The blog is now a book, long live both

Dear reader, You may already have noticed the orange graphic in the right sidebar? Yes, I have self-published a book based on this blog. And I'm literally giving it away, the price barely covers printing. What will happen to the blog now? Why self-publishing? What is up with that ecowar.eu site? Answers in the tale below...

After many emails back and forth between publishers, experts and I as well as personal considerations I finally decided to self-publish with Books on Demand. Communicating with publishers is a job in itself and not one I could find the energy to do. At the same time, those publishers and experts who appears to have taken some time to look at my script did offer a bit of praise and encouragement.

"[...] a real pleasure receiving your book. It's very interesting! Most of it is so very relevant today [...]"

"[...] very interesting and significant [...]"

"[...] is extremely well written and interesting [...]"

"[Interlude A about a Neanderthal family] makes exciting reading [...] this might be one way of waking the current generation up to the fact that if we do not solve our ecological problem we could become past history."

The greatest loss of self-publishing with Books on Demand compared to a regular publisher is in marketing, I think. I'll have to fund and mail copies to reviewers myself and no copies will sell themselves from simply standing on a shelf in a store. At the end of the day, I find the message to be what's important to me. Not sales. That being said, it would be nice to sell a couple of hundreds of copies to break even.

To aid the "marketing" of the book I bought the URL "ecowar.eu" (not .dk because it's not a Danish project, not .com, .net, .info or .org because those have been taken by others or have been cybersquatted) and set up a Google Plus page (please encircle). For now it simply presents the book. But check back later, I may go through with a few of the ideas I have. This blog here, ecowar.blogspot.com, will stay were it is so don't unsubscribe or remove your bookmark.

Posting frequency will most likely drop, however. At least for some time. That doesn't mean my research stops. I'll still get my fine-tuned news alerts and I'll still bookmark using Diigo and still share whatever news deserve some buzz via my Twitter (using #ecowar when I remember) and/or the Google Plus page. And write new articles here every now and then.

So, wish me luck. And buy the book, please. Currently it's available at the following vendors:

Books on Demand

Saxo.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

More vendors to come. Also available via me, the author (email "benno" at ecowar.eu). The price is just ~85 DKK / ~11 € / ~15 US$.

Do you have experience in self-publishing? Do you have creative ideas for what I should do with the book, the blog and the site? Any kind of question or request? Bring it on...

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Trouble in Kazakhstan oil city

Oil industry workers have been protesting layoffs and demanding raises. Authorities have answered with a crackdown: reports of dead and injured, mobile network and internet censored. International networks of hackers are providing dial-up internet communication just like they did in Egypt early 2011.

"The protesters blocking the railway refused to leave the area and the clashes started. I am now in the hospital. One 25-year-old young man was shot in the head and died. Eight men were wounded and the number of the wounded is increasing." - Bauyrzhan, local

Read about Kazakhstan in Ecowar - Natural Resources and Conflict (the book) pages beginning 57, 104 and 114.

Via /. read Kazakhstan says it has restored order in oil town where 10 were killed in riots, Kazakhstan Disables the Internet, Situation Remains Tense In Western Kazakhstan After Deadly Clashes.

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War for territory - World tour November 2011

We live in peaceful times. Conflicts being linked to something as mundane as natural resources is a conspiracy theory. Just kidding...

Cambodia: Villages razed to clear land for sugar plantation

Amnesty International and other organisations have exposed the Cambodian authorities' systematic failure to protect people from forced evictions. Forced evictions in the name of economic development now occur regularly across Cambodia, as local elites and foreign investors seek to capitalize on a newly privatized land market and take control of the country's natural resources.

Colombia: Tribes flee civil war and gold miners

About 10% of the hunter-gatherer Awa tribe have fled their ancestral mountain homes in the past decade. Some now survive as subsistence farmers on small lots provided by the government.

The tribe has been fighting palm oil plantations encroaching on their land for about 16 years, the civil war between leftist FARC and the government has produced an extremely dangerous territory including indigenous grounds littered with landmines and lately gold mines have taken away even more land and polluting its surroundings.



Read: BBC / Colombia's indigenous peoples face uncertain future, SOS Childrens' Villages / Dealing with the threat of landmines in Colombia.

Peru: Indigenous tribes protest planned gold mines

Several protesters were injured on November 25th when police dispersed anti-gold mine demonstration with tear gas. The US-based Newmont Mining Corporation plan to reconstruct local water flows used in farmers' irrigation. Locals protest mining projects throughout Peru and injuries are not uncommon.

"Companies come here, take the gold and then go away - just like in colonial times. People feel cheated." - Jorge Rimarachin

Read: AFP / Peruvian gold mine, locals clash over resources , MercoPress / Peruvian peasants clash with police to protest against gold mine in the Andes.


Sudan - South Sudan border: Ethnic cleansing?

After a brief spell in international media as a success story, newly founded South Sudan is now fighting a "war by proxy" paramilitaries with Sudan. The latter appear to currently be evicting certain ethnic groups.

DigitalGlobe imagery shows the presence of Antonov An-26's and other aircraft at El Obeid Airbase on 14 November 2011.

The Sea: The race for off-shore resources intensifying world wide

One third of oil production is now off-shore and the rate is climbing. Resources are found in the Arctic, in the South Chinese Sea, in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Chinese and Turkish warships circle Vietnamese and Israeli drilling ships and platforms in each their own gunboat diplomatic efforts. These countries as well as the US, Russia and others are investing in new aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers.





Read: The New York Times / A New Era of Gunboat Diplomacy.


All just one big hoax. All of the above from the month of November 2011.

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Grease is the new copper

Materials and resources once common, inexpensive or just non-existing pop up in a new league of the craved for or expensive. Copper and solar panels have been new objects of theft in recent years. Now grease is getting locked up to protect it from thieves. Yes, grease.

Biofuel producers are now buying used cooking oil from restaurants. What was once foul waste is today a resource for the non-fossil energy sector. In this crisis struck economy the temptation of containers filled to the brim with valuable grease left unguarded behind restaurants is too much for some.

"It's become the new copper. [...] It's difficult to get law enforcement people to spend a lot of time on somebody who's stealing grease."
- Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association

The grease sells at 3 USD per gallon (0.6 € per liter) - five times its price a decade ago.

"It's a big deal. There's a huge underground out there for this stuff."
- Bobby Tessler, owner of St. Louis Wing Co., who had about 2,000 USD worth of grease stolen since April.

One of the rare cases of grease thieves getting fined is from a town called Springfield. Grease theft was "predicted" in a 1998 episode of The Simpsons.

Sources: Two Alleged Grease Thieves Arrested in Arlington, Restaurant Grease As Good As Gold To Biofuel Thieves, Grease becomes a hot commodity for thieves, Two Missouri brothers facing charges for grease theft.

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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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