Category — Security/ Military
The great global land grab
- Land grabs are one form of preparing for the future, right or wrong. Yet another reason to develop strong local food sources, for who knows where this Food Fight will go once it really begins. - Editor
The global food crisis has prompted various rich countries to start buying up land in the poorer world to secure their food supplies. As well as affecting domestic food supplies in the countries affected, Sue Branford says it could be a time bomb for the world’s ability to cope with climate change. News of another big land deal between a rich nation and a poor developing country is becoming a common occurrence. In August a group of Saudi investors said that they would be investing $1 billion in land in Africa for rice cultivation. They are calling it their ‘7×7x7 project’, since they are aiming to plant 700,000 hectares of land to produce seven million tonnes of rice in seven years. The land will be distributed over several countries: Mali, Senegal and maybe Sudan and Uganda. A few weeks earlier South Korea acquired 700,000 hectares of land in Sudan, also for rice cultivation. India is funding a large group of private companies to buy 350,000 hectares in as-yet unspecified countries in Africa. A group of South African businessmen is negotiating an 8 million hectare deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And so it goes on. The United Nations believes that at least 30 million hectares (about 74 million acres, well over the size of the UK) were acquired by outside investors in the developing world during the first half of this year alone. Over the next century much worse food shortages may emerge. The climate crisis is already arriving far more quickly than scientists expected and proving far more dangerous.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/The-great-global-land-grab
November 13, 2009 Comments Off
Obama admin should bring defense and climate funding into balance
With climate change among the world’s biggest security challenges, the Obama administration should be pumping much more money into addressing the problem, argues a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies. In fiscal year 2008, the United States invested 20 times more money in developing military technology than in developing clean energy technology. The U.S. also spent 50 times as much arming the rest of the world as it did helping other countries transition to clean energy. Altogether, in FY 2008, the U.S. government spent $88 on funding the military for every $1 spent on projects to stabilize the climate. To compare the total funding for climate versus military, Pemberton tallied up the spending on climate throughout various government programs, including research and development of energy technologies, tax credits for clean energy, climate science research, energy efficiency investments, mass transit, and green job training programs. The Obama administration should make its investment in curbing climate change a clear priority in the budget, explicitly calling out the funds for the public to see, said report author, Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Right now, the funding is scattered throughout various parts of the budget, and Pemberton had to do a lot of digging to even find out the total amount being spent on climate. “[Climate change] is the huge challenge of our time,” she said. “We ought to be able to know what the government is really investing in it.”
For the report: http://www.fpif.org/pdf/Military_vs_Climate_Security.pdf
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-28-obama-admin-should-bring-defense-climate-funding-into-balance/
July 30, 2009 Comments Off
EPA Must Withhold Locations of ‘High Hazard’ Coal Ash Sites
QUOTE
“There is a huge muzzle on me and on my staff, and the only people I can tell about this are the senators whose states are impacted. We cannot talk to any of their staffs.
This is unacceptable.
Coal combustion waste is subject to very limited regulation. In fact, there are stronger protections for household garbage than for coal ash across the country.”
Senator Barbara Boxer
- Yet another issue so controlled by lobbyists for many decades that now we have an incredible mess to clean up. Coal, like nuclear, is not cheap when you include the real financial numbers. - Editor
EPA Must Withhold Locations of ‘High Hazard’ Coal Ash Sites
There are 44 coal combustion waste sites nationwide that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified as “high hazard,” but the agency cannot make the locations of these hazardous sites public, Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters. In the aftermath of last December’s spill of more than a billion gallons of coal ash waste at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant, the U.S. EPA conducted inspections of the nation’s coal combustion waste sites. The EPA has the authority to regulate coal ash, which can contain toxic substances such as arsenic, selenium, lead, cadmium and chromium. Agency inspectors identified several hundred coal ash piles across the country including 44 sites that pose a “high hazard.” These sites are located in such a way that if the coal ash ponds were to fail, they would pose a threat to people living nearby. But, Senator Boxer said, “the EPA, after consulting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security, has indicated that they cannot make the list of ‘high hazard’ sites public.” “If these sites are so hazardous and if the neighborhoods nearby could be harmed irreparably, then I believe it is essential to let people know,” Boxer said. “In that way, they can press their local authorities who have responsibility for their safety to act now to make the sites safer.”
