Arctic Future War and Other Choices

There are so many potential conflicts for the Earth's energy supplies that the medias inattention to them borders on criminal. A recent example is the multi-national conference in Greenland to try to divy up the Arctic's resources. It is interesting to see that the American rep was John Negroponte, an American diplomatic hit man if ever there was.
Canada hopes to assert sovereignity through the "Law of the Sea" which has varying interpretations:

"CBC" interpretation:
"Canada is committed to defending and protecting its sovereignty in the waters of the High Arctic as it begins the process of mapping the northern territory with other nations, says the federal minister of natural resources.

Gary Lunn is travelling to Ilulissat, Greenland, on Tuesday to discuss Canada's claim to the northern seabed with officials from Denmark, Norway, the United States and Russia, who are also looking to secure their piece of the Arctic pie.

"There's a lot of co-operation between countries that is happening, but it's important that we have strong presence on the world stage," said Lunn.

The three-day conference is expected to discuss rules, dictated by the UN Law of the Sea Convention, on dividing jurisdiction over the High Arctic waters, one of the most rapidly changing parts of the world due to climate change.

As the ice continues to melt, countries with continental shelves on the Arctic Ocean are increasingly concerned over who controls the territory and its resources.

"It's critically important that it's under our sovereign control so that we set the parameters for the environment and that we make the decisions whether or not even to allow exploration," Lunn said Monday.

Under the UN law, signed by Canada in 2003, the five northern countries may be able to extend their sovereignty beyond the usual 200-nautical-mile limit recognized in international law if the seabed is an extension of the continental shelf.

Canada's claim includes a swath of ocean floor stretching to the North Pole that would be the equivalent in size to the three Prairie provinces combined. Canada has until 2013 to submit its claim on the area, which stretches from the Yukon to the eastern Arctic.

The area in question wouldn't be subject to any sort of overlapping claim with other countries, Lunn said. Canada's territorial disputes in the Arctic, such as the location of the boundary between the Yukon and Alaska and the control of the Northwest Passage, aren't expected to be major topics at the conference.
Firms already after oil, gas reserves

The High Arctic seabed is coveted for its potential oil and gas reserves, not just along the coast of Beaufort Sea but at the North Pole. Estimates put about 25 per cent of the world's remaining oil and gas reserves beneath the Arctic's ocean floor.

Energy firms have already begun exploring the waters off Greenland, while large deposits of gas are known to exist off the islands of the Canadian archipelago, as well as the coasts of the Northwest Territories and Alaska.

Inhospitable conditions, including extreme cold and six months of darkness every year, make the Far North a difficult place for exploration.

"There's an interest in those resources, but more immediate in the area is the fact that there will be more international shipping over the top of the world as the ice starts to melt," the CBC's Margo McDiarmid reported Tuesday from Ottawa.

The nautical journey from China to New York, for example, is 7,000 kilometres shorter if travelled across the Arctic waters over the top of the world rather than through the Panama Canal.

As new passages are established by melting ice, Canada will be increasingly open to international traffic across and around its borders.

"The fear is that there will be more international shipping, more cruise ships, and there needs to be some kind of control, especially for Canada for those ships travelling through its waters," McDiarmid said.

Lunn emphasized that boundaries in the High Arctic must be defined by science, but would not speculate on the possible outcomes of the conference, saying only "we want to reaffirm our commitment on the world stage."

The conference is also expected to address co-operation between the five countries on maritime safety, environmental protection and search and rescue."

Per Canada.com:

"Conference could mark start of Arctic power struggle
Randy Boswell , Canwest News Service
Published: 5 hours ago

ILULISSAT, Greenland - An Arctic Ocean summit aimed at easing territorial tensions among the five nations bordering the northern sea - including Canada - appeared to evolve Wednesday into something more substantial: a kind of Arctic G-5 with ambitious plans for overseeing polar oil and mineral exploration, maritime security, transportation and environmental regulation.

"The Arctic Ocean stands at the threshold of significant changes," the countries' Ilulissat Declaration stated. "Climate change and the melting of ice have a potential impact on vulnerable ecosystems, the livelihoods of local inhabitants and indigenous communities, and the potential exploitation of natural resources.

"By virtue of their sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in large areas of the Arctic Ocean, the five coastal states are in a unique position to address these possibilities and challenges."
Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Greenland's Aleqa Hammond, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn, and American John Negroponte admire the view from their boat Wednesday near Ilulissat in Greenland, ahead of an Arctic Ocean conference.
Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Greenland's Aleqa Hammond, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn, and American John Negroponte admire the view from their boat Wednesday near Ilulissat in Greenland, ahead of an Arctic Ocean conference.
Jan-Morten Bjoernbakk/AFP/Getty Images
Email to a friendEmail to a friendPrinter friendlyPrinter friendly
Font:

* *
* *
* *
* *

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

But the conference, which was organized by Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and also included the U.S., Russia and Norway, could well mark the beginning of an international power struggle over the future governance of the rapidly warming and increasingly accessible polar region.

Chief among the goals laid out in the declaration was to block any "new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean" - a clear shot across the bow of some European politicians and other Arctic observers who see the region as a largely unspoiled seascape best governed, like Antarctica, as an international trust.

They have pushed for the adoption of a broader legal framework - perhaps even an "Arctic Treaty" under the auspices of the United Nations - to regulate commercial activity, environmental threats and scientific research in the extreme north.

The summit was initially billed as an attempt to cool the rhetoric between the five polar neighbours following Russia's controversial dive to the North Pole seabed last year, an ongoing Danish-Canadian feud over tiny Hans Island and several other jurisdictional disputes.

And the final declaration did promise "the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims."

But in his opening remarks at the conference, Moeller made clear the chief purpose of the gathering by targeting "the assumption by some that there is a need for a new legal regime for the Arctic Ocean. I do not see such a need, as we have international law, we have the Law of the Sea, which already provide us with a comprehensive legal regime."

A proposal is before the European Parliament to adopt an Arctic policy to assert greater influence over environmental protection and other spheres of activity in the polar region.

The Arctic Council - an eight-country coalition of northern nations which includes the five coastal states plus Sweden, Finland, Iceland and various Arctic indigenous peoples - has also been working to develop rules for managing Arctic resources and environmental threats.

