Star Phoenix Base

By David L. Brown

It’s official — the U.S. Department of the Interior has added the polar bear to the list of endangered species. The story is here on the N.Y. Times news site, which reports:

…the long-delayed decision to list the bear as a threatened species may prove less of an impediment to industries along the Alaskan coast than many environmentalists had hoped. While further protecting the polar bear from direct or immediate threats — like hunting — the Interior Department added stipulations, seldom invoked under the act, that will make it relatively easy for oil and gas exploration and development activities to proceed.

The decision builds on scientific evidence about the retreat of sea ice, which the bears use as a platform to hunt seals and as a pathway to the Arctic coasts where they den. But it does not directly link the threat to the bears to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Mr. Kempthorne [Dick Kempthorne, secretary of the Interior] said the Endangered Species Act was “never meant to regulate global climate change” and that it would be “inappropriate” to use the polar bear listing that way. He said he made the decision because “sea ice is vital to polar bears’ survival,” and scientific models show the rapid loss of ice will continue.

The secretary, who earlier in his political life was a strong opponent of the Endangered Species Act, added: “This has been a difficult decision. But in light of the scientific record, and the restraints of the inflexible law that guides me,” he made “ the only decision I can make.”

Many fear that so-called “environmentalists” such as members of activist organizations like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, will use the listing of the polar bear as an excuse to bring legal action against any and all sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S. As the statement above from the Interior secretary shows, the administration is aware of those possibilities and has attempted to put up firewalls against actions that could be detrimental to the economy. However, the fact that the Arctic sea ice is rapidly melting could no longer be ignored, and because the polar bear depends on that ice it is ipso facto endangered.

The problem with this is that there is nothing that humankind can do to change the basic fact. The “Big Melt” is well underway and will continue no matter what we do, even if all GHG emissions could be stopped in their tracks. The polar bear is not only endangered, it is probably doomed to extinction in its natural habitat because that habitat is going to disappear.

This situation is different from past examples of the effects of the Endangered Species Act, in which steps could be taken to preserve the environment required by the species in question, whether a spotted owl, some rare fish or amphibian, an insect or plant. Those have included such steps as preventing forest cutting, dam building, road construction, or real estate development that would impact he species’ habitat.

In the case of the polar bear, the only thing that we could do to mitigate the bear’s plight would be to reverse climate change and reinstate the Arctic environment. That is not possible.

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch 22 introduced the concept of bureaucratic nonsense concerning the fitness of military pilots to fly combat missions during World War II. The “catch” was that if someone were crazy he would not be allowed to fly — but if he were to admit that he had a problem, that would be considered as proof of sanity and he would be required to continue to fly. The term “catch 22″ therefore came to mean something self-contradictory. The case of the polar bear as an endangered species is a good example. No matter how crazy human-induced global climate change becomes, or what steps are taken to attempt to reverse it, those bears will continue to fly into possible extinction, just like Heller’s fictional pilots.

Here is more from the N.Y. Times article:

Few natural resource decisions have been as closely watched or been the subject of such vehement disagreement within the Bush administration as this one, according to officials in the Interior Department and others familiar with the process. After the department missed a series of deadlines, a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the decision had to be made by Thursday.

Barton H. Thompson Jr., a law professor and director of the Woods Institute of the Environment at Stanford University, said Wednesday that while the Interior Department gave itself “sufficient room” to list the polar bear, it did not provide “environmental organizations with a mechanism for trying to address climate change.”

He said that lawsuits challenging the connection between a factory’s greenhouse-gas emissions and the threat to individual polar bears might provide difficult to win.

“Interior has a reasonable case here that the connection is just too far removed,” he said.

The provision of the act that the department is using to lighten the regulatory burden that the listing imposes on the oil and gas industry — known as a 4(d) rule — was designed to permit flexibility in the management of threatened species, as long as the chances of conservation of the species would be enhanced, or at least not diminished.

Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of three groups that originally sued to have the polar bear listed as threatened, said Wednesday that the decision was an acknowledgement of “global warming’s urgency,” but that it fell short of helping the polar bear.

“The administration acknowledges the bear is in need of intensive care,” Ms. Siegel said. “The listing lets the bear into the hospital, but then the 4(d) rule says the bear’s insurance doesn’t cover the necessary treatments.”

The really good news in all of this is that the Bush administration, by this action on behalf of the polar bear, has finally and irrevocably agreed that global warming is real and that climate change is taking place. Although belated, this is a giant step forward so I guess it is better late than never.

It remains to be seen whether the bears can change their lifestyle to survive on land without the sea ice that is rapidly disappearing. As the Arctic Ocean becomes more ice free, 24 hour Summer sunlight will warm the open waters even more, leading to melting of adjacent tundra and dramatic changes in the region’s ecology. Most scientists believe the bears are incapable of adapting to such rapid and significant change, and they are probably right.

by Val Germann

An article today in The Brisbane TIMES illustrates the continuing climate disaster unfolding right in front of our eyes. The truly devastating lede reads thusly:

There is no end in sight to the drought afflicting the Murray-Darling Basin and the big dry could become a permanent feature of eastern Australia, experts warn.

