Published on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by Environmental News Service (ENS)
World Water Crisis Underlies World Food Crisis
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The world’s supplies of clean, fresh water cannot sustain today’s “profligate” use and inadequate management, which have brought shrinking food supplies and rising food costs to most countries, WWF Director General James Leape told the opening session of World Water Week in Stockholm [on Monday].

“Behind the world food crisis is a global freshwater crisis, expected to rapidly worsen as climate change impacts intensify,” Leape said. “Irrigation-fed agriculture provides 45 percent of the world’s food supplies, and without it, we could not feed our planet’s population of six billion people.”

Leape warns that many of the world’s irrigation areas are highly stressed and drawing more water than rivers and groundwater reserves can sustain, especially in view of climate change. At the same time, he said, freshwater food reserves are declining in the face of the quickening pace of dam construction and unsustainable water extractions from rivers.

At a time when billions of people live without access to safe drinking water or suffer ill health due to poor sanitation, when food producers battle biofuel producers for land and water resources, and when global climate change is altering the overall water balance, 2,500 water experts are gathered this week at the Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Center to craft solutions to these problems.

"The end of travel"
Nicole Baute Staff reporter

"High oil prices are crippling airlines and travellers alike and we may only be at the start of a new, global class divide between the stranded and the mobile

In Europe's late medieval period, the labouring masses rarely travelled further than a few dozen miles from where they were born. For them, travel was dangerous, onerous and slow.

But wealthy aristocrats travelled far and wide in the name of diplomacy, meeting leaders from other countries and extending their power and influence.

For Steven Flusty, an associate professor of geography at York University, this is what society could once again look like if predictions that the lower-middle classes will no longer be able to afford to fly in just a few years come true.

It would be tremendously debilitating and could wind up 'breaking down everything below a certain class level, where they are being held in space as if it's some kind of a container,' he says.

The North American airline industry is under siege, with exorbitant fuel costs, a slowing economy and competition from Asia and the Middle East leading to employee layoffs and flight reductions.

Within a year or two, insists writer James Howard Kunstler and others, it will all be over. They predict the demise of the commercial airline industry as it currently exists.

And then, like in the medieval age, society will split into two groups: the mobile, and the stranded.

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system
Anne Trafton, News Office
July 31, 2008

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy

View video post on MIT TechTV

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. 'This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years,' said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. 'Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.'

Friday, July 25, 2008

Facinating, especially when he describes his analysis...numbers, techniques, constraints, etc.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/212

Matt Simmons - energy investment analyst (Interviewed on camera in Houston, Texas on 10th February 2003)

"...Q5. When you are interviewed by mainstream media, do you try to tell them about oil peak & decline?

Personally, I think I'm very fortunate, because of having been thrust into creating this firm and being a serious student of energy and all we do is energy. I do believe I have a very sound understanding of the real numbers. Our whole firm is based on a, the real culture of our firm is (to) kinda stick to real numbers. If it's a painful message, don't worry about that, as long as the numbers are real.

So, it's been easier for me to talk candidly about problems of energy, because I've done the numbers myself. I think one of the reasons that my name keeps coming up when the Dow Jones Wire Service, or ABC News, or BBC, or Canadian Broadcasting is doing a story on energy is that in their (opinion) this is a guy that, if he doesn't know, is the first to say, "I don't know", and if he does know, he'll give you a number. You'd think there would be scores of people like that. For some reason, or another, there aren't all that many. I'm not sure why. But I do think this is an extremely important topic...

Q6. How did you come to be an advocate for oil peak and decline?

Thursday, July 24, 2008
First Contract: Israel Picks Lockheed LCS

http://www.al.com/business/press-register/index.ssf?/base/business/12167...
http://nosint.blogspot.com/2008/07/israel-picks-lockheed-lcs.html
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
"Israel Picks Lockheed LCS"

"Israel has picked the rival of a Mobile-based shipbuilder for an order of up to four warships, proposing a contract that, if finalized, could reach $1.9 billion. The move could enhance future business for Lockheed Martin Corp., industry analysts said, but should not guide the U.S. Navy's decision on which of two competing teams eventually will build up to 55 of the new breed of shore-hugging vessels known as Littoral Combat Ships. Mobile shipbuilder Austal USA is part of a team led by General Dynamics Corp. that is competing with Lockheed to build the ships for the U.S. Navy. Both teams have launched their ships – Lockheed's Freedom (LCS-1) in Marinette, Wis., and General Dynamics' Independence (LCS-2) in Mobile."

