"Eaarth" by Bill McKibben

SUBHEAD: Bill McKibben hopes to take his readers by the collars and shake them in his new climate change wake-up call, Eaarth.
 
By Phil England on 6 April 2010 in Ecologist - 
(http://www.theecologist.org/reviews/books/457395/eaarth_by_bill_mckibben.html)



 
 Image above: Detail of cover of new Book by Bill McKibbon "Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet". From (http://www.amazon.com/Eaarth-Making-Life-Tough-Planet/dp/0805090568).  
 Even those of us who have done our best to look climate change squarely in the eye have had to retreat into comfort zones and shield ourselves from time to time from some of the worst messages coming out of the scientific community. Now, in the wake of the failure of Copenhagen, McKibben challenges us to take the blinkers off with a new book "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet".

McKibben was the first author to write a book about climate change for a general audience ("The End of Nature" in 1989, after James Hansen had first raised this issue in Congress in 1988). Twenty years later, his principle message is that climate change is no longer just a nebulous threat to our grandchildren or to our children; it’s a real and present danger, here and now. McKibben takes us by the hand and leads us through the profound, and in some cases largely irreversible, effects of the 1ºC rise in global average temperatures that we have experienced already.

Changes in rainfall patterns are causing permanent drought in places such as Australia and the American Southwest, increasing the intensity and frequency of hurricanes and cyclones and extending the wildfire season in California by 78 days compared to the 1970s and 1980s, with fires burning four times as long.

 Increasing temperatures have caused rapid melting of the Arctic, an expansion of the tropics by more than two degrees of latitude both north and south, and provided the conditions for the Mountain Pine Beatle to lay 33 million acres of forests in the Rocky Mountains to waste. Ocean acidity is up by 30 per cent and coral reefs are threatened with permanent extinction. Increasingly erratic and unpredictable weather is affecting food security and impacting especially on those who live directly off the land.

Natural feedback mechanisms that threaten to accelerate the warming process are starting to kick in. And, as if to add insult to injury, our predicament is complicated by the fact that we are entering an economic crisis that is likely to become permanent once we fully understand the implications of Peak Oil. A 2008 study that compared the business-as-usual scenarios of the pioneering 1972 'Limits to Growth' report with thirty years of reality concluded we are indeed on the path to collapse.

In with the new
 If you survive this ghost-of-climate-present survey of our ‘new’ planet and make it to the second half of the book, you’ll find that in order for us to survive, McKibben advocates a new mindset that jettisons ideas of growth, consumer lifestyles, bigness and complexity.

 Surprisingly for the person who has spearheaded the 350.org’s global campaign to put the latest science at the heart of the global talks on climate change, he has little to say about what a science-based and just global climate deal would look like.

When discussing the 'grand bargain' needed to seal an international climate deal, he flags up the perilous state of the economy and the fact that Americans would balk at extra taxes to fund windmills in China, but doesn’t mention any of the alternative sources of finance that are available to negotiators, for example, the proposed 'Robin Hood' Tobin tax on financial transactions. Rather than discussing the alternatives to economic growth put forward by Herman Daly or Tim Jackson, McKibben proposes that the idea of 'maintenance' should replace 'growth' or 'expansion' as a guiding principle. In an economically broke, climate-changed world what role is there for national government? After a protracted look at American history McKibben concludes, ‘not much’.

Community focus
His solutions are mainly community-based and focused on meeting our top-line needs: food, energy and, surprisingly perhaps, the internet. He is fantastic on food, highlighting both the impressive upswing of initiatives across the US as well as inspirational solutions for food security in poor countries.

Here it is clear that we need to relocalize and go small not because, as Mckibben puts it, 'mammals get smaller in the heat and so should governments', but because our current system of industrialized agriculture is vulnerable to Peak Oil, threatens food security in poorer nations and is responsible for a large proportion of greenhouse gases.

Small, smart, labor-intensive, natural systems are undoubtedly the way to go. He is less convincing on energy, dismissing national projects in favor of domestic solar and wind (perhaps he needs to have a chat with George Monbiot about that). McKibben rounds off by arguing that we should make every effort to save the internet - a boredom-saving, information sharing, transport bypassing, low-energy device that facilitates low-carbon services (such as car sharing and Freecycle).

It’s also a window on a liberal culture that might otherwise be stifled in a small community, and has enabled the amazing, local-yet-global campaigns (Step It Up and 350.org) that he has spearheaded and fronted.


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Are they spraying aluminum?

SUBHEAD: Could there be world-wide contamination from stratospheric aerosol geo-engineering programs using aluminum particles? [Publisher's note: Yes we have stepped into the quagmire of chemtrail conspiracy theory. Enough people are talking about it to cause us to report the issue. Proceed at your own risk.] Image above: Typical chemtrails grid caused by commercial jet aircraft laid over a suburb of Amsterdam. By Michael J. Murphy on 6 April 2010 in Counter Currents - (http://www.countercurrents.org/murphy060410.htm)

Geo-engineers gathered once again near Monterey California at the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies meeting to develop norms and guidelines for what they say will be “controlled experimentation” on geo-engineering the planet. While many claim that stratospheric aerosol geo-engineering (SAG), aka chemtrail programs are in full-scale deployment, organizers of this meeting showed a lack of transparency by either denying or holding reporters to a high set of rules which limited what information was brought to the attention of the public.

While we might never know how much information from the conference was suppressed in articles and reports, we do know some of the information that was not included. The issue of current SAG deployment and the use of aluminum in these programs seemed to be missing from reports and articles that came out of the conference.

Mauro Oliveira, webmaster of http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org said that aluminum became a concern to many after the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting when independent journalists sent shockwaves around the world after breaking the story of scientists discussing the plausibility of spraying 10 to 20 mega-tons of aluminum into the sky in SAG campaigns.

Francis Mangels, a retired USDA/USFS Biologist commented on the use of aluminum by saying,

“Although aluminum is an abundant element, it does not exist naturally in the environment in free form. Dispersing massive amounts of ultra-fine aluminum particulates as proposed by geo-engineers into the stratosphere would have unquantifiable human health and environmental impacts”.

When scientists were asked about the risks associated with the use of aluminum sprayed as an aerosol in SAG programs, they admitted that they have only begun to research aluminum and have published nothing.

They also admitted that something terrible could be found in the future that they don’t know about. Also, when asked about deployment of current programs, scientists denied that any SAG programs have been deployed. This contradicted the findings of many who claim that SAG programs are well under-way and that high amounts of aluminum and other harmful substances from these programs are being found resulting in the devastation of eco-systems and the health of people around the world. Like the AAAS meeting, the Asilomar geo-engineering conference hosted some of the world’s leading geo-engineers, environmental groups and scientists who gathered to discuss various issues relating to SAG. Unlike the AAAS meeting, reporters were either denied attendance or set to a high standard of rules which included a ban on daily reporting, quoting, and recording anything from the meeting without the consent of presenters.

Stewart Howe was one of the reporters denied access into the conference. Howe helped break the story about aluminum when he was sent to the AAAS meeting in San Diego to report for Infowars. He feels that he was denied access because of this and his reporting of evidence that suggests SAG programs are in full-scale deployment. Howe said,

“Due to the devastating effects of aluminum and world-wide claims of current deployment, transparent reporting of this could devastate the entire SAG agenda compromising billions of dollars in contracts.”

He went on to say that it was apparent that this meeting had no intentions of being transparent. Whereas many reporters were denied access to this event, some “privileged” journalists did have the opportunity to attend. Although some of the articles about the conference appeared to be critical of geo-engineering, they largely ignored the use of aluminum and other serious issues that could have impacted or changed the damaging components of the SAG agenda. Due to their agreement to the strict, non-transparent guidelines of the conference, the reporting journalists not only helped keep some of the meeting secret, they also helped hide the fact that geo-engineers are “planning” to use aluminum in SAG programs.

Some articles were also falsely written stating that geo-engineers are planning on using sulfur in the various SAG campaigns. This contradicts articles written by some reporters who attended the AAAS meeting and quoted scientists as stating that they initially considered using sulfur for the program; however, aluminum is more effective and will be the ingredient considered for use. To date, scientists have not corrected the journalists who falsely reported the use of less damaging sulfur instead of harmful aluminum as being an ingredient for SAG programs.

