Okay, Is This Plain Enough for You?

The irony is how many people use our new harsh winters as proof that the whole global warming thing is a hoax. Even the most ignorant among them know enough to parrot "Snowmageddon" and "Polar Vortex" at the drop of a climate scientist's hat.

What the scientists now know, however, is that these winter cold snaps and most other extreme weather events including summer droughts and floods are directly linked to the extreme warming conditions underway in the Arctic.


Severe “snowmageddon” winters are now strongly linked to soaring polar temperatures, say researchers, with deadly summer heatwaves and torrential floods also probably linked. The scientists now fear the Arctic meltdown has kickstarted abrupt changes in the planet’s swirling atmosphere, bringing extreme weather in heavily populated areas to the boil.

The northern ice cap has been shrinking since the 1970s, with global warming driving the loss of about three-quarters of its volume so far. But the recent heat in the Arctic has shocked scientists, with temperatures 33C above average in parts of the Russian Arctic and 20C higher in some other places.

In November, ice levels hit a record low, and we are now in “uncharted territory”, said Prof Jennifer Francis, an Arctic climate expert at Rutgers University in the US, who first became interested in the region when she sailed through it on a round-the-world trip in the 1980s.

“These rapid changes in the Arctic are affecting weather patterns where you live right now,” she said. “In the past you have had natural variations like El Niño, but they have never happened before in combination with this very warm Arctic, so it is a whole new ball game.


“It is inconceivable that this ridiculously warm Arctic would not have an impact on weather patterns in the middle latitudes further south, where so many people live.

“It’s safe to say [the hot Arctic] is going to have a big impact, but it’s hard to say exactly how big right now. But we are going to have a lot of very interesting weather – we’re not going to get around that one.”

So, stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. Maybe, maybe not, maybe not just yet.

There has been a great deal of research coming in over the past couple of months about what climate scientists are calling the "climate emergency" underway in the Arctic.

In late November, the Stockholm Environmental Institute released its Arctic Resilience Report that concluded Arctic warming may have already resulted in the crossing of 19 climate change "tipping points." Why do tipping points matter? Because they herald a point of departure from which there may be no return. If you haven't read it, do read this report. It's that important.

Last week, the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency, NOAA, released its Arctic Report Card 2016. Here's what one of the authors had to say:

The environment has steadily declined since scientists started doing the annual report card, now in its 11th year, co-author Donald Perovich said.

"When it started, you kind of had to listen closely because the Arctic was whispering change," said Perovich, who works at Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering in New Hampshire.

"Now it is not whispering anymore. It is speaking change. It is shouting change."

This isn't voodoo, it's not magic. This is basic high school physics. Even a grade school drama teacher should be able to get this.

As the world warms so too does the Arctic. Only in the far north something different, "extra" happens. Think of the Arctic as a big mirror. All that ice and snow is very reflective. Around 80% of the sunshine that hits the surface is reflected back toward space.

As the air warms it has a special effect in the Arctic. Sea ice begins to melt faster during the summer and is slower to rebuild in the winter. That leaves more sea water exposed to the sun for longer periods. While the ice reflects 80% of solar energy, the dark green sea water absorbs 80% of the solar radiation. The mirror effect wanes as the ocean grows warmer.

The exposed sea water releases some of that heat energy to the atmosphere. The warmer Arctic air in turn causes snow melt and the thawing of the tundra eventually exposing the methane rich permafrost beneath.

The warmer, moister Arctic atmosphere energizes the Polar Jet Stream that creates an unusual effect of Rossby Waves. The jet stream plunges deep into the south drawing Arctic air with it, the Polar Vortex, while other waves draw warm air into the far north from the south. That's why in February, a few years ago, Atlanta, Georgia was brought to an icy halt while a village in northern Alaska basked in 62F warmth. Go figure, eh?

Here's a graphic that shows what's going on right now:

See all that dark reddish part at the top where it looks like the Earth is on fire? That's the Arctic right now. They're in the middle of Arctic winter when the sun doesn't shine - at all. In other words, there's no solar energy driving that heatwave.  Just sayin'.

Fortunately we have governments, federal and provincial, that we entrust to do what's necessary to respond to what the scientists are calling a "climate emergency" in the far north. So how are they doing?

Well, the Dauphin has the premiers in a tizzy over the idea of a wholly gestural carbon tax. Yessir, ten Canadian dollars a ton starting in 2018 going up, eventually, to a staggering fifty dollars a ton. That should make a big difference to this looming Arctic catastrophe, right? No, it won't make a difference? Nothing at all? Oh, oh dear.

