2014 bookmarks - the year in war over natural resources

From the depths of my bookmarks (that were all automatically tweeted) on conflict and natural resources, here is a quick review of the way in which Earth was plundered for natural resources in the past year. Year 2014, the 100^th anniversary of the first war to run on oil.

In short, 2014 was just more of the same. Like...

• Geneva Conventions once again violated in Palestine as the conflict seems to be increasingly linked to natural resources,
  
• gold and diamonds helped the Central African Republic explode in brutal violence,
  
• the indigenous protester José Isidro Tendetza Antún being murdered just in time for COP20,
  
• Central Asia drying up a bit more.
  

But a lot more of the same also means obscure news stories grow into reports from acknowledged organizations—like when

• NASA found out we're headed for irreversible collapse,
  
• Global Witness built a terrifying graph from the reports of murdered environmentalists and
  
• The World Bank concluded climate change will lead to battles for food.
  

Some of the worst news this year was how Islamic State grew out of the chaos in Iraq and Syria, and became known not as the richest terrorist group in the world, but as the poorest terrorist country. Because they successfully occupy and exploit vast oil fields, loot everything lootable while controlling many smuggler's routes and ruthless dealers. I get how they control the population by mass executions rivaling the worst in history, denying crucial water supplies to villages and other callous misdeeds. But how do they manage to sell oil worth millions of dollars every single day even as all eyes are on the region? Money talks, of course, anywhere and anytime, but still?

Part of the answer came in this fascinating report by Suzan Fraser and Yilmaz Akinci from the border between Turkey and Syria, where... hillbillies, basically... tell how they have always been smuggling. Everyone did it. For generations. So, suddenly a few more bearded men came with a bit more oil than usual. It worked for a time, but Turkish police cracked down on it. Their large scale “pipeline” was smacked into smaller, obscure “pipelines” - like the ones the Islamic terrorists have for every other country, apparently.

Probably more efficient that the Turkish police, however, is the Saudi Arabian financial muscle. To them and most of their allies, the sum of benefits of a low oil price seems to currently triumph the more obvious benefits of a high oil price. Mainly by cutting the cash flow to Iran, Syria, Islamic State, Russia, even North American non-conventional (fossil) energy producers and others. In fact, I've seen some speculate Saudi Arabia has almost won the war on Ukraine's behalf as Russia's weakening rubles soon cannot pay for any more war. Speaking of Ukraine: This country used to be self-sufficient in coal, but the territory occupied by rebels and Russians just happen to host 66 coal mines, leaving Ukraine's power plants under-supplied; and the shores off now Russian Crimea just happen to be full of gas. What a coincidence.

That was all just slightly scratching the surface of year 2014 in war for natural resources. On slightly more positive notes, Interpol published a most-wanted list of environmental criminals at large – go get 'em – and Egypt and Ethiopia seems to be agreeing on how to share the Nile.

Happy New Year!

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China: Two coal miners sentenced to death for killing locals who protested pollution

A court in China's vast northern region of Inner Mongolia has sentenced to death a coal mine worker for killing a resident who had complained about pollution [...] Earlier this month, a court in the same part of Inner Mongolia ordered the execution of a man for murdering an ethnic Mongolian herder who had also protested against coal mine pollution, a killing that set off days of rare protests.

This past month five environmentalists have been murdered in Brazil. Police are - apparently - clueless.

Sources: Yahoo! / Chinese man gets death in pollution protest case, AP / Chinese sentenced to die for Mongol herder's death

Brazilian rainforest defender murdered

The Guardian reports (Amazon rainforest activist shot dead):

Six months after predicting his own murder, a leading rainforest defender has reportedly been gunned down in the Brazilian Amazon. José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo, are said to have been killed in an ambush near their home in Nova Ipixuna, in Pará state, about 37 miles from Marabá. According to a local newspaper, Diário do Pará, the couple had not had police protection despite getting frequent death threats because of their battle against illegal loggers and ranchers.

"I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment … because I denounce the loggers and charcoal producers, and that is why they think I cannot exist. [People] ask me, 'are you afraid?' Yes, I'm a human being, of course I am afraid. But my fear does not silence me. As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest."
- José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, TEDxAmazonia

Trouble brewing in dried-out India

Years of excessive use of water for irrigating fields, a drying trend from global warming, a record drought and astronomical scale pollution all adds up to trouble in India.

Harvests go down, farmer income the same direction, malnourishment and desperation up. So much according to The Star / India: Dying of thirst a family was murdered in a riot over water. (We need a -cide word somewhere between homi- and geno- for this!)

"We are running out of it, and crops are going to slow. We will see more hunger, more disputes and clashes. More theft."
- Naranjan Singh, a 63-year-old farmer

"In a decade, India could look like Darfur. You have people running out of water, and it's a recipe for killing. It really does make people desperate. You go without it for just three days and you've had it."
- Vandana Shiva, nuclear physicist and water activist

"Climate change is threatening our ecosystems, water scarcity is becoming a way of life and pollution is a growing threat to our health and habitat."
- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Over-use of water is a problem that has created as the so-called "Green Revolution" of decades past sought to address other issues. Human caused depletion was confirmed by NASA satellites last month. (Source: NASA data shows groundwater trouble)

Australian man killed in water-rage attack

A man has been charged with murder in Australia after an elderly man who was watering his garden was bashed to death in an apparent case of suburban water-rage.