Noam Chomsky explains how to destroy the future

During a broad scope text on the suicidal tendencies of our global society Noam Chomsky touches a couple of resource conflict topics.

all over the world – Australia, India, South America – there are battles going on, sometimes wars. In India, it's a major war over direct environmental destruction, with tribal societies trying to resist resource extraction operations that are extremely harmful locally, but also in their general consequences

Here, Noam might be referring to the Dongria people vs. British Vedanta Resources. But there are other conflicts to choose from in India. And elsewhere.

So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible.

(Pssst Noam, there's this Arctic anomaly to your generalizing rule.)

[during the Korean War] everything else in North Korea had been destroyed, the [US] air force was sent to destroy North Korea's dams, huge dams that controlled the water supply – a war crime, by the way, for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. [...] the water pouring down, digging out the valleys, and the Asians scurrying around trying to survive. [...] It meant the destruction of their rice crop, which in turn meant starvation and death. How magnificent!

The Geneva Convention does protect the environment. Or rather: it professes to protect natural resources upon which the local population depends. See the Ecowar blog / 'Geneva Convention' needed to protect environment from war (Nov 2007) or Ecowar - Natural Resources and Conflict (the book, Dec 2011) pages 9, 29-30 and 120.

However, flooding an area did not automatically get generals hanged after the WWII. This tactic was used by China, the Dutch, the Soviet Union, Germany and Great Britain. At least. To be honest, I haven't checked if any German soldiers were hanged for drowning people in this way. But my wild guess is no.

Read How to destroy the future at The Guardian (Danish translation Sådan ødelægger vi fremtiden at Information). It is great reading like most of Noam's pieces.

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America vs Europe trade war over carbon looming

The European Union is about to take two small steps on the long journey of combating climate change: A small "tax" on air travel and another small tax on fossil fuels based on exactly how polluting the specific type of fossil fuel is. Both could ultimately end up in WTO courts; the former brought there by the US, the latter by tar sands would-be super-power Canada.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011

The Republican majority US House of Representatives voted to bar US airlines from paying the tax on carbon emissions ("European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011"). The airline tax is part of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) from 2008; it hands out 85% of the industry's emissions to them for free, lets them buy the remaining 15% on a free (dirt cheap) market. The industry estimate the tax would cost US airlines about $3.1 billion between 2012 and 2020.

"This bill could ignite a trade war that would put tens of thousands of U.S. jobs in jeopardy. [...] By barring U.S.- based airlines from complying with applicable law for flights traveling to EU airports, this bill would compel those airlines either to drop their EU routes or become scofflaws."
- Annie Petsonk, Environmental Defense Fund

Pause for a second to consider the opposite situation: The EU or other countries prohibiting their corporations to comply with a US environmental law. Not to mention the facts that the Republican's arguments - that the EU law is a "competitive disadvantage" and in "violation of international law" are both simply wrong. Dear Obama, please archive this law in your paper recycling bin.


Sources: Bloomberg / U.S. Vote on EU Aviation Plan May Start Trade War, Environment Group Says, Think Progress / House Could Start Trade War With Europe Over Airline Greenhouse Pollution, Green Economy / Republican-Majority House Votes Trade War against Europe, Center for American Progress / House Airline Bill Risks Diplomatic Fallout and Disaster to U.S. Industry.

The Fuel Quality Directive

A tax based on the relative environmental harm done by different kinds of fuel doesn't sound that bad an idea does it? Well, Canada, currently projecting the billions it plans to make from transforming huge swaths of forest into polluted gravel deserts, consider it a European political attack on them. Elsewhere this would file under "conspiracy theory".

"We have the knowledge and the fact that the oil sands are more CO2-polluting than other kinds of fuel [...] And therefore we say it should have a specific value. It's nothing targeted against this particular fuel. We are doing that with all our different biofuels. It's the same methodology that we are applying for different things in the same directive [...] And now we are discussing this also with our member states, with the Commission, which has proposed this."
- Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard

"Canada's plans for tar sands will put the world on track for 6 degrees of warming, way past the globally accepted limit of 2 degrees [...] Six degrees would be game over."
- Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace

The Fuel Quality Directive ranks...