While the delegation leaders - including Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, Gary Lunn - expressed a desire to continue working through the Arctic Council and other international bodies on polar issues, they said the new coastal coalition is merited because those nations have unique opportunities and responsibilities.

"We are states that border the Arctic Ocean, and we have a responsibility to ensure that we put in the safeguards to ensure transportation and environmental protection, search and rescue, and so on - that we co-operate," said Lunn, whose ministry is overseeing Arctic seabed research aimed at securing vast extensions to Canada's continental shelf in the polar north.

The five-nation pact also envisions greater co-operation among the coastal nations in search-and-rescue operations, environmental crisis management and the regulation of oil tankers that could soon be routinely cruising through an ice-free Northwest Passage.

"Everybody, of course, wants to avoid a Titanic or an Exxon Valdez in the Arctic Ocean," Moeller said. "New possibilities of transport in and through the region increase the risk of accidents. More cruises than ever before reach even up to Thule (in far northern Greenland). As responsible coastal states we must strive to minimize this risk."

There is one notable hitch in the five-state strategy to rely on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty designed largely to resolve jurisdictional disputes in coastal regions and govern ocean shipping, as the chief guide to governing Arctic waters.

The most powerful of the five nations at the summit - the United States - hasn't ratified the accord.

John Negroponte, the U.S. deputy secretary of state and head of the American delegation, took pains to express the Bush administration's strong support for signing UNCLOS and predicted U.S. ratification soon.

Adoption of the convention has been blocked by Congress in recent years, largely by conservative legislators concerned about surrendering U.S. power to international legal frameworks.

"We certainly believe it's in the interests of the United States to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty, not the least of which would be for the impact it would have on our Arctic policy, where it's very important," Negroponte told reporters.

Two opposition MPs from northern Canada who attended the conference as observers - the NDP's Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington and Yukon Liberal MP Larry Bagnell - applauded the agreement reached between the five countries.

Two Canadian experts on polar issues offered contrasting opinions on the outcome of the summit.

University of Calgary political scientist Rob Huebert said the five-country plan to manage the ocean's affairs means "Arctic issues will be dealt with on an ad hoc, piecemeal, bilateral basis. The Arctic is much too complicated to deal with in this manner today."

He said the coming problems require "an Arctic Council with teeth, or each issue will deteriorate on its own."

But University of British Columbia political scientist Michael Byers praised the direction of the grouping he dubbed "the Arctic Ocean 5."

The five-nation summit was "a perfectly appropriate venue to discuss Law of the Sea issues as they relate to the Arctic Ocean seabed. Countries that do not border on the Arctic Ocean simply don't have the same interests or potential disputes with respect to those areas and potential resources."


© Canwest News Service 2008

Remembrance Day Thoughts

There seems to be an unwritten rule in the U.S. that military service makes one an expert on the matters of war and peace. Be that as it may I would like to defer on this Memorial Day to General Smedley Butler, a man ahead of his time:

"-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Other Russia Meeting Disrupted By Flying Phallus

In the bad old days meetings of Russian dissidents were routinely disrupted by government goon squads. In new Russia things are different. Meetings are now disrupted by remote controlled flying dildos. Mr. Kasparov was relatively non-plussed as per the National Post:

"I think we have to be thankful for the opposition's demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate," said Mr. Kasparov after the attack. "Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt." Someone in the audience shouts, "Finally the political power shows its face!" to which he replied, "Well, if that's its face..."

The American Reality Disconnect

There is a disconnect in the American political contest in regards to world evolution. For instance the increase in petroleum prices, the decline in the U.S. dollar, and impoverishment of America that is starting to resemble Russian collapse. None of these issues are dealt with honestly or straight forwardly in the U.S. A good example is the recent Bush trip to the Mid-East which was by all accounts a huge fiasco, Asia Times Online goes into further detail:

" Bush's Middle East policy in tatters
By M K Bhadrakumar

"They [Arab leaders] have stopped taking their instructions from Islam, they have decided that peace with the Zionists is their strategic option, so damn their decision." - Osama bin Laden, audio message, May 18

Last Tuesday, while United States President George W Bush was setting out from Washington on a five-day tour of the Middle East, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as hinting that Tehran might consider a cut in oil exports. Of course, Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari quickly clarified that Tehran was only reviewing its exports

and here, too, a decision was to be taken on a possible increase or decrease.

Neither Ahmadinejad nor Nozari said anything like Iran was reviewing oil output as such (which exceeds 4.2 million barrels per day, the highest level since the 1979 Islamic revolution). But US oil prices went into a tizzy nonetheless and hit a record high of US$126 per barrel by the time Bush landed in the Persian Gulf region.

"Bush was expected to press the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for an early meet to raise oil production. (OPEC is scheduled to next meet in September to decide on its oil output policy.) Stephen Hadley, the US national security advisor, was on record that Bush would tell Saudi King Abdullah that the oil-exporting countries should regard it to be in their self-interest to "take into account the economic health of their customers who pay these prices". In the event, when they met on Friday, Bush found that the Saudi king was not to be persuaded.

Meanwhile, Nozari was back on stage. He told Fars news agency, "I believe there is no need for an [emergency] OPEC meeting. Why should there be this meeting when oil prices go up? The OPEC members are currently utilizing their full capacity and are supplying the market ... With oil at US$126, it is not wise for those with oil not to supply it." Nozari then added, "I believe it is not that oil is becoming more expensive, but the dollar is becoming cheaper."

It would have been unthinkable five or six years ago that a visiting US president would receive such an open rebuff in the Middle East. Last weekend's exchanges revealed the extent of decline in the US's dominance of the Middle East through the present Bush administration. No doubt, oil lies at the very center of the decline of the American dominion. The cascading rise in oil prices has led to a massive transfer of resources to the energy exporting countries. Iran is one principal beneficiary.

The huge accumulation of wealth enables Iran to exert influence regionally and ensure there is practically nothing the US can do to stop its rise as a regional power. Goldman Sachs in a report on Friday predicted oil would further jump to a level of $140 by July. "The near-term outlook for oil prices continues to be bullish," Goldman said. Investors are flocking to the oil market as a hedge against the fall in the value of the dollar. The Wall Street Journal has reported that at the moment the Iranians hold about 25 million barrels - about twice the quantum of the US's daily imports - of heavy crude in offshore tankers in the Persian Gulf."

