Review: EARTH WARS - The Battle for Global Resources

"If the Earth wars were a sporting contest, here's how the half-time score might stand at the beginning of 2012..."

Georff Hiscock concludes his near 300 pages factual account of who owns the world with a surprisingly relaxed "scoreboard":

• 1st: USA 10 points
• 2nd: China 8p
• 3rd - 4th: Europe, Japan 6p
• 5th - 6th: Russia, India 5p
• 7th: Brazil 4p
• 8th - 10th: Mexico, Canada, Australia 3p
• 11th - 14th: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE 2p
• 15th - 22nd: South Korea, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, Central Asian republics, Mongolia 1p
• Vietnam, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and some African countries also in 1st division but still no points

EARTH WARS is a concise business report on the current deals in global energy and metals production as seen from down under. It also mentions the main water disputes but does not go into details on food production controversies. It is a treasure trove of information and numbers on especially Asian contracts but often the most important situations from other important continents such as South America or Africa are mentioned as after little more than afterthoughts at the end of chapters.

It's business report like writing is it's strength and it's weakness. The "bullshit factor" is one of the lowest I have ever seen. In many ways this book is just pure reporting. However, at times it is a tough read. And occasionally I wonder if I better run double checks on some numbers: Having been flipping through numerous skeptical blogs, articles and books earlier, I am of the impression that repository estimations and future extraction plans are not always that crystal clear. Did Hiscock leave out some valid doubts somewhere?

To get an impression of what the book offers you can look at the contents on page "v". Or you can take a glance at the 27 lists in it, because the chapters are very much structured as walk-throughs of those lists. So, "Exhibit 3.3" is a top ten of Russian oil and gas companies (no. 1 is Gazprom) - well that part of chapter three is an ordered sequence of paragraphs briefing on the owners, sizes and belongings of those companies. Pretty much.

One gem of the book is it's quite detailed second chapter on "geographical flashpoints". This chapter contained the bulk of the info I needed for my "contested resource territories" map published yesterday (take a look!).

The book hardly takes into account climate change. That may seem weird, but actually Hiscock barely bother predicting the future. Which is actually quite a relief. As such, it is fair enough not to mention projected environmental impacts decades into the future. The demand for renewable energy, however, is mentioned. Compared to the focus on the business as usual going on with fossil energy the demand for renewable energy looks depressingly weak.

If I had used it for my own book, it would certainly be on my list of recommended reading. It's not for everyone, though. Those other books are typically more into storytelling (like witnessing pollution in Nigeria or dictatorships in South America) or typical popular science (past societal collapses, influence of climate change on geopolitics). Normal books. Geoff Hiscock's book is a business book that doesn't dream and doesn't imagine anything.

Either way, there is absolutely no reason to doubt a fierce global business war is raging over our natural resources. That much is very clear after Hiscock's documentation. As documentation of this situation the book is a very valuable contribution. But it's not exactly edutainment.

 
Geoff Hiscock (2012): EARTH WARS - The Battle for Global Resources at Google Books, book website.

---

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.

---

More of the same. And then...

How better lose reader than with a headline like that? (I know: a going nowhere leading text like this one.) Well, while writing up this blog in report format a couple of links have piled up.

First: more of the two obvious ones

From Population growth, climate change raising odds of war over water, forum hears:

"Water resources in themselves have rarely been the sole source of conflict or war. Unfortunately, our global water situation is changing rapidly and may soon no longer resemble anything that has existed on earth before. The tensions and conflicts over water of the kind that have typically occurred in the past will soon represent only one of many emerging explosive hydro-climatic issues that are likely to bring sovereign nations into internal and external discord that could erupt in violence. Humanity's numbers appear to be the greatest threat to water security globally. We have created a hydroclimatic bomb, and that bomb has started to tick. But we don't know how big the bomb is or where or when it will go off."
- Bob Sandford, Canadian water-policy expert

Random fact from the article: 25% of water conflicts of the last five millennium occurred with the last decade.

Next: sweeping ones own doorstep, shipping off the dirt

Center for American Progress asks the hard question in Coal-Fired Conflict: Enabling Exports Clouds Environmental and Economic Goals:

if [a country] is serious about combating the perils of climate change through economic and environmental transformation, should [that country] really be encouraging the export of [home extracted] coal to [foreign] markets?

While it may improve carbon credit accounting exported coal will pollute the same atmosphere exactly as much and even more due to the transportation.

"Coal is a dead man walkin'. Banks won't finance them. Insurance companies won't insure them. The EPA is coming after them...and the economics to make it clean don't work."
- Kevin Parker, Deutsche Bank

If the United States is to assume a position of world leadership in the effort to reduce global warming pollution, and if it is to commit more fully to a clean energy future with its attendant economic, health, and environmental benefits, it makes little sense for policymakers to facilitate significant increases in coal exports.

Finally: Environmental laws to trigger trade wars

If you can stomach it, read Reuters / Canada warns EU of trade conflict over oil sands. Truly depressing testimony to the obstacles environmentalism and common sense is facing.

According to a leaked letter from the Canadian government to the EU, a proposed European tax on dirty energy is in their eyes an "unnecessary barrier". The fact that tar sand oils are one of the most polluting energy resources available is to the Canadians "not supported by the science".

The Canadians are already suing Europe at World Trade Organization level on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified foods, seal products and more - their free trade "right" to spam the world with tar sand oil would simply add another to the list. Shame on Canada.

Extra, extra: The interesting one!

Check out this interesting discussion at reddit / The storms that hit the US this weekend killed more American civilians in a single day than terrorists have in the last 9 years.

Most comments are either simply about the tornadoes, about surviving a tornado, about possible lack of warning systems in the US... and then some are quite funny and on our topic:

Hair dryers have killed more American civilians than terrorists have in the last 9 years, what's your point?
- eeepc

His point is that we need to start a WAR ON TORNADOES!
- Xsophos

Tornados hate us for our freedoms!!!!
- javo93

They are a threat to national security!
- TheWhyGuy

They did target 3 military bases and yet no response yet???
- enthreeoh