Osama Bin Laden Believes In Climate Change?

Despite of his “conservative” 13^th Century view on almost anything, would you believe that the late former head of Al Qaeda – Osama Bin Laden – believes in climate change?

By: Ringo Bones

Despite of the recent overwhelming scientific evidence supporting it, right-wing conservatives – most of them from America – doesn’t believe in climate change declaring via their conservative Evangelical Christian doctrine that humans and their recent industrial activity are not powerful enough to destabilize the Earth’s climate. And thus was born a catch-all caricature describing these wing-nuts called “Republican Jesus”. But inextricably, Republican Jesus’ counterpart - the Al Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden – genuinely believes in climate change and even wrote a bunch of treatises about the subject despite of his rather backward and barbaric 13^th Century view on Islam.

During the May 1, 2011 raid on his compound that eventually killed him, the US Navy SEAL Team VI uncovered a vast treasure trove of intelligent data – in both paper and electronic form – that, until recently, they only prioritize the terror-attack related plans. But as of late, intelligence personnel tasked with sorting out the piles of data recently uncovered the extent of the late Al Qaeda leader’s “research” into the “Christian West’s science on climate change”. And unlike the right-wing-nuts of the US Republican Party and Fox News, Osama Bin Laden genuinely came to the conclusion that climate change is real and an ongoing process, although, the U.S. spymasters tasked with trolling the “Bin Laden papers” has yet to divulge to the public in detail about which terror plans pertain to Al Qaeda’s “action to limit the impact of climate change.”

Besides his recently divulged views on the UN’s IPCC reports, Osama Bin Laden is also keeping up to date with the Christian West’s “leftist philosophies” because the US Navy SEAL Team VI also managed to uncover that Bin Laden is also an unabashed fan of Noam Chomsky. But I still wonder why it was his porn collection that the US Navy SEAL Team VI that got priority in divulging it to the general public.

Did Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Plateau In 2014?

Even though the global economy managed to grow by 3-percent in 2014, did it managed to do so without an additional increase in carbon dioxide emissions?

By: Ringo Bones

It is a well-established fact that economic activity and energy consumption levels are intimately linked. Energy is critical to modern economies, which is a necessity in creating and maintaining infrastructure, industrial activity, transportation and housing. This means that in general, when the overall income of a nation / state increases so does energy use, which is clear if we look at past trends. And if we don’t use renewable energy sources, then the rise in energy consumption will inevitably lead to more carbon dioxide emissions.

As of late, it seems that our global effort to halt climate change – despite of some holdouts – could finally be paying off since carbon dioxide emissions levels from the energy sector appear to have stalled in 2014 according to a preliminary report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) published back in March 13, 2015, If the data holds up, then this could mark the first time in 40 years that emissions have either remained unchanged or decreased in the absence of an economic crisis.

“This is both a very welcome surprise and a significant one,” IEA Chief Economist Faith Birol said in a statement. “It provides much-needed momentum to negotiators preparing to forge a climate deal in Paris in December, for the first time, greenhouse gas emissions are decoupling from economic growth.”

According to the IEA’s latest findings, global carbon dioxide emissions measured 32.3-billion tones in both 2013 and 2014, despite the fact that the global economy grew by 3-percent in 2014. The International Energy Agency has been gathering data in carbon dioxide emissions for the past 40 years and within this time frame, there have only been three instances in which carbon dioxide emissions either stalled or decrease compared with the previous year and all of these were linked to global economic downturn. For example, a plateau was observed in 1992 after the former Soviet Union collapsed in December 25, 1991.

So what can we attribute to this apparent halt in global carbon dioxide emissions? According to the IEA, a big part of it has to do with a shift in energy use trends in Mainland China and member countries of the Organization for the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). For example, back in 2014, Mainland China witnessed an increase in the amount of energy produced from renewable sources such as solar and wind with a concomitant decrease in fossil fuel burning.

Although these early data are encouraging, experts have warned that we should not use the findings as an excuse to become complacent or to cease efforts to curb emissions. Instead, decision-makers should use the finalized report – which will be released in June 2015 – to aid the creation of policy measures that will help nations reach climate goals without compromising economic growth.  

Shell’s Bodo, Nigeria Compensation Payouts: A Victory For The Environment?

