A Hot Start to 2006  

Sydney certainly had a hot start to the year, with a record 44 degrees greeting me when I arrived back home - the Herald calls this "a searing preview of greenhouse life". On the other hand, I had been over in the normally scorching Western Australia which just experienced its coldest December ever (the average max temperature in Perth in December is normally about 29 degrees, but this year was around 24 degrees - a pretty sizable variation). I still managed to get sunburnt on numerous occasions though.

Sydney can expect more of the searing temperatures that fanned fires, stopped trains, disrupted air travel and blacked out suburbs on New Year's Day, according to CSIRO global warming projections. On average, Sydney experiences temperatures above 35 degrees three days a year. That could double by 2030 and rise to as many as 18 days by 2070.

That would put more pressure on the city's infrastructure and increase heat-related health risks, said the chairman of the Climate Institute, Clive Hamilton. "CSIRO projections indicate that Australian cities can expect a doubling in the number of very hot days in coming decades and drought conditions to become the norm, yet the relentless growth in carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels in Australia has gone unchecked," Dr Hamilton said yesterday.

In the past 200 years large amounts of greenhouse gases released by land clearing and burning of fossil fuels have trapped more heat in the atmosphere and warmed the planet.

According to CSIRO projections, it will not just get hotter in Sydney. There will be less rain, but winds will be stronger and extreme weather events such as floods and hailstorms will be more frequent. And if hot days fall during the working week rather than at weekends or on public holidays the city's electrical infrastructure will face greater difficulties than those experienced on the weekend.

The Rodent's chief headkicker Bill Heffernan got partly burnt out during by one of the bushfires generated by the hot weather - maybe we'll start to see a change of tune on global warming coming out of Canberra (but I won't hold my breath).

John McCain has been in town as well to have a chat about Iraq and global warming - the Herald's report reads like a slightly reworded government press release though - and the nuclear power PR campaign continues unabated....

A potential contender for the Republican nomination in the 2008 US presidential election, John McCain, has visited the Prime Minister, John Howard, in Sydney to discuss Iraq and climate change. Senator McCain, who also held a meeting yesterday with the Environment and Heritage Minister, Ian Campbell, expressed a "strong view" that nuclear power needed to be a part of the American response to the problems of climate change. Senator Campbell said Senator McCain was fascinated to know the direction Australia was taking in a post-Kyoto world in dealing with climate-change issues.

The senior Republican's visit precedes next week's important inaugural meeting in Sydney of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate - the US-led alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. The US and Australia have refused to sign the United Nations-backed protocol. It also comes amid a growing domestic debate on the future of nuclear power in Australia as an alternative to fossil fuels. Several Howard Government ministers have advocated the use of nuclear energy as one way to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The foreign ministers and environment and industry ministers from the six countries involved in the partnership - the US, Japan, China, India, South Korea and Australia - are expected to attend the two-day summit. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will be among them.

The climate-change partnership, first announced at the Association of South-East Asian Nations regional forum in Vientiane last July, aims to generate discussions between the six developed and developing nations about using and sharing technology to cut greenhouse emissions.

Government sources say that at the first meeting, which starts in Sydney tomorrow week, countries will be expected to generate ideas and plans will be made for initiatives. Several private industry representatives from each of the countries involved have also been invited to participate in the summit.

Senator McCain has had a strong interest in climate change, and has advocated different views on some occasions to the US President, George Bush, earning him a reputation as a maverick.

The Vietnam War veteran, who is a supporter of the US's war in Iraq, also told Mr Howard in a 45-minute meeting that there was "still a distance to go in Iraq", a spokesman for the Prime Minister said.

In peak oil news, James Kunstler is forecasting doom and destruction will commence this year. More than a few commenters point out that he has been wrong about this before and that very few peak oil modellers (not even Colin Campbell) predict that the peak was achieved last year. While he is forecasting imminent depression, the bursting of the housing bubble, the collapse of the airline and auto manufacturing industries, war with Mexico and various other horrors, he is "allergic to conspiracy theories" about attacks on Iran, to which a few commenters countered with this German report.

Surprisingly (to me anyway, having happily detached from the news flow for a few weeks, other than reading the execrable local Perth paper which doesn't present any risk of troubling anyone's brain with any news whatsoever), there is quite a bit of chatter around on the Iran topic. Stirling Newberry at Daily Kos has a look at Iran and a number of other energy related issues, including the Russian's shutting off the gas flow to to the Ukraine (not very effectively, as they have to rely on the Ukrianians not siphoning off gas that is meant to flow further along the pipeline to western europe, which the Ukrainians of course aren't cooperating with).

