Life, Money and Illuision: Living on Earth as if we want to stay (New Society, 2009) by Mike Nickerson is a driving tome that reconciles how our economy operates in relationship to the ecological and social systems on which we all depend.

In this second revised edition of Life, Money and Illusion, Nickerson explains that “Life” refers to the biological processes by which living things maintain themselves over time. “Money” represents our economic ideology that claims that as long as the volume of money changing hands increases, all will be well. “Illusion” refers to the fact that these two perspectives are directly opposed in terms of how they would solve current problems.

As one might imagine, a book of this stature and ambition — if providing meaningful analysis and argumentation (which it does superbly) — is not a cursory or a casual read. Running 448 pages, Life, Money and Illusion is meticulously fashioned in easy-to-understand language that makes Nickerson’s arguments and ideas both compelling and provocative. It draws from numerous fields, including ecology, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and, of course, economics.

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Water scarcity resulting from climate change is the number one issue the world will have to grapple with in the future, according to chief climate scientist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.

On the one hand, we will have more water around us with sea level rising. On the other hand, though, drought caused by climate change will leave possibly billions of people without clean water.

This will cause great health and global security issues. Most of these problems will be caused by water imbalances.

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Pirates may be figures of romance, like Captain Jack Sparrow, or historical fact, like the Viking raiders, but what they haven’t been, until the last few years, is a statistical risk. And that’s surprising, because piracy has always been with us.  However, in the past five years, the ‘menace’ of piracy has begun to have serious impacts on international waters, and the worst peril is the inadvertent one.

Two pirate attacks a week in 2008

Around 120 reported pirate attacks were recorded in 2008, with fifty of them including hostage taking as part of the attack. Large numbers of crew have been kidnapped, exactly how many is unknown, although six crew people on registered vessels have been killed in the past twelve months.  Part of the issue is that many of the ships that are attacked by pirates are not registered: they are artisanal fishing vessels or close-to-shore craft like barges and dredgers, coal transporters and other large but slow craft that may not be registered with marine organisations, and so there is no knowing how many are attacked and/or how they deal with those attacks. It’s certainly the case that some fishing captains pay off one pirate captain to protect them from others, turning the pirate vessel into a kind of marine sheepdog.

The Somali coast is notorious for attacks, including those on cruise ships that have caused some lines to reroute cruises to avoid the Gulf of Aden.  But the most recent apparent attack has been on a Russian cargo vessel that travelled through the British Channel, apparently with the pirates on board and in charge, before being located by Russian forces near the Cape Verde islands.  And the ship appears to have been attacked twice, once in the Baltic and the second time off the Portuguese coast.

Pirates have GPS and AK47s, not cutlasses and rum

The range of piracy is vast, from simple boarding at night and opportunistic theft, a scenario in which the vessel may not even be aware it’s been attacked until morning, when fixtures and fittings are missing, through to strike attacks with many small high-speed boats being launched from a mother ship that coordinates the activity through radio communication, using GPS tracking to pinpoint targets. These small boats have been armed with rocket-propelled grenades, and assault rifles. There have also been times when pirates have disguised themselves as naval patrol boats in order to board unsuspecting larger vessels.

This more sophisticated form of piracy appears to be well-developed, with the pirates targeting high value cargos that can be easily unloaded from the hijacked vessel.  The fear is that one day, their intelligence system will break down and instead of targeting a container ship or small oil tanker, they will end up in possession of a chemical carrier or a ship carrying spent nuclear materials.

Environmental risks escalate the longer a ship is held to ransom

Ransoms are a large part of the piracy equation – so far, the highest publicly acknowledged ransom has been the one paid for the Saudi Arabian oil tanker, Sirius Sta, which carried around £50 million of crude oil and was ransomed for around £15 million. For these ship ransoms to work, the vessel has to be under the control of the pirates for a considerable period of time, often meaning that pirates with little or no knowledge of navigation are piloting huge vessels through complex waters – the risk of an environmental disaster in these conditions is very high, which is one reason that crews are advised to comply with pirate demands and to sail the vessel to their orders. The highest level of risk is that pirates will take a vessel they cannot manage, will refuse crew cooperation and will run a highly toxic or dangerous cargo into heavily used waters where it will crash or founder.

There isn’t much international cooperation on this issue: some regional initiatives, such as the one launched by Indonesia, Malayasia and Singapore has been successful in removing many pirate crews from the Malacca Straits, but the pirates simply relocate to another area. The EU task force working in the Indian Ocean seems to be having little effect and while many nations have ships in that area to protect their interests, including the USA and Russia, there is no coordination of effort. Possibly there won’t be, until a massive oil or chemical spill forces a united political response to the actions of pirates.

