According to Reuters News Service, a flock of African pink pelicans became confused during their migration and ended up in Siberia. The pelicans, native to Africa (as the name suggests) were apparently fooled by the warm weather in Siberia.
African birds ending up in Siberia is more than a curiosity. It is a sign of things to come. The birds were thrown off their normal migratory patterns by what is being described as abnormally warm temperatures. Abnormally warm for the past, but maybe not the future. Animals such as birds and insects operate largely out of instinct. When this instinct becomes confused or the signals that trigger migration change, behavior is altered in unpredictable ways.
Global warming is more than a abstract concept about the temperature of the earth. In an inter-related system, what affects one thing will affect others. The future is upon us and its going to the birds.
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The Sleeper Has Awaken
For the past two months this blog has been inactive. Several factors, mostly too mundane to mention, contributed to this. However, the primary factor was that the BP disaster in the Gulf has led me to rethink the nature of this site.
As you may have noticed, the subtitle has changed to "A Chronicle of the Destruction of ...". The BP spill became a slow motion disaster that eventually numbed the public with its never ending pattern of incompetence. Now that its over, people are clamoring for more off shore drilling. It seems we will never learn.
The continuing destruction of the planet as evidenced by the toxic spill in Hungary, the continued ongoing disaster of oil spills/leaks/seeps (you name it) in Nigeria, and ongoing nuclear proliferation does not bode well for the future.
While it is true that the weather is not the same as climate, it is hard not to note that it was 113 degrees in Los Angeles last week, that wildfires in Russia burned around Chernobyl and floods in Pakistan displaced millions. Meanwhile, California is on the verge of having environmental reforms gutted by a ballot initiative funded primarily by oil companies.
It is the link between the destruction of the environment and corporate greed that will become the focus of this site as it slowly updates over the next several months. Several features will change and some will be eliminated. Others, such as lists of the worst oil spills, nuclear accidents, etc. will become regular fixtures.
As you may have noticed, the subtitle has changed to "A Chronicle of the Destruction of ...". The BP spill became a slow motion disaster that eventually numbed the public with its never ending pattern of incompetence. Now that its over, people are clamoring for more off shore drilling. It seems we will never learn.
The continuing destruction of the planet as evidenced by the toxic spill in Hungary, the continued ongoing disaster of oil spills/leaks/seeps (you name it) in Nigeria, and ongoing nuclear proliferation does not bode well for the future.
While it is true that the weather is not the same as climate, it is hard not to note that it was 113 degrees in Los Angeles last week, that wildfires in Russia burned around Chernobyl and floods in Pakistan displaced millions. Meanwhile, California is on the verge of having environmental reforms gutted by a ballot initiative funded primarily by oil companies.
It is the link between the destruction of the environment and corporate greed that will become the focus of this site as it slowly updates over the next several months. Several features will change and some will be eliminated. Others, such as lists of the worst oil spills, nuclear accidents, etc. will become regular fixtures.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Dead in the Water
The Gulf Oil Spill is likely to continue its damage for many years. The amount of oil that has leaked will likely never be accurately known thanks to the actions of BP in obscuring the size of the leak to avoid fines. The number of fish and birds killed will never be fully counted. What is for sure is that oil is death to living things.
The Gulf of Mexico already has a huge dead zone where the Mississippi empties into the ocean. Industrial pollution is largely to blame. The BP spill should be put in perspective. The murder of animals and the destruction of the environment is the consequence of modern industrial society. In a larger sense, the BP spill is not unique. There has been oil seeping into the oceans off the coast of Africa for decades, Saudi Arabia had a massive spill a few years ago and there has even been another major spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the past. Not to mention the Exxon Valdez travesty, leaks in China, Russia, Nigeria, etc. Pipeline leaks throughout Africa, Alaska and apparently even Michigan as was learned yesterday. For details of these disasters, just enter the names above and "oil spill" or "oil leak" into a search engine.
We are killing the oceans. To paraphrase a Cree saying: "Only when the last fish has been killed will you learn that you can't eat money." Cheap oil is not worth the price. Turns out, its not so cheap.
The Gulf of Mexico already has a huge dead zone where the Mississippi empties into the ocean. Industrial pollution is largely to blame. The BP spill should be put in perspective. The murder of animals and the destruction of the environment is the consequence of modern industrial society. In a larger sense, the BP spill is not unique. There has been oil seeping into the oceans off the coast of Africa for decades, Saudi Arabia had a massive spill a few years ago and there has even been another major spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the past. Not to mention the Exxon Valdez travesty, leaks in China, Russia, Nigeria, etc. Pipeline leaks throughout Africa, Alaska and apparently even Michigan as was learned yesterday. For details of these disasters, just enter the names above and "oil spill" or "oil leak" into a search engine.
We are killing the oceans. To paraphrase a Cree saying: "Only when the last fish has been killed will you learn that you can't eat money." Cheap oil is not worth the price. Turns out, its not so cheap.
Friday, October 9, 2009
What Would Victory Look Like?
