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Oil sands on track to be biggest source of U.S. oil imports

jessie — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:17:33 -0700

Oil sands on track to be biggest source of U.S. oil imports

Shawn McCarthy, Globe and Mail, May 19, 2010, Ottawa — Canada’s oil sands will become the largest single source of imported oil to the United States this year, and could supply more than a third of America’s foreign oil by 2030, under an aggressive growth scenario that would have to overcome labour shortages and environmental concerns, an influential U.S. think tank said Wednesday.

The growing volume of Canadian oil sands imports “emphasizes the importance they have attained as a supply source for the United States,” Daniel Yergin, Cambridge, Mass.-based chairman of energy research firm IHS CERA, said in releasing a new report on the controversial Alberta oil projects.

Canada is already the largest source of imports for the U.S. market.
But as conventional Canadian production declines and oil sands volumes grow, those non-conventional supplies are becoming increasingly critical.

In the third quarter of 2009, oil sands imports to the United States hit one million barrels a day for the first time, of total Canadian exports of 1.9 million. This year, IHS CERA expects oil sands producers to average 1.08 million barrels a day in sales to the U.S., eclipsing imports from both Mexico and Saudi Arabia, which will be declining or flat.

In the report, IHS CERA director Jackie Forrest projects production in the oil sands will grow from 1.35 million barrels a day last year, to as many as 5.7 million barrels a day by 2030 – a figure that would represent 36 per cent of anticipated American imports.

In an interview, Ms. Forrest said that “stretch” forecast will require the industry to double its current pace of expansion, and overcome both economic and environmental barriers. Her moderate growth projection targets 3.1 million barrels a day.

The IHS CERA report comes as environmental groups continue their campaign against the oil sands. Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council argued in a report released Wednesday that the development of Alberta’s “tar sands” represents both a threat to the local ecosystem and a “global disaster” because it will “all but guarantee the failure of efforts to combat global warming.”

However, while the United States is committed to reducing its use of oil – and CERA projects American crude demand likely peaked in 2005 – the country will continue to be the world’s largest crude oil importers for the foreseeable future.

To feed that appetite, Americans will increasingly depend on Canada, it added.

Traditional U.S. suppliers like Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria will have trouble maintaining current production levels – unless they improve their investment climate – while Saudi Arabia is increasingly targeting exports to China and India.

Given Canada’s role as a secure and growing supplier, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has been somewhat ambivalent in its view of the desirability of breakneck oil sands growth, said David Pumphrey, analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The U.S. State Department has approved pipeline expansion from the oil sands into the U.S. market, saying the Alberta source was critical to U.S. energy security and its efforts to reduce dependence on Middle East oil, Mr. Pumphrey noted. However, the administration also backs climate change legislation that could impose significant additional costs on refiners that process heavy-oil imports which produce more emissions when processed.

The CERA report said industry and government will have to play a role in developing new technology that will reduce the oil sands’
greenhouse gas emissions, water use and land disturbance – al of which pose limits to growth.

“Energy security needs do not have to be at odds with the environment,” the report said.

Obama admin should bring defense and climate funding into balance, argues a new report

jessie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:34:43 -0700

Obama admin should bring defense and climate funding into balance, argues a new report

Kate Sheppard, July 28, 2009, GRIST magazine--With climate change among the world’s biggest security challenges, the Obama administration should be pumping much more money into addressing the problem, argues a new report [PDF] from the Institute for Policy Studies.

In fiscal year 2008, the United States invested 20 times more money in developing military technology than in developing clean energy technology. The U.S. also spent 50 times as much arming the rest of the world as it did helping other countries transition to clean energy. Altogether, in FY 2008, the U.S. government spent $88 on funding the military for every $1 spent on projects to stabilize the climate.

Compared to the Bush administration, the Obama administration has already increased climate spending, particularly via the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year. But climate change demands much more significant investment, according to report author Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

“There are just no restraints whatsoever on military spending. The Pentagon has been given a blank check,” Pemberton told Grist. “There is an incredible infrastructure supporting unlimited military spending, and there certainly hasn’t been that infrastructure put in place to fund green technology.”

Last week, retired military officials and national security experts testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that climate change poses serious security threats, potentially acting as a “threat multiplier” in already unstable countries and creating conflicts over increasingly scarce resources due to drought, famine, and the impacts of extreme weather.

Increasing climate spending “will make the balance of our security resources more consistent with the relative magnitudes of the threats faced by the nation and the world,” the report argues.

More funding for climate change also has the potential to create a large number of U.S. jobs in the green energy and efficiency sectors. The report argues that $1 billion spent on weapons manufacture creates 8,555 jobs, while the same investment in mass transit would create 19,795 jobs, or in infrastructure and home weatherization would create 12,804 jobs.

The report points to research [PDF] from the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute that found climate change–related spending in the economic stimulus act, combined with a cap on carbon, could produce public and private investments of approximately $150 billion annually, which could create 1.7 million additional jobs in the U.S.

Looking at the numbers

To compare the total funding for climate versus military, Pemberton tallied up the spending on climate throughout various government programs, including research and development of energy technologies, tax credits for clean energy, climate science research, energy efficiency investments, mass transit, and green job training programs. The figures include both spending in the regular budget and the one-off spending in the economic stimulus package.

The Obama administration has shown improvement over the Bush administration, bringing the gap between military and climate spending down to 65:1 in its FY 2010 budget request, compared to 88:1 for FY 2008. And if you include funding from the stimulus package (which accounts for 87 percent of the total climate-related spending for FY 2010), the ratio for total FY 2010 spending on military versus climate gets much lower still: 9:1.

But because the bulk of climate spending is coming from the economic stimulus bill, that funding isn’t built into the budget and may not be continued.

“This problem is of the magnitude that a one-time investment isn’t going to cut it,” said Pemberton. “The Obama administration is committed to a strong climate change agenda, and investing in green technology. They talk about it all the time. This is their main strategy for job creation, and that’s a great idea.” But stronger funding commitments need to be made, she said.

The Obama administration should make its investment in curbing climate change a clear priority in the budget, explicitly calling out the funds for the public to see, said Pemberton. Right now, the funding is scattered throughout various parts of the budget, and Pemberton had to do a lot of digging to even find out the total amount being spent on climate.