This is not good because in the past OZ has been one of the world’s top exporters of wheat. But that won’t be the case ever again unless the current drought breaks. As it is now some of the descriptions read like science fiction, like this one from the CEO of the Murray-Darling watershed commission:

For the first time in recorded history, the water level of some inland lakes had plunged below sea levels, Dr Craik said. South Australia’s lower lakes were deteriorating particularly quickly.

And then there’s this:

Dr Craik says the drought is so bad in some parts of the basin that it has surpassed the worst climate change predictions for 2055.

So, if any of our readers are counting on a serious up-tick in Australian wheat production anytime soon, forget it. It looks like The Big Dry is here to stay.

By David L. Brown

The rising cost of natural resources, due primarily to increasing demand and faltering supply, is creating some serious problems in the world today. Here is a brief news item from the Associated Press that reveals one aspect of the problem:

WASHINGTON — The House has passed legislation designed to stop pennies and nickels from costing more than they are worth, a move that supporters say would save taxpayers $100 million a year.

The unanimous vote Thursday sends the resolution to the Senate, where its future is troubled. The Bush administration and its supporters oppose it because it does not transfer to the U.S. Mint Congress’ constitutional authority to decide what coins are made of. The measure also does not give the metals industry enough time to weigh in on the decision, opponents say.

The government is paying 1.26 cents to make each penny, and 7.7 cents to make each nickel, the Mint says.

Well, besides illustrating the problems caused by the rising cost of metals and other natural resources, this little news report provides an x-ray glimpse into the minds of our representatives in Washington, who seem to think that every problem can be solved simply by passing a new law.

When will they learn that you can’t legislate something that violates the fixed laws of nature and economics? Well, never of course, because nearly all of those esteemed members of Congress are educated as lawyers, not scientists or economists. Something about our law schools seems to filter out any residue of common sense that might linger in the minds of their students.

Note that the vote on this was unanimous, meaning that not a single member of the august body felt there was anything to question about the bill. And note also that it does not, at least as far as the AP reports, offer any specific solution to the problem, or even give the Mint authority to change the way coins are made. No, it merely demands that this problem be fixed, full stop.

There was a time, long ago, when most coins were made of precious metals including silver and gold. Pennies have been made of copper for as long as I am aware, and as the world’s supply of that useful metal gets used up it is natural that prices have continued to rise. Here is a graph showing the trend of cash copper prices over the last ten years, from May 8, 1998 to today, which I created from the database of the London Commodities Exchange:

Do you start to see the problem here? Um, yes, I thought you would. No wonder it now costs more than a penny to make a penny. The problem is pretty plain to see.

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By David L. Brown

The smell of panic continues to waft through the air from the ethanol industry. Yesterday the Renewable Fuels Association, their trade group, put out a news release containing a transcript of a press conference they organized April 30 at the National Press Club. (We wrote about the press event earlier, but they just want to keep on blowing that horn.) The focus of the conference was to defend their position by claiming that the fact that one third of the U.S. corn crop is being used to produce fake fuel has nothing whatsoever to do with rising food prices and shortages. No, they say, the fault lies with high oil prices, rising standards of living in the world, speculation in the commodities markets, poor growing conditions, and that man over there behind the tree.

Among the presenters was a former Secretary of Agriculture, John Block. I have met John Block and happen to know that he is an Illinois corn farmer. One can suppose he might be slightly biased. Another presenter was the CEO of the National Corn Grower’s Association (more bias). A third was the president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (a man who is being paid to be biased).

And finally, and the irony does not escape me, the president of the National Farmers Union Tom Buis. To aid TV and radio reporters the writer of the news release wanted to be sure we know how to pronounce Tom’s last name, so he added this: “(buy’-us)”. OK, we got it. Bias. That makes it unanimous.

What the ethanol people do not understand is that they are absolutely right that there are multiple factors involved in the present ramping up of food costs. What they don’t get is that that doesn’t matter one bit. Like Marie Antoinette nibbling cake as peasants went hungry, they fail to perceive that the act of turning food into fake fuel at this time in history is a dangerous and slippery slope on which to be.

They can marshal all the facts they want in an attempt to point fingers elsewhere, but the fact remains that it is the perception that matters. And the perception of diverting food to fuel is that in our times it is an atrocity, or as one high-ranking UN official called it, a crime against humanity. Sorry, all you ethanol fans, but that’s what it looks like. Sometimes you can be innocent (although in this case, not exactly) and still get the short end of the stick.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, they may have had innocent intentions when they set out to make fuel from food. But now that maddened gangs with torches and pitchforks may soon be gathering outside their castle, it’s time to make a quick strategic withdrawal. Will they have the sense to do so? Apparently not if their frantic publicity efforts are any indication. But I predict that the voices calling out against this atrocity will grow louder until the ethanol boom turns to bust. Already leaders in Washington and around the world are beginning to rethink the issue of food-to-fuel programs.

If the Lords of Ethanol already aren’t, they should be looking seriously into how to convert their ethanol distilleries to some other use, perhaps using non-food sources to produce alcohol such as by growing algae. Or, perhaps they could convert the distilleries into hydroponic factories to produce food for human beings. There’s a thought!

