Red, Green, and Blue

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In a recent study, an interesting factoid has been discovered. According to a survey of 1,000 American adults, local and national environmental issues are of more concern, than global issues like global warming and climate change.

“The survey’s core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues,” said David Konisky, who conducted the survey.

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According to a recent report from Save America’s Forests, some of the most ecologically sensitive parts of the Amazon are also home to large blocks of oil and gas reserves. Similar to the situation in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), global (and American) demand for oil and gas is resulting in natural resource exploration in areas that until recently, have been untouched. And, while the debate over offshore drilling and oil extraction in the ANWR seems to dominate the headlines and the political sphere, a similar discussion is not happening in this case.

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One of the more important things to understand about Georgia - the small country that recently engaged in a deadly struggle with Russia - is that it is one of the hosts of a relatively new, 1 million barrel per day capacity oil pipeline called Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC). That pipeline was constructed with the active encouragement of the EU and the US starting in the late 1990s despite strenuous objections from Russia.

If you take a look at a map of the pipeline, you will begin to understand the geopolitical importance of the effort to provide a path out of the Caspian Sea region - home to a large oil and gas reservoir - that does not pass through Iran or Russia. Until the BTC was completed, there was no way to move Azeri oil out to the rest of the market without going through Russia.

(Aside: The map indicates that a path through Armenia could have been chosen instead of through Georgia, but apparently Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long-standing conflict over a region known as Mountainous Kharabakh.)

Unfortunately, western leaders underestimated the strength of Russia’s objection to losing control over Azerbaijan’s oil and gas resources. They also underestimated Russia’s ability to do something about its desire to reassert control. By biding its time and working in the way of the excellent chess players that they are, Russia has put itself in a position to control (stop?) the flow and there are few acceptable actions that can be taken to change the situation.

One of the few things that has a long term chance of success is a focused program of reducing the importance of oil and gas in the world economy.

My input on that front is to steadily increase the use of uranium and thorium fuels whose supply cannot be severed by an aggressor sitting astride a key delivery path. When electricity and ship propulsion is powered by heavy metal fission instead of natural gas or oil, the importance of owning the valves that supply heat and power gradually dims to insignificance.

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Will Olympics illuminate pollution problem enough for gov’t. to act?

In a recent survey of over 3,000 Chinese citizens, environmental issues emerged as a big problem in the eyes of the majority of respondents.** The 2008 survey, conducted as part of the Pew Research Center’s Pew Global Attitudes Project, found that about three quarters of those surveyed (74%) cite air pollution as a big problem. 66% of respondents ranked water pollution as a big problem.

But not only did Chinese say they were concerned about environmental problems, but they also said something should be done about it. As many as 80% of Chinese think protecting the environment should be made a priority, even if this results in slower growth and a potential loss of jobs. The new data suggest the Chinese people may be struggling with some of the consequences of economic growth.

What I find most striking about these results are: A) That concern for the environment is so salient among the Chinese, that people are willing to sacrifice some economic growth and jobs to take steps towards correcting those environmental problems, and B) That the concern for the environment was based on “pollution” themes. Pollution-based environmental problems are salient because they are visible, tangible, and ‘real’ products of industrial growth (as can be witnessed in this excellent series of short films). These types of problems were also perceived as very important to Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before the U.S. enacted its core environmental policy. Can we expect that to be the next for China? And if so, when will that next step actually commence?

**Methodology: “Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3,212 adults in China between March 28 and April 19, 2008, a period which followed the March 10 onset of civil unrest on Tibet and preceded the May 12 earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province. The sample, which is disproportionately representative of China’s urban areas, includes eight major cities, as well as medium-sized towns and rural areas in eight Chinese provinces. The area covered by the sample represents approximately 42% of the country’s adult population.”

Related Posts:

• China Begins Car-Rationing in Beijing Leading up to the Olympics
• Poll: Americans More Likely to Vote for a Candidate Who Supports Conservation and Efficiency
• Poll: Americans Don’t Think More Drilling Will Lower Gas Prices

Pew Research Center

While not new news to any readers who follow international relations, what does it mean when Russian scientists have claimed that the 1,220-mile long underwater Lomonosov Ridge is geologically linked to the Siberian continental platform? While not the start in a race for unclaimed territory, it is simply the latest salvo in an on-going dispute over which nations will be able to control what part of the Arctic, and therefore the ability to exploit or protect. Read the rest of this entry »

This year, for the first time in years, the Holy Grail of northern shipping will be a reality for a few weeks. With a Europe to Asia transit length that is 5000 nautical miles shorter than that of the Panama Canal (as well as deeper and wider, therefore accommodating super-tankers too big for the Panama Canal); the opening of the Northwest Passage may signal the start to a sovereignty fight in the Arctic that has nothing to do with oil, gas, or any other kind of mineral exploration. Read the rest of this entry »

Since 1910, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has calculated the nation’s seafood consumption rates to keep consumers and the industry informed about trends in seafood consumption and trade.

According to this year’s report, Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, slightly less than the 4.944 billion pounds in 2006. The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, a one percent decline from the 2006 consumption figures of 16.5 pounds. But what most concerns NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the Department of Commerce, is the growth in imported farm-raised seafood coupled with declines global fishstocks. Read the rest of this entry »

As Russia is focused on Georgia, and China is focused on the Olympics (two countries that might oppose further sanctions against Iran), the US is amassing its largest naval buildup in the Persian/Arabian Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War.  This deployment comes on the heels of both House and Senate resolutions calling on the President to take action against Iran, which could only be accomplished through a naval blockade, an act of war under international law.  Such a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz would cause oil prices to skyrocket and cause an energy crisis greater than we are experiencing currently.

House Resolution 362:

(3)demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program; Read the rest of this entry »

With the recent dropping of crude oil prices to below $120 a barrel, there are sighs of relief on both sides of the aisle. But is that a good thing if you’re perhaps a bit more environmental-leaning?

Recently, Canadian investment bank BMO Nesbitt Burns’ deputy chief economist has suggested that high gas prices are making a difference in commuting behaviour. According to a note from Statistics Canada, service station receipts went up by 2.4% in May, while gasoline prices grew more than 3 times that: 8.8%. This suggests pretty strongly that high gas prices have induced commuters to change their driving behaviours. People are starting to leave their cars at home and taking public transit, working compressed workweeks or just carpooling. Anything that might allow them to save on fuel costs.

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Campaigners are pressing the British government to impose a “windfall tax” on energy companies following record profit announcements in the past week from Shell (£7.9 / $15.5 billion) and British Gas parent firm Centrica (£2.97 / $5.8 billion).

Energy companies have become flush with cash following high margins from record oil prices and a government sponsored carbon permit give-away used to justify a consumer price hike.

• >>More on Energy from Red Green and Blue

Despite campaigners and Labour politicians describing recent profits as “grotesque” and “indecent”, and calling for additional taxes on recent gains to subsidize increasing household energy costs, there are several reasons why energy windfall taxes are fundamentally wrong, with the potential to worsen, and not improve the current energy crisis:

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