Posted by: JeffMasters, 12:34 AM CDT on June 05, 2007         
An unusual event is happening over the next 48 hours, as the first tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds, and major hurricane-force winds at that, is approaching the Gulf of Oman, to strike the eastern coast of Oman, curve northward, and make landfall on the coast of Iran. In the tropical cyclone best tracks and the modern era of weather satellites, there is no record of such an occurrence.

Today, Steve Gregory and I will be guest-hosting the blog, while Jeff is on vacation, to provide current information on Severe Cyclone Gonu. I'll provide some background on the areas that are currently forecast to be in the path of this dangerous cyclone, followed by Steve's Monday evening surge forecast and assessment based on the most recent JTWC track and intensity forecast, which currently calls for sustained winds of 115 kt when first passing near the coastline of Oman.

Updates during the day will be posted on my blog, The View From the Surface.

As I write this it is late in the evening in the central US, but the day has already begun in the Middle East. Distant cirrus from Gonu have already started to cloud the Gulf of Oman, and over the course of the day there, conditions will deteriorate along the eastern coast of Oman as the tropical cyclone approaches. Overnight, the core of Gonu will approach the tip of Oman, with the eye passing offshore just before dawn, and the bulk of the surge occuring along the eastern coast some time shortly before that. By midday the next day the worst of the storm will have passed the southernmost portion of the coast, and the core of the storm will be directly east of Muscat, the capital of Oman, home to over half a million people. Right now the forecast has the storm passing just offshore, but if the track shifts further east, the most damaging winds of the cyclone will remain over water. This will lessen the damage to Oman, but will likely result in a higher intensity when making landfall in Iran.

--Margie Kieper

* * * * * * *

Those who live along the Gulf of Mexico are well aware of what it means for a major hurricane to make landfall. Even if they've never experienced it themselves, they have relatives or members of their community who have experienced it. And in many places they can see the damage that remains.

Imagine that you live directly on the Gulf, but in a place where it hardly ever rains, and where a hurricane has never hit, for at least a generation -- for more than sixty years. Your community and many like yours are situated not only directly on the water, but near or in large dry riverbeds on the coastal plain, which is a narrow strip of sandy shoreline that is the dropoff for the three-thousand-foot mountain range behind it. Even many of the roads up into the mountains are in these dry riverbeds, which course through deep canyons as they rise into the heights. You don't have any idea what it might mean to experience winds of over 100 miles per hour, whipping up sand, and torrential rain against these mountains that can turn the riverbeds into conduits for dangerous flash floods. And you don't have any idea what storm surge is, and can't conceive of wind-driven high waves that could break against the shoreline and leave nothing behind.

This is the eastern coast of Oman, where communities line the shoreline which is shortly going to be experiencing a major hurricane. We can only hope that the danger is understood and that all of these communities have evacuated to higher ground and a safer location.

[SNIP]

Steve Gregory's Monday Evening Forecast for Gonu

Severe Cyclone GONU in the Arabian Sea is currently heading NW at 14KTS (Faster than the JTWC Forecast) and is located 135NM SE of the eastern most 'tip' of Oman, and 180NM SE of Muscat. The storm is now a very strong CAT 4 - with an estimated pressure of 904mb, and wind gusts to 155Kts.

Based on imagery over the last 6 hours - the storm is under-going an Eyewall Replacement cycle, and so the first early morning VIS image (right) shows the eye is now covered with cirrus. As a new eyewall is developing (based on Micro-wave imagery) and will complete this cycle right about the time it gets to the Oman Gulf.

The track the storm takes as it nears the Oman coast is extremely critical in terms of intensity as it is entering the Gulf - and how severe the damage will be. There ocean heat content of the water on the SE FACING side of Oman is lower - and if the storm travels close to that location (as shown on the NAVY chart) the storm will likely weaken further during the day to a low end CAT 3, and then hit the Iran coast as a strong CAT 1 on Wednesday.

If the storm tracks 50-100NM NORTH of the coast as it enters the Gulf of Oman - though the water is shallower there, the SST's are very high (32degC) and with the storm further away from land, and over very warm water - it is likely to hold onto CAT 3 intensity for an additional 4-6 hours as it moves NW.

There is a large oil facility and large airport located right at the eastern 'tip' of Oman - and I counted at least 6 major 'ports' on Satellite imagery along the Oman coast up to 100 miles WNW of Muscat.