By David L. Brown

The polar bear has been getting the, er, lion’s share of attention in discussions about global warming and climate change. But according to a story in today’s ScienceDaily web site, it is tropical species that are in the greatest danger. Says the article:

A team led by University of Washington scientists has found that while temperature changes will be much more extreme at high latitudes, tropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope.

“There’s a strong relationship between your physiology and the climate you live in,” said Joshua Tewksbury, a UW assistant professor of biology. “In the tropics many species appear to be living at or near their thermal optimum, a temperature that lets them thrive. But once temperature gets above the thermal optimum, fitness levels most likely decline quickly and there may not be much they can do about it.”

Arctic species, by contrast, might experience temperatures ranging from subzero to a comparatively balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit. They typically live at temperatures well below their thermal limit, and most will continue to do so even with climate change.

Of course it is not really the rising temperatures in the Arctic as much as the disappearance of sea ice that threatens the polar bear. Whether the bears can adapt to an Arctic Ocean that is ice-free during the Summer remains to be seen.

The focus on possible effects of climate change on the tropics, however, raises quite serious questions. The rain forests that girdle the Equator have been called the “lungs” of the planet, and are home to more species than any other region.

The report is based on a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors point out that their conclusions are based solely on trends in temperature and do not take into account possible effects on rainfall patterns. Some scientists have predicted that even a modest additional increase in global temperatures could cause rain forests such as the Amazon to dry up, turning he region into a semi-desert. Such an event would be devastating to perhaps millions of plant and animal species.

The article also mentions that the paper does not delve into possible effects upon agriculture. Those millions of acres of rain forest that are being cleared to produce food might prove to be rather useless if the rain forests turn to rain-less deserts. Surely this possibility adds even more gravity to the seriousness of the problem. A large proportion of the world’s poorest people living in Third World countries depends on the ability of indigenous farmers to grow food, and with world stocks of wheat, corn and rice nearing a negative balance against demand that could cause a bad situation to become truly terrible.

By David L. Brown

I recently predicted here that pressure would soon be building to reverse the ethanol mania. As rapidly rising food prices push many of the world’s poor toward famine, it is unseemly for the United States to allow — and in fact encourage with government subsidies — the conversion of about one-third of the nation’s corn crop to fake fuel.

The prediction is rapidly coming true, as reported by the Associated Press tonight:

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have asked environmental regulators to use their power to halt the country’s plans to expand ethanol production amid rising food prices.

Twenty-four Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, sent a letter Friday to the Environmental Protection Agency suggesting it waive, or restructure, rules that require a fivefold increase in ethanol production over the next 15 years.

Congress passed a law last year mandating a ramp-up to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 and 36 billion by 2022. But McCain and other Republicans said those rules should be suspended to put more corn back into the food supply for animal feed, and to encourage farmers to plant other crops.

“This subsidized (ethanol) program — paid for by taxpayer dollars — has contributed to pain at the cash register, at the dining room table, and a devastating food crisis throughout the world,” said McCain, in a statement.

The FoxNews.com web site where this AP story appeared reflected the mainstream media’s failure to understand the importance of this subject: The story appeared way down the site under “Politics,” the fourth item below such Earth-shaking items as a piece on Jenna Bush’s wedding plans.

As food riots threaten to bring Third World nations into chaos and American consumers chafe at the cost of food, the pressure to rein in the ethanol craze is surely going to build up a real head of steam. McCain has always been opposed to the government subsidies, and the two Democratic contenders for the presidency are backing away from their support for ethanol.

Without government subsidies, ethanol profits will evaporate as long as corn prices remain high, which seems likely in view of the world supply and demand situation. There is barely enough food to go around as it is, and to continue to make fake fuel from food is an atrocity and crime against humanity.

Too bad for the morally deficient opportunists who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of millions of hungry poor. I think this is one time when greed and avarice will not pay off. And here’s an investment tip: Sell ethanol stocks short. They are sure to be crashing soon, if they already aren’t, as people wake up to the fact that fake fuel made from food just has no future, none whatsoever.

By David L. Brown

You are probably familiar with the term “triage,” a French word to describe the process of dividing battlefield casualties into three categories in order to apply medical services efficiently. Triage separates the wounded into those who are beyond help; those who do not need immediate attention; and those who do require immediate attention in order to survive.

We have written here before about the possibility of what might happen in case a pandemic of avian flu or some other virus should strike the world. Now it appears that the U.S. government is thinking about what kind of response might be required. The story appears on the FoxNews.com site today under the headline “Government Report Answers Who Lives, Who Dies in Flu Pandemic.”

According to the article, a panel of medical experts convened as a task force has outlined a kind of triage process to determine who should receive hospital help and who should not in case of a pandemic. To summarize, those who are to be denied medical care during a pandemic include: People over 85 years old; those with severe injuries; severely burned patients older than 60; those with severe mental impairment such as advanced Alzheimer’s, and those with serious chronic diseases such as “advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.”

