Ambrose Evans- Pritchard
It feels like the summer of 1931. The world’s two biggest financial institutions have had a heart attack. The global currency system is breaking down. The policy doctrines that got us into this mess are bankrupt. No world leader seems able to discern the problem, let alone forge a solution. The International Monetary Fund has abdicated into schizophrenia. It has upgraded its 2008 world forecast from 3.7pc to 4.1pc growth, whilst warning of a “chance of a global recession”. Plainly, the IMF cannot or will not offer any useful insights.
The eurozone is falling into recession before the US itself. Its level of credit stress is worse, if measured by Euribor or the iTraxx bond indexes. Core inflation has fallen over the last year from 1.9pc to 1.8pc. The US may soon tip into a second leg of this crisis as the fiscal package runs out and Americans lose jobs in earnest. US bank credit has contracted for three months. Real US wages fell at almost 10pc (annualised) over May and June. This is a ferocious squeeze for an economy already in the grip of the property and debt crunch. No doubt the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - $5.3 trillion pillars of America’s mortgage market - stinks of moral hazard. The Treasury is to buy shares: the Fed has opened its window yet wider. Risks have been socialised. Any rewards will go to capitalists. More
In a Record Decision issued today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it will make land available for oil and gas leasing in the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska . At the same lease sale, the BLM also plans to offer land in the northwest portion of the. The lands made available for leasing under plans for NPR-A northeast and northwest could result in a much as 8.4 billion barrels of oil being developed. The lands could also provide trillions of cubic feet of natural gas for shipment to North American markets through gas pipelines currently in the planning stages. More
Marine biologists never get tired of warning about the dangers human actions pose to one of the most amazing ecosystems on the planet, the coral reefs. The complex associations of marine organisms (plants, fish) need certain conditions to develop (temperature, water composition, light), and as soon as these conditions change, they become vulnerable to diseases, degradation and eventually death.
A study published on Thursday in the online journal Science Express revealed a troubling fact: one third of the world’s reef-building corals face extinction. Together with them, a large number of marine species could also disappear, as coral reefs are home to over 4,000 species of fish, as well as other organisms (sponges, jellyfish, sea cucumbers etc.) The extinction of coral reefs would trigger devastating effects for marine biology, and if that’s not enough to draw attention on the matter, maybe the fact that it will also trigger serious economic consequences will. More
Bloomberg—Chances are increasing that the U.S. may need to bail out Fannie Mae and the smaller Freddie Mac, former St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole said in an interview. Freddie Mac owed $5.2 billion more than its assets were worth in the first quarter, making it insolvent under fair value accounting rules, he said. The fair value of Fannie Mae’s assets fell 66 percent to $12.2 billion, data provided by the Washington-based company show, and may be negative next quarter, Poole said. “Congress ought to recognize that these firms are insolvent, that it is allowing these firms to continue to exist as bastions of privilege, financed by the taxpayer,” Poole, 71, who left the Fed in March, said in the interview yesterday. More
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp plans to install solar panels on its next-generation Prius hybrid cars, becoming the first major automaker to use solar power for a vehicle, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday. The paper said Toyota would equip solar panels on the roof of the high-end version of the Prius when it redesigns the gasoline-electric hybrid car early next year, and the power generated by the system would be used for the air conditioning. More
Video: To understand just how gloomy the state of the US economy is, watch this Video of The assistant Treasury Secretary, Phillip Swagel, on the US economy. Try as he might, he cannot hide his fear and gloom.