“[Climate change] is the huge challenge of our time,” she said. “We ought to be able to know what the government is really investing in it.”

Pemberton recommends that the Obama administration maintain the levels of climate spending from this year’s stimulus package. Military spending is still far larger, but there is at least more balance between the two, she said.

“The administration takes so much more seriously this climate change challenge than its predecessor,” said Pemberton, “but they’re really going to have to sustain this investment in the regular budget.”

Chevron, Shell, and the True Cost of Oil

jessie — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:46:15 -0700

Chevron, Shell, and the True Cost of Oil

Amy Goodman, May 27, 2009, Democracy Now!--The economy is a shambles, unemployment is soaring, the auto industry is collapsing. But profits are higher than ever at oil companies Chevron and Shell. Yet across the globe, from the Ecuadorian jungle, to the Niger Delta in Nigeria, to the courtrooms and streets of New York and San Ramon, Calif., people are fighting back against the world's oil giants.

Shell and Chevron are in the spotlight this week, with shareholder meetings and a historic trial being held.

On May 13, the Nigerian military launched an assault on villages in that nation's oil-rich Niger Delta. Hundreds of civilians are feared killed in the attack. According to Amnesty International, a celebration in the delta village of Oporoza was attacked. An eyewitness told the organization: "I heard the sound of aircraft; I saw two military helicopters, shooting at the houses, at the palace, shooting at us. We had to run for safety into the forest. In the bush, I heard adults crying, so many mothers could not find their children; everybody ran for their life."

Shell is facing a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, Wiwa v. Shell, based on Shell's alleged collaboration with the Nigerian dictatorship in the 1990s in the violent suppression of the grass-roots movement of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. Shell exploits the oil riches there, causing displacement, pollution and deforestation. The suit also alleges that Shell helped suppress the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and its charismatic leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa had been the writer of the most famous soap opera in Nigeria, but decided to throw his lot in with the Ogoni, whose land near the Niger Delta was crisscrossed with pipelines. The children of Ogoniland did not know a dark night, living beneath the flame-apartment-building-size gas flares that burned day and night, and that are illegal in the U.S.

I interviewed Saro-Wiwa in 1994. He told me: "The oil companies like military dictatorships, because basically they can cheat with these dictatorships. The dictatorships are brutal to people, and they can deny the human rights of individuals and of communities quite easily, without compunction." He added, "I am a marked man." Saro-Wiwa returned to Nigeria and was arrested by the military junta. On Nov. 10, 1995, after a kangaroo show trial, Saro-Wiwa was hanged with eight other Ogoni activists.

In 1998, I traveled to the Niger Delta with journalist Jeremy Scahill. A Chevron executive there told us that Chevron flew troops from Nigeria's notorious mobile police, the "kill ‘n' go," in a Chevron company helicopter to an oil barge that had been occupied by nonviolent protesters. Two protesters were killed, and many more were arrested and tortured.

Oronto Douglas, one of Saro-Wiwa's lawyers, told us: "It is very clear that Chevron, just like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities. They drill and they kill."

Chevron is the second-largest stakeholder (after French oil company Total) of the Yadana natural gas field and pipeline project, based in Burma (which the military junta renamed Myanmar). The pipeline provides the single largest source of income to the military junta, amounting to close to $1 billion in 2007. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, popularly elected the leader of Burma in 1990, has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years, and is standing trial again this week. [On Tuesday the government said it had ended the house arrest of Suu Kyi, but she remains in detention pending the outcome of the trial.] The U.S. government has barred U.S. companies from investing in Burma since 1997, but Chevron has a waiver, inherited when it acquired the oil company Unocal.

Chevron's litany of similar abuses, from the Philippines to Kazakhstan, Chad-Cameroon, Iraq, Ecuador and Angola and across the U.S. and Canada, is detailed in an "alternative annual report" prepared by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations and is being distributed to Chevron shareholders at this week's annual meeting, and to the public at TrueCostofChevron.com.

Chevron is being investigated by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo about whether the company was "accurate and complete" in describing potential legal liabilities. It enjoys, though, a long tradition of hiring politically powerful people. Condoleezza Rice was a longtime director of the company (there was even a supertanker named after her), and the recently hired general counsel is none other than disgraced Pentagon lawyer William J. Haynes, who advocated for "harsh interrogation techniques," including waterboarding. Gen. James L. Jones, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, sat on the Chevron board of directors for most of 2008, until he received his high-level White House appointment.

Saro-Wiwa said before he died, "We are going to demand our rights peacefully, nonviolently, and we shall win." A global grass-roots movement is growing to do just that.

Listen to the podcast here:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/5/27/amy_goodmans_new_column_chevr...

Nuclear climate warming up

jessie — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:09:03 -0700

Nuclear climate warming up

Bob Groeneveld, April 4, 2008, The Chilliwack Times -- Here's an interesting take on global warming that ought to chill your blood.

Gwynne Dyer, a highly respected Canadian journalist and military historian, has suggested that climate change may make it imperative that Britain carefully maintain its stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Ouch!

Just when the world seemed to be coming to its nuclear senses, the Americans and Brits have both announced (not too loudly, lest the neighbours complain) that they have to upgrade their nuclear arsenal, and a guy like Dyer suggests that they might not be wrong.

He points out that northern countries like Canada and Britain will be less seriously affected by the climate when the planet achieves its new, warmer equilibrium.

Parts of countries like ours might even become more people-friendly than they currently are.

Our country's imminent blessings paradoxically ought to put us on our guard. We are likely to be flooded by refugees from more southerly countries whose lands are destined to become desert wastelands under a new climate regime that may be upon us by the time our children's grandchildren take their turn at becoming parents.

Worse than the flood of refugees may be the flood of military forces of countries that decide to take what they need from the few of us who still have something left to take.

For Canada, it should not be a great surprise that our greatest threat is most likely to rise up from a desertified, agriculturally impoverished America.

Global warming might set off a nuclear war.

Who'da thunk it?

Guys like Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and even Brian Mulroney spent years and huge efforts at planting and nurturing Canada's peace-making reputation all around the world.