Let’s look at this issue a little more closely. People from around the world are witnessing white trails behind airplanes and believe them to be a product of SAG programs that scientists deny exist. People are also reporting test results of high amounts of aluminum, barium and strontium in their snow, rain and soil where the alleged spraying is occurring. These are the exact substances that scientists are “considering” implementing into the various SAG programs discussed at the AAAS meeting.

Shockwaves were sent around the globe after the AAAS meeting because of reports that led many to believe that the destruction of eco-systems and the massive amounts of aluminum found in the snow, rain and soil are in fact from SAG programs that have already been deployed. As a result of these reports, many around the world are asking questions about the current deployment and the dangers of using aluminum in these programs. And finally, journalists are restricted from reporting certain facts from this conference that could be damaging to the SAG agenda. Could transparent reporting of certain facts threaten the current and future deployment of SAG programs around the world? Could denying independent reporters the freedom to openly report on this meeting be an attempt to cover-up allegations that SAG programs are in full-scale deployment and are also destroying eco-systems around the world with the use of aluminum?

Is it possible that the reporters who were allowed into this meeting were invited for the purpose of protecting the corporate and political interests of those involved with SAG programs? What would the political and monetary implications be for those who have vested interests in SAG if the larger public was made aware of the multiple environmental and health effects of spraying mega-tons of aluminum into our environment?

Whatever the reason for this lack of transparency and denial of information, we the public need to hold both reporters and scientists to a higher degree of professionalism, transparency and ethical consideration when it comes to these and other issues of public interests. The future of our health and environment is dependent upon it.

More information and videos on the subject of geo-engineering/chemtrails can be found on my blog at http://truthmediaproductions.blogspot.com . I can be reached at whtagft@hotmail.com.

Video above: Chemtrails - Part One. Seeding sky with aluminum particles changes soil PH. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtlOXhSnNw8

See also: Climate Effects of Geoengineering Using Cloud Seeding and Stratospheric Aerosols (http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2010/webprogram/Paper1200.html) Can We Offset Global Warming By Geoengineering The Climate With Aerosols? (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217094602.htm) Scientists Weigh Geoengineering in Global Warming Battle (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-04-19-geoengineering_N.htm) .

Providence and the end of smug

SUBHEAD: Smug implies a wrong relationship with nature. We don’t even concede that we are surfing on a wave of natural providence. Image above: David Beckham behind the whell of a Porsche convertable. From (http://thecount.com/2009/01/09/hollywood-needs-you-german-super-cars-feel-economic-wrath-too) By Simon G. Powell on 5 April 2010 in Reality Sandwhich - (http://www.realitysandwich.com/natures_providence_and_end_smug)

The harmony of natural law . . . reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. --Albert Einstein.

We have big heads. Large crania. These house big brains and also, it must be said, unlimited smug. Smug of such abundance that we tacitly promote ourselves as the greatest thing on two legs, the greatest species that ever ruminated on Earth.

We love ourselves. We worship human intelligence and human creativity. Look at the towering edifices we construct, the extensive ideologies we build and champion, the vast political movements we support, the burgeoning corporations we bow to and serve, and the enormous armies we wield to protect ourselves.

We are a truly massive species. We stomp around and push aside everything in our smug way. Our urge to conquer is devastating. We try to own all and everything -- islands, mountains, coastal waters, rivers, genes, crops, medicines. We even went all the way to the moon and stuck a flag in it in order to smugly suggest ownership. One day the entire Universe will be alerted to our smug presence. In fact, we have already started naming distant stars after ourselves.

Observe also the red carpets we roll out for our most cherished movie stars and the millions of dollars we lavish on them to promote inane products. Behold too the statues we fashion of our most esteemed cultural icons. To be sure, sometimes a large statue is simply not enough to embody such veneration. Thus we find entire mountains reshaped into the seemingly noble visages of American presidents. This is smug carved large and wide.

We even invented god in our smug image. We invariably call god "he." Some may say this is simply convenience. But it is more than that. Talk of god being "he" betrays the fact that we view god as having similar qualities to man. After all, man is so cool and so powerful and so wise (Homo sapiens means wise man) that any creative intelligence lying at the heart of reality must be man-like in some way.

And so it is that we adore and elevate ourselves. We are the ones. Indeed, it appears we have full dominion over the Earth and all that goes with it. The biosphere is under our smug control. Nature works at our smug behest. How, pray, did the biosphere work on its own without us for billions of years? Doesn’t matter! Because we are here now and we will manage the globe as we see fit. Nature will be co-opted to perform at our smug whim.

The land developer who gives the final nod of approval for a rainforest to be smashed asunder gloats with smug at the sheer power he wields. Even if he is informed that millions of exquisite speciated expressions of natural organismic intelligence will be destroyed in the developmental process, this only gives him pause for more smug. We can do whatever we like. We run the biospherical show. The smug is here. The smug has seized power and control.

A rich business man, after years of hard work, speeds off in his brand new sleek flash Porsche. His face is a picture of smug. He has earned the right to radiate smug. He put the hours in, he took the risks, he made his own lucky breaks -- his smug place at the wheel of a gleaming new Porsche has been hard won. Smug is ours to harbour and emit.

Smug implies a wrong relationship with Nature

Smug cannot exist in the context of the real world. Consider this: the Universe is made of energy. Everywhere this energy is flowing freely and providentially. Suns, for instance, radiate high grade energy in every direction for billions of years. That is what they do. Suns do not horde energy or hold back -- rather they serve the unconditional free flow of energy that defines the way Nature works. Such natural providence means that everything under the sun is freely given.

Since the biosphere is plugged into the sun this means that the biosphere is being freely provided with 24/7 high grade life-supporting energy. The same applies to the evolution of life. The life potential that has unfolded over the last 3.5 billion years has been freely given. The potential for DNA to complexify, the fact that proteins can fold and self-organise themselves into exquisite arrangements of bio-logic, the fact that cells can thrive and self-repair, the fact that life can find a biological way to solve all manner of problems -- all these amazing potentials are likewise given free by Nature.

In other words then, organic life on Earth is an unfolding potential that, like an axiom, is given. To reiterate: everything is given, everything stems from Nature’s providence. This is especially the case with us. We are given life and we are given consciousness. Thus, we literally find ourselves alive and mindful. We did not engineer the human organism. We did not design the human cortex. Nor did we make the various potentials of the human cortex. Nature provided everything. And here’s the rub -- for we do not accord intelligence or acumen or skill to Nature. Worse, we don’t even concede that we are surfing on a wave of natural providence.

Let me further clarify why our smugness is unfounded. Take a child genius pianist. Or an acclaimed painter. Regardless of whether they are smug or not, we may marvel at their talent. But where did such talent come from? Obviously the child musical prodigy has a cortex blessed with unusual musical processing power whilst the acclaimed painter is blessed with artistic talent. In other words, each has been provided, through genetic means, with an enhanced prowess of some kind. Talented people do not make their talents, rather they inherit them. And if they spend time honing their talents this is because they have inherited that ability too.

The same holds true of the business entrepreneur with his swanky new Porsche. If he made his fortune through business acumen this is only because he has been blessed with a brain/mind able to cogitate in a certain way. Maybe he has inherited a slightly more cunning mode of perception.

The point is that men do not fashion their own organism and the various potentials associated with those organisms. Men find themselves with certain abilities and potentials. And even if we work hard to explore any given potential, this is only because we have also been given the ability to do this as well!

What about a genius like Einstein? Ditto as before. Einstein was born with the potential for intellectual genius. Like the rest of us, as Einstein went through life he explored the potential of his own mind, worked out what he was good at, what he a had a talent for, and thereby explored that potential granted him by Nature. We cannot escape from Nature’s providence -- everything is given to us.

So if we grant that all the great things in life stem, ultimately, from Nature’s providence, then what the hell are we so smug about? We didn’t make the human race. We did not engineer the human brain/mind complex. We didn’t construct ecosystems or the essential services that they provide. We don’t make fresh air or fresh water or fresh sunlight. We didn’t make space and time. We receive everything -- life, conscious awareness, resources. Even the ability to give and receive love is granted to us. Everything is provided by Nature and we take it from there. And if we make something good of our lives then our ability to do so is likewise granted to us. If all this is humbly acknowledged it is hard to be smug about anything we do.