Even more interesting is the beginning of the "end of the car dialogue" and the end of American suburbia, exurbia, culture as noted in the Philidephia Inquirer:

"Call it a change of plan.

Across the nation, the price of gasoline is sending more and more Americans to public transit.

This ridership surge points up three things: (1) These millions of new riders can do it. Most of them always could have. They just didn't. (2): We're not at the end of car culture yet . . . that's a few generations off . . . but (3) it's clear, in not-quite-hindsight, that the U.S. car culture does not work.

Meanwhile, more people are parking the car and hopping on the train or bus. Just ask the people at SEPTA. Director of public affairs Richard Maloney says: "It's been a steady upward curve for the last 18 months, 14 percent growth in that time and 24 percent in the last three years, driven primarily by gasoline prices." Growth is greatest, he says, in regional rail, among suburban communities, and among people with long car commutes.

On the eastern side of the Delaware, New Jersey Transit's Trenton-to-Camden River Line had its best-ever quarter ended in September, averaging a record 7,900 riders a day, and followed that with another record quarter through December. And the Delaware River Port Authority says ridership on the PATCO High-Speed Line is up 7 percent from a year ago.

All of which fits a big national pattern. According to a May 10 New York Times survey, metro Minneapolis, Dallas, Seattle, and San Francisco all are seeing ridership spikes, with big gains both where public transit is long-established (New York, Boston) and where it is comparatively new (Houston, Charlotte, N.C.).

Clarence W. Marsella, chief executive of the Denver Regional Transportation District, told the Times that gasoline prices had brought on a "tipping point" regarding ridership. Maybe so. Or is this just momentary, and once we get used to higher prices, we'll backslide into former habits?I can imagine a reasonable objection: "The car culture doesn't work? The car has made our lives possible! It has made this country great, made contemporary life what it is today. Life without cars - without the unquestioned right to personal mobility at will - is unimaginable. You couldn't have the suburbs without the auto. Didn't Frank Lloyd Wright design his modern suburbs based on the car? And Levittown . . ."

Agreed. All true. Car culture got us where we wanted when we wanted - for five generations. Much has been spectacular, beyond what could have been dreamed 100 years ago.

How, then, can I say that car culture doesn't work? Because the cost to individual and communal life, and to the environment, has been too high. And the bill is just now coming due.

It's not evil, just heedless. People take the opportunities they're given. They have the right. The car symbolizes freedom, rights of passage, career, sexuality. We've created the national road system, bought hundreds of millions of cars, based hundreds of millions of lives on the assumption that Hey, we can just drive. But all that time, we've been burning resources, replacing none. (How much steel have we put back in the ground? How much oil?)

We've basically laid the environment to waste, millions of acres never to return, all because there was no plan B. Roads are good things - but where you build a road, you outrage an environment, and no one ever rectifies it. The sad sprawl of the 1980s and 1990s, when people let towns metastasize into hastily planned and built exurban strips - that worked well, didn't it?

And does anyone think the morning and evening rush is good for us? Individually and as a society? Single drivers (70 percent and more in many metro area traffic jams) in single cars, edging ahead, until sometimes it seems as if the ambient blood pressure is about to blow? (Studies show traffic jams do contribute to stress and high blood pressure. But you knew that.)

And wasteful: The car commute amounts to a willing sacrifice of billions of hours of precious, productive time. U.S. Census figures suggest the average U.S. driver spends 100 hours commuting a year (the standard vacation, 10 work days of eight hours apiece, is only 80 hours). Philadelphia ranks fifth among cities with a long one-way commute (29.4 minutes); New Jersey ranks third among states (28.5 minutes). Traffic jams waste time, and therefore bucks: A 2007 Texas Traffic Institute study said that in 2005, folks wasted an average of 38 hours a year stalled, for grand totals of 4.2 billion hours, 2.9 billion gallons of fuel, and a loss to the economy of $78.2 billion. That's what I call not working. (At least you can work on a train or bus.)

This has wrecked family life for many who live farther and farther from work - and so work farther and farther from home. It has created the commuter suburb, whose residents have little to do with their towns except, just about, the bed where they happen to sleep between commutes. How great is that?

We will all put up with it, as long as we can get where we're going.

I sure did. It's with us for the foreseeable. But no one has to love it. Many are now finding there are other ways. As oil gets scarcer and pricier, people may start to work closer to home, based on resources. They're starting to, it seems. That may benefit cities, with people increasingly opting for "elegant density" and closeness to work and amenities. We should have been doing this all along. We just weren't paying attention.

So, no, we haven't reached the tipping point - we've reached a pocketbook point. When things really tip, we'll discover - gasp - we don't have enough trains and buses for those who need them. (Already, says Maloney, SEPTA "has every available car in service" and is "searching internationally" for more train cars.)

Life will change. The roads will start getting lonely. It's a while off - but worth thinking about. Maybe then we'll make plan "B"."

A Visit to Las Vegas

While a visit to Las Vegas is usually associated with inebriation and compulsive gambling there are other things to pursue which quite frankly border on the surreal in an already surreal place. During my recent visit while at a medical conference (take home message the U.S. medical system demonstrates a complete disconnect between quality and cost) I payed a visit to the Atomic Test Site Museum, a fascinating, if somewhat creepy place. There is a palpable ambivalence about the ethics of nuclear war and I do think the place should dump the 9-11 reference (a girder from the World Trade Center which I believe was brought down with box cutters not nukes) which is nothing more than gratuitous propaganda. Beyond that there is a glimpse into the paranoia and fear which gave us the National Security State that we now live in.

Another example of of Americana that only Vegas can do justice to is the Liberace Museum that encapsulates West Allis, Wisconsin's contribution to popular culture. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for alternate entertainment in Vegas and don't miss the Wes Winter's show that goes with this.