The Fox report asks the question: “Should doctors be allowed to play God?” Well, I have news for them, and that is that doctors are always in the position of having to make life or death decisions when choices must be made. They are not “playing” at anything, but generally just trying to do the best job they can in difficult circumstances.

Here is more from the FoxNews.com report:

The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals “so that everybody will be thinking in the same way” when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.
The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources — including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses — are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.

Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

“If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing,” the report states.

Now for a bit of cynical commentary. The vision of what a true pandemic would be like in today’s world, and the manageable situation that seems to be envisioned by this panel of experts, are quite a bit apart. The report makes the whole thing seem like a minor outbreak of disease, what is called an epidemic. And of course, a flu epidemic would be a serious thing indeed.

But what we are talking about here is not an epidemic at all, but a pandemic, and that is quite a different thing. The medical dictionary on MedicineNet.com defines it this way:

Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.

By contrast: An epidemic affects more than the expected number of cases of disease occurring in a community or region during a given period of time. A sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group as, for example, AIDS in Africa or AIDS in intravenous drug users.

So a pandemic is a sort of mega-epidemic, and if one were to occur here in the U.S. I suggest that the medical community would be completely unable to deal with it. Even now, hospitals have only about as many beds as they can keep filled under normal circumstances. Due to economic factors staffing in most hospitals has been cut to the bone in most facilities.

The last serious pandemic was that of the so-called Spanish Flu, in 1918-20. It is estimated that 2.5 to 5 percent of all human beings on Earth died from this scourge, perhaps as many as 100 million. In the U.S. alone, about 28% of the population were infected by the virus and 500,000 to 675,000 died.

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By David L. Brown

No doubt you have seen the old bumper sticker, usually appearing on a Volvo station wagon or battered VW van, that exhorts us to “Think Globally; Act Locally.” And there is a lot of truth to that idea. But what if you do all the right things in your vicinity and others around the world continue to do all the wrong things? No matter how hard you try, your efforts will be negated by the bad actions of others.

That’s the trouble with trying to deal with a problem that is truly global — it must be fixed through a unanimous global effort.

And that point brings us to the Kyoto Accords, through which some countries agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent lower than 1990 levels by 2012. The United States, which decided to take a pass on Kyoto, has taken a terrible beating from smug residents of nations that did sign the Kyoto agreement. According to an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily yesterday, the typical rant might go something like this:

“Isn’t the U.S. an awful country?” a Labor Party member of the British Parliament said some years ago. “With only 5% of the world’s population, it produces 20% of those terrible gases that are warming our atmosphere. How dare President Bush say he won’t go along with the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol on global warming.”

That’s pretty much the line in Europe in particular, not to mention large Asian nations. But a look at the facts shows a different story. The IBD article quickly points out that it was President Clinton, not Bush, who refused to send the accord to the Senate for ratification, and that the Senate had passed unanimously a resolution that it would not pass the Kyoto Protocol if submitted unless the accords were revised to set the same standards for all countries.

The problem, you see, is that developing nations such as China and India were given a “Get Out of Jail Free” card by the Kyoto agreement. They could produce just about as much CO2 as they wanted to, because it was really the evil First World nations that were the problem, and particularly that Big Bad United States of America, a.k.a., The Great Satan.

We have seen the result of that in the fact that China recently became the world’s No. 1 polluter in its fervent attempt to duplicate the U.S. standard of living of the last century, and nevermind how much GHG it takes to do it.

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By David L. Brown

Here is a brief follow-up to my recent postings about ethanol. Just over a week ago in my essay “Ethanol Producers Feeling the Pressure,” I suggested that the makers of fake fuel are in deep trouble. I have predicted that pressure is building to remove the government subsidies that help “fuel” this atrocity, the practice of turning food into fuel while poor people around the world face famine.

Today in an Investor’s Business Daily report (link to it here) we see the beginnings of some discussion about that trend. But far too few actually are getting the message. Barack Obama, for example, seems to think that the government needs to do more to encourage this crime against humanity. The IBD story quotes him as saying:

Family farmers and local ethanol producers have set an example for how to embrace new technologies to lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” Obama said. “We are at a critical time in the history of our renewable fuels industry, and we need to fix the imbalance in the market that’s working against locally owned plants.”

It adds: “It’s time to free ourselves from the tyranny of oil and stop funding both sides in the war on terror,” Obama said Friday.

To which I reply: What planet is he from? Don’t any of his advisors realize what a huge backlash is building against the practice of diverting food from its proper place? Doesn’t he realize that, no matter how much economic justification can be brought forth, when people are hungry it just does not do to be seen producing fake fuel from food, and particularly not with government subsidies? That at its root this is a moral issue, not an economic one? Apparently not.

Hillary Clinton also favors support of the ethanol industry, as do most other politicians from both parties. It is just too tempting to see money being handed out to farmers in return for votes while supposedly sticking a thumb in the Saudi’s eye. Yes, except that when the pictures start to come in on CNN showing starving and dead children, the evil result of using food for other than its proper purpose will be seen for what it is: The result of moral decadence and economic opportunism.