When we start pondering these truths we place ourselves in a right relationship with the rest of Nature. For we sense the larger whole that defines us and supports us. And once we sense the significance of the larger whole and see it as being the smart provider of all that we are, then we may start to behave in a more humble and more eco-friendly manner. Thus, until we acknowledge the all pervasive flow of natural providence in which we are embedded and admit that Nature is both smart and generous in terms of its creative prowess, then we will have a wrong relationship with the larger system that sustains our existence. The days of smug are numbered. The time has come to earnestly re-evaluate our place in the overall scheme of Nature.

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Economic History in 10 Minutes

SUBHEAD: Fractional reserve banking will produce results of a Ponzi scheme. A few may profit, but the vast majority will lose what they have. Image above: Detail from "Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple" by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1626. From (http://dallasatheists.blogspot.com/2009/11/temple-tantrum.html) By Richard Heinberg on 5 April 2010 in Post Carbon Institute - (http://www.postcarbon.org/article/87479-economic-history-in-10-minutes)

Throughout over 90 percent of our species’ history, we humans lived by hunting and gathering in what anthropologists call gift economies. People had no money, and there was neither barter nor trade among members of any given group. Trade did exist, but it occurred only between members of different communities.

It’s not hard to see why sharing was the norm within each band of hunter-gatherers, and why trade was restricted to relations with strangers. Groups were small, usually comprising between 15 and 50 persons, and everyone knew and depended upon everyone else. Trust was essential to individual survival, and competition would have undermined trust. Trade is an inherently competitive activity: each trader tries to get the best deal possible, even at the expense of other traders. For hunter-gatherers, cooperation—not competition—was the route to success, and so innate competitive drives (especially among males) were moderated through ritual and custom, while a thoroughly entangled condition of mutual indebtedness helped maintain a generally cooperative attitude on everyone’s part.

Today we still enjoy vestiges of the gift economy, notably in the family. We don’t keep close tabs on how much we are spending on our three-year-old child in an effort to make sure that accounts are settled at some later date; instead, we provide food, shelter, education and more as free gifts, out of love. Yes, parents enjoy psychological rewards, but (at least in the case of mentally healthy parents) there is no conscious process of bargaining, in which we tell the child, "I will give you food and shelter if you repay me with goods and services of equivalent or greater value."

For humans in simple societies, the community was essentially like a family. Freeloading was occasionally a problem, and when it became a drag on the rest of the community it was punished by subtle or not-so-subtle social signals—ultimately, ostracism. But otherwise no one kept score of who owed whom what; to do so would have been considered very bad manners.

We know this from the accounts of 20th-century anthropologists who visited surviving hunter-gatherer societies. Often they reported on the amazing generosity of people who seemed eager to share everything they owned despite having almost no material possessions and being officially listed by aid agencies as among the poorest people on the planet.

Anthropologists routinely felt embarrassed by this generosity, and, in one instance after another, after being gifted some prized food or a painstakingly hand-made basket, immediately offered a manufactured knife or ornament in return. The anthropologists assumed that natives would be happy to receive the trinkets, but the recipients instead appeared insulted. What had happened? The natives’ initial gifts were a way of saying, "You are part of the family; welcome!" But the immediate offering of a gift in return smacked of trade—something only done with strangers. The anthropologists were understood as having said, "No, thanks. I do not wish to be considered part of your family; I want to remain a stranger to you." It was the ultimate faux pas!

Here is all of economic history compressed into one sentence: As societies have grown more complex, larger, more far-flung and diverse, the tribe-based gift economy has shrunk in importance, while the trade economy has grown to dominate nearly every aspect of people’s lives, and has expanded in scope to encompass the entire planet.

With more and more of our daily human interactions based on exchange rather than gifting, we have developed polite ways of being around each other on a daily basis while maintaining an exchange-mediated social distance. This is particularly the case in large cities, where anonymity is fostered also by the sheer numbers of people one sees from day to day. In the best instances, we still take care of one another—through government programs and private charities. We still enjoy some of the benefits of the old gift economy in our families and churches. But increasingly, the market rules our lives. Our apparent destination in this relentless trajectory toward expansion of trade is a world in which everything is for sale, and all human activities are measured by and for their monetary value.

Humanity has benefited in many obvious ways from this economic evolution: the gift economy really only worked when we lived in small bands and had almost no possessions to speak of. So letting go of the gift economy was a trade-off for progress—houses, cities, cars, iPods, and all the rest. Still, saying goodbye to community-as-family was painful, and there have been various attempts throughout history to try to revisit it.

Communism was one such attempt, and we know how that worked out. Trying to institutionalize a gift economy at the scale of the nation state introduces all kinds of problems, including those of how to reward initiative and punish laziness in ways that everyone finds acceptable, and how to deter corruption among those whose job it is to collect, count, and reapportion the wealth.

But, back to our tour of economic history. Along the road from the gift economy to the trade economy there were several important landmarks. Of these, the invention of money was arguably the most important. Money is essentially a tool to facilitate trade. People invented it because they needed a medium of exchange to make trading easier, simpler, and more flexible.

Once money came into use, the exchange process was freed to grow and to insert itself into aspects of life where it had never been permitted previously. Money simultaneously began to serve other functions as well—principally, as a measure and store of value.

Today we take money for granted. But until fairly recent times it was an oddity, something only merchants used on a daily basis. Some complex societies, including ancient Egypt, managed to do almost completely without it; even in the U.S., until the mid-20th century, many rural families used money only for occasional trips into town to buy nails, boots, glass, or other items they couldn’t grow or make for themselves on the farm.

In his marvelous book The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, historian Fernand Braudel wrote of the gradual insinuation of the money economy into the lives of medieval peasants:

"What did it actually bring? Sharp variations in prices of essential foodstuffs; incomprehensible relationships in which man no longer recognized either himself, his customs or his ancient values. His work became a commodity, himself a ‘thing.’"

While early forms of money consisted of anything from sheep to shells, coins made of gold and silver gradually emerged as the most practical, universally accepted means of exchange, measure of value, and store of value.

Money’s ease of storage enabled industrious individuals to accumulate substantial amounts of wealth. But this concentrated wealth also presented a target for thieves. Thievery was especially a problem for traders: while the portability of money enabled them to travel for long distances to purchase rare fabrics and spices, highwaymen often lurked along the way, ready to snatch a purse at knife-point.

These problems led to the invention of banking—a practice in which metal-smiths who routinely dealt with large amounts of gold and silver (and who were accustomed to keeping it in secure, well-guarded vaults) agreed to store other people’s coins, offering storage receipts in return. Storage receipts could then be traded as money, thus making trade easier and safer.

Eventually, goldsmith-bankers realized that they could issue paper receipts for more gold than they had in their vaults, without anyone being the wiser. They did this by making loans of the receipts, for which they charged a fee amounting to a percentage of the loan.

Initially the Church regarded the practice of profiting from loans as a sin—known as "usury"—but the bankers found a loophole in religious doctrine: it was permitted to charge for reimbursement of expenses incurred in making the loan; this was termed "interest." Gradually bankers widened the definition of "interest" to include what had formerly been called "usury."

The practice of loaning out receipts for gold that didn’t really exist worked fine, unless many receipt-holders wanted to redeem paper notes for gold or silver all at once. Fortunately for the bankers, this happened so rarely that eventually the writing of receipts for more money than was on deposit became a perfectly respectable practice known as fractional reserve banking.

It turned out that having increasing amounts of money in circulation was a benefit to traders and industrialists during the historical period when all of this was happening—a time when unprecedented amounts of new wealth were being created, first through colonialism and slavery, but then through the harnessing of the enormous energies of fossil fuels.

The last impediment to money’s ability to act as a lubricant for transactions was its remaining tie to precious metals. As long as paper notes were redeemable for gold or silver, the amounts of these substances existing in vaults put at least a theoretical restraint on the process of money creation. Paper currencies not backed by metal had sprung up from time to time previously; by the late 20th century, they were the near-universal norm.

Along with more abstract forms of currency, the past century has also seen the appearance and growth of ever-more sophisticated investment instruments. Stocks, bonds, options, futures, long- and short-selling, derivatives, credit default swaps, and more now enable investors to make (or lose) money on the movement of prices of real or imaginary properties and commodities, and to insure their bets, and even their bets on other investors’ bets.

Probably the most infamous investment scheme of all time was created by Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the U.S. who, in 1919, began promising investors he could double their money within 90 days. Ponzi told clients the profits would come from buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the United States—a technically legal practice that could yield up to a 400 percent profit on each coupon redeemed due to differences in currency values.