Ours may be the only country on the planet that developed its own nuclear capability without actually using it to build nuclear bombs--although, admittedly, one or more current nuclear weapons programs probably piggy-backed off our technology.

We don't even allow nuclear weaponry on our soil--although, once again admittedly, the United States almost certainly violated that sanctity several times, and just as certainly with a nod and a wink from our federal authorities.

Pearson was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at saving the planet from what many believed was an imminent Third World War by defusing the Suez Crisis in 1957, in no small part by coaxing into existence the United Nations peacekeeping forces that continue to operate today, albeit with somewhat altered motivations, it seems.

Under successive prime ministers, including Joe Clark, John Turner, and Kim Campbell, Canada's peacekeeping service to the world was unequalled by any other country. Our one-half per cent of the world's population provided fully 10 per cent of peacekeeping activity throughout the planet's hot spots.

And then it seems to have changed.

Canada went to war in Iraq--without UN sanction for the first time in most Canadians' memory --in support of the Desert Storm.

Now there's Afghanistan.

And the carbon that we are belching out of the Athabasca Tar Sands might not only be remembered as one of the chief causes of the global climate catastrophe that burned up or sank half of the planet, it might end up having fueled the nuclear war that rendered the other half unsuitable for humanity.

If there's anyone left to remember, that is.

- Bob Groeneveld is editor of the Langley Advance.

Iraq War; Five years of war in Iraq have hit home in Edmonton

jessie — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:48:39 -0700

Iraq War; Five years of war in Iraq have hit home in Edmonton

David Berry, March 20, 2008, Vue Weekly -- The further we get away from the actual date, the better Canada’s decision to not get involved with the US invasion of Iraq looks. Five years after the US launched its ill-conceived assault on the Middle Eastern nation, there aren’t many—except perhaps those in the highest offices of the American government—who consider the situation anything but a quagmire.

The pretext for the war was quickly revealed to be specious, smoke and mirrors designed to hide what would appear to be a more imperial motive; talk of being greeted as liberators, of spreading democracy throughout the region, was revealed to be starry-eyed optimism at best, as fervently anti-American factions sprung both in Iraq and the region as a whole. And all this comes at a terrible cost: to date, conservative estimates put the cost of the war at more than $500 billion, with some predicting it may reach as high as $1 trillion before it’s over. Though outrageous, such numbers ignore the human cost: almost 4000 American soldiers dead, nearly 30 000 wounded, to say nothing (as is frequently the case) of the almost 90 000 confirmed Iraqi civilians killed.

And yet, though Canada has managed to escape the most direct affects of the war, we don’t remain untouched. The beast beside has been twitching awfully violently lately, and we can’t help but feel its effects—and nowhere is that more true than in Edmonton. North of our city lie two areas profoundly affected by the war in Iraq: the Fort McMurray tar sands and CFB Edmonton. Though the Iraq War is an earthquake rumbling on the other side of the globe, stand in the right spot in Alberta, and you can fully feel its trembles.

OIL

Critics and cynics will often point to oil as America’s real justification for invading Iraq, so perhaps it’s no surprise that one of the biggest effects the war has had on our province is in the tar sands.

To start to understand, we first have to realize why the Athabasca tar sands have sat relatively dormant for so long. The short answer is, of course, money: as any Albertan who works up north or pays attention is aware, pulling oil from the sand is an involved, lengthy process. First, the lot of it has to be strip-mined, then the raw bitumen must be separated; even with newer refining techniques, the whole process costs in the neighbourhood of $24 - $28 (all figures Canadian) per barrel. It simply isn’t economically feasible to pull it out of the ground if oil prices are lower than that, which—with a brief exception in the late 1970s and early 1980s—they routinely were. Until recently, that is.

Since 2003, world oil prices have increased more or less steadily. There are multiple reasons for that but, as Joseph Doucette, a professor of energy policy and director of the School of Energy and the Environment at the University of Alberta explains, it’s mostly an issue of supply and demand.

“If you look at what’s happening at the supply side and on the demand side, you’ll get a big piece of the answer [to why oil prices have risen],” Doucette explains. “If you think of the textbook supply and demand curves ... the supply side a bit steeper because the cost of producing it is going up, and the demand curve is steeper, too, because we don’t have many good substitutes for most of our uses of oil.”

Of course, it’s not just a matter of supply and demand, but who’s supplying and who’s demanding. Though the energy demands of Asia—particularly China and India—are steadily rising, the United States is still far and away the world’s number one energy consumer: the US uses 24 per cent of the world’s oil supply, just under the total consumption of Europe, and almost triple its nearest competitor (China, which uses nine per cent). That demand has only increased of late, due in large part to the war in Iraq: Energy Bulletin recently reported that wartime has increased oil usage by almost 40 million barrels a year, or more than 100 000 per day. Combined with regular growth, that pushed total US consumption to over 20 589 000 barrels a day in 2006, the most recent year for which full data was available, an increase of more than 828 000 barrels from 2002 levels, the last full year before the war.

At the same time, oil is becoming increasingly hard to find, especially for the Americans. Stocks of sweet, light crude are slowly dwindling, and the majority of oil of any kind tends to be located in areas that are politically unstable or hostile towards the US. And, if America did go into Iraq for the oil, it hasn’t worked out for them: frequent sabotage and the unwillingness of US companies to invest in the oil fields has left them producing under 2 million barrels a day, according to 2006 statistics, well below both their 2000 peak (2.6 million barrels) and pre-war estimates of potential (3 million barrels or so).

Enter Canada, and specifically Alberta. The tar sands represent perhaps the largest single reserve of oil in the world (Saudi Arabia actually has more, but it’s in different places): estimates say there is likely more than 174 billion barrels of recoverable oil trapped in the ground. (The US, coincidentally, did not officially recognize these reserves until 2003.) It may be hard to get out of the ground, but it is close and, most importantly, it is safe.

“People look at prices and costs, but they adjust those based on local conditions, things like political risk, risk to workers, disruptions of productions and things like that,” explains Doucette. “Even if it had the same rate of return as a place like Nigeria, for instance, Alberta is going to be, hands down, the preferred place to invest: you’d need to get a much higher rate of return to make investment worthwhile in a riskier place.”

