Monsanto's Fortunes Sour

SOURCE: Diana Labedz (DianaLaBedz@aol.com)
SUBHEAD: Monsanto is facing myriad problems, and it's stock price has fallen significantly.

 
Image above: Farmer Jerry McCulley refills his sprayer with the weed killer glyphosate on a farm near Auburn, Illinois. From NYT article.  

By Andrew Pollack on 4 October 2010 for New York Times - 
  (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/business/05monsanto.html)

As recently as late December, Monsanto was named “company of the year” by Forbes magazine. Last week, the company earned a different accolade from Jim Cramer, the television stock market commentator. “This may be the worst stock of 2010,” he proclaimed. Monsanto, the giant of agricultural biotechnology, has been buffeted by setbacks this year that have prompted analysts to question whether its winning streak from creating ever more expensive genetically engineered crops is coming to an end.

 The company’s stock, which rose steadily over several years to peak at around $145 a share in mid-2008, closed Monday at $47.77, having fallen about 42 percent since the beginning of the year. Its earnings for the fiscal year that ended in August, which will be announced Wednesday, are expected to be well below projections made at the beginning of the year, and the company has abandoned its profit goal for 2012 as well.

The latest blow came last week, when early returns from this year’s harvest showed that Monsanto’s newest product, SmartStax corn, which contains an unprecedented eight inserted genes, was providing yields no higher than the company’s less expensive corn that contains only three foreign genes.

 Monsanto has already been forced to sharply cut prices on SmartStax and on its newest soybean seeds, called Roundup Ready 2 Yield, as sales fell below projections. But there is more. Sales of Monsanto’s Roundup, the widely used herbicide, has collapsed this year under an onslaught of low-priced generics made in China.

Weeds are growing resistant to Roundup, dampening the future of the entire Roundup Ready crop franchise. And the Justice Department is investigating Monsanto for possible antitrust violations. Until now, Monsanto’s main challenge has come from opponents of genetically modified crops, who have slowed their adoption in Europe and some other regions.

Now, however, the outspoken critics also include farmers and investors who were once in Monsanto’s camp. “My personal view is that they overplayed their hand,” William R. Young, managing director of ChemSpeak and a consultant to investors in the chemical industry, said of Monsanto. “They are going to have to demonstrate to the farmer the advantage of their products.”

Brett D. Begemann, Monsanto’s executive vice president for seeds and traits, said the setbacks were not reflective of systemic management problems and that the company was already moving to deal with them. “Farmers clearly gave us some feedback that we have made adjustments from,” he said in an interview Monday.

 Mr. Begemann said that Monsanto used to introduce new seeds at a price that gave farmers two thirds and Monsanto one third of the extra profits that would come from higher yields or lower pest-control costs. But with SmartStax corn and Roundup Ready 2 soybeans, the company’s pricing aimed for a 50-50 split. That backfired as American farmers grew only 6 million acres of Roundup Ready 2 soybeans this year, below the company’s goal of 8 million to 10 million acres, and only 3 million acres of SmartStax corn, below the goal of 4 million. So now Monsanto is moving back to the older arrangement.

SmartStax seed for planting next year will be priced at about only $8 an acre more than other seeds, down from about a $24 premium for this year’s seeds, Mr. Begemann said. The company will also offer credits for free seed to farmers who planted SmartStax this year and were disappointed. Monsanto has also moved to offer farmers more varieties with fewer inserted genes. Some farmers have said they often have to buy traits they do not need — such as protection from the corn rootworm in regions where that pest is not a problem — in order to get the best varieties. This issue has surfaced in the antitrust investigation.

Monsanto’s arch rival, DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred, has also capitalized on the limited variety under a campaign called “right product, right acre.” “If they don’t have a need for rootworm then we won’t have that trait in that product,” Paul E. Schickler, the president of Pioneer, said in an interview. After years of rapidly losing market share in corn seeds to Monsanto, Pioneer says it has gained back 4 percentage points in the last two years, to 34 percent. Monsanto puts its market share at 36 percent in 2009 and says it has remained flat this year. In soybeans, Pioneer puts its share at 31 percent, up 7 percent over the last two years; Monsanto puts its share at 28 percent last year and said it has dropped some this year.

Monsanto had a similar problem with lower-than-expected yields on Roundup Ready 2 soybeans last year, when the crop was first planted commercially, forcing it to slash the premium it charges. But this year, the yield appears to be meeting expectations, according to OTR Global, a market research firm that surveys farmers and seed dealers.

That could bode well for SmartStax next year. One reason is that the Roundup Ready 2 gene is now offered in more varieties, making it better suited to more growing conditions. The yield of a crop is mainly determined by the seed’s intrinsic properties, not the inserted genes. An insect protection gene will not make a poor variety a high yielder any more than spiffy shoes will turn a slow runner into Usain Bolt. In the first year of a new product, few varieties contain the new gene.

Still, Mosanto is bound at some point to face diminishing returns from its strategy of putting more and more insect-resistance and herbicide-resistance genes into the same crop, at ever increasing prices. Growth might have to eventually come from new traits, such as a drought-tolerant corn the company hopes to introduce in 2012.

“Technologically, they are still the market leader,” said Laurence Alexander, an analyst at Jefferies & Company. “The main issue going forward is do they get paid for the technology they deliver. The jury is still out on that one. It’s going to take a year or two of data to reassure people.”

 .

Bad Paperwork & Foreclosure Crisis

SUBHEAD: Flawed bank paperwork on titles aggravates a housing market recovery.

Image above: Adams Country sheriff's deputy, center, looks on after an eviction team carried out a family's belongings during a foreclosure eviction in Adams County, Colorado. From (http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/2009/02/019188.html). [Editor's note: Further backing up the prior post "To the Vanishing Point" by aways witty Mr. J. Kunstler. Today from the New York Times and CNBC]

By Gretchen Morgenson on 4 October 2010 for New York Times -

(http://www.cnbc.com//id/39499044)