What he didn’t tell them was that each coupon had to be redeemed individually, so the red tape involved would entail prohibitive costs if large numbers of the coupons (which were only worth a few pennies) were bought and redeemed. In reality, Ponzi was merely paying early investors returns from the principal amounts put down by later investors.

It was a way of shifting wealth from the many to the few, with Ponzi skimming off a lavish income as the money passed through his hands. At the height of the scheme, Ponzi was raking in $250,000 a day, millions in today’s dollars. Thousands of people lost their life savings, in some cases having mortgaged or sold their houses in order to invest.

A few critics (primarily advocates of gold-backed currency) have called fractional reserve banking a kind of Ponzi scheme, and there is some truth to the claim. As long as the real economy of goods and services within a nation is growing, an expanding money supply seems justifiable, arguably necessary. However, a resource-consuming economy cannot continue to grow forever on a finite planet.

Units of currency—which exist today mostly in the form of electronic bookkeeping entries—are essentially claims on labor and resources; and, as those claims multiply (with the growth of the money supply), and as resources deplete, eventually the remaining resources will be insufficient to satisfy all of the existing monetary claims. And so those claims will lose value, perhaps dramatically and suddenly. When this happens, paper and electronic currency systems based on money creation through fractional reserve banking will produce results somewhat similar to those of a Ponzi scheme: i.e., a few may profit, at least temporarily, but the vast majority will lose much or all of what they have.

Is this the end of the story? As society dramatically simplifies itself in the wake of fossil fuel depletion, will we revert to some form of gift economy? Or will we catch and steady ourselves on some intermediate rung on the ladder of economic development?

Only time will tell. Perhaps a general knowledge of our economic history can help us assess the options ahead and plan for a managed "money descent," just as some far-seeing Transition communities are planning for "energy descent."

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False Spring 2010

SUBHEAD: All these lovely mild days, I confess, made me very nervous. Something is happening... out there. Image above: Cherry blossoms in Chautauqua County, New York. The temperature was in the 40ºF range back in April of 1995. Photos taken by Juan Wilson. By James Kunstler on 5 April 2010 in Kunstler.com - (http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/04/false-spring.html) In a place like upstate New York, north of Albany, where April is more generally known as "mud season," and the wait for "ice-out" on the big lakes takes forever, and on frigid nights the windigos steal through the tops of the tall pines -- it would seem foolish to complain about perfectly beautiful weather.

We just had a week in the 70s, with more to come. The grass went from ochre to bright green in about thirty-six hours. The buds are popping like mad. This is usually what the first week of May is like around here, and that fact alone may explain New York state's relentless population drain over the past forty years.

I was out on my bicycle, naturally, taking it all in -- like, why sit inside and sulk because the weather is strange in a pleasant way? -- and I ventured into the outlands east of town, where an impressive number of gigantic new houses had landed like alien mother-ships in the former cow pastures and wood lots. Of course, the aesthetics were an issue apart from the socio-economics of it, but nonetheless interesting.

Each new, gigantic house seemed the result of a losing struggle to reinvent basic design principles that did not require re-invention. I doubt the spirit of joyous "creativity" among the star-architects has seeped down to the level of the provincial house-builders, who, after all, are just assemblers of modular materials like dimensional lumber and eight-foot sheet-rock. It's their inability to assemble these parts coherently that's really striking, so what you get is an endless variety of mistakes along with a complete absence of anything done really well -- which may be the essence of what the "diversity" craze has really meant to us, the ethos of current times.

The abiding quality of all these houses was grandiosity (by which I do not mean grand-ness). That, too, is a signature of these times in America -- the nation too big to fail and tragically destined to do just that on account of its too big to fail-ness. And, of course, one could not fail to wonder, cruising by these hideously ponderous houses, whether as a matter of fact they were failing in terms of the owners' ability to keep up with the payments, for instance. Image above: On the same day, near the cherry tree, comfrey was growing, still covered with snow, and surrounded by new dandelion greens. In the 1990 there were at least two occasions when the cherry blossoms had snow on them as late as Mother's Day in Panama, NY (Chautauqua County). One after another, I pictured a husband and wife within sitting in the sunny breakfast room on Easter morning humped in tears as they sorted through stacks of bills and bank statements... and I imagined the yellow foreclosure tape a few weeks hence atop the weird split-block portico treatments and misbegotten arrays of concrete balusters, and the colossal Palladianesque windows with their pathetic snap-in muntins (and the fantastic solar heat-gain, not figured-in by the designer-builder, that would turn the lawyer-foyer into something like a crematorium by two p.m.)... and the pension fund in Wisconsin or Norway that was sitting on the booby-trapped CDO that contained this sketchy mortgage and thousands of others just like it... and, well, this choo-choo of thoughts led to envisioning the train-wreck of economies and nations that lies in wait just around the bend....

One also could not fail to reflect on the recklessness of a nation that placed untold million-dollar bets on the idea that it would be possible to travel anywhere in an automobile from houses like these a few scant years from now. This far along in the tribulations of our time, most Americans still have not heard of peak oil, and the few who have regard it as some figment that Ralph Nader or Al Gore conjured up on an acid trip in a sweat lodge. The more sophisticated among the mentally unwashed are certain that the earth has a creamy nougat center of low-sulfer light crude oil, or they heard that the Bakken formation in Dakota holds more oil than Saudi Arabia, or that the whole US car and truck fleet will be electrified in a year or two, or that we can drill-baby-drill our way to permanent oil abundance, or just that the American can-do spirit will come up with something to keep Happy Motoring alive because we're the greatest! Such grandiosity!

Personally, I look at these houses scattered around what was only recently a dedicated farm landscape and I am quite sure that the denizens within will be marooned in their great rooms, and that very probably many of them will have no job to go to -- in the conventional sense of what we think a job is, in some corporation or institution -- and that in a surprisingly short span of years these buildings will be ruins or squats. I think these thoughts after struggling up a rather steep hill more than half-a-mile (and many others previously). A trip anywhere from here, to do anything, and the return trip, would occupy an entire day even for someone in decent physical condition. Somebody accustomed to rations of Cheez Doodles and Mountain Dew would be dead by then. There will be lots of dead.

On the macro level, the feeling spreads across the USA that our troubles are behind us. Employment is ticking up. The S & P index only goes up now. The banks have stabilized and those "toxic assets" (which I call "frauds" and "swindles") have been disarmed and safely buried under Yucca Mountain. Housing starts may still be weak, but the "gaming" industry is making great strides in places like the old Puritan commonwealth of Massachusetts, so soon we'll have a virtually automatic economy of leisure-and-entertainment paid for by creaming off a small percentage of the quarters pumped into video slot stations. No doubt the Chinese will be jealous and try to imitate us.

All these lovely mild days, I was not unconscious of the eeriness of the weather and the possible insidious effects of it on the local ecosystem in everything from the added generations of deer ticks carrying Lyme disease and the death of the honeybees to the fate of this year's apple crop. I confess: it made me very nervous. Something is happening... out there. .

Tapped - The Movie

SOURCE: Kenneth Taylor (taylork021@Hawaii.rr.com) SUBHEAD: Protect your health and the health of Planet Earth. Don't drink plastic bottled water. Image above: Graphic logo from titles of "Tapped - The Movie". WHAT: Tapped - The Movie is to be shown on Kauai and is an effective warning to stop drinking water out of plastic bottles. Plastic containers are hazardous to your health. Watch the movie at the following locations to learn why: WHEN & WHERE: Sunday, April 11, 6 PM Lihue Neighborhood Center, 3353 Eono Street - Surfrider Foundation Wednesday, April 14, 6 PM Kekaha Neighborhood Center 8130 Elepaio Road Thursday, April 15, 6 PM Hanapepe Neighborhood Center 4451 Puoloo Road Saturday, April 17, 3 PM Koloa Neighborhood Center 3461 Weliweli Road Thursday, April 22, 6:30 PM Kapa'a Library 1464 Kuhio Highway Saturday, April 24, 3 PM Kalaheo Neighborhood Center 4480 Papalina Road Thursday, April 29, 6 PM Waimea Neighborhood Center 4556 Makeke Road SPONSORS: This film is brought to Kauai Island from the following organizations. The Surfrider Foundation, Zero Waste Kauai, Malama Kauai, Malama Kauai, GMO Free Kauai, The Sierra Club, The Vegetarian Society of Hawaii. REVIEW: (http://www.greenzer.com/blog/5183-tapped-documentary.html)

Before you start rolling your eyes and saying “another eco-documentary?” and then “and it’s about bottled water?”, bear with us. Sure, settling in to watch a film that focuses solely on bottled water sounds boring, but Tapped is anything but. The eco-doc investigates and explores all areas of bottled water and the results are in turn both shocking, appalling, and inspiring.