Besides, Justin is sort of occupied right now with more important things. He wants to get an extra million barrels a day of dilbit off to foreign markets because in his Orwellian thinking more high carbon fossil fuels is the key to Canada's climate friendly future.

The bottom line. They're not going to do a damned thing about this. They won't even bring it up in conversation. They've got other plans even if what they've got in mind only makes this looming catastrophe that much worse.

The House + The Senate + The Presidency = Disaster

Yeah, sure, the Republicans have a nutjob and a suitably batshit crazy cabinet en route to inauguration, confirmation and so on. And, yes, the Republicans will control the House of Representatives and they'll control the Senate to boot. That's what's called a "unified Republican government."

It's not the first time the Repugs have achieved a unified government. Since 1900 there've been three previous unified Republican governments. And how did those turn out? According to Wall Streeter, Alex Palumbo, if the past holds true this time, disaster lies ahead.

The ONLY 3 PERIODS of extended unified Republican governments going back to 1900 ALL DIRECTLY led to banking crises….Arguably the 3 worst in US History. To be clear, I am defining ‘extended’ unified governments as anytime they control the House, Senate and White house for at least 4 years. This does not include short 2 year stints since it’s hard to screw things up that quick (FYI there was only 1 period of that anyway, 1953-1955). You can look up the periods yourself here and more detail here.

The list of Unified Republican Government crises include the Panic of 1907, The Great Depression, and the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. Interestingly, the record of extended Republican control of Congress has also only led to crises. There have only been 4 periods of extended Republican control of Congress (3 of which overlap with the periods of full unified control just mentioned). However, the 4th period (I KID YOU NOT) ended in the 2000 DotCom Bust where the Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 1995-2001.

Read more here.

There's a word for this in High German, Gerfukt. What will the Gullibillies do when they realize they've been had?

Why Life Is Not a Journey

This is outside of my normal milieu but it's something that I think needs to be said.

How Wolves Change Rivers

A fascinating video by George Monbiot detailing how the re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park restored a badly degraded ecosystem, even changing the rivers.



What Monbiot left out was how those wolves came to be eliminated in Yellowstone initially. That was us. We got rid of the wolves and almost ruined this great park in the process. Over the intervening 20 years ranchers and others repeatedly sought to again eradicate the wolves but they failed.

And, yes, most of us know that those wolves were brought in from Canada.

This Is Funny, I Guess, Almost

Is Obama Going to Hand Trump a Poison Pill?

It seems a majority of Americans believe that Hillary Clinton, having won the popular vote by some three million ballots, should be the president of the United States, not Donald J. Trump.

There's a problem for the Giant Orange Bloat. On vote tallies alone a majority of his public see his presidency as illegitimate before he's even sworn in.

Then there's the FBI scandal that's still simmering but may eventually erupt as evidence of state corruption to skew the election in Trump's favour. That's pretty blatant. It's not going away and, for DJT, it's not going to help his claim to the Oval Office.

There are indications that some Electoral College electors may vote their conscience and support Hillary. That sort of break would further undermine Trump's legitimacy.

There's Trump's Clown Car cabinet picks. Word is out today that their aggregate net worth exceeds that of the entire lowest third of American households. At an average household size of four people and a total population of 325 million, that means Trump's cabinet is wealthier than about 30 million households. I don't think there's been that sort of disparity since Versailles.

Let's not forget the Gullibilly Bait, Trump's inflammatory campaign promises that didn't even last a couple of weeks after the election before DJT told his faithful that he was only bullshitting them all along. There ain't gonna be no wall. Hillary ain't gonna go to jail. All those jobs won't be coming back. But the rich will get plenty richer. Ooh, that's gotta sting.

And now it's Obama's turn to deliver his parting gift to The Donald which may take the form of a cyber war on Russia. America's intelligence community, the CIA and the other agencies, are sticking by their guns. Russia meddled in the elections to skew the outcome in favour of Trump. That's something that has even Republicans choking a bit. A foreign government, one that Americans have seen as their natural enemy since the late 40s, flips their election.

Now Obama has thrown down the gauntlet, vowing retaliation against Russia for its cyber-perfidy.

According to extracts of an interview due to air on National Public Radio on Friday morning, the US president said he was waiting for a final report he has ordered into a range of Russian hacking attacks, but promised there would be a response.