As we contemplate pouring more troops and more resources into Afghanistan, certainly assuring that this will become the longest war in which the U.S. has ever been involved, we seem to have lost sight of what we are trying to do.
Can someone please tell me what victory looks like in Afghanistan? We certainly have no role models. Not the British, not the Russians, not the Moghuls, not even Alexander the Great managed to conquer this land. It's not called the "Graveyard of Empires" for nothing.
It is not even clear who could surrender to provide a military victory. Our puppet, Karzai, has no moral authority with the Afghan people and even our government doesn't think he's in charge. In fact, this very question of who is in charge is the rub.
If the U.S. managed to kill every identified opposition leader and we occupied the country for ten years, what would happen when we left? Everything would return to the same -perpetually the year 1300.
Where does that leave us? Occupying Afghanistan forever in what at best might be a stalemate. Have any doubts? Ask the Russians - they're better at chess. They at least knew the game was not winnable and finally resigned.
Can someone please tell me what victory looks like in Afghanistan? We certainly have no role models. Not the British, not the Russians, not the Moghuls, not even Alexander the Great managed to conquer this land. It's not called the "Graveyard of Empires" for nothing.
It is not even clear who could surrender to provide a military victory. Our puppet, Karzai, has no moral authority with the Afghan people and even our government doesn't think he's in charge. In fact, this very question of who is in charge is the rub.
If the U.S. managed to kill every identified opposition leader and we occupied the country for ten years, what would happen when we left? Everything would return to the same -perpetually the year 1300.
Where does that leave us? Occupying Afghanistan forever in what at best might be a stalemate. Have any doubts? Ask the Russians - they're better at chess. They at least knew the game was not winnable and finally resigned.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
How To Pay For Health Care
Estimates of the costs of health care reform generally range from about $800 billion to $1 trillion over a ten (10) year period. Even though these estimates can be disputed I will accept them for arguments sake at this point. Given these numbers, the upper costs of providing health care would be around $100 billion.
Looking at the budget of the U.S. government, there is an obvious source of money to pay for health care - the Defense Budget. According to the Department of Defense, the 2009 Federal expenditures for the military is approximately $515.4 billion!
Before the paranoid become apoplectic over the idea of making the nation less safe, let's put the numbers in perspective. According to multiple sources, the United States spends about half of the worlds total defense dollars. The two countries that might reasonably be considered a military threat on any par with the U.S. in the future are Russia and China. While numbers for both countries are a little difficult to nail down, the upper estimates of spending for both are around $70 billion. In other words, the combined military spending of China and Russian would have to be increased three to four times in order to match the U.S.
To look at this another way, if the U.S. cut military spending in half, we would still spend about four times as much as either of the only two countries that are even anywhere close to being a potential threat.
What is the U.S. so afraid of militarily? Did I mention that the nation that spends the second most on military spending is Great Britain, our ally? Again, what or who are we so afraid of? India, with hostile neighbor Pakistan sharing a more than thousand mile border, has the largest army in the world, and spends $17 billion total on its military. Our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, pose no military threat to us and one would have to be insane to contend otherwise.
There really is no justification for the excess in spending by the military except for the fact that the war industry, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us against at the end of his term, has control of the people who control the purse strings. The United States could easily, without causing any threat to our security, free $100 billion dollars from the defense budget.
All money spent is a matter of priorities. The U.S. could easily fund health care by shifting its priorities from the killing business to health care.
Looking at the budget of the U.S. government, there is an obvious source of money to pay for health care - the Defense Budget. According to the Department of Defense, the 2009 Federal expenditures for the military is approximately $515.4 billion!
Before the paranoid become apoplectic over the idea of making the nation less safe, let's put the numbers in perspective. According to multiple sources, the United States spends about half of the worlds total defense dollars. The two countries that might reasonably be considered a military threat on any par with the U.S. in the future are Russia and China. While numbers for both countries are a little difficult to nail down, the upper estimates of spending for both are around $70 billion. In other words, the combined military spending of China and Russian would have to be increased three to four times in order to match the U.S.
To look at this another way, if the U.S. cut military spending in half, we would still spend about four times as much as either of the only two countries that are even anywhere close to being a potential threat.
What is the U.S. so afraid of militarily? Did I mention that the nation that spends the second most on military spending is Great Britain, our ally? Again, what or who are we so afraid of? India, with hostile neighbor Pakistan sharing a more than thousand mile border, has the largest army in the world, and spends $17 billion total on its military. Our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, pose no military threat to us and one would have to be insane to contend otherwise.
There really is no justification for the excess in spending by the military except for the fact that the war industry, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us against at the end of his term, has control of the people who control the purse strings. The United States could easily, without causing any threat to our security, free $100 billion dollars from the defense budget.
All money spent is a matter of priorities. The U.S. could easily fund health care by shifting its priorities from the killing business to health care.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
You Can't Eat Bullets
In the last few days I have seen several newspaper headlines that talk about the "gutting" of the defense budget and have listened to a number of politicians in both parties talk with paroxysmal spasms about the destruction of the military and the loss of associated jobs (miraculously right there within their own district).