Brought to you from the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car, Tapped spills the goods on all the bad in the bottled water industry. Think you already know everything there is to know about why we shouldn’t be buying bottled water? You might not. Maybe you acknowledge the environmental issues of using petroleum to make the plastic and not recycling the bottles after (leaving them to linger for hundreds of years), but do you think about the carbon emissions that come from transporting the water from the facility where it’s bottled to your local store? What about the fact that bottled water is less regulated than tap in many cases, and is, in fact, tap water just without the pesky government monitoring. And that’s just the tip of the ice berg (or, in this case, the first sip of the bottle). Click here to read more.

Tapped: The Movie Trailer See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Don't Drink the Bottled Water 8/13/09 Ea O Ka Aina: Bottled Water & Energy 3/10/09

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Superferry Transportation Study

SOURCE: Dick Mayer (dickmayer@earthlink.net) SUBHEAD: The Hawaii State Legislature is preparing to waste more scarce funds on Superferry studies. Image above: A detail of early Superferry website promo claiming passage to Kauai starting in July 2007. It didn't happen. From (http://www.alohadrugs.com/2007/01/launching-of-hawaii-super-ferry-ends.html) [Source's note: The Ferry Study Bill passed the Senate's Ways and Means Committee by a vote of 6-5 (Senator English was "excused". The new Senate draft makes no changes from the House draft but has a new "virtual date" of "July 1, 2050 to facilitate further discussion on the measure" (that will likely be changed later) and NO funding YET. The Department of Transportation could use some of its own funds or potentially some of its Special Harbor users funds to conduct the ferry study. Here is the latest draft] HB 2667 HD 2 SD 1 RELATING TO FERRIES. (http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2010/lists/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2667) BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII: SECTION 1. The State of Hawaii is made up of a chain of islands, six of which have major population centers. Unlike other states, Hawaii does not have the benefit of being linked to other states through the federal interstate highway system or a network of intersecting state and local highways and roads. With the exception of slow, time-consuming interisland shipping and barge operations for the transportation of property between the islands, the only link between the islands for the transportation of persons is air transportation, with our present reliance on two interisland carriers and a few smaller commuter operations. However, this reliance on air transportation may be misplaced. With the exception of the island of Hawaii, each of the neighbor islands is served by only one airport, and each may be subjected to severe operational interruption in the event of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake. Even the Hickam Air Force Base-Honolulu international airport complex, with its location along the shoreline on Oahu, may be operationally shut down by a natural disaster. For example, had the airport at Lihue, Kauai, been shut down operationally in the aftermath of Hurricane Iniki, it would have taken days, if not weeks, before any major aid and relief in the form of water, food, medical supplies, and rescue workers could have reached the island. Hawaii is too reliant on its present slow water carriers and air carriers in the event of a major natural disaster. While the Hawaii Superferry operation had its shortcomings, a rocky start, and a questionable financial forecast, it proved to be a very successful mode of transportation of both persons and property between the islands of Maui and Oahu. It was the missing link in the transportation system between the islands that is so essential for the health, safety, and well-being of the people of Hawaii. The purpose of this Act is to require the department of transportation to conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing a statewide ferry system and ferry system authority to provide the additional link essential for the carriage of persons and property between the islands of the State. SECTION 2. (a) The department of transportation shall conduct a study to determine the feasibility of establishing a statewide ferry system and a Hawaii state ferry system authority as the primary agency for oversight and regulation of the statewide ferry system. (b) The department shall study various types of ferry systems, including passenger-only and passenger, automobile, and cargo ferry systems, that the department determines are suitable for operations within Hawaiian waters, taking into account such parameters as vessel design and speed, passenger capacity, cargo capacity, automobile capacity, availability of smaller vessels for transportation between the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, and compatibility with harbor infrastructure. The study shall also include: (1) An analysis of potential costs and revenues of a statewide ferry system, as well as economic, social, and physical or other effects upon residents of and visitors to Hawaii; (2) Any impact a statewide ferry system would have on the State and the counties; (3) Information on the financing of a statewide ferry system, including the establishment of rates, fees, rents, charges, or any other payments or costs associated with a statewide ferry system; (4) Information on the development of a special fund for the financial self-sustainability of the statewide ferry system; and (5) Information on the impact that a statewide ferry system would have on the other water carriers in the State. (c) The study shall also include the following information on the development of a Hawaii state ferry system authority: (1) The composition of the authority; (2) The rights, duties, powers, and obligations of the authority in developing, coordinating, and implementing state policies and direction for the safe transportation of persons and property by ferry between the Hawaiian islands; and (3) The ability of the authority to eliminate or reduce barriers to travel by ferry between the Hawaiian islands and provide a positive and competitive business environment. (d) The department shall submit a report of its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2011. SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2050. Report Title: Transportation; Ferry System Study Description: Requires the Department of Transportation to conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing a statewide ferry system and the Hawaii State Ferry System Authority for the operation of a ferry system between the islands. Effective 7/1/2050. .

Corn virus still on Kauai

SUBHEAD: Seed companies say corn virus under control. Ag Research Center says it is a plant problem without a known solution.

 [IB Editor's note: It is not known what native grasses, insects or other species might be affected or are harboring this decease of Kauai GMO corn production.]

 
Image above: Damage to corn from maize chlorotic mottle virus decease. From (http://nu-distance.unl.edu/Homer/disease/agron/corn/CoMCMV.html)  

By Coco Zickos on 4 April 2010 in The Garden Island - 
  (http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_447c58a0-407f-11df-a8cd-001cc4c03286.html)

A corn virus that plagued Kaua‘i in the early 1990s has reared its diseased head again but maize chlorotic mottle is “still in a fairly isolated geographical area,” said Pioneer Hi-Bred International Business and Community Outreach Manager Cindy Goldstein.

“We’re certainly carefully monitoring this,” she said, adding it is “not a concern for hobby farmers” or other agricultural practitioners.

Weather patterns in 2009 were similar to 1989, including a wet fall season, which would explain the “explosion of insects” that transmit the virus from one plant to another, said Kaua‘i Agricultural Research Center Associate Plant Pathologist Dr. Jeri Ooka.

Because there has been “exponential growth” in the seed industry since it first arrived on island in 1969, the virus has not had such detrimental effects as it did in the early 1990s when it was still a “small industry,” he said. Now, corn is a dominate player on the Westside.

Although the disease never really went away, it was controlled for 20 years, Ooka said.

While the virus will “often be present at low levels,” seed companies “will see a spike in the disease sometimes” such as last fall when signs of the virus first began appearing in crops, Goldstein said.
The disease typically infects only younger plants, stunting their growth and reducing the quality and quantity of kernels, she said.

This can lead to a production problem, Ooka said.

Syngenta Hawai‘i Outreach Manager Laurie Goodwin said the virus has not disturbed the company’s profit margins, even though it has been detrimental in some localized areas.

“It depends on how things play out,” she said regarding profitability.

Thus far, the virus has not been known to spread to other plant species, Goldstein said, but it can affect different varieties of corn crops, like sweet and field corn.

The virus is “not really transported by seeds,” especially after they are dried prior to being shipped to countries around the world, Ooka said. The lack of moisture makes them “less transmittable.”
However, the disease “probably got here via seeds being sent here,” he added.

To mitigate impact, seed companies have been “cooperating and collaborating” their efforts, Goldstein said.

“It’s not a huge problem,” Ooka said, but “we want to ensure the plant population is healthy.”
Infected plants are immediately removed, said Goldstein, adding that the virus is not known to live in soil or water. “If they even look like they have something,” the corn is quickly eradicated.

Syngenta has also “been really active in rouging out affected plants,” Goodwin said.

The “question that needs to be answered now” is “what is the alternate host and how is it able to survive?” Ooka said.

“There might be another host besides corn, but so far we haven’t found it in anything else yet,” he said. Once another host is pinpointed, the virus may be brought back down to a “very low undetectable level.”

“We cannot figure out where this thing is hiding,” he said.