Weenie Wagging in Red Square

After more than a decade Russia now feels the need to exhibit its military equipment in the name of national pride. The occasion is "Victory Day", commemerating the end of "The Great Patriotic War" in 1945. As reported in the Guardian not all were impressed:

"Western defence specialists pronounce themselves unimpressed by Russia's displays - described by one as "willy-waving". They snidely point out most hardware dates from the Brezhnev era; the conscript army is also mired in scandals over bullying of recruits. "If they wish to get out their old equipment and take it for a spin, they're more than welcome to do so," a Pentagon spokesman said this week when asked whether the Bush administration considered Russia a threat."

Russia is of course not the only country to engage in military exhibitionism but this does seem to be a step backwards.

The Coming Middle Class U.S. Collapse

I love it when mild mannered academics start giving the hard truth, obviously the end is near. Courtesy Energy Bulletin Net.

Who Lives Well In Russia?

A very interesting video from Kommersant, the answers which were very revealing about contemporary Russia ranging from" no one" to "me" to, as one furtive respondent, "the Jews."Even more illustrative is the Russians themselves that tends to fly in the face of American ill-informed stereotypes.

45,000 English Soccer Fans Set to Invade Moscow

In what could be a flashpoint in Anglo-Russki relations, already frayed, upwards of 45,000 to 50,000 English soccer fans will be headed to Moscow this summer for the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea. As reported in "The Independent":

"Paul Scholes' winning goal for Manchester United against Barcelona on Tuesday night ensured that the nightmare most feared by Uefa, European football's governing body, would come true. Tens of thousands of United fans will now travel 1,500 miles for the privilege of watching their team play against their Premier League rivals Chelsea, who beat Liverpool 4-3 on aggregate at Stamford Bridge last night.Many fear that Moscow is simply not capable of hosting the influx, with a Foreign Office official warning that there are no hotel vacancies in the city around 21 May when the final takes place. A war of words has also broken out between London and Moscow over the system of granting visas for travel into both countries."

Already speculation has broken out about the potentially volatile mix of Russian hooligans, the notorious Russian riot police, the OMON, and England's well known hooligans. As noted in another article in "The Independent":

"They will also have Russian hooligans to deal with, many of whom model their "firms" on 1970s English football hooligans. "We've all read books and seen films about the Chelsea Headhunters, and other English firms," said one Spartak Moscow fan, "and people can't wait to test themselves against the best and most violent supporters in the game." Then there is the fearsome Omon riot police to contend with. Likely to be present in their thousands at the game, they have no qualms about using violence to quell trouble. In Moscow, a Manchester United vs Liverpool final is considered the most dangerous outcome."

This could result in something that would severly test EU unity and civility to put it mildly and might even result in American Football in Russia.

Israel Bombs the "Box on the Euphrates" Why?

The Real News

One of my big frustrations with MSM is the nausea factor. For example why does Hannah Montana have anything to do with current events, or whatever trivia in Atlanta be it dogs or weather warrent nationwide coverage? So it is with some hope I am promoting "The Real News", a place where uncovered stories get the coverage so lacking in the everday U.S. and free us from the miasma of corporate ignorance.

Minnesota Blogs of Note

Every now and then I must acknowledge some great blogs that give me inspiration and from the the great state to the Northwest I must point to The Mississippifarian and Tildology. The authors of both have been great hosts and also co-visitors at Yearly Kos. Kudos to both.

The Zimbabwe Israel Connection

While most of the world decries the oppression of the Zimbabwean people under what used to be a government of liberation little is known or made of who is actually propping up this odious regieme.
As it turns out Israel has done more than most in this area to support Robert Mugabe. Witness the following: Israel is a supplier of riot control vehicles as noted by the South African Documentation and Cooperation Council:

"The Israeli government has endorsed the sale of heavy riot control vehicles to Zimbabwe, the state-run radio station, Kol Yisrael reported yesterday. The report, on the station’s respected international affairs programme, quoted foreign ministry sources as saying that Shimon Peres, the foreign minister, had authorised the transaction between the Beit Alfa Trailer company and the Mugabe regime, but had specified that it be delayed until after Zimbabwe’s March elections. Use of the equipment during the polling would have embarrassed Israel. The report quoted Mr Peres as saying the deal would boost the economy in the north of Israel, where Beit Alfa, a kibbutz turned weapons producer, is located. In Harare, opposition elements are worried that the new weaponry, which has reportedly already arrived, will be used to intensify the regime’s current crackdown. "The equipment is heavy and can crush any demonstration," a Zimbabwe police official was quoted on Sunday as telling the Zimbabwe Gazette. The paper said police were being trained by an Israeli in how to use the equipment.

The equipment has already arrived in Zimbabwe and includes customised anti-riot tankers, gas masks and microscopic 'laser guns', similar to those used by Israeli forces against the Palestinian protesters. The tankers, called Riot Control Vehicle model RCU 4500 I, were supplied by the Beit Alfa Trailer Company and have been undergoing tests at the Police Support Unit Headquarters in the capital. The anti-riot vehicles include the latest in water cannon technology based on an advanced computer controlled jet pulse system. Highly accurate pulse firing can be done in three different modes-short pulse, long pulse and continuous stream. The water is shot up to 500 metres. The command control panel allows the operator to mix additives like scorching tear gas, pepper spray or dye to the water "according to operational needs." They are also equipped with surveillance cameras. "

More relevant at this time is the contract with Nikuv which allowed the Mugabe government access to computer equipment to influence the outcomes of elections, which as anyone living in Florida or Ohio might know, has major implications. As noted at the Cambridge Forecast Group Blog:

"Nikuv International Projects, a company that specializes in identification, electoral and government systems, holds a government contract with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Home Affairs to computerize all identification documents. The ID database compiled by the company was used in Saturday’s voters’ roll.

In an article last week, The Zimbabwean, a weekly independent newspaper promoting democratic change and published simultaneously in London and Johannesburg, alleged that 20 Israelis had arrived in Zimbabwe as “special government guests” “to beef up Mossad support for… Mugabe’s election-rigging plans.” Met by members of the Mugabe government’s Central Intelligence Office, the paper alleges they were “taken to a hideout in the capital” to meet other Mossad and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials. It quoted an anonymous government official saying Mossad agents were the “major force… controlling the election process, especially… the counting and announcement of results.”

So the Middle East's only "Democracy" is squashing it for anyone can fork over the neccesary bucks.