“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action,” Obama said. “And we will – at a time and place of our own choosing.

“Some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be.”

The CIA has judged that the Russian cyber attacks, including the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee, were intended to influence the election in Donald Trump’s favour. The FBI agrees that there was Russian hacking but has not as yet concluded it was intended to favour the Republican contender.

Senators from both parties have called for a congressional enquiry, while Trump himself has rejected the reports and his office has derided the CIA.

If Obama is going to act against Putin, he's got about four weeks to do it, and, whatever he does, it will fall squarely into Trump's lap on January 20th. Sweet.

A Primer for a Prime Minister

It's almost impossible to discern how much our prime minister really understands about globalism and the neoliberal order. He claims he gets it but that's far from clear. The prime ministerial confusion was manifest in his interview today in The Guardian.

It was with some relief that I came upon a helpful treatise on neoliberalism by Sandra Waddock in today's Christian Science Monitor that explains not only how it has failed us but how we might get out of this disastrous rut. Waddock, the chair in corporate responsibility at Boston College contends the way out begins with a new narrative. Hint: sacrificing national sovereignty to a parallel corporate power structure simply in pursuit of endless growth and unfocused wealth creation is not on.

Memes are, I recently argued, an overlooked and vitally important aspect of system change. Recognizable memes form the basis of today's dominant economic narrative: free markets, free trade and globalization, private property, competition, individual but not shared responsibility, and maximization of company and shareholder wealth.

The success of these memes speaks to why business students so readily identify the purpose of the business as maximizing shareholder wealth and with the language of free markets and trade. They are simple, identifiable and based on laudable values like freedom and individual responsibility, after all: things that Americans in particular, with their individualistic orientation, can readily identify with.

Their power to convey the underlying economic "story" illustrates why change that seems to astute observers to be necessary – change toward more sustainability, dealing with climate change and fostering greater equity – is so difficult. Neoliberalism's pursuit of endless growth, efficiency and free trade have led to setbacks in curbing climate change, enhancing sustainability and reducing inequality, all of which are potentially existential crises for humanity.

...What is needed, as happened with the creation of neoliberalism's core narrative, is that a new set of memes framing a new economic and societal narrative needs to be established. An emerging group called Leading for Wellbeing and composed of global organizations, universities and newspapers is attempting to do just this, built on the notion that the world's major institutions and businesses should "operate in service of well-being and dignity for all."

Tomorrow's narrative needs to be framed very differently from today's. It needs to recognize that economies are part of societies and nature but not the only important thing. A new narrative should frame the purpose of business very differently, taking different stakeholders and the natural environment into account. It could also provide a more reasonable and effective basis for resolving the key crises of our time, such as the warming planet and the growing gap between rich and poor.

Dignity and well-being can be enhanced, for instance, by emphasizing job creation and stability, fair wages and fair markets, rather than financial wealth, efficiency and growth. Measures like the Genuine Progress Indicator would incorporate well-being and individual dignity into the measure of an economy, as opposed to merely its activity, making it a great substitute for GDP or GNP.

If we hope to overcome this tide of populism and nationalism sweeping the West, a new, more powerful narrative is desperately needed – a new story that proves more compelling than the one that brought Trump and populists in Europe to power.

For those despairing whether there would ever be a way out of this neoliberal morass, Waddock's essay is a shot in the arm. Just to be able to imagine a society not enslaved to an obsession with wealth, efficiency and growth regardless of the devastation that unbalanced pursuit has created is really quite wonderful.

What she discusses in many ways echoes the basic precepts of early 20th century progressivism. Maybe that's where our future lies.

The Ghosts of Nuremberg

The world that emerged from WWII had pretty concrete views on war crimes. We abolished sovereign immunity. We put a lot of nasty people on trial for crimes against humanity and sent a good number of them to the gallows. No longer would the world sit by and tolerate their butchery.

We were never really as noble as we pretended to be. Realpolitik led us to look the other way. Genocide continued. Think Cambodia or Rwanda, Biafra or the Congo. But that was Asia and Africa, places that hardly mattered among polite company. It would be enough that we and our friends wouldn't resort to such barbarism.

Sadly, the ghosts of Nuremberg have returned and, once again, we're doing nothing.

Deutsche Welle's Rainer Sollich offers up the slaughter in Aleppo that will almost certainly spread to the rest of Syria as an example of the West's fecklessness. To Sollich the lesson is clear - war crimes now pay off.