What they are so upset about is that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has advocated cutting a total of $1.4 billion from the missile defense program. This act, cutting funding to a program that has been replete with problems and failures, is completely sensible and represents a negligible cut in defense spending.
Or at least it is being portrayed as a cut in defense spending. It is in reality nothing of the kind. The Obama Administration has submitted a Defense Budget request of $534 billion. Compare this to the last Defense Budget submitted by Bush which was for a total of $513 billion. Hopefully, our educational system has not collapsed to the point that we are unable to see that this is an increase of $21 billion, NOT a decrease.
This is but a sad example of how skewed the debate has become around the defense establishment. Cutting one sorry program is decried as damaging the military even when the largest military budget in history has just been proposed. Rather than bemoaning the loss of one spectacularly bad program and trying to manipulate the public through lies that an increase is a cut, the real questions should be about the fact that this is the largest budget in history.
The facts of world military expenditures argue that we are completely off base when it comes to the issue of defense spending. We are not cutting anything, but we certainly should be. Let us look at the figures.
According to CIA- The World Factbook, posted at globalsecurity.com, the U.S. spent $623 billion dollars on military expenditures in 2008 and the rest of the world combined spent $500 billion. China had expenditures of $65 billion and Russia clocked in at $50 billion. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put the numbers in 2007 at $547 billion for the U.S. (45% of total) $58.3 billion for China, $35.4 billion for Russia and $59.7 for our ally Britain which was second in total expenditures.
In other words, we spend around half of the total worlds military expenditure dollars. The only two countries with any realistic ability to challenge our military superiority, China and Russia spend only around a tenth of what the U.S. does. Put another way, if we were to cut our expenditures in half and they were to triple their spending we would still outspend each of them by at least $100 billion.
What are we so afraid of? Terrorism? No amount of money on earth can stop a person who is prepared to give up their own life. But the events of 9/11 cannot explain our excessive military buildup. Fighting fanatics is more about intelligence than weapons and soldiers. Geographically the U.S. is one of the most protected nations on earth. Protected by two oceans, we seriously have to question what we are so worried about. Our need to feed the military budget comes close to suggesting a collective paranoia.
In an era where politicians of all stripes are expressing concerns about deficits this is the logical place to start. The U.S. could easily pull $300 billion off the books by beginning a return to a sensible military budget. This won't happen, of course, as Eisenhower's warning of the military industrial complex has become true. Our politicians are not worried about our defense, they are worried about defending their base - the military contractors to whom they are beholden.
What they are so upset about is that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has advocated cutting a total of $1.4 billion from the missile defense program. This act, cutting funding to a program that has been replete with problems and failures, is completely sensible and represents a negligible cut in defense spending.
Or at least it is being portrayed as a cut in defense spending. It is in reality nothing of the kind. The Obama Administration has submitted a Defense Budget request of $534 billion. Compare this to the last Defense Budget submitted by Bush which was for a total of $513 billion. Hopefully, our educational system has not collapsed to the point that we are unable to see that this is an increase of $21 billion, NOT a decrease.
This is but a sad example of how skewed the debate has become around the defense establishment. Cutting one sorry program is decried as damaging the military even when the largest military budget in history has just been proposed. Rather than bemoaning the loss of one spectacularly bad program and trying to manipulate the public through lies that an increase is a cut, the real questions should be about the fact that this is the largest budget in history.
The facts of world military expenditures argue that we are completely off base when it comes to the issue of defense spending. We are not cutting anything, but we certainly should be. Let us look at the figures.
According to CIA- The World Factbook, posted at globalsecurity.com, the U.S. spent $623 billion dollars on military expenditures in 2008 and the rest of the world combined spent $500 billion. China had expenditures of $65 billion and Russia clocked in at $50 billion. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put the numbers in 2007 at $547 billion for the U.S. (45% of total) $58.3 billion for China, $35.4 billion for Russia and $59.7 for our ally Britain which was second in total expenditures.
In other words, we spend around half of the total worlds military expenditure dollars. The only two countries with any realistic ability to challenge our military superiority, China and Russia spend only around a tenth of what the U.S. does. Put another way, if we were to cut our expenditures in half and they were to triple their spending we would still outspend each of them by at least $100 billion.
What are we so afraid of? Terrorism? No amount of money on earth can stop a person who is prepared to give up their own life. But the events of 9/11 cannot explain our excessive military buildup. Fighting fanatics is more about intelligence than weapons and soldiers. Geographically the U.S. is one of the most protected nations on earth. Protected by two oceans, we seriously have to question what we are so worried about. Our need to feed the military budget comes close to suggesting a collective paranoia.
In an era where politicians of all stripes are expressing concerns about deficits this is the logical place to start. The U.S. could easily pull $300 billion off the books by beginning a return to a sensible military budget. This won't happen, of course, as Eisenhower's warning of the military industrial complex has become true. Our politicians are not worried about our defense, they are worried about defending their base - the military contractors to whom they are beholden.
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