As some of the nation’s largest lenders have conceded that their foreclosure procedures might have been improperly handled, lawsuits have revealed myriad missteps in crucial documents. The flawed practices that GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have recently begun investigating are so prevalent, lawyers and legal experts say, that additional lenders and loan servicers are likely to halt foreclosure proceedings and may have to reconsider past evictions. Problems emerging in courts across the nation are varied but all involve documents that must be submitted before foreclosures can proceed legally. Homeowners, lawyers and analysts have been citing such problems for the last few years, but it appears to have reached such intensity recently that banks are beginning to re-examine whether all of the foreclosure papers were prepared properly. In some cases, documents have been signed by employees who say they have not verified crucial information like amounts owed by borrowers. Other problems involve questionable legal notarization of documents, in which, for example, the notarizations predate the actual preparation of documents — suggesting that signatures were never actually reviewed by a notary. Other problems occurred when notarizations took place so far from where the documents were signed that it was highly unlikely that the notaries witnessed the signings, as the law requires. On still other important documents, a single official’s name is signed in such radically different ways that some appear to be forgeries. Additional problems have emerged when multiple banks have all argued that they have the right to foreclose on the same property, a result of a murky trail of documentation and ownership. There is no doubt that the enormous increase in foreclosures in recent years has strained the resources of lenders and their legal representatives, creating challenges that any institution might find overwhelming. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the percentage of loans that were delinquent by 90 days or more stood at 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010, up from 4 percent in the same period of 2008. But analysts say that the wave of defaults still does not excuse lenders’ failures to meet their legal obligations before trying to remove defaulting borrowers from their homes. “It reflects the hubris that as long as the money was going through the pipeline, these companies didn’t really have to make sure the documents were in order,” said Kathleen C. Engel, dean for intellectual law at Suffolk University Law School and an expert in mortgage law. “Suddenly they have a lot at stake, and playing fast and loose is going to be more costly than it was in the past.” Attorneys general in at least six states, including Massachusetts, Iowa, Florida and Illinois, are investigating improper foreclosure practices. Last week, Jennifer Brunner, the secretary of state of Ohio, referred examples of what her office considers possible notary abuse by Chase Home Mortgage to federal prosecutors for investigation. The implications are not yet clear for borrowers who have been evicted from their homes as a result of improper filings. But legal experts say that courts may impose sanctions on lenders or their representatives or may force banks to pay borrowers’ legal costs in these cases. Judges may dismiss the foreclosures altogether, barring lenders from refiling and awarding the home to the borrower. That would create a loss for the lender or investor holding the note underlying the property. Almost certainly, lawyers say, lawsuits on behalf of borrowers will multiply. In Florida, problems with foreclosure cases are especially acute. A recent sample of foreclosure cases in the 12th Judicial Circuit of Florida showed that 20 percent of those set for summary judgment involved deficient documents, according to chief judge Lee E. Haworth. “We have sent repeated notices to law firms saying, ‘You are not following the rules, and if you don’t clean up your act, we are going to impose sanctions on you,’ ” Mr. Haworth said in an interview. “They say, ‘We’ll fix it, we’ll fix it, we’ll fix it.’ But they don’t.” As a result, Mr. Haworth said, on Sept. 17, Harry Rapkin, a judge overseeing foreclosures in the district, dismissed 61 foreclosure cases. The plaintiffs can refile but they need to pay new filing fees, Mr. Haworth said. The byzantine mortgage securitization process that helped inflate the housing bubble allowed home loans to change hands so many times before they were eventually pooled and sold to investors that it is now extremely difficult to track exactly which lenders have claims to a home. Many lenders or loan servicers that begin the foreclosure process after a borrower defaults do not produce documentation proving that they have the legal right to foreclosure, known as standing. As a substitute, the banks usually present affidavits attesting to ownership of the note signed by an employee of a legal services firm acting as an agent for the lender or loan servicer. Such affidavits allow foreclosures to proceed, but because they are often dubiously prepared, many questions have arisen about their validity. Although lawyers for troubled borrowers have contended for years that banks in many cases have not properly documented their rights to foreclose, the issue erupted in mid-September when GMAC said it was halting foreclosure proceedings in 23 states because of problems with its legal practices. The move by GMAC followed testimony by an employee who signed affidavits for the lender; he said that he executed 400 of them each day without reading them or verifying that the information in them was correct. JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America followed with similar announcements. But these three large lenders are not the only companies employing people who have failed to verify crucial aspects of a foreclosure case, court documents show. Last May, Herman John Kennerty, a loan administration manager in the default document group of Wells Fargo Mortgage, testified to lawyers representing a troubled borrower that he typically signed 50 to 150 foreclosure documents a day. In that case, in King County Superior Court in Seattle, he also stated that he did not independently verify the information to which he was attesting. Wells Fargo did not respond to requests for comment. In other cases, judges are finding that banks’ claims of standing in a foreclosure case can conflict with other evidence. Last Thursday, Paul F. Isaacs, a judge in Bourbon County Circuit Court in Kentucky, reversed a ruling he had made in August giving Bank of New York Mellon the right to foreclose on a couple’s home. According to court filings, Mr. Isaacs had relied on the bank’s documentation that it said showed it held the note underlying the property in a trust. But after the borrowers supplied evidence indicating that the note may in fact reside in a different trust, the judge reversed himself. The court will revisit the matter soon. Bank of New York said it was reviewing the ruling and could not comment. Another problematic case involves a foreclosure action taken by Deutsche Bank against a borrower in the Bronx in New York. The bank says it has the right to foreclose because the mortgage was assigned to it on Oct. 15, 2009. But according to court filings made by David B. Shaev, a lawyer at Shaev & Fleischman who represents the borrower, the assignment to Deutsche Bank is riddled with problems. First, the company that Deutsche said had assigned it the mortgage, the Sand Canyon Corporation, no longer had any rights to the underlying property when the transfer was supposed to have occurred. Additional questions have arisen over the signature verifying an assignment of the mortgage. Court documents show that Tywanna Thomas, assistant vice president of American Home Mortgage Servicing, assigned the mortgage from Sand Canyon to Deutsche Bank in October 2009. On assignments of mortgages in other cases, Ms. Thomas’s signatures differ so wildly that it appears that three people signed the documents using Ms. Thomas’s name. Given the differences in the signatures, Mr. Shaev filed court papers last July contending that the assignment is a sham, “prepared to create an appearance of a creditor as a real party in interest/standing, when in fact it is likely that the chain of title required in these matters was not performed, lost or both.” Mr. Shaev also asked the judge overseeing the case, Shelley C. Chapman, to order Ms. Thomas to appear to answer questions the lawyer has raised. John Gallagher, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank, which is trustee for the securitization that holds the note in this case, said companies servicing mortgage loans engaged the law firms that oversee foreclosure proceedings. “Loan servicers are obligated to adhere to all legal requirements,” he said, “and Deutsche Bank, as trustee, has consistently informed servicers that they are required to execute these actions in a proper and timely manner.” Reached by phone on Saturday, Ms. Thomas declined to comment. The United States Trustee, a unit of the Justice Department, is also weighing in on dubious court documents filed by lenders. Last January, it supported a request by Silvia Nuer, a borrower in foreclosure in the Bronx, for sanctions against JPMorgan Chase. In testimony, a lawyer for Chase conceded that a law firm that had previously represented the bank, the Steven J. Baum firm of Buffalo, had filed inaccurate documents as it sought to take over the property from Ms. Nuer. The Chase lawyer told a judge last January that his predecessors had combed through the chain of title on the property and could not find a proper assignment. The firm found “something didn’t happen that needed to be fixed,” he explained, and then, according to court documents, it prepared inaccurate documents to fill in the gaps. The Baum firm did not return calls to comment. A lawyer for the United States Trustee said that the Nuer case “does not represent an isolated example of misconduct by Chase in the Southern District of New York.” Chase declined to comment. “The servicers have it in their control to get the right documents and do this properly, but it is so much cheaper to run it through a foreclosure mill,” said Linda M. Tirelli, a lawyer in White Plains who represents Ms. Nuer in the case against Chase. “This is not about getting a free house for my client. It’s about a level playing field. If I submitted false documents like this to the court, I’d have my license handed to me.”

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Slowing the Runaway Foreclosure Train By Barry Ritholtz on 4 October 2010 for CNBC -

(http://www.cnbc.com//id/39506421)

“Defective documentation has created millions of blighted titles that will plague the nation for the next decade"... Richard Kessler, an attorney in Sarasota, Florida, who conducted a study that found errors in about three-fourths of court filings related to home repossessions. The out of control foreclosure machinery has officially been brought into the shop for repairs.

The real estate financing industry appears to have brought the same technical expertise that allowed automated underwriting of mortgages to an automated foreclosure process: Structurally flawed, rife with errors, guaranteed to fail — and in need if an immediate overhaul. As we have seen, homeowners without mortgages have lost their home to foreclosure. That this legal impossibility actually occurred reveals the foreclosure process, especially in Florida (but other states as well) as little more than a legal conveyor belt, bereft of oversight, manned by parasitic law firms and overwhelmed bankers. This more than merely “flawed paperwork” — the entire process is problematic. It has reached such depths that numerous banks have voluntarily stopped foreclosures while they review their internal processes, and the methods used by local law firms they hire. Called Foreclosure mills, many of these firms employ illegal methods to their legal practices. They use robo-signers instead of reviewing documents reviewed by lawyers; they hire process servers with histories of fraud and criminality. In the pursuit of foreclosure profits, they have tried to turn the practice of law into a clerical act of foreclosure, repossession, and resale — consequences be damned.

It is like Lucy on the chocolate factory line, only with homes being repossessed instead of bon bons on a conveyor belt slipping by unwrapped.

We have continually argued all of the HAMP and foreclosure abatement programs are ultimately counter-productive, and benefit the banks, not the home owners. I have called for allowing the process to proceed naturally, letting prices fall to where they will. Further, We have never opposed the foreclosure process as a price discovery mechanism. But what is going on in Florida and elsewhere is a national embarrassment. What is required here is a full blown investigation from the US Attorney’s office. See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Kunstler - To the Vanishing Point 10/4/10 .

To the Vanishing Point

SUBHEAD: Someday somebody with a badge is going to demand a look inside the bank vaults and examine the paper they are hiding. Image above: View of suburbia along I-5 heading north from Seattle. From GoogleEarth. [Editor's note: A significant element of Kunstler's blog today alludes to the problem bankers face with only having partial or no clear title to properties they are foreclosing on, (this is due to multiple and partial mortgages packaged and resold as investment instruments by speculative banksters). The titles of many homes heading to foreclosure have been diced and tossed like a salad and may never be sorted out again. This will act as momentum to some massive financial failures ahead.] By James Kunstler on 4 October 2010 for Kunstler.com - (http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/10/posting-a-little-late-this-morning.html) Last evening at twilight I was driving my rent-a-car up Interstate Five north of Seattle with a vivid testicular fear of being trapped in the very metaphor of a failing society racing into a dark future. All around me loomed the monuments of an out-of-control financial credit Moloch - the tilt-up chain store boxes with their giant logos glowing against the distant craggy peaks of the Cascades (many of them active volcanoes which, like Mt. Saint Helens, might blow their tops any day). At every compass point sprawled the McHousing pods of American dream mortgage time-bombs silently blowing families to financial smithereens, and banks with them, including, incidentally last Friday, the state of Washington's own Shoreline Bank just off I-5 north of Seattle, seized by the FDIC. My way was lighted, as darkness finally stole in, by the endlessly replicated dispensaries of fast food-dom (pizza-burgers-chicken-fries-and-shakes) provoking this nation of overfed clowns to ever-greater feats of gluttony, medical catastrophe, and bankruptcy. And, of course, these were my fellow-travelers in the perpetual stream of cars plying this great thoroughfare of the tragic western littoral, burning up gasoline that had traveled all the way from the sands of Abqaiq or from some sweltering platform off the Niger Delta, where dangerous, angry, armed men in Zodiac boats plot mayhem nearby among the mangrove thickets. Not to mention the row-upon-row of idle cars parked in the lagoons surrounding the countless malls and strip-malls and auto dealerships that flanked I-5 for fifty miles north of Seattle. Cars, cars, cars, as far as the eye could see where the sodium-vapor lamps cut through the crepuscular murk. Sasquatch was a no-show. But Sasquatch don't drive.