• coal-to-liquid: 172 grams of carbon per megajoule
• oil shale: 131.3 grams
• oil sands crude: 107 grams
• conventional oil: 87.5 grams

Greenpeace is blaming Britain (Canada ally) and Estonia (having oil-shale resources) of delaying the legislation.

Sources: The McGill Daily / Canada opposes EU's labelling of tar sands, Reuters / EU climate chief: science shows Canada oil sand risk, EurActive / Britain accused of stalling EU tar sands regulation.

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Moscow Arctic Forum promises peaceful exploitation, silent on risks

This week the "Arctic nations" - Canada, Russia, Norway, the United States and Denmark - met in Moscow to agree on territorial claims. (Strangely, I didn't notice any coverage at all in Danish media - while even Al-Jazeera warmed up for it.)

"Serious political and economic interests are indeed crossing over in the Arctic. But I have no doubt that problems, including the continental shelf problem, can be solved in the spirit of partnership. It is well known that it is difficult to survive in the Arctic on your own. Nature itself makes people, nations and states help each other there. Unfortunately we are faced with alarmist predictions of a looming battle for the Arctic. We are monitoring the situation and making responsible forecasts."
- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

"No one problem of contemporary Arctic can be resolved by one country alone. So that's why I think that we are doomed to co-operate in the Arctic. And military confrontation especially is completely counterproductive."
- Russian Arctic expert Lev Voronkov

Russia plans to invest 312.8 billion US dollars on exploration and promise extra tax breaks for oil corporations wanting to do business in the Arctic. They have sent a submarine to plant the Russian flag on the sea bed but complain about NATO's presence.

The Arctic is thought to contain 25% of the planet's undiscovered oil and gas, about 200 billion barrels of oil.

"The industry has been around the world discovering easy oil and gas there are only the more difficult and riskier regions left - and the Arctic is one of them"
- Manouchehr Takin, Centre For Global Energy Studies

"It is a reckless prospecting endeavour, trying to find new oil reserves in this fragile and pristine environment"
- Greenpeace protestor

Sources include: Reuters / Russia's Putin urges Arctic resources deal, BBC / Arctic summit in Moscow hears rival claims and BBC / Melting ice opens up potential for Arctic exploitation.

I am reminded of George Monbiot's speech at Klimaforum09 (alternative COP15):

"If governments were serious about climate change [...] they would be putting proposals here at Copenhagen this week to determine which parts of carbon reserves would be left in the ground. [...] they would also be proposing a total global moratorium on all prospecting for new reserves of coal, oil and gas."

We have already found more than enough fossil fuel reserves to cause extreme climate change. We don't need the Arctic reserves to do that. A fact so blindingly obvious since they are only becoming accessible because of the melting ice caps.

Borders of Switzerland moving around with melting glaciers

This is about neither war nor even a natural resource in demand. It's about a peaceful agreement over changes in nature: As climate change is melting the glaciers defining the borders of Switzerland the government is simply redrawing the European map in collaboration with Austria, Italy and France. Complete absence of trouble, it seems.

Today the Swiz parliament approved of one such move of the border (the AP story is found on several online media: Switzerland expands border into Italy as glaciers melt, Glaciers melt, Swiss get some territory from Italy; this one's a bit more detailed: Swiss Approve Measure to Redraw Italian Border Near Matterhorn).

But what if the melting glaciers had been the main water source of the neighbourhood? And what if Switzerland had been in less friendly relationships with their neighbours? Such conditions - unfortunately - are less common around the world.

"Elsewhere in the world you see a much more nationalistic attitude"
- Dr. Mark Zeitoun, Britain’s University of East Anglia

Namely the Himalayas are melting. This could lead to drastic changes and trouble. First of all an increase in Pakistani-Indian tensions. But ice is melting everywhere; faster and faster.

Arctic melt also leads to conflict as nations make their territorial pissings: armies of Denmark and Canada taking turns planting a flag and a bottle of booze on a icy rock next to Greenland, Russia planting a flag on the bottom of the Arctic sea.

See Grist.org / Bordering on Chaos: Climate change melts lines drawn in ice.