The good news is “people don’t get plant viruses,” Goldstein said.

“It’s not a people problem, it’s a plant problem,” Ooka said.

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Eco-friendly wastewater pollution

SUBHEAD: Shrimp farm committed to eco-friendly sustainability while expelling up to 30 million gallons of wastewater effluent and treated shrimp remains into the ocean daily.

By Coco Zickos on 3 April 2010 in The Garden Island -  
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_83fe4e52-3fbc-11df-85f4-001cc4c002e0.html)
  

 
Image above: The overflow weir on Kekaha’s shrimp farm discharge ditch is currently unused. Photo supplied by George Chamberland.  

[Editor's note: "Shrimp farm committed to sustainability" is the title of this article and is high on the recent list of disingenuous hype that have made the way to the top of the front page of the Garden Island. There is no way a that the daily dumping of 30 million gallons of putrid fishfarm waste onto a living reef is sustainable. It is the antithesis. As of now the shrimp farm volume is so low that no waste water needs to be emitted into the ocean. If Sunrise Capital wants to raise shrimp they should do it at a scale, and with techniques, that do not require polluting the ocean. Moreover, what we should be doing is restoring the natural wetlands of the westside of Kauai. Besides Pearl Harbor, Mana wetlands were the most important source of bird and fish diversity in Hawaii. Now they support the US military and GMO mutated crops. We don't want either. Kauai was fortunate that the last time this shrimp-farm operation went viral that we escaped an uncontrolled spread of shellfish disease. For some history see the TGI articles on closing of and quarantine of this same plant in 2004 when a virus wiped out this plant.]
 
Although Sunrise Capital is seeking a permit to expel up to 30 million gallons of wastewater effluent and treated shrimp remains into the ocean daily, the Kekaha aquaculture operation is committed to implementing sustainable and eco-friendly practices, George Chamberlain said this week.

“Everything I stand for is to do things in an environmentally sustainable way,” he said. Chamberlain is president of Global Aquaculture and an owner of Integrated Aquaculture, which purchased the farming operation last year.

Efforts to reduce nutrient levels to “very” diluted levels to mitigate waste matter have been taken seriously, he said Thursday. The operation has been running at minimal levels over the past year with only a “skeleton crew.”

Plastic-lined ponds include a drain system which periodically removes “settled matter,” along with a “skimmer system” which discards “floating material,” according to Department of Health Clean Water Branch officials.

“The nutrient levels in the immediate vicinity of the discharge into the receiving ocean waters are expected to be elevated from ambient conditions,” CWB officials wrote in an e-mail. “However, the adjacent coastal ocean area is not expected to have any noticeable effect associated with the shrimp farm discharge.”

The level of discharge is expected to be lower than the proposed amount at around 12 million gallons a day when operating “at full speed” with all 50 ponds, which vary from one to one-quarter acre in size, Chamberlain said.

“Exactly whether we need that quantity is still a question,” Chamberlain said regarding the amount in the Draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination application. “Our future is still uncertain.”
Kama‘aina who frequent the neighboring surf spots such as Kinikinis, Major’s Bay and Family Housing are not confident the environment will be unaffected.

Remembering the “oily, filmy and stinky” water when the farm — owned by Ceatch USA at the time — was operating at full capacity from February 2000 to December 2003, Lawa‘i resident Derek Pellin said he is concerned similar effects will happen again.

“You could almost taste it through your skin,” he said last week.

Pellin noted that he can now see the reef there again. “It’s the first time I’ve seen color. Before, you couldn’t even see your feet.”

Often taking his family to the Westside location, Pellin questioned if the discharge permit would even be a consideration at a more popular beach such as Po‘ipu.

“Maybe our lives not as worthy,” he said.

Chamberlain said the shrimp farm was “never out of compliance” during its years of operation. Historical data demonstrates “no perceptible effect to the coastal water quality,” according to CWB officials.

“This is due in part because the coastal waters in the area have very good water circulation and/or current flow which aids in the natural assimilation and renewal of the ocean waters,” the CWB said. “Additionally, the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus from the agriculture or aquaculture discharges to the area are much lower than those found in discharges from other domestic or animal wastewater treatment facilities.”

The prospective discharge will join the area’s agriculture run-off which has been dispelled for “close to 100 years,” Chamberlain said. “There has never been any effect over the entire period.”
Chamberlain said it is “with great confidence” that he can say there will be “no effect” to the environment.

Nonetheless, Jason Badua, born and raised on the Westside, said he is “very concerned about this potentially huge source of water pollution.”

“The pollution from unintended agricultural runoff on this island is already bad enough,” he said. “We shouldn’t be adding to it by allowing intentional pollution. I care deeply about this island. This is home.”

Badua, an avid surfer, also raises concern about the “daily dumping of shrimp remains and effluent” which “sharks may become habituated into showing up for free meals served every day.”

Business proposal

Sunrise Capital intends to expand its operations to include a variety of species including moi, kahala and possibly tuna, Chamberlain said.

The aquaculture farm expects to produce several species which would be “sold fresh” only within the state, he said.

“Not attempting to produce any large quantities of any one species to the point of having to freeze and send to the Mainland” is the company’s objective, Chamberlain said. “The minute we have to freeze and process converts the product to a less valuable form.”

Using the most advanced technology and “selectively breeding ... genetically improved animals” will also be part of Sunrise Capital’s “step-by-step process” in the coming years, he said.

Clams and oysters may also be harvested, which would help to “remove the tint of algae” from the wastewater discharge, he said. “Our objective is to recycle and reuse as much as we can.”

Harvesting algae or biofuel could be another possibility in the company’s future.

“Our goal is not so much to ramp up” to a full-scale operation right away, Chamberlain said.
However, within the next year and into 2011, the farm should be performing at a larger capacity, he said.

“This could be quite a benefit to Kaua‘i,” Chamberlain said. “Our goal is to try to make a showcase and have something Kaua‘i can be proud of.”

Water source

To meet its daily fluid needs, Sunrise Capital will only use sea water pumped in from a 550-foot deep well which goes “directly to the farm.”

The water will travel through a volcanic lava bed and will be “filtered over a mile of lava rock,” Chamberlain said. “What comes out of ground is clean, pure ocean water and has essentially very low organic mater.”

In addition, the ponds contain a plastic lining which will make them “totally impermeable” to the ground.

Shrimp virus

The white spot syndrome virus that plagued the farm several years ago, causing the business to cease operations in 2004, had “never been identified in Hawai‘i before,” Chamberlain said.
“What happened to the previous owners was a very unfortunate event,” he said. “It was catastrophic.”
Sunrise Capital “understands what happened to the virus and we know how to control that,” Chamberlain said.
The disease can be transmitted by birds and the company plans on “putting bird netting over the ponds.”
Visit http://www.hawaii.gov/health/environmental/water/cleanwater/index.html to review a copy of the Draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination application or visit the Kaua‘i District DOH office, 3040 Umi St., Lihu‘e.

Comments must be sent by April 10 to Clean Water Branch, Environmental Management Division, Department of Health, 919 Ala Moana Blvd., Room 301, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 96814-4920. Objections and requests for a public hearing should also be sent to that address.

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Kekaha shrimp operation put under quarantine  

By Chris Cook on 17 April 2004 in The Garden Island - 
  (http://thegardenisland.com/news/article_56685ed4-8ff9-522c-af44-4907362cc5b9.html)

Shrimp from Ceatech's operation in Kekaha are under quarantine. An announcement from the state Department of Agriculture released Friday afternoon said the quarantine on the commercial shrimp farm was put into effect on Wednesday. The quarantine means no shrimp can be moved from the Ceatech Plantation.

A positive test on Ceatech shrimp showed the presumptive presence of the White Spot Syndrome Virus, according to the Department of Agriculture report. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the outbreak Friday to the Office of International Epizootes, the organization concerned with animal health and the international movement of animals.

"While WSSV is a highly contagious and fatal disease for shrimp and other crustaceans, it does not pose any threat to human health, even if affected shrimp are consumed," the report from the Department of Agriculture said. White spots show on the shrimp and rapid death usually follows, the report said. The positive test is the first known detection of the virus in an aquaculture facility in Hawai‘i. The virus has had outbreaks in Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines and in Central and South America.