Thankfully there is one politician who thinks differently. Last year John McCain ran in Iowa, the Corn State and a nexus of ethanol frenzy, speaking out against farm subsidies in general, and in particular for ethanol. Here is what the Investor’s Business Daily says about McCain’s position:

“I oppose subsidies,” McCain said. “Not just ethanol subsidies. Subsidies. And not just in Iowa either. I oppose them in my own state of Arizona. I am proud of the conservative tradition that the government can sometimes best serve the interests of the American people by knowing when to stay out of their way.”

McCain may be preaching conservatism, but at least as far as biofuels are concerned, he may have some strange bedfellows. Anti-hunger groups are blasting Washington’s ethanol policy for surging food prices. Environmental groups have warned about a negligible — or negative — impact on curbing greenhouse gases.

As president, McCain would seek to end the 51-cent-a-gallon subsidy paid to fuel blenders for using ethanol. That subsidy will cost $4.5 billion this year.

McCain also would end the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on ethanol imports from places such as Brazil, which makes ethanol from sugarcane.

The IBD report points out that corn prices have tripled since 2006; that ethanol producers are seeing their profits squeezed by high corn prices; that the practice helped push up food prices by 4.5% in the U.S. last year; that that represents grocery bills higher by $15 billion; and that according to the World Bank “almost all of the increase in global corn output went for bio-fuels production in the U.S.” The report warned that biofuels production in the U.S. and elsewhere has contributed to a rise in food prices that threatens to undermine global poverty gains made in the past decade.

The IBD report also included this:

Ethanol mandates are “causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis,” wrote Earth Policy Institute president Lester Brown and Jonathan Lewis of the Clear Air Task Force in a Washington Post op-ed last week.

They noted that by using one-fourth of its corn crop for fuel last year, the U.S. cut oil consumption by a mere 1%.

The harm that is being done to the world economy and security, and the building tidal wave of repugnance that is soon going to break over the U.S. political scene, is immense. It just does not make sense to continue any further down this road. What should be done is to stop all new production of ethanol distilleries and shut down those already in production until they can find some way to make fake fuel from something besides food.

I will once more quote what is becoming my personal mantra for this subject:

“The mythic teacher Jesus is said to have turned water into wine, but only a living Satan would turn wine into water or food into fuel.”

Well it’s far too long to make a bumper sticker, but wouldn’t it look good on billboards around the Washington Beltway? Probably won’t happen, but I do think that this issue will be ripening like a roadkill raccoon in the middle of the road to the White House as the presidential campaign unfolds. Whether Obama or Clinton faces McCain, they will have to do some fast back pedaling to distance themselves from this atrocious example of greed and avarice. And those Iowa farmers who despise McCain might be better served to just STFU and go back to the important task of feeding the world.

By David L. Brown

A Federal District Court judge in California has rejected the Bush administration’s request to delay making a decision on whether to order the Interior Department to decide whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species. The basis for the ruling would be that the bears are threatened because of disappearing sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.

There is much heat being generated by this issue. Environmentalists are firmly behind the movement to list the bears as endangered. Opponents say it would give special interest groups the right to go to court to push for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are a root cause of global warming. Three groups that led the movement are The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The organizations admit they are seeking to have the polar bear listed as endangered “in part to force the Bush administration to take more serious steps toward combating global warming, such as imposing federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions,” according to this story in the Los Angeles Times today.

Conservative talk show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt, who is also a law professor, has covered this developing story. Here is an excerpt from a piece he posted about a month ago on his web site, warning against what he calls “polar bear induced paralysis”:

A variety of environmental groups orchestrated the tsunami of testimonials to the desperate condition of the polar bear because they understand—as much of the public and Congress does not—that a listing of the polar bear will have vast implications, and may in fact be a backdoor to implementation of the Kyoto protocol.

By way of background, I have practiced natural resources law since I left the Reagan Administration in early 1989. Wetlands, jurisdictional waters, and endangered species are my areas of expertise, and if you ever need a lesson on the Stephens’ kangaroo rat, the Delhi sands flower-loving fly, the California gnat catcher, the Desert tortoise or any of a couple dozen other plants and animals throughout the west that are protected under the federal or state Endangered Species Act, drop me an e-mail.

All of those species and many more have fairly predictable aftermaths of their listing –a period of great confusion about where they live and breed, what can and cannot be done near them, and lots of meetings and negotiations with federal officials over habitat conservation plans, Section 7 consultations etc. There are lots of landowners and businesses that lose a lot because of this law, but in the past, the impact zone of a listing was at least limited to the area in which the listed species lived.

In the case of the polar bear, as Hewitt makes clear, there is no direct connection between the animals’ habitat and the source of the damage. But neither is there a specific connection to the United States of America. It would be grossly unfair for the U.S. to be encumbered by draconian regulations to limit GHG emissions while China, India and other emerging industrial economies continue to belch out CO2. But then, who says the world has to be fair?

Now as my readers know, I am a staunch advocate of responsible actions to reverse the steady trend of global warming. But that does not make me a tree hugging “environmentalist” that would sooner see the human race go back to living in caves. In my mind, extremists from both side of the issue are to be viewed with equal suspicion.