The march of Iran to deterrent state status are prompting "use it or lose it" pressures for preventative - that is aggressive - strikes against Iran and its atomic weapons program, as Iran declares that it has a right to enrich Uranium on its own soil. The Ukraine-Russia gas stand off escalates as Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing Natural gas. In Iraq insurgent threats keep a major refinery shut down in Iraq.

On this, the first working day of the New Year, we are already getting a good stiff taste of the running theme of 2006. If 2004 and 2005 saw resource inflation, 2006 is the year when resource rich countries begin using those resources as weapons, and resource poor countries begin taking aggressive steps to secure resources. The current world market approach to energy is going to break down, as more and more nations are forced to jostle for position.

Somewhere in the next two years it will dawn on the American public that we live in the pre-war, not post-war, era, and that Iraq was a foreshock.

For reasons outlined before, an attack against Iran is unlikely at this time - the danger zone begins in July and runs through late October - because that is the point where a spike of popularity and power will be necessary for Bush, if it seems he is going to lose the Congress. The next danger zone is next year, as he needs to reframe the debate should he lose congress. However, before there are large airstrikes, there must be an escalating campaign of crowding Iranian airspace, in hopes that a pilot will give the US an excuse for further action.

But the larger picture needs to be looked at.

SW made an interesting point in the comments (one I've noted before, but I like to belabor the obvious for new readers and those who miss some of my rantings) - the deluge of lies we've all been subjected to is now a large part of the problem - and until people face up to reality we'll never be able to have a proper debate in any of our so-called democracies about the right course of action (in my view running a real democracy requires a population that is aware of the issues and the facts surrounding them so that they can make informed decisions. I'm not sure what the correct description is for countries full of people that are by and large uninformed and periodically allowed to vote while being subjected to various fear campaigns by the major political parties).

Stirling noted that "the other part of this is saddam - everyone in power knew that it was becoming impossible not to buy oil from iraq, which meant giving him money, which no one trusted him not to spend on WMD.", to which SW noted "To my way of thinking that was the primary crime of the Cheney administration. The fact that they felt compelled to pathologically lie about the reasons for their actions. Even today serious people treat it like it is a mystery. The lies are clear, but what was the true reason?

Jesus Christ on Roller Skates!

They got themselves into this mess because they insist on publicly denying the reality of depletion. Yet their entire middle east foreign policy is based on that reality.

If they would have tried to treat the electorate like adults and simply pointed out that the shrinking pool of crude oil was going to create a situation where either Iraq's resources were developed, enriching a dangerous madman, or we were headed for crude oil shortages, or we had to find some way to remove him from power, world events would have generated public opinion and pressure that would have made the first gulf war coalition look like tea party.

It's the lie piled on top of lie that has gotten them into this mess."

Jeff Vail also takes a look at Iran in his glimpse into the crystal ball for 2006, speculating that US military weakness in the middle east may not be as great as those interpreting Mr Murtha's comments may suggest.

Iran: With the US military drawing down to perhaps less than 50,000 troops (more likely 80,000) by the end of 2006, along with the drawdown of some forces from Europe and South Korea, the US military will surprise many pundits with a reconstituted expeditionary capability.

Equally important will be the forces that are not withdrawn from Iraq but are freed up for internal re-deployment (preventing the notification that is a de-facto result of re-deployment overseas from the US). All of which leads directly to a discussion of Iran and Syria.

An almost unending stream of commentators have theorized that the US will attack Iran in March of 2006. Not at all likely--that's too early--but by the end of the year it will be certainly within the realm of possibility. Which demands a brief analysis of what kind of an attack that might be. A ground invasion is simply impractical--the terrain, size and population of Iran are vastly different from that of Iraq. Of course, the hubris of the current US administration is such that it can't entirely be ruled out--it just isn't very likely.

More likely would be some kind of airstrikes aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities--by either the US or Israel. While there seems to be the kind of political will necessary to carry out such an attack in Israel, it isn't very likely to succeed. The Iranians just bought enough top-of-the-line Russian SA-15 surface-to-air missile systems to provide excellent point defense of their nuclear facilities--even some defense against cruise missiles and GPS-guided bombs. They'll take delivery beginning this Spring.

Despite the rusty nature of Iran's Shah-era air force (Vietnam-era US fighters like the F-4 and older Soviet models), they also have been long rumored to have the Russian-built SA-10 system, which makes US Air Force planners wince. More significantly, however, is the political fall-out of a potential attack.

It's my opinion that Israeli long-term interests would not be served by an airstrike, even if it successfully derailed the Iranian nuclear program for several years, as it would build resolve to finally get a bomb AND use it. US "interests" (by which I mean the current administration's), however, might be better served by such airstrikes, as it could create an environment of instability regarding Iran that would pressure early-adopters to shy away from Iran's euro-denominated oil bourse that opens this March. Which, of course, leads us to a discussion of oil...