This was the week when the US housing fiasco got even more extra-special interesting as the Bank of America suspended mortgage foreclosures in twenty-three states, and the Connecticut Attorney General (Richard Blumenthal, who is running for Chris Dodd's senate seat) declared a 60-day moratorium on foreclosures (a political ploy do ya think?). Also of interest, Ally Financial suspended foreclosures in twenty-three states - and note, by the way, that Ally is the mutant offspring of the bailed-out General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), which also spawned the infamous DiTech Mortgage finance company (remember those non-stop TV commercials a few years back) which specialized in jumbo NINJA loans (No Income No Job or Assets). A conspiracy theorist would be in nirvana with all this, but it was just plain vanilla fraud in a time when fraud was over-taking apple pie and Mom as the defining quality of our national character.

The net effect of all this is that the real estate industry in America just got a whole lot more desperate on Friday. What's with suspending all these foreclosures? Generally it's about the slovenly (and possibly felonious) paperwork associated with so many home loans doled out in the recent bubble years, above and beyond, you understand, the complete absence of due diligence in evaluating borrowers - but that aspect has been so well known for so long, and so blatantly ignored by the legal authorities that it has merely entered the realm of humorous American folklore like Br'er Rabbit and the Chickens - too quaint to prosecute.

This new subplot concerning the paperwork itself, however, complicates things more than anyone expected, and real suddenly. So eager were the originators to pump-and-dump mortgages - to write up loans and immediately re-sell them to the chumps at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and elsewhere - that they got ludicrously sloppy. Instead of mortgage applicatons being signed by notaries, the lenders just set up signature boiler rooms where unauthorized factotums signed them by the forklift-load without anyone so much as glancing at the pages within. Whoops....

Enter the lawyers for the foreclosees. Their mission: to either assist their clients in evading foreclosure, or at least stalling the process indefinitely, allowing said clients to occupy a property as a sort of court-sanctioned squatter possibly forever. For one thing, it's probably cheaper to pay a lawyer a couple of thousand bucks to roll his hoop through the courts for a year than to actually fork over a $4,500 mortgage nut each month on an under-water five BR four bath vinyl-and-chipboard contemporary - with the possible bonus outcome of the house's title becoming so hopelessly lost and unproduceable that two generations of title insurance investigators will squander their whole working lifetimes in fruitless searching... and by then, perhaps, the whole sordid, messy business will be forgotten, like an old forgotten patent suit filed decades ago by lawyers for a poor swindled nearsighted engineer, who has been pushing up daisies now in a lonely Michigan bone orchard since Alan Greenspan blew his last clarinet lick at the Five Spot.

The title insurance business will take a dim view of these monkeyshines, you may be sure, but by then they will be out of business, too. And then won't it be fun imagining some future when every attempt to transfer property is just a shot in the dark... or else property won't be transferred at all, at least not legally. It seems we're developing a whole new and interesting relationship with the rule of law in this country. Increasingly, it's become optional. And what you finally get when you opt for that is a lawless society where people simply grab what they want via the barrel of a gun and smash whatever gets in their way. Our nostalgia for the Wild West may suffer as this occurs and no one is able to live a settled secure life anymore in the USA.

This new anarchy in the troubled housing / mortgage nexus comes at a very interesting time, too: just when the public is about to elect a new national legislature full of characters with a very squishy idea of the rule of law. Many of them conflate it with the theocratic rule of Jesus. Maybe Baptist ministers and snake handlers will start showing up in the probate courts to sort these matters out. America is increasingly looking like the saloon in one of the earlier installments of Star Wars, where the most improbable creatures mingle and frequently bust up the place for no apparent reason other than they felt like it.

Coming back to Earth though, one can only see more Big Trouble ahead for the Big Banks in all this mortgage hugger-mugger, and of course the country as a whole. Sooner or later, somebody with a badge is going to demand to look inside their vaults and examine the paper they are hiding in there. And when that day comes, the truth will be revealed about the greatest self-swindling of any nation in the long, groaning history of the world. Nobody among the community of other nations will want to do anymore business with us - including the sale of any oil, and won't that be a funky day? .

A Terrible Dependency of Mind

SUBHEAD: There are no political solutions to the collapsing system. Turn off the TV set and get to work with neighbors. Image above: Neighbors sandbag 12th Street in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, against flooding in June 2008. From (http://www.redcrossmedia.com/2008-06-11_IowaMR.html). By Kurt Cobb on 3 October 2010 in Resource Insights - (http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2010/10/terrible-dependency-of-mind.html) As I watched snippets of President Obama's town hall-style meetings around the country recently, I was struck by how often questioners demonstrated the mindset that solutions to their problems will come from some central authority, in this case, the federal government. It's not surprising to see this in the modern industrial state. The other central authority would be large, globe-spanning corporations that provide the essentials of modern life including food, fuel, transportation, and a wide array of industrial and consumer goods. They even supply much of the entertainment. I see no easy way for a modern person, especially someone living in an urban setting--as the vast majority of people in the United States do--to avoid such dependencies altogether for now. To disengage from them completely would mean certain death for many if not most. For nearly everyone alive in wealthy countries there has never been a time when we were not faced with extreme dependence on the two most centralizing forces of the modern era, central government and behemoth corporations. So, given the current economic mess it seems natural for people to turn to the twin citadels of central power and demand that they alleviate our suffering. This demand assumes that those running our governments and corporations have the ability and the desire to respond to such suffering. In a world where various occupational niches are disappearing never to return, the extreme specialization which has become the norm in modern labor has doomed many to long-term unemployment. The market no longer needs them because they have the wrong skills or because demand for what they do is very low. And, the promise that the economic downturn will be temporary further enslaves the minds of those already out of work and out of luck. It deals them a second blow of suffering, the second being the false hope that things can return to what passed for normal in, say, 2006. This terrible dependency of mind results in paralysis for some and rage for others. It leads people to believe that someone else can fix what ails them. They assume that they have little power to solve their own problems in ways that don't involve central authorities. And now, like children throwing tantrums to punish their parents, America's voters appear ready to throw out the current governing party because of its inability to resolve their suffering. They do not recognize that neither party can now steer a corrupt and bankrupt central government toward solutions to our difficulties. In part that's because the government has become the lapdog of self-serving corporate managers who take no responsibility for our current predicament and therefore see little role for themselves in addressing it. Those who have labored now for years in the relocalization movement generally recognize this dependence of mind and attempt to fight it. They fight it not merely with mental exercises, but, more importantly, with action that leads to a degree of self-sufficiency and a healthy mutuality among neighbors, friends and other community members. In America there has always been the necessary cultural framework for this. And, we have not forgotten how to do it. But we have forgotten that we know how to do it. It is one of the main tasks of the peak oil and sustainability movements to reawaken that knowledge. Once reawakened a person faced with such scenes as we saw on television in these town hall meetings will understand the pain. But that person will seek to alleviate it by turning off the TV set and getting down to work alongside fellow community members. .

Steady State Agriculture

SUBHEAD: Factory-farm agriculture is a major climate destabilizer. We need food and agriculture in a steady state economy. Image above: Inside a typical pig farm production factory. Very unsustainable farming. From (http://animalblawg.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/ohio-issue-2-aftermath). By Brent Blackwelder on 3 October 2010 in SteadyState.org - (http://steadystate.org/food-and-agriculture-in-a-steady-state-economy)

The annual book festival of the Library of Congress just featured Jonathan Safran Foer who spoke about his book Eating Animals. He writes about his grandmother who survived World War II on the run from the Germans, scavenging from garbage cans and always on the verge of starvation. However, she refused to eat a piece of pork given her by a kindly farmer because “if nothing matters, nothing is worth saving.”

This fall (what better time than harvest season?), I will focus my Daly News essays on the ethics and policies that would characterize food production in a steady state economy. These essays will offer answers to questions such as: What would people eat and how would it be grown? Would almost everyone be a vegetarian or vegan? Would genetically engineered food play a big role? What about farm subsidies and the role of biofuels? How many of the current agricultural practices in the United States would even continue as part of a steady state economy?