LATimes
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on Wednesday called for regulatory changes that would allow financial firms to fail without threatening broader market stability. The Treasury chief also proposed steps providing for the president to approve of any use of taxpayer funds to aid a financial company. In a speech in London on Wednesday, Paulson identified a legal gap that leaves unspecified how to deal with failures of companies that don’t take deposits, such as investment banks. Paulson’s proposals aim to tighten supervisors’ oversight of lenders and dealers while at the same time discourage companies from depending on a government rescue if their bets go wrong. His speech comes a week before a congressional hearing to debate a regulatory overhaul in the wake of the credit crisis that caused the near-bankruptcy of Bear Stearns Cos. More
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil. More
PENSACOLA, Fla. - Oil companies once viewed drilling in the deep waters off Florida as cost prohibitive. Politicians feared even the slightest sign of support would be career suicide. No more. Record crude oil prices are fueling support for oil and natural gas exploration off the nation’s shores. In Florida, movement was under way even before President Bush called on Congress last month to lift a federal moratorium that’s barred new offshore drilling since 1981. More
Study projects a peak of 117 for Los Angeles and 110 for Atlanta by 2100
…study projects a peak of 117 for Los Angeles and 110 for Atlanta by 2100; that’s 5 degrees higher than the current records for those cities. Kansas City faces the prospect of a 116-degree heat wave, with its current all-time high at 109, according to the National Climactic Data Center. A few cities, such as Phoenix, which once hit 122 degrees and is projected to have heat waves of 120, have already reached these extreme temperatures once or twice. But they would be hitting those numbers a little more often as the world heats up over time. For New York, it would only be a slight jump from the all-time record of 104 at John F. Kennedy Airport to the projected 106. More
Wall Street Journal
The gambling slowdown that began early this year is taking a serious toll on Las Vegas, with banks, investors and private-equity funds growing as tightfisted as the consumers who are gambling less in the slumping economy. Once believed to be recession-proof, casinos are proving to be highly vulnerable to the economic downturn, which is striking the industry at a bad time. Las Vegas is entering its lethargic summer season, and a boom-time frenzy of grand expansion plans and private-equity buyouts has left casinos laden with debt.
Now, Wall Street is treating many gambling companies like a roll of the dice, with debt default or bankruptcy proceedings looming as possibilities for some companies as cash flow shrinks. The industry is facing what insiders and analysts call its biggest challenge in years. Rising gasoline prices, the housing crisis and other economic troubles are prompting consumers not just to gamble less, but to spend less at the luxury boutiques and restaurants where casinos draw most of their profits. Struggling airlines are cutting service to Las Vegas. And pressures are building on casinos that cater to local residents, who have been hard hit by economic troubles. More
Hundreds of truckers staged new protests against high fuel prices across France on Monday, blocking main highways and snarling commuter traffic around Paris. About 100 trucks blocked the A1, the main motorway taking holiday drivers from the Channel and northern Europe to Paris and the south of France in both directions near Lille. Similar blockades were set up on key roads outside of Channel ports. Police said there were huge tailbacks on many roads into Paris as scores more trucks staged a go-slow on a Paris outer ring road to the east and south of the capital. Others were planned for nearly every main highway heading into Paris, the National Transport Operators Federation said.
The trucks moved at about 15 kilometers (10 miles) an hour and the federation protest organisers said the trucks would all converge on the main Paris ring road, one of the busiest in Europe. Similar jams built up around other big cities including Bordeaux on the Atlantic and Nice on the Mediterranean, where the main coastal highway was blocked. More
Bank for International Settlements is one of the world’s most highly regarded economic institutions.
Telegraph.co.uk
The global economy may be heading for a far deeper crisis than is expected and a bout of deflation in the world’s biggest economies is now a possibility, according to one of the world’s most highly regarded economic institutions. The Bank for International Settlements has warned that many in the City and elsewhere may have underestimated the scale of the coming economic downturn in one of its most sombre portraits yet of the international financial system. The Swiss institution - known as the central bankers’ bank - issued the alert in its annual report, released today. The report draws stark comparisons between the current crisis and a variety of others including the Great Depression. Most sobering is the report’s warning that developed economies including the US and Britain could face deflation. More
wtnh.com
Experts say Connecticut residents and other New Englanders struggling to pay summer gas prices will face even more bad news this winter. Home heating oil, which is widely used in homes and businesses throughout the region, is expected to hit record high prices. The National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association says the national average cost to heat a home with oil this winter will be just under $2,600, that’s more than $600 above last year’s price. More
WIRED
Tony Markel drives a plug-in hybrid that runs 50 miles per charge, goes 100 miles per gallon and gets power from the sun. If he has his way, you’ll drive one too before long. His 2006 Prius has a lithium-ion battery six times more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride pack Toyota put in it. But what makes the car really cool is the solar panel on the roof. It generates enough juice to go 5 miles.