Canadian gas pipeline bombed

For the 6th time in nine months a natural gas pipeline in western Canada has been bombed.

"We are dealing with domestic terrorism. This is an attack on a critical infrastructure."

- Dan Moskaluk, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

EnCana, the natural gas company owning the pipeline, has received threats to cease natural gas production in the area. It has offered a reward of half a million Canadian dollars for the capture of the bomber.

So far no person or nature has been harmed but authorities fear this is only a matter of time.

Sources: Gas pipeline bombed again in W Canada, Gas pipeline in W Canada targeted by second bomb in four days, Canadian gas pipeline hit by 6th bomb

Freshwater industrialization, privatization and pollution

Two links for this blogs 20th post tagged 'water'.

Depraved Injustice and the Privatization of the Global Freshwater Commons by Frank Joseph Smecker is a critical look at the increasing privatization of the worlds freshwater resources.

Privatization is the preferred solution from those who brought us into this situation of scarcity and escalating conflict: traditional capitalist believers in growth seemingly unaware of the fact our ecosystem is finite. Smecker lists cases from around the world - USA, Canada, Belize, Argentina, The Philippines, Bolivia, Bolivia, Indonesia, South Africa, Australia, Sudan, Mexico, China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, India, North and South Korea, Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Ethiopia and The United Kingdom - and sum up the adverse effects which are left unsaid by the privatization people; the observed cons rather than the imagined pros:

• Prices go up. Especially problematic to poor people in developing countries who cannot afford the extra cost and are particularly dependend on water.
• Pollution go up. Distribution by plastic bottles - preferred for monetization - is ridiculously polluting compared to locally extracted tap water plus the private water companies have poor environment track records.
• Private water companies are multinational not local. Profits do not develop the exploited areas.
• Water quality declines as it is only taken care of to a profitable minimum.
  
• Ecological destruction of downstream habitat as ecosystems are derived of their water. Including threats to animal species populations (including salmon, steelhead and trout).
• Failure to protect public ownership of water and water rights.
• Wasted water and neglect of conservation.

The article does not solely blame industrialization, capitalism and privatization - climate change (itself a side effect of industrialization and population growth) is also pointed out.

Industrialized Farming Endangers World Food Supply by Karin Friedemann is a short, aggressive attack on multinationals and their taking over of not just the worlds water but its soils, sun, gene pools and political systems too.

The Oil-for-Food program in Iraq forced the large-scale importation of food after the first Gulf War. Devastated Iraqi farmers then became the victims of USAID. [..] Under US occupation, Iraqi farmers must pay a “technology fee” plus an annual license fee to agribusinesses supplying the seeds and equipment. [...] The war provides these corporations with both a lucrative short-term market in the blossoming “reconstruction” industry and an opportunity to integrate Afghanistan into their global production networks and markets in the long term.

In other words an example of 'disaster capitalism'. Essentially another route of aggravating our water issues as the top-down multinational approach to agriculture is based upon highly industrialized, export oriented mono-cultural farming.

Arctic Map shows dispute hotspots

A team from Durham University compiled the outline of potential hotspots by basing the design on historical and ongoing arguments over ownership.

Deeplink to map.

From the Ecowar frontiers

Middle East

Around one-third of a massive oil slick caused by Israeli bombing of a Lebanese power plant remains in the Mediterranean a year on from war

Source: Lebanon still cleaning oil spill one year after war - Middle East Times

Arctic

Canada's increased military presence in the Arctic poses environmental dangers as bullets, shells, shell casings and other war-game detritus wind up in ecologically sensitive waters and tundra

Source: globeandmail.com: War games in Arctic draw fire over impact on ecology

Central America

Campesinos in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been blocking access to an area where the government wants to build a huge dam and hydroelecric station, since 2003

Source: ENVIRONMENT-MEXICO: High Voltage Conflict Over Dam

Asia

Bullets, grenades, bombs, mortars and other war tools obliterate wildlife, disturb native habitats and poison the air, water and soil with toxic chemicals. This damage to the environment is very costly and can persist for generations.

Source: Concealed casualty of war - INQUIRER.net