Liberal....Democratic.....Party....of......Russia

It's a party and Aleksi Mitrofanov deputy of the Russian Duma demonstrates why he's a Liberal Democratic kind of guy, that is in the mold of Vladimir Zhirinovski and his LDPR. BTW Zhirinovski has his own nightclub,"Liberal" also as seen above. I am indebted to Skandali.ru for news such as this and you can thank me for reading this stuff for you. One can only wonder what Mr. Mitrofanov actually does for his constituents.

Sanctity of Russian Marriage Upheld

Vladimir Putin vigorously denied recent reports of his impending marriage to Alina Kabaeva. In addition the the Russian website Skandali reports that the offices of Moskovski Korrespondent have been visited by the special services of the FSB.

Intro to Club Orlov

Allow me to introduce you to Club Orlov. All you need for admission is citizenship in a collapsing world power. Dmitry Orlov is eminently qualified having lived in one collapsed superpower and now, ironically, is living in a second collapsing "world dominator". What luck.
Needless to say this has given him a unique perspective into the process and pathology of collapse. He examines problems that have never crossed the minds of many Americans for example:

"I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas — abandoning its soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Not only is it an indelible stain on the country’s honor, it is an effective way to create a large underclass of desperate armed men who do not answer to any authority, creating a society where the price of a contract killing is only slightly higher than the price of the ammunition. The United States maintains over a thousand overseas military bases, most of which serve no purpose other than maintaining a megalomaniac fiction of American military superiority. They are often resupplied by private contractors, whose procurement operations rely on the domestic civilian economy. As long as the economy is intact, they can bring three flavors of ice cream to an air-conditioned tent in the middle of a desert, but once the economy collapses, they will collapse with it, and the military may turn out to lack even the resources to truck in water. Overseas military bases should be dismantled and the troops repatriated."

He also notes that in addition to competition in nuclear weapons both societies had an unhealthy lead on the rest of the world in percentage of incarcerated citizens leading to the following suggestion based on no doubt painful experience:

"I would like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Such an amnesty will have to happen as a matter of course, once the resources that sustain the prison system stop flowing. The scenario to avoid is one in which, in the midst of general chaos, the entire population of prisoners is released en masse and, with no other resources available to them, they start plying their various criminal trades. Paroling the non-violent, shortening sentences, decriminalizing drugs, and providing room and board to former inmates, are all reasonable steps to take to prevent a crime wave of staggering proportions once the criminal justice system finally shuts down."

I think it is safe to say that the "Collapse Party" is probably the wave of the American future, and while this election may not reflect this, the next one certainly will. In the meantime Mr. Orlov's new book "Reinventing Collapse" promises to be mandatory reading for would be survivors. You can pre-order here.

Putin to Dump Ludimilla and Wed 24 y/o Gymnast

Moskovski Korrespondent reports that Vladimir Putin is divorcing (or already has) his wife, Ludimilla, for 24 year-old gymnast and member of the Duma, Alina Kabaeva. The whole story is a little weird and even the owner of Moskovski Korrespondent, Alexander Lebedev, claims to have no knowledge of how the story came about.
Radaronline gives perhaps the best lowdown on what appears to be a very interesting story.
Putin's known views on marriage are said to be at the very least somewhat authoritarian according to of all places, Center for Defense Information:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin may openly profess his pride in his KGB past, but his wife Lyudmila recently disclosed a less-publicized aspect of his personality. According to the First Lady, her husband is a bona fide male chauvinist.

Regarding a woman's role in life, Putin's views are crystal-clear -- and not exactly progressive -- 45-year-old Lyudmila said in a biography of the Russian leader released Wednesday.

He has two basic rules: "a woman must do everything at home" and "you should not a praise a woman, otherwise, you will spoil her," she confided to journalist Oleg Blotski in "Vladimir Putin: The Road to Power."

And his background as a spook may have slightly contaminated his relations with his spouse, Lyudmila Putin went on.

"He has put me to the test throughout our life together. I constantly feel that he is watching me and checking that I make the right decisions," she complained.

Some domestic tyrants may at least be easy to cook for, but not this one, she revealed.

"He is extremely difficult to cook for and will refuse to eat a dish if he does not like the slightest thing in it," she said.

"He never praises me and that has totally put me off cooking," the First Lady added.

And Putin's work as a KGB spy has meant that secrecy has been a constant of life with him. In fact, it took Lyudmila Putin a full 18 months to learn about her then fiance's professional occupation.

The fact that he was always an hour and a half late when they were dating may have put her on cue.

But while Putin is a tough husband, his wife conceded that he is an ideal father for their two daughters, 17-year-old Masha and 16-year-old Katya.

They have spent "the happiest moments of their lives with their father," who "will allow them anything," in a sharp contrast to the way he handles his wife, Lyudmila Putin said.

The book displays several pictures showing Putin playing with his then baby daughters.

A graduate of foreign languages who spent several years in East Germany when her husband was posted there as a KGB agent, Lyudmila Putin at first stayed behind the scenes after her spouse came to power in December 1999 but has recently gained more prominence.

Once a year, she gives a now traditional interview to the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily, published in December.

Last year, she insisted in one of these interviews that she did not shy away from debating politics with her husband in their home life.

"I am concerned about many problems as a wife and a woman, I discuss these with Vladimir Vladimirovich when he has a minute free," Mrs. Putin said.

"When we discuss a problem, I give my point of view and sometimes this provokes a debate," the president's wife explained, adding that she "greatly respects" her husband's opinion and in general they have "the same points of view."

Russian and Mexican Peaks

Further evidence of peak oil phenomena is demonstrated in recent Russian oil production figures. According to Leonid Fedun, head of Lukoil, it will take a 1 trillion dollar investment just to maintain current Russian output. As per the BBC:

"Lukoil's Leonid Fedun said $1 trillion would have to be spent on developing new reserves if current output levels were to be maintained.

Recent figures show Russian output fell 1% in the first quarter of 2008.

The possibility of less oil from one of the world's key suppliers will add more pressure to prices now at record highs.

Russian peak?

The surprise fall in Russian oil output in the first part of the year has raised fears about the ability of global supply to keep pace with demand over the next decade.

Russian production averaged 10 million barrels a day in the first three months of 2008, according to the International Energy Agency, down 1% on the same period last year."