Markel is a senior engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He and his colleagues have been experimenting with the car for about a year in a quest to make lithium-ion batteries cheaper and more durable. “Those are the barriers — battery cost and battery life,” he says. “That’s the main thing holding the technology back.” The way he sees it, though, the barriers won’t stand much longer.
Automakers are chipping away at those barriers as well, and the lab hopes its research hastens the day when electricity supplants petroleum in our cars. “The landscape is changing quickly,” he says, with plug-in hybrids and electric cars from General Motors, Toyota and Nissan looming on the horizon as early as 2010. They’re all working with the leading battery makers to perfect the technology, and lab is working with battery maker A123Systems to bring improved thermal management to lithium-ion batteries. More
nytimes
Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years. The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry. More
(Reuters) - The Mississippi River on Friday burst through an earthen levee that may have been weakened by burrowing muskrats, inundating a small Missouri town and adding to woes from disastrous U.S. Midwest flooding that has fueled fears of soaring world food prices. The levee break, the 36th in the last two weeks, sent a torrent of muddy water into Winfield, a town of about 800 north of St. Louis, where officials said about 100 homes and 1,700 acres of crop land would be submerged. Corn prices hit a record at the Chicago Board of Trade in overnight screen trading on Friday at $8.25 per bushel in the July 2009 contract, more than double the 40-year average. Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost to flooding have pushed corn and livestock prices to the record highs. More
CNN — A contract to build what is being called the nation’s first offshore field of wind turbines was announced Monday by a Delaware utility and a firm that will build the generators off the Atlantic coast. Using electricity generated by the wind, “Delmarva Power will be able to light about 50,000 homes a year, every year” for the duration of the 25-year contract, Lanard said, with first power expected by 2012. He said the project may help stabilize consumer energy costs, since the contract locks in the price Delmarva will pay per kilowatt-hour. Bluewater has previously established an offshore “energy park” operating off Denmark. More
Market Oracle
It has been almost ten full months now since the Fed first lowered interest rates. If you remember at first there was a lot excitement over the Fed cuts. The DOW and Nasdaq rallied to new 52-week highs a few weeks after the first rate cut in September. The rally and promise of more Fed intervention for the market made many big name commentators extremely optimistic about the market.
But just a few weeks later the market turned lower and has been stuck in a bear market ever since. The banking problems multiplied and inflation skyrocketed with oil rising almost double in price now from where it was a year ago. The rate cuts tasted good at first, but are no longer palatable. When thinking about the financial markets sometimes it is best to take stock of things before trying to look ahead and decide if you need to make changes to your portfolio or figure out where to look for the best investment opportunities. A lot can be learned about looking at where the market was a year ago and comparing it to today.
A year ago from today the DOW, S&P 500, and Nasdaq were all climbing higher. They had experienced a fast and furious correction that took the S&P 500 down over seven percent in February of 2007. The financial media blamed that quick correction on “credit worries,” a fast drop in the dollar versus the yen, and a huge correction in the Chinese stock market. Rumors also circulated that some billion dollar Bear Stearns hedge funds were in trouble.
Over the next few months as the market went higher everyone thought that all of these problems were gone. Then the financial press started to focus on oil prices that were making new highs and the threat to inflation that they posed. In July the market peaked as talk intensified that the Fed might actually start to raise interest rates by the end of the year. Indeed Fed fund futures a year ago were pricing in rates hikes by the end of 2007.
Fed officials gave repeated speeches and statements that sounded hawkish on interest rates. At the same time though the drop in real estate prices started to pick up and the value in “subprime” mortgage securities went into collapse. Rumors abounded that several large hedge funds were in trouble. The Fed publicly ignored all of this. At its August FOMC meeting they released a more hawkish statement on inflation to prepare the way to raise rates. The market dropped hard that day and James Cramer blasted the Federal Reserve and Ben Bernanke on TV for knowing “nothing.” His statement was one of the most watched moments in financial TV reporting as people watched it millions of times on the Internet. More
Mother Jones
Exxon today has proven the benefits of the endless appeal. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars fighting the $5 billion punitive damage award handed down by an Alaska jury in 1994 for its role in the massive oil spill in Prince William Sound, Exxon today landed a major victory at the Supreme Court. In a 5-3 ruling, with Alito sitting out, the court overturned a lower court decision that had reduced the verdict to $2.5 billion, and sent the case back saying that the punitive damage award was excessive and should not exceed about $500 million, the same as the compensatory damages.