Parahistorian Wayne Madsen is one of those theorists who has been predicting a US invasion of Iran for a long time now, and he's still going. His latest (very long) effort even includes the somewhat bizarre assertion that the surprise recent move of Burma's capital to a small unfinished town 200 miles north of Rangoon is due to the fear of nuclear fallout from destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities getting caught up in the monsoon and being dumped on the city by the rains (which sounds pretty far fetched even for him, but I like the level of imagination involved).

Intelligence indications and warnings abound as Bush administration finalizes military attack on Iran.

Intelligence and military sources in the United States and abroad are reporting on various factors that indicate a U.S. military hit on Iranian nuclear and military installations, that may involve tactical nuclear weapons, is in the final stages of preparation. Likely targets for saturation bombing are the Bushehr nuclear power plant (where Russian and other foreign national technicians are present), a uranium mining site in Saghand near the city of Yazd, the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, a heavy water plant and radioisotope facility in Arak, the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel Unit, the Uranium Conversion Facility and Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, the Tehran Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility, the Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories, the Kalaye Electric Company in the Tehran suburbs, a reportedly dismantled uranium enrichment plant in Lashkar Abad, and the Radioactive Waste Storage Units in Karaj and Anarak.

Other first targets would be Shahab-I, II, and III missile launch sites, air bases (including the large Mehrabad air base/international airport near Tehran), naval installations on the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, command, control, communications and intelligence facilities. Secondary targets would include civilian airports, radio and TV installations, telecommunications centers, government buildings, conventional power plants, highways and bridges, and rail lines. Oil installations and commercial port facilities would likely be relatively untouched by U.S. forces in order to preserve them for U.S. oil and business interests.

...

European intelligence sources also report that the recent decision by Putin and Russia's state-owned Gazprom natural gas company to cut supplied of natural gas to Ukraine was a clear warning by Putin to nations like Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Moldova, France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, and Germany that it would do the same if they support the U.S. attack on Iran. Gazprom natural gas is supplied, via pipelines in Ukraine, from Russia and Turkmenistan to countries in Eastern and Western Europe. The Bush administration charged Russia with using gas supplies as a "political tool."

Putin has additional leverage on Western Europe since former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder accepted an appointment to the board of a joint Russian-German North European Gas Pipeline Consortium that is controlled by Gazprom. The pipeline will bring Russian gas to Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, and Britain, giving Putin additional leverage over Washington in Europe.

Southeast Asian intelligence sources report that Burma's (Myanmar's) recent abrupt decision to move its capital from Rangoon (Yangon) to remote Pyinmana, 200 miles to the north, is a result of Chinese intelligence warnings to its Burmese allies about the effects of radiation resulting from a U.S. conventional or tactical nuclear attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. There is concern that a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear installations will create a Chernobyl-like radioactive cloud that would be caught up in monsoon weather in the Indian Ocean.

Low-lying Rangoon lies in the path of monsoon rains that would continue to carry radioactive fallout from Iran over South and Southeast Asia between May and October. Coastal Indian Ocean cities like Rangoon, Dhaka, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, and Colombo would be affected by the radioactive fallout more than higher elevation cities since humidity intensifies the effects of the fallout. Thousands of government workers were given only two days' notice to pack up and leave Rangoon for the higher (and dryer) mountainous Pyinmana.

So what is going to happen ? I sure as hell don't know.

Chaging tack, the Guardian has a report on the steady conversion of arable land worldwide into cropland (and into urban areas) - another limit to growth slowly hoving ominously into sight.

New maps show that the Earth is rapidly running out of fertile land and that food production will soon be unable to keep up with the world's burgeoning population. The maps reveal that more than one third of the world's land is being used to grow crops or graze cattle.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison combined satellite land cover images with agricultural census data from every country in the world to create detailed maps of global land use. Each grid square was 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) across and showed the most prevalent land use in that square, such as forest, grassland or ice.

"In the act of making these maps we are asking: where is the human footprint on the Earth?" said Amato Evan, a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison research team presenting its results this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

The current map shows a snapshot of global land use for the year 2000, but the scientists also have land use data going back to 1700, showing how things have changed.

"The maps show, very strikingly, that a large part of our planet (roughly 40%) is being used for either growing crops or grazing cattle," said Dr Navin Ramankutty, a member of the Wisconsin-Madison team. By comparison, only 7% of the world's land was being used for agriculture in 1700.

The Amazon basin has seen some of the greatest changes in recent times, with huge swaths of the rainforest being felled to grow soya beans.

"One of the major changes we see is the fast expansion of soybeans in Brazil and Argentina, grown for export to China and the EU," said Dr Ramankutty.

This agricultural expansion has come at the expense of tropical forests in both countries.

Meanwhile, intensive farming practices mean that cropland areas have decreased slightly in the US and Europe and the land is being gobbled up by urbanisation.