In the meantime Mexican oil output has declined to the point that the third largest supplier of oil to the U.S. is now number four with Venezuala moving to number three. Peak Opportunities
gives the details:

"Most folks are surprised to learn that the world’s second largest oil field is not located in Saudi Arabia. Nor even in the Middle East. In fact, it is located offshore Mexico, in the Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico. This “giant” field, with an ultimate recovery which may reach 20 billion barrels, was discovered in 1976 by Rudesindo Cantarell. Sr. Cantarell was not a geologist, nor a geophysicist, but rather ... a fisherman. It seems that the natural oil seeps were playing havoc with his nets! PEMEX, the national oil company of Mexico, finally investigated it and the rest, as they say, is history.

Cantarell Field, as it turns out, is a real freak of geology. The porosity - or holes in the rock where the oil is located - is believed to be the result of a rubble pile from an asteroid strike which took place some 65 million years ago! And not just any asteroid strike: The asteroid which caused what has become known as the Chicxulub Crater, on the Yucatan Peninsula, is thought to have been 6 miles in diameter, and many scientists attribute this particular asteroid strike as being the “extinction event” that took out the dinosaurs! The impact energy from that strike is believed to have been some 2 million times that of the largest man-made explosion, that of the Tsar Bomba, a 50 megaton hydrogen device set off by Russia in 1961. Interesting stuff!

Cantarell was put on production in 1979. Production was 1.16 million barrels per day (1.16 MMBO/D) in 1981, and in 1995 production was still 1 MMBO/D. In 2000, PEMEX installed the world’s largest nitrogen injection project on Cantarell. In this process, nitrogen is stripped from air and injected into the upper parts of the reservoir in order to maintain reservoir pressure, and thus to increase or maintain production. Production increased to 1.6 MMBO/D in 2001, then to 1.9 MMBO/D in 2002, and then to 2.1 MMBO/D in 2003. By the end of 2005, however, production had returned to 1.9 MMBO/D. In January, 2006, a PEMEX press release unveiled their conclusion that Cantarell had peaked, and would decline down to a rate between 1.5 MMBO/D and 0.5 MMBO/D by the end of 2008. The attentive folks at the Wall Street Journal must have sensed the significance of this event, as they first ran this story on 2/9/06, and they published an update in August of 2006. Since this time it appears they have been revisiting the story about every February, with stories on 1/27/07, and most recently on 2/15/08.

As of the end of 2007, Cantarell was said to be producing 1.4 MMBO/D, or down some 600,000 BO/D (or 29 %) from its peak rate in 2004!

Why is this important? Well, Mexico is the 3^rd largest exporter of oil to the United States. Out of about 20 MMBO/D of total consumption (maybe closer to 21 MMBO/D now), we import some 60 %, or around 12 MMBO/D. Mexico makes up some 1.4 MMBO/D of that 12 MMBO/D, or about 10 % of our total imports.

So, if Mexico can’t supply that oil - just get it somewhere else, right? Well it appears that there is little or no “spare” capacity in oil production RATE, worldwide. So, if we need 1.4 MMBO/D from Mexico but they can’t supply it, we either have to get that oil instead of someone else, or do without. The oil pricing or geopolitical implications of this scenario should speak for themselves.

To put the ultimate loss of 1.5 MMBO/D out of Cantarell into perspective, consider the massive tar sands in Canada. Even though these tar sand RESERVES are huge, their production RATE is limited by the QUALITY of these deposits. Namely, one has to shovel, melt or dissolve this tar out of the ground. Today’s total production RATE from these tar sands, after huge efforts and investments of billions of dollars, only totals about 1.1 MMBO/D. And, with billions more invested, by 2015 they believe the rate can be increased by an additional 1.9 MMBO/D. So, if there weren’t any other RATE declines going on around the world, and if demand was not increasing, then the Canadian tar sands might be able to compensate for the loss of Cantarell.

Put another way, if other declines ARE present around the world, and if there are not many provinces where the RATE is significantly increasing (such as with the Canadian tar sands), and if the increases from the tar sands can barely make up for Cantarell declines, then what significant capacity increases are available to make up for the other declines?

So, Cantarell Field is a "poster child" for Peak Oil concerns.
Most recently we wondered, “If Cantarell is down significantly, and other Mexican production is up some, but not enough to compensate, what must be making up the balance?” Namely, if production is down and Mexican domestic consumption is flat or up (as is normal in a developing country), then imports must go up, or exports must go down, in order to compensate. In other words, something’s got to give."

Big Melt and CO2 vs. U.S. "reality"

More scientific evidence accumulates relating CO2 production to climate change but with minimal effect in the consciousness ofthe American public. Recent examples include further work by James Hansen, an American scientist whose works have been actively supressed in the U.S. As noted at Truthout Dr. Hansen postulates an abrupt "tipping point" that requires decisive action and is largely ignored by the American mainstream:

" Very few people outside of climate scientists and climate activists even know about Hansen's polar ice melt hypothesis and what it means to each of our distant and more immediate futures. There is probably a scientific debate raging in labs and symposia about this new and compelling vision of climate change, but since publics globally remain, surrealistically, almost completely uninformed, how would we know?.

For example, Andrew Revkin, the NY Times expert and dean of American climate science reportage, mentioned the Hansen et el latest paper, "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" only through his Dotearth blog with no coverage in the Times newspaper at all. At Dotearth he quotes from the paper's summary:

Humanity today, collectively, must face the uncomfortable fact that industrial civilization itself has become the principal driver of global climate. If we stay our present course, using fossil fuels to feed a growing appetite for energy-intensive lifestyles, we will soon leave the climate of the Holocene, the world of human history. The eventual response to doubling preindustrial atmospheric CO2 likely would be a nearly ice-free planet.

Humanity's task of moderating human-caused global climate change is urgent. Ocean and ice sheet inertias provide a buffer delaying full response by centuries, but there is a danger that human-made forcings could drive the climate system beyond tipping points such that change proceeds out of our control. The time available to reduce the human-made forcing is uncertain, because models of the global system and critical components such as ice sheets are inadequate. However, climate response time is surely less than the atmospheric lifetime of the human-caused perturbation of CO2. Thus, remaining fossil fuel reserves should not be exploited without a plan for retrieval and disposal of resulting atmospheric CO2. Paleoclimate evidence and ongoing global changes imply that today's CO2, about 385 ppm, is already too high to maintain the climate to which humanity, wildlife and the rest of the biosphere are adapted.