"Due to the isolation of the farm on Kaua‘i, there is an excellent chance of containing this outbreak and eradicating the disease," said Dr. James Foppoli, State Veterinarian with Department of Agriculture. A problem was noted in one of the 40 growing ponds used by Ceatech in the Kekaha area on April 1. Shrimp samples were then sent for testing to the Aquaculture Pathology Laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The positive test result was reported to the Ceatech on April 14 and the company reported the situation to the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Veterinary Services Office in Honolulu, which then notified State Veterinarian, Dr. Foppoli.

On Wednesday evening Foppoll and Department of Agriculture chairperson Sandra Lee Kunimoto issued the quarantine. A stipulation of the quarantine is that no shrimp may be moved off the plantation without the authorization of the State Veterinarian. Animal disease control veterinarians from the Honolulu office of the USDA and from the State Department of Agriculture delivered the quarantine notice to Ceatech on Thursday.

 The veterinarians also initiated a "Foreign Animal Disease" investigation as required by USDA protocol, which among other things, involves trying to determine the possible source of the infection and prevent the spread of the disease. Additional samples were taken for testing and work has begun with Ceatech on a clean-up plan, according to the report. The quarantine is expected to be in effect until tests confirm that the facility is free of the disease.

 Last summer the Oceanic Institute in Waimanalo, O‘ahu provided a new line of Pacific white shrimp broodstock for testing to Ceatech. A report provided to The Garden Island said the shrimp were provided for on-farm growth evaluation trials. Ceatech's innovative farming system produces very high yields of distinctively high-quality table shrimp that are marketed in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Mainland under the trade name "Kauai Shrimp." The shrimp farm is in part located on former Kekaha Sugar lands that are leased from the State of Hawai‘i.

 Ceatech has offices in Honolulu where most business functions of the operation are undertaken. Studies show that the Mana Plain area where the Kekaha ponds are located are one of the preferred areas for shrimp aquaculture in Hawai‘i, due to abundant sunshine, isolation from urban areas, hot temperatures and the Westside's dry climate, according to a report found on Ceatech's Web site.

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Peak Oil trumps Fascism

SUBHEAD: Put your "political" energy into building local economies and family-neighborhood tribes. Image above: WWII poster "When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Hitler". From (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2716) By Jan Lundberg on 1 April 2010 in Culture Change (http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=635&Itemid=1) The direction of the U.S. has been questioned, analyzed, feared and condemned with increasing intensity since the 1960s. Things got a little quiet and complacent in the 1980s, as cheaper oil and no major war enabled the U.S. to get on with the business of making money at the expense of the poor and Mother Nature. Income disparity and official cruelty were not outrageous enough for open revolt. Cheerleaders exercised their right to support the status quo or press for more corporate supremacy. But all the while, critical observers have anticipated or foreseen the rise of U.S. police-state totalitarianism, invasion of privacy, further erosion of freedoms, the growth of the Pentagon, and globalism.

Many of these critical observers also realized that the environment, and later the climate, was deteriorating at an accelerated rate. But only some of them were looking at specific resources' limits, such as oil's completely giving out one day in our lifetimes. Now the Post-Peak Oil age is staring us in the face, with the Great Recession signaling the end of bubble prosperity. There is no consensus on how things will play out -- whether a Depression, total collapse or prosperous green technotopia -- or when.

However, many of us know that the end of cheap, abundant oil means a new chapter of history is opening up now or very soon. More and more authorities are acknowledging an imminent peak in oil extraction or a major oil-supply crunch. The "optimistic" and contrary view out of Exxon is becoming marginalized. Since "peak oilists" understand that the new chapter has begun, and we can visualize energy scarcity causing radical change in lifestyle and social structure, isn't it time to place the traditional left-right view of politics and conventional economic theory aside?

Today's political conflict is dominated by those who see a constant or growing pie to fight over or redistribute. Their worldview will be swept aside when everyone from neo-Nazis to peaceniks have their cars permanently idled, without fuel, and have to dig up lawns and de-pave driveways to desperately grow food.

EnergyBulletin.net is a Peak Oil website with a lot of new articles daily on related matters such as gardening, farming, climate change, and psychological aspects of economic collapse. Occasionally there are articles on politics, but they have something to do with energy or U.S. consumerism. A recent article the website posted didn't seem to have anything to do with energy: "Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?" by Chris Hedges (writing originally in http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_america_yearning_for_fascism_20100329). That it was on a Peak Oil website says a lot about the power of the article, and says something about many peak oilists' views of the future.

The Shallow Focus on Federal Politics

Hedges is a strong critic of U.S. policies. How much he knows about Peak Oil and overpopulation isn't known to me, but his latest article ignores entirely the possibility of petrocollapse or a new, very different future due to the end of abundant oil and energy. Like most commentators, Hedges focuses on politics and political trends. He happens to be passionate about ending war and for protecting "democracy" (an idealized notion or myth). It also happens that many people concerned with Peak Oil are quite concerned about his issues as well -- so much so that ideas or fears on politics and social (in)justice sometimes color peak oilists' energy outlooks.

As is the case with most citizens, Hedges does not see much change soon in our daily way of life as consumers, if at all. His big concern is change for the worse politically: in terms of fascist thugs breaking down your door. Or, almost as horrible to liberals and progressives, another Republican President gets in. After all, this might mean war on Middle Eastern countries, expanded offshore drilling, reviving nuclear power -- oh, wait, Obama and the Democrats are doing all that now, with no intention of changing direction. The Democrats might think this buys them some points with the Right, but it doesn't -- revealing that today's raging political differences are mostly about power. After all, the main gripes against the new health care law seemed to be stretched or manufactured.

The unemployed, the uninsured and the oppressed minorities are probably only going to rise up in hunger, when collapse really hits, rather than at the urgings of political demagogues. After all, there's no mass revolutionary fervor when the entrenched idea of working one's life away for others, to buy more personal stuff, is the modern form of freedom.

Oil reality trumps political trends

Hedges quotes the independent minded ex-Democrat of Congress Cynthia McKinney who blames "the people who put us in this predicament” and laments “Our problem is a problem of governance." She refers to the nation's political challenges and right-wing trends, and not the looming utter loss of abundant, cheap energy. If she and Hedges believe that strife between left and right is going to be a big deal up ahead -- and this may well be true -- just wait until the trucks don't pull in to the supermarkets because of a massive oil shortage. It will be triggered perhaps by a revolution in Saudi Arabia, an Israeli attack on Iran, or other geopolitical event. But the biggest pressure on the whole situation is the fact that global oil supply has peaked. Peak Oil (along with the related crisis of climate distortion) is bigger than fascism or any other social movement. What about wars, for example over water?

It is often pointed out that dwindling fresh, clean water will be the biggest resource crisis, causing more fighting than oil will. Events may appear to play out that way, but the water crisis is inseparable from the issue of petroleum because of (1) how water is pumped (often with petroleum energy) and (2) how water is consumed in relation to petroleum applications. And (3) the extra mouths drinking water today were fed and brought about by fast-growing petroleum-centered agriculture and food distribution.

The amount of crude oil estimated to remain in the ground, "reserves," is commonly assumed to be available for the market, as if nothing can disrupt it; rising cost and diminished net energy return are thought to be the only constraints. Collapse as a governing factor is ignored, ironically and optimistically, by many peak oilists.

The quantity of remaining diminished reserves is thought to entirely determine the timing of post-peak decline and resultant socioeconomic impacts. This view is bolstered by what peak oilists see as no alternative forms of energy coming to the rescue. This is a reasonable position, but what most peak oilists and renewable energy advocates don't seem to grasp is that the oil market's extreme reaction to an inevitable, sudden shortage of 10% or more will be the whole driver of collapse. The unprecedented, destructive socioeconomic spasm -- 1970s oil crises on steroids -- will allow no recovery, notably a hoped-for intact oil-industry capability to bring less and less product to the market -- following the famous Hubbert bell curve in such a way to allow the perpetuation of industrial nationalist power.

Fears of fascism have some validity but seem to omit the understanding that the U.S. -- like any corporate state now or in Europe in the 1930s and '40s -- is already a fascist society, when it fits the definition by Mussolini: "corporatism." The U.S. citizenry has been treated to a domestic version for many decades: "friendly fascism," whereby our pluralism and tolerance (not great, but real) have allowed us to say we are not like those brutal Axis nations of World War II. The several million civilians killed around the world by U.S. militarism since World War II might disagree, but U.S. citizens aren't much aware of other people's problems "over there."