The decision strikes yet another blow against what is essentially the capital punishment of the civil justice system, in a long-running campaign by Exxon and other big companies to try to abolish these sorts of awards entirely. Punitive damages are the extra damages added to a jury verdict to punish especially egregious conduct by a civil defendant. As the former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely once wrote, punitive damage awards aren’t given out for innocent mistakes, but are generally reserved for “really stupid defendants, really mean defendants, and really stupid defendants who could have caused a great deal of harm by their actions but who actually caused minimal harm.” Punitive damages put the real teeth in the legal system, and serve as an ad-hoc form of regulation by standing as a potential deterrent to all sorts of egregious behavior. That, of course, is why business really hates them. More
The US Conference of Mayors on Monday passed a resolution calling for a phasing out of bottled water by municipalities and promoting the importance of public water supplies. The vote comes amid increasing environmental concerns about the use of bottled water because of its use of plastic and energy costs to transport drinking supplies. The mayors, meeting in Miami, approved a resolution proposed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom along with 17 other large-city mayors to redirect taxpayer dollars from bottled water to other city services. “Cities are sending the wrong message about the quality of public water when we spend taxpayer dollars on water in disposable containers from a private corporation,” said Newsom. More
Starting things off with a bang, Chile declared a permanent ban on whaling on the opening day of the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting. The Pacific Ocean-bordering country is playing host to the conference, where tensions are running high. One goal of the conference is to get enough countries to vote affirmatively to create a new whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic Ocean. But this plan might be stymied by the meeting’s own chair person.
In an effort to build consensus, the chair person of the conference urged for there to be little debate and no voting at the meeting this year. The goal is to “pay it forward,” and use any additional good will that is created this year at next year’s meeting with the hope that more can be accomplished. Many environmentalists find the chairman’s plan to be intolerable, as they claim that Japan is using “scientific research” as an excuse to hunt approximately 1,000 whales each year. But Japan isn’t the only country ignoring a 1986 ban on commercial whaling that was agreed upon by the commission.
Norway and Iceland have also started to hunt whales again, providing no excuse. At least Japan makes some effort to disguise its true motives in the name of “science.” They also suggest that hunting whale species that are abundant can be sustainable– which is perhaps a better and more reasonable argument. More
“We’ve seen plenty of promises about water-powered cars (among other things), but it looks like Japan’s Genepax has now made some real progress on that front, with it recently taking the wraps off its Water Energy System fuel cell prototype. The key to that system, it seems, is its membrane electrode assembly (or MEA), which contains a material that’s capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction. Not surprisingly, the company isn’t getting much more specific than that, with it only saying that it’s adopted a “well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA.” Currently, that system costs on the order of ¥2,000,000 (or about $18,700 — not including the car), but company says that if it can get it into mass production that could be cut to ¥500,000 or less (or just under $5,000).”
Spiegel Online
According to media reports, the European Union is planning to implement a phase-out of energy-wasting, climate-killing incandescent lightbulbs, starting next year. They will be replaced by energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs, which last 10 times longer. An energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulb uses one-fifth of the energy required by a conventional incandescent bulb and lasts 10 times longer. It may cost a little more than a traditional lightbulb, but the investment pays for itself many times over. So why the heck do people continue using the antiquated bulbs, with their tungsten filament and quaint contact wires from another era?
That, apparently, is a question which has been occupying the European Commission in Brussels in recent months. According to the Wednesday edition of Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper, the European Commission is preparing a plan for a phase-out of incandescent bulbs that would begin in 2009. The new rules would place progressive bans on bulbs based on the number of watts of electricity they use and their energy efficiency class. The Commission is estimating savings for European consumers of €5 billion to €8 billion ($7.7 billion to $12.4 billion). More
(NaturalNews) Earth’s topsoil is vanishing at such a rapid rate that scientists worry about the future of human food production. “Globally, it’s clear we are eroding soils at a rate much faster than they can form,” said John Reganold, a soils scientist from Washington State University. “It’s hard to get people to pay much attention to this because, frankly, most of us take soil for granted.”