Since sustainable scale is the most important feature of a steady state economy (i.e., the economy must fit within the capacity of the ecosystems that contain it), the first issue to investigate is how environmental systems are responding to agricultural practices – in particular, the effects of agricultural practices on climate. There is growing evidence that animal agriculture is the number one cause of global climate destabilization, contributing more than all global transport put together. Former World Bank ecologist Robert Goodland has produced an analysis showing that at least half of the human-caused greenhouse gases come from the production of domesticated animals. Livestock and their byproducts account for over 32.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, or roughly 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse gases (see Worldwatch Nov./Dec. 2009).

Here is the unsettling irony: factory-farm dominated agriculture, as a major climate destabilizer, is creating long-term weather changes that compromise the ability of the earth to produce food.

Plant ecologists estimate that for every 1 degree Celsius temperature increase, grain yields drop 10%. Climate disruption has led to serious melting of snowpacks and glaciers in most places. In the Western U.S. where snowpacks store about 75% of the water supply, the Natural Resources Defense Council reports that climate change could reduce this to 40% by 2060. Similar concerns exist for the great Asian rivers like the Ganges and the Mekong that originate in the Tibetan plateau.

These impacts are not being imposed on a planet whose soils and grasslands are in wonderful condition and whose groundwater has been safeguarded and not pumped beyond recharge. These impacts are not being imposed on a planet whose human population has stabilized but rather is likely to reach 9-11 billion by 2050.

In contrast to this grim picture of the agricultural capacity of the planet, many encouraging trends in food production are emerging. Examples include growth of organic food consumption, expansion of farmers markets, the local food movement, the slow food movement, the food-miles movement, and initiatives to get healthy food into schools – all of which are heading in promising directions.

A steady state economy would bolster these trends. It would move away from control of food by transnational corporations and toward an increased number and diversity of small and medium-sized farms, and healthy rural communities. Revamped agricultural systems would provide many varieties of food in ways that conserve soil and water and maintain long-term fertility of the land.

These promising developments are taking place not because of, but in spite of, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has for the most part been a giant promoter of animal slum operations and presider over the demise of the family farm.

Over 10 million animals are slaughtered for food each year in the U.S. in factory slum operations that produce over 95% of the nation’s meat. It is abundantly clear that meat-dominated megafarm agriculture is not sustainable (even from the climate/energy standpoint alone), and it could not be part of the food system in a steady state economy.

A steady state economy would not feature perverse subsidies as a cornerstone of the economy. Yet in the U.S. a curious mathematical formula governs the dispensing of subsidies: the more environmentally damaging and harmful to public health the practice or project, the larger the state and federal handouts.

Thus, industrial agriculture enjoys all sorts of subsidies from the Farm Bill. Its extensive use of energy-intensive pesticides and fertilizers is supported by the numerous subsidies the fossil fuel industry receives. Gigantic animal factory slums not only get subsidized, but they externalize their environmental and health costs onto their neighbors and the public. Time magazine documented the competition among states to see who could dole out the most tax money to lure one of these animal slum operations into their state. In contrast, the encouraging trends in agriculture that I cited receive very little governmental support.

Note: CASSE also has a briefing paper on the topic of agriculture in a steady state economy.

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Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck

SUBHEAD: "Right Wing Radio Duck" is a loving tribute to Disney's animation parodying the deceitful and sinister message of Glenn Beck. Image above: Still from title of YouTube video "Right wing Radio Duck". By Jonathan McIntosh on 2 October 2010 on YouTube - (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfuwNU0jsk0) This is a re-imagined Donald Duck cartoon remix constructed using dozens of classic Walt Disney cartoons from the 1930s to 1960s. Donald's life is turned upside-down by the current economic crisis and he finds himself unemployed and falling behind on his house payments. As his frustration turns into despair Donald discovers a seemingly sympathetic voice coming from his radio named Glenn Beck. • English captions are now working in case you're not fluent in duck-speak This transformative remix work constitutes a fair-use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. "Right Wing Radio Duck" by Jonathan McIntosh is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License - permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. • Please link back to my website: http://www.rebelliouspixels.com • Learn about fair-use at the Center for Social Media: http://centerforsocialmedia.org • Learn about transformative works at the OTW: http://transformativeworks.org • Useful Media Matters archive of Glenn Beck clips: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/ Video above: "Right Wing Radio Duck" cartoon by Jonathan McIntosh. From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfuwNU0jsk0). .

Al Qaeda on Climate Change

SUBHEAD: Even Osama Bin Laden has a clue as to the suffering caused by Climate Change. Case in point Pakistan flooding.

Image above: A Pakistani woman awaits rescue after home was destroyed in August. From (http://www.news.com.au/world/pakistans-flood-death-toll-passes-1300-as-us-sends-aid/story-e6frfkyi-1225899784012). By Daniel Kessler on 2 October 2010 for TreeHugger -

(http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/bin-laden-floods-climate.php) Even a guy in a cave can tell that climate change is happening now and that it is having horrible effects. In this case, the guy in a cave is Osama Bin Laden, who in his latest sound recording has lamented the effects of climate change to the planet (Reuters 10/01/10), including how a worsening climate is caused the floods in Pakistan, where Bin Laden is believed to be hiding. The tape is authentic, according to the the watchdog group SiteIntelGroup.com:

"The number of victims caused by climate change is very big" -- "bigger than the victims of wars. The huge climate change is affecting our nation and is causing great catastrophes throughout the Islamic world."

He goes on to that he "calls for generous souls and brave men to take serious and prompt action to provide relief for their Muslim brothers in Pakistan."

Bin Laden has commented on global warming in the past, putting much of the blame at the feet of President George W. Bush for failing to institute policies to reign in greenhouse gases. Of course, Bin Laden endorsed John Kerry for President in 2004, which probably hurt Kerry, who is committed to climate action. In the previous tape, Bin Laden, speaking about Kyoto, said:

"However, George Bush junior, preceded by Congress, dismissed the agreement to placate giant corporations."

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Diana LaBedz - Position Paper

SOURCE: Karin Medigovich (karinmedigo@gmail.com) SUBHEAD: Diana LeBedz, Kauai candidate for Mayor, takes a stand on important local issues. Image above: Diana LaBedz. From (http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_8a582c44-c3da-11df-9496-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=image&photo=2) By Karin Mediggovitch on 3 October 2010 for Diana4Mayor - Diana LaBedz is running for Mayor of Kauai on the Democratic ticket. The following are Diana's basic positions on Kauai issues. For more detailed information on each subject, go to Diana Labedz for Mayor (http://diana4mayor.wiki.zoho.com/) Diana’s position on: GMO: Diana will be promoting small family farms and organic agriculture. Chemical, mono crop, genetically modified organism, agriculture have negative effects on soil, air, pollinators and human health. General Plan: The need to follow the General Zoning Plan. "Rebuild, Renovate and Restore" Cannabis Laws: Diana Advocates for the growing of hemp and the decriminalization of the use of Marijuana. This issue is also about liberty and the sovereign right of each of us to make personal choices -- Education: Education: Our immediate need to address and improve the Kauai educational system. Water: Diana will ask for a volunteer ban on the use of bottled water and instituting a Maximum Reduce, Re-Use, Re-cycle system. Plastic bottles are toxic to our bodies and the environment. County Manager: Diana supports establishing a county manager system. Land/Culture Protection: The need to protect Hawaiian lands and the Hawaiian Culture. Kekaha Shrimp Farm: Demanding that the proposed Kekaha shrimp farm have a zero ocean discharge. Larson’s Beach: Diana supports continued open access to Larsen's Beach. Bus System: Increase the bus system to Sunday and week nights till 10:00 PM County Parks: Keep the county parks open at night. Diana LaBedz, running for Mayor of Kauai on the Democratic ticket, has been a leader in environmental issues both in Hawai‘i and on the Mainland. She is a founding member of various groups, including the Kaua‘i Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, The ECO-Roundtable, and the Vegetarian Society of Hawai‘i (Kaua‘i chapter). Diana, working with other environmental leaders, newly formed Kauai Whale Ohana, with the intention of protecting Humpback Whales in Hawai'ian waters. The Hawai'ian Humpback Whale Sanctuary has never included all areas used by whales, nor has the sanctuary itself been set up to enact any rules or regulations designed to protect whales. She also produced and hosted a weekly environmental TV show in Southern California as well as an environmental radio show, “Kaua‘i’s Earth Connection,” on KKCR. Environmentalist and Kekaha resident Diana LaBedz intends to run without the aid of manufactured campaign signs, which she says are not recyclable and end up in the landfill at campaign’s end. See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Diana LaBedz for Mayor 9/5/10 Ea O Ka Aina: LaBedz running for Mayor 7/16/10 .

Impending Collapse of Israel

SUBHEAD: The Palestinians are advised to sign nothing with Israel and wait for Zionism to collapse.

By Francis Boyle on 2 October 2010 for Dissident Voice -
(http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/10/the-impending-collapse-of-israel-in-palestine/#more-22728)

Image above: Phoenix rising is part of a Palestinian mural on Israeli security wall. From (http://osieonline.com/Home_Page.html).