But the vast majority of New York Times newspaper readers, Americans in general and people globally have never even heard of this emerging vision of climate change, let alone been informed and educated by critical commentary from those with relevant expertise.

Hansen's emerging climate change vision and climate change A are almost mutually exclusive. Today's nascent climate change mitigation measures, including carbon taxes and cap and trade, remain completely within the gradual, linear, conventional wisdom. This level of mitigation does not address the big ice sheet melt as a crucial tipping point. No governments anywhere - not even those governments that have led in acknowledging climate change as a real and serious problem - are even remotely considering mitigation measures of an immediacy and scale needed to try to return atmospheric CO2 emission levels below 350 ppm. Climate change B is an impossibility within our present political and economic systems.

Which is probably why you haven't heard about Hansen's new climate change information and possible Draconian mitigation strategies in the mainstream media."

The video posted above comes from The Vulcan Project at Purdue done in cooperation with NASA. While it by itself doesn't establish CO2 emissions directly to climate change it does demonstrate the measurable nature of the phenomena which can be seen also in polar ice formation melting and other harbingers of change. Don't say you weren't warned.

Ukraine and NATO

The goings on regarding NATO and Ukraine get more convoluted everyday. Initially Germany and France made their concerns known fearing repercussions on a number of fronts as per The Independent:

"Mr Brown joined Germany and France in urging caution on the US President at the summit in Bucharest in a "brush by" meeting with Mr Bush at the summit before a formal banquet. Mr Brown made it clear he supports the granting of Nato's membership action plan (MAP) to Georgia and Ukraine in principle, but he will not be pressing for it to be agreed at this summit.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's incoming president, warned this week that granting Nato membership to the two former Soviet republics could threaten European security.

Both the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who are attending the summit, oppose immediate granting of MAP status to the two states, which would ultimately result in Nato guaranteeing to come to their aid if they were attacked."

Now however the tide seems to have turned according to Kommersant:

"The NATO-Ukrainian commission sits in Bucharest Friday, RIA Novosti reported. The alliance partnership with Ukraine is firm, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made clear when opening the event.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called the NATO move historic. NATO softened yesterday the refusal to grant MAP to Ukraine and Georgia. The alliance pledged to invite two nations in future, adding that Moscow would have no influence on the membership decisions of NATO.

It was clearly said at the summit that Ukraine will become NATO member, Yushchenko announced. Of all states, Ukraine is the only one that takes part in all operations of the alliance without being its member, the president reminded, confirming, however, that Ukraine won’t host military bases as it is prohibited by the constitution."

Living in the U.S. one would hardly know that Bush was in Kiev, let alone that he was hardly greeted with open arms during the past week. Media With Conscience reports on preparations for GWBs visit:

"Thousands of protesters have gathered in Ukraine's capital to dencounce Washington and Nato ahead of a visit by George Bush, the US president. Bush is visiting Kiev before this week's Nato summit in Romania, where Ukrainian officials hope to win approval for the first step in their country's bid to join the military alliance.

Around 5,000 protesters, comprised mainly of Communists and other left-wing groups, massed in Independence Square before moving off to the US embassy as police looked on.

Many waved flags and placards saying "Bush out of Ukraine" and "Yankee go home" as Soviet-era songs blared in the background."

To get a real flavor of Ukrainian reaction this video on Kommersant is informative even if you don't speak Russian, the anti-Bush banner is priceless as my credit card would say.

Russian Skinhead Violence Stats

The Russian website SOVA which keeps track of these things has released figures for the past three months showing that so far this year ~ 40 people have been killed in nationalist/skinhead violence, the majority in Moscow:

"In March 2008, in Russia, there were not less than 31 racially motivated attacks on 40 people, including 10 fatalities. In total, in 2008, not less than 39 people died and 112 were injured in 14 regions of Russia.

Moscow stays the major center of violence with 24 people murdered and not less than 63 injured, including 5 murdered and 20 injured people in March.

Obviously, because of the big number of deadly crimes, the information about minor incidents remains underreported. In particular, in St. Petersburg, the second center of the neo-nazi violence, in 2008, there have been reports about 7 murdered and only 4 injured people. This proportion hardly reflects the real situation in the city."

Pravda, by the way, reports an incident in which the would-be victims apparently turned the tables:

"Another massive fight took place in the Moscow metro on Sunday night. A group of Russian skinheads attacked two young Caucasian men on the Belorusskaya metro station at about 11:10 p.m. Potential victims showed a surprisingly powerful resistance: they would have won the fight but the police put an end to the scuffle.....
Several young men of Slavic looks came up to two nationals of the Caucasus and attempted to beat them. It was not reported what kind of weapon the assaulters had, although the Caucasians pulled out knives and used them for their own defense. Four skinheads were wounded as a result of the fight. The men were hospitalized to Sklifosofsky Institute with stab wounds, the Moscow ER Center said. The police also detained all other members of the fight.

According to the information from law-enforcement agencies, there are about 15-20 thousand skinheads in Russia. About 5,000 of them conduct subversive activities in Moscow. The numbers are most likely underestimated: there are up to 50 thousand neonazis of various beliefs in Russia, which is equal to their quantity in the rest of the world.

Pseudo-patriots attack everyone of non-Russian nationalities – they do not have any mercy on either children or elderly people. A group of skinheads in the Russian city of Lipetsk attacked an elderly doctor several days ago. The man was lucky to survive in the fight: two Russian women rushed to help the man and managed to pull furious teenagers away from their victim.

It goes without saying that such defenders are highly rare: the majority of citizens prefer to stay away from infuriated bald-headed young men in military clothing. An encounter with skinheads usually ends either with severe injuries or a lethal outcome for a victim. Skinheads killed 44 people in Russia last year and injured about 200 – presumably Africans, Caucasians and Asians."