If indeed the fears of the right, that the U.S. economy could be brought to its knees by environmental court rulings that would ban virtually all activities that generate GHG, that could be either good or bad depending upon how it is implemented. I suggest several factors that should be considered:

First, court rulings that are measured and responsible could help accelerate the switch from technologies that cause global warming, while reducing our nation’s dependence upon imported oil and gas. That could be a “good” outcome.

On the other hand, draconian and unreasonable precedents that would force the virtual shutdown of entire swaths of our economy would be not only “bad,” but particularly stupid and self-destructive. One can hope that Federal judges would act with a sense of balance and economic common sense.

The situation with the polar bears raises several questions. First, the fears of the opponents seem to be based on the idea that global warming is a reality, but that is ironically something that many of them explicitly deny. If global warming does not exist, or if it is not caused by GHG emissions, then the opponents of listing the polar bear as endangered should have nothing about which to worry since the courts will decide on the causative issues. (Which is it, deniers? Is global warming real, or is it a myth dreamed up by Al Gore?)

Most experts agree that no matter what is done the Arctic sea ice will disappear, taking with it the traditional ecology that supports the polar bear. The question is not if or whether that will happen; it is happening. The real question, then, is whether the bears can adapt to an Arctic Ocean that is free of ice during the Summer. Early evidence seems to indicate that they cannot, especially as the tundra in bordering regions thaws and turns to bogs. They have probably already slipped past the edge of inevitable extinction.

So if the polar bear is already doomed, wouldn’t it be strange to anticipate heroic efforts to “save” the species? To achieve the impossible? The forces of extinction may sometimes seem cruel, but they are at least even handed and in keeping with the Laws of Nature. There is nothing that mere humanity can do to stay the hand of Gaia

But here is the sixty-four trillion dollar question: What is the real issue here? Why it’s really quite simple, although you are not likely to hear very many voices speaking up to explain it. It is not really the polar bears that are under threat; they are only a symbol. In reality, it is civilization and the human race itself that face possible extinction. If we continue down the present path, allowing increasing amounts of GHG to enter the atmosphere and push the global warming cycle further and further toward vital tipping points, our very own species may face extinction.

Ponder that the next time you chuckle upon hearing about some amusing species being listed as endangered — some unimportant insect, mollusk, or weed. The most endangered species of all might be Homo Sapiens, “the wise ape.” That would be us, and should we end up on the list it might be time to consider coming up with a new scientific name for humanity. In a previous posting, “Overshoot-and Collapse: A Model for Our Future?” posted August 6, 2006, I suggested a possible candidate should we end up as prime examples of extinct species: Homo Stupidus. Let’s hope we turn out to be smarter than that.

By David L. Brown

There is a Chinese proverb that begins “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.” Much can be gleaned from this aphorism about the present state of the world food crisis. The “solution” to the emerging problem, we are told, is to simply turn on the power of science and develop new crops that can feed the hungry masses. But to be of use today, that is a “tree” that must have been planted at some time in the past.

And the trouble is that agricultural scientists already have been laboring long and hard for decades to boost farm productivity. We have planted plenty of metaphorical trees and it is of no use to expect that we can start all over again as if there were a blank slate of opportunity to re-create the Green Revolution.

In the April 19-25 edition of The Economist, the emerging world food crisis was featured as the cover story under the heading “The silent tsunami: The food crisis and how to solve it.” Unfortunately, the inside article, headlined “The new face of hunger,” is long on “crisis” and short on solutions.

For one thing, the writers put a comforting interpretation on the whole thing. After reporting “some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever,” the magazine ominously adds: “But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%; the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in a day.”

That is pretty strong stuff, but then the articles goes on to state:

The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets.

Soothing words indeed in the face of alarming rises in food prices. It’s not “problems of supply,” but all due to demand. Well, yes, and one might expect a magazine that calls itself after the very art of economics to know that supply and demand are linked like Siamese twins. When demand goes up, supply must either rise to fulfill the increased demand, or prices will go up until the excess demand is quenched. It is the latter that is happening now, and the reason is that food supply cannot be so easily or quickly increased, or perhaps not increased at all.

This poses a problem, because we are dealing with human lives here. As food becomes more dear, it is pricing the poorest people in the world out of the market. Supply cannot meet the rising demand, and unless it can vast numbers of people will face famine. It is an economic Catch 22.

The Economist actually does recognize that there are serious difficulties. The article notes that “Ideally, a big part of the supply response would come from the world’s 450 [million] smallholders in developing countries, people who farm just a few acres.” It goes on to note the advantages of this approach, but concludes:

Unfortunately, no smallholder bonanza is yet happening. In parts of east Africa, farmers are cutting back on the area planted, mostly because they cannot afford fertilisers (driven by oil, fertiliser prices have soared, too). This reaction is not universal. India is forecasting a record cereal harvest; South African planting is up 8% this year. Still, some anecdotal evidence, plus the general increase in food prices, suggests that smallholders are not responding enough. “In a perfect world,” says a recent IFPRI report, “the response to higher prices is higher output. In the real world, however, this isn’t always the case.” Farming in emerging markets is riddled with market failures and does not react to price signals as other businesses do.