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2009/2009-06-12-091.asp
June 19, 2009 Comments Off
160 Syrian villages deserted ‘due to climate change’
Some 160 villages in northern Syria were deserted by their residents in 2007 and 2008 because of climate change, according to a study released on Tuesday. The report drawn up by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) warns of potential armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East. “The 2007/8 drought caused significant hardship in rural areas of Syria. In the northeast of the country, a reported 160 villages have been entirely abandoned and the inhabitants have had to move to urban areas,” it said. In Syria and also in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, “climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large-scale population movements,” the report said. “This could hold serious implications for peace in the region,” the Canada-based institute said. “Israel is already using climate change as an excuse to increase their control over the water resources in the region.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jXbS8a3ggiMm4ekludBbmWQMb-HQ
For the report- Rising Temperatures, Rising Tensions- http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2009/rising_temps_middle_east.pdf
June 4, 2009 Comments Off
Continuing Current U.S. Energy Policy Called ‘Perilous’
QUOTE
“When you add in some of the effects of climate change - the disruption of agricultural production patterns, the
disruption of water availability- it’s a formula for aggravating, in a dramatic way, the problem and consequences of large scale dislocation.
The more I think about it, the more I believe it’s one of the major threats of climate change. And it’s not well understood.
As water availability changes, people who need water will fight with people who have water and don’t want to share it.
It’s the same with agriculture. When people move away from areas that can’t sustain life anymore, or that can’t sustain their standard of living, they move to areas where they are not welcome.
People will fight these incursions.”
Retired Air Force General Chuck Boyd, former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Europe
- Retired military are talking seriously about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and on human migration forced by faltering environments. Certainly a clearer message than is coming from most ag “experts.” - Editor
Continuing Current U.S. Energy Policy Called ‘Perilous’
As the political wrangling continues this week over the details of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a new report from a dozen retired U.S. military leaders warns maintaining the country’s current energy stance poses significant risks to its national security. Dependence on fossil fuels and the vulnerable energy grid threaten the country and its military, according to “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security,” from the Military Advisory Board (MAB) of nonprofit research firm CNA. The report focuses on how current energy policies intersect with climate change and national security, and calls the country’s present trajectory “perilous.”
For the report- http://www.cna.org/documents/PoweringAmericasDefense.pdf
http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmCarbonEmissions/idUS365178242120090518
May 22, 2009 Comments Off
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
- Adapting to climate change will mean dealing with climate refugees, but is this what the Scouts are for? Are people crossing the borders really terrorists? Isn’t there enough violence in our society? This is a far cry from learning nifty skills during camping trips in the woods. Sad. I wouldn’t let my kids join this! Would you? - Editor
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence - an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters. Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The training can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters.” In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout. “Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=1&em
May 15, 2009 Comments Off
The Farms Race
- Underneath the surface of unprecedented supermarket abundance, there are some rumblings. A few years ago we learned about farmland in multiple states being bought up with the goal of providing long-term food security for one minority group in the U.S. Many names were used to prevent detection. It was quite a revelation. This sub rosa goal of buying up farmland to lock in future food supplies for a distant specific population is not a small issue, and has serious international implications. Every city and state needs to develop strong programs to protect their farmlands to provide for their populations in the future, while increasing sustainable production. - Editor
The Farms Race
Wealthy countries short of fertile land are gazing hungrily at Canada’s prairies. Last year, the Saudis finally concluded that (their heavily subsidized) desert wheat made no sense. The farms will disappear within a few years, after which the country will be entirely dependent on imports. But from where? Answer: from any nation willing to sell or lease vast tracts of its farmland and-here’s the kicker- allow the Saudis to export most or all of the food grown there back home, bypassing the international market. Such “offshore farms” are a quiet, though burgeoning, form of neo-colonialism. And they have the potential to unleash a new food crisis.