This says a lot...at lot,
Aloha, Brad

Monday, July 21, 2008
Rock Solid Interview with Dow Chemical CEO on Oil

http://www.cnbc.com/id/24888493/

"Dow Chemical CEO Says US Underestimating Inflation"
By CNBC.com 30 May 2008 08:14 AM ET

Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris detailed interview comments on his company and the oil situation in the world. Expects oil to be up, not down. Click on the above link and watch the video.

Aloha, Brad

Saturday, July 19, 2008

See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1_iSKWGewE

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45935

"Matt Simmons and the Five Psychological Stages of Grief"
by Rob Hopkins Link to video

"This is a wonderful clip. Matt Simmons is the author of ‘Twighlight in the Desert’, is a leading US investment banker, and a long-term advocate of the peak oil argument. When he was asked to go on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money’ to discuss the high oil prices, he clearly stunned the presenters with his forthright analysis of society’s current perilous situation. When asked if $147 a barrel is a ‘wake up call’ he replied “yes, but we’re not having a wake up call, we’re having a witch hunt for who got us here”, a succinct analysis of the current world situation. What was especially fascinating to watch was when he was asked for his prognosis of the near future.

Friday, July 18, 2008
Technology to Sense Whales in the Water

For all clickable links in this article, see:
http://hisuperferry.blogspot.com/2008/07/technology-to-sense-whales-in-w...

Recently, after looking at the flashy Fred Olsen Express web page, I decided to re-read the following recent academic report:

http://www.m-e-e-r.de/uploads/media/ShipStrikes_CanaryIslands_Carrillo_R...

A couple of things I noticed. There is a significant, reported and documented whale strike in the Canary Islands every few months. They have noticeable increased since 2002 with 3 strikes, 2003 with 8 strikes, 2004 with 6 strikes, 2005 with 6 strikes, 2006 with 5 strikes, and 2007 with 9 strikes. There are a number of high speed vessels operating there. I compare that to Hawaii over the past year where I have not heard of a single documented and reported fatal whale strike yet. Does this mean that there have not been any or just that they were not known to have happened or that they just weren't reported? I don't know, but it is an interesting point to ponder.

The other point mentioned at the end of that academic report is Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM). When I look that up, there are some interesting articles, and this reminds me of some sort of related funding that Congress may have approved in the past few months. About the articles, here are the most interesting ones I found:

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/whale-protection872.html
"Award Winning Technology To Protect Whales From Ship Strikes"

Published on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 by Foreign Policy in Focus
The Anti-Climate Summit
by Walden Bello

While drafting the so-called Bali Roadmap during the UN Conference on climate change last December, delegates faced a painful choice. They could specifically mention the necessity of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25-40% by 2020 and face the possibility of a U.S. walkout from the negotiations. Or they could drop all mention of targets to keep Washington in the negotiations — and risk of the United States fatally obstructing the process of coming up with a tough regime of mandatory emissions cuts that would have to be in place by the UN’s climate meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The delegates went with the latter and appeased Washington by not mentioning any targets. After the declaration on climate issued by the G8 summit a few days ago in Hokkaido, Japan, it is clear that the delegates in Bali made a strategic mistake. The G8’s endorsement of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, which they have presented as a major step forward, is actually, as the South African government put it, a “regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change.”

In fact, “regression” is too polite. The G8 position is a giant step backward. It may have effectively undermined the prospects for an effective global climate strategy for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that is expected to be finalized at the crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Stocks Skid as Bailout Fails to Sway Investors

http://www.cnbc.com/id/25678376
By Cindy Perman CNBC.com 14 Jul 2008

"...All three major indexes remained in bear-market territory, more than 20 percent below their October highs.

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve announced late Sunday a plan to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...they will be allowed to borrow directly from the Fed's emergency-lending discount window as regular banks do.

The news had initially calmed market jitters but it quickly became apparent that investors weren't convinced...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp seized the $32 billion IndyMac bank, headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., on Friday. The FDIC assured customers that their deposits remained safe and that it would operate IndyMac as a federal bank. It will then probably try to sell it as a whole or in pieces.

Analysts say more banks may follow in IndyMac's footsteps as credit losses once concentrated in subprime mortgages spread to other home loans and debt once thought safe.

Richard Bove, a bank analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann, said BankUnited Financial [BKUNA 0.66 -0.11 (-14.29%) ] of Coral Gables, Fla., was high on his "danger-zone" list, as was Downey Financial [DSL 1.28 -0.41 (-24.26%) ].