The military triumph of the Assad regime is unstoppable as long as it can rely on its allies. As soon as all of Aleppo is under the control of the regime, Bashar al-Assad will almost certainly set his sights on the remaining rebel-held areas in the Idlib region. The war will go on, and claim many more victims. Who or what could still stop Assad?

It seems the answer is not the West, or the so-called "international community." The United Nations has completely failed, as departing Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has acknowledged. The world is standing by, doing nothing as people in Aleppo and the rest of the country are murdered. Diplomatic efforts continue to be made, but they are a cover for pure powerlessness. Nobody has come forward to aid Syria's civilians. And that is not likely to change under the administration of US President- Elect Donald Trump.

But, of course, that's Syria and we've been at odds with that place and the Assads for donkey's years. It's not like they're our ally or anything. Yet, when we look at Saudi Arabia and Israel that's just a distinction without a difference.

We, Canada included, have been allied with the real butchers of the Middle East, the Saudis. Thanks to the House of Saud and their friends in Ottawa, Canada has become the second largest arms trafficker to the region.

The Saudis have been bombing Houthi civilians in towns and cities in Yemen using American made cluster bombs. That's a war crime and it's a crime against humanity. The Americans have had their fill of these war crimes and the Brits are getting nervous about how this makes them look. The Trudeau government? Well, a deal's a deal.

We're on the record. The Saudis are our allies. Together we're fighting this ill-named War on Terror. Only these same Saudis and their cousins, the princes, emirs, and sheikhs of the Gulf States have both promoted and funded the most radical strain of Sunni Islam that inevitably manifests in murderous groups such as al Qaeda, al Nusra, ISIS and Boko Haram. Those Houthi rebels in Yemen? Their fighters are battling al Qaeda and ISIS forces.

Let's look at the record. The original "embassy bombings" - Salafist Sunni. The attack on the USS Cole - Salafist Sunni. The original World Trade Center parkade bombing - radical Sunni Islamists. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - ditto, Sunni. al Qaeda, al Nusra, ISIS, Boko Haram - you guessed it - radical Sunni Islamists. Who provides funding and support to these outfits? I guess that would be our allies. Who funds the madrassas where this venomous strain of Islam is spread throughout the Muslim world? Yeah, our ally, Saudi Arabia.

At what point do we have to accept some measure of complicity in their handiwork for recognizing them as allies and supporting them with their armament needs? Sure Canada isn't selling them cluster bombs but we are delivering Canadian-made death wagons, the Saudis' democracy suppression weapon of choice.

What of Canada's fulsome and unquestioning support of Israel? When it comes to war crimes the made-in-Israel doctrine of Dahiyeh is first class. Rather than attack combattants, go after civilian populations and their essential infrastructure. It typically starts with a two to three day air campaign to destroy the water, sewer and power plants followed by the destruction of hospitals, schools and police stations before turning to what's left, residential neighbourhoods. It began as an experiment tested on the Beirut neighbourhood of the same name and the pattern has been repeated in Israel's last two campaigns against the Palestinian population of Gaza. Is it a war crime? Absolutely. Does Israel care? Not so long as it has its two holdout backers in the UN, the United States and Canada.

Rainer Sollich's point, as I get it, is that these war crimes happen because, by act or omission, we let them happen. Friend and foe alike repeatedly show us what they'll do if they know we'll do nothing.

The ghosts of Nuremberg are back. We didn't have to let that happen.

Norway's StatOil Bails on Tar Sands, Takes Half-Billion Dollar Loss

The Norse know a couple of things about oil - how to make money from oil and how to hold onto it. It's how their government amassed the world's largest sovereign wealth fund now worth a million kroner for every man, woman and child in the country. We, especially Alberta, might have done well to follow Norway's example but... spilled milk, I suppose.

Making money and holding onto it also entails getting out of deals when the time comes. And that time has come for Norse oil giant, StatOil, in Athabasca. The company has announced it'll take a 550-billion USD loss to sell off its assets in the Athabasca Tar Sands.

The international company, which has operations in 37 countries, with about 21,000 employees worldwide, said the decision was about reducing costs as well as cutting its greenhouse gas emissions.

"Today we announced @Statoil exit of oil sands which bends our cost and emission curves," said Bjørn Otto Sverdrup, a senior vice-president in charge of sustainability at Statoil, on Twitter. "Building resilience."