Does the 80-million US dollar payout by Shell to the farmers and fishermen affected by the 2008 crude oil spill in Bodo, Nigeria represent a victory for the embattled environment?

By: Ringo Bones 

  

Social justice campaigners may argue that the 80-milliion US dollar compensation payout to the farmers and fishermen affected by the 2 major oil spills from crude oil pipelines in Bodo, Nigeria back in 2008 as not enough because it just averages to about 3,000 US dollars per affected fisherman and farmer. But to environmental lawyers, the case serves as a precedent that big multinational crude oil processing companies can no longer pollute the environment with impunity – especially if they are operating in regions of the world where environmental pollution laws are next to nonexistent. In short, it is a veritable victory for the environment and subsistence farmers and fisher-folk in a David versus Goliath legal battle against a polluting multinational corporation that’s seemingly devoid of corporate social responsibility. 

Though the affected farmers and fisherman may get an average of a little over 3,000 US dollars each as a compensation for lost livelihood, the rest of the 80-million US dollars to be paid out by Shell would be used to clean up the crude oil spill and for subsequent bio-remediation of the area affected by the oil spill. Many are doubtful if the rest of the money will ever be used for bio-remediation of the affected area since Shell during the duration of the court proceedings kept on “passing-the-buck” on the local government of Bodo, Nigeria’s inability to halt crude oil theft of Shell’s pipelines crisscrossing the region. 

After three years of legal wrangling for an oil spill that happened almost seven years ago, Shell did try its hardest to absolve itself of legal regal responsibility of the spill citing pipeline tampering and theft of the crude oil and the kidnap for ransom incidence of its workers by local Islamist militias of its repair personnel. And the environmentalists were also concerned that Shell is not entirely admitting to the actual scale of the oil spill – not to mention that Shell did try to “pass-the-buck” to the local contractor in charge of maintaining the pipelines given that the pipelines and the supporting facilities were at the end of their economic life as far back as 2005. Nonetheless, everyone concerned about our embattled environment will be hoping that Shell’s 30-million US dollar compensation will provide enough bio-remediation to the affected region that the local farmers and fisher-folk of Bodo, Nigeria can subsist of the bounty of their natural environment once again. 

The E.U. Proposed Plastic Bag Usage Reduction: A Victory For The Environment?

It might be yet too soon to assess any positive environmental impact, but will the recent proposed European Union plastic bag usage reduction represent a “victory” for out environment?

By: Ringo Bones

On a global basis, crude oil based plastic bags had grown in usage from almost zero after World War II to almost 500-billion individual plastic bags a year as of recent count, that’s almost 1-million individual plastic bags per minute. Single-use crude oil manufactured plastic bags used to carry our groceries had been a bone of contention for environmental activists and tenured environmental scientists / ecologist alike for more than 50 years because their non-biodegradable nature causes them to clog our municipal drainage systems, chokes up our landfills and they have deleterious effects on the gastrointestinal tract of marine organisms both big and small, not to mention the recently uncovered deleterious effects of crude oil derived plastic bags of producing hormone mimics during their ultraviolet light exposure during daylight hours in the open that disrupt the reproductive cycle of ecologically vital marine and littoral organisms. But will a recent proposed European Union measure to drastically reduce our dependence and usage of crude oil derived plastic bags lessen everyone’s negative impact on our environment?

A recent survey in the European Union has shown that on average a typical E.U. citizen on average use about 466 individual pieces of plastic bags a year during their visits to the local grocery. Portuguese shoppers are the heaviest plastic bag users in the E.U. using 666 individual pieces of plastic bags a year, while Danes use the least using on average 4 individual pieces of plastic bags a year. Even though the E.U. proposal sets to reduce plastic bag usage by half, most E.U. based environmental groups say they should emulate Danish shoppers of using only 4 individual pieces of plastic bags a year when doing their groceries.  Charging or taxing plastic bag usage in some E.U. countries during the past few years had been somewhat successful in the reduction of single-use crude oil sourced non-biodegradable plastic bags winding up in landfills and clogging municipal drains, but only by a few percentage points on a statistical basis. Will awareness and stronger legislation be a better solution?

Coughing Fish: Environmental Canary in the Coal Mine?