On the opposite side of the Gulf is the Iranian coast - with numerous 'cove inlets' each with loading docks and port facilities. At least 9 facilities I could count from the Iran/Pakistan border west to the area I show landfall (Magenta Arrow on the diagram below). Offshore platforms were also seen in a few locations.

Steve Gregory Gonu surge forecast


The Storm surge shown (10-15 ft) will almost certainly hit the Iran coast - even if the storm weakens to a strong CAT 2 late Tuesday (NY time). The Eastern tip of Oman will likely also experience 10-15 foot surge due to the close proximity of the storm track. Further up the Gulf, before reaching the Straits of Hormuz - storm surge heights of 1-4 feet are expected on the Oman side, and 4-possibly 6 feet on the Iranian side near the entrance to the Straits. Significant wave heights will be 20-30 feet, dropping to 15 feet near the Straits.

This is an unprecedented event. NO CYCLONE has ever entered the Gulf of Oman. And there are no custom 'storm surge' models available for that area. This forecast is based on my experience and subjective analysis of the seabed slope and storm surge interaction with the sea floor. Considering the region has never experienced a hurricane, let alone a strong one it is highly unlikely the loading facilities or platforms were constructed to withstand the forces - both wave action and wind force - that they will experience. Significant, damage will occur. How much long term damage, and the volumes associated with it - can not be determined at this time.

--Steve Gregory

From HERE:

ORIGINAL CAPTION: Muir Glacier, Alaska, photographed by William O. Field on 13 August 1941 (left) and by Bruce F. Molnia on 31 August 2004 (right). (NSIDC/WDC for Glaciology, Boulder)
vv

Heh...what global waming?




GOM Sea Surface Temps 27 April, 2005



GOM Sea Surface Temps 27 April, 2006

Zoologist Louis Guillette was drawn into London's pesticide-ban debate during a lecture stop at the University of Western Ontario yesterday. (Ken Wightman, LFP)

A renowned U.S. scientist who has documented fertility and sex changes -- including decreasing penis size -- due to environmental contamination says he wouldn't apply pesticides on his own lawn.

Delivering a special series of lectures this week at the University of Western Ontario, Louis Guillette has been drawn into London's lawn-care debate during question periods and talk-show interviews.

"The use of these compounds just for cosmetic reasons, just because you don't want to make dandelion wine from your yard or whatever, I think is inappropriate," Guillette, who is associate dean for research at the University of Florida, said in a lecture yesterday at UWO's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Based on his own scientific investigations, Guillette said there's enough evidence pesticides put children, wildlife and the ecosystem at risk.

"Just because you can go buy them at the local stores doesn't meant that is appropriate use," he said.

A zoologist, Guillette has spent the last decade studying the influence of environmental contaminants on fetal development and reproductive systems of wildlife and humans, including the differences between alligators living in contaminated Florida lakes and those in cleaner ones.

He found abnormalities in sex organs, dramatic differences in egg-hatching rates and hormone levels.

Penis size of the animals from the polluted lake was smaller than animals from the less-polluted lake.

"This is important because it is not just an alligator story. It is not just a lake story. We know there has been a dramatic increase in penile and genital abnormalities in baby boys," Guillette said.

A followup study by another scientist involving healthy couples with 5,000 healthy babies also found reduced penis size with higher contamination levels.

"Are (their penises) so small they are actually having problems? We don't know. These are baby boys," he said.

But rodent studies have indicated more difficulty with fertility and other aspects later on, he said.

The researchers also found the alligators from contaminated water had abnormal ovaries. Some of the abnormalities were traced to chemical compounds with estrogen, a sex hormone. Estrogenic-type compounds are found in some pesticides, including atrazine, mostly widely used in North America for weed control.

Guillette said he doesn't support a total pesticide ban, saying their u

Driving Toward Energy Independence

By David Morris, AlterNet
Posted on April 21, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/34753/

I imagine driving a car without consuming petroleum, or generating pollution, or making noise. Imagine getting the equivalent of 100 to 150 miles per gallon. Imagine that every time you drove, you pumped money into the local economy, rather than sending it to distant shores. Imagine that this car was not only ideal personal transportation but also a driving force, quite literally, for transforming both agriculture and electric-power generation in ways that benefited farmers and urban dwellers alike.

Farfetched dreams? Not at all. All of the necessary technologies have been developed and road-tested in the battery-powered car, the hybrid gas-electric car, the flexible-fuel car. All that's needed is to combine these approaches in a single vehicle that merges their advantages and eliminates their shortcomings.