That’s a sentiment that’s echoed by Paul Hagel, the senior communications rep for Shell Canada’s oil sands growth team. Shell is a relatively recent comer to the tar sands, having officially opened the Albian Sands in 2003, but they’re making up for lost time: last year, they announced plans for a $27 billion expansion that, pending government approval, would eventually increase their production capacity to more than 250 000 barrels a day. According to Hagel, Shell’s reasons for putting that kind of money into the Alberta ground are simple.

“Politically stable, secure, with an abundance of natural resources: that’s Canada,” he says. “It makes us a secure place to invest, and we’re here for the very long haul.”

And though the sheer amount of oil will eventually draw other suitors, for now, what doesn’t stay between our borders—and it’s worth pointing out that Canada doesn’t currently have a pipeline from the tar sands to Eastern Canada—goes to the US. According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 2006, 99 per cent of Canada’s oil exports went to America, for a total of almost 2.4 million barrels a day, more than the entirety of the Persian gulf and almost one million more than the second highest exporter, Saudi Arabia.

What’s more, those 2.4 million barrels represent a 20 per cent increase over 2002 levels, while more traditional suppliers like the Saudis and Venezuela have seen their export numbers dip. The implication is clear: ever since invading Iraq, the US has turned increasingly to Canada. And, considering almost two-thirds of Canada’s oil comes from the tar sands, to Alberta in particular: we have become, increasingly, America’s gas tank.

And that’s not about to change any time soon. Though the US government recently announced it was going to look for less carbon-intensive oils for its own purchasing needs—that would be the military and the post office—few believe such pronouncements will have any real effect. If anything, according to Doucette, the only thing that can stop, or at least slow down, the machine that’s been started is Albertans.

“If you go back to the 1970s and the two OPEC crises and the price increases that were seen then, the US said they wanted to become less dependant on imported oil: their percentage is more or less the same now as it was back then,” Doucette explains caustically. “Policy pronouncements by politicians for things like energy dependence are well and good, but it’s a lot harder to do than might be thought.

“From here ... it will be local and domestic issues that decide how the oil sands move forward,” he adds. “At some point, I think Albertans will demand our government be more proactive on managing the issues surrounding our oil sands.”

WAR

It is one of the more unfortunate ironies of the Iraq War that, even though Canada isn’t involved, our soldiers have still been touched by it.

Canada was among the first nations to go into Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the stated goals of our government at the time being to defend our national interests, ensure leadership in world affairs and to help Afghanistan rebuild—the stated goals of the US, which led the mission, were to drive out the Taliban regime that was harbouring Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Though elite, for the first part of the war our role was limited: the majority of the mission was centered around Kabul, which had been secured since the first months of the invasion.

That was to change in Jan 2006. As part of the International Security Assistance Force, Canada took a more prominent role in the southern provinces, stationed out of the southern city of Kandahar. That increase in responsibility was linked directly to decreased US troop presence in the county, which in itself was linked directly to increased US troop presence in Iraq: the four months prior to the announcement marked the highest level of sustained presence in the country until the fall of last year.

The mission in Kandahar coincides with a massive upsurge in Canadian troop fatalities. Of the 79 Canadian soldiers killed, just eight happened pre-2006; of the 21 Edmonton casualties, 17 have perished since 2006. These are lives that have been lost, at least in part, because of reduced American activity, and the attendant upswing in Canadian action.

The effect this more prominent role—and the attendant increased danger—has had on the soldiers, though, is surprisingly mixed. According to Scott Taylor, a former professional soldier who founded and has spent the last 20 years editing Esprit de Corps, a magazine devoted to the Canadian Armed Forces, the chance to get into a combat mission is almost an affirming one for a soldier.

“As some commanders have said, it’s what they’ve always been waiting for,” he explains. “That sounds crazy: people are being killed. But, finding a purpose and having a clear-cut mission—that’s what a soldier wants.

“There was a lot of confusion in the peacekeeping generation, in the early ‘90s, because nobody was clear on the mission—it changed almost daily,” he continues. “Now, it’s, ‘We’re there; we’re in Afghanistan; we’re conducting counter-insurgency operations.’ These guys are soldiers.”

That sentiment is echoed by Major Trevor Gosselin, a tank squadron commander who recently returned from a six-month tour of Afghanistan with Lord Strathcona’s Horse. He spent the ’90s on various missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and the West Sahara, and to him, Afghanistan is preferable, even if that sense of mission comes at a cost.

“Soldiers join armies, unfortunately, for a purpose that we wish wasn’t there, but we know in the world that there are things that armies need to do,” he explains. “The threat is much more significant over there, but ... it’s certainly much easier to look at the cause of Afghanistan and know what we have to do to help this failing state. In our situation in Bosnia and Kosovo, it was really hard to tell who were the real bad guys—here there’s no question. It’s much easier to tell your soldiers, ‘This is the enemy; here’s what we do to help out in Afghanistan.’”

Though the sense of mission helps a soldier, there’s no getting around the fact that many of them will have to experience the death of a comrade. That, and the other hazards of being in a war zone, have a well-documented, profound effect on young men, something we’re already beginning to see take its toll: a recent Veteran Affairs study revealed that incidents of post-traumatic stress have tripled among veterans since Canada first deployed troops to Afghanistan—and as Taylor expects, we’ve likely only seen the beginning.

“When you lose a good friend—and I’ve had that happen—it still doesn’t hit you, and you just soldier on. That’s part of the creedo: you press on,” he explains. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the mission is still ongoing, and you can’t fall to pieces. Once they come home, that’s when things start to happen.”

Sgt Major Jeff Bamford, who served on the same tour as Gosselin, eerily echoes that sentiment. When asked how they dealt with the recent death of Trooper Michael Yuki Hayakaze, who died on Mar 2, just before the squadron’s return, Bamford responded stoically, though also revealingly.

“You have to carry on with the mission, the mission doesn’t just stop,” he explained, sternly. “Everything carries on—everything. Once you get back out to a safer area, then you can calm down, relax, take a breath, be glad you made it, sort out your buddies, sort out your soldiers and shed a few tears. That’s how we did it.”