"Building Resilience" - is that Norse for getting out while the getting's good? Maybe, this time, Ottawa should be listening. Carbon Bubble anyone?


UPDATE

As for listening you might find Dan Greenford's take on his session with Marc Garneau enlightening.

..Our purpose was to discuss challenges Canada faces to meet its expressed climate targets. There are many arguments against the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the building of other new pipelines to carry oil sands, but we believe one reason is enough — that new pipelines are directly at odds with a transition aligned with averting catastrophic climate change. The math is clear and simple — Canada doesn’t need new pipelines if we are to honour our climate policy commitments.

Garneau has said that the government did its climate homework and that its decisions were based on sound policy.

Earth scientist David Hughes has provided lucid analysis and has said with conviction: “Short of an economic collapse, it is difficult to see how Canada can realistically meet its Paris commitments in the 14 years remaining without rethinking its plans for oil and gas development.”

As for other arguments, there are too many to list exhaustively here. For starters, even if we intend to sell the heavy crude from the oilsands, the most likely outcome is that no one will buy it. New reserves were recently discovered in the Permian Basin three times larger than that of the Bakken Formation. The heavy crude from the oilsands is a marginal resource. It will not be sold in a carbon-constrained world. Prices will remain low indefinitely due to an adequate remaining supply of cheaper, more accessible resources. This says nothing of it being one of the most environmentally damaging forms of oil extraction. For all these reasons and more, including economic costs, it must be the first oil source left buried.

We relayed this to the minister and none of it really seemed to make it through. His response was “we’ll have to wait and see what happens”. When it comes to the health of our environment and our economy, a “wait and see” strategy is irresponsible. Whatever happened to the precautionary principle?

This Just-In. Trudeau Abandons Globalisation.

The guy who, on his 6th month anniversary in power, proudly proclaimed himself a global free trader, first and foremost, says he's had a change of heart.

From The Guardian

Ordinary people around the world have been failed by globalisation, Justin Trudeau has told the Guardian, as he sought to explain a turbulent year marked by the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote and the rise of anti-establishment, nation-first parties around the world.

“What we’re facing right now – in terms of the rise of populism and divisive and fearful narratives around the world – it’s based around the fact that globalisation doesn’t seem to be working for the middle class, for ordinary people,” the Canadian prime minister said in an interview at his oak-panelled office in the country’s parliament. “And this is something that we identified years ago and built an entire platform and agenda for governing on.”

Oh, wait a minute. This is one of those "we'll fight climate change by flogging ever more high-carbon fossil fuel" sort of things.

“We were able to sign free trade agreement with Europe at a time when people tend to be closing off,” he said. “We’re actually able to approve pipelines at a time when everyone wants protection of the environment. We’re being able to show that we get people’s fears and there are constructive ways of allaying them – and not just ways to lash out and give a big kick to the system.”

This begs the question - just what does "globalisation" mean to our prime minister? He seems to grasp that, for "ordinary people" it translates into loss of good jobs, wage stagnation, inequality - the fallout of globalized free trade that has seen the "good jobs" outsourced offshore. Then he holds out pipelines and free trade agreements to demonstrate that he gets it? Really?

“I know there are people out there extremely passionate about the environment, who don’t think I made the right decision on approving a couple of pipelines. But I think that everyone can see at least what it is we’re trying to do and that we’re consistent with what I’ve always said which is, you protect the environment and you build a strong economy at the same time.”

The double-barrelled approach, said Trudeau, echoes his government’s broader effort to address the tensions currently wreaking havoc on the political status quo around the world. “People get that we need jobs, we need a protected environment,” he said. “On the other hand, if people have no jobs, if they have no opportunity, they’re not going to worry about protection of the air and water if they can’t feed their kids.”

Yes, Justin, we can see what you're "trying to do" and that's the problem.

More school marm bafflegab changes nothing.

Oh, Oh Dear. A Libertarian to Regulate Public Safety. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A pretty nerve-wracking report from Scientific American concerning a guy Trump is eyeing to run the Food & Drug Administration. Brace yourself, especially if you're an American.


President-elect Donald Trump is weighing naming as Food and Drug Administration commissioner a staunch libertarian who has called for eliminating the agency’s mandate to determine whether new medicines are effective before approving them for sale.

“Let people start using them, at their own risk,” the candidate, Jim O’Neill, said in a 2014 speech to a biotech group.

