Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World

ENVIRONMENTAL - The U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) has published its new report "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World." The report predicts a gloomy future for the United States.

The NIC comes up with these reports every four years. This report is the fourth since 1997, and the most dismal, at least for the United States.

According to the report, by 2025 the European Union will not be able to diversify its energy imports and will still depend on Russian energy sources. By 2025, Europe's energy consumption will go up by 60%, and 57% of all gas reserves will be amassed in Russia, Iraq, and Qatar. Many of the current oil producers will lose their positions, and almost 40% of the world's oil will come from six countries: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq. For aggregate oil and gas reserves, there will be two great energy powers, Russia and Iran.

Global warming will bring trouble, like floods and draughts, to some countries.

The report predicts that the United States will continue losing its influence. It will remain a powerful state in 2025, but will be less dominant. The same fate will befall the weak US dollar. The void left from America's decline will be filled by Brazil, India, China, and the Korean Peninsular (the report optimistically predicts by that time the two Koreas will merge). The latter three are likely to form a free trade association.

The world will become multipolar, and Western models of economic liberalism and democracy will lose their appeal (which is already happening). The EU will lose its influence and become a "hobbled giant." Wars may break out because of limited resources such as food, freshwater, oil and gas... This sounds horrible.

It would sound even worse if these reports were flawless. In the previous reports for 2010, 2015, and 2020, intelligence analysts made forecasts which contradict what they are writing now. They predicted the growth of the EU's role and influence, and the steady advance of Western economies by about 2% a year through 2010.

These reports are not accurate forecasts but rather a reminder for U.S. leaders what will happen if they do not pursue this or that policy. They offer food for thought and encourage certain ideas. They're not considered accurate.

To see whether the NIC is objective in its reports, we should recall what it is. This is the number one think tank headed by the director of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, Michael McConnell, and conducts medium- and long-term strategic analysis. Its current chairman Thomas Fingar is his direct subordinate. The NIC was set up in 1979.

The NIC submits its reports to all U.S. leaders. National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) is its main commodity. Most of them are classified, but there are always inspired leaks to the press. The council makes what it calls over-the-horizon analysis. Sometimes, it goes far beyond that for political reasons. The NIC, as is often the case with intelligence organizations set up for administrations, always deviates moderately from the party line. With time it dawns on them that they are expected to say what is required of them rather than make predictions.

This makes the NIC's role is supposed to coordinate the analytical reports of all U.S. intelligence centers - the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the political intelligence of the Department of State, intelligence services of the army, air force, and navy, as well as of the border patrol, the departments of the Treasury and Energy, and finally the FBI counterintelligence.

But here is the problem. All these services and departments are trying to take advantage of the NIC, trying to push presidents, departments, or Congress to make the "right" decisions. The NIE and analysis of intelligence information always lead to heated debates for this reason.

So what this tells you is that the different security departments are suddenly worried about global warming, food and water supplies and of course the scarcity of oil. The dire gloom and doom report isn't accurate, but it shows the different US departments are becoming increasingly concerned about these issues.

Making a Greener Christmas

Dreaming of a green Christmas?

ENVIRONMENTAL - Then why not go for the recyclable real tree this holiday season instead of the faux Tannenbaum, made of metal and PVC derivatives, that eats up boatloads of oil on its way from China to your living room?

Better yet, what about a small potted version that grows – not just glows – as you cart it in from the garden each year? Maybe even a bonsai Christmas tree?

How about sending e-cards or email updates to friends and family, instead of the tree-felling greeting-card kind that only just get tossed with the non-biodegradable tinsel, anyway?

It may seem like too much work to be eco-responsible when your to-do list is already as long as Santa's. But you could aim for "the 20 per-cent rule" – a reasonable cut in conspicuous consumption – and stuff a few stockings with a pocket-sized book that spells out pretty clearly why The Most Wonderful Time of the Year isn't all that wonderful for the environment.