Shut Up and Live

A leading neurosurgeon is predicting an epidemic of brain tumors due to cellphone use. I've always wondered what holding a microwave generator next to your head for prolonged periods might do to its contents. This may turn out to be similar to using unshielded x-rays to determine your shoe size in the good old days. As per The Independent:

"Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years, has published more than three dozen scientific papers – reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He has put the results on a brain surgery website, and a paper based on the research is currently being peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal.

He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that "there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours". He believes this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade.

Noting that malignant brain tumours represent "a life-ending diagnosis", he adds: "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation." He fears that "unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps", the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking," says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke. Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents.

Late last week, the Mobile Operators Association dismissed Khurana's study as "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual". It believes he "does not present a balanced analysis" of the published science, and "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews".

The Southern Big Melt

Further information on generalized melting by New Scientist:

"A thin strip of ice, just 6 kilometres wide, is all that is holding back the collapse of a huge ice shelf in Antarctica, according to glaciologists.

The Wilkins ice shelf – previously some 16,000 square kilometres in area – has been disintegrating fast. On 28 February, an iceberg 41 km long and 2.5 km wide broke off the ice shelf. This triggered the runaway disintegration of a further 570 square kilometres of ice.

"I would be very surprised if it survives more than a couple more melt seasons," says Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado, US.

Other researchers, including David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, believe it could be gone within weeks. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread – we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be," he says.

'Narrow brace'

Although researchers agree the disintegration of the Wilkins ice shelf will not contribute to rising sea levels, they say it may help them understand what triggers such events in order to predict when they are likely to happen again.

"There now remains just a narrow beam of ice, roughly 6 km wide, which is bracing the rest of the shelf," says Scambos. "If that beam breaks up, about half of the ice shelf will probably very quickly break apart."

However Scambos says this is not likely to happen this year, as the southern winter is settling in.

The break up is already helping researchers understand what triggers the disintegration of ice sheets. They now know that waves generated by storms over the open ocean are just as important as air and water temperature."

Russia's New Arlington?

One can only begin to contemplate the implications of a new cemetery especially if this will be located in Russia. Apparently Vladimir Putin has been giving this some thought according to the Telegraph On Line:

"The Federal Military Memorial Cemetery, its designers boast, will be Russia's answer to America's Arlington. Arguably the most ambitious architectural project undertaken since the fall of the Soviet Union, it remains to be seen whether the cemetery, due to be completed by 2010, will become the landmark the Kremlin hopes.

There is no doubt that the project encapsulates the Putin era, which officially ends on May 7, though the president is likely to remain Russia's most powerful man in his new job as prime minister.

The cemetery will be a testament to extravagance, a piece of architectural monumentalism intended to reflect the glory of a resurgent Russia. For the critics, it is also a worrying sign of the Kremlin's flirtation with its Communist past. The design marks a return to the style many assumed had gone with the end of the Soviet Union.

Drawings show that the 132 acre site will feature obelisks, golden statues of figures from Russia's past and friezes of workers in heroic poses."

Russia is full of great cemeteries , Novodevichii and the Lavra come to mind, but new cemeteries usually require new occupants and quite frankly if I were Russian I would wonder who will be the new occupants?

The Big Melt Continues

Living in the American Upper Midwest it's easy to discount climate change given the past winter however all indications point towards more global warming. Another example cited by New Scientist shows that Arctic sea ice is even more transient than before, the above images showing that Arctic sea ice is now more likely than ever to melt away during the coming summer.

"You're looking down on the North pole. The figure to the left shows the average winter ice extent between 1985 and 2000; that to the right is the situation now, in February 2008. The colours are the big thing - they show how old the ice is, from six years and older in purple to less than one year in red.

The take-home message is that more than 70% of the ice in the Arctic has "grown" since last summer. That's a scarily low number - usually only half is "new growth".

"Ice can stay around for up to 10 years," says Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, US. "Old ice is really thick, tough as nails, and very resistant to short term melting." New ice, that red stuff in the figure above, is not thick, not tough - and not resistant to melting."

The Independent has further info on the seasonal changes in Britain that point towards climate disruption:

"In fact, the blurring of the seasons in Britain is now as serious a piece of evidence of climate change as the rapidly increasing melting of ice across the globe, in glaciers and in the land-based and marine ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

The phenomenon shows that a whole range of organisms is already responding actively to the greatest environmental change in human history, in a way that people – and especially politicians – are not.

Last month, that shift produced its most remarkable image yet – a photograph, taken in Dorset, of a red admiral, an archetypal British summer butterfly, feeding on a snowdrop, an archetypal British winter flower.

Although that is not an event likely to cause alarm among the public, it was quite inconceivable until very recently. It is undeniable confirmation that a profound alteration in the environment, the consequences of which are likely to prove catastrophic, is already under way.

It is happening so quickly, and without people realising its true significance, because, in Britain, the major effects of climate change are initially being felt as less cold winters, rather than as hotter summers.

That has produced a startling rise in winter temperatures in recent years, clearly visible when current monthly means are compared to the average for 1961 to 1990.

To take the figures for last winter from the Central England Temperature Record, the world's oldest, which dates back to 1659: January 2007 was 3.2C warmer than the 1961-90 average, February was 2.0C warmer, March was 1.5C warmer, and April was 3.3C warmer. So far this year, January has been 2.8C above the 1961-90 average for the month, and February, 1.6C

Those are substantial rises. Although there is always natural variation in temperatures, recent winters taken together show a remarkable warming trend.

It has meant that many of what used to be thought of as the traditional signs of spring are happening very much earlier, causing primroses, for example, spring flowers par excellence, to bloom in some parts of the country as early as November. Other traditional spring plants, such as dog's mercury and the lesser celandine (a favourite of Wordsworth's) can be seen in January rather than March.

And in what is perhaps an even more vivid change, dandelions and daisies, which used to come into flower in spring on lawns (where they were permitted), now flower in many places all winter long.

Insects are responding similarly. A number of butterflies that overwinter as hibernating adults can now be seen in January rather than March or April, including the peacock and the comma, and especially the red admiral.

This last species used to be a spring migrant from the Continent but, in the recent warmer winters, it has begun to overwinter here.

Bumblebees have similarly become visible in mid-winter, and frogspawn, usually laid about March, can be seen in December in the South-west and south Wales."

Frogspawn, sea ice, and Red Admirals all seem to be saying the same thing.