The hybrid car, introduced in the United States only in 2000, is already a bestseller. More than 200,000 hybrid cars ply U.S. roads. But they suffer one major limitation: They can't go more than a mile or two on electricity alone. (Indeed, GM and Honda hybrids can't go anywhere without the gasoline engine running.) This makes them glorified gasoline-powered vehicles, with an electric motor assist. But a Toyota Prius or a Ford Escape can be fitted with an expanded battery pack, rechargeable from a household outlet, that would let it travel 20 to 50 miles between chargings. That is farther than many Americans drive every day.

Driving on electric power has many benefits. Electric vehicles, or EVs, are quiet and nonpolluting. Even taking into account increased power plant emissions, EVs still produce less pollution than gasoline-powered vehicles. And EVs are remarkably efficient, achieving the equivalent of over 100 miles per gallon -- twice the mileage of the best existing hybrid.

Of course, the Achilles heel of the EV has been the cost and performance limitations of its batteries; sooner or later, most motorists want to go more than 50 miles without stopping to recharge.

A plug-in hybrid overcomes that limitation by having a backup engine -- but instead of the gasoline engines used today, it could easily be a flexible-fuel engine of the type now powering more than 4 million vehicles on U.S. roads. These engines operate on any combination of ethanol and gasoline, and the additional cost to manufacture one has fallen to about $100.

But ethanol derived from corn or other biomass also has its Achilles heel. Current U.S. gasoline and diesel consumption is far too high to replace with plant-derived fuels. Planting all available agricultural acres in the country with fast-growing trees or switchgrass could generate only enough fuel to displace about 25 percent of current vehicle consumption.

Plug-in hybrids, however, overcome this biomass limitation by using electric power to reduce fuel consumption by as much as 85 percent. This lets biofuels become primary fuels rather than minor additives.

With the introduction of plug-ins, the transportation and electricity sectors begin to merge. Utilities would probably offer EV owners the option of recharging their batteries at a lower cost at night, when demand is low. No new power plants would be needed.

Indeed, widespread use of plug-in hybrids could address the principal disadvantage of wind turbines to generate electricity -- the absence, so far, of an efficient way to store the power until it is needed. Wind is an intermittent power source, making voltage only when the turbines are spinning. But utilities need to dispatch electricity when their customers demand it.

The batteries in thousands of plug-in hybrids, connected to the grid through two-way household outlets, could bridge this gap between generation and delivery. Indeed, some studies estimate utilities might pay EV owners $1,000 to $2,000 a year for using their batteries to help balance and stabilize the grid. (That's in addition to saving perhaps $600 a year at the gas pump.)

One can even imagine tens of thousands of very small wind turbines sprouting up at homes across the country, built primarily to fuel vehicles. Consider the arithmetic: Today, owners of large wind turbines get paid about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) when they send the electricity over the grid to distant buyers. A farmer making wind power for his own use displaces retail electricity priced at 5 to 8 cents per kWh. But if that electricity is used in a plug-in hybrid, displacing gasoline, it is worth about 32 cents per kWh.

How futuristic are plug-in, flexible-fuel vehicles? Ford has introduced the first flex-fuel hybrid. Daimler Chrysler has about 100 plug-in vehicles on the road. Most interesting, perhaps, is the recent announcement by several companies of a plug-in conversion kit for Prius and Escape owners. One Canadian company has informed me that an order of 1,000 kits would cut the price in half (to between $4,000 and $5,000). At such a price, payback could come in less than seven years. And the costs will undoubtedly continue to decline.

The state of Minnesota, to use one example, has several advantages that could make it a leader in advancing these vehicles: An established ethanol industry, abundant wind power, plenty of gas stations selling E85 (half the national total, in fact), a top-notch automotive engineering program at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Not to mention the Ford Motor Co.'s St. Paul plant, now facing an uncertain future; it once made an all-electric pickup truck, as well as a flex-fuel pickup. In the future, it could make plug-in, flex-fuel hybrids on assembly lines powered by its own hydroelectric turbines.

A bill that begins to put in place a plug-in, flexible-fuel strategy is on the floor of the Minnesota State Senate and is wending its way through the Minnesota House. In five committees there has not been a single negative vote in either the Republican-controlled House or the Democrat-controlled Senate. We hope such unanimity sends American car companies a message.

David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis, Minn., and director of its New Rules project. He is the author of the report, A Better Way To Get There From Here (PDF).