[IB Editor's note: Prof. Francis Boyle has been a lawyer representing the Palestinians at the Hague (World Court) as well as an advisor to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. See Island Breath:Francis Boyle on Kauai 12/28/04)]

On November 15, 1988 the Palestine National Council (P.N.C.) meeting in Algiers proclaimed the Palestinian Declaration of Independence that created the independent state of Palestine. Today the State of Palestine is bilaterally recognized de jure by about 130 states.

Palestine has de facto diplomatic recognition from most of Europe. It was only massive political pressure applied by the U.S. government that prevented European states from according to Palestine de jure diplomatic recognition. Palestine is a member state of the League of Arab States and of the Islamic Conference Organization. When the International Court of Justice in The Hague—the so-called World Court of the United Nations System—conducted its legal proceedings on Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank, the World Court invited the State of Palestine to participate in the proceedings. In other words, the International Court of Justice recognized the State of Palestine. Palestine has Observer State Status with the United Nations Organization, and basically all the rights of a U.N. Member State except the right to vote.

Effectively, Palestine has de facto U.N. Membership. The only thing keeping Palestine from de jure U.N. Membership is the implicit threat of a veto at the U.N. Security Council by the United States, which is clearly illegal. Someday Palestine shall be a full-fledged U.N. Member State. From a world-order perspective, the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence created a remarkable opportunity for peace with Israel because therein the P.N.C. explicitly accepted the U.N. General Assembly’s Partition Resolution 181(II) of 1947 that called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the Mandate for Palestine, together with an international trusteeship for the City of Jerusalem, in order to resolve their basic conflict:

 Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty and national independence.

The significance of the P.N.C.’s acceptance of the Partition Resolution in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence itself could not be over-emphasized. Prior thereto, from the perspective of the Palestinian People the Partition Resolution had been deemed to be a criminal act that was perpetrated upon them by the United Nations Organization in gross violation of their fundamental right to self-determination as recognized by the United Nations Charter and general principles of public international law. The acceptance of the Partition Resolution in their actual Declaration of Independence signaled the genuine desire by the Palestinian People to transcend the past century of bitter conflict with the Jewish People living illegally in their midst in order to reach an historic accommodation with them on the basis of a two-state solution.

The very fact that this acceptance of Partition Resolution 181 was set forth in their Declaration of Independence indicated the degree of sincerity with which the Palestinian People accepted Israel. The Declaration of Independence was the foundational document for the State of Palestine. It was intended to be determinative, definitive, and irreversible. As the P.N.C. well knew at the time, their Declaration of Independence was not something that could be amended or bargained away. Nonetheless, the Palestinians have now fruitlessly spent the past twenty-two years trying to negotiate in good faith with Israel over the two-state solution set forth in Resolution 181. They have gotten absolutely nowhere. Israel has never demonstrated one iota of good faith when it came to negotiating a comprehensive Middle Peace settlement with the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution.

Even the 1993 Oslo Agreement was nothing more than an Israeli-drafted interim Bantustan arrangement for five years that was rejected in Washington, D.C. by the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations for that precise reason. Both Israel and the United States now want to make the Oslo Bantustan permanent and, incidental thereto, destroy the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as required by U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948 and general principles of public international law. In this regard, shortly before he died on September 24, 2007, I called up the former Head of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations, Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi at his home in Gaza in order to review the entire situation with him. According to Dr. Haidar:

“The Zionists have not changed their objectives since the Basel Conference of 1897!” 

In other words, the Zionists want a “Greater” Israel on all of the Mandate for Palestine together with as much ethnic cleansing of Palestinians out of Palestine that the Zionists believe they can get away with internationally. After twenty-two years of getting nowhere but further screwed to Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank and strangulated in Gaza, it is now time for the Palestinians to adopt a new strategy, which I most respectfully recommend here for them to consider: Sign nothing and let Israel collapse!

Recently it was reported that the United States’ own Central Intelligence Agency predicted the collapse of Israel within twenty years. My most respectful advice to the Palestinians is to let Israel so collapse! For the Palestinians to sign any type of comprehensive peace treaty with Israel would only shore up, consolidate, and guarantee the existence of Zionism and Zionists in Palestine forever. Why would the Palestinians want to do that? Without approval by the Palestinians in writing, Zionism and Israel in Palestine will collapse.

So the Palestinians must not sign any Middle East Peace Treaty with Israel, but rather must keep the pressure on Israel for the collapse of Zionism over the next two decades as predicted by the Central Intelligence Agency. The correct historical analogue here is not apartheid South Africa, but instead the genocidal Yugoslavia that collapsed as a State, lost its U.N. Membership, and no longer exists as a State for that very reason. All the demographic forces are in favor of the Palestinians and against the Zionists.

The United States government is tired of its blank-check support for Israel because this policy seriously undermines and conflicts with America’s imperial objective to obtain the oil and gas lying beneath Arab and Muslim states by hook or by crook. Israel is ridden with and paralyzed by so many internal contradictions and conflicts that they are too numerous to list here. Indeed, from the very moment of its inception as a direct result of the Zionists’ genocidal al Nakba in 1948, Israel has been the proverbial failed state, and still is so today. Israel would have never come into existence without the support of Western colonial imperial powers throughout the twentieth century. And the same is true today.

Without the political, economic, diplomatic, and military support provided primarily by the United States, and to a lesser extent by Britain, France, and Germany, Israel would immediately collapse. The international Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (B.D.S.) against Israel is quickly whittling away Israel’s domestic support in those countries. Israel’s own serial barbarous atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinians and the Lebanese have revealed the true face of Zionism for the entire world to see: genocide.

In fact, Israel has never been a State but just an Army masquerading as a State — a Potemkin Village of a State. Israel is the archetypal Great Band of Robbers described by St. Augustine in Book 4, Chapter 4 of The City of God: Kingdoms without justice are similar to robber barons. And so if justice is left out, what are kingdoms except great robber bands? For what are robber bands except little kingdoms? The band also is a group of men governed by the orders of a leader, bound by social compact, and its booty is divided according to a law agreed upon.

If by repeatedly adding desperate men this plague grows to the point where it holds territory and establishes a fixed seat, seizes cites and subdues peoples, then it more conspicuously assumes the name of kingdom, and this name is now openly granted to it, not for any subtraction of cupidity, but by addition of impunity….

All of these political, economic, military, diplomatic, sociological, psychological, and demographic forces are working in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel and the Zionists in Palestine. It will take a few more years for these historical forces to predominate and then to prevail. But the proverbial handwriting is on the wall for the Zionist Enterprise in Palestine for the entire world to see, including and especially the C.I.A. Even large numbers of Zionists living in Israel have already prepared their parachutes, and their exit plans, and their landing zones to go elsewhere in the world.

There is no reason for the Palestinians to give the Zionists a new lease on life in Palestine by signing any sort of peace treaty with Israel. It is obvious that soon Zionism will enter into Trotsky’s “ashcan” of history along with every other nationalistic “ism” that has plagued humankind during the twentieth century: Nazism, Fascism, Francoism, Phalangism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc. The only thing that could save Zionism in Palestine is for the Palestinians to conclude any type of so-called comprehensive Middle East Peace treaty with Israel.

It is for precisely that reason then that the Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse of its own weight over the next two decades. Millions of Palestinians have waited in refugee camps since 1948 in order to return to their homes, that is for 62 years. They can wait a little longer until Israel collapses within 20 years. Otherwise, for the Palestinians to sign a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel means that they will never be able to return to their homes as required by Resolution 194 of 1948. History and demography are on the side of Palestine and the Palestinians against Israel and the Zionists.

But the Palestinians must allow history and demography a little bit more time in order to produce the collapse of Israel and Zionism in Palestine. Twenty years is but the blink of an eye in the millennia-long history of the Palestinian People, who are the original indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. God had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Jews to begin with. A fortiori the United Nations had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Zionists in 1947. In the meantime, the Palestinians must keep up the pressure on Israel, Zionism and the Zionists in Palestine.

The Palestinians have a perfect right under international law to resist an illegal, colonial, genocidal, criminal, military occupation regimé of their lands and of their homes and of their People that goes back to 1948 so long as it is done in a manner consistent with the requirements of international humanitarian law.

Simultaneously, the Palestinians must continue to build their state from the ground up as they have been doing successfully since the first Intifada began in 1987 with its grassroots Unified Leadership of the Intifada. Internationally, the Palestinians must continue their diplomatic and political and legal offensive against Israel. Palestine has gained enormous ground since November 15, 1988 when the P.N.C. proclaimed the independent State of Palestine. Palestine will continue to gain more support internationally over the next two decades, including the accelerating B.D.S. campaign that will delegitimize Israel and Zionism all around the world.