As we cannot control collapse that must stem largely from the loss of cheap, abundant energy -- a process already begun -- it is time to put our "political" energy into building local economies and forming our family-neighborhood tribes for the tough future and eventual sustainable culture ahead. This will help prepare everyone for the post-peak oil dissolution of the U.S. as we know it -- no matter who next holds the White House or is kissing the ass of today's Wall Street elite.

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End of Peak Oil Denial

SUBHEAD: A deluge of information suggests that the energy elite are taking Peak Oil very seriously. Image above: A oil derrick at sunset to illustrate Peak Oil may have missed peak by over a decade. From (http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2020-2029.htm) By Chris Nelder on 2 April 2010 in Energy and Capital - (http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/the-end-of-peak-oil-denial/1111)

When I began writing about Peak Oil professionally in 2006, it was generally considered a tinfoil hat theory. The notion that oil production might peak around 2012 (plus or minus) was only taken seriously by a few analysts who were considered extremely pessimistic.

Official forecasts had no cognizance of it whatsoever. All were confident that oil supply would continue to grow steadily to 130 million barrels per day (mbpd) and beyond, at prices that would be considered astoundingly cheap by today's standards. Oil companies rarely mentioned peak oil, and when they did, it was in a casually dismissive way.

But as time marched on, the cornucopian arguments fell one by one. My longtime readers have seen the story unfold, but for the benefit of new readers, here's a quick summary.

Forecasts grew increasingly pessimistic as it became apparent that regular conventional crude supply had peaked at the end of 2004. Even as the biggest oil price spike in history ensued from 2005-2008, crude production remained flat and unresponsive.

OPEC scaled back some of its development plans as costs soared. Non-OPEC production not only failed to deliver any actual increase, but began to decline. Forecasts were revised lower.

Corn ethanol boomed and busted, as it was revealed to be the net energy non-starter that serious analysts always knew it was. It also was suspected of adding pressure to food prices at a most inopportune time.

Unconventional production from oil shale and tar sands failed to grow as expected, as producers shied away from high-cost, low-production projects.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) finally included the depletion of mature fields in its analysis, and became increasingly shrill in its warnings about future supply.

A few current and former oil industry executives began making public statements about the diminishing prospects for new supply, and a few even acknowledged that it would be hard to increase production much beyond current levels.

Then high oil prices proved intolerable to an economy stretched thin by the bursting of the bubbles in the real estate and financial sectors.

Yet official recognition of the peak oil threat remained muted, couched in warnings about "adequate investment" and blithe assertions that demand would soon peak, averting any supply shortage.

All that seems to have changed in the last month. A sudden deluge of reports and summit meetings suggest that the oil industry and energy officials are now taking Peak Oil very seriously indeed.

UK Task Force on Peak Oil: Shortages by 2015

The first bombshell was actually dropped on February 10, when the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security issued a report called "The Oil Crunch: A wake-up call for the UK economy." I only mentioned it in passing at the time, but it was a stern warning that "oil shortages, insecurity of supply and price volatility will destabilise economic, political, and social activity potentially by 2015."

It only made the news because Sir Richard Branson personally endorsed it; but the fact that the task force comprised top UK executives and energy experts lent it enough weight to be rather widely circulated in the press.

The British government, including energy minister Lord Hunt, responded by staging a closed-door summit meeting with the taskforce on March 22. As the UK's Guardian reported, the government intended to develop an action plan to contend with a near-term peak, and to "calm rising fears over peak oil."

Veteran peak oil analyst and taskforce member Jeremy Leggett explained: "Government has gone from the BP position — '40 years of supply left, the price mechanism works, no need to worry' — to 'crikey'." He urged the assembly to properly assess the risks of peak oil, and to immediately begin preparing for the end of globalization and an era of oil shortages in the West.

According to reports from attendees, the summit yielded some important conclusions:

• Peak oil is either here, or close enough.
• Prices will have to go higher as demand outstrips supply.
• Governments will be forced to intervene to maintain critical levels of oil supply, and limit volatility.
• Rationing measures may be unavoidable.
• Electrification of transport must be pursued in order to reduce demand.
• Communities will need to work quickly to reorganize around walking instead of driving, producing food and energy locally instead of importing, and generally try to reduce their need for oil.

However, the notion that peak oil will mean the end of economic growth, as I have argued, apparently fell on deaf ears. Still, the very fact that the government has engaged with the peak oil community and formed a parliamentary group to study the issue offers a sliver of hope that, at least in the UK, we'll have some measure of consciousness about the issue and an idea of what to do about it as we drive off the peak oil cliff.

Kuwait Report: Peak by 2014

The next was a report that surfaced around March 12. Three authors from the College of Engineering and Petroleum at Kuwait University had applied advanced mathematics to reserve and production data for the top 47 oil producing countries using a multi-cycle Hubbert model, which demonstrated a much better fit to historical data than single-cycle Hubbert Curve analyses.

The model estimates the world's ultimate crude oil production at 2140 billion barrels, with 1161 billion barrels remaining to produce as of the end of 2005. It forecast that world production would peak in 2014 around 79 mbpd. The annual depletion rate of world reserves was estimated to be around 2.1%.

The results weren't really news to the peakists, for they matched up quite well with the models of Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrère, and other analysts who have warned about peak oil since 1995. What made this report interesting was that first, it was from Kuwait; and second, it brought a new level of mathematical rigor to the study.

The model indicated that non-OPEC production peaked in 2006 at 39.6 mbpd. It forecasts that OPEC production will peak in 2026 at 53 mbpd, up from 31 mbpd in 2005, with the majority of the increase coming from Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Then OPEC production is expected to decline to 29 mbpd by 2050.

Oxford Report: Reserves Exaggerated by One Third

On March 22, another bombshell exploded in the press as former UK chief scientist David King and researchers from Oxford University released a paper claiming that the world's oil reserves had been "exaggerated by up to a third," principally by OPEC.

Their "objective analysis" showed that conventional oil reserves stand at just 850-900 billion barrels — not the 1,150-1,350 billion barrels that are officially claimed by oil producers and accepted by the politically influenced IEA.

They anticipated that demand could outstrip supply by 2014-2015.

In a statement that sounded like a direct echo of what peak oil analysts like me have been saying for years, co-author Dr. Oliver Inderwildi remarked, "The belief that alternative fuels such as biofuels could mitigate oil supply shortages and eventually replace fossil fuels is a pie in the sky. Instead of relying on those silver bullet solutions, we have to make better use of the remaining resources by improving efficiency."

Again, it was hardly a revelation. I detailed the "political reserves" additions of OPEC producers in 2007, when I was writing Profit from the Peak. But the fact that it was recognized widely in the press was a marked change from the past.

The future of fuel will indeed be all about efficiency and alternative energy. This process — whether you've noticed or not — is well underway. Hundreds of billions will be made as a select group of companies slowly eradicate the rampant waste in our electricity distribution system, which has been estimated at upwards of 60% by analysts.

ConocoPhillips Gives Up on Growth

On March 25, ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva admitted that pursuing new oil reserves just doesn't pay. The remaining resources have become too marginal and too expensive, and the competition for them has become too intense.

Rather than keep slugging it out with bigger and better-funded players in pursuit of growth, Conoco has decided to sell $10 billion worth of its assets over the next two years, all of them in the marginal category, and concentrate on producing its core assets.

The proceeds will be used to buy back its stock, reduce its debt, and raise dividends — just as rival ExxonMobil has been doing for the last five years or so.

When I inferred in Profit from the Peak that the oil majors were spending vastly more money on buying back stock than investing in new exploration because reserves were getting too expensive and risky, veterans of the Street greeted the idea with extreme skepticism.

Now it's a plain fact. A Rice University study released in July 2008 found that the five largest international oil companies spent about 55% of their profits on stock buybacks and dividends in 2007, but only about 6% on new exploration and production. "Could we spend $20 billion or $25 billion [on exploration]? Absolutely," Conoco spokesman Gary Russell said at the time. "Could we do it effectively, in a way that provides ultimate value to our shareholders? Probably not."

Those of us who have been observing the trend for years greeted the latest Conoco comments with little more than a shrug, but it did get the attention of the laggard mainstream press.

In my next Energy and Capital column two weeks from now, we'll see how the U.S. Department of Energy is now considering the possibility of a decline in world liquid fuels production by 2015, and pick up a few more clues from the International Energy Forum held this week.