The Earth is covered with an average of only three feet of topsoil, the layer of dirt that provides the nutrients for most of the planet’s land vegetation, and is critical for producing food from agriculture. Healthy topsoil is a home to billions of beneficial microorganisms per handful, in addition to nutrients, fungi and worms that are critical to healthy plant life. But it forms very slowly, at a rate of only an inch or two per several hundred years. And around the world, topsoil is vanishing much faster than it forms. More
Washington, DC — For more then three years, the U.S. Army has hemorrhaged money into an Alaskan housing complex that will likely never be occupied, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). After a damning internal investigation, the Army ordered a new review which excused any misconduct as a failure to communicate, conceding only that “this was not an organization optimally aligned for success.”
Under intense pressure to provide housing at booming Fort Wainwright, in 2005 base officials authorized building 128 units on a 54-acre site, called Taku Gardens but with only cursory environmental assessment. Unfortunately, that site was an old weapons and equipment dump, profoundly contaminated with munitions (some holding chemical agent), dioxin, PCBs, tons of drums and equipment (including an entire locomotive and a forklift). By the time construction was halted, 79 units had been built but will likely have to be torn down. More
John Timmer
Although nuclear power does carry significant baggage in terms of safety and proliferation concerns, a significant barrier to its adoption remains the long-term storage of nuclear waste, some of which will remain a health threat for millions of years. Now, in a Policy Forum published in this week’s Science, two former members of the US Geological Survey argue it’s time to start addressing that issue by opening a long-term storage facility to pilot studies.
The problem the authors address is unlike anything humanity has ever faced. Some of the waste from nuclear plants will retain harmful levels of radioactivity for tens of thousands to millions of years. Beyond basic issues of securing and identifying it in a way that will persist even if our current culture doesn’t, we will also have to encase it in a way that will be stable on geologic time scales. In the US, a proposed solution to the storage problem was to use areas in the desert Southwest where the water table remains hundreds of meters below the surface of geologically consolidated and stable mountains. Read More
Building more nuclear reactors is the worst possible solution to the energy crises. The radioactive waste is toxic for tens of thousands to millions of years and no one knows what to do with it, not to mention the potential hazards of a nuclear meltdown. Read about the Chernobyl disaster here.
(AP) The nation’s nuclear energy industry, all but stagnant for three decades, is quietly building toward a resurgence with more than two dozen new reactors on the drawing board in 15 states. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received applications to build 15 new reactors in eight states. Later this year, plants in seven other states plan to seek permits for a dozen more reactors. The first could be built and operating by 2016. While 104 commercial nuclear reactors remain in operation in the U.S., the NRC has not approved a construction license for a new reactor since 1978. The nuclear revival is far from a done deal, however. Companies still must arrange financing, and will need federal loan guarantees and states’ approval to hike rates to pay for construction if those loans are to be affordable. Read More
Climate change protesters today hijacked a train taking coal to a Yorkshire power station as part of a campaign to close the plant, one of the largest in Europe. Around 20 protesters began shovelling coal out of the trucks after ambushing the train on a bridge over the River Aire. Other members of the group attached lines to the wheels and were hanging off them over the river to prevent the train moving, one of the activists said. The train was stopped with a red flag just short of Drax power station in North Yorkshire, the smoking towers of which loomed in the distance as police gathered at the scene. Most of protesters were dressed in white overalls with hoods and wearing white masks. One was dressed as a yellow bird. More
Rapid Arctic sea ice loss could triple the rate of warming over northern Alaska, Canada and Russia and trigger permafrost thawing that unleashes extremely potent greenhouse gases, according to a new study. “The loss of sea ice can trigger widespread changes that would be felt across the region,” added co-author Andrew Slater, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Arctic sea ice extent shrank to a record low last summer, more than 30 percent below average, while air temperatures over land in the western Arctic were unusually warm from August to October — reaching more than 4 degrees F above average. More
In the past few weeks, Senate offices that never before explored the weeds of climate policy took a very deep dive. The raw numbers bode well for action in the next Congress. But the process itself can’t be overlooked, and we won’t get quick action in 2009 unless senators and members of the House of Representatives continue to dig into the details and figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what it all means for their constituents.