At the same time, Israel will continue its rapid descent into pariah state status along the lines of the genocidal Yugoslavia that collapsed as a state and no longer exists. Israel will meet the same fate as the genocidal Yugoslavia provided the Palestinians do not sign any type of international peace agreement with Israel. When Israel collapses, most Zionists will have already left or will soon leave for other states around the world. The Palestinians will then be able to claim all of the historic Mandate for Palestine as their State, including the entire City of Jerusalem as their Capital. Palestine will then be able to invite all of its refugees to return to their homes pursuant to Resolution 194.

Some Jews will remain in Palestine either voluntarily or involuntarily. Palestine and the Palestinians will treat the remaining Jews fairly. Palestine and the Palestinians will not do to the Jews what Israel, Zionism, and the Zionists have done to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse!

See also:

Ea O Ka Aina: Israel as a Failed State 1/4/09

Ea O Ka Aina: Ironic Reply of Excuse 6/8/10

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US - Iran Relations

SUBHEAD: An interview with Iranian author and political observer Hooman Majd, by Kauai journalist Jon Letman. Image above: Photo portrait of Hooman Majd for Interview magazine. From (http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/hooman-majd-/). By Jon Letman on 1 October 2010 in TruthOut.org - (http://www.truth-out.org/us-iran-relations-age-ayatollah63766) Equally at home in Tehran or New York, Hooman Majd benefits from a background as intricately woven as any Persian carpet. The son of a diplomat under the shah of Iran, Majd attended schools in California, India, Iran, North Africa and England. After the tumultuous 1979 Islamic Revolution, return to Iran for Majd and others like him suddenly became highly unlikely if not impossible. But with reforms and an easing of restrictions on dual-passport holders under former President Mohammad Khatami, Majd returned to Iran for the first time in three decades in 2003. Since then, he has written about Iran full-time for, among others, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, Politico and Salon. His first book, "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran," was widely lauded for its keen insight into Iranian society and the Islamic Republic. Majd has also interpreted for both Khatami and - at the UN (2006-2008) - for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Majd has repeatedly traveled inside Iran since the disputed 2009 Iranian elections, and documents the current state of affairs in his newly published book, "The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge." Jon Letman interviewed Majd for Truthout. He started by asking Majd about the American female hiker who was recently released from Evin Prison in Tehran. Jon Letman: Were you surprised by the announcement that Sarah Shourd would be released? Hooman Majd. (Photo: Ken Browar) Hooman Majd: No, not at all. I anticipated there would be some move before President Ahmadinejad [came] to New York ... I think that, in light of what is going on between Iran and the United States and the West in general - the sanctions, the military threat from Israel and so on - I am sure they would rather not have [the hikers] be the big issue. I think it was a perfect time for them, also with the end of Ramadan the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] pardons all these prisoners every year anyway ... It's a tradition in Islamic society to issue pardons at the end of Ramadan, so this just worked for them very well. I would have been surprised if nothing had happened. JL: So possibly the other two hikers might follow? HM: I don't know. The thing about Iran is there are many political factions and it's not quite the dictatorial, authoritarian state with one person always making every single decision ... Even if President Ahmadinejad would prefer to have all hikers released, there are people who are going to be opposed to that - even conservatives who normally would be on his side on some things - so he doesn't really have the power to do it. This may have been a compromise for him like, "don't push too hard, but we'll let one of them go." If the Supreme Leader ordered them all to be released, they would be released, but the Supreme Leader doesn't play the game the way we might imagine a supreme dictator would. He prefers to listen to different people, different factions, and come to some sort of consensus. In a case like this, I doubt very much that he would even get involved and he would leave it up to the judiciary to give advice ... You never know, but I would imagine that between now and the end of the year, they will try to find an excuse to let the other two hikers go. JL: You have indicated concern about how statements by Ahmadinejad were translated. The frequently-cited comment about "no homosexuality in Iran," the idea of "wiping Israel off the map" and the infamous Holocaust denial have become hallmarks of Ahmadinejad among Americans. Would you say this question of translation is a widespread problem between the US and Iran? HM: Absolutely. Often words are misinterpreted if not mistranslated, and that is a recurring problem in U.S.-Iran relations. On the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad has questioned, if not denied its existence, which is indeed reprehensible, but some take that to mean he is keen on perpetrating another Holocaust, something both he, and more importantly the Supreme Leader, have denied. Americans also tend not to distinguish between political rhetoric and real intentions, which can lead to great misunderstanding. JL: Are there any North American politicians who, you believe, have a good understanding of Iran? HM: I'm not sure there are many, if any at all, who truly understand Iran and Iranians. It's often not their fault, of course, and one of the problems is that Iranian exiles, many of whom are staunch opponents of the Islamic regime, can influence the thinking of Western politicians with their thinking, which is often geared to an agenda not necessarily reflective of reality. Think Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraq question before the invasion in 2003. I'd say that there are, however, some politicians who are more open-minded, and people like John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich come to mind, both of whom I've met and seem far more understanding of the intricacies and complexities involved in Iranian politics. JL: In large measure, American politicians, the media and public sat back in silence, or vocally supported the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Nearly a decade later, many of those one-time supporters now regret their earlier stance or at least express doubts. With sustained calls for increasing pressure and sanctions on Iran, and the frequently repeated mantra "all options are on the table," do you think the American public or Congress would support military force against Iran? HM: It seems that way, based on polls and sentiment around the country. The problem is that Iran has been identified as a dangerous enemy, and the longer the media forwards that proposition - and the media is guilty, just as it was in the Iraq war - then the easier it becomes for Americans to accept that we might just have to resort to military force to remove any Iranian threat. The Israelis, of course, would like to see the U.S. take a stronger stand against Iran, even if it means war, and their thinking has an effect on Congress, certainly, if not on [the] Obama White House. Even liberals, or liberal hawks, have bought into the idea that war might be necessary, and that is discouraging, to say the least. JL: You've said you think it is probably inevitable that relations between the US and Iran will improve and that the current situation will not continue indefinitely. HM: I can't see how it can. I think both countries realize that it is in their interest ultimately to have some form of relationship. I think it is going to take America realizing that, in the region, we are accustomed to having relations with weaker countries and we are very much the superior party that can dictate terms. Iran has resisted that for 30 years. I think Obama is the first president who's acknowledged at least that it's a problem and that we are going to have to probably deal with Iran on the basis of being equal. Even though we all well understand that we're not equal in terms of economy, military might and the like, but Iran is never going to come to the table if it feels like it's coming as a second class citizen. I still think there is an American attitude that is very hard to break which is "We're great. Who wouldn't want to be like us? Who wouldn't want to have the benefits of our largesse, handing out aid and having American companies based in their countries?" and "our culture is great," and all that. It's hard for us to imagine ourselves as not being the greatest country on earth. If you are an [American] politician it's very hard to imagine "now we are going to treat these guys as our equals? That's ridiculous. What have they ever done to deserve that?" We can barely do that with Europeans, let alone what was once a backwards, third world country. I also think the current situation is untenable because nothing that we want to accomplish on a foreign policy front is going to be accomplished without some form of reconciliation with Iran. We're not going to achieve our goals in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the Palestinian territories without some form of understanding with Iran. That doesn't necessarily mean Iran is going to be [our] best friend like Saudi Arabia with the president of Iran at a state dinner at the White House, but there will eventually have to be some form of reconciliation or understanding between the two countries - which I think means that ultimately that will lead to relations and an American embassy reopening and an Iranian embassy in Washington. I think it just has to. JL: What kind of potential exists between the US and Iran if relations improve? HM: Iran is a huge country and much, much more sophisticated than most people imagine ... It certainly has the potential to be at least the way Turkey is to most Americans. Turkey is viewed as a very modern country and a great place to go and visit and yet Islamic as well. Iran is in some ways like that ... with the difference that Iran is probably more influential than Turkey in affairs that are of interest to us. JL: If the US or Israel were to launch either a limited or full-scale attack on Iran, what might we expect in response? HM: It's very difficult to say, and it depends very much on what kind of attack there is on Iran - whether it is simply a bombing run on the nuclear facilities or whether it is designed to inflict serious damage to Iran's military capability as well, in order to mitigate a response, such as taking out Revolutionary Guard bases. I think there's no question that Iran will most probably respond first in the immediate region, in the Persian Gulf, and try to attack U.S. interests there. It doesn't take much to inflict serious damage to shipping, to the economies of small countries such Bahrain and the Emirates, both allies of the U.S., and to generally ensure that the price of oil skyrockets. If Israel is the attacking party rather than the U.S., I think one would see a response by Hezbollah from across the Lebanese border, and maybe from Hamas in Gaza. If it's the U.S. only, I imagine Iran won't want to start a fight with Israel. JL: Do you see a shift in Americans' perception or interest in Iran? HM: It comes and goes. Every time Ahmadinejad says something really obnoxious unfortunately it hurts the cause of getting Americans to understand Iran better and makes us assume the worst ... But I think Americans generally would like to understand. There's a reason why there is so much interest in books and articles on Iran and why the mass media pay so much attention to Iran. I think the more we talk about things like war with Iran, I think Americans want to know. I think a lot of people regret not knowing enough about Iraq when we kind of blindly said as a nation, "well ok, if we need to go to war, we need to go to war," without really thinking what war and the aftermath would mean with this society. There wasn't a lot of information on Iraq except we knew we had a dictator we had been demonizing for years - and rightly so: he was an evil person - but Americans didn't show, on the whole, a lot of interest in knowing what we were getting ourselves into. I think that experience, particularly combined with the experience of Afghanistan, which I think a lot of people think is a lost cause ... I think there's [a feeling] like "wait a second - with all this talk of going to war, with all this talk of threats and sanctions and belligerent rhetoric that comes out of both sides, let's understand what is going on here." I think that's good. .