One can only imagine what will happen as more soldiers get a chance to take a breath and reflect on what has happened. Unlike the tar sands, the trickle-down effects of Iraq on our soldiers have yet to make themselves obvious: when they do finally rear their head, though, we’re not going to like what we see.

Time for Us to Say 'No More Oil for War' To US

jessie — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:43:58 -0800

Time for Us to Say 'No More Oil for War' To US

Ricardo Acuna, January 17, 2008, Vue Weekly -- There are few things we progressive Albertans enjoy more than the opportunity to take a holier-than-thou attitude towards the United States.

Take, for example, how smugly we like to criticize the US media for refusing to publicly acknowledge the quest for oil as one of the major reasons for the US invasion and occupation Iraq. Likewise, we are quick to judge the people of the US for the degree to which the question of war for oil is absent from public dialogue and discussions, and does not register at all on political platforms during elections.

The sad reality, however, is that this smugness and criticism are misplaced. How much media coverage and public discussion have we seen in this province about our role in the war, or the fact that we are benefitting from it? Ultimately, we are doing no better than our neighbours to the south in addressing or even acknowledging these truths. And they are truths.

In 2002, the Project for a New American Century (an ultra-right US think-tank which boasts the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz among its members) formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Even a cursory look at this committee’s terms of reference is enough to show that it could more aptly be named the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq’s Oil.

Their idea, which was actually formulated before the 9/11 attacks, was simple: the US invades Iraq and topples Saddam Hussein; the US government then hands Iraq’s oil fields and infrastructure over to the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total; the US gets a secure supply of oil; the growing US demand for oil is sated; and the companies involved make a healthy profit. This was the idea upon which the US government based their invasion of Iraq.

Unfortunately, the Iraqis had other ideas. Their continued resistance to the US invasion, and their ongoing targeting of the country’s oil infrastructure, have made the big US oil companies reluctant to put their personnel on the ground and carry out their part of the plan.

In the meantime, as a result of ever-increasing demand, shrinking supply, and the failure of Iraqi oil to come online, the world price of oil has continued to go through the roof. It was this sustained increase in price that helped the oil companies realize that they were overlooking another potential source of ‘new’ oil—one that had a reserve of over a trillion barrels, was already under US control, and which would be given to them for next to nothing.

Thus was born Alberta’s new oil boom. It was not the result of anything we in Alberta did, but rather the result of disrupted access to cheap oil which jacked up world prices making our tar sands, which the US has unfettered access to through NAFTA, viable and profitable. Imagine how much better we will do if the US proceeds with plans to invade Iran, further disrupting world oil supplies.

But there is also another, perhaps more disturbing, aspect to our complicity in the occupation of Iraq.

The United States military is the largest single consumer of oil in the world. According to the US Defense Energy Support Center Fact Book 2004, in fiscal year 2004 US military fuel consumption increased to 144 million barrels. This amount translates to about 395 000 barrels per day, almost as much as the daily energy consumption of Greece.

The Department of Defense now has about 27 000 vehicles in Iraq—and every one of them gets lousy gas mileage. To power that fleet the Defense Logistics Agency must move huge quantities of fuel into the country in truck convoys from Kuwait, Turkey, and Jordan. Every day some 2000 trucks leave Kuwait alone for various locales in Iraq. These convoys have, in turn, become a favourite target of the Iraqi resistance.

The US has no choice but to continue fortifying its vehicles with armour and pumping imported fuel into, for example, the Bradley fighting vehicle which gets less than two miles per gallon and the M1 Abrams tank which gets less than one mile per gallon.

It's a vicious cycle: attacks on convoys produce a need for more armour, which produces a need for more fuel, which produces larger convoys, which produce more targets for attack.

The result is that the amount of fuel being consumed by US forces in Iraq is increasing every day, with no end in sight to these increases.

As such, both the current US energy strategy and the US defence strategy both explicitly prioritize the availability of oil for the military over its availability for consumers at home.

As the single largest supplier of oil to the US, this is where Alberta’s tar sands come in. We are currently shipping some 750 000 barrels per day south of the border—it would be incredibly naïve to think that this is not helping to fuel the killing of Iraqis by the US military. The bottom line is that the US is a self-destructive sociopathic addict, and we in Alberta are its dealer and pusher.

Even though we may be reluctant to admit it, the reality, because of what is fuelling our growth and what our tar sands are fuelling, is that there is blood on our boom. And unless Albertans acknowledge this publicly and loudly, and make it an issue, it will only get worse. It’s time to stop enabling, and it’s time for Albertans to say, “No more oil for war.” V

Ricardo Acuña is Executive Director of the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.

Alberta crude may be too dirty, U.S. law says

jessie — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:55:11 -0800

Alberta crude may be too dirty, U.S. law says

Martin, Mittelstaedt, January 15, 2008, Globe and Mail -- Alberta's oil sands are taking a hit from new U.S. energy legislation passed last month that has an unusual wrinkle suggesting that Canadian crude might be too dirty for the U.S. government.

The legislation won't allow any U.S. federal agencies to buy vehicle fuel derived from non-conventional sources unless the life cycle of its greenhouse-gas emissions is the same or less than that of conventional petroleum.

The sticky bitumen in Alberta's tar sands is considered one of the world's biggest potential sources of energy, but it's also one of the dirtiest in terms of carbon dioxide emissions because it takes so much power to wring it out of the soil in which it's trapped, putting it in the crosshairs of the new rules.

The directive could have a financial impact on the oil patch because the U.S. government is one of the world's largest and most voracious consumers of energy, and it follows similar moves by many states, including California. The legislation, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, was signed by President George W. Bush in December.

SEC takes fresh look at oil sands reserves
Elizabeth Martin-Perera, climate policy specialist at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, says the provision covers new contracts for all government operations, including the military and the postal service, which together operate thousands of vehicles and are considered the No. 1 and No. 2 vehicle fuel users in the country.

The action is part of a growing move to take into account all greenhouse gases caused by the production and use of gasoline and other fuels. It puts unconventional petroleum, such as the synthetic crude from Canada's oil sands at a disadvantage compared to easy-to-harvest oil from the wellhead.