You see, there is more to it than can be addressed by idealistic “solutions.” The fact is that the increased demand is the result of continued growth in human population. That has been made possible by the era of cheap petroleum and industrial agriculture that is now coming to an end. Without cheap and abundant oil, there can be no cheap and abundant food. And unfortunately for them, about a third of the world’s people have been able to exist only thanks to cheap and abundant food, much of it heavily subsidized by governments and shipped to the needy through food aid packages.

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By David L. Brown

There is growing concern about the building “silent tsunami” of famine (as The Economist calls it). One response is to spend more money to provide food for the hungry poor, but that ignores the fact that the problem is not lack of money but shortages of food. Another predictable response takes the form of calls for more research into how to grow more crops, presenting the expectation that we can repeat the Green Revolution. An article in the latest issue of Science decries budget cuts in funding for agricultural research, with the implication that if only we could spend more money there the problems of food shortages would go away.

Well, that may have been true in the past when researchers were able to launch the so-called Green Revolution. The GR rode on the back of abundant and cheap natural resources. It was not and never could have been a permanent solution to the problem of feeding humanity, because while human numbers continued to grow higher, the resources of the Earth are finite and being rapidly depleted.

That was then and this is now, and the Law of Diminishing Returns assures that history cannot be expected to repeat; there will be no Green Revolution Redux. A similar economic fact is colloquially known as “TANSTAFL,” an acronym for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, a lesson we are beginning to see demonstrated in the real world of actual economics.

Unfortunately, the Green Revolution was a one-shot deal and any follow-up effort will of necessity be a far more expensive and less productive process. It will not be “deja vu all over again” as Yogi Berra so famously stated.

There are a lot of reasons why there can be no new Green Revolution, at least not in any way that is comparable to the original. For one thing, the world population has approximately doubled since the Green Revolution began. For another, the world’s resources of land, water, minerals and energy have been reduced and are becoming more expensive thanks to the law of supply and demand.

The Law of Diminishing Returns was ironically pioneered by, among others, Thomas Malthus, a leading economist of the 18th and early 19th century. He and David Ricardo laid the groundwork for this concept. Here is what the Wikipedia says about this:

Malthus and Ricardo … were worried that land, a factor of production in limited supply, would lead to diminishing returns. In order to increase output from agriculture, farmers would have to farm less fertile land or farm with more intensive production methods. In both cases, the returns from agriculture would diminish over time, causing Malthus and Ricardo to predict population would outstrip the capacity of land to produce, causing a Malthusian catastrophe.

Well, as you can see, the Law of Diminishing Returns has its roots right in the heart of the subject that is of serious concern today. The term “Malthusian catastrophe” refers to the well-known prediction by Malthus that human numbers would someday outstrip potential food production. That is what we are witnessing today.

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By David L. Brown

The onrushing food crisis is gaining momentum, as reflected in the news story below from FoxNews.com. I am including the entire online article because this is important. Unfortunately, Fox didn’t think it was, playing it way down in their news site.

The specter of famine is rapidly developing as the biggest story of the 21st Century, but meantime the news media think it is more important to alert us to the latest shenanigans of important world figures such as Tom Cruise and the latest “American Idol” wannabe, a report of a grizzly bear attack, and a number of other sensationalist stories worthy of the National Enquirer, all of which got top play this morning on the FoxNews site.

Here’s the story that Fox buried way down as the fifth item under “Business”:

Wal-Mart Rations Rice, Warns of “Supply and Demand” Concerns

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said on Wednesday that it would ration the amount of rice each customer can purchase at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores because of recent “supply and demand trends.”

“We are limiting the sale of Jasmine, Basmati and Long Grain White Rices to four bags per member visit,” the company said in a statement. “This is effective immediately in all of our U.S. clubs, where quantity restrictions are allowed by law.”

Wal-Mart is the second-major grocer to limit the purchasing of a commodity because of the recent run up in prices. The company said it is not limiting the purchase of other basic food products like flour or oil.

The price of rice, which is the primary foodstuff for the majority of the human population around the world, rose to $894 a metric ton according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association. That’s compared to the $327.25 a ton average price in the same month last year.

In Chicago, the price of export-quality rice rose to $24.745 per 100 pounds on Tuesday.

The run up in price in rice is primarily related to poor harvests and countries curbing exports. Thailand, Asia’s largest exporter of rice, said it may curb exports.

The World Food Program called the recent run up in prices of rice and other basic commodities a “silent famine.”
Wal-Mart did not say when the rationing would end, but it was “working with our suppliers to address this matter to ensure we are in stock, and we are asking for our members’ cooperation and patience.”

Costco, the nation’s largest warehouse retailer, said yesterday according to Reuters that it had seen increased demand for basic food staples as well like rice and flour. The company had put limits on purchases as well.

Well, whoops! As I wrote here just a few days ago in my essay “Consumption Pushing the Limits for Rice,” posted April 17, the outlook for what is the staple food for about one-third of the world’s people is dim and growing more dire by the day.

