 21% in 2014(4,5). George Osborne, the chancellor, boasted last month that this “is the lowest rate of any major western economy”(6): he is consciously setting up a destructive competition with other nations, creating new excuses further to reduce the UK rate.

Labour’s near-silence on this issue is easily explained. Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who were often as keen as the Conservatives to appease corporate power, the rate was reduced from 33% to 28%. Prefiguring Osborne’s boast, in 1999 Brown bragged that the rate he had set was “the lowest rate of any major industrialised country anywhere, including Japan and the United States.”(7) What a legacy for a Labour government.

As for a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions, after an initial flutter of interest you are now more likely to hear the call of the jubjub bird in the House of Commons. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, a tax rate of just 0.01% would raise £25bn a year, rendering many of the chamber’s earnest debates about the devastating cuts void(8). Silence also surrounds the notion of a windfall tax on extreme wealth. And to say that Professor Greg Philo’s arresting idea of transferring the national debt to those who possess assets worth £1m or more has failed to ignite the flame of passion in parliament would not overstate the case(9).

But the loudest silence surrounds the issue of property taxes. The most expensive flat in that favourite haunt of the international super-rich, One Hyde Park, cost £135m. The owner pays £1,369 in council tax, or 0.001% of its value(10). Last year the Independent revealed that the Sultan of Brunei pays only £32 a month more for his pleasure dome in Kensington Palace Gardens than some of the poorest people in the same borough(11). A mansion tax – slapped down by David Cameron in October(12) – is only the beginning of what the owners of such places should pay. For the simplest, fairest and least avoidable levy is one which the major parties simply will not contemplate. It’s called land value tax.

The term is a misnomer. It’s not really a tax. It’s a return to the public of the benefits we have donated to the landlords. When land rises in value, the government and the people deliver a great unearned gift to those who happen to own it.

In 1909 a dangerous subversive explained the issue thus. “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains – and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived. … the unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.”(13)

Who was this firebrand? Winston Churchill. As Churchill, Adam Smith(14) and many others have pointed out, those who own the land skim wealth from everyone else, without exertion or enterprise. They “levy a toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry.”(15) Land value tax recoups this toll.

It has a number of other benefits(16). It stops the speculative land hoarding that prevents homes from being built. It ensures that the most valuable real estate – in city centres – is developed first, discouraging urban sprawl. It prevents speculative property bubbles, of the kind that have recently trashed the economies of Ireland, Spain and other nations and which make rents and first homes so hard to afford. Because it does not affect the supply of land (they stopped making it some time ago), it cannot cause the rents that people must pay to the landlords to be raised. It is easy to calculate and hard to avoid: you can’t hide your land in London in a secret account in the Cayman Islands. And it could probably discharge the entire deficit.

It is altogether remarkable, in these straitened and inequitable times, that land value tax is not at the heart of the current political debate. Perhaps it is a sign of how powerful the rent-seeking class in Britain has become. While the silence surrounding this obvious solution exposes Labour’s limitations, it also exposes the contradiction at heart of the Conservative Party. The Conservatives claim, in David Cameron’s words, to be “the party of enterprise”(17). But those who benefit most from its policies are those who are rich already. It is, in reality, the party of rent.

This is where the debate about workers and shirkers, strivers and skivers should have led. The skivers and shirkers sucking the money out of your pockets are not the recipients of social security demonised by the Daily Mail and the Conservative Party, the overwhelming majority of whom are honest claimants. We are being parasitised from above, not below, and the tax system should reflect this.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/22/budget-capital-gains-tax-rises

3. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130108/debtext/130108-0002.htm

4. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/corp.htm

5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/05/corporation-tax-cut-autumn-statement

6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/05/corporation-tax-cut-autumn-statement

7. Gordon Brown, 1st November 1999. Speech to the CBI Conference.

8. Tony Dolphin, June 2010. Financial Sector Taxes. Institute for Public Policy Research. http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/1779/financial-sector-taxes

9. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/15/deficit-crisis-tax-the-rich

10. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sultans-tax-discount-on-london-house-shows-law-favours-rich-8229543.html

11. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sultans-tax-discount-on-london-house-shows-law-favours-rich-8229543.html

12. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/07/david-cameron-mansion-tax-cuts

13. http://www.landvaluetax.org/current-affairs-comment/winston-churchill-said-it-all-better-then-we-can.html

14. “Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.” Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter 2.