"It's another market signal to tar sands producers that, increasingly, consumers are looking to move away from high-carbon fuels," says Dan Woynillowicz, a spokesman for the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank.

The fuel requirement is in Section 526 of the new law, which runs for about 800 pages. Its main provisions deal with increasing the fuel efficiency of the U.S. vehicle fleet and increasing the use of biofuels. The part affecting non-conventional oil hasn't received much notice.

Syncrude Canada Ltd., the largest oil sand producer, declined to comment, and referred questions to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Association president Pierre Alvarez played down the procurement policy, saying the Canadian industry will defend itself by arguing that long-distance shipping of oil from the Middle East and elsewhere also carries a substantial environmental price tag. "In fact, Canadian fuels don't appear all that bad," he said. "It's distance that's a big-ticket item."

An estimate by the Canadian Centre for Energy Information that used figures supplied by Syncrude, among others, said the emissions from oil sands fuel are about 7.6 per cent higher than the average of all North American crude imports. However, independent experts say the oil sands emit about 20 per cent more greenhouse gases than conventional sources.

Worries over climate change are driving the new rules.

"Canada's oil sands will face large-market risk unless the Canadian government, or the Alberta government, take this challenge seriously," said Hal Harvey of the California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which helped develop a low-emission fuel standard in California.

Is Canada becoming a subnation of the US?

jessie — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:25:30 -0800

Is Canada becoming a subnation of the US?

Jim Miles, January 14, 2008, Malaysia Sun -- Canadians have always prided themselves on the “goodness” if not the “greatness” of their country.

Sitting north of the United States, Canadians struggle with an ideal that rejects many American ideas, yet accommodates in one way or another most of those ideas – more so currently than in the past. From medical care to military purpose Canadians view themselves as essentially different from their southern neighbours, who remain for the most part steadfastly ignorant of us. There is very much about Canada, however, that indicates that we are not quite as independent of thought and action as the average Canadian realizes. This statement by itself would not bother many Canadians, but on specific issues there is opposition to current policies.

Viewed externally, Canada does not rank so well as one interviewee said, “Canada is still considered and referred to as a subnation and only in relation with the U.S. It has still to develop an identity of its own.” In reality, while dealing with foreign affairs, the environment, military matters (part of foreign affairs), and other aspects involving international treaties and agreements, Canada very decidedly falls under the category of a ‘subnation’ to the United States.

What follows is a brief overview of some of the positions Canada has or has not taken that give definition to our country as a subnation. We may believe otherwise, but we are highly integrated into American life styles and policies.

Aboriginal Policy

One of the international agreements that Canada sides strongly with the U.S. is the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The four countries that voted against the declaration - Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia - are the four main British colonial countries in which ethnic cleansing and genocide were most clearly successful. Their success as British colonies turning into peaceful democratic ‘western’ nations under the British mould can be attributed in large part to that feature, especially if one compares it to the struggles engendered by the British in South Africa, and India/Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Palestine - generally the whole Middle East.

Article 26 of the UN declaration states: 'Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.' Chuck Strahl, Canada’s representative “said the government is moving ahead on 'making an actual difference' in improving the daily lives of aboriginal Canadians, instead of offering 'empty promises and rhetoric.' His arguments for that “cited Tory initiatives such as including First Nations peoples in the Human Rights Act, improving water quality on reserves and providing a compensation package for victims of residential schools.”

Nice. Here’s some money for destroying your culture through the residential schools, and we’ll give you clean water, but we’re not letting you have any rights to your aboriginal land and its resources, although it is a legally determined right in part through the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the BNA Act, the Constitution, and various legal settlements.

Afghanistan, NATO, et al

The rise in Canadian militarism may be insignificant as compared to the rest of the world, but it is becoming more and more worrisome to Canadians themselves. Under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, Canada has adopted the rhetoric of their American leaders to the south. Adding to the “we are not going to cut and run” mentality is the belligerent positioning of Canada’s claiming and strengthening its attitude within global affairs. Translated, we have become the bully’s sidekick, the weakling runt that yells support from the side while feigning a few punches at the victim. Our vision of ourselves as peacekeepers, starting from Lester B. Pearson’s plan to establish a UN peacekeeping force, originating from the Suez Crisis of 1956, has been altered to adopt the “war on terror” language used by the U.S. We are now “peacemakers”, the folly of which is evident in Canada’s role in Afghanistan.

While there may have been minor ‘successes’ within Afghanistan – a road built here, a school built there – we are still tied and incorporated into the overall American strategic plan that looks to control the resources of the Middle East and block the emergence of any entity – Russia, China, a Caspian Basin alliance – that might contest that. As a result we are fighting an American imperial war under the auspices of NATO and the UN. I have dealt with the NATO position before and will shorten it here to say that NATO is now acting as an independent (of the UN and other international organizations) global military governance body under the command of the United States, a role the U.S. has unilaterally determined for itself.

Currently the majority of Canadians are against the effort in Afghanistan, not by a large number, but an increasing number. Harper’s view is 'Ultimately, where we need to make progress is not turning Afghanistan into (somewhere) as law abiding as (Ottawa). It's to really put in a situation where the Afghan government is capable of managing the security threats itself ... I think we're a couple of years away from being where we need to be.'

In sum under the larger picture, Canada is supporting a puppet government of the U.S. consisting of war lords and drug lords (probably one and the same), a government that wishes to bring the Taliban into the discussions of the country’s future, and acting as a subsidiary military force to the American strategic plan for south Asia. Security is the least of the American desires, other than strategic security, and the people be damned.

Kyoto and Beyond

Canadians are one of the largest creators of greenhouse gases in the world, ranking 25th out of 29 OECD countries for greenhouse gas emissions (and 27th out of 29 on a per capita basis) with only the U.S., Great Britain, Japan, and Germany creating more. Canada’s initiatives sound wonderful:

Canada signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, and pledged to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. In 1997, Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol, formally committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% below 1990 levels by 2010.

Intentions need to be followed by action:

However these international efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions have failed to bear fruit, as countries have been unable to agree on means to calculate reductions. Canada, along with the United States, Australia and Japan, has been criticized for blocking these international efforts.