O’Neill, has also called for paying organ donors and setting up libertarian societies at sea—and has said he was surprised to discover that FDA regulators actually enjoy science and like working to fight disease.

...Peter Thiel, the billionaire Trump donor who is helping shape the new administration, is pushing for the FDA appointment for O’Neill, his managing director at Mithril Capital Management.

Trump’s focus on O’Neill was first reported Wednesday morning by Bloomberg.

O’Neill would be an unusual choice. He is not a physician, and lacks the strong science background that nearly all former commissioners have had in recent years.

...O’Neill has proposed that the FDA only require companies to prove drugs are safe before they are sold – not that they actually work.

O’Neill has also said that organ donors should be allowed to be paid. “There are plenty of healthy spare kidneys walking around, unused,” he said in a speech at a 2009 Seasteading conference.

And if that's not enough to unnerve ordinary Americans, this should do the trick:

Food for Thought: Thoreau's "Walden" For the Anthropocene.

Duke law professor, Jedediah Purdy, calls it "This Profaned World." He refers to Earth in the Anthropocene epoch in an essay at the Australian Broadcast Corporation web site.

Purdy quests to find a Walden for the Anthropocene.


Henry David Thoreau's phrase, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," launched a thousand calendars, mugs, T-shirts and bumper stickers. For a long time, it seemed the perfect slogan for American environmentalism.

The movement sprang up to preserve the Adirondacks and Sierra Nevada, grew through public fights in the 1950s over Grand Canyon development, and then defined itself for decades by defending "wild" species like whale and bald eagles, and "wild" places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Today the world looks very different. The defining environmental challenge is climate change. Among other things, climate change means there is no "wild" place, nowhere that human beings have not changed.

From the upper atmosphere to the deep sea, the planet's metabolism, its basic chemistry, is now something we have help to make. Species extinction, toxicity crises, and skyrocketing global resource use make the same point more vivid: we have run out of wild.

A better slogan for today might come from the modernist poet Wallace Stevens: "The imperfect is our only paradise."

...I've been wondering, though, whether we can't have a Thoreau for the Anthropocene, a Thoreau who is less interested in wilderness than in how to live with, relate to and value a world we have irrevocably changed, a world where nothing is really separate from us. I like this idea because the Anthropocene needs its own cultural history, its environmental texts. Whatever its limitations, Thoreau's writing contains some of the richest American reflection on humane living in a living world. It is a lot of baby to toss out with the pre-Anthropocene bathwater.

It's a great essay for you literary types or if you just want to ponder how we're going to live and communicate and socialize in this new Anthropocene.

Do Vlad and Rex Have the Arctic In Their Crosshairs?

They're not blood brothers but they're close. Russian strongman, Vlad Putin, and Trump's choice for Secretary of State, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, have been buddies for a while.

If Tillerson can get Trump to lift US sanctions against Russia, it could be gravy train time, Arctic style, for Exxon Mobil.

Exxon Mobil stands to regain access to huge reserves of oil if the United States rolls back sanctions on Russia.

U.S. sanctions on Russia have prevented Exxon Mobil from exploring assets covering 63.6 million acres. The prospect of rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia remains speculative, but both President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have said they want to improve relations. The two countries' relationship fell apart after Russia took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then intervened in civil wars in Ukraine and Syria.

Tillerson has criticized U.S. sanctions on Russia and was awarded Russia's Order of Friendship by Putin in 2013. To be sure, as Exxon's chief executive, Tillerson's priority has been to his shareholders, and he has sought to protect the company's substantial interests in Russia.

Exxon's operations in Russia represent only a fraction of its global oil and gas production, but a joint venture with Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft to explore and produce fossil fuels in Arctic waters represents a big part of Exxon's potential future production growth

"It's Not Whispering Any More"

Did you hear the one about the Arctic? It's melting.

Just out, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Arctic Report Card, 2016.

Here's an apt summary from one scientist:

The environment has steadily declined since scientists started doing the annual report card, now in its 11th year, co-author Donald Perovich said.

"When it started, you kind of had to listen closely because the Arctic was whispering change," said Perovich, who works at Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering in New Hampshire.

"Now it is not whispering anymore. It is speaking change. It is shouting change."

A Deal Is a Deal

Except if the deal is with Saudi Arabia

And it's a deal for weaponry

And it's the United States selling.

It seems Washington has had its fill of the Saudis and their butchery in Yemen.


The US is preparing to halt planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the high death toll among civilians in the kingdom’s bombing campaign in Yemen.