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/34753/

You Call This a Wetland?
Conservation Editor Bob Marshall reveals that the Department of the Interior's new claim of wetlands growth holds no water.
by Bob Marshall

The Bush Administration announced last week that the nation is no longer losing wetlands--as long as you consider golf course water hazards to be wetlands.

Really.

Thursday (March 30), Interior Secretary Gale Norton called a press conference to claim our long nightmare of wetlands loss had finally come to an end due to unprecedented gains since 1997 (click hear to read the report she cites). However, she then admitted much of that gain has been in artificially created ponds, such as golf course water hazards and farm impoundments.

The sporting community--from Ducks Unlimited to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership--reacted quickly, and not favorably. Researchers long ago established that natural wetlands such as marshes, swamps and prairie potholes are far more productive than even the best-designed artificial wetlands. And sharp-edged water bodies like water hazards, farm ponds, and even reservoirs offer very little for wildlife. Putting man-made ponds in the same class as natural wetlands is like ranking pen-raised quail with wild coveys.

The boldness of Norton's claim was particularly galling given the Bush Administration's record on wetlands. President Bush, like other presidents before him, promised a policy of “no net loss” of wetlands, but his administration has consistently supported rollbacks of the Clean Water Act to satisfy industry and development.

In fact, at the same press conference, the Fish and Wildlife Service reported a continued loss of 523,500 acres of natural wetlands during the same time period. So how could the nation have come out ahead if it lost more than half a million acres? Norton didn't try to hide the truth: The 715,300-acre “gain” was mainly artificial ponds.

While saying the nation's wetlands picture remains “precarious,” Norton added that "even ponds that are not a high quality of wetlands are better than not having wetlands." Now there's ringing endorsement of the president's program.

Norton's announcement was likely an act of setting the table for more administration assaults on wetlands protections. It was probably no coincidence that three days earlier, the Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency proposed new regulations that encourage development of companies that build artificial wetlands used by industries that destroy the vital natural habitats. It's part of the wetlands mitigation banking concept--which gives companies permits to drain wetlands, as long as they produce “new” wetlands somewhere else.

Norton may think a water hazard is better than no wetlands but for fish, wildlife and sportsmen, but it may be even worse. That type of public policy provides an excuse for more permits to drain more natural and productive wetlands to be replaced by non-productive water hazards. Those might be good for real estate values along the 18th fairway, but for fish and wildlife that rely on wetlands ecosystems to survive, it's terrible.

Pentagon Tells Bush - Climate Change Will Destroy Us

By Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
The Observer - UK
3-22-6

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.. * Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war * Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years * Threat to the world is greater than terrorism A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority. The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network. An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions. Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change. Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change. A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch. One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible. Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change. Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.' Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored. 'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson. 'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace. Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated. Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.' Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said. 'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.' So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign. The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence. Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.' Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

Democrats want budget bill to drop oil drilling
Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:05 PM ET

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats will try to remove language from a pending budget bill that calls for the government to raise billions of dollars in leasing fees from oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Republican leaders, with White House support, are using the massive 2007 budget legislation to give oil companies access to the refuge, because budget bills can't be filibustered under Senate rules.

The legislation assumes about $6 billion in leasing fees and bonus bids would be paid by energy companies to drill in the refuge. The federal government could keep half the money to fund various programs and the other half would go Alaska.

Opening ANWR is a key part of the Bush administration's national energy policy. The White House says tapping the refuge's potential 16 billion barrels of crude would boost domestic petroleum supplies and help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil imports.

Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Maria Cantwell of Washington will offer an amendment to strip the ANWR language from the budget bill. The lawmakers had hoped to offer their amendment on Wednesday afternoon, but delayed it until Thursday because of a backlog of other pending amendments. A vote on striking the ANWR language was expected later in the week.

Many Senate Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, oppose drilling in the refuge. They argue the amount of oil in ANWR is not enough to justify threatening the area's polar bears, caribou and other wildlife.

In an e-mail to his supporters on Wednesday, Kerry said the Bush administration was "so beholden to the big oil and gas companies that turning over America's most precious natural resources on a fool's errand search for the last drop of oil is all they can think about."

Democrats also doubt the government would be able to raise the $6 billion in fees, as called for in the budget bill, based on the much lower prices companies have paid in recent years to lease tracts in other areas of Alaska's North Slope.

"It is irresponsible to base the country's budget on highly speculative and dubious projections of lease revenues for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," all nine Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee said in a letter last week to the panel's Republican chairman, Judd Gregg.