The most recent exercise in rhetoric has been the Bali conference. Before Bali even started, Canada was being sidelined and criticized for its fawning role to the U.S. and its “lame duck” aspirations. Canada has never lived up to its previous agreements and Harper has sidestepped all issues, looking towards Bali to provide “aspirational” goals. In a fully contradictory statement, Environment Minister John Baird told a House of Commons hearing, “It is just foolish to try to exempt the big polluters from taking meaningful action. It is a guaranteed recipe for failure.'

Baird was referring to places like China and India and other ‘third’ world countries, but taken on a per capita basis and overall tonnage within the OECD, Canada has no grounds on which to criticize other governments. In George Monbiot’s foreword to the Canadian edition of Heat – How to Stop the Planet From Burning, he indicates that Canada emits 19 tonnes of carbon per capita, only one tonne less than the Americans, and well above his calculated “permissible” limit of 1.2 tonnes per person globally. Events within Canada speak enormously towards Canada’s evasion of climate change responsibility.

First and foremost, apart from the physical aspect, is the rhetoric coming from Ottawa that is half and half denial and obfuscation. The line borrowed from the U.S. is that of “carbon intensity” a phrase that simply means that richer countries get to pollute more, as “A reduction in intensity under this act means, in reality, an increase in emission….As all economies tend to use less energy per unit as they mature, Mr. Harper’s proposal for tackling climate change amounts to doing nothing.” The previous touted “carbon credit” scheme has the same fault, that emissions will not stop, and the credits, like with the mortgage based derivatives, will become another means for money traders to make more money without helping the environment.

Another feature of the government’s view is that of the “denial machine” or the “denial industry”. In Monbiot’s work, he examines how the scientists and PR firms that played a major role in trying to deny that cigarettes and tobacco cause lung cancer are the same scientists who are now working with Exxon, the U.S. government, think tanks and others to deny global warming. Taken further, the CBC reported that these same people, the same firms, the same rhetoric was now being used to provide the Canadian government with their own rhetoric of denial.

Much more could be said about Canada and its own dereliction towards the environment: the Alberta tar sands and the enormous amounts of energy required to extract the oil and the impact on the environment and indigenous cultures (hmm, see aboriginal rights above, it all circles together); the NAFTA Chapter 11 clause giving the U.S. corporations rights to sue the Canadian government over financial losses (real or imagined) caused by our laws (environmental included); and the NAFTA requirement that the U.S. gets our resources first in event of a shortage (oil, gas, and probably later water).

The amount of time devoted here to the environment reflects from my perspective what the American Empire is all about – the consumption of resources and energy, the drawing to the American heartland of all the wealth and power it can control from the hinterland, which today is truly the whole globe. Canada’s economy, our environmental rhetoric, rests firmly in the hands of the U.S. government and its affiliated military-industrial network in being part of this extraction of wealth.

Consumption and Debt

On a similar note, our consumer economy reflects that of the United States, and while our dollar is currently strengthening against the U.S. dollar, there are signs that Canada’s economic trends could well follow those of the Americans.

I often shake my head when reading American media reports about the “indoctrination” of whomever by whatever evil government they are railing against. What is not generally recognized is that North Americans from birth are highly indoctrinated into our societies consumptive habits and debt purchasing from the very moment our children can focus their eyes on the television screen. It is a kinder, gentler form of propaganda, and much, much more successful.

The American economy is undergoing a shakedown of its debt structures now, as the housing market bubble, based on ever increasing debt and financial trading structures that no one seems to really comprehend, is deflating rather rapidly. American debt is huge, whether it is credit cards, mortgages, national or international, with, ironically, the Chinese and Japanese being able to control the markets as they own much of America’s foreign debt, essentially money lent to the U.S. to keep the economy consuming.

Canada, while still well behind this level of debt, shows some discouraging signs. The average Canadian household debt is $69,450 with the overall household debt through personal loans, lines of credit and mortgage debt equalling $731 billion. That is well short of the American debt of $8.4 trillion, but given the population factor of 10, it is about equal per capita. The debt to income ratio is currently 105 per cent, in simple terms saying we are spending more than we are earning (in 1983 it had been about 55 per cent.)

In addition, the Canadian tax scheme is more and more becoming similar to the American with income taxes. It is noted that countries with fewer social benefits tend to have higher disparities in income and greater tax advantages for the rich. This pattern is becoming more evident in Canada. The top 1 per cent paid a lower tax rate than the bottom 10 per cent in 2005. Marc Lee, a senior economist with CCPA, says, “Canada’s tax system now fails a basic test of fairness. Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada.” A combination of federal and provincial tax cuts have effected this shift, with “the poorest 20 percent of taxpayers, [paying] three to five percentage points more in taxes.”

Accompanying this are the increases in “user fees”, a form of regressive taxation, the incremental incursions of a two tiered medical system with the encroachment of private medical groups along the American model, low corporate taxes with many subsidies (as per the Alberta tar sands project above), and an as yet low but increasing military budget, set to double in the next five years.

Subnation Status

In foreign affairs, in domestic spending, domestic taxation, in our environmental laws, in our increasing belligerence as an aggressor nation, Canada is very rightly to be considered as a “subnation” to the United States. Our internal identity is hockey and beer with a bit of French thrown in to prove we are not American, but in all our consumer habits, our spending habits, our changing attitudes towards the environment and the military, our denial of international norms that accompany this – along with the norms for indigenous rights – it becomes a fair argument that Canada has not yet determined – and indeed is undermining – its own sovereignty. If the rest of the world no longer sees Canada the way a majority of us would still wish to be seen, the reasons are becoming more evident and stronger with each new development by the provincial and federal governments. The corporations are winning, the people are losing, a subnation we shall remain.

- Jim Miles is a Canadian educator. His work is presented globally through various Web sites and news publications, including this one.

U.S. Lawmaker Pleads for Energy Savings

jessie — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:15:18 -0800

U.S. Lawmaker Pleads for Energy Savings

William Matthews, January 14, 2007, Defense News -- It was 2005 when Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., began warning that the world is running out of oil. At the time, petroleum cost $40 a barrel.

Earlier this year, the price hit $100 a barrel, and there are other signs of oil-fired trouble ahead.