Obama administration officials were quoted on Reuters, who broke the story, saying that the “systematic, endemic problems in Saudi Arabia’s targeting drove the US decision to halt a future weapons sale involving precision-guided munitions”.

“That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties.”

 The US move would leave the UK exposed diplomatically and faced with an awkward dilemma because of the scale of its arms sales to the kingdom and the presence of UK military personnel at the Saudi headquarters from where the bombing campaign is being conducted.

Andrew Smith of the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said: “Like the US, the UK has licensed billions of pounds worth of arms to Saudi forces. Like their US counterparts, UK arms companies have fuelled and profited from the destruction taking place. If even the US is questioning its support for Saudi Arabia, then why is the UK government pulling out all stops to support them? Why are human rights regarded as less important than arms company profits?”

Sunni Ways, indeed.

Ship of State, Ship of Fools

It's kind of creepy watching our next door neighbour's descent into the depths of fundamentalism. Yet that's the image emerging from Trump's cabinet choices.

His Veep is a Christian fundamentalist. The rest are mainly free market fundamentalists, Social Darwinists right to the bone. That includes the Goldman Sachs trio, the nominee for Secretary of State, Putin-Pal Rex Tillerman, and the billionaire club.

Then there's that 5-watt bulb, former Texas governor, Rick Perry. The New York Times has tagged Perry as Trump's pick for energy secretary. Shit, the fossil fuelers are on a roll. It's a good thing Trump has picked an Oklahoma axe man, Scott Pruitt, to dismember the Environmental Protection Agency.

When it comes to global warming and climate change, Trump has promised to keep an "open mind." Unfortunately that's code for "empty mind." Again it's utter folly to judge Trump by what he says because that rarely comports with what he actually does.

And that's why Trump is poised to become the most dangerous president of the United States to confront America and the world.

A Tough Call

If you're in your 30s, maybe even in your 40s, you might be wondering what your odds are on whether you make it to die of old age. What are the odds your life will be prematurely ended by some sort of environmental calamity or some knock-on disaster such as a major war?

Gwynne Dyer is pretty sure most of us won't die from climate change, not directly. He is pretty sure that most of us will depart this mortal coil as collateral damage from warfare. He even wrote a book about it, "Climate Wars."

Look at it this way. Think of our global civilization as a rubber band, a band that's been stretched way too much and must be nearing its breaking point. That's a pretty apt metaphor for humanity today. We are at about 7.5 billion in numbers and headed to 9 billion, perhaps more. In the process we're consuming the Earth's natural resources at 1.7 times the replenishment rate and that's worsening with every passing year. That's how we're stretching the rubber band. We're at, probably long past, the point of inelasticity and we know how that ends - abruptly.

A new report out, seems there's at least one every week. This time it's atmospheric methane loading.

Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change.

Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb.

At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful.

Unlike carbon dioxide emissions, however, which have been tracked in various ways since the 1950s, emissions of methane are poorly understood and could represent a threat that scientists have still not accounted for.

For instance, the melting of the Arctic tundra releases methane as the vegetation underneath is gradually and sometimes suddenly exposed. This has been regarded by scientists as a potential “tipping point” whereby warming of the Arctic leads to greater releases of methane, therefore greater warming, in a runaway and uncontrollable cycle.

This summer we learned that scientists have been underestimating the escape of much of the polar methane entering our atmosphere.

“Virtually all the climate models assume there’s no or very little emission of methane when the ground is frozen,” [Walter Oechel of San Diego State University] says. “That assumption is incorrect.”

The authors say the water trapped in the soil doesn’t freeze completely at 0°C. The top layer of the ground – known as the active layer – thaws in the summer and refreezes in the winter, and it experiences a kind of sandwiching effect as it freezes.

When temperatures are around 0°C (called “the zero curtain”) the top and bottom of the active layer begin to freeze, but the middle remains insulated. Micro-organisms in this unfrozen layer continue to break down organic matter and emit methane many months into the Arctic winter.

Methane has a shorter shelf life than CO2. It degrades more rapidly. Still it's 84 times more potent than CO2 over its first 20 years. Today it accounts for about 25% of overall man made global warming.

Unfortunately, especially for you nearing middle age, we're still supporting governments that support ever more greenhouse gas emissions while saying that they don't. And, yes, I mean the Trudeau government and the governments of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. It's your life they're messing with.