Twenty-four House Republicans also sent a letter to the House Budget Committee chairman, Republican Jim Nussle, urging him to keep Arctic refuge drilling out of the 2007 budget bill.

The administration has failed every year to convince Congress to give energy companies access to the ANWR.

Drilling supporters hope consumer anger over high gasoline prices and rising oil imports will encourage more lawmakers to vote for drilling in the refuge.

ANWR stretches across 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares) in the northeast corner of Alaska. The White House wants to offer 1.5 million acres in the refuge's coastal plain for oil and natural gas exploration leases.

The Interior Department estimates the refuge could hold between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

If the refuge was opened to drilling, it would take about eight years before the area reached full production of 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day, the Energy Department said.

U.S. plans to reduce mad cow testing

By AP

WASHINGTON -- Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease in the U.S., the American government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe.

The U.S. Agriculture Department boosted its surveillance after finding the first case of mad cow disease in the U.S. in 2003.

About 1,000 tests are run daily, up from about 55 daily in 2003.

The testing program detected an infected cow in Alabama last week and further analysis confirmed Monday the animal had mad cow disease.

Still, a reduction in testing has been in the works for months. The department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford, mentioned it when he announced the new case of mad cow disease.

"As we approach the conclusion of our en-hanced surveillance program, let me offer a few thoughts," Clifford said, explaining the U.S. will follow international standards for testing.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns pointed out testing is not a food safety measure. Rather, it's a way to find out the prevalence of the disease.

"Keep in mind the testing was for surveillance," Johanns said.

"It was to get an idea of the condition of the herd."

Higher testing levels were intended to be temporary when they were announced two years ago.

Yet consumer groups argue more animals should be tested, not fewer.

Officials haven't finalized new levels but the department's budget proposal calls for 40,000 tests annually, or about 110 daily.

"This would be a tenth of a percent of all animals slaughtered," Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, said yesterday. "This starts to be so small that in our opinion, it approaches a policy of don't look, don't find."

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin said the confidence of U.S. consumers and foreign customers is at risk if testing is reduced.

The Coming Resource Wars

By Michael Klare, TomPaine.com
Posted on March 11, 2006, Printed on March 11, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/33243/

It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major London address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy. Climate change, he indicated, "will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer" -- and this will "make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely."

Although not unprecedented, Reid's prediction of an upsurge in resource conflict is significant both because of his senior rank and the vehemence of his remarks. "The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur," he declared. "We should see this as a warning sign."

Resource conflicts of this type are most likely to arise in the developing world, Reid indicated, but the more advanced and affluent countries are not likely to be spared the damaging and destabilizing effects of global climate change. With sea levels rising, water and energy becoming increasingly scarce and prime agricultural lands turning into deserts, internecine warfare over access to vital resources will become a global phenomenon.

Reid's speech, delivered at the prestigious Chatham House in London (Britain's equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations), is but the most recent expression of a growing trend in strategic circles to view environmental and resource effects -- rather than political orientation and ideology -- as the most potent source of armed conflict in the decades to come. With the world population rising, global consumption rates soaring, energy supplies rapidly disappearing and climate change eradicating valuable farmland, the stage is being set for persistent and worldwide struggles over vital resources. Religious and political strife will not disappear in this scenario, but rather will be channeled into contests over valuable sources of water, food and energy.

Prior to Reid's address, the most significant expression of this outlook was a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense by a California-based consulting firm in October 2003. Entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," the report warned that global climate change is more likely to result in sudden, cataclysmic environmental events than a gradual (and therefore manageable) rise in average temperatures. Such events could include a substantial increase in global sea levels, intense storms and hurricanes and continent-wide "dust bowl" effects. This would trigger pitched battles between the survivors of these effects for access to food, water, habitable land and energy supplies.

"Violence and disruption stemming from the stresses created by abrupt changes in the climate pose a different type of threat to national security than we are accustomed to today," the 2003 report noted. "Military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need for natural resources such as energy, food and water rather than by conflicts over ideology, religion or national honor."

Until now, this mode of analysis has failed to command the attention of top American and British policymakers. For the most part, they insist that ideological and religious differences -- notably, the clash between values of tolerance and democracy on one hand and extremist forms of Islam on the other -- remain the main drivers of international conflict. But Reid's speech at Chatham House suggests that a major shift in strategic thinking may be under way. Environmental perils may soon dominate the world security agenda.