China is buying into oil companies around the world, Bartlett told an audience at a conference on energy alternatives for the U.S. military Jan. 9.

“When I asked the State Department why the Chinese are buying up oil around the world, they said the Chinese don’t understand the market system,” Bartlett said. “The Chinese don’t understand the market system,” he repeated as the room filled with grim chuckles.

China also is building a blue-water Navy, Bartlett said. At the rate warships are being built in China and the United States today, it won’t be too many years before China has the larger Navy, said Bartlett, who is the senior Republican on the House seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee.

Chinese submarines are of particular concern, he said. They could give China control of the Taiwan Strait.

One solution Bartlett and Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., pushed through Congress last year was a requirement that all new large U.S. Navy ships be nuclear-powered.

There are two problems with that: One, the Defense Authorization bill that contains the requirement was vetoed by President George W. Bush because of unrelated language involving Iraq. Bartlett said he is confident the bill will be amended and signed soon.

Two, nuclear-powered ships cost more to build, although less to operate in the long run than conventionally powered ships. Where will the money come from? Bartlett suggests selling a contemporary equivalent of war bonds.

Building nuclear-powered ships is just one step the U.S. military must take. The Army estimates it will need $85 billion to refurbish or replace equipment being worn out or destroyed in Iraq. Don’t do it, Bartlett pleads.

“A refurbished Humvee is still a Humvee” — that is, a fossil-fuel-guzzling battlefield vehicle, he said. “We should be more aggressive and innovative and actively pursue current and near-term technologies” that will reduce oil consumption.
Consider these Bartlett statistics:

Daily fuel consumption per deployed troop in combat has increased from 1.7 gallons during World War II to 27.3 gallons during the second Persian Gulf war.

Fuel accounts for 70 percent of war-fighting logistics supplies by weight. Convoys of tanker trucks are needed to keep combat vehicles, support vehicles and operating base generators running. Protection for fuel convoys diverts troops from combat operations. Convoys create operational vulnerabilities, and reliance on convoys constrains force movement.
Ultimately, in a world with shrinking oil supplies, the United States will probably have to reconsider how it uses its military, Bartlett said. Keeping U.S. troops in 100 countries around the world requires an extraordinary amount of energy, he said.
And it is clear to Bartlett, a medical school professor, inventor, scientist and business owner before entering Congress in 1992, that oil is running out.

“Most of the world’s authorities believe we have discovered 95 percent of the oil that will be discovered,” he said. And recent big discoveries, such as those in Latin America and the Gulf of Mexico, lie beneath miles of ocean and rock and would be enormously difficult and costly to tap.

At best, substitutes for oil, such as ethanol made from corn and other crops or liquefied coal and natural gas, can replace about one-third of today’s oil, Bartlett said.

But they have major drawbacks. The push to make ethanol from corn has already doubled the price of corn on the world market, prompting the United Nations to declare the practice of converting food crops into energy “a crime against humanity,” Bartlett said.

And converting coal to liquid fuel, as the U.S. Air Force is considering, releases twice as much global-warming carbon as burning petroleum-based fuel, he said.

Efforts to produce energy from fusion are about as likely to succeed as playing the lottery. Making oil from tar sands and oil shale consumes more energy than it produces. Hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and ocean energy can help on the margins, he said.

“Conservation is absolutely essential to buy us time” to develop new energy solutions, Bartlett said.

And because of its enormous buying power, the U.S. military “has a huge potential role” in pushing promising solutions, he said. As the nation’s largest single energy consumer, the military can create a market for energy solutions that would otherwise falter for lack of an assured market.

Climate change 'likely to cause wars'

jessie — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:45:23 -0800

Climate change 'likely to cause wars'

Charles Clover, December 10, 2007, The Telegraph -- Climate change is likely to aggravate old conflicts and trigger new tensions that could spill over into war or violence in many parts of the world, a report for the United Nations Environment Programme said.

Areas at risk of greater insecurity include northern and southern Africa, central Asia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, China, parts of the Caribbean and Andean and Amazonian regions of Latin America.

The report, by German and Swiss academics, says that the population of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean is estimated to grow by 40 per cent by 2025 at the same time as rainfall and agricultural production will be in decline.

Entitled Climate Change as a Security Risk, the report suggests that the climate change-induced causes of conflict are likely to be: degradation of freshwaters; decline in food production; increase in storm and flood disasters and environmentally-induced migration.

It identifies vulnerable states and societies as those that are in political transition and have a low level of economic activity with often large population or high population densities.

The regional hotspots identified are:

North Africa. It says this could be at particular risk of rising interstate conflicts including ones that might affect the region and beyond. Some countries in North Africa have recently suffered internal unrest and tensions including Algeria and Morocco.

In addition, many countries here are "characterised by poverty, high youth unemployment, wide social discrepancies and scanty state social security networks".

Aggravating pressures will be the likelihood of increased migration to the north by people living in the Sahel region and increased rural to city migration.

"As usable land and water resources become increasingly scarce, and use of non-sustainable methods of agriculture continues, desertification will cause further impoverishment and the risk of water and land-related conflicts at regional and local level will increase throughout North Africa," says the report.

After 2025-2030, water conflicts between Egypt and other countries cannot be excluded and could trigger insecurity that is 'felt far beyond the region".

The experts believe that the political and institutional structures of southern Europe will be able to cope with environmental changes such as drought and heat waves. But it notes that migration from countries of North Africa to EU countries could have violent consequences.

Central Asia. Above-average warming and glacial retreat will exacerbate water and agricultural problems in a region already characterised by political and social tensions and civil war, (Tajikistan).

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. The retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas will jeopardise the water supply for millions. Changes in the monsoon will affect agriculture.

China. Climate change will intensify existing environmental stresses from air and soil degradation. Cyclones and sea level rise will affect the populous south coast. The report says that the government's capacity to cope could be overwhelmed by the rapid pace of modernisation, social and environmental crises and climate change.

Hans Schellnhuber, a lead author of the report, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a visiting professor at Oxford university, said:" Without resolute counteraction, climate change will overstretch many societies' adaptive capacities within coming decades. This could result in destabilisation and violence jeopardising national and international security to a new degree".