The Oil Drum

Tahiti is suffering from overpopulation:

The Fragile Paradise That Tahiti Used to Be

Today it's no secret that Tahiti has become largely a beautiful stopping-off point on the way to more remote French Polynesian islands. This was confirmed for me recently on a hillside overlooking Tahiti's Bounty Bay, during a long afternoon spent with Jamie Hall, grandson of James Norman Hall, who with Charles Nordhoff wrote a handful of books including “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Men Against the Sea,” set in and around his adopted Tahitian paradise.

“If he could see Tahiti today, he'd turn around and go straight back to heaven,” said his grandson, Mr. Hall. “Too many people, too much noise and too much pollution. Where might he go instead? To the outer islands, the Tuamotus. If there is a paradise today, that's where you will find it.”
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/travel/18explorer.html?8dpc

And the more remote Tuamotu islands are in danger of being lost to the sea due to global warming:

Back on the surface, I was reminded of the irony in all this surrounding beauty. There is a strong possibility the Tuamotus will not be easy to inhabit, much less visit, in the century to come. These living, breathing, still-growing reefs — and the lagoons they protect — will very likely disappear in the next 50 to 100 years, thanks to their inability to keep pace with a warming ocean.

International climate change experts recently warned that global warming could cause seas to rise worldwide by up to two feet this century, but marine biologists in French Polynesia think that there it could be four feet. The potential for disaster is clear and present in a place where human populations — as few as 5 (Tauere) and as many as 2,500 (Rangiroa) — live just a few feet above sea level. A bigger concern is that warm seas bring more violent and frequent storms, which threaten to end life as it is today on these fragile rubble heaps.

There is nothing at all more tragic than whan humankind is doing to the Earth right now. Consuming, destroying and polluting everything like a plague.

The world that humans created doesn't look pretty except for those who are in love with asphalt.

David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1

"To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures." (Flannery O'Connor)

::::::::
"The industrialized world's unprecedented economic growth during the last 100 years has been based in large part on increasing availability of cheap petroleum." (Professor Craig Bond Hatfield, 1997. See "Notes" below.)* * *

"Petra: upon thee I will build my church." Saint Matthew, quoting our LORD.

1 Thank you Glorious ELOHIM for Day Three of Creation and the massive carbonate reservoirs charged with light, sweet crude oil that we subject to depletion. (We know Thou takest away as well as givest.)

2 Thanks Merciful JEHOVAH for the Prudhoe Bays and Cantarells defunct; the Thunderhorses and Qatifs of the moment; the Kirkuks, East Baghdads, and Rumalias to come. (Not to mention underground rivers of tar immobilized by Albertan ice.)

3 Praise Be to GOD for 3-D seismic X-ray vision of the greasy flanks of Ghawar the Great, permitting freer access to her hidden resources, thus goosing the world economy;

4 And for horizontal drill bores and accessory attachments with which to better probe her deepest recesses and suction her marrowbones for the jet fuels that carry us to concrete-reinforced native Pacific vacation colonies;

5 And for nitrogen injection and miscible gases and water floods in the mystical shapes of giant spatulas scraping #2 heating oil into the vast furnaces that permit us to consume Mai Tais in shirtsleeves on the Eve's celebration of Your Blessed Son's birthday amongst druidic spray-on-snow-foamed spruce "trees";

6 And for suffocating streams of high-octane gasolines (and for fewer Buddhist monks performing street corner immolations) that we may run guilt-free missions in four-wheel-drive combat vehicles to flush out the fresh tomatoes hiding in the snow-drifted megamarkets of exurbia.

7 And let's not forget those methane fields of Persia! Methane becomes ammonia becomes fertilizer becomes maize kernels becomes high-fructose corn syrup becomes cola six-packs and sacks of flavored popcorn balls becomes a continuous entropic treadmill wind at weight loss clinics from sea to shiny Spandex sea;

8 And methane becomes super-heated steam becomes turbine fodder becomes metered Edison lightning streams becomes blinking digital authentic reggae tunes and frosty A/C piped into the meeting rooms of anti-LNG terminal NIMBY rallies in artichoke-besotted West Coast enclaves;

9 And methane becomes benzene becomes styrene becomes egg trays loaded onto knobby-tired grocery-getters, whose drivers are logged-on to secret chats with lovers back at remote mountain ski camps begging that their incipient feta cheese omelet craving be assuaged after the removal of the synthetic rubber sex toy.

10 GOD grant us ethylene for protuberant belly guts extending from alcoholic West Virginian trailer park burger joint employees, to post-war Rwandan Hutu starvation compound kids envying our bloated appetite for agrochemical solvents, diesel-powered combines, polyethylene-swaddled beef byproducts, and Lo-Cal soda pops spilling entropy into buried septic tanks instead of open-air kerosene-fired shit pits.