Old map of Cape Verde courtesy of Norman B Leventhal map centre at the BPL at Flickr under a creative commons licence

The occurrence of another battle between Russia and Ukraine over gas and the resulting restriction and even cutting off of supplies to some parts of Europe should give us cause for wider concern, even if the dispute, as seems likely, will be resolved in a matter of a week or so.

Britain currently derives only about 2% of its gas supplies from Russia, but as we all know, natural gas supplies from the North Sea are dwindling. Central Asia has gas supplies and pipelines are being built, but not only are we obviously talking about a fossil fuel here, we are also talking about our continuing reliance on energy supplies from other parts of the world, which may not be or remain friendly to us. At least one recent study, by Deloitte, indicates that even the oil industry is realising that things have to change to focus on renewables and it is becoming recognised that energy security is a serious concern.

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And Israel truly does need new leadership (regardless of its gender): it is important for the nation to move beyond the existential security-based questions of their relationship with the Palestinian people and their other Arab neighbours, as well as the still-ongoing formal state of war with Lebanon and Syria (there was a 1983 Lebanon-Israel peace treaty that was never formally implemented; and a Syria-Israel disengagement in 1984). Similar to other nations around the world, Israel faces environmental, economic and social challenges that its government is hard-pressed to address. Currently however, national issues tend to be addressed through a security framework, which is not always the most effective manner in which to tackle these issues.

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Today happens to be a gorgeous, breezy day - perfect for flying the flag, for recreating in the outdoors and for thinking about ways to honor the memory of those who have made our freedom possible. From my own family, I spent some time remembering Uncle Gene, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, my cousin Todd, a career army medic who saved lives in Panama and the Persian Gulf, my father Ray, who repaired gyrocompasses as an enlisted sailor during WWII, and my daughter and her husband who both are currently serving in the US Navy. I also said a prayer for one of my best friends, a classmate who is currently in Talil, Iraq and for all of the other men and women who are doing their best in a challenging situation.

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Rainwater catchment is an ancient practice used widely around the globe to harvest and store rainwater for human consumption and irrigation. Dating as far back as 4,000 B.C., it is now commonly used in Australia, New Zealand, parts of Europe, Japan, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand as well as the Caribbean, Central and South America.

With more than 250,000 practitioners in the U.S. alone, rainwater catchment is experiencing a revival in parts of North America including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Canada. Hawaii, North Carolina and the more dry regions of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas already boast government incentive programs. Although maintaining water supplies for increasing population demands is one of the California’s biggest challenges, the Golden state does not have government-backed, financial incentives for rainwater catchment.

photo credit: Rumsey Engineers

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The full story in the Washington Post.

Perhaps the most vocal advocates for dark skies are astronomers, both professionals as well as amateurs. The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale was created by astronomers to evaluate the quality of a dark nighttime sky.

Dark nighttime skies are needed by birds for navigation. Animals (and humans, too) are adapted to the day-night cycle. There have been reports of robins in urban areas that have stopped singing at daybreak because the city never becomes dark enough for the birds to perceive that it has become night.

Of course, part of the issue is the use of appropriately sized and placed lights on a building site to illuminate only the portions of a site that needs to be lit. By reducing the size or number of fixtures, in addition to helping to maintain a dark nighttime sky, a building owner will also pay for fewer fixtures, and will pay less for the electricity to operate those fixtures.

But the security that is the reason for much site lighting may not be the most effective means of providing security for buildings. According to an article in New Yorker magazine:

[L]ighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it’s taking place, and if it doesn’t help criminals to see what they’re doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights — one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country — often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can’t be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack."

Night skies away from the glare of a city can be a fantastic sight. Just as the old growth forests are part of our shared legacy that needs to be protected, being able to enjoy a darker sky is another experience that is being lost to more and more people. Cities will never be completely unlit, and it is highly unlikely that citydwellers in any major city will ever be able to see the Milky Way in the skies over their heads. But darker nights can contribute to energy savings and wildlife health, as well as contributing to better security at night.

via: Bruce Schneier

Links:
DarkSky.org
New Yorker article
Bortle Dark Sky Scale
Dark Sky abstracts of articles about effects on wildlife

We often hear of climate change’s threat to the environment, health, and the economy. But more and more policymakers and leaders are nervous about the global security issues we could face, such as conflicts over water resources and massive numbers of refugees from flooded regions.

Specifically, the April 17th meeting, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, will examine how water, agricultural production, famine, and crop surpluses could be effected by climate change. No statement or resolution is expected from the first meeting, which is following on the heels of the recent report on global warming’s impacts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, is the Security Council President. He said he expects a summit on climate change in September 2008. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hasn’t committed to the summit, although he does want to discuss how best to confront global warming’s impacts with world leaders at a G-8 meeting of industrialized countries in June.

The Associated Press, via MSNBC