There's all this extra stuff – the packing that comes in the boxes, the wrapping paper, the ribbon, not to mention the toys and everything that comes with them. Any parent knows all the garbage you have to move out of your living room on Christmas Day. Do we really need all this packaging?

Household waste increases 25 per cent at Christmastime, and since the Twelve Days of Christmas stretch into a month in the U.S.A. – where Thanksgiving signals the official start of a month of eating, drinking and splurging – that piles up into 2 billion pounds of garbage per week.

Enough holiday cards are sold in the U.S. to fill a 10-storey football stadium and kill 300,000 trees. That's on top of all those glossy catalogues that consume 8 million trees a year and produce a truly global footprint as many are delivered around the world.

Creating a Christmas to remember can translate into a lot we'd sooner forget, such as the brutal drain on electricity and even risks to your health, including the petroleum-based paraffin candles that may set the mood, but can also emit toxic chemicals from toluene to benzene and formaldehyde.

Then there are all those toys from China.

Even if they aren't tainted with lead, they are made of plastic that tends to break – often Christmas Day – but never biodegrade. Not to mention the less-than-good cheer they spread on their oil-guzzling journey from Beijing to North America.

In the midst of this recession some consumers are opting to buy less, but spend more, for locally made toys or handicrafts. Or they're clicking on websites such as buycanadianfirst.ca which has a selection of products made in Canada.

You can start out with something as simple as buying a real tree. In most cases they are locally grown, rather than crafted by distant conglomerates, and more than 90 per cent are collected curbside and turned into garden mulch by Springtime.

Instead of fake garland and mistletoe, buy the real stuff, which looks and smells authentic and can also be converted to garden cover.

But don't shut down completely. Everybody still needs a holiday.

More greenhouses turn to coal for heat

ENVIRONMENT/CANADA - It will be a difficult winter for greenhouses. Growing vegetables in a glasshouse is much more expensive when the outdoor temperature slides below zero. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants need heat to thrive, and the cost of supplying that energy will impose a heavy toll this winter on Ontario's world-class greenhouse sector.

"Our fuel is up probably 40 per cent versus last year," says Rob Mastronardi, who for four years has operated Cedar Beach Acres in Kingsville, Ont. For him, growing greenhouse vegetables goes back four generations. It's in his blood.

But the high cost of fuel, combined with the impact a volatile Canadian dollar is having on exports, has his blood boiling. "It's just a hellish economy out there right now. We're suffering just like the auto sector is suffering, but we're not getting any attention at all," he says.

Not that it's a lightweight sector. The province's greenhouse industry is the largest in North America for vegetable production.

Including floriculture, it employs 17,300 full- and part-time workers across 1,200 operations. Sales in 2007 reached about $1.25 billion, with a 40-60 split between vegetables and flowers respectively, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

"The Ontario greenhouse sector is a major contributor to the provincial economy and is worthy of support and promotion," according to a 2006 economic impact study commissioned by the Ontario Greenhouse Alliance.

But that support is lacking, says Mastronardi, who is glum about his industry's prospects. "In these market conditions, our days are definitely numbered."

Left to their own devices, he says, many operators are being forced into survival mode. For some, that means burning the cheapest and dirtiest fuel available: Coal.

Mastronardi says his greenhouse uses about 110,000 gigajoules of heat energy a year. Based on mid-summer fuel prices, he figures he would save between $500,000 to $700,000 annually in energy costs by switching from natural gas to coal. He began burning coal earlier this year but has so far resisted making it his primary fuel.

No. 6 "Bunker C" oil, a heavier fuel oil that's often used instead of natural gas, is also falling out of favour. The price of crude oil has been highly volatile and, though it has fallen over the past four months, is still well above its 10-year average. The International Energy Agency predicted last week that oil prices will average more than hundred dollars/barrel between now and 2015.

"It's just outrageously priced," Mastronardi says. "I probably won't burn Bunker C at all this winter."

Again, that leaves coal.