Green military = starving Hawaii

SUBHEAD: If it's a choice between food for Hawaii or jet fuel for the military? Screw the military!

By Henry Curtis on 1 October 2010 in Disappeared News -
(http://www.disappearednews.com/2010/10/greening-military.html)






Image above: Personnel of first transcontinental flight flown by military on 100% bio-fuel 11/12/08 with mashup by Juan Wilson. From (http://www.altdotenergy.com/2008/11/first-biodiesel-trans-continental-jet-flight).  

At several conferences held this year in Hawai`i the military has detailed its plan to convert from fossil fuel to renewable and alternative energy. The military is teaming up with commercial airlines and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to research and develop alternative fuels.

 A navy jet fighter powered by biofuels was designated the Green Hornet. The current nuclear and biofuel powered fleet will be called the Great Green Fleet. Naval armadas will be called Green Strike Groups. Petroleum is currently used in commercial aviation, commercial marine transport, ground transport, and in Florida and Hawai`i for electricity generation. The federal government accounts for less than 2% of petroleum consumption in the U.S. Virtually all of the federal government’s purchase of petroleum is for the military (92%).

The U.S. military in Hawai`i uses about 128 million gallons of petroleum per year. The fuel is of three principal types: JP8 jet fuel (79 million gallons), F76 marine fuel (42 million gallons) and JP5 jet fuel (7 million gallons). Electricity can be produced from numerous sources including solar, wind and wave. Airplanes and large ships must be powered by petroleum or biofuel. Thus if one wanted to use biofuels, it makes sense to save it for aircraft and ships.

But Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) has proposed using biofuels for electricity generation. HECO is willing to pay a premium, and state regulators have approved paying the premium although the price is confidential. The military will not pay a premium for biofuels. Navy Times (October 16, 2009): Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said that the navy currently uses nuclear power and biofuels for 17% of its energy needs, and this should increase to 50% by 2020. Sarah Bittleman from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak's office stated that Hawaii’s growing conditions are similar to the Gulf States and therefore Hawai`i is considered part of the Southeast.

 The USDA Biofuels Strategic Production Report (June 23, 2010) believes that biofuel crops grown in the Southeast and Hawaii will be soybean, sugar cane, biomass sorghum, perennial grasses, and woody biomass. The Report states that “Hawaii, Florida, Georgia and Texas are the largest consumers of petroleum in the region.” To handle all the new biofuel crops grown in the U.S. the Report states that private entities will have to finance and build 527 biorefineries, at a cost of $168 billion. In June 2010 the military published a request for information (RFI): “The Government seeks to identify responsible potential sources and obtain information regarding possible suppliers of bio-derived alternative fuel for aviation purposes, and potentially for marine diesel, for delivery to various locations in the state of Hawaii.”

The goal of the RFI is to identify ways the Hawai`i military can replace ¼ of its fuel with Hawai`i grown and produced biofuels. The Navy favors fuels that can be used without modifying equipment currently in use. To them, the source of the biofuels is irrelevant. At recent Hawai`i energy, agriculture and biofuel conferences, many speakers spoke of the challenges facing Hawai`i. We do not know what type of fuel will be grown, where it will be grown, by whom, converted to biofuel using what process, where the biorefineries will be located, and how the locally grown and produced biofuel will compete against cheap imports.

In Hawaii we do not know where the labor and water will come from, and how to offset the rising cost of fertilizer. Hamakua farmer Richard Ha has done the math and suggests that the price that bioenergy crops would go for to make reasonably priced biofuel is 7 cents per pound. Food crops would sell for far more and thus be more profitable that bioenergy crops. If somehow there were a switch in the relative value of bioenergy versus food crops, then the issue of “food versus fuel” would pop up. Hawaii Island cattle rancher Alan Gottlieb suggested that land be leased to HECO, and that they hire their own labor to make themselves some biofuel.

 The State of Biofuels The prices are secret, the military and the State don’t agree, everybody wants to move forward, and no one knows what crop, what conversion process, and how it’s all going to be done. .

Military Leading Peak Oil debate

SUBHEAD: It’s not just the US military that will need to transition away from oil. It’s time for some civilian leadership. Image above: Refuelling team on deck of aircraft carrier USS John Stennis in 2000. from (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_000204-N-9383R-001_Aircraft_refueling_operations_aboard_ship.jpg). By Matthew Wild on 1 October 2010 in Peak Generation - (http://peakgeneration.blogspot.com/2010/10/military-reports-leading-charge-in-peak.html) Fueling the Future Force: Preparing the Department of Defense for a Post-Petroleum Environment, published September 27, is the third military consideration of a future of scarce oil published so far this year. It states that 77 per cent of the US Department of Defense’s “massive energy needs” are met by petroleum – but “given projected supply and demand, we cannot assume that oil will remain affordable or that supplies will be available to the United States reliably three decades hence.” To remain as an effective fighting force, the entire US military must transition from oil over the coming 30 years. It’s a notable publication for a couple of reasons – being co-authored by lieutenant colonel (Ret.) John Nagl, who literally wrote the book on US counterinsurgency operations, and for being the second report produced for the American military this year to consider the strategic importance of oil. It also follows on neatly from a German military report that squarely addresses the issue of peak oil. As such, it’s hard not to compare all three military documents. Back in February, the United States Joint Forces Command published The Joint Operating Environment 2010. Written by the military for the military, this was seemingly intended as a discussion document to guide “future force development.” As such, it was concerned with probable “future trends and disruptions” – a variety of geopolitical issues: demographics, globalization, US debt, the global recession, water shortages, food supply, climate change and dwindling oil supply. It projects an image of a chronically unstable world, with the high probability of “revolution or war, including civil war” ripping through the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa over access to food and water. While it puts oil on the list of dwindling resources, it cannot be called a peak oil report, stating: “The central problem for the coming decade will not be a lack of petroleum reserves, but rather a shortage of drilling platforms, engineers and refining capacity.” But then it continues that despite technological innovations and non-conventional oils, “by 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.” But The Joint Operating Environment’s main concern is not fueling the US military machine so much as funding it:

Another potential effect of an energy crunch could be a prolonged U.S. recession which could lead to deep cuts in defense spending (as happened during the Great Depression). Joint Force commanders could then find their capabilities diminished at the moment they may have to undertake increasingly dangerous missions.

(More about this report here.) Then in late August, a German military report came out that directly targeted peak oil. Sicherheitspolitische Implikationen knapper Ressourcen (or Implications of Resource Scarcity on National Security - translation here) was leaked in Der Speigel, a German weekly with a long and fine track record of creating scandals. It was written by the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a “think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military,” and was still in draft form as it “has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies.” Like The Joint Operating Environment, it envisions an unstable future – except oil is front and centre of this. While not offering a view on the likely timing of peak oil, it states the most severe consequences will come about “15-30 years after the peak has hit.” While “resources have always triggered conflicts, mostly of regional nature,” this will be different – a “global problem, as scarcity (mainly of crude oil) will affect everybody.” Probable geopolitical shifts will include a move away from democracy and human rights, and the decline of free market mechanisms in favour of “protectionism, exchange deals, and political alliances between suppliers and customers.” There will be an overall reduction in the standards of living across the globe, but it will be felt worse in countries “that are a) highly dependent on imports and b) are susceptible to price-increases of food products, particularly affecting Africa, parts of Asia and Latin America, and the Middle East.” Meanwhile, Western nations face “systematic risks”:

In addition to the gradual risks, there might be risks of non-linear events, where a reduction of economic output based on Peak Oil might affect market-driven economies in a way that they stop functioning altogether, leaving the possibility of a relatively steady downward trajectory. Investment will decline and debt service will be challenged, leading to a crash in financial markets, accompanied by a loss of trust in currencies and a break-up of value and supply chains – because trade is no longer possible. This would in turn lead to the collapse of economies, mass unemployment, government defaults and infrastructure breakdowns, ultimately followed by famines and total system collapse.

(More here.)