It’s encouraging that the House isn’t waiting: Just this week, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell announced a series of legislative hearings and Rep. Ed Markey introduced a bill that looks to be the most comprehensive proposal yet in the House. More
A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs “Top Five Risks” conference. Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said. “A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he said. More
Polls show that fears over the safety of nuclear plants have receded. In the United States, the presidential candidates are open to nuclear power, though both Democratic aspirants oppose a crucial waste repository the Bush administration wants to build in the Nevada desert. Across much of Europe, governments are reconsidering anti-nuclear policies. India and China have announced plans for vast expansions of their nuclear capacity. Around the world, 14 countries are building nuclear reactors.
In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has begun reviewing nine applications for licenses to build new reactors, the first since 1979 when a plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania came close to a catastrophic nuclear meltdown. The accident caused no casualties but it turned nuclear power into a radioactive political issue. More
DENVER (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ordered Dow to pay $653 million and Rockwell $508 million in compensatory damages, but capped the amount to be collected at $725 million. Dow and Rockwell also were ordered to pay exemplary damages of $111 million and $89 million, respectively.
The lawsuit, filed by a group of homeowners, affects up to 13,000 people who owned land near the former plant when it shut down in 1989 because of safety violations. The lawsuit claimed the companies intentionally mishandled radioactive waste and then tried to cover it up. More
Johann Hari
…bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us. More
Under new regulations, flimsy bags under 0.025 millimeters thick are banned and shopkeepers must charge for carrier bags. Those found breaking the law face fines and could have their goods confiscated. Shoppers in downtown Beijing and in Internet chatrooms seemed largely sympathetic to the idea. China, which gets through three billion plastic bags a day, is increasingly aware of the damage to the environment caused by its breakneck growth. China, which consumes 37 million barrels of crude oil each year to manufacture more than one trillion plastic bags, is following in the footsteps of countries such as Ireland, Rwanda and Bangladesh. Italy is due to introduce a ban by 2010. More
Telegraph
The academics, including 9,000 with PhDs, claim that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are actually beneficial for the environment. The petition was created in 1998 by an American physicist, the late Frederick Seitz, in response to the Kyoto Protocol a year earlier. It urged the US government to reject the treaty and said: “The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
It added: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of … greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments.” More
Photo dobak New York Times
AN AREA of shale and other rock in North Dakota and Montana is estimated to hold the largest potential oil resources in the 48 contiguous states, according to an assessment released Thursday by the United States Geological Survey.
The area, known as the Bakken Formation, might contain 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of oil that could be extracted using current technology, the survey said. The United States had an estimated 21 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in 2006, according to the Energy Department. The new assessment by the Geological Survey could raise these reserves once drilling starts.
The survey reinforces what oil companies who have flocked to the region already knew: a boom is afoot. But geologists and industry officials alike cautioned that the number was simply an estimate, easily skewed higher or lower by technological advances or economic changes. If the price of oil drops, companies will not be willing to spend as much to extract it, and the Bakken Formation, which also extends into Canada, requires an expensive technique called horizontal drilling. More
BBC News
US GIANT Ford is to invest $3bn (£1.5bn) in a new car plant in Mexico, the biggest investment in the country’s manufacturing sector. The move is a blow to American car workers who had hoped the factory would be built in the United States. Ford has lost more than $15bn (£7.5bn) over the past two years and says the new facility is crucial to its future.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon hailed the announcement as a “turning point” for his country. The new factory, and other changes to Ford’s Mexican operations, are likely to create an estimated 4,500 jobs in Mexico, where car workers earn substantially less than their American counterparts. Mr Calderon made the announcement with Ford president Alan Mullaly at the presidential compound in Mexico City on Friday. “We want Mexico to be an automotive country, one that is competitive and with the most advantages so that the worldwide automotive industry will establish itself here,” Mr Calderon said. More