Dozens of other greenhouse operators in Ontario – clustered around the flower-dominant Niagara region and vegetable-dominant Essex County – have switched or are considering a transition to coal as a way to save on fuel costs.

The impact so far appears small, but the trend is gaining momentum. As it does, it could undermine the environmental benefits of an Ontario government plan to wean the province off coal-fired power generation by 2014.

"Coal is expanding in the province, despite a policy to phase out coal," says Roger Samson, executive director of REAP-Canada, an independent group that encourages sustainable farming practices. "The Ontario government has no plan on how to mitigate this."

How much coal, potentially, are we talking about? The energy demands of a typical greenhouse are enormous. Shalin Khosla, a greenhouse specialist with the agriculture ministry, says anywhere between 35 per cent to 50 per cent of the costs of operating a modern vegetable greenhouse goes toward energy consumption. The figure is closer to 20 per cent for flower growers.

It's estimated that greenhouses in Ontario cover 2,823 acres, and that the average greenhouse requires 9,500 gigajoules of energy per acre every year. This works out to 26.8 million gigajoules annually.

Convert that energy into electricity potential and it works out to 7.44 terawatt-hours a year – more than three times the 2004 electricity output of the Lakeview coal-fired generating station in Mississauga (which has since been closed down and demolished).

That's equivalent to more than one million tonnes of coal being burned annually.

It's a mathematical exercise that raises a serious public policy question: What's preventing the entire greenhouse industry from moving to coal, and in doing so, undermining the spirit of the McGuinty government's coal phase-out strategy?

Not much, it appears. Unlike power plants and other major industrial facilities, greenhouses can burn whatever fuel they want without much scrutiny.

Cement plants and fossil-fuel power stations require a certificate of approval from the environment ministry to burn coal.

But that's not so for greenhouses.

"Greenhouses are exempt because they're considered to be agricultural operations," says John Steele, a spokesman for Ontario's Ministry of the Environment. "Under the EPA (Environmental Protection Act), those operations are exempt from the certificate of approval process."

And because they have an exemption, he adds, "we don't know what they're doing."

Keith Stewart, an energy expert with WWF-Canada and author of a book on Ontario's electricity system, calls the situation "perverse" and a reflection of inconsistent government policy.

"Outdated energy policy is giving us coal-fired tomatoes," he says.

The issue has also caused concern in British Columbia's Fraser Valley Regional District, which has a greenhouse industry ranked second in Canada behind Ontario.

Barry Penner, B.C.'s environment minister, acknowledged the problem in a March 27 letter to district chair Clint Hames. But Penner said a new carbon tax in the 2008 B.C. budget "will send a signal that less greenhouse-gas-intense fuels should be considered."

No such tax exists or has been proposed in Ontario. If it did exist, it might help Don Nott, a switchgrass grower in Clinton, about 100 kilometres west of Kitchener.

Nott decided a few years ago to start growing fast-growing switchgrass on 300 acres of land. He figured he could make a better business out of harvesting the grasses, grinding them up, and packing them into carbon-neutral "biopellets" – a renewable fuel. Burning such pellets for fuel wouldn't be penalized by a carbon tax.

Back in 2006 about 14,000 tonnes of the pellets were burned for fuel, much of it in greenhouses that were experimenting with alternatives. "We had 30 different individuals burning our product at one time, of various sizes from small up to 30 acres," says Nott.

But when oil and natural gas prices began to rise, the greenhouses couldn't afford to experiment any longer. "It's gone down to nothing. There's just one guy left who's willing to burn it. Most of those guys have switched over to burning coal."

With 400 tonnes of switchgrass sitting in storage waiting for a market, Nott has pretty much folded the business.

"When they said they were going to burn coal, I said I'm out."

Most greenhouse operators that have turned to or are considering burning more coal aren't proud of it. They know it pollutes more, but escalating costs have left those in the industry with few choices.

"In my eyes the government is moving at an absolute snail's pace regarding this energy crisis in our industry," Mastronardi says.