11 Thanks for the PVC medical technologies that upgrade our rapidly depleting TV war pundits into nubile neo-con tartlets. See them chatter, un-burkha'd and breast-implanted, whilst indignant circumcised insurgents cast improvised bomb-blessings after our slick ape-blind ego-protective motives.

12 Praise the LORD for bunker fuel mobilizing fleets of concrete aircraft carrier jet decks triggering multiple tsunamis of heat loss whilst assembling near the Strait of Hormuz to spam the farthermost satellite reaches of space with Iranian terrorist-threat accusations.

13 Thank JESUS for stitched & sterilized IED stumps offered up in the service of suburban latch-key teens expending long, empty afternoons gazing at flat-screen, high-definition epidermal cells and hair follicles.

14 Thank CHRIST for Thinsulate pillows with which to muffle our shrieks of ecstasy at the prospect of "incendiary devices" reducing Arab and Persian and Kurdish populations to toast crumbs able to be swept off the grand chessboard with a gold-cuff-linked wrist-flick.

15 CREATOR of light, excreter of Babylonian bitumen pits, hoarder of lignite coal seams, secretor of natural gas liquids blisters, depositor of kerogen-soaked Colorado shales, igniter of zeal for all things hydrocarbon:

16 Thou hast said, "Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith";

17 And we say,

"We shall not.
We want more.
Let more come,
As always,
From the have-nots."

Amen.

* * *

Notes

Hatfield quote from "How Long Can Oil Supply Grow?" http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/Hatfield_97-4.pdf Professor Hatfield is one of the earliest academics to warn of the impending oil catastrophe. In a recent talk with me, he stated that "it is too late" to warn people. He now eschews public comment on the issue. Another important piece of his appeared in Nature vol. 387, May 1997, "Oil back on the global agenda," reproduced at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2148#comment-144775

Gospel of Matthew quote, variation on 16:18. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mt/16.html

1 "carbonate reservoirs." Common limestone-type structures holding crude oil. See Simmons, Matthew. Twilight In the Desert. (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2005). Pp 292-5;
"depletion" is a technical term for the rate at which a finite resource is extracted. Depletion begins with the extraction of "the first barrel" (Colin Campbell). http://www.peakoil.net/Colin.html

2 "Cantarell," the largest oil field in the western hemisphere (Mexico), is in rapid decline; "Prudhoe Bay," the famed (or infamous) field on Alaska's North Slope, is also in decline, currently producing 85% water, 15% oil; the problematic "Thunderhorse" field and its damaged platform lie in deep water in Hurricane Alley off the Louisiana coast; "Qatif" ("kah-TEEF") in Saudi Arabia also has issues, namely, deadly hydrogen sulfide gas coupled with dense populations aboveground; the "Kirkuk, East Baghdad, and Rumalia" oil fields are "the spoils of war" in Iraq; "rivers of tar" refers to the energy-intensive and expensive deposits of tar sands (recently euphemized as "oil sands") of the Athabasca River region of Canada.

3 "3-D seismic." A computerized underground imaging technology used in oil prospecting. "[T]he level of detail is sometimes amazing." Deffeyes, Kenneth. Beyond Oil. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005) p.22;
"Ghawar the Great." The largest petroleum deposit on the planet, currently contributing 60% to Saudi Arabia's total extracted crude. Probably in decline. http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ghawar.htm
Ghawar along with the crashing Cantarell field comprise 10% of total world oil productive capacity (Jeffrey Brown). http://www.energybulletin.net/25218.html

4 "horizontal drill bores" are now commonly used in older and offshore fields. http://www.geology.wisc.edu/courses/g115/oil/4.html

5 "nitrogen...floods." Ways of evicting the last oil from the rocks. Referred to affectionately as "Enhanced Oil Recovery." click here

6 "suffocating streams." Othello 3.3.390;
"Buddhist...immolations." http://www.buddhistinformation.com/self_immolation.htm

7 "methane...Persia." Iran shares with Qatar the enormous North Dome/South Pars natural gas field, the largest in the world. http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html#gas
"entropic." Most of the energy we extract is "lost"(!) http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php (See right side of diagram). See also: Swenson, Rod. "Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Behavior." http://www.entropylaw.com/thermoevolution10.html "[T]he system will select the path ...that ... maximizes the entropy at the fastest rate given the constraints."

7-10 "Methane becomes..."
http://www.petrochemistry.net/flowchart/flowchart.htm

8 "anti-LNG...rallies." Everyone wants to increase their electricity consumption, but no one wants liquid natural gas terminals anywhere near them (not that such terminals would make much of a dent in the supply problem anyhow). There will soon be serious problems in North America -- such as blackouts -- as natural gas supply trails off. http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/27/61031/618

10 "agrochemical." http://www.petrochemistry.net

11 "PVC medical technologies." Polyvinyl chloride is ubiquitous in the medical industry. (ibid.)