The Saudis are not alone in the global land grab. Any country that worries about long-term food security because of a shortage of fertile land, and has the wealth to do something about it, is on the hunt: United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Libya, India, China, Japan, plus a number of investment and private-equity funds. A report published in the autumn by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development said that “public and private corporations and industrial groups are buying millions of (acres) of land in Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce food or agrofuels.” At first, the UN and the World Bank either ignored or cautiously supported the trend. Food prices were rising and foreign investment in raising crop productivity in poor countries seemed like a fine idea. They changed their minds when they realized offshore farms were all about locking up food supplies, not boosting them for the markets. Bizarrely, one of the countries apparently most eager to welcome farmland seekers is Sudan, where 5.6 million people are being fed by the UN’s World Food Program. Watchdog groups such as Grain and the International Land Coalition also fear that poor farmers are being forced off productive land as the men with the (checks) arrive. Canada’s Agcapita partner Stephen Johnston says he’s approached all the time by foreign interests seeking Canadian agricultural land.
http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090130.ROB2PG16/TPStory/Business/
February 3, 2009 Comments Off
Get Off Oil For National Security
“I think we need to go right for oil’s jugular vein.
It’s not just foreign oil. It’s oil.
I think one thing that’s been wrong about the debate is that people assume everything would be fine if we just had more domestic oil and relied on foreign sources for a smaller share. I think that’s entirely wrong. In my view, since we’re not going to be the low-cost producer—the Middle East is—we’re going to end up with a jury-rigged structure of tariffs and subsidies that won’t work.
So I talk about independence from oil, not foreign oil.”
R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
September 29, 2008 Comments Off
For National Security, Get Off Oil
R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, made clear that merely lessening America’s dependence on foreign oil would not solve the national security problem, seeing the threat to national security coming from many directions. Woolsey worries about how vulnerable the nation’s energy infrastructure is to attack by terrorists. Reducing the national security risk, Woolsey argues, begins with the rapid adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles that can get hundreds of miles to the gallon. These cars are recharged overnight by their owners, using a regular plug and wall outlet, and can go up to 40 miles between charges—farther than the average car is driven in a day. They rarely need to switch over to gasoline or to an alternative liquid fuel. A nation driving such automobiles would vastly decrease its need for oil. The final step to getting the country off oil, Woolsey notes, is that regulators have to prompt the transition by providing incentives for saving energy.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=is-oil-a-threat
September 29, 2008 Comments Off
Nation’s Spies: Climate Change Could Spark War
- For those with little memory, this can be called a first. But in 2003, the Pentagon Report gave very serious warnings that were hidden by the President, and were only publicly revealed by a leak months later. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver or http://www.gbn.com/GBNDocumentDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231&url=/UploadDocumentDisplayServlet.srv?id=28566 - Editor
Nation’s Spies: Climate Change Could Spark War
Environmental groups have been warning for years that global climate change could make already-tense parts of the world even worse, and even spark whole new conflicts. Now, the nation’s spies are saying pretty much the same thing. The U.S. intelligence community has finished up its classified assessment of how our changing weather patterns could contribute to “political instability around the world, the collapse of governments and the creation of terrorist safe havens,” Inside Defense reports. Congress was briefed on the report last week. And on Wednesday, leading spies — including National Intelligence Council chairman and Energy Department intelligence chief - will testify on the Hill about the 58-page document, “The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030.” The document was originally supposed to be unclassified. But then the policy recommendations — and warnings about trouble spots — got more and more detailed. The assessment is stamped “confidential.”
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/environmental-g.html
June 24, 2008 Comments Off