Even though we already have sophisticated test instruments to assess levels of environmental pollution but can a “coughing fish” provide a better and faster water quality assessment? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Environmentalists had always been looking for ways to monitor water pollution are turning for help to creatures that have a vested interest in clean water – as in fishes. French technicians began the trend in 1973; they checked the waters of the Oise River by observing one peculiar kind of fish behavior: trout that are swimming upstream reverse their direction upon encountering pollution. Back in April 1974, scientists of the US Environmental Protection Agency announced the discovery of another potentially useful piscatorial reaction in the behavior of bluefish, sunfish, flathead minnows, trout and salmon. 

The researchers had found out that the fish began to cough more frequently when concentrations of mercury and copper became great enough to interfere with growth and reproduction. Aquatic biologist Robert Drummond, who directed the study, suggested that monitoring devices could be installed in waters near industrial and waste-treatment plants to record fish coughing and sounds an alarm if there were any sudden increase. Environmentalists would thus be warned that a plant in the vicinity was releasing a potentially harmful effluent into the water and would be able to act immediately to halt the discharge. 

Rockefeller Foundation Quitting Crude Oil Due To Climate Change?

Some might see it as a cheap publicity ploy taking advantage in the wake of the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit but do we all benefit from the Rockefeller Foundation quitting crude oil?

By: Ringo Bones

As someone who experienced the hardships that resulted from both Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm first hand, it seems that the Rockefeller Foundation suddenly deciding to quit their hedge-fund funding from crude oil and other non-renewable fossil fuels almost cold turkey 23 years after Operation Desert Storm seems like a cheap publicity ploy taking advantage of the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit this September 23, 2014 and in the wake of the very recent Climate Change action demonstrations in New York City back in Sunday, September 21, 2014 that also took place almost simultaneously in other 160 countries like the UK, Afghanistan to Australia over world governments’ lack of action on tackling the root cause of climate change – i.e. excessive fossil fuel usage. If the Rockefeller Foundation – a charitable foundation largely funded by the big crude oil boom of the 20^th Century – quits crude oil and other non-renewable fossil fuels and switch to greener renewable energy sources, will it benefit the rest of us, the lowly 99-percent?

Given that the United States is now the world’s leading producer of crude oil – and it has been since the middle of January 2013 – America’s Big Oil heir, the Rockefeller Foundation - suddenly quitting crude oil almost cold turkey could send anyone beholden to Capitol Hill’s “Crude Oil Lobby” in a suicidal panic. Fortunately, it hasn’t, but to those in the know and who have no control whatsoever on how their pension funds are invested are now doubtful of the future of their pension funds now that the Rockefeller Foundation has quit crude oil, coal and other fossil fuel based hedge-fund funding almost cold turkey.  

100th Anniversary of the Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon

The last surviving bird may have died 100 years ago, but did you know that the passenger pigeon used to be the most abundant bird in North America?

By: Ringo Bones

Even though this poor bird's extinction happened 100 years ago and the reason why it became extinct is an indictment on how we inadvertently and tacitly support the globalized corporate world's callous disregard to our planet's fragile ecology, one could be labeled as a "crazy alarmist" if he or she told the mid-Victorian era ornithological community that the passenger pigeon will eventually be driven into extinction. In hindsight, it is now quite ironic that what was then the most abundant wild bird - not just in the North American continent - but the whole world has ever known at the time should have become the very symbol of wildlife extinction.

The passenger pigeon, estimated to number perhaps 5-billion individual birds in the heyday of famed ornithologists Audubon and Wilson, had a population as great as that of all other breeding land birds in the United States at that time combined. Although the last wild bird was shot in March 1900, a few lived on in captivity until the passenger pigeon named Martha - the then lone survivor - died in the Cincinnati Zoo back on September 1, 1914, at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.

As we reflect on the 100th anniversary of the extinction of this once abundant North American bird species, the passenger pigeon were once esteemed for their delicate flavor; their crowded nesting grounds and communal flights made them very east prey to wholesale shooting and netting. Some passenger pigeon meat supply companies ever resorted to dynamiting flocks just to meet the demands of rising restaurant demands in the New York hotel and restaurant boom of the 1850s that were hooked to the "tasty" passenger pigeon meat. By 1880, it was already too late to save them as the last wild passenger pigeon was shot in 1900 and the last individual bird - named Martha - was the last one to die in the Cincinnati Zoo, thus marking the passenger pigeon's exact time of extinction almost to the exact second back in September 1, 1914.