A sense of deep-rooted fear is beginning to set in as the prospects for famine spread dark wings around the globe. As mentioned above, many nations are shutting off exports to in effect hoard their home-grown supplies of rice. That is pushing up the price of wheat and other grains as well, leaving many of the poorest people without the ability to buy enough food to survive. As many as a billion human beings have already been living on the edge, in a state of perpetual malnutrition. Now they are being pushed over the brink into what is rapidly becoming outright famine.

The world has experienced famines before, but never one like this. In the past, before the global economy that we now enjoy, famines were local or regional events. This one is different because it involves the entire world, from America to Zambia.

The latest issue of The Economist that arrived in my mailbox yesterday features as its lead article in-depth coverage of what they call “The Silent Tsunami,” their analogy for the spreading danger of famine. I will study that in detail and may give a report here later. But a first glance at the related articles, which purport to tell us what can be done about the problem, gives me pause. One obvious “solution” is to provide more money to the UN food aid programs.

Well, as I have pointed out here recently, money is not the answer when demand exceeds supply, which is now the case for food. In fact, follow this line of reasoning to see the extent of the problem:

1 - Country A is plagued by widespread hunger and starvation. Money is allocated to buy food to sustain the residents of A and UN agencies go to the world grain markets to buy that food.

2 - Supply is short so the more demand there is, the higher prices will rise. Purchases of rice or other grains for UN food aid will bid up the price even more. Prices rise beyond the expanded UN budgets, requiring even more money to be allocated to food aid programs.

3 - A runaway cycle will continue, with more panic causing nations to block exports and individuals to hoard food. The richest nations will continue to buy the diminishing supplies and the cycle will continue.

4 - The continued demand combined with hoarding will price food beyond the reach of even more people, dragging them into the spreading whirlpool of famine. This cycle will continue to kick up to higher and higher levels as bidders continue to push food prices higher. And if 2007 should happen to see widespread drought and heat, the situation could reel completely out of control into a global famine event such as never before seen.

Gotta go for now, but this is perhaps the most important developing story of our time so I will be sure to follow it closely. Meanwhile, Allah help those who are turning food into fake fuel. Should there be a Hell, I suspect Satan may have to devise some new and even more horrible punishments for those evildoers.

By David L. Brown

An outfit called the Renewable Fuels Association is attacking claims that ethanol is a factor in the rising cost of food in the world. The members of this group are those who make and market ethanol and other biofuels. You can visit their web site here.

They claim that the real reason why food is becoming more expensive is because of high oil prices, which are the fault of the Saudis and other petro-hogs. And, of course, biofuels can be credited with holding down the cost of oil so ethanol producers are the Good Guys in this story. So there!

Hmm, let me understand this. Just because the members of the RFA are diverting food from the world markets and using it to make fake fuel doesn’t mean it’s their fault that people are going to starve en masse in the Third World. And in fact, as they make clear, it’s probably all the fault of the evil Saudis who are charging too much for their oil.

The president of the RFA, Robert Dinneen, recently went so far as to address a letter to the Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources complaining about the minister’s recent statement that biofuels “do not decrease dependence on petroleum, do not increase energy security and do not reduce pollution”. Here is part of what Dinneen said in his letter:

For the Saudi Oil Minister to assert that biofuels are not an effective energy alternative is no different from the wolf complaining that Little Red Riding Hood was interrupting his dinner plans.

What is also galling about your statement is the claim that biofuels negatively impact the “food market.” The evidence demonstrates that the number one negative impact on the food market is the high price of your primary export — oil. One hundred dollar per barrel oil has driven up the cost of everything from fertilizer to diesel oil used to transport food, to plastics used in food packaging. You must also be aware that growing demand for food in rapidly industrializing countries like China and India are putting additional pressure on food prices as are adverse weather conditions in growing regions, like Australia. Blaming high food prices on ethanol is deliberately misleading.

Well, Dinneen has thrown up a cloud of (mostly) indisputable facts — but the effect is to divert attention from the realistic fact that turning food into fake fuel when there are hungry people in the world is an atrocity. Yes, we have or will soon pass the Oil Peak and the end of cheap energy is well and truly over. But there is little evidence that present biofuels programs in the US are effective or economic answers to the problems that raises. Some estimates reveal that more energy is used in the process of making ethanol than is produced when it is burned. Meanwhile, it is a government subsidized bonanza for farmers who could equally as well be cashing in on the rising food prices due to the inflationary factors to which Dineen refers.

Understand, I am no fan of the Saudis but they have been allowed to place the West in the present position of oil dependence through our own lack of foresight and courage to develop alternatives. It is ill-judged to point the finger of blame for our addiction to those who supply the addictive substance.

The RFA also has attacked the recent TIME magazine cover story that I discussed in my essay “Wine to Water: Unveiling the Ethanol Con,” posted here on April 1. It is amusing to read the list of quotes they present to rebut the article, starting with one from Dinneen himself who says in part that “to dismiss the important role biofuels must play in our quest to reduce oil independence and mitigate global climate change in favor of questionable science and overheated rhetoric is foolhardy.”

Gee, there are a lot of “givens” in that statement. It is presented that we “must” rely on biofuels (says who?), and that objections are based on “questionable science” and “overheated rhetoric.” That reeks of blatant propaganda and Orwellian logic.

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