This shift is due in part to the growing weight of evidence pointing to a significant human role in altering the planet's basic climate systems. Recent studies showing the rapid shrinkage of the polar ice caps, the accelerated melting of North American glaciers, the increased frequency of severe hurricanes and a number of other such effects all suggest that dramatic and potentially harmful changes to the global climate have begun to occur. More importantly, they conclude that human behavior -- most importantly, the burning of fossil fuels in factories, power plants, and motor vehicles -- is the most likely cause of these changes. This assessment may not have yet penetrated the White House and other bastions of head-in-the-sand thinking, but it is clearly gaining ground among scientists and thoughtful analysts around the world.

For the most part, public discussion of global climate change has tended to describe its effects as an environmental problem -- as a threat to safe water, arable soil, temperate forests, certain species and so on. And, of course, climate change is a potent threat to the environment; in fact, the greatest threat imaginable. But viewing climate change as an environmental problem fails to do justice to the magnitude of the peril it poses. As Reid's speech and the 2003 Pentagon study make clear, the greatest danger posed by global climate change is not the degradation of ecosystems per se, but rather the disintegration of entire human societies, producing wholesale starvation, mass migrations and recurring conflict over resources.

"As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt climate change," the Pentagon report notes, "many countries' needs will exceed their carrying capacity" -- that is, their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human survival. This "will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression" against countries with a greater stock of vital resources. "Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply."

Similar scenarios will be replicated all across the planet, as those without the means to survival invade or migrate to those with greater abundance -- producing endless struggles between resource "haves" and "have-nots."

It is this prospect, more than anything, that worries John Reid. In particular, he expressed concern over the inadequate capacity of poor and unstable countries to cope with the effects of climate change, and the resulting risk of state collapse, civil war and mass migration. "More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water," he observed, and "climate change will worsen this dire situation" -- provoking more wars like Darfur. And even if these social disasters will occur primarily in the developing world, the wealthier countries will also be caught up in them, whether by participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian aid operations, by fending off unwanted migrants or by fighting for access to overseas supplies of food, oil, and minerals.

When reading of these nightmarish scenarios, it is easy to conjure up images of desperate, starving people killing one another with knives, staves and clubs -- as was certainly often the case in the past, and could easily prove to be so again. But these scenarios also envision the use of more deadly weapons. "In this world of warring states," the 2003 Pentagon report predicted, "nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable." As oil and natural gas disappears, more and more countries will rely on nuclear power to meet their energy needs -- and this "will accelerate nuclear proliferation as countries develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national security."

Although speculative, these reports make one thing clear: when thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we must emphasize its social and political consequences as much as its purely environmental effects. Drought, flooding and storms can kill us, and surely will -- but so will wars among the survivors of these catastrophes over what remains of food, water and shelter. As Reid's comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape involvement in these forms of conflict.

We can respond to these predictions in one of two ways: by relying on fortifications and military force to provide some degree of advantage in the global struggle over resources, or by taking meaningful steps to reduce the risk of cataclysmic climate change.

No doubt there will be many politicians and pundits -- especially in this country -- who will tout the superiority of the military option, emphasizing America's preponderance of strength. By fortifying our borders and sea-shores to keep out unwanted migrants and by fighting around the world for needed oil supplies, it will be argued, we can maintain our privileged standard of living for longer than other countries that are less well endowed with instruments of power. Maybe so. But the grueling, inconclusive war in Iraq and the failed national response to Hurricane Katrina show just how ineffectual such instruments can be when confronted with the harsh realities of an unforgiving world. And as the 2003 Pentagon report reminds us, "constant battles over diminishing resources" will "further reduce [resources] even beyond the climatic effects."

Military superiority may provide an illusion of advantage in the coming struggles over vital resources, but it cannot protect us against the ravages of global climate change. Although we may be somewhat better off than the people in Haiti and Mexico, we, too, will suffer from storms, drought and flooding. As our overseas trading partners descend into chaos, our vital imports of food, raw materials and energy will disappear as well. True, we could establish military outposts in some of these places to ensure the continued flow of critical materials -- but the ever-increasing price in blood and treasure required to pay for this will eventually exceed our means and destroy us. Ultimately, our only hope of a safe and secure future lies in substantially reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases and working with the rest of the world to slow the pace of global climate change.

Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/33243/

Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

By Margaret Ebrahim and John Solomon / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush's confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then- Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

_Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

_Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."

_Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

"We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying — not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?"

Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now."

Chertoff: "Good job."

In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome — which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response — would be safe and have adequate medical care.

"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."