12 "bunker fuel." http://www.eia.doe.gov/glossary/glossary_b.htm

14 "Thinsulate." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinsulate
"the grand chessboard." See Michael Klare, "The Tripolar Chessboard." http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=92161

15 "Babylonian bitumen." Gen 11:3 (Darby Bible). "And they had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar";
"lignite." An abundant, cheap, atmosphere-destroying form of coal;
"natural gas liquids" are such fuels as propane and butane;
"kerogen...shales." A boondoggle, "the petroleum equivalent of fool's gold." http://www.energybulletin.net/11707.html

16 Joel 2:19.

17 "have-nots."
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." Matt 13:12 (KJV).

...it just gets weirder around here every day... :-(

For fans of the Antarctic lakes story, check out CNN's spin today. They state that GW is not causing this. Probably only partly true, and I can't find any scientist saying that. They also state that melting all of Antarctica would raise sea levels 23 ft. Wrongo! That's the figure for Greenland, or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Melting all of Antarctica would raise sea levels by more like 200 ft! This article is definitely spun to give the impression that this has always been going on, nothing to worry about, move along...

I like this quote at Energybulletin today from AAAS President John Holdren:

"After four decades of studying these issues, I’ve concluded that energy is the core of the environment problem, environment is the core of the energy problem, and resolving the energy-economy-environment dilemma is the core of the problem of sustainable well-being for industrial & developing countries alike."

Also this:

"Belief in technological miracles is generally a mistake."

I've been riding the ol' cargo trikes and pedicab for years with the understanding that we all need to radically change the way we live in order to survive.

We need to live peaceful, human-scale lives. But how do we "slow down fast" as one song puts it?

I hope we can raise awareness and inspire local action with regard to peak oil and global warming.

The "corporatists" are mighty slow at recognising and responding to the realities of the planet, so we need to lead the way ourselves.

Things look grim, but I continue to believe that one of the best ways to face reality is by focusing on the things I can do to bring about the changes we need to see.

I do not control others, just what I can do. I do not control the outcomes, just my own contribution for better or for worse.

After those first two long comments today, I find that mine was clipped off somehow. This has happened a couple of times.

Is it something I am doing, or not doing, or is that a kink in the site software?

Not upset -- just curious.

We'll see if this comes through in one piece.

Keep on being the change we need to see, folks.

The City Car of the future? or maybe just a way to fit more stuff in one's garage.

911 was an inside job.

I didn't see this article in yesterday's Drumbeat. Not good news for Mexico....

Mexico's economy loses steam: Sluggish manufacturing and falling exports to the U.S. are blamed for the deceleration. Slowing growth could spur emigration.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mexico17feb17,0,3975830.story?coll...

But Aleman and other economists are cautious about the nation's prospects this year. The economy of the United States, Mexico's biggest trading partner, is weakening. Mexico's inflation has been rising, its oil production is slipping, and the nation's bellwether auto sector has hit a speed bump.

The United States has long served as an escape valve for struggling Mexicans, but there are signs that this funnel is tightening. Growth in the sums of money sent home by Mexican workers slowed to a trickle in November and December compared with the final months of 2005. It's an indication that stiffer border enforcement might be making it harder for undocumented Mexicans to reach America.

That will increase pressure on Calderon to reach a migratory accord with the United States. Unemployment in Mexico has soared. Rising prices on basics including tortillas, milk and eggs have sparked street protests. Millions of families rely on the remittances sent home, which have become the nation's second-largest source of foreign exchange behind oil revenue.

Much of the slowdown in economic growth is attributed to manufacturing. Mexico's factory sector expanded 3.1% in the final quarter of the year. In the first three months of the year it grew a sizzling 7.1%, driven by rebounding auto production.

But the Big Three's woes are being felt south of the border. The Mexican plants of Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler account for about 70% of the cars assembled here, most of which end up in American showrooms.

A U.S. sales slump trimmed Mexican production and exports by 5% in December. The trend accelerated in January as exports tumbled to 88,915 vehicles, a 20.7% drop from January 2006.

Mexico's overall export growth slipped to 6% in November and 4% in December after an average increase of 19% over the first 10 months of the year. Industrial production grew an anemic 1.6% in December, much lower than forecasts.

Meanwhile, consumer prices have been rising. Mexico ended 2006 with an inflation rate of 4.05%, up from 3.3% in 2005, sparked largely by skyrocketing prices for tomatoes, tortillas and other basic foodstuffs. Further increases could force Mexico's central bank to raise interest rates, a move that would help curb inflation but would be a further millstone on growth.

"They don't want to tighten policy and increase the risk of a much sharper decline in economic activity," said Marcela Meirelles, Latin America economist with Trust Company of the West in Los Angeles.

Mexico's oil sector probably won't be as much of a help to the economy in 2007 as it has in years past. Petroleum prices have declined steeply since last summer's record highs, meaning less oil revenue for Mexico's treasury. Production also has fallen sharply at Cantarell, its largest oil field, a major worry in a nation that last year relied on petrodollars to fund nearly 40% of public spending.