15. Winston Churchill, as above.

16. http://www.landvaluetax.org/

17. http://www.newstatesman.com/2011/03/enterprise-government-party

Sold into slavery: India turning a blind eye to the rape, trafficking of child maids

Date January 22, 2013 28 reading now
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Simon Denyer

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DELHI: The girl was just 14 when she was picked up from her poor village in eastern India and promised good wages as a maid in Delhi. Instead, she was forced to work as a virtual slave in a wealthy middle-class household.

When she plucked up the courage to complain to the ”placement agent” who had found her the job, ”he beat me and then he raped me”, the girl, now 17, said. ”He said if I ever tried to run away from home, he would kill off my family and burn down my house.”

He said if I ever tried to run away from home, he would kill off my family and burn down my house.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of girls are trafficked from rural India to work as domestic servants in middle-class homes in India’s fast-growing urban areas. They are expected to work at least 15 hours a day for food, lodging and salaries well below the legal minimum monthly wage of about $125. Many end up cut off from their families, abused and treated as slaves. Some are sexually assaulted.

India erupted in outrage at the gang rape and murder last month of a young woman on a bus in Delhi. But in the same city, experts say, a vast network of child trafficking and abuse operates with society’s implicit sanction and official apathy.

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”The trafficking of young children, especially girls, under the garb of placement agencies, is the biggest organised crime in India today,” said Bhuwan Ribhu, of the child rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan. ”And the worst part is, it is right there in the open, in our homes, and yet invisible.”

One of the six suspects in the gang rape case, a 17-year-old, was himself trafficked at the age of 11 from a poor village in northern India to a life of child labour in the capital, police have said. He soon lost touch with his parents.

The government says 5 million children are employed in India but activists say the real number could be 10 times that. A senior official at India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the police, estimated that as many as 4 million children worked in domestic service nationwide and that up to 4000 placement agencies operated in Delhi alone.

But the official, who spoke anonymously, said it was often difficult to get his fellow bureaucrats to take the issue seriously because so many of them employed children at home.

One 18-year-old, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she received no money for four years of work as a maid for doctors and business people. Another said she was paid $45 a month but was essentially imprisoned for years and never allowed to telephone her family.

Mr Ribhu said traffickers often used rape – which can ruin a young woman’s marriage prospects by robbing her of her ”honour” – as a tool of control.

After two years of unpaid work, and after being raped twice by her placement agent, the 17-year-old girl from eastern India was rescued by a Bachpan Bachao Andolan activist working undercover at Delhi’s railway station.

The trafficker had promised to take her home to her village but had secretly bought tickets to Mumbai, where he apparently intended to sell her into further slavery or prostitution.

A year later, the girl is still in hiding. ”The first thing I want is that man should be punished for what he did to me,” she said. ”Then I want to see the money I am owed … The third thing is to go back home safe and sound.”

The Washington Post

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/sold-into-slavery-india-turning-a-blind-eye-to-the-rape-trafficking-of-child-maids-20130121-2d34q.html#ixzz2IemBwHS6

Public gallery full as ICAC coal probe resumes

By court reporter Jamelle Wells, ABCUpdated January 21, 2013, 8:13 pm

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What has been described as the most significant public corruption inquiry in the history of New South Wales has resumed for 2013.

The three-part Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into former Labor ministers started late last year and is expected to run until April.

Today’s start was delayed for about 30 minutes due to technical problems, and there was a long line up to get into the public gallery before the doors opened.

Two former ministers Eric Roozendaal and Eddie Obeid have been suspended from the Labor Party while the inquiry is underway.

The second stage of the inquiry, Operation Jasper – which is examining mining licences issued by former mining minister Ian McDonald – has previously heard allegations that he leaked information and made decisions that led his Labor colleague Eddie Obeid and associates stand to profit $100 million.

It has been described as corruption not seen since the Rum Corps.