Think Of It As "Direct Deposit"

Indian cities have a hellacious smog problem, sort of like Beijing only worse. So they've come up with an idea to clear up that smog - put it up into the atmosphere.

The idea is to use surplus jet engines. Get those running (on fossil fuel, of course) and then have them suck up the smog through their intakes and propel it skyward in their exhaust (along with the emissions from the spent jet fuel).

It all sounds good in theory, sort of, until you start asking questions about how many of these engines would be required to make any difference, how much fuel would be used, what would be the additional emissions load, who thought of this harebrained idea?

Krugman on America's Tainted Election

From Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times. With Hillary now ahead by nearly three million votes, Krugman is now calling the Trump presidency tainted.

The C.I.A., according to The Washington Post, has now determined that hackers working for the Russian government worked to tilt the 2016 election to Donald Trump. This has actually been obvious for months, but the agency was reluctant to state that conclusion before the election out of fear that it would be seen as taking a political role.

Meanwhile, the F.B.I. went public 10 days before the election, dominating headlines and TV coverage across the country with a letter strongly implying that it might be about to find damning new evidence against Hillary Clinton — when it turned out, literally, to have found nothing at all.

Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?

...So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.

...nothing that happened on Election Day or is happening now is normal. Democratic norms have been and continue to be violated, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this reality is, in effect, complicit in the degradation of our republic. This president will have a lot of legal authority, which must be respected. But beyond that, nothing: he doesn’t deserve deference, he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

And when, as you know will happen, the administration begins treating criticism as unpatriotic, the answer should be: You have to be kidding. Mr. Trump is, by all indications, the Siberian candidate, installed with the help of and remarkably deferential to a hostile foreign power. And his critics are the people who lack patriotism?

...Now, outrage over the tainted election past can’t be the whole of opposition politics. It will also be crucial to maintain the heat over actual policies. Everything we’ve seen so far says that Mr. Trump is going to utterly betray the interests of the white working-class voters who were his most enthusiastic supporters, stripping them of health care and retirement security, and this betrayal should be highlighted.

But we ought to be able to look both forward and back, to criticize both the way Mr. Trump gained power and the way he uses it.

More Insight on the Perils of Globalization

He may be best known for defining the ABC's of globalization in just one line:

“democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three but never have all three simultaneously and in full”

In the case of Canada our leaders have chosen national sovereignty as the sacrificial lamb for the pursuit of globalism.

The Financial Times' Martin Wolf had this to add:

"...Consider the disappointing recent performance of global capitalism, not least the shock of the financial crisis and its devastating effect on trust in the elites in charge of our political and economic arrangements. Given all this, confidence in an enduring marriage between liberal democracy and global capitalism seems unwarranted.

"So what might take its place? One possibility would be the rise of a global plutocracy and so in effect the end of national democracies. As in the Roman empire, the forms of republics might endure but the reality would be gone.

"An opposite alternative would be the rise of illiberal democracies or outright plebiscitary dictatorships, in which the elected ruler exercises control over both the state and capitalists. This is happening in Russia and Turkey. Controlled national capitalism would then replace global capitalism. Something rather like that happened in the 1930s. It is not hard to identify western politicians who would love to go in exactly this direction.

"...Meanwhile, those of us who wish to preserve both liberal democracy and global capitalism must confront serious questions. One is whether it makes sense to promote further international agreements that tightly constrain national regulatory discretion in the interests of existing corporations. My view increasingly echoes that of Prof Lawrence Summers of Harvard, who has argued that “international agreements [should] be judged not by how much is harmonised or by how many barriers are torn down but whether citizens are empowered”. Trade brings gains but cannot be pursued at all costs."

Now Dani Rodrik,  professor of  international economy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, warns that today's free trade pacts have precious little to do with trade.

When trade agreements were largely about import tariffs, negotiated exchange of market access generally produced lower import barriers – an example of the benefits of lobbies acting as counterweights to one another. But there are certainly plenty of examples of international collusion among special interests as well.

Such perverse cases have proliferated more recently. Newer trade agreements incorporate rules on “intellectual property,” capital flows, and investment protections that are mainly designed to generate and preserve profits for financial institutions and multinational enterprises at the expense of other legitimate policy goals. These rules provide special protections to foreign investors that often come into conflict with public health or environmental regulations. They make it harder for developing countries to access technology, manage volatile capital flows, and diversify their economies through industrial policies.

Rodrik sums it up - don't cry over dead trade agreements.