The latest military report, Fueling the Future Force, was published Sept. 27 by Washington, DC “national security and defence” think tank, Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Although it was not written by the military, CNAS has big-time political connections, with several former employees being picked for key posts by the Obama administration. Indeed, a June 2009 Washington Post opinion piece, The 'it' think tank: when CNAS talks, people listen, stated that “In the era of Obama...the Center for a New American Security may emerge as Washington's go-to think tank on military affairs.”

If nothing else, the fact that the report was co-written by Dr. John Nagl (along with Christine Parthemore) guarantees it a reading in both political and military circles. A 2008 Washington Post report, High-Profile Officer Nagl to Leave Army, Join Think Tank, introduces him as “one of the Army's most prominent younger officers, whose writings have influenced the conduct of the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq.” It continues: “Lt. Col. John Nagl, 41, is a co-author of the Army's new manual on counterinsurgency operations, which has been used heavily by U.S. forces carrying out the strategy of moving off big bases, living among the population and making the protection of civilians their top priority.” Fueling the Future Force is written with an understanding of frontline operations, and that these are fuel intensive. But it constantly repeats that the military must find a way to transition from a dependence on petroleum within 30 years. This is how the report begins:

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) must prepare now to transition smoothly to a future in which it does not depend on petroleum. This is no small task: up to 77 percent of DOD’s massive energy needs – and most of the aircraft, ground vehicles, ships and weapons systems that DOD is purchasing today – depend on petroleum for fuel. Yet, while many of today’s weapons and transportation systems are unlikely to change dramatically or be replaced for decades, the petroleum needed to operate DOD assets may not remain affordable, or even reliably available, for the lifespans of these systems. To ready America’s armed forces for tomorrow’s challenges, DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040. This 30-year timeframe reflects market indicators pointing toward both higher demand for petroleum and increasing international competition to acquire it. Moreover, the geology and economics of producing petroleum will ensure that the market grows tight long before petroleum reserves are depleted. Some estimates indicate that the current global reserve-to-production (R/P) ratio – how fast the world will produce all currently known recoverable petroleum reserves at the current rate of production – is less than 50 years. Thus, given projected supply and demand, we cannot assume that oil will remain affordable or that supplies will be available to the United States reliably three decades hence.

The report does not contain the term peak oil – the hypothesis that oil production will soon reach its ultimate limit due to geological considerations – but the above is a clear reference to it. The background is all here: increasing demand, geological constraints and resulting supply-and-demand price shocks. Fueling the Future Force has already been perceptively criticized by journalist Mason Inman for focusing on reserves-to-production ratios (R/P ratios) and making misleading claims about biofuels, on the Failing Gracefully blog. While I accept that R/P ratios may indeed be “one of the favorite argumentative tools used by people who do not understand oil production,” being prone to simultaneously overestimate extractable oil and underestimate future demand, using them does at least enable the report authors to replace all those oil depletion charts with a good ole’ map. Seeing the countries of the world coloured different tones is a more immediate visual than bell charts and wavy lines on a graph. Above all it enables the writers to hammer home some stark geopolitical realizations:

Ominously, many major suppliers to the United States could produce their current proved reserves in fairly short time horizon if they continue at the present rate: For example, the R/P ratio for Canada (the top supplier to the United States in 2009, providing more than 20 percent of total oil imports) stands at about 28 years today. For the United States itself, it is 11 years. The only countries with current R/P ratios longer than 75 years are Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

What it’s really saying, then, is pick your allies carefully. Senior military and politicians reading this report will be all too painfully aware that China is building close relationships with Venezuela – expecting to import 1 million barrels a day by 2012, the same as the US does right now – and Iran, and is currently investing heavily in Iraq, with long-term investments throughout Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, the main US oil ally is Canada which, according to R/P thinking, is only good for three decades. . . But forget the wonky R/P math and see the big picture. China is strategizing over the long term while Western leaders are looking at their feet and beginning to mutter about a coming spike in fuel costs.

This is not an attempt to rehabilitate reserves-to-production ratios so much as observe that the authors possibly used them for tactical reasons: to sidestep the entire notion of peak oil – which is tough to explain at the best of times – and deliver a visually strong message (right) about the last remaining oil being in the hands of the bad guys. Even if it does involve the frankly bizarre suggestion that, based on current usage the world would entirely run out of oil in 45.7 years. (Any peak oil writer would get laughed out of town for making that kind of suggestion.)

The authors of Fueling the Future Force are smart enough to know that when you are delivering a message no-one wants to hear you have to choose your battles very carefully – so out goes peak oil. And what it has to say is quite stark: the Department of Defense’s “petroleum dependence” is a “long-term vulnerability.” Basically:

DOD cannot be assured of continued access to the energy it needs at costs it can afford to pay over the long term. Today DOD meets its energy needs primarily through petroleum, which accounts for more than 77 percent of DOD’s total energy use. However, both demand and supply trends are likely to raise the price and perhaps even limit the availability of petroleum.

The military is an intensive petroleum user, accounting for “132.5 million barrels in petroleum sales in fiscal year 2008, totaling nearly 18 billion dollars.” As it currently stands, “every dollar increase in the price of petroleum costs DOD up to 130 million additional dollars.”

I've taken a table from the report, DOD Energy Consumption by Fuel (left), which breaks down US military fuel use. It shows that the military is beginning to use renewable energy and other fuels, but that petroleum is king. I'm sure the percentage figure for petroleum would be much higher if the chart was to focus on operational matters.

It gets worse when you consider that petroleum use is structurally built into the system. “The majority of the vehicles, aircraft and weapons systems that DOD purchases in the near term will be designed to be fueled by petroleum, as are most of DOD’s current assets. Most of these systems will remain in commission for decades before replacements are seriously considered.” And even more technically complex when you consider that half of the military’s petroleum use is aviation fuel, for which no completely renewable alternatives exist. (The airforce is working on a 50/50 alternative fuel blend.) What the US military needs is a direct replacement for gasoline, “drop-in fuels” that can be used in its existing vehicles. Preferably something homegrown, but also universal enough that it can be sourced overseas, and something that its allies also use. With that in mind, Fueling the Future Force turns its attention to biofuels – and becomes downright cornucopian:

There is an array of reliable, renewable fuels that should be considered as alternative supplies to petroleum, including multiple generations of biofuels. Biotechnicians have long proven the technical ability to produce hydrocarbon equivalents to fossil fuels, including the jet fuel blends that DOD requires. Efforts by the National Laboratories, academia and the private sector are focusing on basic science that will enable more efficient use of second-generation biological fuel sources (made from non-food crops) by increasing efficiency in processing plant materials while retaining net energy gains, and by overcoming other technical hurdles. Others are leap-frogging beyond second-generation biofuels to fuels derived from algae. Still other options include displacing petroleum by using electricity or natural gas to power transportation, and using distributed renewable energy at overseas and forward operating bases to displace petroleum in powering generators. It is encouraging that growth in renewable energy supply availability frequently outpaces expectations. Ethanol production grew 164 percent between 2002 and 2006, and biodiesel production expanded from 1 trillion Btu to 32 trillion Btu over the same period.

Fueling the Future Force is quite rightly, if a little indirectly, critical of the so-called first-generation biofuels, created from food crops, which it states increase food prices and, in the case of “corn-based ethanol” may well lead to more greenhouse gas emissions than current fuel sources – a roundabout way of calling it an energy-loser. But the second-generation alternative is not "reliable," as Fueling the Future Force claims, and not all that different from the first attempt at biofuels. Second-generation biofuels may sound ideal, being made from biomass – stems, leaves and husks, various non-food crops, and industry waste such as wood pulp and the residue from fruit pressing – that is fermented into alcohol. But, really, it’s just moonshine. A 2007 Biofuel Watch report seems to sum it up, Second Generation Biofuels: An Unproven Future Technology with Unknown Risks. It reviews the technology as unworkable, and notes it would require an unsustainable level of highly intensive farming that would “put intense pressure on land both for food production and communities, and for natural ecosystems. . . [it] is not close to becoming commercially available, and faces technical barriers which may not be overcome in the foreseeable future.” It’s a tough sell to suggest that the 132.5-million-barrel-a-year US military can maintain its imperial adventures on alcohol made from waste plant products. It’s too good to be true. Frankly the report authors should know better than to make that suggestion, although I suggest it was through desperation rather than inspiration. The German report, Implications of Resource Scarcity on National Security, is far more direct. I get the impression that Fueling the Future Force is written for the Obama administration, as a public way of moving the energy debate forward. It contains the following plea for leadership:

It is important to note that this challenge is not distinct to DOD: Due to relatively (and often artificially) cheap energy and the normalization of consistent and abundant supplies, the country broadly undervalues the true cost of energy and therefore faces few incentives to change its behavior. Change will take time, and it will involve consistent leadership and public education. A culture that recognizes the cost of failing to change the energy status quo will help facilitate DOD’s smooth transition to more sustainable longterm energy use. It will also have ripple effects for the country.

After all, it’s not just the US military that will need to transition away from oil as we lurch towards a decidedly uncertain future. It’s time for some leadership. .