"If they want us to survive, we're going to need help."

Pollution: Where have all the boys gone?

Every year, thousands of babies who should be boys are born girls. The answer to this mystery could lie in a small town in Canada.

CANADA - Something very strange is happening in a small but highly polluted Canadian community. And it may explain why every year thousands of British babies who should be boys are born as girls instead.

Young boys are becoming hard to find on the Chippewa Indian reservation in the gritty town of Sarnia, in Ontario's "Chemical Valley". It boasts four children's softball teams, but three of them are made up entirely of girls.

Research shows that the number of boys being born to the community has been dropping precipitously for the past 13 years, while the proportion of baby girls has risen. Now there are twice as many female births as male ones, though nature normally keeps the sexes in balance.

Scientists increasingly believe that pollution is to blame and that what has happened here - and among some other highly contaminated groups of people in other countries - may solve an enduring mystery of "missing boys" in maternity units throughout the industrialized world.

Normally, and with remarkable consistency around the globe, 106 boys are born for every 100 girls; the excess is thought to be nature's way of compensating for the fact that males were more likely to be killed through hunting and conflicts.

But this figure has been slowly declining in rich countries over the past quarter of a century. In Britain it has fallen to about 105 since 1977 -which suggests that every year more than 3,000 babies are born as girls instead boys. Studies have revealed much the same story in the US, Canada, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries.

Worldwide approx. 1 million less baby boys are being born every year.

Suggested explanations have included increasing stress and rising numbers of single mothers; women in difficulties, it has been found, produce more girls than boys. But what is happening in Sarnia, on the US Canadian border, is increasingly turning the spotlight on pollution.

The Chippewa Indians of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Community have long lived in the area, on the southern tip of Lake Huron, not far from Detroit. Their right to the land was confirmed in 1827, but much of it was taken over by industry in the 1960s.

Now their woods and homes are entirely surrounded by one of the world's most extensive petrochemical complexes, producing 40 per cent of Canada's entire output of plastics, synthetic rubber and other chemical compounds. The air stinks, and the ground is contaminated with high levels of dangerous pollutants.

It was those softball teams that first got the 870 people of the community thinking that many more girls than boys were being born. Among them was Ada Lockridge, a 42-year-old home help aide, who sits on the community's council. She and her sister had eight daughters between them, and only one son.

She started counting all the babies born to the community since 1984, Until 1993 girls and boys were in normal balance, but then the number of male births started plummeting. "I felt like I wanted to throw up," she says. "I did a lot of crying. And then I got angry."

She joined up with researchers from the University of Ottawa and together they published an article in a leading scientific journal. It reported "a significant ongoing decrease in the number of male births beginning in the early 1990s".

Only 35 per cent of babies now are boys, and there is no sign of the decline levelling off. The study could not prove a cause, but pointed the finger at "multiple chemical exposures over the years".

Other non-native communities downwind of the complex also have had dramatic reductions in male birth rates. Studies have shown sex changes in fish and wildlife in the lake nearby.

Ada Lockridge points to a fire and chemical release at one of the chemical plants in 1993 as a possible culprit.

The findings tally with other research around the world. People exposed to high levels of dioxin in the 1976 accident in Seveso, Italy, also have twice as many girl as boy children. The same is true for Russian men exposed to pesticides containing the chemical.

And Brazilian scientists have reported that the proportion of boy babies fell in the most polluted parts of the city of São Paulo.

Professor Shanna Swan of the University of Ro chester, New York - not far from Sarnia - says that levels of contamination on the reservation are "incredible" and that the "first assumption" must be that they are to blame. She believes that changing sex ratios may often provide an indication of dangerous pollution, and that low levels of exposure to such ubiquitous chemicals as dioxins and PCBs may explain the decline in boys in industrialized countries.

See also: The Disappearing Male and Petrochemicals

Congratulations President Obama

Congratulations Barack Obama! You have won an important battle for democracy, for the environment, for America, for Canada and for the world!