The long parade of witnesses last year included former premiers Nathan Rees and Morris Iemma, former Sydney mayor Frank Sartor and a number of merchant bankers, lawyers, farmers and associates of the Obeid family.

Eddie Obeid has publicly denied the allegations, but he and Mr McDonald are yet to give evidence.

On the witness list today were the former head of the NSW Minerals Council, Dr Nicole Williams, and Strathfield real estate agent Joseph Georges.

Dr Williams told the ICAC she was aware that in around 2008, the Labor government released a number of coal exploration licences.

She said the “invitation-only” coal licence tender process was outrageous and unprecedented and that the response from members of the minerals council was negative.

Dr Williams said there was industry outrage that licences were issued to smaller companies which were not properly equipped to handle them.

She said the was no justifiable reason to limit the licences to smaller mining companies and said it was counter-productive to the interests of the state.

“I thought these leases ought to be tendered to companies that were best placed to develop those, which had nothing to do with their size,” she said.

‘Enjoy the moment’

The inquiry heard she wrote a letter to Mr McDonald complaining about the way the licence issue was handled.

After Dr Williams tried to leave before she was cross-examined, ICAC Commissioner David Ipp told her: “You will just have to enjoy the moment.”

Dr Williams replied: “Thrilling.”

After she stepped down, it was Mr Georges’s turn in the witness stand.

Today, Mr Georges first denied having been involved in any business ventures with the Obeids, then admitted lying.

The inquiry heard allegations about a $234,000 interest-free loan he gave a company they were linked to.

The ICAC also heard there would only be half days of evidence for most of this week because some of the witnesses were “still on holidays.”
The hearing has adjourned for the day and will not sit on Friday.

Obeid friend admits lying to corruption inquiry

Date January 21, 2013 – 5:13PM 42 reading now
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Lied … Joseph Georges. Photo: Supplied

A close friend of the Obeid family has admitted lying about his business involvement with them at a corruption inquiry into coal mining exploration licences in the NSW Hunter.

Joseph Georges, a Strathfield real estate agent and close family friend of the Obeids, gave evidence on Monday before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

The watchdog is examining whether former NSW Labor minister Ian Macdonald rigged the tender process for exploration licences in the Bylong Valley in 2008 and how ALP powerbroker Eddie Obeid may have gained from it.

Mr Georges told the inquiry he had no business interests with the Obeid family, but later admitted that was a lie after conceding both he and the Obeids had held shares in a mining company, Mincorp Pty Ltd.

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“I’m putting something specific to you, you see. That answer was false, wasn’t it?” counsel assisting the commissioner, Geoffrey Watson, SC, asked.

“Yes,” Mr Georges replied.

“It was a lie?” Mr Watson asked soon after.

“Yes,” Mr Georges replied.

Mr Watson suggested Mr Georges paid more than $400,000 into accounts for the Obeids, even though he didn’t know where the money was going.

“You are depositing sums in excess of $400,000 in relation to the undocumented loan, interest-free, given in respect of a company whose business you do not know, in respect of a venture you cannot describe, involving a man, Gardner Brook, who you do not even know … exists,” Mr Watson said.

Mr Georges conceded to the ICAC that he knew the Obeids were behind the transactions and admitted he became in effect a “partner of the Obeids” at the time.

“Well, it came to that down the track, yes,” he said.

Mr Georges denied the Obeids had any business involvement in a marina that he had invested in at Elizabeth Bay in Sydney.

However, he said Moses Obeid had a key to the marina office, had access to the marina’s accounts and had “a tendency to turn up to the marina all the time”.

“If someone wants to go to the toilet, they need keys,” Mr Georges said.

Earlier, former chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, Nicole Williams, told ICAC the decision to limit bidders for licences on the Bylong Valley tender process to small and medium-sized miners was “unprecedented”.

Dr Williams said the decision had been received with “outrage” by industry.

She also said she believed the decision was contrary to the interests of the state.

“I thought that these leases ought to be tendered to companies that were best placed to develop those, which had nothing to do with their size,” she said.

AAP

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/obeid-friend-admits-lying-to-corruption-inquiry-20130121-2d2rt.html#ixzz2IbJB29mx